Homebrew DS FPS Maker

smealum

growing up sucks.
OP
Member
Joined
May 1, 2006
Messages
635
Trophies
2
Age
31
Location
SF
Website
www.smealum.net
XP
2,515
Country
United States
I know most people don't seem to be for this "portal DS" project, but I'm making some good progress so here's a short (and crappy quality) video :

I like both the Portal idea, as well as the FPS Editor, and don't see why they can't exist side by side. There's a lot of overlap between two projects, so much of the development on one should carry over to the other. I actually had the same thought of this potentially being used for a portal-type game prior to it being mentioned, though I wasn't sure how viable it would be given the limitations of the DS hardware. It looks like it's coming along pretty well so far though.

In any case, I got around to trying the Editor the other day, and I must say it's really quite neat. While there are certainly a lot of things that could be added or improved, the interface itself works rather well, and is easy to get working with following a quick glance over the tutorial. I did notice some things I wouldn't mind seeing improved though, that I thought I'd mention here.

First, is that compiling levels can take a rather long time with larger, more detailed rooms with multiple light sources. I suspect the vast majority of this time is spent computing the light map, so it would be nice to have some basic control over the light mapping process. For example, there could be a quick-compile button that skips rendering the lightmap altogether, just setting all surfaces to fully-lit. There could also be another option that renders a less detailed lightmap, so you can get a basic idea of how the lighting will look with a full compile, but in a fraction of the time. Another thing that would be nice to have would be a progress indicator, even if it just updates the approximate percentage complete after each light is processed. Maybe a readout reading "1 of 7 lights processed" or something like that. Displaying the total compile time at the end might be useful too.

It would also be nice to see skyboxes added. The skybox itself could just be a simple hidden cube with fully-lit textures covering the walls, floor and ceiling, and surfaces set to a skybox material in the level could show the view from the center of that cube. The skybox's textures could be edited outside the editor. It might also be cool if directional light could be emitted from such surfaces, with the direction and intensity of light configurable. On a somewhat related note, being able to set an overall ambient light level for a level would be useful, allowing areas not within a light's radius to remain somewhat lit.

A basic pixel art editor to edit materials directly in the editor could be nice too. I'm sure sure are other things I noticed that I'm just not thinking of at the moment as well. : )

As a quick note about the game, the select button is a bit awkward for opening doors. The select button tends to move around between different DS interations as well, so it may be more awkward on some systems than on others. It would make more sense for doors to just open automatically when bumping into them.

On a side note, that is the weakest-sounding gun ever. It's like a staple gun. Due to the lack of audio-visual feedback, I didn't even realize I was shooting it at first. : P
Hah, it doesn't happen very often that I agree with absolutely everything someone just said. Seriously, you're right about everything so I don't have much to add. :P
Right now the portal clone project is taking priority, but I do plan on getting back to FPSmaker afterwards. I have to use a slightly modified version of the engine for the portal clone, so not all modifications/additions can translate to FPSmaker, but pretty much everything regarding the editor should overlap. (although portal would have specific entities, like switches, cubes, platforms...)
So yes, a "quick compile" mode is planned, same for the skybox and material editor. I also do realize that using select to open door is very uncomfortable (on my FAT DS it is anyway), so yeah, automated doors probably would make sense. I was thinkin either that or a button on the touch screen. And yeah, the gun SFX is terrible, I had a problem when adding it and I was unable to isolate it in time unfortunately. It will be fixed, and I've already added a particle effect for when the player shoots walls (and I'm thinking about adding bullet impacts and maybe blood splatters, too)
 

nakata6790

True Player
Member
Joined
Sep 17, 2009
Messages
891
Trophies
1
XP
617
Country
Greece
A full 3D Portal DS is an AMAZING portable prospect. Huge respect for this tremendous undertaking and keep up the great work! :yaynds:
 

smealum

growing up sucks.
OP
Member
Joined
May 1, 2006
Messages
635
Trophies
2
Age
31
Location
SF
Website
www.smealum.net
XP
2,515
Country
United States
I know most people don't seem to be for this "portal DS" project, but I'm making some good progress so here's a short (and crappy quality) video :
-snip-
Just curious, were you planning on making people actually fall through the portals or just kinda teleport them?
Hope this video answers your question ! :D


it's still very early and glitchy, but the basic feature is there. Eventually, it should all be completely seamless.
 

smealum

growing up sucks.
OP
Member
Joined
May 1, 2006
Messages
635
Trophies
2
Age
31
Location
SF
Website
www.smealum.net
XP
2,515
Country
United States
just as a quick update, there probably won't be a new FPSM version for a while as I've been focusing on that portal thing, which by the way is going pretty well, as I've managed to fix most of the problems I was having. (I now have a more or less playable demo with fully-functioning portals)
Unfortunately, I broke my DS last week so development is going to slow down a little until I can find a damn screwdriver (I moved a month and a half ago and I think I left my screwdrivers behind...). In the meantime I'm experimenting with rigid body physics, I made my own small engine and I'm hoping I might be able to get something simple to run on the DS for portal. It's not looking great so far though, as while it does work, the performance is terrible. But making a physics engine is always interesting heh.

here it is running on my PC :
stack2.png

and here's the DS version (which is exactly the same code, the PC version also uses fixed point math) :
DSphysics.png


I also have a very early and extremely glitchy portal demo up for those interested. Not going to post a link here, but if you want to try it out just ask.
 

conner

Active Member
Newcomer
Joined
Sep 3, 2012
Messages
37
Trophies
0
XP
17
Country
United States
no update for a while? ..... :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :(
just as a quick update, there probably won't be a new FPSM version for a while as I've been focusing on that portal thing, which by the way is going pretty well, as I've managed to fix most of the problems I was having. (I now have a more or less playable demo with fully-functioning portals)
Unfortunately, I broke my DS last week so development is going to slow down a little until I can find a damn screwdriver (I moved a month and a half ago and I think I left my screwdrivers behind...). In the meantime I'm experimenting with rigid body physics, I made my own small engine and I'm hoping I might be able to get something simple to run on the DS for portal. It's not looking great so far though, as while it does work, the performance is terrible. But making a physics engine is always interesting heh.

here it is running on my PC :
stack2.png

and here's the DS version (which is exactly the same code, the PC version also uses fixed point math) :
DSphysics.png


I also have a very early and extremely glitchy portal demo up for those interested. Not going to post a link here, but if you want to try it out just ask.
no update for a while :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :(
 

smealum

growing up sucks.
OP
Member
Joined
May 1, 2006
Messages
635
Trophies
2
Age
31
Location
SF
Website
www.smealum.net
XP
2,515
Country
United States
Smea: Verlet?
Nah, just simple Euler method integration for now. Not saying I won't improve it eventually but right now I really need to focus on improving performance more than functionality, as all the functionality in the world will be useless if I can't get it to run well enough on the DS. :P
no update for a while? ..... :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :(
just as a quick update, there probably won't be a new FPSM version for a while as I've been focusing on that portal thing, which by the way is going pretty well, as I've managed to fix most of the problems I was having. (I now have a more or less playable demo with fully-functioning portals)
Unfortunately, I broke my DS last week so development is going to slow down a little until I can find a damn screwdriver (I moved a month and a half ago and I think I left my screwdrivers behind...). In the meantime I'm experimenting with rigid body physics, I made my own small engine and I'm hoping I might be able to get something simple to run on the DS for portal. It's not looking great so far though, as while it does work, the performance is terrible. But making a physics engine is always interesting heh.

here it is running on my PC :
stack2.png

and here's the DS version (which is exactly the same code, the PC version also uses fixed point math) :
DSphysics.png


I also have a very early and extremely glitchy portal demo up for those interested. Not going to post a link here, but if you want to try it out just ask.
no update for a while :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :(
I'm really sorry about that. The thing is, I can't even really work on it right now because, as I said, my DS is currently broken, so I can't work on the editor. It'll definitely be updated when portal is released, but it looks like that might still be a few months from now (even though I'm actively working on it)
 

smealum

growing up sucks.
OP
Member
Joined
May 1, 2006
Messages
635
Trophies
2
Age
31
Location
SF
Website
www.smealum.net
XP
2,515
Country
United States
Update ! I've continued work on the physics engine and successfully gotten it to run on the arm7, and within portal. It's not quite ready yet, there are still some pretty big performance problems amongst other things, but it's looking good overall. If you're interested, here's a video showcasing some of the new features : (the biggest update of course being the companion cubes)

Please keep in mind that this video was shot in an emulator and that many of the graphical glitches you see here don't actually happen on hardware. Also, the video quality is crap, sorry about that.

@TheDan2430 : if you're still interested, send me a PM. :)
 

nakata6790

True Player
Member
Joined
Sep 17, 2009
Messages
891
Trophies
1
XP
617
Country
Greece
Wow... This is really nice. I enjoyed DawnSeekers and A Cup of Tea, i am really looking forward to this too. Smealum is clearly talented.
Keep up the good work dude! :yaynds:
 

Site & Scene News

Popular threads in this forum

General chit-chat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.
    K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2: Sorry for accidentally bending over