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Inverity

Video devlog playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqyxo0Ov3tVHxKuy8-ZLtUUCsZ6icwi14

Inverity is a first-person survival FPS game set in a world that is constantly changing when the player isn't looking. Currently there isn't a ton of information I can offer on it, as development is incredibly early, but I'll be sure to update this introduction as more of the game comes into fruition.

Contemporary screenshots:







Video Devlogs:





Text Updates:

1 - Video devlog #1 announcement.
2 - The Frustum's Iterator
3 - December 2020 recap.
4 - Video devlog #2 announcement.

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Devlog #1 is out now!





Inverity's introductory video devlog is finished . The purpose of these devlogs is to recap a major step forward in this game's development, and I expect there'll be around one or two of them every month. Don't worry, this won't turn into a topic that only posts video links and nothing else, the first real text post in this topic will be going more in depth as to how the sector iterator works, expect that in the coming days. As for when the next devlog will be, I guess we'll just have to see... 

This devlog recaps the first month of development, the engine setup, as well as sectors and the frustum mechanic.

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The Frustum's Iterator

When I published the first video devlog, one of the many little details that I left out for brevity's sake was how exactly the Frustum Iterator worked. If you recall, the iterator is used to check the area within a given radius around the player, and see if said area is within the player's frustum. If it is within the player's frustum, a sector is created at that location if none exist there already.



Originally, each area was only checked one at a time per frame. Since the framerate is locked at 60, this means that only 60 out of the 8,000 areas that it needed to check (square shape, s=20) where being iterated upon every second. This obviously needed to change, and I upgraded it so that every frame it could check multiple sectors. The exact amount will likely be modifiable within the game's settings further down the road of development, but for now I have it at 30. The other major improvement I added is, since checking for whether a sector is within the frustum is pretty much an instantaneous process, I allowed the iterator to graze each sector outside of the frustum within a single frame.

This still brought forward another issue, and that was the fact that the iterator's shape of motion was fixed on a certain corner of the square surrounding the player. This made sector generation kind of awkward as it felt unfocused and strange. Sure, the end result would be the same, but the fact that there's a possibility that sectors could generate away from the player first would be disorienting, and would also present problems for the game's physics engine which I'm currently working on. So, after some complicated and seemingly convoluted problem-solving, I eventually managed to get the iterator to iterate around the player's position. I also made sure it reset itself if the player turns or moves beyond their original position, to ensure that sectors will always generate outward the player's perspective rather than inward.

There's still some improvements that can be made, such as with the frustum itself, but for now I'm pretty happy with it.

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December 2020 Recap

As December 2020 was the first full month of Inverity development, I'm going to briefly recap what was done on the game over that month, as well as where's it's headed. Since we're already nearly halfway into January, this means that you'll be privy to some extra details of stuff I've been adding since, which will be fully disclosed in the next devlog, which will be releasing sometime in the next 24 hours.

So, let's recap.

• Development started on November 30, 2020, and I began creating the OpenGL context necessary to start engine development.
• Drawable objects, known as meshes, and programs to tell the game how to draw them, known as shaders, were added and completed on December 2^nd.
• Full 3D Projection and a first person camera were finalized on December 9^th.
• Sectors, which contained just raw meshes at the time, were introduced on December 20^th.
• The frustum mechanic, a.k.a. the main selling point of this project, was completed on December 22^nd.
• Volumes are introduced, though not fully implemented until January, replacing the raw meshes of a sector on December 27^th. I'll have a new text post on these shortly.
• Font and texture loading are introduced on December 28^th.
• An engine terminal and debug screen were finalized on December 30^th.

The first officially marked build of the game was on December 30, 2020, known as version 0A.01.

Code:

v0A.01 - December 30, 2020
-----------------------------------
- Initial named version.

+ Engine startup.
+ Sectors.
+ The frustum: Sectors are loaded/unloaded when the player sees or unsees them respectively.
+ Basic font and texture loading.
+ Engine terminal and debug screen command.

* The world currently has a basic maze generator.

My plans at this point were to create more debugging tools such as being able to pick and move volumes as well as try and work out how exactly the materials and physics of these volumes should work, but that brought with it some of it's own hurdles, which you'll see in my next video devlog, which will be releasing sometime within the next 24 hours, so stay tuned.

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Devlog #2 is out now!





This devlog focuses on volumes, which are drawable objects that will eventually be affected by the physics engine, as well as a new materialistic rendering pipeline to draw them in. Up next is getting started on the physics engine itself.

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