starfox-like engine [speed test]

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10-27-2003, 04:30 PM
marmotte

starfox-like engine [speed test]

i just worked a little bit with a starfox-like engine today, and i was wondering if it's fast enough at the moment?
i cannot say it'll be released as a game soon, but why not? i think that kind of game is rare enough with flash to deserve a future playable title... :)

http://marmotte-showcase.50free.net/...ge/starfox.jpg

anyway, here's the prototype, and please post your fps score and comp specifications...

you can press the arrows keys to move the red square (it will change a little bit the road configuration also, making little hills or carvatures, etc... but it's subtle...)

thanks!

PS: of course the gfx are very poor at the moment...
10-27-2003, 04:44 PM
jide

marmotte my french brother, I'm getting from 9 fps to 16 fps, but I have a really slow computer.

Here's what I did for a similar engine to get it to run fast on pretty much any machine. I'm guessing you have individual MC's and you move thos to produce the motion effect. Rather than that, create a set of MC's that would fit for one instance, but only do this at the begining. That way you have all the _xscale and _yscale properties right, at the same time you could also set the brightness values. Then, at every frame (or every other frame or whatever depending on how fast the ship is moving, bump all the images. So assuming the hill thing is in frame 1 of the mc's (since they're all the same MC, jus duplicated wit diff scaling) and a blank plain is frame 2 of the mc, and the gate thing is on frame 3, then if there was a hioll in MC 1, make there be a hill in MC 2. If there was a gate in MC 24, then make there be one in MC 25. Just use this bump method using the gotoAndStop method. I think it might work faster. The only problem is that it might not be as smooth as you may like, but that's how I'd do it :D
10-27-2003, 04:48 PM
mouse111

P4 2.4 ghz - 512 mb ram

40 - 50 fps

nice engine so far...would love to see that turn into a game
10-27-2003, 04:50 PM
jAmisMad

I got 40 - 44 fps and I have a 1.4 ghz amd athlon.
10-27-2003, 04:54 PM
marmotte

thanks for the comments dear french brother :D

i think i see what you mean...? something like a generic floor repeating, and elements that are 3D attached/duplicated? well if it's so, i was thinking about something like that... but it will be harder to change the ground gfx easily that way, i think... but well, it will be faster since the floor will be adaptive in width and height (here, the floors are REALLY big since they have to fit the entire screen already when they appear at the horizon... this one i can surely be upgraded to faster)

thanks for the reviews... it sounds that it's not too fast but not too slow too... if i delete the gradients, the game will be very flat and the speed increased... i'll try with bitmaps (since i was thinking about doing the proto with bitmaps) to see the speed effect...

note, the stage is random here, of course i can set up an array to create an environment with more realistic 3D visuals (of course these are tricks, it's not 3D at all)... and also put obstacles (collision detection using arrays too) that may crash you...
10-27-2003, 05:09 PM
strille

Very nice marmotte!

Got ~26 fps... I like the vector look, but the background bitmap stuck out a bit, but I assume it's just temporary :)

If you increase the movement speed it could turn into a great game I'm sure (I've never played star-fox).
10-27-2003, 05:17 PM
BlinkOk

hey marmotte,
20fps on my crapolla 440Mhz/512Mb/8Mb graphics box.
tomsamson and i spent some time on a starfox thingy quite a while ago.
here's an example (mouse movement only);
http://www.nlc.net.au/~oceana/games/t5.html
this woz kinna a little gamey thing;
http://www.nlc.net.au/~oceana/games/t4.html
you might wanna have a look at this macromedia flash samurai article for positioning the objects in 3D space.
http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/...murai_ch2.html
i know tomsamson has got a ton of starfox graphics that he did as well.
blink
10-27-2003, 05:18 PM
St. Nick

Starfox was a great game, I want to see this when it is done!
Im on a P3 1Ghz pc with 512 Ram, and I got an average of 30 fps while I was pretending to dodge bullets and pull of cool stunts (moving around like a maniac) and about 35 fps when I decided that they were all dead and I went for a "victory cruise" :D This looks like it will be fun.
10-27-2003, 05:24 PM
sspskater

Neat-o Marmotte. I have 256 ram, 850MHz amd athlon, i was running a straight 60 fps without moving, when moving i got 40-30 fps. Not bad. Peace.
10-27-2003, 05:28 PM
lukesquall

Wow, very impressivle engine Marmotte ;)

23 - 27 fps on Celeron .... ummm I gotta check what my hz is, I keep forgetting ...
10-27-2003, 05:36 PM
marmotte

thanks for all these tests. i'm assuming the majority of you use player 7...
and don't forget to put the quality to low manually if it's too slow :D

thanks blink, i'll take a look.
10-27-2003, 05:57 PM
BlinkOk

one other thing. i think as long as you get a frame rate above 16 it will be ok. with this stuff speed is perception and you can just increase/decrease the step to make it look like you're going faster or slower.
10-27-2003, 06:21 PM
enceenoman

44-50 fps, 1.7gb processor.

just wondering was that idea partially inspired by www.kirupa.com s' perspective tuts?
10-27-2003, 06:47 PM
The_Xell

48 min, 58 max

P4 - 2 ghz, 512 DDRAM

Very nice engine......

arf....
10-27-2003, 06:59 PM
r0bbb

21 1ghz athlon

nice!
10-27-2003, 07:05 PM
r0bbb

Quote:

one other thing. i think as long as you get a frame rate above 16 it will be ok. with this stuff speed is perception and you can just increase/decrease the step to make it look like you're going faster or slower.

I just tryed it on another pc, ran at 17 fps, and it wasnt very nice.

i think it would run better if u used transparent gifs as opposed to flash vector images.
10-27-2003, 07:06 PM
marmotte

Quote:

just wondering was that idea partially inspired by www.kirupa.com s' perspective tuts?

i don't know :) i never read any tuts about perspective, and i'm sure if i do it i'll not understand it easily... for that proto i got inspired by... anime scrolling! you know, when you watch non-3D anime scrolling sequences (for example scrolling mountains), that technique is always used. (i mean, there's no 3D with my engine, just flat images that are zooming faster and faster)
each 10 frames (i can low it down to increase speed) a new gfx is attached (it's _x/_y/_rotation properties are configurable, so i can implement 3D-ish relief and ground rotating (not like the one in the proto, more like wipe out/f-zero)
10-27-2003, 07:11 PM
marmotte

r0bbb
yes, my first intention was to use bitmaps. the file size will be bigger, but the game surely faster. also i'm playing with the brightness of each depth in the current proto. it should be faster to have some kind of mask instead (a png for example). i'll do some tests...

thanks for your words, all :)
10-27-2003, 10:51 PM
marmotte

phew, i added bitmap images for the floor (instead of the vector gradiant), but the game was a lot slower :(
too bad... but the good thing is: cell shaded vectors are beautiful :D seriously, i like the gfx like they are now... (and can still be so ehanced)

i still haven't optimised the engine (so it will not be smoother), but i added some interesting things:
-new gfx style, fits well IMO
-launch missiles with SPACE
-type a value in the text field at the bottom (the default value is 12)...
if you type "1" the floor/gradiant is beautiful (but the game is very slow, and the gfx are too numerous > easy to fix), but if you try "20" the game will be smoother, but the gfx so squared/not well associated. anyway, try it out yourself :)

new link here

http://marmotte-showcase.50free.net/...e/starfox2.jpg
10-27-2003, 11:54 PM
BlinkOk

marmotte,
i think if you did a bit of experimentation with the gradient fill line drawing stuff you could go pretty close to what you have there only it would go a lot faster.
lookin better every time.:)
10-28-2003, 02:22 AM
Son of Bryce

This is lookin cool marmotte.

I'm getting 45 fps on the v0.3 on my P3 1gHz.
10-28-2003, 03:30 AM
luxregina

Hey !

I get 41-42 fps, using flash Player 6 - Athlon 2600 + 256mb

Why not use some modification of the mariokart engine for the scrolling ? i think it could be adapted a la 'space harrier' !?!?
10-28-2003, 06:02 AM
tonypa

Quote:

Originally posted by marmotte
if you type "1" the floor/gradiant is beautiful (but the game is very slow, and the gfx are too numerous > easy to fix

uhuh, 1 fps with floor set to 1 :eek:
10-28-2003, 06:29 AM
znoskieman

I get 40-50 fps
10-28-2003, 10:33 AM
WilloughbyJackson

Flash Player 7

Intel Pentium III 600 - MHz

First one: 21 - 16 frames but felt slow. (Even on lower quality.. >_<)

Second one: 30 - 22 good speed.

-pXw
10-28-2003, 12:27 PM
SaphuA

:)

Hey,

Like the engine :D It's realy smooth

I got an FPS of 48-55

1.3gHz
512MB RAM
10-28-2003, 03:18 PM
marmotte

thanks for the replies so far... the results are mixed, and still if the proto becomes a game, it will be even slower (enemies, collision detection with gfx/enemies/missiles etc)... i don't know if it's really worth it. games have to remain smooth to be enjoyed.

of course i can dig deeper with AS (like blinkOk suggested), but i'm not sure that the game may be a lot faster? i already experienced AS lines and such in the past (not for a game though), but it wasn't that fast at this time... or maybe i'm wrong.

i'll try to work a little bit more with it though, just for the pleasure (don't expect a game, i mean :-)