Pirate Software Game Jam Retrospective

[McCallisterRomer]

Putting this up as a bucket for thoughts, ideas, bugs, etc. from the game jam. I figured we'd go through in a bit and create issues as needed.

[McCallisterRomer]

dev/game-jam branch locked and tag created, so we can rebuild in the future, if needed.

Summary of my commits to dev/game-jam:

• Editor
  • Ability to add [done] PointLight/ConcaveCollider (already have issues for these)
  • [done]ParticleEmitter widget
  • [done] New/Save/Load scene options
  • [done] Wireframe rendering of selected Entity
    • [done] Disabled NC_DEBUG_RENDERING - might not even be used anymore
  • [done] Add Entity can specify layers, flags, etc. (didn't do, but should be done for add child too)
  • [done] ui::InputU8() (should just do for all sizes)
  • [done] Disabled asset serialization in scenes (may want an option?)
• Ecs
  • [done]Ecs::FindEntityByTag()
  • [done] Registry::GetEcs() (might be useful during while finishing the cutover)
  • [done] Entity NoSerialize flag
• Physics
  • [done]Hack to make concave collision ignore static bodies
• Build/CMake
  • Ability to disable (some) engine install steps
  • Static link CRT (should have a CMake option to select static/dynamic)
• Misc
  • [done] Fixed some ParticleInfo defaults
  • [done] Ability to update props in ParticleEmitter
  • [done] Fixed broken includes in NcAsset.h
  • [done] Fixed incorrect fwd decl in NcGraphics.h
  • [done] Bump audio buffer size (correct answer might be to make configurable, there may be an issue for this)

[jaremieromer]

Summary of my commits to dev/game-jam:

Vulkan 1.1 Compatibility - All bullets below address: #458

• Shaders

  • Changed version from #version 460 to #version 450
  • Removed #GL_EXT_nonuniform_qualifier and #GL_ARB_separate_shader_objects
  • Hardcoded array length for all descriptors
  • Made sure all vertex layout entries were present even if unused (eg. layout (location = 6) in ivec4...
  • Changed gl_BaseInstance to gl_InstanceIndex

• Validation Layers

  • Removed copying of vk_layer_settings.txtin sample/CMakeLists.txt so we dump output to the console rather than the file specified in vk_layer_settings.txt
  • Removed VK_LAYER_LUNARG_api_dump so we don't dump API info.

• C++

  • Removed all vk::DescriptorSetLayoutBindingFlagsCreateInfoExt structs, so descriptor set no longer uses vk::DescriptorBindingFlagBitsEXT::ePartiallyBound
  • Removed vk::DescriptorSetLayoutCreateFlagBits::eUpdateAfterBindPool
  • Removed device feature requirement for indexingFeatures.descriptorBindingPartiallyBound && indexingFeatures.runtimeDescriptorArray. Also removed vulkan11features.shaderDrawParameters because it was no longer needed and had been taken from a tutorial prior to that tutorials' update.
  • Because arrays are now fixed length, modified all image XShaderResource classes to generate_n, filling the buffer.
  • Hard-coded very low upper-bound for resource maximums in ShaderResources.cpp
  • Changed Vulkan API version in IGraphics.cpp to VK_API_VERSION_1_1.

• Assets

  • Removed ClickEvents scene to comply with new lower texture maximums. Ripped out all unused assets (namely, planets, but also those used for ClickEvents.cpp and the tree/hatching stuff)
  • Also removed the unused assets from Prefabs.cpp

Mip Mapping #543

• C++
  • Parsed mip levels out of image size in ImmutableImage and passed into GpuAllocator. Propagates through a bunch of Initializers.cpp methods.
  • Added GenerateMipLevels() method in GpuAllocator

Font Support - #225

• Added font parsing from file in Imgui.cpp

Cleanup - #544

• Major slashing and simplification of point light/shadow map calculation in Lighting, RenderGraph and RenderPass

[McCallisterRomer]

Bugs encountered:

Physics is full of them: Static entities get manipulated sometimes. They're also getting included in collision checks that should be elided earlier on. useGravity and isKinematic aren't always respected? Certain bias/softness values on joints occasionaly failed asserts in DirectXMath.

There are bugs related to transform hierarchies in probably both the editor and serialization. With a child parented to an Entity with a non-identity transform, modifying world space values in the editor is unpredictable (might be good to expose local values too). Loading the same scenario from a prefab seems to perform incorrect multiplication. Maybe we're saving the child's world space values and then double transforming on load? Idk, should check existing tests for coverage of cases like this.

[jaremieromer]

We encountered a lot of 'undetectable' validation errors on Phil's laptop that were not present on local machines. These were addressed by adhering largely to the VK_KHR_portability_subset specs.
There are two remaining VK_KHR_portability_subset errors:

1. max per-stage sampler bindings count (64) exceeds device maxPerStageDescriptorSamplers limit (16)
2. pPushConstantRanges[0] offset (0) and size (144) together exceeds this device's maxPushConstantSize of 128.

[jaremieromer]

The point light editor bug was addressed by the Lighting.cpp overhaul mentioned above.

[McCallisterRomer]

Things that went well:

With recent editor and serialization changes, the sheer amount of code needed is vastly reduced. Its still fairly verbose to create things like particle emitters, but I found myself having to do that on rare occasions, and mostly to make up for things that didn't make the editor in time. Overall, I think the entire game ending up being fewer lines of code than the sample, which is awesome (didn't actually verify this).

Outside of physics and a few editor issues, and known limitations, I hit very few engine issues. I actually can't think of any at the moment. Everything pretty much just worked.

I found it very quick and easy to add the systems and logic necessary, despite having no editor support for these. Cutscene/camera manipulation could be scripted with pretty limited effort. I ended up implementing tree logic a few different ways, all of which were straightforward and non-painful. Collision/Frame/Fixed logic were all super slick. Setting up operations to run on deserialized entities post-scene load went smoothly, although this would probably be more error-prone in larger projects. Even hacking a fade in/out by point light manipulated was pretty easy. I expected these things to be the harder parts but was pleasantly surprised.

[jaremieromer]

I have less to add here on overall engine usage because I was largely focused on assets. However, nc-convert operated perfectly. It was a breeze to convert assets, and it warned whenever I forgot to do something an asset required (wrong file extension copy-pasta, forgetting to normalize vertex weights, etc).

I also greatly streamlined my asset generation workflow.

[jaremieromer]

It was also phenomenal to have a prefab creation editor and a game editor.

[McCallisterRomer]

Annoying things:

• Physics. My god.
• Ecs::Get() should return a reference. In the game, I wanted the engine to throw on failure 100% of the time. There's no problem checking Contains() in the rarer cases.
• Lacking mouse picking + positioning widgets in the editor is a real bummer.
• Workflow for saving/backing up scenes and prefabs was tedious, although this was quickly added for the game and isn't even in vnext yet.
• No ability to copy Entities/Components in the editor slows things down a fair bit.
• As asset counts grow, sifting through dropdowns is a joy sucker.

[jaremieromer]

Seconded on the scrolling through dropdowns being a bit pesky, as well as not having copy/paste for entities/components. It would also be GREAT to click and drag in the editor window itself!

[McCallisterRomer]

Forgot to mention color over time for particles. They're very limited without it. The ability to toggle billboarding would also have come in handy.