https://github.com/HaydenD100/3dEngine2.0
A Lot has happened since the last update, firstly I implemented Skinned animation and a few more optimizations to shadows. I also started writing the netcode using Microsoft's winsock2 api, most of the netcode has been written and now I have to polish the netcode as well as add proper running jumping and shoot animations as right now the players are beans with arms as when I added animated all the weapons I only animated the gun with arms not thinking I was going to make the game multiplayer. Here's a link to my youtube for a full play test with me and my friend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNkH7IxkP3c
Finally got around to adding shadows, every point light creates a 3D depth map, which then the lighting shader uses to generate the shadows. Each light can have both dynamic and static shadow maps as well as only updating if the player is within a certain range. This should be enough to add shadow optimizations when designing maps.
A couple additions and optimizations were added to the rendering pipeline including, Screen Space Decals as well as dynamic decals seen on the physic object (wooden box). Transparency is also added which was removed originally when I migrated from a forward renderer to a deferred renderer. Lots of optimizations were also added including Frustum culling which only sends objects that are visible to the camera to the GPU as well as instacing decals which limits the draw calls.
The Rendering pipeline is now using Physically Based Rendering (PBR), PBR is a rendering method that is based off the The microfacet model, this model explains that all surfaces are made out of bumps and are never completely flat, the Normal of a surface is just the average between those bumps, The roughness value allows you to tell the renderer how bumpy this surface is, PBR also allows metallic materials that reflect more light. This allows materials to have Metallic and Roughness values instead of just the specular map I was using before, This makes the lighting feel realistic as the roughness and metallic values are based on real values. Other changes have been switching to HDR color values; this makes brighter areas brighter because we don't have to clamp the colors to LDR (0-1). Gamma correction was also added to make color consistent over all screens.
The Engine is now a deferred renderer instead of a forward renderer. Deferred rendering allows 100s of lights without a massive performance impact. Post processing can also be added with ease. Screen Space Ambient Occlusion has also been implemented; this adds a nice depth and makes the scene feel more realistic. An Animation system has been added FBX animation files can now be imported and played. The animation system uses linear interpolation to interpolate between keyframes. There's also been a few changes in the physics system to allow a mesh to have simple convex meshes making loading times much faster for complex shapes, as well as allowing the mesh perfect collision objects.
My main focus for the next couple weeks is going to be overhauling the lighting and rendering systems. The Engine now supports multiple lights that can be dynamically changed in the scene. I'm looking at other graphical improvements like SSAO or Rendering to a texture allowing post processing as well as working on a material system to make the textures feel more unique.
There is a new branch called bullet physics, this is the new current branch that use the Bullet Physics library. Over the last week I have ported my engine to use this physics library. This allowed me to add better rigidbodies as well as dynamic objects, shown in the screenshot below. There are now multiple Collider shapes including spheres/boxes/capsules and convex mesh's base on the model.
Lots of changes this week, Rendering pipeline had an upgrade with allowing textures to now having a normal map for increased graphics. An Audio system has also been added using FMOD allowing .wav files to be loaded and played with full 3D sound. Guns have been implemented with an ak47 and a pistol, pickup able weapons have also been added. Doors were also added and a system for scripts to be able to see what the player is interacting with was also added. A very basic animation system has also been added using keyframes that record transformations of an object.
Rendering pipeline had a few changes most notably transparent textures and decals were added. Raycasting was also added, the camera casts a ray giving you the intersection point at any AABB in the screenshot below I use this for bullet holes. GameObjects also now have a parent-child hierarchy and there model matrix gets updated correctly. Soon I will have to redo the model system to incorporate Assimp for animations.
This week I have implemented physics, my implementation includes rigidbodies and axis aligned boxes for collision, GameObjects can be used to produce a collider with the same dimensions as the model. A Map editor is also in the works making it easier for me to edit the scenes, you can also save gameobjects in the scene to json files and load them through the Asset Manager. The Player was changed to work with the new physics system and the movement has been changed to add inertia making the movement more "realistic".
This is a full rewrite of my first 3D OpenGL engine, the first engine succumbed to poorly written spaghetti code from when I was first learning OpenGl. This Engine has been more thoroughly thought out and will hopefully allow me to make a simple FPS shooter game. So far the Engine has basic Rendering and Text Rendering, Basic Lighting, Scene Management, Input Management, Asset Management. The next step for the engine is basic Physics and Audio.
