New port of BUILD engine to OpenGL

[MattH]

I've been working on an OpenGL port of the BUILD engine, check out the website at:
www.hildreds.freeserve.co.uk/GLBuild (http://www.hildreds.freeserve.co.uk/GLBuild)

It's in the early stages at the minute, but progress is going well. Please note that although I'm using the Duke Nukem data files, this is NOT an attempt to recreate Duke Nukem. I want to get the basic features of the BUILD engine working first. Also, this project has nothing to do with the GlDuke project.

If you are interested in this project, please send me your opinions and comments through here or my e-mail address on the website.

Have Fun!
Matt

[IceColdDuke]

Nice man, keep up the good work!

EDIT:
You might wanna post your source code, so people can help you work on it images/icons/smile.gif

[ 09-05-2002, 08:46 AM: Message edited by: IceColdDuke ]

[The Stinger]

sweet! your texture aligning looks very good and such o_O
so its just going to be a editor or are you making so it works as a windows version of duke 3d?

[MattH]

I probably going to leave it as just an editor. In the development version, I have got the hitscan working pretty well, and I'm putting together a couple of tool palettes to allow changes to sector and wall parameters.
Keep checking for updates!

[IceColdDuke]

Next version, you might want to make it, so you can drag the cursor. So you can move to different sectors. images/icons/smile.gif

[Guest]

The screenshots look great! Kind of like Half-Life... very nice, excellent job!

[MattH]

IceColdDuke:
Um, you click can in the overhead view. It should move you to a different sector.
Anyway, the next version will have the hitscan stuff in with a little sector info palette, and an early version of the Build shading.
I will probably update the website towards the end of the weekend.

[IceColdDuke]

Ok =), can you zoom tho, in the overhead section?

[MattH]

Yep, you can zoom in and out, use the PgUp and PgDown keys. Guess I need to write a user manual images/icons/smile.gif .

[Devil Master]

When your version of Build is reasonably complete, you should let Matt Saettler see it (and its source code) so he can make a Windows port of EDuke!

[IceColdDuke]

Originally posted by Devil Master:
When your version of Build is reasonably complete, you should let Matt Saettler see it (and its source code) so he can make a Windows port of EDuke!<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Matt can't port it, I thought that was the agreement between him and 3dr.

Anywho, would be cool, if he did do it.

[The_Shadow]

MattH: Is the engine 6DOF? Polygon rendered, or still just raycasted with a large veiwport, then dithered?

Devil Master: A windows port of Eduke, you have a zip all chance of getting. Far as I Know, 2.1 is almost no longer being worked on. Matteus seems to spend all his time on an addiction to MMORPG's.

[Devil Master]

Matt can't port it, I thought that was the agreement between him and 3dr.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I remember him saying "I cannot port Duke3d to Windows unless someone ports Build to Windows first". So "he could not" as in "he wasn't able to", NOT as in "he wasn't allowed to".

[IceColdDuke]

I stand corrected images/icons/smile.gif

[IceColdDuke]

BTW, I tried e-mailing Matt, and it gave me a "message error". Has he dropped off the planet, lol.

[MattH]

TheShadow:
In theory it is 6DOF, and you can use the Home and End keys to tilt up and down, *BUT* it does screw up the visibility slightly, as that is still only done in 2D, like the original Build engine. If you tilt too far you will see missing sectors. Something I will fix soon though....
IceColdDuke:
I'm still here, as you did manage to e-mail me in the end images/icons/smile.gif
Everyone else:
I'm going to post an updated version tomorrow, I'll post here when it is up images/icons/grin.gif

[The_Shadow]

Matt: I may be wrong, but that seems like a very ineffective way of making an 'openGL build', It sounds like you're raycasting with a 3D API, which is kind of ... pointless except the bitmap dithering.
Rather, I probably would've used a dynamic converter to convert map ->BSP on-the-fly.
Two problems presented with my method are sector actions such as doors + conveyor belts + etc and of course, sloped floors would require some math work.
Things like teleporters would be a little simpler. You don't have to change the current player sector, rather you just specify an X, Y and Z co-ordinate and voila.

I may not be making much sense, due to the fact that I had about negative 2 hours sleep the preceding night.

[IceColdDuke]

The_Shadow: converting it to BSP, would be a pointless step. Then when you save the map, you have to convert it back to a .map.

And plus, it is not the easy to do =). I think he should focus on getting the thing, to be a direct clone of BUILD(in Windows, with Opengl).

MattH: I was talking about the other Matt that is working on EDuke images/icons/tongue.gif .

EDIT:
Grammer

[ 09-07-2002, 06:12 PM: Message edited by: IceColdDuke ]

[MattH]

IceColdDuke: Too many Matts!
TheShadow: The engine is not raycasted, it is a full 3D polygon engine. For visibility I'm using frustrum clipping, but if you tilt too far down it shows where a sector has been clipped to the front frustrum plane, because the visibility code has not taken that into account. Ice is right, there is no point using a BSP. What I do is build up a list of polys at load-time that make up each sector, and at run-time determine if a sector is visible or not, and if it is display the polys for that sector. So, in short, it's not a ray casting engine!

[Usurper]

Nicely done. But you're so screwed now, because we'll pester you forever until we have a game.exe, scripting language, polygon support, radient lighting, truecolor images and skyboxes to go with it. images/icons/smile.gif

[IceColdDuke]

lol

[MattH]

New version is now out!
See the website for details.

[Usurper]

So how soon will the editing be in? I'd join the yahoo group for updates, but I don't trust yahoo to not add me to spam lists.

[IceColdDuke]

Originally posted by Usurper:
So how soon will the editing be in? I'd join the yahoo group for updates, but I don't trust yahoo to not add me to spam lists.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Ya, yahoo is crappy. If you want to talk about GlBuild, go on my forums, I have a section setup for GlBuild(See my signiture).

[King]

it's dam right good!!! the only problem is when you try to select a zone by clicking on a sector, it goes on the left and you lost the map.... dunno if you seen this problem...?

Good Work!

[MattH]

King:
I've now changed the way selecting sectors works, so it behaves the same way as the original Build. New version will be uploaded tonight. It was pretty rubbish at first images/icons/smile.gif .

[Vetek]

Nice, I'll make a news post on Apogee Central about this when I get home images/icons/smile.gif

[sleeksyxx]

hey i have tired downloading it and i got a message saying the file was not able to be found, or it does not exist... please tell me what is going on because thsi program sounds so cool... thanks people
images/icons/smile.gif

[MattH]

Try going to this page (http://www.hildreds.freeserve.co.uk/glbuild/download.htm). I mirrored the pages as sometimes the link from /GLBuild comes out as /glbuild. Looks like the name of the zip file I uploaded got screwed up or something in the GLBuild directory. I'll sort it out tonight when I get back from work.

[NutWrench]

This is pretty neat! Thanks for making such a cool program, Matt. images/icons/smile.gif

[NutWrench]

Even if you don't implement editing, I think this would make an excellent map viewer. A way to quickly browse Duke 3D maps in Windows would be mega-cool.


Suggestions:
Aspect ratio on the actor sprites seems a little funny. Sprites seem a bit too wide to me.

Keys should configure more closely to Build, i.e. Zoom keys should be a/z instead of PageUp/DageDown.

Keypad Enter to switch between 2D and 3D modes! Going to the menu bar all the time is a pain.

I would go with a black background in 2D mode, A white BG makes the one-sides walls a lot harder to see.

A gamma key, (like F11 in the original Build). And it should remember the setting, i.e. through a config file.

Maybe auto-size the program window at startup? (If the desktop resolution is 800x600, start the program in a 640x480 window. If the desktop is 1024x768, open the program at 800x600, etc.)

[ 11-06-2002, 09:34 PM: Message edited by: NutWrench ]

[MattH]

>>Sprites seem a bit too wide to me.
Correct, I realised the other day that 'facing' sprite are drawn a little narrower for some reason. Anyone know why? Will be fixed possibly tonight.

>>Keys should configure more closely to Build
I'll try, but I'm used to PgUp and PgDn to change height now images/icons/grin.gif

>>Keypad Enter to switch between 2D and 3D modes
OK, I'll put it in

>>I would go with a black background in 2D mode
Or maybe I'll put an option in to allow you to choose colour yourself?

>>A gamma key
I'm going to improve the lighting soon, so I'll try and include something like this too

>>Maybe auto-size the program window at startup
Should be do-able, and I'll remember the size you select too.

Some good suggestions there, please keep them coming!

[NutWrench]

* Can pass through some Doom-type (sector 20) doors but not others in 3D mode. Can (horizontal) clipping be toggled on and off?

* Some maps that use dark shades and limited visibility show a weird visual glitch in 3D mode. It's as if the sectors shade and visibility settings are being combined and the resulting sector is much darker than normal (compared to its neighboring sectors. Check out the map 'metrplis'.)

[ 11-07-2002, 06:26 PM: Message edited by: NutWrench ]

[princetonEO]

Your new version, the one released today, has two missing things. No sky(only white) and no shade. Whats up with that? I am not critisize you but just wondering.

Also, for the future. Can you make it so you can change the controls?
Saving?
Modes, i.e. No sprites, No shade, Only some sprites, etc. Build had something like that.

Well those are just a few of my ideas. Keep up the great work!

[MattH]

Yeah, the sky and shading got left off by default, and in the release version of GLBuild there is no menu command to turn it on, only in my debug version graemlins/doh.gif .

Saving will be quite easy to do, and it will probably be in the next release.

In reply to Nutwrech, the sprite are not yet shaded properly, they are just using whatever shade values were last used. The next big part that I look at will be shading, I have a few ideas on how to do this better.

[Mblackwell]

It seems to crash on some maps as well, test is out on "Eyewitness", I think it's available at WSYC. The Port is going well I think so far, and I hope the stuf gets added to Eduke.

[Cool]

bug in 1024x768 in edit mode. when you try to right click to move the arrow around it just start to moveing up and you cant control it.

[Pixel65535]

Impressive! images/icons/shocked.gif

i have only one request: keypad enter to switch bettwen 2D/3D mode.

[Hudson]

MattH: How about holding off on DukeGL prgress for just a little bit and seeing what you can do with the newly released ROTT source graemlins/love.gif images/icons/grin.gif

[Devil Master]

No way! Instead keep working on this port until we can get a decent OpenGL port of EDuke!

[The Stinger]

I say go for the rott port and what not. Make a Duke 3d port when they release the source for that. Maybe they wont release the source for duke 3d, I dunno, but atleast they release the rott source and easier to work with imo than making a port from scratch images/icons/smile.gif

[Usurper]

::must...suppress...oh...can't help it::

Why on earth would anyone WANT the ROTT source code? If anyone wanted to make super duper Wolfenstein, the W3D code has been out for years. What would you do with it? Double the sectors...to TWO? /rant that everyone will take personally

[sir_plague]

Originally posted by Usurper:
::must...suppress...oh...can't help it::

Why on earth would anyone WANT the ROTT source code? If anyone wanted to make super duper Wolfenstein, the W3D code has been out for years. What would you do with it? Double the sectors...to TWO? /rant that everyone will take personally <font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">That's why I love you, Usurper. Always tellin' it like it is. graemlins/love.gif

[Roger]

Geez, finally looked into this thread, and I have to say Usurper is right. I've played the demo of RotT and realized it's just Wolfenstein with visibility, 256 colors, jumping, and alterable ceiling height.

Oh, and it's sector limit is actually four. Remember those levels with elevators? lol

Back on subject, the OpenGL port looks good.

[MattH]

I'll take a look at ROTT, but I doubt I'll do anything with it. I'd never even heard of it before I saw the announcement on the main page. MIght be interesting though.

[MattH]

BTW, I've released another version of GLBuild images/icons/smile.gif .

[NutWrench]

Originally posted by MattH:
BTW, I've released another version of GLBuild images/icons/smile.gif . <font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Yoink! images/icons/smile.gif

[Usurper]

Matt, you gotta put your site link in your sig. Save me from reloading page one of this thread all the time. images/icons/smile.gif

Or I could bookmark it....

[princetonEO]

The link is http://www.hildreds.freeserve.co.uk/GLBuild/

Matt, the new Build looks great. Keep up the nice work!

[MattH]

OK, I added a sig now.
I also got a .tk domain name, so if you don't mind the dreaded popups, just go to www.glbuild.tk (http://www.glbuild.tk), much easier to remember!

[Glyrion]

when i click on new and i press insert i get an error and it asks me either to close or debug? so basically i cant create a new map but i can edit an existing one without having that error :\


edit: it might be me not having a single idea of how it works cause i've always used the Build that comes with Duke3D =o

[ 01-01-2003, 02:55 AM: Message edited by: Glyrion ]

[MattH]

Yeah, I haven't added support for inserting new sectors yet, only new walls into existing sectors.
I'll fix the crash though, thanks for letting me know.

[MattH]

Thanks princetonEO. I always found that in the old Build, when many sectors were quite small (doors, legdes etc.), it was tricky to make sure you got the right wall. Now it's easy to see which wall you are editing images/icons/smile.gif .

[princetonEO]

I love how the sector's and wall's highlight.