Posted by Data in Cortex Command - August 20th, 2007

32bpp EffectsWe have figured out how to keep the entire engine at 8 bits per pixel internally (for manageable memory footprint), while rendering the last step of each frame in 32 bits per pixel to your screen. This allows us to do some nice glow effects in-game, and will eliminate any “crazy color” palette problems that some have experienced with the old 8bpp video mode builds.

You will still be able to turn off the effects and even go back to 8bpp mode in the next build, in case this slows down the game on your machine. We haven’t noticed a huge hit to performance though, so I think it’s well worth it for the extra eye candy.

Also, we’ve been profiling the memory allocations and have managed to plug the vast majority of the memory leaks present in previous builds. This should make longer games more feasible without CC slowly eating all your RAM.

Just wait for the rocket gib/explosion effects coming soon!

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97 Responses to “Great balls of fire”

  1. zalo - # August 21st, 2007 at 5:49 pm

    Yeah, what if there was a light,
    and dark version of every sprite.

    And The mask would change according
    to angle, and distance of the light.

    And there would be sunlight, coming from the top left.

  2. GSM - # August 21st, 2007 at 6:13 pm

    If you’d just center on the pathfinding AI, and get a build with that in it, you’d really have something that shows off the really interesting gameplay you’ve got going here. As is, nobody seems to want to play the game without infinite funds, or wildly superpowered weapons. Give teams of two the ability to send waves of intelligent attackers, and then you’ll have something. Also, why did you not turn off actor to actor collisions that result in units exploding? Nothing like that ever happens in any other 2D game I can think of.

  3. Spamking - # August 21st, 2007 at 6:43 pm

    Sweeeeeeeeeet looking… Could make fer some beautiful explosions.

  4. Mikey - # August 21st, 2007 at 7:02 pm

    cant not wait for the explosion in build 18!

  5. K-Toke - # August 21st, 2007 at 7:09 pm

    Data this comes up when I try to go into the forums.
    Internal Server Error
    The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

    Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@datarealms.dataproperty.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

    More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

    Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
    Apache/1.3.37 Server at http://www.datarealms.com Port 80

  6. AJenbo - # August 21st, 2007 at 8:48 pm

    OMG this is excatly what i was hoping to see when i entered your site today ๐Ÿ˜€

  7. nooby - # August 21st, 2007 at 9:09 pm

    so what,is it gona be in the next build or a download?

  8. whitty - # August 21st, 2007 at 9:51 pm

    sometime when i try to post my page refreshes blank and i have to type it all over again. fix now PLOX!!!!

  9. whitty - # August 21st, 2007 at 10:05 pm

    it happens in the forums

  10. Purple - # August 21st, 2007 at 10:23 pm

    Looks good, a little too shiny though. It wouldn’t be that pronounced in broad daylight.

  11. RottenCod - # August 21st, 2007 at 11:45 pm

    for some reason after i downloaded the latest build i could play it once fine but the second time i ran the program it crashed, so i tried it again and it crashed again.
    So after trying it once more i downloaded the latest CC build again, the same error happend. I could play it fine once then it crashed.
    Data, what is happening? Is it a problem with my system or the game???

  12. Wolfie - # August 22nd, 2007 at 1:50 am

    BALLIN’

    Finally! retribution for VISTA users!

  13. Thundermaker - # August 22nd, 2007 at 2:37 am

    OMG! Koool! Can’t wait anymore! Maybe I should freeze myself for a couple of days… or weeks?

  14. DiviX - # August 22nd, 2007 at 2:48 am

    YEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

    AT LAST ALPHA IMAGES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    WOOOHOOOOO JUST YOU WAIT WHEN IT COMES OUT!!!!

    GONNA GET SUPPA LOOKIN MODS!!! YEYEAH!!

  15. Dj Demetrius - # August 22nd, 2007 at 4:53 am

    sexy…now all we need is smoke!

  16. Delgado - # August 22nd, 2007 at 8:37 am

    OMG SMOKE THATS AN AWESOME IDEA!!!

    Data I ask you PLEASE PLEASE no skellies in the next build or the final game. pls pls pls pls pls!!!

  17. ELECTRIC CHEESE - # August 22nd, 2007 at 11:16 am

    I havent touched cc in about a year.
    This look fucking epic.

  18. Spamking - # August 22nd, 2007 at 12:10 pm

    Oh, I remember now…
    Now that the muzzle flash has such a pretty glow, would you mind making it so that it displays every time the weapon fires again? Some weapons really need it in order to look right…

  19. 3 Solid - # August 22nd, 2007 at 3:55 pm

    Reminds me of Hammerfall.

    Awsm.

  20. Erahgon - # August 22nd, 2007 at 8:46 pm

    Looks neat, anything on improved AI so far?

  21. Blob - # August 23rd, 2007 at 12:06 am

    Woo!!! This Looks Awesome!!! Can’t Wait!!

  22. UltimateDoe - # August 23rd, 2007 at 12:29 am

    Looks so… AWESOME!! Looks great and Shiny….
    Must get, Can’t Wait… Might give up Tribes 2 Construction just to play next Build…

  23. Blob - # August 23rd, 2007 at 3:54 am

    *drooiling*

    wlaah…. Still watching those gif…

  24. KarvaBopi - # August 23rd, 2007 at 4:53 am

    Hmmm, if this game is going to get fog of war, it would be cool if like rocket engines and like stuff like that could light places up D:

  25. KarvaBopi - # August 23rd, 2007 at 4:56 am

    WHOA, i just noticed the muzzleflash and its fregging awezome :DDDD

  26. JeCa - # August 23rd, 2007 at 4:58 am

    But I’m still thinking, what defines the [glowiness] of the objects? If it only is the color, it’d be awesome to construct a yellow glowing character. However, that might make other things, like brass, look weird, so that doesn’t seem likely. If there’s a GlowRange line in the .ini files, then how do you keep the smoke from glowing? It could be that only certain things – like muzzleflashes – glow, but some of the smaller balls shine quite far from the ship, and so does the shots.

    Really anxious to see what you can make out of this once it’s out, but keep making those big breakthroughs and don’t come back till you got something revolutionizing. ๐Ÿ˜›

  27. AquaGeneral - # August 23rd, 2007 at 3:56 pm

    The robots have red eyes, imagine if they had the glow effect on there eyes, explosions will also look alot better with the glow.

    Lastly I though of making a sun in the background with the effect.

  28. OrangePanda - # August 23rd, 2007 at 8:11 pm

    nice effect. so when can we expect a new build?

  29. Aramed - # August 23rd, 2007 at 10:46 pm

    Theres a firefly on the tip of your SMG now. ๐Ÿ˜› Jk, Nice work…this has been said millions of times but I’ll say it anyway. Can’t wait for the next build to come out.

    P.S. Wonder what the flak cannon looks like.

  30. someone lol - # August 24th, 2007 at 5:29 pm

    no you will get blind lol

  31. someone lol - # August 25th, 2007 at 9:11 am

    ey plz update lol

  32. Delgado - # August 25th, 2007 at 6:41 pm

    Data pls pls pls NO SKELLIES IN NEXT BUILD. please if u dont want skellies in the petition on the general forums

  33. BreenedandScrooned - # August 25th, 2007 at 7:04 pm

    What’s wrong with the skeletons?

  34. zalo - # August 25th, 2007 at 8:21 pm

    Absolutely nothing, Delgado probably thinks it is to hard with hordes of skellies trying to invade his base.

    Plus, data shouldn’t waste a perfectly good actor.

    Though, occasionally I do see the blue clones as useless.

  35. someone lol - # August 26th, 2007 at 4:10 am

    omg stupdo guy u cant remove sekelton game wil carhs lol

  36. someone lol - # August 26th, 2007 at 4:39 am

    wo i was flyin then i crashed lol

  37. whitty - # August 26th, 2007 at 7:07 am

    i was standing and i crashed ๐Ÿ™‚

  38. coilgunner - # August 26th, 2007 at 8:32 am

    ๐Ÿ˜€ yes! can’t wait to see those gib explosion effects ๐Ÿ™‚

  39. somerandomguy - # August 26th, 2007 at 5:14 pm

    we demand working water

  40. RoboLee - # August 26th, 2007 at 5:43 pm

    water would be good but I just wana know not when but how far away from the next build do you think you are.

    Because of this update I’ve been checking this page like a wild man for like a week, I just wana know if your close to completing the task

    also I would like to see(taken into consideration workload and what you have already said your putting in)(good-worst order):

    *32bpp working well, looking good.
    *Advanced AI.
    *take screen shots with no lag

    *options like resolution, frag count on/off etc.
    *extra variables- pooling water(more material properties), realism(when shot fly back when shoot recoil)etc.
    *undo button for BYOB (10 times undo?)

    ~on-line Multi-player of some sorts
    ~4 colored teams
    ~proper explosions
    ~melee
    ~people always want more

    +vehicles (though it may not make sense… some people wants em though- I don’t care really)

  41. whitty - # August 27th, 2007 at 3:17 pm

    i made a gun that shoots working water, but after about 5 seconds the water turns to mush and you sink it it.

  42. RoboLee - # August 28th, 2007 at 7:55 am

    p.s. I don’t mean for all them to be in one build (obviously)

  43. Binky - # August 28th, 2007 at 8:00 am

    YYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  44. Mikey - # August 28th, 2007 at 12:07 pm

    when do u think the adv. A.I. is coming in?

  45. RoboLee - # August 28th, 2007 at 2:49 pm

    hopefully the next build (as he’s mentioned it from build 14: “Agreed, AI does suck completely now. Just wait until we get proper A* pathfinding in placeโ€ฆ youโ€™ll get owned in delightful ways you didnโ€™t expect or I will have considered it a failure!”)

    DATA: “Ability to force reload of all iniโ€™s without restarting game, will be in next build.” said in build 14 post, where is it :(, tis very annoying to have to exit the game completely

  46. Data Realms - Dev Log » Blog Archive » Delicious Pie Menus and Eye Candy in Test Build 18 - # August 29th, 2007 at 5:43 am

    […] Cortex Command (64) General DRL (8) « Great balls of fire Delicious Pie Menus and Eye Candy in Test Build 18 Posted by Data in Cortex Command – August 29th,2007 […]

  47. Andrew Scadden - # May 29th, 2012 at 4:23 pm

    Hey! Quick question that’s totally off topic. Do you know how to make your site mobile friendly? My weblog looks weird when viewing from my iphone 4. I’m trying to find a template or plugin that might be able to resolve this issue. If you have any suggestions, please share. Thank you!