XNA RPG 2.5D Game Engine - Weather

[BCBtheBeastlyBeast]

Are you still working on this? This is awesome stuff!

[wogule]

Great creativity wise! Better than playing COD MW3 or the like me thinks ;)

Cheers! And good luck in the near and far future, hope to buy some awesome games from you one day :D

[Max0Inq]

What can I say? This is far more amazing I'd would expect.

Good luck developing this.

I hope you will find a good use for this engine.

[Divinity9991]

asantee(dot)net/ethanon

you can get it here.

[iEatPorkchop]

Wow! This isn't really 2.5D, though, it's 3D.

[AleksandarToplek]

@MoopyHedgehog @99of99 It's an engine - that means that you can modify environment, models and terrain. If you would made editor or some pre-created scenes this could be the best wallpaper. It would be able to change according to weather. Player/User would just need to provide their current location or IP address so you can find out what weather looks like there. This is a simple and useful! (BTW I'm suggesting this because I'm fascinated by your work!)

[MoopyHedgehog]

i want to turn this video into a dynamic desktop wallpaper :x

[MoopyHedgehog]

very nice

[TheFalyptus]

Awesome GE !

[LeRonaldRager]

Where can I get this mighty engine?

[Kamilk12l]

holy fuck, this is some higher level stuff here ;)

[tdous]

I hope something comes of this engine one day. I could really get lost, in an immersion sense, in an RPG world that looked like this! Amazing stuff.

[JunkerJames]

lerp a dot prod with up and burp a snerp terp de derp derp derp

[rsteelink]

just wow!

[TheDormage]

Is this project still alive ?

[eldewen]

incredible art. even the way you're implementing these kind of pseudo-3D hacks is very creative

[Rezyh]

If there is any chance that you could source your code out or put up an in-depth tutorial on how to get this effect it would be greatly appreciated.

[ArcanumAlive]

@Rezyh I'll second that :)

[silverljus]

awesome work, breathtaking art

[shadari]

Would really love more details on both this video and the entire project. Shame it seems to have died.

[tuntuni1000]

This was 2 years ago! I wonder what he's able to do now! Amazing!!!

[Jusseppe]

Again, fucking genius!

[sdtuu]

I remember seeing this 1.5 years ago and just thinking "Wow" If i could get anywhere close to this I would be very happy.

[dearthpanda]

I'm curious if you ever released this engine or licensed it to anyone else.

[iTzSk1ppy]

@dearthpanda I would totally go for it.

[Cullie]

I envy your ability to do this. It's fascinating/beautiful. :o

[theflamingjamiesan]

Beautiful job! The snow getting attracted to lighter areas really sells the effect on the thin ridges at the top of the building and the tree shadows. Bravo!

[MadPumpkinGames]

Where in gods name did you learn how to do the calculations for the different texture maps (normals/colour/etc.)!? I must know! This is genius I completely love the artwork, the design and I need to know about the technical details. My brain is craving the science behind this.

[1cesa]

Veramente bello : ) complimenti ! ! !

[Necry3d]

i love this. this beats imo many games in graphics. its so well made imo

[bvssvni]

Why not call the engine "Snow"? Do you plan to make it public available? I've written a natural language interpreter in C# and burning to test it out in a RPG environment. Together with this awesome looking engine it would be awesome.

[jrag1000]

never seen snow accumulation real-time before...

[Chaomaster200]

Ok, dude, this is sick. Your really good with XNA. You should start your own gaming company, because this is just epic.

[duongngocvuminh]

Can you tell me where i can download this game maker?

[sava1811]

@duongngocvuminh lol'd

[jCodevine]

This is just beautiful. Really amazing - love it!

[thesamuraikuma]

I hate you... LOL! just kidding! i'm a High School freshman, and i major in Programming (mostly XNA) and i'm still ways away from making stuff llike that! I'm Jealous... I tried to make a 2d rpg, and i got really far, but i couldn't figure out how to make scripted events... maybe i'll show you, and get some tips ^_^

[tomisafish]

Last night I had a dream about a game like this...And I woke up and suddenly want to learn how to do stuff like this...but I dont know where to start when it comes to programming....lol...Maybe i will just stick to music and art...

Btw, this is insanely beautiful.

[Sumez]

Simply amazing!

[bytegrove]

Really beautiful!

*subscribing*

[mav3nboy]

This is fantastic!!!!!!

Nice work...

[HardWarUK]

That snow is amazing! You can do this and yet Bethesda cannot stop rain coming though a solid porch roof with their Oblivion/Fallout engine!

[shinunotenshi]

Seeing this, i just thought "Holy GOD... OMG... Jesus Christ". And I'm not even religios. You have truly made something wonderful. Is is just a one-man-project?

[Plissken07]

Is the building a 3d model or an 2d image?

[yugiohonline26]

Moar

[DasAntiNaziBroetchen]

wow! nice work my friend!

how did you make the snow?

is it just fading to a prerendered image?

[99of99]

@DasAntiNaziBroetchen No, it's currently using a shader to work out the amount of snow for each pixel. It's not particularly efficient, however, so in the end I'll probably pre-render a snow map and animate the spread of snow based on the predetermined gradient.

[DasAntiNaziBroetchen]

@99of99

cool! i see...

But it somehow looks like you slowly put in SSAO, turn up the contrast and set it to grayscale mode...

[iv00w18]

This is insanely awesome, I can't wait to see the final product. Excellent job, keep it up!

Looking forward to more videos :)

[GayaSoft]

Great work you did there, wouldn't mind get my hands on it, even if it would cost some bit and even its just a barebone / unfinished thing. Looks very solid and am currently looking to create an own 2.5D / isometric game and would like

[Althar93]

2D games own!!! Especially, when they look as good as 3D games :p

Awesome work!! Just wondering, how does it stand on a memory basis, knowing you have to store 3 textures per sprite ( that is albedo, normals and heightmap ?).

Have you tried animating yet ??

Anyway, looking forward to your next update !!

[QuiG0nJinn]

Awsome! Pure ownage :D

[fermixx]

awesome stuff you got ! do you know some good tutorials (or books) for 2 / 2.5d lighting in xna?

I mean, did you figured it out all by yourself or found some interesting reading material?

thanks in advance

[TurboGamers]

if u need to think of a name just make a vid saying waht u want

[TurboGamers]

is this out yet if soo were can i get it ?

thnx

[AltopiaDL]

It went from awesome. To beautifully awesome. where have you been all my life? (no homo)

[TehBlackCheetah]

I am making a 2D game engine similar to yours view and I find this to be spectacular. I haven't started on lighting but so far I have networking and objects to render, and collision.

[TheBlackRazer]

This thing is awesome! The best 2D / 2.5D Engine i´ve ever seen!

Such crazy good looking effects ... wow ;) great work. i´m still waiting for the next WIP ;)

[dufourfan]

awesome work man, looking forward to see more! :D

i'm a beginner developer on XNA and your work its helping me a lot to continue studying it! :D

[Exhalent]

By god, you need to make a full-fledged game.

[NateHale9]

You are amazing and your engine is incredible. Moar please!

[eXsolvedh3]

That is so fucking beautiful i want to kill myself... i'll die happy. :D

[Fangornmmc]

amazingly well done. It is beatifull and has a lot of ambience to it! I hope you'll ever make a full game out of this?

[Kavaari]

holy shit this is utterly awesome

[csisyfiu]

this is beautiful too :)

[dman0042]

You know that games today on xbox don't even have anything like this...why aren't you working for a major game company?

[DakaSha]

Are you still working on this? And if yes to you plan to release it as an open source engine?

[ethedona]

It's awesome :D

Could you tell me where do you get that nice model, if you don't mind? Thanks!

[99of99]

@ethedona Thanks! The building (I imagine that's what you're reffering to) is a model of the Radcliffe Camera in Oxford that I made a while back for my DungeonCrysis mod. It's used in the intro cutscene there, which I have up on Vimeo: vimeo(dot)com(slash)3410802

[colinshark]

Goddamn ri-fuckin-MAZING.

[vulkein]

the snow was excellent the storm with the lightning and rain could use some work however.

[strike911]

This is very impressive. Nice work.

[12eebok]

Is this all done in a programming language? I have XNA Game Studio 3.1, currently I'm learning the basics of Java, but I'm open to learning to languages aswell.

[DaBearX7]

awesome

[rogahrab]

really AMAZING dude!! this with the music makes me feel so nostalgic.... like i want to play this game... even though i know it's not a game. you have a future in this.... there is a niche market for overhead rpg games that look like this. all these full 3d games are crap.

[N30ZUK1]

Honestly, this has to be the most beautiful 2d scene I've ever seen. The larger snow particles flying close to the 'camera' is a very nice touch. I don't think I've ever seen that in a 2d game before, and it adds a little something.

I'm interested in how you will handle more... physical particles, such as leaves, accumulating on moving things like characters or props. This looks amazing, and you've done a good job so far. Keep it up!

[marscaleb]

No way, that actually adds snow to existing models? It's not actually jsut swapping it out for a pre-made image?

How is that even possible? I'm guessing it uses the heightmap/normal map to determine what pixels are surfaces that could collect snow, and then you apply the snow to the image like some sort of detail map?

[99of99]

Mostly that, as you say. It also adds more variation by checking the overall brightness of texture: lighter areas attract more snow, darker areas less. This makes the snow less even (otherwise you'd just get flat blankets) and it means you get less snow in shadows.

[nezrif27]

I'd rather guess that he is using the normalmap and is just checking which normals are pointing upwards. That seems the easiest way to determine wether a surface will have snow on it.

[caliusosis]

This is so beautiful....I really hope to see a game on this engine.

[cyphi1]

This is pretty!!! Lighting and shadows are astounding. Good job!!

[DakaSha]

If you dont mind answering.. How expensive is this so far? Ive been messing with the normal mapping and have come to the conclusion that my crappy laptop will in no way be able to run a game like this at 1024x768.

I didn't think 2D graphics could be so expensive (but i guess this is a hybrid technique) . What are your system specs if you dont mind letting me know and can you hold a steady 60fps?

[99of99]

I use a Radeon 4870, for which the framerate doesn't drop below 60fps even on a 1080p resolution. There's a lot of optimising still to do, but overall the game isn't overly intensive. It does, however, need a gaming system in some sense at least to run at its best.

[seriouslyWeird]

i have never ever seen a single lightning during winter in my entire life

[fl00ki]

@BloodPigggy You seem to fail quite a lot there. My sympathies.

This looks just amazing-I guess I'll subscribe to see more of this!

[fl00ki]

@BloodPigggy Sorry, but you're so pathetic it makes me laugh. :)

[DakaSha]

this is incredible...

[AnonyMooseanSquirrel]

awesome work on the weather engine. expensive, maybe, but the results are outstanding.

an idea came to mind as i was watching the video. heat sources prevent snow accumulation. where there is light there is usually heat. perhaps you could fake a realistic accumulation by having the snow buildup taper off as it nears light sources? could also run a simple check for the angle between polys where the snow falls and build up more snow around the edges of buildings and such.

[QuaziGNRLNose]

just a thought, but for rain, you could use a similar technique to the snow, except you darken, or like somehow alter the values of regions which are hit by rain to give them that "wet" stone or wood look, although it might not work so well one objects like trees.

[Meja69]

Awesome. How did you do that snow accumulation effect ?

Are sources available somewhere ?

[99of99]

Not at the moment. I'm still tweaking it, besides - it's pretty expensive right now, hopefully I can simplify it.

It uses the diffuse and normal maps of the scene. A simple way of looking at it is that it makes bright parts of the picture whiter, so shadows tend to to have less snow, which makes sense as its harder for the snow to get into those crevices.

[Meja69]

Thanks. ;)

[profanumlit]

Other thing u can code. To make a impression of moving camera like other 3d games. When u reach cliff (by one ramp), or more lowers terrains, you can zoom in (more lower ground)/out (more higher ground). Dun need lot zoom just a few, make a nice look.

5 stars.

[99of99]

That's quite an interesting thought actually. It would be a bit overkill and slightly difficult just for terrain ramps, I think, but I might do something similar for tall/multivel structures. Zoom out one level, blur it, and such.

[profanumlit]

Very good job. Release the source on sourceforge. I and comunity, can help you optimize it.

You should implement more 2 things.

Character footprints, and better shadows.

Its awesome, but just to coment, sun in real world describe one half-circle in the sky.

When you make the "moving shadows" do it. Bigger shadows in morning to left, at noon no shadown, or lower one, and afternoon bigger to other side. Size variable with hour of day. Will be very realistic. Good luck.

[99of99]

Yes, footprints crossed my mind - I will think about it =)

There are shadows in the game, even if they're a bit basic - I just don't show them off much. They're quite fuzzy, but you can see for instance in the sunset bit with the snow that there's a lot of shadow behind the trees, which is actually cast by the sun.

The shadows don't actually cast onto objects at the moment however.

[spacecoke]

love the foreground snowflakes, nice and simple yet very effective touch :)

i am realy liking your use of shaders in this engine, it gives the static tree sprites a much needed feeling of movement, simply awsome work!

[adultgames1]

nice!!!!!!

[SnowPuma]

Can this engine handle 3D objects incorporated into the 2.5D environments? For example, could a rotating cube be able to be seamlessly integrated into the static 2.5D world. Also what about animated sprites?

[99of99]

I don't have anything planned right now for 3D objects. Theoretically such an integration would be really simple to do, I just don't see much point it at this stage ^^

There's full support for animated sprites though, yes. Obviously this needs three sprite sheets in general where you needed one, but it works pretty well. I'll show off more of that in the next update once I've got a little actual content.

[QuaziGNRLNose]

don't all these textures eat up a ton of vram?

[Grykus7]

Sexy.

[Katatsuky]

This stuff is awesome, keep up the good work!

[momoisakat]

looks nice but what happend to crygate?

[99of99]

You're probably thinking of someone else =P I was never involved with CryGate. My only unfinished Crysis mod at the moment is the Machi, which is on hiatus for the foreseen future. The other one I made was DungeonCrysis, which has been released ^^

[veku2]

super freakin amazing! im gonna start posting my xna vids XD

[NeilUnreal]

p.p.s. I just saw the larger snowflakes, lol. I don't know how I missed them first time around; maybe I've been programming too hard and need a vacation, hehehe.

[99of99]

Hehe, that's good - I wanted it to be fairly subtle, or the player would just be *aghhh there's stuff in my eyes* ^^

Thanks!

[NeilUnreal]

p.s. The snow accumulation rocks!

[NeilUnreal]

As always, good work! Just one small detail: you might want to add a few larger snowflakes to simulate snow moving closer to the camera lens. (If you've already tried that and it looks bad, ignore this.)

[Sturdee92]

Okay, serious comment now!

Very awesome! I want to play! When will there be more work done on sprites and animation? The work you've put in really shows, and you've just got an all round beautiful game! How long have you been doing this sort of thing?

[99of99]

Thanks! I've started on this in the summer and this is pretty much my first major coding project. XNA makes this kind of thing quite deceptively easy I find.

I'll be starting work on actual content next, so yeah - much better-looking sprites and animations. Everything so far is just a placeholder for testing. I've a system for character animation in place already, but I'm not finished making actual characters yet.

[Sturdee92]

Great, can't wait for the next installment!

[Sturdee92]

Woo! First comment! Now I'll actually watch it and give a serious comment.