SPACE RIG:

A 3D interactive BRender V1.1.2 Demo

This demo has been assembled, with a view to demonstrating BRender's 
capability to produce a game in the increasingly popular 3D genre style 
of Doom II (TM) and Descent (TM).

The demo currently runs under DOS and is under development to run in WINDOWS
it has implemented collision detection which utilises the z-buffer to 
determine how far or near an object is in the scene. 

There is on-line help from f1 or H key


GAME PLAY:

The scenario is a space station with a network of corridors and two rooms 
connected by an elevator.  


Open Doors and activate the elevator with the SPACEBAR

Wander around the station and activate the monitor with the PAGE UP key and 
press INSERT to rotate the monitor with the mouse.

Use the Torch in the dimmed room by Pressing 'l' and adjust it's brightness
with '<' and '>'

Press PAGE DOWN on upper level to see probe camera view full screen.

Tile the texture on the cube with 'x' and 'c'

Don't forget to switch on the starfield option press '*' and view the stars
through various viewports but you have to find them first and watch out for
the occasional spectacular solar passing!


KEYS:

                 Essentially Doom Controls:
                 **************************

CURSOR KEYS    (UP/DOWN):   Move forward/backward
CURSOR KEYS (LEFT/RIGHT):   Rotate left/right
       SHIFT & UP CURSOR:   To Run
                       A:   look up
                       Z:   look down
               
               
               SPACE BAR:   Open doors (option to close if on upper level)
                            Activate elevator when in elevator shaft.
                       

                       INTERACTIVITY KEYS
                       ******************
           
              PAGE_UP:  CAMERA PROBE VIEW toggle on/off Monitor (upper level)
            PAGE_DOWN:  CAMERA PROBE VIEW to Main Screen (upper level)
               INSERT:  Toggle ON/OFF Interaction with scene 
                        i.e. Rotate TV via mouse on upper level  
                    R:  reset position of TV
                    X:  Increase tiling on box (upper level)
                    C:  Decrease tiling on box (upper level)
                    L:  Toggle ON/OFF Torch
                    >:  Increase intensity of Torch
                    <:  Decrease intensity of Torch
                    

                 NOTE: TORCH ONLY WORKS ON UPPER LEVEL


                 HOME:  Reset head tilt
                 *(8):  Switch on star field
                    N:  Switch on naming of stars.
                    P:  Save out Pixelmap    


                  TAB:  Toggle Collision Detection ON/OFF      
                ESC/Q:  Quit
                 +/- :  Resize Screen
                   

HINTS:

The collision detection uses z-buffer information, at smaller screen sizes
this is not fully implemented. Also this method of collision detection can
not detect transparent areas of a texture map, note in the elevator shaft
no collision detection takes place with the transparent glass panels.
The z-buffer values are displayed for each of the three sample points indicated
by crosses on the screen when in info mode.  The last z-buffer value is the
smallest value of the three on which collision decisions are made.


Some optimization has been implemented through:

1. BR_ACTOR_BOUNDS_CORRECT  (see code)
      Actors is a defined locality are grouped so that if the larger defined
      bounding box is off screen no check is performed on the actors contained 
      within.
2. Active Geometry culling - BrModelRemove/render_style=none (see code)
      Notice the improvement in frame rate on the upper level if the doors
      are closed to the elevator shaft by pressing the space bar. Explore
      the extent of active geometry culling by exporing with collsion 
      detection turned off to pass through walls.
3. Use of non-lit textures (on basement level and corridor)
      The materials used are defined with the perspective flag only. Notice
      on the power column no flags are set at all, but the nature of the
      materials a diffuse abstract pattern means this is passable.
4. Some use of 64 x 64 textures as opposed to all 256 x 256 
      Some textures which don't require high definition i.e text are
      produced at lower resolutions.
5. Model optimization using 3D STUDIO (TM) PXP OPTIMIZ. 
      To reduce polygons count, this was done on the lower floor model with a
      50% saving in polygons, a large segment step counted was needed in 3D 
      studio to produce the desired shapes, but often can be optimized 
      afterwards.
      
      CAUTION Optimization can resulting in seaming-gaps in co-linear lines
      resulting from them not sharing the same vertices.

Real-time lighting effects in BRender are implemented through the vertices of
models, high polygon count models thus give impressive lighting effects.  This
demo was not optimized for lighting effects but introduces the feature.

USE .BAT FILE TO START

runme Hires  (to operate in hires  640x480)
runme lowres (to operate in lowres 320x200)







Concept:                Argonaut Technologies Limited
Implementation:         Tony M Roberts
Coding:                 Tony M Roberts
                        Dan Piponi
                        Andy Pomianowski

3D Studion Modelling:   Tony M Roberts
ArtWork:                Andy Pomianowski


