That's one of my favorite scenes :D.

But I think this is more like "Nichijou in less than 3 minutes":
BwRhArCRSbk

PS: Speaking of "hardcore fan" XD ... I guess the video really fits.


State of development:

As I mentioned before I was always unhappy with the rar-plugin I was using.
So I just decided to create my own archive-encryption system.
I already have a working proof of concept, which means I can encrypt an image and decrypt it correctly.

The files will be encrypted byte-wise into a single file
That means I'm no longer using a rar container, but a single file where the content is merged byte by byte.

Since I'm currently designing this file format myself, I can incorporate all the informations I need directly
into the file itself, which is pretty awesome.

So I can just include a header segment, with the name, version, description, ... of the package, followed
by a table of content, which can be read really fast, PLUS I can decrypt and extract exactly what I need,
without the need to skip unneeded files, like I did with the rar-plugin.

If I do this correctly it will be much faster than the rar-plugin.

However, the best thing is I will have total control over the creation of those files.
My biggest problem with the rar-plugin was that I was able to extract them only.
With this system I will have no restriction whatsoever, except the filesize.

This is really exciting :D.

EDIT:

The archive system is working out pretty good.
By now I'm able to encrypt:
- Images
- Textfiles
- Sound files ( wav )
- Meshes ( 3D Meshes )
- Object ( Dark Basic .dbo 3D Objects )

I'll probably soon be able to include this into the main project and replace the
old rar-plugin once and for all.

Hey there,

I made kind of a big break from programing XD.
Actually I was pretty busy playing Dark Souls -_-", but I guess I will continue this in the next few days.



Well, encryption is probably the wrong word for it. Actually I just want a container-file-format to store the game files in.
I always hated the way how Amnesia mods were installed. These folders with all the files and stuff.
Also I wanted to have the option to create a launcher were main stories or very famous stories could be downloaded.
I just think it's much nicer to have a story as a single file. Like ".pak" files in other game engines for example.

I wrote "encrypted", because of the way the data is stored in there. If you don't know what is inside the file you can't use it in any way XD.
However, the editor I want to create would unpack them just fine.

I used simple rar-files until now, but the problem is with the free unrar.dll you can't create rar files, so this part of the custom-story-creating would
have to be made manually, and that's just stupid. XD



Nice, I will put you on my list.
Textures were always one my weak points, not the texture only, but putting them on the models the right way, too.
I mean wall and stuff are usually no problem, but when it comes to human models and things like that it can get annoying XD.



Yes, I know, but I also have the feeling that this concept is overused by now.
I'm not aiming for that kind of horror.

What I'm interested in is the question "What will a human do to survive a horrible situation"?
I guess if you're really in a situation were every person around you is a threat to you, then just everything is a weapon.

However the main-goal for me is to finish the engine, so I'll hopefully be able to create different stories for it.
I got many ideas for different genres. For example after the horror-storie I definitely want to make a war-storie, too.
Basically the same idea: "What will you do to survive?".
No, no, I don't want to create a Call of Duty, I would be more aiming for an experience like in Shellshock 2.

Well, yes I did. But the other big problem was that I couldn't unpack the content of the rar-files
directly into memory, which wouldn't be possible with zip either. With my own archive-containers
I can do that.
However, I can't pack everything with it. Some things have to be unpacked to the hdd in order to
load them, for example shadereffect files, but they are just text, so they won't take much space.

I'm currently ill -_-", so the development will be delayed some more, but as soon as I'm ok I'll continue.

Hey there XD

I haven't posted quite a while now. I just wanted to let you know that I'm still working on this.
Reason I wasn't posting is that I'm still working on the core-engine.
This part of the engine is the most important as it is the base of everything else.
At some point everything else just got in the way and I really needed to focus on this.
To be honest ... it's pretty exhausting XD.
Apart from that I took some rather big programming-breaks :D.

However, there definitely is progress.
I'm currently working on an editor for the via container packages.



Currently working features are:
- Open via file
- Extract the content
- Two view modes for content: In groups and plain list
- Content streaming
Coming soon:
- Create new via file
- Add files
- Save
- GUI improvements (so you can add many files with a few clicks)
Current problems:
- Some file types are way to big when packed in a via container.
Up to something like 700% bigger, which is unacceptable.
Reason for this the way dark basic stores them in RAM.
- Nasty error where I can only extract from the first via container opened in a session.
Probably fixed rather easy if I find the spot.


Content streaming
I recently reworked the extraction process so it extracts smaller data chunks per run to allow content streaming.
The streaming process will keep track of the average fps of the game and adjust the size of data chunks read per
run to a more or less optimal value to keep a certain fps (currently: 60). The calculation still needs some polishing.

Basically I got 3 ways to extract the content now:
- Streaming
- Streaming soft disabled (basically standard loading)
- Streaming hard disabled (only usable for editor)

So later on there might be different ways of using this in games:
- Old school loading screen (with loading bar) and game starts when everything is loaded.
- Loading screen while the objects/collisions/physics of the world are created and streaming for the rest.
- Load essential content in loading screen and stream in content not needed right now.

Also I made some more concept drawings ... maybe I'll scan them later XD.

PS: I'm gonna update the list with everybody interested.

Done in the meantime:
- Saving from one via file to another.
- Check/Prevent multiple launches of editor.
- Reworked code to allow multiple editor instances (Menu->File->New Window).
- Cleaned and optimized a lot of code.

Coming soon:
- Copy files from via files opened in another editor instance (gonna try to get drag and drop working).
- DIfferent ways to include files from disk fast and efficiently.