Can u all test my engine, A: from a users point of view and B: from a developers point of view and give me suggestions on how I can improve it. Thx USER: http://opengldomain1.rochen.com/beta_lite.zip DEVELOPER: http://opengldomain1.rochen.com/beta_dev.zip they''re not too big, both < 500kb baldurkarlsson

An axe that you can swing with mouse, and a black background?


There''s really not much to say...

Original, started form the opposite end of the problem as most people and made a weapon to use before you created the world to use it in...
Not bad for a beggining, but now that you''ve shown off your program you have to have the whole game compleeted within the next 48 hours or your suffer a horrible fate... Most probably haveing to go back to your mundane day job on monday! wha ha ha ha ha, try to enjoy your weekend now!
Just kidding, I''m just haveing a really bad humor day...
l8r,

Note this is a bit critical, but hopefully not offensive ( I actually thought most of it was good )


From a users point of view :

Nice use of models and animations for weaponry, but the animation for the axe swing needs smoothing because it jerks when returning...
Need a level or something to test out the movement controls.... a black screen with an axe isn't much.





From a developers point of view :

I only had a very very quick skim of your code, but it looks quite well made from what I saw... ( albeit mostly complicated code in bretts coding hehe )..

I uncommented your level loading code e.t.c and added some quick model loading code for your level_lo ms3d file... thought you'd have a level there, but nope. hehehe just a box with bretts wood texture... nevermind.

The best thing about the coding itself is that you can put it directly into later projects that you do, so portability is always a good thing.





Possible Improvements :

U need to pick a different level data format ( using a model is very inefficient, I suggest BSP ).
Smooth the weapon animations in later-versions.
Need collision detection.
Movement controls seem delayed ( although I AM using them on a poor computer at this moment )... maybe work on a better way to check for movements...




Overall :

Has potential... nice reusable code, good start for weapons animation ( could be put into a 3d-shooter )....
As I said, I only quickly browsed through the code, so I may have made a few mistakes in what I've said..

Hope you didn't find this too critical... overall I liked it..

~Cobra~

Edited by - Cobra on April 6, 2001 7:15:38 PM

OK. Here goes into a big explanation:

For a start I''m only 13 so I don''t have a mundane job to go back to. I''m even on holiday from school . Also thanks to EVERYONE who posted. Yes, even the anyonymous poster.

I think I released that a bit too soon. I now have an updated version and if you don''t mind you may want to download that (still about the same file size).

The engine was actually still set up for my debugging of it. Thats why it didn''t display the level. Most of the stuff is set up just so I can see how it works + I can''t really test it well and get e.g. animation smooth on a machine with no 3D card and a 225mhz CPU :p. For the moment the MS3D format is good as I can just make the models in MS3D and save them and run the program, but for BSPs I''d have to make my own loader and.. Well, I''d be able to understand it (unlike Bretts code )

I will very soon (within minutes) update the 2 zips. I have now put in collision detection, that should hopefully work. The best thing I could find seeing as I don''t understand the topic myself, was coldet, a collision detection library. Thats why (for the moment) you need coldet.dll in the directory. Plus I have added a console based on Nate Millers uConsole class, although I wrote it completely myself. To activate debugging tools (including the console) pass the program the paramater
-DevInfo. It will then either print debug info to a file or at the moment display a minimised console at the top and print messages there. To bring down the full console press `. BTW, can you check that you can type at a normal speed on the console, I can''t but that might just be my machine .

Anyway, now to upload the files and hope that you will download them and check them out. Thanks a lot to everyone for helping me.

baldurkarlsson