Team 5

This project is available on GitHub : ishant4iZard/CSC8508 (github.com)

How to build and run the project

Platform : Windows

• Create a folder titled "Build" in the source directory
• Open CMake and set the source directory
• Select the root/Build directory as the destination
• Delete cache
• Configure and generate the project

Platform : PS5

• Open cmd in the current directory
• Execute Generate.bat
• Set CSC8503 as the startup project

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⚠ Please read the following before building or executing the project

1. Steam is required to be running to play the game on windows .
2. On windows the first build usually gives a build error, it has something to do with pdbs but there should not be any errors with the project.
3. For PS5 : If you make any changes to the projects other than CSC8503 then before building the project please clean it. Otherwise there will be undefined symbols.
4. For PS5 : Textures(gnf/others) are already provided in the compressed project submission. Building the textures project in VS sometimes deletes textures and this might cause the game to crash.

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How to play the game

Windows

Key binding	Action
Space	Score table
i	Debug table
Cursor position	Move player
Left click	Fire projectiles

PS5

Key binding	Action
Menu : Cross	Start
Menu : Circle	Quit
Game : Option	Pause
Game : R2 trigger	Fire projectile
Game : Left stick	Rotate
Game : Right stick	Move
Pause menu : Cross	Round over
Pause menu : Circle	Resume
Round over menu : R1	Go to Menu
Triangle	Debug table

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Brief overview of project features

Physics engine

• Static trees are used to store non moving object. This tree does not need to be updated every frame
• Friction was added to the engine
• The engine has most common collision volumes like : AABBs, Spheres, OBBs and Capsules
• Physics objects have an elasticity value which influences how objects rebound

Renderer(OpenGL)

• Physically based rendering(PBR) was added to the project
• The renderer also has gamma correction as well as tone mapping
• Skeletal animations are supported
  • Animation syncing between the client and the server was implemented in one of the branches of the project(skeletal animation branch).
  • However when merging said branch issues were encountered, so the feature was not merged into main.
• GPU Instancing had been added to the project and it reduced the number of draw calls from around 600 to 300 calls
• Deferred rendering(with PBR) was added to the project but was not merged into main because it would have caused problems in rendering transparent objects
  • It can be tested at the deferred rendering branch
  • It features more than 64 point lights
  • All the point lights are instanced
• The project supports point light made using spheres and directional lights made using screen quads

Renderer(AGC)

• The AGC renderer in the main branch is the base renderer provided in the starter project
• PBR was partially added to the renderer and can be tested in the PS5_ToneMapping branch. But due to it making the scene too dark it was not added to the main branch.

Gameplay

• The goal of the game is simple : Get as many projectiles into the target as possible
• The following are some of the gameplay elements :
• Gravity wells/blackholes : These game objects pull projectiles towards their center and if the projectile collides with the center, the projectiles is deactivated.
• Portals : Teleports projectiles from one teleporter to another
• Bounce pads : Bounce pads are static cubes with a elasticity value greater than 1, meaning when a projectile collides with them, the projectile gains energy and is rebounded at a speed greater than the collision speed.
• AI :
  • The AI predicts the position of the projectiles and tries to intercept it. Once the AI is colliding with the projectiles it reduces the projectile's lifespan drastically.
  • The AI uses the A* path finding algorithm to navigate to a projectile only if the nearest projectile to it is not in direct line of sight
  • The navigation grid is dynamically generated at the start of a round by firing rays from the top of the level to the ground.
  • If a ray collides with the ground(i.e an object with the "ground" tag) then the cell corresponding to the ray is movable
• Powerups :
  • The game features 3 types of powerups
  • The ice powerup reduces the friction experienced by projectiles
  • The wind powerup adds a random directional force to the projectiles
  • The sand powerup increases the friction experienced by projectiles

Multiplayer and match making(only on windows)

• The game on windows features a multiplayer experience for up to 4 players
• In a multiplayer game, one player is made the server and the rest are made clients.
• The physics update takes place only in the server and the clients are responsible for render updates
• After the physics update the server sends the updated entity transforms to the clients
• Game states are all synced between the server and the clients
• Matchmaking :
  • Steam has been used for matchmaking on windows
  • A player can create a lobby
  • Other players can find this lobby and join it all without having to rely on hard coded IP addresses
  • If the owner of the lobby leaves the second member of the lobby becomes the owner
  • The owner of a lobby is always made the server when the game starts

Other miscellaneous features :

• The game makes use of a multitude of different shaders for rendering elements like portals, blackholes, the center target etc.
• The UI framework uses ImGui on windows to display elements like buttons and texts.
• The audio engine uses FMOD to play looping music as well as trigger music.
• A debug menu is also accessible in the project to view the following information :
  • Frame rate
  • FPS
  • Physics time cost
  • Render time cost
  • Number of collisions
  • Number of game objects
  • Outgoing packets
  • Incoming packets
• The game is multi-threaded :
  • Threads are pooled so that they are not created and deleted every frame
  • Tasks like physics updates, non physics updates and animation updates are enqueued into a queue of tasks
  • A free thread from the thread pool can pick the first task in the queue and process it.
  • Conditional variable, mutex and unique locks are used for synchronising threads.
  • The game runs at around 1000fps
• An event system was added to the project to allow multiple components to communicate with each other without having to share state