Quick report from the field: ParallelSplit shadowmap pass of Ardor3d is unleashed along with the bloom. Most of the static content loading is working plus now a basic walk input handler with keyboard and mouse is functional. That way I could test dynamic loading/unloading of the world. Fixing some issues now it's working just like it was with the jme2 engine. A lot of things to do yet before the migration is considered complete... Great thing is, still no native part crash! :)

I'm still messing with the new possibilities Ardor3D terrain system adds to the pool, meanwhile I've finally ported my special micro heightmap based tile to terrain batching system to Ardor3D. It was a bit of a work, but now that I've taken care of a heap of other smaller things in the code, static parts are starting to look like they should. :) With further help from Josh and Rikard @ ardor3d I could integrate new things and resolve bounding volume issues. Now culling is working perfectly, and thus FPS rocketed to around those values I was used to under jME2, or even higher. Also I'm experiencing very good stability, so far no native part crashes neither on my Intel GPU nor the ATi GPU notebook. The memory it needs to load the initial state isn't bigger than it was with jme2, maybe even less.

After porting the old tile to terrain system I had for jme2, i'm starting to think about combining the GeometryClipmapTerrain of ardor3d with my terrain system, that way I can prevent my head from a series of aches related to object placament and such... Well, you can check the screenshot of the current state of the art - in the background you can spot how the new clipmap terrain fits (not too nicely yet) with the old detailed terrain in the foreground.


If I can manage to combine these too, we'll have the best of both worlds, new and old: almost infinite view distance for the terrain (at least the mountains and plains even if not the trees and buildings) plus the detailed view of the surroundings. The FPS / memory hit is not high/minimal with the ClipmapTerrain so far, so it's worthy to try.

Nice progress is going on here with converting the project to Ardor3D engine. I've ported Obj loader of JME2 to Ardor3D. With a lot of help from Joshua (lead dev of Ardor3D) finally I could repair the remaining problems with the migrated Geometry batching too. That two made the static object rendering mostly complete. Also the partially billboarded trees are working now. After that I managed to integrate the GeometryClipmapTerrain of Ardor3D to replace the current awkwardish method how terrain was created in jcrpg's jme2 version. Still it's very basic integration: needs a lot of tweak like texture generation, dynamic loading and even alpha holes. I've created an extreme view distance screenshot for you, but it's really not for normal use, ate a lot of memory and gave low FPS - there's need for Level Of Detail based on distance for the trees and such to make it usable later. Anyway, check the screenshots (one with very high distance, one with normal. :)

I'm in heavy evaluation process, taking closer look at the two alternative 3D engines for migration. Currently in a long process to convert the existing sources to use Ardor3D, to let me test how the new engine performs. Stability is the most important factor. Most of the codes in my experimental workspace are converted to Ardor3D. I could take a screenshot of the main menu. I still need to find a way to refactor the Input, the Terrain and the Audio system of jcrpg to let it work with Ardor3D's architecture. Hopefully the most beneficial will be the Terrain part, as there's a nice shader based terrain that streams data, and can produce 'megatexture' to cover the terrain. This will take a lot of time, I can foresee. But hopefully will lead to a better 3D architecture, speed and look.

If things settle down I'm planning to move to a different SVN repo, possibly googlecode. I'm a bit frustrated with SF.net SVN speed at times. Now will be the time to do so, as I'm restructuring the project while doing the migration stuff, moving the media to an upper directory, to let developers checkout less data. Also jcrpg will now build with Maven.

Hello again! Things are slowly-slowly creeping to a spinning up here, hopefully now that I'm less inclined towards actual gaming - finishing Witcher I'll get back to business, developing the game. Right now I'm starting to consider migration from jme2 to 3d-engine jME version 3 created by lead dev MomokoFan @ jme forum. I'm looking at the project and how complete and stable it is right now before deciding to migrate or not.

But other kind folks too are relentlessly keeping things going on. For now latest great additions are two male voicepacks created by Rigardi from Austria and MaximB from Israel (author of Linux Gaming News). Both packs are of great quality, Rigardi's pack is one for a sane and fair person, while MaximB created a 'Drunken Dwarf' pack. Now we have 3 voicepacks with the previously announced female pack by Bunches that will be integrated to the game soon. Thanks, guys! :)

For your information I've opened a microblog at twitter that will be the quickest way to follow jcrpg dev progress on my side. Follow me here: http://twitter.com/illespal. It may also feature tweets about other linux related things too, so don't be surprised if you get something like: "hey, new catalyst out, more things broken" or "woohoo, new kernel is faster than anything". ;)

I'm moving my development to a notebook with ATi GPU. First it was a bit of a PITA, and I was really scared how things were starting to look (officially unsupported videocard (HD5650mobility)), but finally... Freshly installed Arch Linux 64-bit, a little bit of manual xorg.conf editing and slowly everything got into place. The game runs nicely with openjdk6 and latest Catalyst 10.1 (from the Arch AUR build repository).

I'll try to spot the bugs in the currently used shaders under ATi and start to hunt down some other problems if they appear. If things get okay I'll start to work on designing the story/dialog/trade thingy to come so we have some goals for our next milestone, the alpha stage jCRPG.

PS: For those curious, with this card the game (high settings, shaders, 1322x768) performs around 130-160 FPS under Linux/Catalyst. Not bad, eh, from Java? :)

Good news in the new 2010 year! Project got a few new members on the forum! Long time lurker and tester Bri (aka dragonbait) joined us there and right after Bunches came who I had known from bit'o'moander (unquie classic RPG related forum) and chimed in with a supercool new voicepack - our first fully-fledged female voicepack ever! Many thanks to Bunches! :-)

Right after these great events just today the project received a new donation that will help to cover more of the pending costs (related to music creation). Many thanks to Greg Wilcox from the USA!

Recently the water around jCRPG became a bit calmer than in the last few monthsit had been. For a while it's predictably staying so -- as in the month behind I was relaxing and for the next couple of months I'll be quite busy in my spare time.

Still there's some update realized by getter77 who took the precious time to fix some of the less well-done parts of the texts. Thanks Brian for helping out there too! :)

Meanwhile, if you happen to be able to help out with a female voicepack, don't hesitate, we still have very little to zero female voicepacks. :) Details here.

Feedback regarding the previous release is still much welcome, just as donations.

I've decided to check out the task/bug/project tracker utility used by many projects. I've looked at it many times, lately related to PARPG project. It's looking neat and useful with all the project management/svn/task tracking integration it has. Form now on jClassicRPG project will use this facility to manage such things.

URL: http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/javacrpg/roadmap.

Unfortunately it needs sf.net account to be editable (at least that filters spamming), so if you want to report a bug you'll need to register on the sourceforge.net site. (You can still browse it without an account though.) After registering that you'll receive email notifications about updates for your reported bug, so it might be worthy to register - as the jCRPG forum has no email facility. Those who prefer to use the forum - you can still use that as a less 'technical' form to report problems. (Old bug tracker is deactivated on sf.net project site.)

Head to the downloads at sourceforge.net. If you already downloaded 20091104, download the 20091104-fix zip only. If you didn't, you should download the full pack (20091122). Link.

Please give more feedback, bugreports, so that we can try to take care of the problems! :)

Hello, folks!

A problem experienced by some of the testers and also reported on happypenguin.org, is now hunted down and exterminated! It was related to the logging of X11 events and a badly created filter pattern in Jcrpg.java. Now it's rooted out and committed. You can find a zip with the fixed ./bin directory of the release here: link. I will provide a patch release on sf.net later (hopefully tomorrow).

Another problem experienced on some weaker video cards (like 9600 mobility or intel video chip) can be resolved by first running the game with the jcrpg-lowest-debug.sh. (Then go to option menu and probably switch off the Normal maps totally too, save it, and later you can use the jcrpg.sh to play the game as the low settings got saved that way.) So if it looks like you are having troubles with starting, try to fall back to that jcrpg-lowest-debug.sh/bat file.

Very good news is that the project got a new donator! We have received donation of $5. Big thanks go out! I'm contactacting the donator to get info if I can share the name or nickname (desired one) of the donator before I can post it here and add to the DONATORS file of the project.

EDIT: The new donator is Chris Noffsinger from the USA. Thanks Chris!!
Donator granted me permission to share his name.

The release rolled out more than a week ago, there's been over 300 downloads! I'm really happy about that. Team members and a few other piece of folks pumped back some useful notes and bits. Still it would be quite useful if more of those kind gamers who try it would give us a heads-up about how things worked out. So hereby I kindly call those of you interested in this piece of game to give us some more of feedback. Here at the blog (or blawg?) or the forums. It would certainly boost the enthusiasm to carry on! After all this game is not for its own sake only, but for the gamers too. Without players it all might seem worthless... So grab your keyboar(d)s please!

Here you can download the quick fix in case you have downloaded the game before this post (20091102 version) - those who have the new version (20091104) can skip this post.
The bug prevents you from loading the save games. Also the save game saved without this fix will not be working even with the fix. So it's recommended to update ASAP, before saving games! :) Soon I'll upload a full package too. Installation: unzip in the folder of the game, overwriting previous files.

EDIT: Full package uploaded now. Fresh downloaders use the new full package - you shouldnt do anything special, just go to download page and now everything should be okay. :)

Yes, we're ascending to the next level of our destiny through the obstacles of the great dev-eater beast of Tiredness and Desperation. We have entered the sanctuary of the miraculous Release again. Here we stand astounded and in silence, holding back breath. We are aware that something great surprising and of elemental effect may happen anytime. As we are there awaiting for some never-ending minutes, a booming sound starts to cite something strange, slowly - pressing each word. Listening carefully we try to memorize what's being told:

"
- New monsters/humanoids (by tidbit, TheAncientGoat)
- New animations for some beings (by tidbit)
- New town types (anatipion and yeti by tidbit)
- New buildings (by tidbit)
- New character voicepacks (by getter77 and qubodup)
- Generated Road System added
- Mouse support added (based on patches by mkienenb)
- Camera set to smooth turning in combat mode
- Options menu completed
- Very basic scenario support with seed choosing at New Game
- Intro text for scenario added
- Behavior skills are now used in perception
- Easier to use character creation
- World map window enhancements, graphics, town icons
- Enhanced shaders and more normal map textures
- Displaying percept beings in 3D in walk mode with fade shader
- Top button row for accessing windows
- Tooltip system added
- Optimized font rendering for UI elements
- Lamp light added (key L)
- Buffer pool debug OSD (key T)
- Many-many bugfixes, optimization, reference leak fixes
"

Right after finishing these words, a glowing globe elevates from out of the darkness of the Sanctuary. Yeah, now you know what awaits you, jcrpg's next sneak-peek enchantment is in your hands like a crystal ball. It may be that it helps you to look into a distant Future... so let the Trial begin!

Candidates for Testing - don't hesitate! And don't forget to report back at the forums or IRC chat channel.

If you wish to make the dev happy, don't forget to donate some bucks to the project through paypal (at the left side of the blog, the links positions your browser there). It will help to keep the enthusiasm high and also let the remaining audio tracks to become free (CC-BY-SA without the non-commercial attribute). It still needs ~340$ (see Project Budget on the left side of the blog).

Please note, that the project greatly lacks female voice packs, so if you happen to be a kind lady, please stop by and create a voice pack for the game. :)

Spread the good news. I have no time for a proper blogpost now, tomorrow I''ll do it. Anyway here is the link to the download zip: http://sourceforge.net/projects/javacrpg/files/jClassicRPG/svn_20091102/jcrpg-20091102.zip/download . Instructions still here: http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/javacrpg/index.php?title=Download . Use the jcrpg.bat under Windows. chmod +x jcrpg.sh under Linux. ;)

Good news feature- and contributionwise. A quick feature idea born out of 'nowhere', as with the further development of the Entity'O'Meter and skills the code is now able to be aware who you can really percept/recognize, that way it's really straightforward to display those in the 3D world too! And that's already working well and committed to SVN. A little bit more care for the unit placement code and it's ready. I even wrote a little shader that modifies alpha channel of the fragment color to let the appearing units fade in and out instead of instantly popping up. Shaping it nicely. :) Check the owner of the house (the test NPC gorilla for all the humanoid towns :D) on the screenie.

Meanwhile our fearless 3D staff (embodied by tidbit) is ruthlessly treading on the path of The Federated Animation of Mostly All Beings in jCRPG. That means 3 new monsters got animation (idle,attack,damage): harpy, plant'o'bite, lizard. Big thanks to tidbit again! Also getter77 is providing nice new soundpacks to spice up the experience. It will be fun to play with the psychotic, the evil or the nice guy voices just contributed by him. :)

While the freegamedev.net forum is up again and the recovery of the posts and data is underway, the backup forum is still available. I want to keep the separated forum as a mean of alternative even after things get okay on the original forum, but I still think keeping jClassicRPG as a part of the fgd forum community is an important goal.

PS.: further refining placement, a test shot with a group of angry boarmages around. ;)

Polishing, polishing, polishing - that's what's being done right now. And nice contributions by our new community member getter77, an aspiring and talented game developer. Right now he has created a pair of male voicepacks (1 for psychotic and 1 for bully personality). Thanks getter77 (aka Brian)!

Meanwhile I've fired up gimp-normalmap + gimp-dds plugin again on my laptop, and started to spit out a dozen of normal/height/spec maps for the already present building/road/tree textures. The result is awesome. The heavy use of such mappings culminated a series of interesting bugs/detection of missing features of the shaders. Most of these problems are now resolved, also a new level of normal map shader detail is added to the Options menu (detailed shader can handle 2 lights blended). Also fog is now supported by those shaders - and the shadow render pass is also fixed to work correctly with those. Check the screenshots for shaders/mappings in action! :) On the second one you can catch tidbit's new stone base square for the anatipion towns. Release is very near now...

Options menu is again in focus. A few related bugs resolved now. Meanwhile tidbit has added cool new animations for the new humanoids (yeti and anatipion [which is walking, scorpion like people of desert]), all those got into the SVN too. Anatipions even have their own building models (done also by tidbit). Thank you!

More testing is under way. Even Windows 7 64 bit test version got its round after Vista64. (You'll have to be careful with Windows 7, like installing latest nvidia driver for nvidia cards, otherwise it doesn't work. Also it's recommended to use 32 bit Java under Windows, seems like 64 bit doesnt want to work with the supplied 64 bit lwjgl dlls.) Well, with my new mobo + CPU and my good 'old' 8800GTS, I've tried to boost the limits of view in game, game works nicely with a view distance of 100 now. Check screenshots.

Unfortunately a full system failure at the freegamedev.net machine results in a quite long outage in the forums services too. It's not yet sure if the forums can be normally restored. Let's hope it will get better, but in a week or more you can expect the forums to be down.

Brighter news is that the polishing of the release is progressing very well. Apart from adding a few more entity icons and probably sounds no other thing is planned to be coded, added before releasing.

EDIT: till it gets back, you can use this backup forum http://jcrpg.ath.cx/phpbb/

In brief: smooth camera turning added for combat plus zooming activated enemy title text for better understanding what's going on the battlefield; left over memory reference hunting to allow restarting/loading games multiple times without lag or OutOfMemory; new male character voice pack by qubodup added by qubodup personally, thank you; a dozen other smaller bugfixes; correcly working mouselook while moving; added starting-at-closest-shrine at starting new game; saving of Options menu settings implemented (now on you can use jcrpg.sh/bat instead of the special scripts for different detail levels and use Options menu to select/tweak the needed detal level and save). New content done by tidbit awaits integration (brand new humanoid base model and its home buildings). After adding those I'll start to give the really really final polishing to the release package (reviewing scripts and documents) and then......