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Coding SDK + many feature requests

Coding SDK + many feature requests

Postby CharlesWoodhill » 15 Aug 2015, 17:56

Huhu SkyPpl,

At first, yeah this whole thing is cool! This may become something great!

But i too dont have any use for this engine as long i cant code my own (fast) systems :(
add a 1 to the counter of "i need to code" :) (c# preferred :) )

for example to create a chunked terrain loaded/buffered/unloaded in the background by player pos, to create a big world

some additional thoughts:
(brainstormed, and since im new to this engine, i dont exactly know if u already supporting it, and im only hobbyist) :)

(fast)editable terrain ingame,
openings in the terrain (cave)
other terrain systems, for example underground terrain (ala dungeonkeeper)
minimap (updated from terrain?)
switch between first person and overview (not talking about the camera) ;)
(server)<->client
GuiControl which can display a scene (character window,...)
model hierarchy: a cannon on a turnable socket on a battlecruiser and u maybe sit in it (which is crap because u never would sit in it because, bla bla...)
grouping units with a rect (rts) ( doesnt the editor aleady hav/need a similar function..)

please support: debugging, multithreading, .net, visual studio and/or monodev
expand from fps only to rts / mmo worlds (without loadingscreens when not teleporting or instancing) :) or let the users create the systems :)
provide some sort of world-segmentation, octrees, instancing, seamless scene transition

keep flexibility, dont hide low level functions/properties
(mesh members(vertexbuffer,indexbuffer...), raycasts and things like that)
maybe i am on the wrong way, but in almost every engine i first have to code hundreds of things again because the engine doesnt support or hides internals and/or make its manipulation/usage slow or cumbersome.
examples(current engine i use): raycast a triangle(not present), change or get a mesh.vertex (need to set/get the complete vertex array), ...

since i am no pro and only coding for fun, i hope u dont sit there and laugh yourself to death havin trouble too look through ur tears :)
but this are things i would expect in a game engine
( most i was talking about ive already done myself in the one or other engine, the mostly in unity more or less performant :) ),
there is enuf out there supporting models/animations/simpleTerrain/collision and so on...i missing real game related systems especially those for NON-FP(s) TP(s) which, for me is the same xept camera location.

greets and keep up your good work!
and i hope i can come back when the coding interface is done :)
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Re: Coding SDK + many feature requests

Postby raisins » 15 Aug 2015, 20:53

I think a lot of those functions are exposed in LUA already. See the documentation for reference.
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Re: Coding SDK + many feature requests

Postby StarFire » 15 Aug 2015, 22:44

Hi and welcome to the forums and thanks for offering your insights ;) .

We will write a response tomorrow when back in studio :)
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Re: Coding SDK + many feature requests

Postby SolarPortal » 16 Aug 2015, 11:42

Hi and welcome to the Forums CharlesWoodhill :D I hope one day you do join our journey.

At first, yeah this whole thing is cool! This may become something great!

Thank you, it means a lot and we will keep developing until we have the perfect development platform lol :P

But i too don't have any use for this engine as long i cant code my own (fast) systems :(
add a 1 to the counter of "i need to code" :) (c# preferred :) )

Skyline has been designed from the ground up in c++ and we have created a very fast entity system that updates as fast as any other engine that is in the pro market. Yes we use ogre3D for our renderer, but we have also written all the shaders ourselves to give the best graphics and best performance running on the GPU.

As for wanting to code your own systems, skyline is being designed so you don't have to. We understand how many engines can make certain systems feel bloated or slow and we aim to keep things running as fast as possible.

We are in Beta and we do have a few missing features and like you mentioned about the terrain. We are planning on a paging system that will allow unlimited terrains that will load and offload as the player moves around.
Many engines either come as a bare bones package and make you program it all, or some come with half finished features. Skyline is meant for those who don't know the ins and outs of creating a game and many don't have programming experience at all, but this also doesn't mean its game in a box.

Skyline is a genre agnostic engine and this means you can create any type of game you want as long as it is in 3D as we do not have a 2D system yet. Whether you want an FPS, TPS, Racer, Platformer, Side Scrolling Shooter., etc.. it is all possible with the same amount of scripting. For our user programming language, we chose to use Lua as it is a simple language to learn and to read back.

Out the box, skyline comes with a few templates that are FPS, Racing with AI Cars and a melee template. These templates will be expanded to cover many types of different games.

(fast)editable terrain ingame,

The terrain system we use is very fast for editing and can easily be translated in to lua for in game ground deformations, painting and even vegetation adding / removal such as a field of grass that can be removed as a car drives through it.

Since there are many features in skyline, we cannot add everything at once, so we prioritise what we add by what is needed at that moment and what do our users need. If you find yourself making a game that requires editing of terrains or its painting layers and even its vegetation, then we would add the features in for you there and then or in the next update or 2.

keep flexibility, dont hide low level functions/properties

It may look like at first that all the low level properties and functions are not there and this has been designed this way to hide the complexity with simplicity so new or hobbyist users who are not familiar with this level of technology are not overwhelmed with an engine that is so feature packed they do not know where to start. But if you are a pro or indie, then you can lift the covers and discover the internals of the package allowing full customization over most aspects of the engine.
Like the shaders, you could change the entire look and feel of skyline by writing your own shaders, programming your own custom editor plugins or creating attachable scripts with there own dynamic properties that make it easy to pass around your scripts and tweak the properties.

grouping units with a rect (rts) ( doesnt the editor aleady hav/need a similar function..)

This is one that we will be adding in soon as we need a way of selecting multiple entities sooner and as you say, this would be used in an RTS as well to save time programming the same feature.

model hierarchy: a cannon on a turnable socket on a battlecruiser and u maybe sit in it (which is crap because u never would sit in it because, bla bla...)

Yes, we do support attaching of entities to positions already, but we have also planned in a better organising of model hierarchy as you put it, as the current system is a bit awkward to work with and can be improved on a lot.

Runtime performance and better memory management is one of our next tasks with the engine and we are looking at creating zones, octrees, occlusion culling, 64 bit, Hardware instancing(already played with this and have had 10,000 low poly characters at > 60fps lol), plus many many more...

Without going through all the features you have wrote, we do support many of them already and if not, then they are already planned in for being created. The reason we do not have a c++ SDK yet is because many of our users would not require it and therefore it is a lesser priority task.

If you have programmed a feature in c++ as a library, then we are very happy to integrate it into the engine and pass all the commands and controls through to lua which will allow you to use your code in the way you need.

there is enuf out there supporting models/animations/simpleTerrain/collision and so on...i missing real game related systems especially those for NON-FP(s) TP(s) which, for me is the same xept camera location.

you can fully program the camera systems to do what you want, simply add a 2D fixed camera, set it to the active camera and start programming it to do what you want.

since i am no pro and only coding for fun, i hope u dont sit there and laugh yourself to death havin trouble too look through ur tears :)
but this are things i would expect in a game engine

lol :P no worries, all questions and expectations are welcome to be said.
Many of the things you wrote here are going be in implemented and we wont be going to V1.0 and staying in Beta until we have a game engine that can be used to create all types of games without the need of features being added or fixed.
Without users of different skillsets using the engine and putting their feedback and feature requests into the engine, then the more advanced areas wont be added or worked on until they are required by the users or by us as there are many tasks that still need done.

Thanks for taking the time to write the comments and ideas and we appreciate every single one and i hope this has opened the engine up to you or showing features we already have, i may have missed a few topics you were writing about and i apologize if i have. Have fun developing wherever you end up :D
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Re: Coding SDK + many feature requests

Postby lordalmighty1 » 16 Aug 2015, 12:24

hi and welcome :)

here is a roadmap of features and to be added features lists with insights to how far along various parts of the engine features work is done :) hope it helps you some.

http://home.aurasoft-skyline.co.uk/skyline-features/roadmap/

there is also a features request section which I have used previously to ask for things :)

happy game making to you, but what engine was you talking about in your post if I may ask?. your current game engine?.
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Re: Coding SDK + many feature requests

Postby CharlesWoodhill » 17 Aug 2015, 17:49

Thanks to that really fast answer(s)!

@solarPortal:

As soon as i back home in some days i will buy it, such things need support, especially after ive seen ur roadmap :) this really will get cool.
But since, for me, the way is the fun, and im walking a coders path, i need a real programming language,
maybe im not a normal user, more a ... player? :)
lua is nice for small things or modding, level editing, and so on, but not for creating complex, non confusing, debuggable, systems, am i wrong?

If you have programmed a feature in c++ as a library, then we are very happy to integrate it into the engine and pass all the commands and controls through to lua which will allow you to use your code in the way you need.

thank u for this offer, but i dont wanna bother u with my tests & trys... u would get mad believe me, also u dont have time, u have to do c# integration! :P

We are in Beta and we do have a few missing features and like you mentioned about the terrain. We are planning on a paging system that will allow unlimited terrains that will load and offload as the player moves around.


if u are going to do this (paging), why not do it for the "universe" not only for terrain?

a good example is raycasting (mouseklick or shooting at someone):
normally u have to do it urself:
so u need to make ..err.. lets call them "universeChunks" :mrgreen: each chunk with an octree for the interactive entities, and a terrainChunkList, now u can ray the universeChunks, get back a depth sorted hitlist, check if it contains terrain...get the terrain hitpoint, or ray the octree and get the unit(s)... IF u have done the update of the octree which means every time a interactive entity moves its assignment may need to be updated (octree, chunk), what when a object spans multiple chunks.. bla bla..
then u need some sort of browser object, imagine u are at loc1 and open your pda showing loc2, so its not enuf to do a system for 1 location only...also u can use it to prepare/buffer other locations in the background for a quick(er) teleport..

thats much work, please do it for me :mrgreen:
(actually working on a system like this just for fun, halfway through, this maybe explains why im not satisfied with lua )



@lordalmighty1:
Tnx for that roadmap/votingList info, was there and left my markings :)

Actually i am using unity (free), but i capsulated all of their functionality (and rewritten some),because i dont want to use their GameObject system, its too engine dependent. also their terrain and gui is err...hmm...well...
i use it because it supports c#, i only switch back to c++ where there is no option. The workflow is much faster in c# and its easier to use / play with :).

greets all
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Re: Coding SDK + many feature requests

Postby lordalmighty1 » 17 Aug 2015, 18:15

ah, unity. ok :).

glad you found the roadmap useful :)
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Re: Coding SDK + many feature requests

Postby SolarPortal » 17 Aug 2015, 19:54

Thank you so much for the support :) StarFire is now looking how she can fit c# integration into her timelines.

I wouldn't mind the extra features and power from c# as lua is a struggle to use at times.

But since, for me, the way is the fun, and im walking a coders path, i need a real programming language,

Understandable, i myself in my free time like to program small apps and features that will get included into skyline. For instance, this week in 2 evenings built a new efficient object pooling system for skyline.
Once c# is integrated, we will be updating both scripting systems as lua is still required for other users as some don't like any of the others lol :P

thank u for this offer, but i dont wanna bother u with my tests & trys... u would get mad believe me, also u dont have time, u have to do c# integration! :P

lol yeah :) Some code can take many trial & errors to turn out correctly lol :P

if u are going to do this (paging), why not do it for the "universe" not only for terrain?

Absolutely, but we need somewhere to start lol :P
We were planning on creating zones/ regions which you could call octrees and assign entities to them that can be made visible or invisible(loaded / unloaded for better memory usage) depending on player travel direction. It is also a system that would work well with the Occlusion Culling for faster visibility switching.

thats much work, please do it for me :mrgreen:

At some point, if you stick with us, we will have this featureset as one of the game genres we like is open world without loading screens :)

Thanks again :)
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