266 replies to this topic

[traylorpark]

Well, let me tell you the main conundrum we are facing currently. Currently, Paper Wars can be built for Wiz, Caanoo, Open Pandora and iOS devices. Crow's engine is incredibly versatile like that and can go anywhere pretty much

The main annoyance with the Caanoo/Wiz is that it's hardware is very limiting. The largest texture you can feed it is 256x256 (that I know). All of Paper War's shadows and stuff are pre-calculated into the texture, so the lower the texture resolution, the worse the whole world looks. When I create the textures, I start at 2k (2048x2048). On iOS, I bring them down to 1024x1024. A single map is made up of about 4 or 5 of those huge textures. To put this in perspective, all 4 of the Caanoo's textures can fit into 1 iOS texture.

Secondly, the Caanoo/Wiz pollux 3D engine doesn't handle z-depth very well (at least not that we have seen). What this means is that polygon planes that are almost parallel and and very close to each other, can flicker through each other.

This was a huuuge problem during the first release for the Riot Tag Team compy. Because of the paper style, there were lots of overlapping planes that flickered through each other. It was horribly distracting. I spent a week going back into the geometry and cutting out polys and shuffling stuff around in order to minimize the flicker. It was a massive time sync, and slightly more advanced 3D processors don't suffer with that problem anymore. I could have spent that time on more animations or sound effects!

The Pandora with it's OpenGLes 2.0 SGX shouldn't have this problem, (it's essentially the same as an iPhone) but if it does, it's the fault of poor drivers.

So, after all that ... yeah, I love the Caanoo, I own 2! I think it has a lot of neat possibilities. I think the Caanoo has survived in spite of GPH who (from our perspective) is doing it's darndest to not support the machine. But there are so many optimizations that have to be done in order to make something 3D perform well on this little machine. And there is nothing wrong with that, it's a great challenge and makes you a better developer! But I don't want to be a hobbyist anymore. I want to do this for real.

I think we will continue to put out new builds for Caanoo. We love this community, you guys are the greatest! We just won't be taking as much time optimizing it for the Caanoo (like cutting out the flicker) as we did before.

[erico]

Should be ok, but don´t drop it.

[sebt3]

...

The largest texture size for GPH device is 512x512 and 1024x1024 for pandora & iOS. So GPH device have half the texture size but also half the screen res (320x240 vs 800x480). In the end both could produce the same result more or less.
Beside, in my experience, the GPH devices 3D chip is (at least) as fast as the pandora's & iDevice's 3D chip for their respective screen res. (as in sure the SGX is faster than the pollux at 320x240, but bring the 800x480 to the table and then you're slower than the GPH device...)

[kayuz]

well,
if what sebt3 is real, we can see on the caanoo the "same" 3d grapichs for pandora and ios devices:
yes, it's pretty much a question for the resolution, just a little optimization is needed but i know, you want success also from the very populated iphone e co. community but... we are better for suure

[crow_riot]

there's no reason to drop the support for a platform it already works on, so cool down - we're going to release a version for the caanoo when we've reached the milestone. there are still some points to do which especially on my side need to be done. but well, if the day had 48 hours, i could be faster

and always keep in mind, it's a spare time project, both traylorpark and i have a job and a life, too

[fusion_power]

It's great that most of the people here have a Job (every coder it seems ) so no worries about that, take your Time for the Game.

[erico]

It's great that most of the people here have a Job (every coder it seems )

Sadly I have one too, but more like freelance illustrator, sometimes I get a lot of free time, sometimes don´t.

I believe you guys have a winner there with Paper Wars, It see no reason why you can´t be a successful studio.
It´s really professional stuff!

[kayuz]

in fact, in fact, a lot better then some actual game i said and is true

[crow_riot]

time is flying by so fast!

sorry for the lack of updates, but again, we are not dead but working on the game on a constant rate!

peter is doing his magic with new tweaks regarding animations and make-overs on the maps and i'm currently working on the multiplayer part! so stay tuned, i hope we can get out a multiplayer beta soonish

[Akabei]

Nice to see you're still working on it.
btw: You should have registered the name of the game. I saw a game called Paper Wars: Cannon Fodder on WiiWare channel.

[crow_riot]

Nice to see you're still working on it.
btw: You should have registered the name of the game. I saw a game called Paper Wars: Cannon Fodder on WiiWare channel.

yeah i've seen that too. and that cannon fodder was even before ours. so i dont think we'd have a chance registering the name
it's more a "project title" anyway (though i like it very much)

[kayuz]

good news, finally
i can't wait for try multiplayer!

[kayuz]

good news, finally
i can't wait for try multiplayer!

[crow_riot]

peter and i just had our first network match!
hah, that was kinda cool, we didnt play the game against each other till now!

still a lot of work to do on both the server and client side, but hey, it's a good start

[pmprog]

peter and i just had our first network match!
hah, that was kinda cool, we didnt play the game against each other till now!

still a lot of work to do on both the server and client side, but hey, it's a good start

Sounds great. Will the server be built into the game? or will you need to run it as a seperate process?