I have completed some modifications to the database connector which allow me to easily access even large sql query results from script. It is probably not as fast as it could conceivably be, but it is more than fast enough.

I have also implemented the context-sensitive menu, although I will need to test this properly on the network, to ensure that the proper client/server data transfer is happening. I need to keep as much data on the server as possible, for security reasons, and as much processing on the client as possible, for performance reasons.

I have also implemented a very simple demo of the action/effect code, the player can now eat an object that supports that action. I intend to have a separate function for each action, although some actions, like eat, pick up, etc, can be generalised. Eating one food is the same as eating another, for example, it’s just the nutritional content that changes.

I have a lot of work to do here, and I have still to implement support for the effects of actions, such as, for example, adding the “poisoning” effect when a certain food is eaten. I also need to add extensive code to calculate the players recommended daily amount of food, and calculate their hunger levels, thirst levels, fatigue, and a lot of life simulation variables, but I have made significant progress.

The post P-0: Virtual World Concept: Update 9: Updates, and Basic implementation of Action/Effects System first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

I have now moved on to the actual Game World Creation. I am using a similiar system to “Astral Realms”, my previous virtual world game, except I am writing it from the ground up for this project.

I am storing all of my world object in a database, not a mission file, this will allow me far more control over them, and is essential in a persistent world game like this. I am, for now, going to simply going to query the database for all of these objects, send their data to the client, and draw them. In future, of course, I will need a very complex optimisation algorithm. My experience with Spherical Terrain has taught me that this will likely be difficult. The easiest thing to do would be to return only objects within a certain distance of the player, however I am not sure how this could be done with an SQL table. For my previous project, I used a zone-based system, where I would calculate which zone the player was in, and return all objects in that zone.

This worked ok, but this could cause problems if the player was standing on the border between two zones, or if a zone was very heavily populated with objects. I really need a distance-based optimisation system, similiar to what I was trying to d with my spherical terrain system. I am sure I will figure something out eventually, for now however, I can simply return all objects.

I did run into some slight issues when working on the world creation code, however. The database connector code that I implemented is missing a data structure to return a set of results from c++ to script. This will need to be implemented, and it will need to be fast. I could have several hundred results coming from the database server, and I need to be able to access them easily from script. I also noticed a bug with the database code when one of the database fields is null, this will also need to be corrected.

I do have a working populateworld() function, however, which selects an object from the database and creates several instances of it in the world, in random locations, then adds those locations back to the database. I am using raycasting to make sure the z position of the object is always on the terrain.

I also set up a dedicated server and tested it on my development machine. I will likely use a single executable for the near future, since it is much easier, but I wanted to make sure there would be no major issues with regards to implementing a dedicated server.

I am using simple test objects for now (just textured spheres) because I want to get the concept working first, before I spend any time on the art. I have, after some effort, implemented collision on the staticshapes that I am using (Collision is easier to implement on TSSTatics, but they don’t support the guishapenamehud, which displays a very useful text box above the shape).

Finally, I began implementing the context-sensitive menu that will allow the user to interact with the world. I will again use raycasting here. The user will select an object, and a list of its supported actions will be displayed on screen (having been read from the database). The user will then be able to select an action, and that selection will be sent to the game server where the actions effect will be implemented by the behaviour scripts. Before I can finish this, however, I need to add quite a bit more functionality to the database connector code.

The post P-0: Virtual World Concept: Update 8: Game World Creation first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

I have made significant progress in creating the basic gameplay variables which will be used by the game.

This has really made me realise the enormity of the task that I have set for myself. Basically, I have been working to produce a listing of all of the basic elements of the game. I now have the food and drink table basically done, and I have identified the variables that I will be modelling. I intend to model a whole host of variables in order to make this the most realistic “life simulation” that I can. Instead of just having a “food” variable, I am actually modelling the protein, fat, and carbohydrate content of the food, in addition to vitamind, niacin, biotin, pantothenic acid, vitamink, phosphorous, iodine, selenium, manganese, molybdenum, calcium, cholene, iron, magnesium, potassium, sodium, riboflavin, vitamina, thiamin, vitaminc, vitamine, and zinc.

I have, so far, 10 different game animals, at least 14 different kinds of vegetables, 11 species of edible seafood, 8 types of nuts, 6 types of mushroom, and 6 types of grains, with many more food types that I haven’t categorised yet. I have not added in the exact concentations of these variables to the database yet, but I have added the foods themselves. I have also created a non-exhaustive list of raw materials, such  as Iron Ore, Copper ore, Many different types of trees and shrubs, many different types of stone, etc etc. This level of detail will be one of the defining features of the project, and should serve, amongst other things, to set it apart from other games.

ALL of these will need to have sufficient information stored about them to model their behaviour in the game, in addition, of course, to having art assets created to represent them. This will be quite an undertaking, but there is no reason why it wouldn’t work.

My next goal is to create a concept demo of the action/effect system. I will start by modelling the “Eat” action and it’s effects, and then gradually add more and more behaviours to the behaviour database (this will actually be a script file, stored on the gameserver, containing all effects, and not an actual database).

I am very slowly reaching a level of understanding with this project. I think I am solving most of the conceptual problems that I have been dealing with. It will be a mammoth undertaking, but I already realised that with my Spherical Terrain project, which will eventually be folded into this project.

The post P-0: Virtual World Concept: Update 7: Primary Gameplay variables first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

I spent some time today conducting some tests on large numbers of objects in torque. For my project, I intend to allow the user to combine many simple meshes together to make more complex meshes. So, a complex building might be modelled from individual wall segments, floor panels, doors, windows, etc, instead of being one large structure. The problem with this is that I suspected that loading many meshes would cause a far greater performance hit than loading one single one.

Based on some testing that I did, it turns out that I was right.

I conducted a very simple test. I created some spheres in a modelling tool, with a known number of polys. One high res sphere, with 10082 polys, one medium resolution at 1058, and one low res at 105.

I then wrote three drawing functions, which I executed separately:

Test 1: Draw 512 of the high res spheres (512*10082 = 5,161,984 polys),

Test 2: Draw 4,913 of the medium res spheres (4913*1058 = 5,197,954)

Test 3: Draw 46,656 of the low res spheres (46.656 * 105 = 4,898,880)

Since the polycount is quite similar in all cases, the FPS should be similar too, but it isnt. With nothing at all rendering, the polycount is about 200, after Test 1 (512 polys) the FPS is about 50, with all polys in view. However, Test 2, in the same conditions, produces a poly count of 9.3, and Test 3 wasnt really conclusive due to issues drawing all of those objects, but it was giving me about 5-9 fps, depending on the angle I looked at the objects at.

I was also getting script warnings about “too many ghosts” from NetConnection, so, clearly, there is an issue here. The problem now will be deciding how to fix it. The polycount isn’t the problem, with 512 objects and over 5 million polys on screen I get an easy 50 FPS in debug build. The problem is optimising the system to draw many small objects as quickly as one large one.

The main issues that I can imagine would slow this system down would be collision calculations for each objects, and network updates for each objects, but for this test, I used a single player game with no collision objects set, just simple TSStatic objects.

I haven’t finished my testing, but this will likely be a difficult challenge to overcome.

The post P-0: Virtual World Concept: Update 6: Performance testing and optimisation of multi-part meshes first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

I have decided on my database and general server architecture for this project.

Torque has always had excellent network code, (and in fact, for a time the Torque Network Library was being sold as a standalone product) and generally the way networking works in a Torque game is that clients connect to a T3D gameserver by using a “master server” as a kind of directory lookup. This allows players to host their own servers, and other players to search for them using various search tags. The master server then returns a list of all of the (dedicated and non-dedicated) servers which match those search parameters.

For Astral Realms, which was basically the previous version of my virtual world concept, I used a slightly unusual setup for the game servers. Instead of connecting each client using T3D’s built-in multiplayer code, I instead set up each T3D client as a single-player client, with no networking. I then connected them to a complex Java server, which handled all of the object updates and synchronisation, and then send a list of objects to be rendered on screen to the clients. This list also included any other players in the area. The clients could also communicate with the database server using torquescript calls (although, for security and licensing, all of the actual SQL calls were done from the server-side, not the client). This system worked remarkably well, even with other players on screen. It was simple and easy to make changes to it, since I had developed it myself, and I knew the system well, and it was optimised for the type of project that I was working on.

The main reason why I used a Java game server and not a T3D based dedicated server was that I wanted to be able to connect to the game from other platforms. For example, I had a telnet client running that could access the java server, and interact with the game using text commands. I even printed out an ascii art map of the level with different types of objects represented by different letters, it was a great system. The idea was to try to integrate the virtual world with the real world as much as possible, and with a separate Java server, any device could interact with the virtual world, whether it is a smart phone, a computer with limited hardware, a web browser, etc etc.

I strongly considered using the same type of system for this project, since this project is essentially the next in a line of Virtual World type concepts, that all tie in to the same overall goal. However, with the previous virtual world concept, I focused more on the world building and object creation. I had a very complex system to model climate, zone-based object placement, etc (which I will also need in my current system) and the player was given tools to build structures. The system was designed for static objects, which wouldn’t require high-speed updates.

My current system, however, will focus much more on both social interaction (between human and AI players) and world interaction (interacting with flora and fauna, etc). This will require a network capable of handling fast object position updates. Consider hunting for example, if the player fires an arrow, or throws a spear, it’s position and velocity will need to be very precisely modelled in order to hit an animal. If the server lags even slightly, the system won’t work. Interaction between players, even though it will be quite rare (players will begin in a random location on their own, and may not meet other players for some time) will need accurate position updates to work properly. Visible lag will not be tolerable. I am also not really interested in developing browser based or mobile phone based plugins for this project, so I intend to use a T3D game server, which will connect to a mySQL database on another machine.

Since this is a persistent world game, there will only be one server (or one network of servers) so I shouldn’t need the master server either, but I may need to include it anyway if removing it proved to be more trouble than it’s worth.

The post P-0: Virtual World Concept: Update 5: Server Architecture first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

It turns out writing a database connector wasn’t too difficult after all.

I used and ODBC connector, which I downloaded from HERE.

I also came across THIS excellent tutorial, with some fully working sample code at the end, which required only minor modifications to work in T3D. According to this tutorial, only the 32-bit ODBC connector may be used. This may not be a factor anymore, but I used the 32-bit connector anyway, and it worked fine on my (64-bit Windows 10, Visual Studio 2015) system.

I was able to connect to and query my mySQL database, which is currently connected to a raspberry PI 2 on my LAN.

I need to do some more work on this before it is usable, currently I only have a test function which connects to the database, queries it, and disconnects. I need to add separate functions for connection, querying, disconnecting, etc, all exposed to script.

I will then upload my code changes here. I think mySQL integration is a very important resource to have in a modern games engine. SQLite is fine, but from what I’ve read, isn’t suitable for shared databases, particularly ones with many simultaneous users.

The post P-0: Virtual World Concept: Update 4: Successful integration of ODBC database connection for mySQL in T3D 3.6 first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

I am having some issues connecting the latest version of T3D (3.6) to my mySQL database. I normally use THIS resource, but it seems to lead to very strange .dll loading problems in the latest version of T3D. It seems to work fine with my current machine and compiler on an older version of the engine, however.

Most Torquers now seem to be using SQLite, which is great, and it is apparently very easy to integrate to T3D, but the problem is that SQLite is embedded. This means that it is accessed directly by the application, and does not use a database connection, like mySQL does. This is fine for single player games, where a large amount of data needs to be stored and organised on the client, but for a multiplayer game, SQLite may not work well. Using SQLite in a shared database environment, with multiple users and multiple simultaneous connections, is, from what I’ve read, a great way to get corrupted data. mySQL is really the better choice for this, and if I take the easy way out and use SQLite now, I may have to hurriedly migrate the date to mySQL later, as the user base increases. Data migration like this is never fun, so it’s better to get it right from the start.

After a day or so spent wrestling with it, I eventually decide to implement my own mySQL connector, or, if I cannot do this, revert to version of the engine that I was using previously.

There are a few issues with integrating mySQL with T3D. Firstly, the mySQL c++ connector seems to use Boost (a common, very powerful C++ library). Boost is amazing, it has a lot of advanced functionality, however, it is also huge, and some would say, bloated. Dragging in a boost library for something a simple as a mySQL connector would be foolish and wasteful of resources. I tried to strip out the Boost code, and got it to compile, but I ran into other issues with linking.

There are a few mySQL connectors that I found online, but I am currently attempting to use ODBC to connect to my database. This is going fairly well, if it works, I will post the resource here and on the T3D forums, since I feel mySQL integration capability is essential for any serious games engine.

The post P-0: Virtual World Concept: Update 3: Databases first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

I have done quite a lot of work lately on designing the Gameplay variables that I am going to model in this system. This is the most important part of this particular project, since the entire game will be limited by the scope of these variables. I need to make sure that I am modelling enough variables to accurately portray a realistic virtual world.

Modelling things like Hunger and Thirst are fairly easy, since they can just be integer variables. However, modelling things like injury, (broken leg, etc) disease, was more difficult. I also have to model object combinations, actions, and environmental variables and their effects on other gameplay variables (extreme heat will cause dehydration, etc).

I have, I think, come up with a good system to model this, but it is still in it’s very early stages. The main idea is to convert a real-life “states”, such as “Bleeding”, “Poisoned”, “Exhausted” etc, to a set of in-game variables. This is easy to do for some variables, but very difficult for others. By choosing enough variables, it should be possible to do this, however. I then modify the variables based on the state by using a “behaviour”. These behaviours will be static for now, but eventually, it should be possible for users to create their own behaviours and states, opening the game up to a huge array of user-generated content.

This system could even be used to model some very obscure “states”, such as, for example, a simple cold or minor illness. The real life state could be mapped to a set of effects, such as Headache, Nausea/Vomiting, Low energy, etc. I could then map “Headache” to a “Morale” variable, “Nausea/Vomiting” would have an effect on Hunger and Thirst (due to lost fluids/food) and “Low energy” could be mapped to a “Stamina” or “Endurance” variable, reducing the players ability to run, or perform strenuous actions.

Variables can be combined in complex ways, so if the “hunger” Integer variable drops below a certain value, both the players stamina and morale will also drop, which will have far-reaching effects on the length of time the player can walk or run, their speed, their ability to dig or swing a weapon, etc. Adding a new action to the game (which would need to be done, if a player created a custom object) could be a simple matter of mapping the action to a target, and using a behaviour to modify its variables. For example, a new object “Bandage” could have the supported action “USE”, and the effect “Stop bleeding”. The player could then write a behavior script that implements the “Stop Bleeding” effect on the target object.

I have also modelled item combinations, and actions and effects in a similar way. Item combinations are often used in RPG type games, and my system is not massively different from current state-of-the-art systems, I am just breaking down the steps far more. In most games, you would combine maybe two or three items to get the final result. In my project, I am basing the entire combination system on what I am calling “atomic” raw materials. What I mean by atomic is that the raw materials should be exactly as you would find them in the world. All objects should be created from purely naturally occurring materials.

This is one of the reasons why I am basing the game in primitive times, for the moment. It will be much easier to model the simple technologies of this period. The most complex type of object would likely be something like a Bow, but even this will require many steps to produce.

For example, a bow could be made from a Straight, planed piece of wood, a string, and a cutting tool to make the notches and attach the string. It may also need some oil or fat or some kind to seal it. In most games you would just find these items lying around, however, in real life, you wouldn’t.
The straight, planed piece of wood would need to be found as a branch or piece of fallen wood and cut to size, then planed, and notched. The tool to cut the wood would need to be created first.
The string would likely be either animal gut (meaning the animal would need to be killed and processed) or made from stripped and boiled tree bark, both of these processes would have multiple steps.
The oil or animal fat would also need to be obtained from an animal that has been hunted and killed.

I have not seen a game model variables in such detail as this. Objects can also have “object types”, which can have shared behaviours. For example, a “Fine Oak bow” and a “Poor Yew Bow”, etc, are all “Bows” which all work in basically the same way. So, to allow the user to pick up and fire a bow (implementing the animations, dealing damage, using arrows as ammunition, etc) the “Shoot Bow” action only needs to be implemented once, and all bows can share that action.

I have also decided to make “skills” per object, not per type. So making a lot of bows will not make you better at “crafting” it will simply make you better at making bows. This makes sense, and it should also lead to the spontaneous emergence of skilled tradespeople. One person might specialise in bows, which means their bows will be superior (higher power, more time between failure) but their skills with axes might be rudimentary.
In addition, there may be many combinations of methods and materials for bow making, different lengths, different kinds of woods, etc. A common problem with crafting in RPG type games is that people just go online and download a list of all possible item combinations, which takes a lot of the fun out of the game. With my system, even if a user knows the combination for the perfect bow, they may not have the materials in the part of the world where they are, so they may have to improvise with an inferior type of wood, or length of bow.
Both of these factors will lead, hopefully, to the development of barter and trade in the player community. Swapping one item for another, and this is the foundation of a community or civilisation.

In this way, simple combinations of variables can lead to very immersive, realistic, and dynamic gameplay.

There is a lot of work to be done here, it has proven very difficult to visualise such a vast and complex system. I set up a test database in mySQL, and mapped out some of the tables and data types, then populated it with some sample data, but even after spending several days on it, I am still only beginning to  understand how this will all fit together.

The post P-0: Virtual World Concept: Update 2: Primary Gameplay variable selection first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

I have finished configuring the CentOS/KVM server, and I believe I have successfully exposed it to the internet.
I have checked that the VNC ports are forwarded, and THIS website reports that the port is successfully forwarded and a VNC server is present.

I now need to test the server.

My external IP is: 86.47.6.3  I currently don’t have a static IP, but this should be fine for testing. I will probably use DynDNS or a similiar service to create a static IP in the future, or purchase one from my ISP. The VNC port that the server is on is 5900.

I have been using THIS free program to access the server remotely, it supports both VNC and SPICE, and there are versions for both Linux and 32 and 64 bit Windows.

To access my remote server using this program, use the following command:

vnc://86.47.6.3:5900

The password to login to the windows desktop is:

3LC9G3

(All upper case)

There is a text document on the desktop which I have called “Access log“. If you can successfully connect to the server, add some text to this log.

I’m still in the process of testing/configuring/upgrading the server, (It needs a lot more RAM for a start) so it may be slow or unreliable, and not T3D or Software development support is yet installed, but the networking seems to be mostly done for now.

The post P-154: CentOS/KVM Server Online, Ready for Remote Testing! first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

I am posting this from a Windows 7 Ultimate Guest Virtual machine running inside Centos 7, from my laptop which is running Windows 7 home. That is just as complicated as it sounds!

It took quite a lot of effort to get this working, I had to enable bridge networking, set up port forwarding and modify IP tables, as well as all of the work I needed to do to set up VNC access and install the Windows 7 iso.

The windows 7 iso`s are now free, I didn`t realise that. I got mine HERE. You do need a CD key to activate them though.

The next goal is to verify that it is possible to connect to the Virtual Machine from outside my local network, and then install T3D and various software and development tools. I can then start offering Virtualisation servers for T3d and software testing This should happen quite quickly, maybe within the next few days.

The post P-154: CentOS/KVM Server Online! first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.