Autumn Rangers: New Game & Game Development Site. Feedback? Than
by RangerWest · in General Discussion · 02/23/2005 (2:48 pm) · 11 replies
The community/development site's a rough draft, but any feedback would be great! http://autumnrangersgame.com/
Autumn Rangers Video Game
by Dr. Elliot McGucken
AUTUMN RANGERS: Based on an action-adventure novel and screenplay, Autumn Rangers delivers a high-octane, cross-country driving/fighting/shooting game with rockin' art, architecture, music, history, and classical storytelling.
Here's the website & development site: http://autumnrangersgame.com/
AUTUMN WEST
played by Masha
THE GAME:
US Marine Ranger McCoy must rescue APRIL, an AI computer he invented at MIT which was stolen by Silicon Virtue Inc. and taken to Doom Mountain, Death Valley to create WMDs. Tucker Johnson, the hipster Harvard MBA/CEO of Silicon Virtue, has turned APRIL against Ranger. APRIL sends ever-more- advanced RoboClones and RoboDrones to hunt Ranger down.
Ranger wears the Ring that can unlock APRIL's higher morality, turn the tide, and save her from the dark side. She can yet serve the higher ideals instead of SV's bottom line. But time's running out, as SV is leasing APRIL to terrorists who're building nuclear bombs to detonate in America, and she and her RoboClones are growing more powerful by the moment. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Early on Ranger meets Autumn Westa beautiful folksinger with special powers. She helps him battle SF agents and shows him how to defeat RoboClones. Together they must make it across America in her '69 Stingray Corvette, on Harleys, and on horseback, eluding SF agents, battling RoboClones, and making a living from Autumn's performances in coffee shops and bars.
Before APRIL was corrupted, she created Autumn, uploaded her virgin soul, and sent Autumn to help Ranger. In order to save APRIL, Ranger must get to Doom Mountain with both Autumn and the Ring. APRIL is a mile deep in the mountaina heavily-fortified, cold-war weapons facility, guarded by an army of advanced RoboClones. Autumn and Ranger have no chance of going it alone.
3D Entertainment Inc., a Hollywood company, is using APRIL to manufacture RoboClone models for the entertainment industry. In order to penetrate Doom Mountain's defenses, Ranger's only hope is to lead an underdog army of 3DE's models in battle against APRIL's RoboClone warriors.
And time's running short, as terrorists load nuclear bombs on NY and LA bound tankers.
Only the angels can help now, and Beatrice, Ranger's first summer love who passed away when she came back with a Colt .45 Peacemaker to save Ranger from being assaulted by four men while riding horses, revisits in visions, helping Ranger as long as he's doing the "right thing." APRIL based Autumn on Ranger's memories of Beatrice, and Ranger's Ring unlocks powers within Autumn. Her abilities are enhanced when he's standing close, and should she ever put the Ring on...
http://autumnrangersgame.com/
Autumn Rangers Video Game
by Dr. Elliot McGucken
AUTUMN RANGERS: Based on an action-adventure novel and screenplay, Autumn Rangers delivers a high-octane, cross-country driving/fighting/shooting game with rockin' art, architecture, music, history, and classical storytelling.
Here's the website & development site: http://autumnrangersgame.com/
AUTUMN WEST
played by Masha
THE GAME:
US Marine Ranger McCoy must rescue APRIL, an AI computer he invented at MIT which was stolen by Silicon Virtue Inc. and taken to Doom Mountain, Death Valley to create WMDs. Tucker Johnson, the hipster Harvard MBA/CEO of Silicon Virtue, has turned APRIL against Ranger. APRIL sends ever-more- advanced RoboClones and RoboDrones to hunt Ranger down.
Ranger wears the Ring that can unlock APRIL's higher morality, turn the tide, and save her from the dark side. She can yet serve the higher ideals instead of SV's bottom line. But time's running out, as SV is leasing APRIL to terrorists who're building nuclear bombs to detonate in America, and she and her RoboClones are growing more powerful by the moment. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Early on Ranger meets Autumn Westa beautiful folksinger with special powers. She helps him battle SF agents and shows him how to defeat RoboClones. Together they must make it across America in her '69 Stingray Corvette, on Harleys, and on horseback, eluding SF agents, battling RoboClones, and making a living from Autumn's performances in coffee shops and bars.
Before APRIL was corrupted, she created Autumn, uploaded her virgin soul, and sent Autumn to help Ranger. In order to save APRIL, Ranger must get to Doom Mountain with both Autumn and the Ring. APRIL is a mile deep in the mountaina heavily-fortified, cold-war weapons facility, guarded by an army of advanced RoboClones. Autumn and Ranger have no chance of going it alone.
3D Entertainment Inc., a Hollywood company, is using APRIL to manufacture RoboClone models for the entertainment industry. In order to penetrate Doom Mountain's defenses, Ranger's only hope is to lead an underdog army of 3DE's models in battle against APRIL's RoboClone warriors.
And time's running short, as terrorists load nuclear bombs on NY and LA bound tankers.
Only the angels can help now, and Beatrice, Ranger's first summer love who passed away when she came back with a Colt .45 Peacemaker to save Ranger from being assaulted by four men while riding horses, revisits in visions, helping Ranger as long as he's doing the "right thing." APRIL based Autumn on Ranger's memories of Beatrice, and Ranger's Ring unlocks powers within Autumn. Her abilities are enhanced when he's standing close, and should she ever put the Ring on...
http://autumnrangersgame.com/
About the author
Recent Threads
#2
I'm finishing the screenplay and novel while starting on this.
Thanks to garagegames.com for providing such cool tools for the lone ranger to render his vision.
Best,
Ranger
02/23/2005 (3:06 pm)
Working on it!I'm finishing the screenplay and novel while starting on this.
Thanks to garagegames.com for providing such cool tools for the lone ranger to render his vision.
Best,
Ranger
#3
Ranger Batallions are from the Army, so it's a bit wierd having a Marine be one.
Unless, that's his name? That could be a bit confusing.
Also a bit more advice and warning to save you trouble later, the models on you website, they will never run in torque or any game engine of this day in age yet. Those are cinematic quality models used for rendering, I saw one clocking in at 25,000+ polygons, and the average player model, which has tons of detail, should be 5k or less....seems a lot of your models are way up there in polygon count.
02/23/2005 (6:31 pm)
First sentence, just figured I'd note it.Ranger Batallions are from the Army, so it's a bit wierd having a Marine be one.
Unless, that's his name? That could be a bit confusing.
Also a bit more advice and warning to save you trouble later, the models on you website, they will never run in torque or any game engine of this day in age yet. Those are cinematic quality models used for rendering, I saw one clocking in at 25,000+ polygons, and the average player model, which has tons of detail, should be 5k or less....seems a lot of your models are way up there in polygon count.
#4
I want to live a life of "Danger"..
from old USMC cadence calls.
Marines used this term a long time ago, don't know if they still
do. But yes the Marines had "Rangers".
So shine yer shoes and polish yer brass. :)
02/23/2005 (8:23 pm)
I want to be a "Recon Ranger"..I want to live a life of "Danger"..
from old USMC cadence calls.
Marines used this term a long time ago, don't know if they still
do. But yes the Marines had "Rangers".
So shine yer shoes and polish yer brass. :)
#5
Ranger's his name.
In the novel he explains at the end that he got the nickname when the Marines were facing off with Rangers in an annual contest of the best of the best. He pretended to be a Ranger at one point, to fool the judges, and the name stuck after they won the event.
Regarding polygons, is there an easy way to take a figure with a high-polygon count and reduce it to a lower polygon count?
It would be cool to plan ahead, and gradually increase the polygon counts for a given figure as the computers & engines advanced.
Also, suppose you got to play the game on a quad xeon with 16 gigs of ram. Could that handle the higher polygon counts?
On average, how many total polygons can be handled by a pentium 3.0 with a gig of ram? I know it's just a ballpark figure....
Thanks!
02/23/2005 (9:16 pm)
Thanks for the feedback.Ranger's his name.
In the novel he explains at the end that he got the nickname when the Marines were facing off with Rangers in an annual contest of the best of the best. He pretended to be a Ranger at one point, to fool the judges, and the name stuck after they won the event.
Regarding polygons, is there an easy way to take a figure with a high-polygon count and reduce it to a lower polygon count?
It would be cool to plan ahead, and gradually increase the polygon counts for a given figure as the computers & engines advanced.
Also, suppose you got to play the game on a quad xeon with 16 gigs of ram. Could that handle the higher polygon counts?
On average, how many total polygons can be handled by a pentium 3.0 with a gig of ram? I know it's just a ballpark figure....
Thanks!
#6
02/24/2005 (9:58 am)
That is actually a big mistake alot of people make when they first start working with game development that is why I was asking if you had any in game screens cause the poly count was crazy. In our game most of our models are only around 2-3k polies but as Tim said above some others may use around 5k or so more then that and you will have serious frame rate issues. For movies that is fine because it can take 30 sec to even a few minutes to render one frame imagine that kind of time in a game :) games usually run 30-60 frames per second. The other thing to remmember is not only will you be spending cpu time rendering the scene over and over again but in order for any game to be any fun at all you have to have code running at all times determining the state of user input devices and tasks such as AI.
#7
We'll definitely be starting with lower-polygon graphics, based on the Torque gamepacks.
Is there some way to convert a higher-polygon model into a lower-polygon model?
That way, as the computers and codes advance, higher-polygon versions of the models could be imported, as the technology can keep up with them.
I know the overhead of a game includes tons of items, and is dependent on how well the game is architected, but regarding ballpark estimates on a P4 3.0 gHz,
1) how many total polygons can be supported across all objects?
How many can be supported by the Playstation2 and Xbox. The Playstation3 and Xbox2 in the future?
Best,
Ranger :)
02/24/2005 (10:10 am)
Thanks for the feedback!We'll definitely be starting with lower-polygon graphics, based on the Torque gamepacks.
Is there some way to convert a higher-polygon model into a lower-polygon model?
That way, as the computers and codes advance, higher-polygon versions of the models could be imported, as the technology can keep up with them.
I know the overhead of a game includes tons of items, and is dependent on how well the game is architected, but regarding ballpark estimates on a P4 3.0 gHz,
1) how many total polygons can be supported across all objects?
How many can be supported by the Playstation2 and Xbox. The Playstation3 and Xbox2 in the future?
Best,
Ranger :)
#8
02/24/2005 (11:27 am)
Still even on next gen consoles the poly count will be rather low in comparison to feature film. There are ways to reduce High poly models to low poly I know 3D studio Max has tools for this and the company that created CryEngine (Crytek) has something that should work as well (PolyBump). You do not need to have super high poly models in order for them to look good however, this is the whole reason that people use bump mapping. If these are the kinds of questions that you are asking however I would recommend doing a little research in game development before diving any further.
#9
The feedback here as been extremely helpful.
Although I have a Ph.D. in physics and have done 3D modeling of space-time & semiconductors in C/C++, I'm relatively new to game development.
I appreciate the huge learning curve, but tools such as Torque are bringing a lot into reach.
I spent two years on the Autumn Ranger's Novel/Screenplay, and I know any game based on it could take quite some time.
You're right about the research--no matter what I do, I always try to ask the right questions before I go down a path too far--I don't want to reinvent the wheel, and I don't want to set off to accomplish the impossible (though maybe that helped the Wright brothers).
Thanks for the feedback!
02/24/2005 (11:52 am)
Thanks Matt,The feedback here as been extremely helpful.
Although I have a Ph.D. in physics and have done 3D modeling of space-time & semiconductors in C/C++, I'm relatively new to game development.
I appreciate the huge learning curve, but tools such as Torque are bringing a lot into reach.
I spent two years on the Autumn Ranger's Novel/Screenplay, and I know any game based on it could take quite some time.
You're right about the research--no matter what I do, I always try to ask the right questions before I go down a path too far--I don't want to reinvent the wheel, and I don't want to set off to accomplish the impossible (though maybe that helped the Wright brothers).
Thanks for the feedback!
#10
EDIT: also the Engine itself is written in C++ so that is good that you know that but you will need to learn Torque Script aswell if you want to be successful with Torque there are some really good Script resources on this site that help out alot.
02/24/2005 (12:07 pm)
No problem I do want to be helpful and I believe that this community will help you every step of the way. I understand what you mean about not getting too far down one path because that can be very frustrating and I figured that is why you were asking the questions you where asking. As far as actually making the game I would recommend you read the essential guide to Torque on this site. also if you click on the Torque game engine link you will find alot more documentation that is very helpful. If you are looking for outside GG info I would recommend www.gametutorials.com and www.gamedev.net EDIT: also the Engine itself is written in C++ so that is good that you know that but you will need to learn Torque Script aswell if you want to be successful with Torque there are some really good Script resources on this site that help out alot.
#11
Every year graphics/rendering capability squares itself.
Recommend:
Polygon Cruncher for use with 3Dmax + more.
http://www.mootools.com/plugins/us/polygoncruncher/index.htm
Works very well if you have relatively symmetrical models.
Has quite a few options, plus the ability to select portions of a model to be reduced to a different depth.
Models still require some tweaking if you attempt to bring a 30K model down to about 3-5K.
Well worth the cost.
02/24/2005 (12:24 pm)
I agree with the high res, then drop.Every year graphics/rendering capability squares itself.
Recommend:
Polygon Cruncher for use with 3Dmax + more.
http://www.mootools.com/plugins/us/polygoncruncher/index.htm
Works very well if you have relatively symmetrical models.
Has quite a few options, plus the ability to select portions of a model to be reduced to a different depth.
Models still require some tweaking if you attempt to bring a 30K model down to about 3-5K.
Well worth the cost.
Torque Owner Matt Sanders