CS GSoC 2012

Suggestions for CS GSoC

Properties Editor

Everytime we want to change a property of an object in CS to make a test we have to execute a number of operations like: edit the level in the 3d app, export the level to xml world file, zip the world file and package the textures, ...

This becomes very time consuming if the change to be made is small , like for example changing the rendering properties of an object or a shader. Will be great to have a way to select an object, pop up a window with his properties and allow to change the properties values at runtime directly. This will greatly improve our ability to tweak/improve levels. (see also Particle editor below).

Particle Editor

It's years we do not have a decent way of editing particles at runtime, there have been multiple tests in the past, but all failed, and left us with half made applications. Editing particles in XML is extremely time consuming and surely not the way to go. We have created an app called eedit, which sits into the PlaneShift repository and it already does a lot, it just needs to be better supported and expanded.

Artist's Tool Chain

The tool chain for artists in CS has always been a pain, with plenty of non supported path, and no prebuilt packages. What is needed are pre-build packages for viewmesh, walktest, lighter2, docconv for all platforms and exporters for all major 3D tools. This page shows what's needed: Tools_pipeline

Level loading times

Loading a world can be very slow (see hydlaa plaza which takes minutes), and I'm pretty sure there are some improvements possible. Reducing world loading will definitely help every project out there.

Lighter2

We still have issues with lights not being properly handled between the different objects in the game, namely static map objects, dynamic objects (like a sword dropped) and characters (in our case cal3d). In some cases you may see a dark character on a lit ground. This problem is standing since many years.

Shadows

The only usable implementation of shadows is the one we have in PS, but it's very minimal. It's basically a round decal on the ground. Every modern game has very realistic stencil shadows and they seems not to have performance problems. The advanced shadows techniques present in CS are either too slow or not really usable in production.

Runtime light simulator

In majority of the cases, the way CS render lights is not the same as the one of major 3D tools, so our artists find themselves all the time with the problem of a level which is properly lit in blender or 3dsmax and then it's different in CS. There must be a way to fix this problem, by either making the lighting more similar to the rendering of major 3d tools, or by giving a way to artists to simulate their lights in walktest and then save those in the level. The lights should be able to simulate static and dynamic with "reasonable" quality at runtime, so the artist can see the final result, then apply the changes to the level in the native app.