Test my platformer engine (WIP) (testing done, thanks!)

[mh114]

UPDATE: I've taken the game down, as no further testing is necessary at this point. The goal I set for this public testing has been fulfilled ("hopefully I can get some useful results and make the engine more robust in terms of compatibility.") Thanks for the people who tried the game!

I've been doing a platformer engine in Java, using LWJGL and JBox2D for physics. The engine is far from finished, and it's especially lacking in normal gameplay features. I've been focusing on the technical aspects, slowly bringing them up to the level where I can start implementing the game on top of the core engine. I'm still not sure what kind of game it will evolve into, but it will be some kind of adventure/platformer game, most probably.

Anyway, since I can test this mainly on two computers (my desktop running Linux [mostly, sometimes WinXP] and my laptop running Windows Vista), it would be helpful if some of you guys could test it on your systems. I'm especially interested if it does run on Mac OS X (it should) and perhaps even Solaris. Apart from different OS's, I'm interested in seeing if the thing runs properly on Ati/AMD GPUs. I have GeForce 7600 GS on the desktop, and Intel GMA on the laptop.

What I'd like you to do, if you have a few minutes to spare:

• Start the engine from here (it's available only as Java Web Start as of now). It requires Java 1.5, but I've mostly tested it on 1.6.
  
• Move around the "level" (sorry there isn't any proper gameplay yet!  )
• Does it work? Does the bloom effect work? Lighting?
• How does it run? It should run about 60 fps and be fairly smooth.
• Check your CPU usage, if possible. It should not consume all your CPU.
  
  Here are some keys:
  
  
• Move with arrow keys. To drop down from a "floor line"*, hold DOWN arrow and press SPACE.
• Press M to play some (boring) music. It can be paused by pressing M again.
• Press L to toggle lighting
• Press B to toggle bloom
• Press R to restart the level
• Press P or PAUSE to pause the game
• Press O to toggle player light (useless, I know)
• Use PAGE UP/PAGE DOWN to zoom

*) "Floor lines" are lines where the player can stand on AND jump/drop through.

If it works, you can try with different settings. By default, it starts in 800x600 windowed mode. You can adjust the settings from the configuration file. On Linux, it will be in your home directory, under .platformer/settings.cfg. On Windows, in APPDATA/platformer. If your system supports it, try running with antialiasing (set antiAlias to 2 or 4, for example).

The game writes a log file while it's running. It would help me if you could post yours here, or mail it to me at mika DOT halttunen AT gmail, along with your system specs (unless they're visible in the log). The log file is engine.log, found in the same place as the settings file. If you want, you can censore the line in the log, where it displays the path to the platformer directory (the path contains your user name). The profiler information at the end of the log might be particularly interesting: on my systems, the text rendering takes most of the whole rendering time!

A couple of screenshots are attached (with 2X antialiasing + bloom). Please excuse all the graphics and the whole level actually; everything you see is for testing purposes only.

Thank for your time, hopefully I can get some useful results and make the engine more robust in terms of compatibility. I'm happy to answer any questions you might have, feel free to ask.

[dishmoth]

Worked okay for me.  Very impressive!  My log file's in the mail to you.

Frame rate was close to 60fps, but there was a little bit of stutter on occasions (with the average frame rate dropping to 40fps). 

Lighting all seemed fine.  Music turned on and off as expected.  I forgot to check CPU usage (sorry!).

I made it up to the chimney easily enough (which seems to be the nearest thing to a goal in the demo), but I did find that I could fall off the right end of the world, which required the demo to be restarted.

Look forward to seeing this when there's a game attached!
Simon

[mh114]

Worked okay for me.  Very impressive!  My log file's in the mail to you.

Thanks, I've got it.

I made it up to the chimney easily enough (which seems to be the nearest thing to a goal in the demo), but I did find that I could fall off the right end of the world, which required the demo to be restarted.

Yeah, it's possible to jump off the level from both ends -- I haven't bothered to prevent that yet.

Games published by our own members! Go get 'em!

[h3ckboy]

very good. for some reason when I did bloom (I think) it dropped like 40 FPS

without bloom it ran at 60.

I jumped off the screen . you may want to wall off the sides.

do you hope to make a game along with this?

[CommanderKeith]

Worked very well, constant 60 fps.

The lights are impressive, as is the movement and character animation.

How did you do the lights? Are they just translucent images painted on top of everything?

[mh114]

h3ckboy & CommanderKeith: Can I have your log files and/or system specs please? Anybody have a Mac to test this on?

How did you do the lights? Are they just translucent images painted on top of everything?

I wrote an entry of the lighting system in my blog, here's it summed up:

• I have a 256x256 light map RTT (render-to-texture), which may be FBO, PBuffer or plain frame buffer copy
• I render the visible lights additively to that RTT
• While rendering the level, I use stencil buffer to mark the areas that should be lit (i.e. everything except the background)
• I render the light map over the scene using multiplicative blending.

It's quite simple, and allows for lights of any shape (they're just textured quads).

do you hope to make a game along with this?

Yes, although I'm still unsure what kind of game. Damn LittleBigPlanet for using every idea I had..! 

[EgonOlsen]

Runs very bad on my trusty EEEPC with Linux and Intel Onboard graphics (GMA900) even when overclocking it to 900Mhz. When using bloom, it runs at 0.2fps and looks totally awful..it's all a dark mess with colored spots. Without bloom, it looks ok and performance is five times as high, i.e. around 1fps...

[h3ckboy]

I cannot find an APPDATA directory.

I dont have admin, would that make a dif?

[mh114]

I cannot find an APPDATA directory.

I dont have admin, would that make a dif?

AFAIK, on Windows XP APPDATA points to C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data. On Vista, it's C:\Users\USERNAME\Roaming\Application Data.

Runs very bad on my trusty EEEPC with Linux and Intel Onboard graphics (GMA900) even when overclocking it to 900Mhz. When using bloom, it runs at 0.2fps and looks totally awful..it's all a dark mess with colored spots. Without bloom, it looks ok and performance is five times as high, i.e. around 1fps...

Ouch, that's pretty bad..  I wish I had EEEPc, it would be nice to have the thing run on those.

[Orangy Tang]

Pretty sweet, works nice and smoothly here (winXP).

What are you using to make the levels btw?

Games published by our own members! Go get 'em!

[mh114]

What are you using to make the levels btw?

Currently the levels are made 100% in Inkscape (yes, even the scripting -- although I mainly just launch an external script file), but this is getting more and more restricting. I probably have to write a separate editor at some point, but at least setting up the level geometry and triggers etc. can be nicely done in Inkscape.

[Orangy Tang]

Currently the levels are made 100% in Inkscape (yes, even the scripting -- although I mainly just launch an external script file), but this is getting more and more restricting. I probably have to write a separate editor at some point, but at least setting up the level geometry and triggers etc. can be nicely done in Inkscape.

In that case I'm going to shamelessly plug Analog should you decide you don't want to write an entire level editor yourself.

[princec]

Very nice, smooth as a baby's bum, which it should be given the awesomeness of the beast I ran it on.

Cas

[kevglass]

Crashes on startup here with:

1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68

Engine: Running on Java 1.6.0_12 (Sun Microsystems Inc.) in Windows XP (5.1, x86). Engine: Available processors/cores: 2 Settings: Unable to load the settings from "settings.cfg", reverting to defaults. Settings: Successfully saved the settings to "settings.cfg". Engine: Using the following settings: useControllers = false resolution = 800x600 useAudio = true vsync = true antiAlias = 0 fxLighting = true disablePBuffer = false disableFBO = false colorDepth = 32 fullscreen = false fxBloom = true lineSmooth = false Renderer: Initializing LWJGL 2.1.0.. Renderer: Requesting display mode 800x600, 32 bpp.. ok! Renderer:  * Card: GeForce Go 7600/PCI/SSE2(NVIDIA Corporation).  * OpenGL version: 2.0.1.  * Driver: nv4_disp (6.14.10.8400). Renderer: Available OpenGL extensions: GL_ARB_color_buffer_float, GL_ARB_depth_texture, GL_ARB_draw_buffers, GL_ARB_fragment_program, GL_ARB_fragment_program_shadow, GL_ARB_fragment_shader, GL_ARB_half_float_pixel, GL_ARB_imaging, GL_ARB_multisample, GL_ARB_multitexture, GL_ARB_occlusion_query, GL_ARB_pixel_buffer_object, GL_ARB_point_parameters, GL_ARB_point_sprite, GL_ARB_shadow, GL_ARB_shader_objects, GL_ARB_shading_language_100, GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp, GL_ARB_texture_compression, GL_ARB_texture_cube_map, GL_ARB_texture_env_add, GL_ARB_texture_env_combine, GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3, GL_ARB_texture_float, GL_ARB_texture_mirrored_repeat, GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two, GL_ARB_texture_rectangle, GL_ARB_transpose_matrix, GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object, GL_ARB_vertex_program, GL_ARB_vertex_shader, GL_ARB_window_pos, GL_ATI_draw_buffers, GL_ATI_texture_float, GL_ATI_texture_mirror_once, GL_S3_s3tc, GL_EXT_texture_env_add, GL_EXT_abgr, GL_EXT_bgra, GL_EXT_blend_color, GL_EXT_blend_equation_separate, GL_EXT_blend_func_separate, GL_EXT_blend_minmax, GL_EXT_blend_subtract, GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array, GL_EXT_Cg_shader, GL_EXT_depth_bounds_test, GL_EXT_draw_range_elements, GL_EXT_fog_coord, GL_EXT_framebuffer_object, GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays, GL_EXT_packed_depth_stencil, GL_EXT_packed_pixels, GL_EXT_pixel_buffer_object, GL_EXT_point_parameters, GL_EXT_rescale_normal, GL_EXT_secondary_color, GL_EXT_separate_specular_color, GL_EXT_shadow_funcs, GL_EXT_stencil_two_side, GL_EXT_stencil_wrap, GL_EXT_texture3D, GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc, GL_EXT_texture_cube_map, GL_EXT_texture_edge_clamp, GL_EXT_texture_env_combine, GL_EXT_texture_env_dot3, GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic, GL_EXT_texture_lod, GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias, GL_EXT_texture_mirror_clamp, GL_EXT_texture_object, GL_EXT_texture_sRGB, GL_EXT_timer_query, GL_EXT_vertex_array, GL_HP_occlusion_test, GL_IBM_rasterpos_clip, GL_IBM_texture_mirrored_repeat, GL_KTX_buffer_region, GL_NV_blend_square, GL_NV_copy_depth_to_color, GL_NV_depth_clamp, GL_NV_fence, GL_NV_float_buffer, GL_NV_fog_distance, GL_NV_fragment_program, GL_NV_fragment_program_option, GL_NV_fragment_program2, GL_NV_half_float, GL_NV_light_max_exponent, GL_NV_multisample_filter_hint, GL_NV_occlusion_query, GL_NV_packed_depth_stencil, GL_NV_pixel_data_range, GL_NV_point_sprite, GL_NV_primitive_restart, GL_NV_register_combiners, GL_NV_register_combiners2, GL_NV_texgen_reflection, GL_NV_texture_compression_vtc, GL_NV_texture_env_combine4, GL_NV_texture_expand_normal, GL_NV_texture_rectangle, GL_NV_texture_shader, GL_NV_texture_shader2, GL_NV_texture_shader3, GL_NV_vertex_array_range, GL_NV_vertex_array_range2, GL_NV_vertex_program, GL_NV_vertex_program1_1, GL_NV_vertex_program2, GL_NV_vertex_program2_option, GL_NV_vertex_program3, GL_NVX_conditional_render, GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap, GL_SGIS_texture_lod, GL_SGIX_depth_texture, GL_SGIX_shadow, GL_SUN_slice_accum, GL_WIN_swap_hint, WGL_EXT_swap_control TextureManager: Non-power-of-two textures are supported. TextureManager: Available RTT support:  * FBOs supported (great!).    -- Packed depth-stencil FBO extension supported.  * PBuffers supported. TextureManager: Maximum texture size is 4096 x 4096. TextRenderer: Loaded a font from "media/fonts/bluehigh.ttf" [size: 32.0]. TextureManager: Loaded a texture from "media/mhgames.png". ModuleManager: Added module 'InitialLoadingModule'. TextureManager: Created a new render texture (FBO) "lightmap" (256 x 256). LightManager: Initialized the light map. GlyphCache: Created a new page, number 0.

No exception?

Looks cool from the screenshots though, especially that main character

Kev

[userek]

Very nice and athmospheric! I would love to play the acutal game . You can check out the log here

[mh114]

Crashes on startup here with:

1   2

... GlyphCache: Created a new page, number 0.

No exception?

Now that is peculiar, to say the least.. Judging from the log, it has crashed just before the ScriptManager is initialised, which in turn just creates the Pnuts context.. Strange that the Pnuts version line is not outputted, it's the first call in the method -- how can it crash there? 

EDIT: Wait a minute... The LightManager is initiated successfully, which happens after the ScriptManager init! The mystery is: what happened to the ScriptManager?

Looks cool from the screenshots though, especially that main character

Hehe, yes that character is still the sole animated character I've done with PolyAnim, so I keep using him until I make something original..

[EgonOlsen]

Tested it two other machines:

• runs fine on a Radeon HD 4870 under Vista
• runs fine on an Intel onboard crapset (945 something) under XP, except that it couldn't reach 60fps (stuck at 55) and that bloom didn't work at all (no visual difference)

About the EEEPC-issue: It's not the bloom that causes the problems (as i thought earlier), it's the lighting. It only looks fine with lighting disabled. But it still runs at 1fps then...

[gouessej]

I'm under Mandriva Linux 2007, Sempron 2600+, ATI Radeon 9250 Pro and I get this:

An error occured and the game will exit:
null
java.lang.NullPointerException
   at nr.co.mhgames.platformer.engine.sound.SoundSystem.isMusicPlaying(SoundSystem.java:126)
   at nr.co.mhgames.platformer.PlatformerMain.run(PlatformerMain.java:136)
   at nr.co.mhgames.platformer.PlatformerMain.main(PlatformerMain.java:26)
   at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
   at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
   at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
   at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
   at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.executeApplication(Launcher.java:1188)
   at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.executeMainClass(Launcher.java:1134)
   at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.doLaunchApp(Launcher.java:983)
   at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.run(Launcher.java:121)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619)

[mh114]

I'm under Mandriva Linux 2007, Sempron 2600+, ATI Radeon 9250 Pro and I get this:
...

Thanks, that should be fixed now. Could you try agagin, gouessej? Also, can you provide the log file, seems to be a sound related problem..

[Bonbon-Chan]

Windows XP, Celeron 2.4Ghz,  512mo RAM, Java 1.6, Intel 82865G :
- run at around 30 fps
- almost 96% CPU
- run pretty well 
- really nice, not glitch, no problem !!!

Wow nice done 

[mh114]

I've added a pause, press P or PAUSE to pause the game. I had some problems with PAUSE-key in Windows, thus P also works. The player light toggle is now behind O-key. Oh, no need to worry about the FPS dropping down when paused, as the game starts sleeping so the FPS drop is normal.

This time I compiled the sources using javac instead of Eclipse compiler.

Kevin: Could you try again? It's highly unlikely it works any better, though..

[CommanderKeith]

Sorry but I can't find the log file, where did you save it?

[mh114]

Sorry but I can't find the log file, where did you save it?

APPDATA\platformer\engine.log on Windows, HOME\.platformer\engine.log on Linux and others (HOME is your home directory, like /home/username/ in Linux).

[h3ckboy]

I did a search for .platformer

and I got nothing

it runs slower now though.

[mh114]

I did a search for .platformer

Note that on Windows the dir doesn't have a dot in its name..

[abirmingham]

Windows 7 Beta
Intel Pentium Dual CPU T2370 @ 1.73 / 1.73 Ghz
2 GB RAM
GeForce 8600M GT

- ~55-60 constant fps. I tried all sorts of key-spamming to get this to go down. Never did.
- ~35-40% processor usage
- Log attached
- It's got some style

[DzzD]

ouch cant start

....
...extureManager: Loaded a texture from "media/mat/texture.png".
TextureManager: Loaded a texture from "media/light2.png".
TextureManager: Loaded a texture from "media/light3.png".
ScriptManager: Cached script 'media/scripts/lightswitch.pnuts'.
Generating outlines for 36 polygons..
Outline generation took 147.711231 ms.
LevelLoader: Level loaded from media/house.svg.
TextureManager: Loaded a texture from "media/bg.png".
ModuleManager: Added module 'GameModule'.
TextRenderer: Loaded a font from "media/fonts/vera.ttf" [size: 11.0].
An error occured and the game will exit:
Exception: org.lwjgl.opengl.OpenGLException: Invalid value (1281)
org.lwjgl.opengl.OpenGLException: Invalid value (1281)
   at org.lwjgl.opengl.Util.checkGLError(Util.java:54)
   at org.lwjgl.opengl.Display.swapBuffers(Display.java:640)
   at org.lwjgl.opengl.Display.update(Display.java:660)
   at nr.co.mhgames.platformer.PlatformerMain.run(PlatformerMain.java:83)
   at nr.co.mhgames.platformer.PlatformerMain.main(PlatformerMain.java:26)
   at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
   at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
   at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source)
   at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.executeApplication(Unknown Source)
   at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.executeMainClass(Unknown Source)
   at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.doLaunchApp(Unknown Source)
   at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

[mh114]

abirmingham: Thanks.

ouch cant start

You didn't post the whole log, so I have to guess, but do you happen to have Ati GPU? A friend of mine tested a much older version of this engine, and got that same OpenGL error on Radeon 9600 Pro. He had pretty old drivers, updating did wonders in that case: the crash didn't happen anymore and driver support provided FBOs and PBuffers, both of which were not supported in the old drivers. Perhaps you could update yours, if it isn't too much trouble.

[gouessej]

Thanks, that should be fixed now. Could you try agagin, gouessej? Also, can you provide the log file, seems to be a sound related problem..

[20:32:49] SoundSystem: Initializing OpenAL..
Mon Mar 30 20:32:49 CEST 2009 INFO:Initialising sounds..
Mon Mar 30 20:32:49 CEST 2009 INFO:- Sound works
Mon Mar 30 20:32:49 CEST 2009 INFO:- 32 OpenAL source available
Mon Mar 30 20:32:49 CEST 2009 INFO:- Sounds source generated

It works but I have no sound

[DzzD]

abirmingham: Thanks.
You didn't post the whole log, so I have to guess, but do you happen to have Ati GPU? A friend of mine tested a much older version of this engine, and got that same OpenGL error on Radeon 9600 Pro. He had pretty old drivers, updating did wonders in that case: the crash didn't happen anymore and driver support provided FBOs and PBuffers, both of which were not supported in the old drivers. Perhaps you could update yours, if it isn't too much trouble.

sorry logs was quite huge I should have post both start & end ...

I got an ATI X800, I ll try to update drivers but I did it recently.