NANO FX GE!!!

[RhVaurek]

 The bump maps on it looks outstanding though, especialy planets, I particularly like mars and the Intrepid in a picture on it.

[Legacy]

The bump maps on it looks outstanding though, especialy planets, I particularly like mars and the Intrepid in a picture on it.

See what i said? game engines are not able to use bump maps.
They use normal maps to fake the surface effects.

Both techs use maps to determine how the light should affect a surface in order to simulate relief effects.
Bump maps are a grayscale map (similar to speculars) where white stands to full height and black to deep inset, while average grey (125,125,125) stands for no surface change. Due to the way they are calculated, they are too slow to be used at game lighting calculation (real time)
Normal maps are RGB textures where the direction of the normal is stored at each pixel, so, the engine is able to simulate the lighting effects by simply using the normal variations, without any higher or lower effect. It's way faster, and in my opinion, also looks better even at renders.

As for normal maps at planets, i really don't think they should exist. Simply because you cannot notice that stuff from space. I've never seen a bump effect at a earth shot as example.
I'm looking forward for the atmosphere effects nano can add in the future more.

[startrekw_george]

to bad it can't be implemented into BC... but ether way this is cool!, its fun to play around with!!

that's exactly what i'm saying guys.  "Wicked" is something that's said way too much in the new england area.  When you say it in New York, you're usually slapped by the person standing closest to you.  I go to school in Massachusetts, and they all say it there, and my friends from new york and I always cringe when we hear it.

lol, I'm no where near the new england area, i live in nevada

[Nighthawk]

to bad it can't be implemented into BC...

omfg.... THIS WILL REPLACE BC!!!!

[MLeo]

omfg.... THIS WILL REPLACE BC!!!!

Very, very, very, doubtfull.

No Python (or another, proper, scripting language with similar abilities as Python) support so far. Only "NanoScript", which basicly is just an ini file.
So modding support for NanoGE is nowhere near BC like.
You could just play and mod Legacy then.

[Darkthunder]

Very, very, very, doubtfull.

No Python (or another, proper, scripting language with similar abilities as Python) support so far. Only "NanoScript", which basicly is just an ini file.
So modding support for NanoGE is nowhere near BC like.
You could just play and mod Legacy then.

Dude, NanoFX GE is currently a model viewer. He hasn't added anything in the way of scripting to the engine yet, other then the various shaders. I currently have no idea whatsoever what programming language will be used for the scripting, but I can assure you one will be used. There are several steps between: graphics engine, and fullversion game. Very early in development at the moment.

If you have suggestions about adding scripting language etc to the engine, Nano reads the Nanofx forums more often then he reads this forum.

[MLeo]

I already offered them back on BCU, he (Nano) wanted to do "NanoScript", he provided an example and it was an ini file (in essence).

[Nighthawk]

I already offered them back on BCU, he (Nano) wanted to do "NanoScript", he provided an example and it was an ini file (in essence).

well, if he designed the engine to grab configs from an ini file, he can add more branches for more configs from other sources.
whether it is .ini, or .cfg, or .py, it doesn't matter. the point is that he adds a way for us to control the engine.

[bsilver2988]

YAY! turns out i have pixel shaders and just needed an updated version of Direct X 10

[MLeo]

well, if he designed the engine to grab configs from an ini file, he can add more branches for more configs from other sources.
whether it is .ini, or .cfg, or .py, it doesn't matter. the point is that he adds a way for us to control the engine.

An ini file with preset key->value pairs and a full programming language are quite different.
And with quite different I mean night and day different. Not even close to apples and pears, more like apples and a mammal.

[RhVaurek]

 Just curious but eventualy in the very very very far future, could this engine be able to support things like 3D nebula clouds?
 I have yet to see a really good Nebula in a game, although Freelancer does it VERY well because of the sheer scale of the things that you can see the cloud way before you enter it.

[Nighthawk]

An ini file with preset key->value pairs and a full programming language are quite different.
And with quite different I mean night and day different. Not even close to apples and pears, more like apples and a mammal.

yeah, I see your point, but I was referring to things like HPs and plugins.
what you refer to is more like .DLLs on Windows. you know, libraries and application extensions.
if he can't make it compatible with Python, we would have to go back to those days where we didn't know WTH was Python, until we learned.
I'll request a C# manual, just in case lol.....

[serverandenforcer]

Just out of curiousity, does the Dev team already have a game concept in mind, or is that still too far down on the production road to think about?

[BES]

The engine will be made to support SCIFI type games, Ive already requested that he add some sort of python compatability,I also requested that he add

"other" file types for models instead of .X,I also asked that it support higher than shader 2.0,I also requested that he add 64bit support, but he seems

to have his own idea about what he wants to do with it...after all its his project:-).

Dark here already made that clear to me...

They will take ideas,but some things seem to be a touchy subject that they dont want to talk about or add to the engine currently or later..

To me though if its going to be used in all computers/OS's even old --> newest , it should support all features that the comps/OS's can to make it a well rounded Engine,not just some features, like the shader 2.0 thing...Nano only has a shader 2.0 card...I respect that ..thats fine, but not adding anything higher than that would be a mistake later.
but obviously its only my opinion and I give props to Nano for his work so far and looking forward to the end result:-)

[Darkthunder]

BES, let me make one thing perfectly clear:

At this point (which is extremely early in development), the engine has pixelshader 2.0 features. Yes, pixelshader 3.0 and possibly 4.0 features may be added somewhere later on in development. But as the saying goes, you need to be able to crawl before you can walk ;)

Don't presume that Nano won't add more advanced graphical features, just because it doesn't have it in it's current state. I mentioned to him that DX 10 (Pixelshader 4.0) had among other things support for volumetric clouds, such as those in "Crysis", and he immediately said that everyone should upgrade to DX10 cards

Volumetric Clouds would be a perfect example of being able to pull off making realistic clouds in planet atmospheres, not just while on the surface of the planet but also seeing it from orbit. Like i've said a number of times, at current it's too early to say anything of what CAN'T be done or added. Keep in mind, that Nano is just one person working on this project, while games like Crysis has hundreds of people involved in the projects.

[MLeo]

I guess you mean "asked" instead of "requested".

[Darkthunder]

From my understanding, hardpointing will be done extremely easy:

Max Speed = xxx
Max Angular Velocity = xxx
Max Shield Strength = xxx
Max Shield Recharge = xxx

etc, or something to that effect. However after speaking with Nano, most likely the scripting language used for various functions will be C#. Maybe he can clarify it better then I can since i'm neither a programmer or a scripter.

[LJ]

The ability to compile and swap in/out classes and methods in .NET is just as flexible as python.  It does not lock us into a particular language,  we can write new classes in VB, C#, C++, Python, Fortran, J# etc.. (any of the .NET languages).  Thus I very much doubt that we will loose the 'scriptability' which Bridge Commander provides.

The NanoFXGE engine can easily be placed inside a library which developers can compile against in their own games.  So the NanoFX DLL becomes essentially your App.py for your own games.  It would not take much to write a 'foundation' in C# or something which loaded plugin classes (which could conform to a particular interface) which are the same as scripts.