tiny RPG, 3D open world

justinbarrett

I've looked at Godot before, more that two years ago I guess... afterward I went to work on a game using the Blender Game Engine(many of us here have)...I went quite a while without updating that project...it's unfortunate..it was near complete(full quest, inventory, story and rewards system), but with the game engine dropped from blender I felt a total lack of motivation...I possibly let some people down as it was an open world rpg that was going to be given away for free.. I have regrets about that...

with all that being said I've been tinkering with Godot again over the last three weeks...maybe more or less...didn't count...but I'm getting distracted. I am happy to say Godot is quite capable of doing open world 3D games....the people who say it cannot, clearly don't know how(and that's ok) but I am working on a project now simply titled "tiny RPG".

Tiny RPG may never come to a full game, but I enjoy working on it...I'm keeping things simple, it will be somewhat zelda inspired gameplay and instead of gobbling up loads of items in your inventory you will be limited to only a few spells and weapons. These will be skill based, as in you will be able to level these up and put points into them. So, I'm going for a very basic look and feel, somewhat cartoon-ish and low-poly looking..it's the cool thing now-a-days :)...here are a few shots of the work I've done over the last few weeks...

worked on some actors, that can share the same armature and animations worked on a lot of animations...something like 40..I think. and some in game shots, nothing drastic, just trying to get the feel of the world and did some basic movement, some lod and instancing and a day and night cycle...not many images because I am keeping this short.. I'm still ironing out the story a bit, I have a rough, rough, rough draft. Most of the mechanics are thought out, but I stll need a few more animations(in the range of 3-4, not many) and after that I can get to actually working on it more...I just thought it might interest some, and it makes me happy to share things I work on.....

cybereality

Nice job. I think Godot is still trailing if you are talking about AAA-style games (which are probably out of reach for indie devs anyhow) but if you use simple graphics or limit the scope it is totally doable.

justinbarrett

Thank you...still playing with it, even now..as far as AAA quality games, ok, yes...unless you write some sort of culling wizardry :)

cybereality

The book "foundations of game engine development 2" discusses culling in detail. I don't think it would be too hard to implement in Godot (maybe the developers are already on it, I don't know).

Hippo

This looks really cool, would love to see more updates!

justinbarrett

I'm implementing some animation state stuff now...first run...it will probably need a rewrite tomorrow, but hopefully I can figure out how to use two animations at the same time, or I will need to redo a lot of tedious animations :(...

probably post something new before monday...so tomorrow evening...fingers crossed.

justinbarrett

So, I've been really lazy since yesterday, getting the going back to work blues...but I did manage to do a very short and very poorly encoded, non edited video :)

Megalomaniak

Other than the super slow movement speed(or is it sneak?) it's looking good. :)

justinbarrett

it's an in between movement....a generic placeholder, he does have sneak walk run but it's not setup...so yes, his speed is a bit slow.

cybereality

Looks cool. But is the performance really that bad (maybe it is the recording)? Seem like a pretty simple scene, what video card do you have?

justinbarrett

I'm not concerned about the frame rate this is my testing world, but it's a wierd combination of things causing the appearance of a very low fps...

first off, I recorded at a low frame rate(screen recording) I think 15 fps, maybe 20...there is a spike or two in the video and those are definitely from in game.

second, Godot always drops a few frames when you cap the frame rate...e.g I set it to 60 and it gives me 55-61...if I remove that limitation I get over 100 fps(adding the SSAO really brings it down)....I tested this...if I set it to 70 I get 60-65...could be my system or an issue with Godot..???

third, my system is pretty old, not ancient by my standards but for modern gaming yes...prehistoric.. GTX650(1GB dx11), AMD Phenom xt 2(6 core)??? and 8Gb system ram...speed unknown..I could check, but let's be honest with ourselves...it's old :)

lastly, nothing is really optimized....all those models are simply placed there by hand, no instancing or batching being done. LOD's are the only thing I've done...it may or may not be noticeable.

cybereality

Ah, I see. That machine is pretty old, I'm surprised it even holds up that well now that you mention it. Do you want a new video card? I can send you a GTX 1650 Super or something in that price range. PM me if you're interested.

justinbarrett

Thanks for breaking my computer!@ :) seriously, I got the card but decided the computer was overdue for a cleaning...yep..I broke something. It wont turn on at all...I checked the switch and the power supply...both fine, so I thought maybe the card was defective...no biggie, put the old one back in...nope...after taking everything apart and testing everything(as best I could) I assume the motherboard just took a dump...so looks like I will be out of the loop for at least two weeks. If worse comes to worse, I will go get a loan and buy a new one... I'll be back, my wife is kicking me off her computer ;)

Megalomaniak

Did you perhaps remove the cooler off of the CPU while cleaning it? Might need to reseat it then(not just the cooler, but the CPU too).

cybereality

Oh man, I'm so sorry.

Maybe it's not dead, though. Did you check the power cables to the motherboard (it should have one small one for the CPU and a longer one for the motherboard). I've knocked this before and stopped my PC from starting. If you have a modular PSU, check the connections on the the power supply end. They might look connected but pull them out and make sure they are in good.

Might be a good idea to try clearing the CMOS. There is usually a clear CMOS jumper on the motherboard, you just move the jump from 2 of 3 pins over 1, leave it for a few seconds, and then move it back. If you don't have a jumper, just remove the CMOS battery for about 30 seconds. You can also just replace the CMOS battery altogether, you can buy these for a few dollars.

justinbarrett

on my sons computer so I'll rty to keep this short:

I apreciate everyone trying to help :) but I did IT for almost 10 years in the military had my A+ cert and everything...I know a dead mother board when I swap out enough components(that's a joke btw) I do know what I am doing and I was in IT for the military.

No worries, I just ordered a new computer, nothing too fancy r5 3600, 16 gigs 3600 and an rx 5700 xt(not a fan of ATI/AMD cards but cheaper than an RTX 2070s)... it's the maximum we could do, it's not top of the line but I did go with an x570 mobo so I have a decent upgrade path...at least until the AM5 sockets come out(sooner than later)

So, I'll hopefully be back to it in another week. I want to thank you all for trying to help...you guys "rock!".

-see you soon, Justin

justinbarrett

Finally got my computer today, but I'm down in the shop making some furniture...give me a couple days to get everything updated and configured...and scrounge up my old files.

Then I can get back to work. :)

Megalomaniak

Glad to hear it!

justinbarrett

Just a quick update, nothing spectacular to report... I was able to get everything back to where I had it before the computer failure...just re-acquainting myself with what I've already done...there is some spaghetti code in the player movement..I was clearly just trying to use it as a scratch pad...I may need to rework that... The good news is I went from fighting for 60 FPS to well over 300 FPS...this is even after I added a lot more trees(just tinkering)...later I will need to properly place them proceduraly... I am also thinking of clumping them together in larger groups...a kind of "fake" batching. it will give them higher poly counts as a group, but less objects for the gpu and engine to deal with. I think this should be ok...they really serve no purpose for gameplay..but who wants to play a game like this without any trees?

cybereality

If they are mostly using the same tree models, you can use a MultiMeshInstance.

https://docs.godotengine.org/en/3.1/tutorials/3d/using_multi_mesh_instance.html

It can improve performance drastically if you are rendering lots of the same object.