The Game - progress
by Duion · 03/10/2013 (11:14 pm) · 18 comments
The last time I have been playing around a lot and decided to make a new artwork pack and a level with it ,because this is the most fun part for me, but now I got a little bored of it and want to show off a little, it is almost finished anyway.
I even have the next idea what I could build, but I will try to focus on other things now, because my goal is to make it to a first release, so others may benefit of all this nasty work.
I am still not clear about the format, but my idea so far is something like Torque3D, but with a much extended demo material such as artwork and gamemode-scripts under an open source license, so others may get a faster start.
If someone is interested I could need some help to make some scripts to make this all work, something like a level-, gamemode- and loadout-selection menu and setting it up for multiplayer, this would speed up the process.
And lastly here's the preview video:
I even have the next idea what I could build, but I will try to focus on other things now, because my goal is to make it to a first release, so others may benefit of all this nasty work.
I am still not clear about the format, but my idea so far is something like Torque3D, but with a much extended demo material such as artwork and gamemode-scripts under an open source license, so others may get a faster start.
If someone is interested I could need some help to make some scripts to make this all work, something like a level-, gamemode- and loadout-selection menu and setting it up for multiplayer, this would speed up the process.
And lastly here's the preview video:
About the author
http://www.duion.com - Human Paradigm Specialist
#2
About the scripts you asking:
May it helps to find some one, if you go more in details, what you need.
What kind of multiplay, MMO, teams, capture the flag etc.. hope you get what I mean. Also it would help if you describe the game play a bit more.
Good luck on your project.
03/11/2013 (2:30 pm)
@Duion, I second David, about the rocks. Also I would rework the floor textures. It seams some thing is wrong there. Otherwise it looks nice! You also can use parallax normal textures, so the details on the floor texture looks more realistic.About the scripts you asking:
May it helps to find some one, if you go more in details, what you need.
What kind of multiplay, MMO, teams, capture the flag etc.. hope you get what I mean. Also it would help if you describe the game play a bit more.
Good luck on your project.
#3
The skybox was my first try making one, was a really tough job, because I could not really find a tutorial for it and I had to stretch it a little to fit the 1024pix and did not want to make it all again after I finished it, maybe I will make a smaller version later, but this way it looks a little epic and the theme was more fantasy like anyway.
@D Fasel
Every texture has parallax on, but on some places they blend into each other and you get some not so nice effects, but they are not to bad I think, to minimize that, I would have to repaint all, but thats a problem of the blending effect, but this likely was not your point, the problem may be that parallax on slopes does not work that good.
About the scripts, I do not plan a specific kind of gameplay, cause this would limit people, I would like more freedom.
The script would be more general, something like a selection screen, where you can choses map and gameplay, so you can add your own maps and gameplay modes later.
I am new to that and it takes a lot of time to learn every area of expertise.
And critique is okay, thats why I post it here, so I can improve.
03/11/2013 (2:42 pm)
I know, but it's not one rock, there's 3 classes of rock with 3-4 variations each, I can see they would need even more blending in and if you want to make cliffs you would need to place them all by hand to make them look good, but it's really large terrain, so I chose this way, even if some marbles may got placed somewhere where they should not be.The skybox was my first try making one, was a really tough job, because I could not really find a tutorial for it and I had to stretch it a little to fit the 1024pix and did not want to make it all again after I finished it, maybe I will make a smaller version later, but this way it looks a little epic and the theme was more fantasy like anyway.
@D Fasel
Every texture has parallax on, but on some places they blend into each other and you get some not so nice effects, but they are not to bad I think, to minimize that, I would have to repaint all, but thats a problem of the blending effect, but this likely was not your point, the problem may be that parallax on slopes does not work that good.
About the scripts, I do not plan a specific kind of gameplay, cause this would limit people, I would like more freedom.
The script would be more general, something like a selection screen, where you can choses map and gameplay, so you can add your own maps and gameplay modes later.
I am new to that and it takes a lot of time to learn every area of expertise.
And critique is okay, thats why I post it here, so I can improve.
#4
Did you use normal maps textures prepared for parallax? Only switch on the parallax button don't helps. Your right, you have to take care about slops.
03/11/2013 (3:21 pm)
Just to help, that's why I post here :)Did you use normal maps textures prepared for parallax? Only switch on the parallax button don't helps. Your right, you have to take care about slops.
#5
Scripting something that is wide open to format changes and user add-ons is quite a hack.
It's not exactly what people are looking for.
Developers often want a few specific items to insert into their code,
Not a huge code base to put their stuff into. Too hard to read into.
Getting players to be developers is what GG does anyway.
Yah, fix the rocks up and sell the map as is.
There are a ton of mission ideas floating around in my head, after seeing a bit of your video.
There is all kinds of room for characters and buildings too.
There are a ton of art packs out there to build your own world.
You have an outstanding world. It's already made. That hard work is done.
Look to team up, or just simply sell a pack.
03/11/2013 (4:00 pm)
Tried that whole 3d scripting. It's 10 years later and I am on to another project in 2d.Scripting something that is wide open to format changes and user add-ons is quite a hack.
It's not exactly what people are looking for.
Developers often want a few specific items to insert into their code,
Not a huge code base to put their stuff into. Too hard to read into.
Getting players to be developers is what GG does anyway.
Yah, fix the rocks up and sell the map as is.
There are a ton of mission ideas floating around in my head, after seeing a bit of your video.
There is all kinds of room for characters and buildings too.
There are a ton of art packs out there to build your own world.
You have an outstanding world. It's already made. That hard work is done.
Look to team up, or just simply sell a pack.
#6
Yes it all works, I know cause I made everything from scratch, maybe in video compression the details get coded out. An other thing is, it depends on lighting, if light hits the ground in a very steep angle, the parallax textures change in appearance.
03/11/2013 (4:06 pm)
@D FaselYes it all works, I know cause I made everything from scratch, maybe in video compression the details get coded out. An other thing is, it depends on lighting, if light hits the ground in a very steep angle, the parallax textures change in appearance.
#7
Maybe my initial goal is too complicated.
I already tried to copy and paste some scripts together, but many resources are pretty old and do not work properly with the newer version.
What I have done so far is this artwork set/level and the other one, that I posted earlier and some more artwork, that is not used so far.
The missing part so far is an alternative player model, weapons and animations, but thats not so important, the default ones will work for the first and that is something I maybe can do myself.
And of course the scripts, on my list at the moment are scripts for level selection, it should go something like this:
-chose level--> /level_1/,
-chose weather/time --> level_1/level_1_day,
-chose gamemode--> deathmatch/capture the flat/.. (some basic gameplay types),
-chose weapons--> desert eagle, ak47 (or random or use the ones placed on the map etc.)
-chose time and score limit
except from that there may be levels where you cannot play the basic mods like deathmatch, for example a race map, in that case another function has to load, but this is optional at first.
then I would need a master server resource, so players can connect online to each other
and then some little things like drowning a player when underwater ,mission areas, damage system, weapons behavior etc...
Soon or later I may learn that myself, but this would take me another few months, so I hoped someone has something lying around he wants to donate, this would speed things up a little.
When that is done I plan to release a first alpha version, with the next torque release, where some bugs will be fixed I hope, so people can test it on their own and play with it. I do not plan to sell it, I will try the open source way, so others can continue if I shall decide to do something else.
03/11/2013 (4:47 pm)
@NathanMaybe my initial goal is too complicated.
I already tried to copy and paste some scripts together, but many resources are pretty old and do not work properly with the newer version.
What I have done so far is this artwork set/level and the other one, that I posted earlier and some more artwork, that is not used so far.
The missing part so far is an alternative player model, weapons and animations, but thats not so important, the default ones will work for the first and that is something I maybe can do myself.
And of course the scripts, on my list at the moment are scripts for level selection, it should go something like this:
-chose level--> /level_1/,
-chose weather/time --> level_1/level_1_day,
-chose gamemode--> deathmatch/capture the flat/.. (some basic gameplay types),
-chose weapons--> desert eagle, ak47 (or random or use the ones placed on the map etc.)
-chose time and score limit
except from that there may be levels where you cannot play the basic mods like deathmatch, for example a race map, in that case another function has to load, but this is optional at first.
then I would need a master server resource, so players can connect online to each other
and then some little things like drowning a player when underwater ,mission areas, damage system, weapons behavior etc...
Soon or later I may learn that myself, but this would take me another few months, so I hoped someone has something lying around he wants to donate, this would speed things up a little.
When that is done I plan to release a first alpha version, with the next torque release, where some bugs will be fixed I hope, so people can test it on their own and play with it. I do not plan to sell it, I will try the open source way, so others can continue if I shall decide to do something else.
#8
Not a bad initial attempt. I would like to recommend some things that may help. Use the suggestions or throw them out...
1. Repetition: after the first 2 minutes, what are your showing me that is new? I tend to hold to a rule that learned when I was making my first portfolio video. Stick to a 2 minute rule. Unless you have MORE than 2 minutes worth of content and you have some MASSIVE amounts of objects but not actual content, so unless you are adding different models, there is little reason to run more than a couple of minutes.
2. Contrast: always assume your contrast settings are darker than they appear. D's comment concerning your ground textures probably has to do with that. I know you have parallax enabled and I can see what you were after but, even at 720p+ resolution, the contrast was really dark and you lost clarity (I know because I have made the same error, and I have been called on it).
3. Camera modes: I know this because I messed it up as well and people corrected me.... There are different camera modes. For anything showing off an environment you want to use one of the 'newton' camera modes (bottom right hand side of the screen, you may have to 'move' the tools menu a little to see it) Choose the "smooth rotate" camera when you are shooting video. You can see the difference if you look at my Tropics 2.0 reboot video versus my Cave Pack Preview video (The cave (or for that matter the fantasy ruins pack are much 'smoother') or just play around with it yourself.
4. The Rocks: I know you probably intended for the rocks to be varied. Unfortunately, there was not enough variation in the meshes or textures to make that apparent. See what you can do with the original meshes to add more variations to each mesh. This should help with that issue.
LAST: YouTube Stuff, I want you to know that this took me quite a while to work out, Store your video in the highest resolution possible for me I use true 1080p (1920 X 1080 in Torque)True 720p resolution is 1280 X 720. From there I create a master that uses the H246 compression. This video is then uploaded to YouTube. (Keeps things very close to what you see when you are shooting the video.)
Overall, I like your concept and I really hope you find a scripter to help you out with the engine stuff you want to implement. I am actually working on something similar that I hope to include in the stock engine because I agree, we need something that helps out the new people when it comes to core game functions.
Like I said, take what you want from this, or throw it out.... Either way, good job and I hope what I pointed out helps.
Ron
03/11/2013 (6:49 pm)
Duion,Not a bad initial attempt. I would like to recommend some things that may help. Use the suggestions or throw them out...
1. Repetition: after the first 2 minutes, what are your showing me that is new? I tend to hold to a rule that learned when I was making my first portfolio video. Stick to a 2 minute rule. Unless you have MORE than 2 minutes worth of content and you have some MASSIVE amounts of objects but not actual content, so unless you are adding different models, there is little reason to run more than a couple of minutes.
2. Contrast: always assume your contrast settings are darker than they appear. D's comment concerning your ground textures probably has to do with that. I know you have parallax enabled and I can see what you were after but, even at 720p+ resolution, the contrast was really dark and you lost clarity (I know because I have made the same error, and I have been called on it).
3. Camera modes: I know this because I messed it up as well and people corrected me.... There are different camera modes. For anything showing off an environment you want to use one of the 'newton' camera modes (bottom right hand side of the screen, you may have to 'move' the tools menu a little to see it) Choose the "smooth rotate" camera when you are shooting video. You can see the difference if you look at my Tropics 2.0 reboot video versus my Cave Pack Preview video (The cave (or for that matter the fantasy ruins pack are much 'smoother') or just play around with it yourself.
4. The Rocks: I know you probably intended for the rocks to be varied. Unfortunately, there was not enough variation in the meshes or textures to make that apparent. See what you can do with the original meshes to add more variations to each mesh. This should help with that issue.
LAST: YouTube Stuff, I want you to know that this took me quite a while to work out, Store your video in the highest resolution possible for me I use true 1080p (1920 X 1080 in Torque)True 720p resolution is 1280 X 720. From there I create a master that uses the H246 compression. This video is then uploaded to YouTube. (Keeps things very close to what you see when you are shooting the video.)
Overall, I like your concept and I really hope you find a scripter to help you out with the engine stuff you want to implement. I am actually working on something similar that I hope to include in the stock engine because I agree, we need something that helps out the new people when it comes to core game functions.
Like I said, take what you want from this, or throw it out.... Either way, good job and I hope what I pointed out helps.
Ron
#9
2. This may be because of the HDR, it is cool that you want a lot of it sometimes, but it makes it very dark, I will keep it lower in the future or add some gamma.
3. Just found the camera modes, did not notice them so far, thanks for the hint, smooth is much better.
03/11/2013 (7:24 pm)
1.Yes it was too long, what I wanted to show was a hillside scene, a deep jungle scene, a lake scene and an overview scene, but the map was really big and it took time to get there and I wanted the music to run out, but as I expected I will not come around learning video editing.2. This may be because of the HDR, it is cool that you want a lot of it sometimes, but it makes it very dark, I will keep it lower in the future or add some gamma.
3. Just found the camera modes, did not notice them so far, thanks for the hint, smooth is much better.
#10
No worries, if you wanted to show off all of those scenes, keeping to the 2 minute rule, use cuts and fades. From what I gather you are not using any editing software for your final cuts. I would recommend at least getting a basic video editing package. There might even be something open source out there. (I have not checked on open source video editors in a long time, but I am sure they are out there). Another alternative would be WAY cheap....Heck I just use some cheap sony software I picked up at Best Buy for like 30$. I am fairly certain there are other cheaper alternatives.
The HDRI can mess with the gamma a bit, but I also think it may have to do with your monitor settings. When was the last time you calibrated your monitor? My guess as to your answer...."What do you mean? Calibrate my monitor?". Most people don't understand that monitors should be calibrated. You can do a simple google search and see what I mean. It's not hard to do and really is essential if you want things to be consistent between assorted hardware settings. Here is decent start point:
www.pcworld.com/article/241957/how_to_calibrate_your_monitor.html.
Glad you found the camera modes..... It took Konrad Kiss, beating me up via email before I figured that out...so I thought I would share.
Keep in mind that I am not stating these things to be mean or beat up on you personally. The way I see it, if anything we put out as Torque developers changes the standard "well that is just standard Torque crap" misconception, then we are all doing right as a team and increase the number of people that view Torque as a 'cool' option.
Trust me, I have beat up on a number of really good artists for this stuff....just ask D. Fasel...LOL) Sadly, the 'visual stuff' is what people judge T3D on. So, all of us artists need to push and be the best we can.
By the way, good website/blog site and thanks for plugging my tutorial! Glad you found some use for it.
Keep up the great work!
Ron
03/11/2013 (8:57 pm)
Duion,No worries, if you wanted to show off all of those scenes, keeping to the 2 minute rule, use cuts and fades. From what I gather you are not using any editing software for your final cuts. I would recommend at least getting a basic video editing package. There might even be something open source out there. (I have not checked on open source video editors in a long time, but I am sure they are out there). Another alternative would be WAY cheap....Heck I just use some cheap sony software I picked up at Best Buy for like 30$. I am fairly certain there are other cheaper alternatives.
The HDRI can mess with the gamma a bit, but I also think it may have to do with your monitor settings. When was the last time you calibrated your monitor? My guess as to your answer...."What do you mean? Calibrate my monitor?". Most people don't understand that monitors should be calibrated. You can do a simple google search and see what I mean. It's not hard to do and really is essential if you want things to be consistent between assorted hardware settings. Here is decent start point:
www.pcworld.com/article/241957/how_to_calibrate_your_monitor.html.
Glad you found the camera modes..... It took Konrad Kiss, beating me up via email before I figured that out...so I thought I would share.
Keep in mind that I am not stating these things to be mean or beat up on you personally. The way I see it, if anything we put out as Torque developers changes the standard "well that is just standard Torque crap" misconception, then we are all doing right as a team and increase the number of people that view Torque as a 'cool' option.
Trust me, I have beat up on a number of really good artists for this stuff....just ask D. Fasel...LOL) Sadly, the 'visual stuff' is what people judge T3D on. So, all of us artists need to push and be the best we can.
By the way, good website/blog site and thanks for plugging my tutorial! Glad you found some use for it.
Keep up the great work!
Ron
#11
or u can go with different level like chainaTown day and ChinaTown night.
and have to fix stateAnimations based on your available animations.
as a programmer with zero knowledge and interest on art side, i will be glad to team up with someone having knowledge and passion on art side.
contract me if you need help on any script side help.
03/11/2013 (10:31 pm)
Quote:look into fps tutorial template.all of these already added.
"chose level--> /level_1/,
-chose gamemode--> deathmatch/capture the flat/.. (some basic gameplay types),
-chose time and score limit
Quote:for this u will have to copy paste some script.very much easy.
"-chose weather/time --> level_1/level_1_day,"
or u can go with different level like chainaTown day and ChinaTown night.
Quote:already have added.just have to replace stock models with yours one.
"-chose weapons--> desert eagle, ak47 (or random or use the ones placed on the map etc.)"
and have to fix stateAnimations based on your available animations.
Quote:there are resources for each of them.u have to make it compatible with your other script side changes.
"and then some little things like drowning a player when underwater ,mission areas, damage system, weapons behavior etc..."
Quote:this is the part i have no experience.but from old threads it sound easy task.
"then I would need a master server resource, so players can connect online to each other"
as a programmer with zero knowledge and interest on art side, i will be glad to team up with someone having knowledge and passion on art side.
contract me if you need help on any script side help.
#12
03/11/2013 (11:59 pm)
I like it. It has a nice feel. Also, anyone ever been to Goblin Valley, or been to the place near Death Valley with the moving rocks? There are places with weird repetitive formations that make you think giants are playing with rocks when nobody is looking. There are just some strange rocks some places. So it is not really a put off for a lot of rocks that look the same.
#13
You are correct, the rocks were not a 'bad' thing. I was just making suggestions for a 'general' feel and even the 'moving rocks' in death valley are still at different levels, as far as 'sinking in the ground' goes and they are different shapes from rock to rock.
Ron
03/12/2013 (12:31 am)
Frank,You are correct, the rocks were not a 'bad' thing. I was just making suggestions for a 'general' feel and even the 'moving rocks' in death valley are still at different levels, as far as 'sinking in the ground' goes and they are different shapes from rock to rock.
Ron
#14
Yes your tutorial was the first thing really useful, to get some working results although I used blender and not 3dsmax and you did some things wrong there, you painted the base of the leaves red, but you have to paint the ends red, because the ends will move up and down, not the base and your imposters were way too big, you generated 1024pix imposters at detail level 64 (64pixels), but you do not need more or not much more than 64 pixel at this level, maybe some more to make it blend smoother, but I mostly use the same now, the default 128 with 128pixel imposters is quite okay in many cases.
03/12/2013 (8:35 am)
@RonYes your tutorial was the first thing really useful, to get some working results although I used blender and not 3dsmax and you did some things wrong there, you painted the base of the leaves red, but you have to paint the ends red, because the ends will move up and down, not the base and your imposters were way too big, you generated 1024pix imposters at detail level 64 (64pixels), but you do not need more or not much more than 64 pixel at this level, maybe some more to make it blend smoother, but I mostly use the same now, the default 128 with 128pixel imposters is quite okay in many cases.
#15
My reason for mentioning Death Valley was because some natural things are down right unnatural at times. The stuff that really trips me out is the hexagon formations in some places around the world and those weird mushroom rocks in some water locations. Just does not look right.
03/12/2013 (9:24 am)
@Ron,My reason for mentioning Death Valley was because some natural things are down right unnatural at times. The stuff that really trips me out is the hexagon formations in some places around the world and those weird mushroom rocks in some water locations. Just does not look right.
#16
03/12/2013 (10:16 am)
My first setting/map was realistic, but it took my much time to make it accurate to real life nature and in this one I threw some realism rules over board, all plants and nature environment are artificial creations, except the conifer like tree, which you may identify as a real tree existing in real life.
#17
03/12/2013 (10:53 am)
It kind of has a FFX feel to it.
#18
PS: May has to do something with the video player format, if you watch fullscreen or in an external player, contrast and brightess is better, but I will add some gamma next time.
03/13/2013 (1:05 pm)
"calibrated" my monitor, everything was quite fine, except brightness, which was increased a bit, depending on my circumstances here.PS: May has to do something with the video player format, if you watch fullscreen or in an external player, contrast and brightess is better, but I will add some gamma next time.
Torque Owner David Robert Pemberton
www.deadlyassets.com
Other than thouse 2 points I like it very much, the music adds to the RPG feeling, nice, keep it up :-)