Plan for David "RM" Michael
by DavidRM · 04/20/2005 (4:09 pm) · 3 comments
As I've been reviewing (and revising) the Paintball Net design doc, and conversing with l'artiste, I've been listing what features need to be taken care of.
Cartoon Outlining
One of the decisions about PBN that I made last year (before I cancelled it) was that I wanted the game to look over-the-top, comic book-ish. Vivid colors, highly stylized figures and weapons, in a word: different.
The cartoon outlining thread has been very helpful in getting up to speed with the various ways this can be done with Torque. I plan to experiment with the various code that's been posted, but TGE, unfortunately, seems to be at a disadvantage to TSE, in the lack of shader options.
TSE TSE flies
I keep looking at TSE and thinking, "Hmm...maybe...." The better cel-shading possibilities, the improvements to terrain handling and water, and so on, all make it quite tempting. On the other hand, TSE doesn't seem to be too much further along than it was a year ago.
Source Control
GAWD I hated CVS. Fortunately, Jeremy Noetzelman has agreed to help out in that regard. Mostly be not letting me use CVS again. Subversion seems really nice.
Scripting
I had considered ditching the built-in Torque scripting language in favor of something more flexible and less bizarre, particularly Python. But with (a) GG pulling the plug on PyTorque; (b) the rather awkward gyrations required to use TGEPython; and (c) all of the PBN scripting I would have to completely re-do in a conversion...I've decided to just grit my teeth, grin, and try not to think about it.
Melv Convergence
One of the nice things about TGE 1.3 is that it now includes almost all the Melv May resources I used to have to add by hand. That makes it so much easier. I can just take the latest Torque version and *poof*, most of the custom mods made in 2002 and 2003 are already there. Damn handy, I figure.
I'll have to convert my old skin modifier resource, but that's livable. I haven't researched yet whether the decaling mod made it into the engine proper, but, again, that shouldn't be too hard to plug back in.
Finally, there's the need to dig up the master server source, and puzzle out compiling a dedicated server on Linux again. And then interfacing to mySql and...and...
There are some challenges to overcome still, but I'm looking forward to them.
-David
Joe Indie
Cartoon Outlining
One of the decisions about PBN that I made last year (before I cancelled it) was that I wanted the game to look over-the-top, comic book-ish. Vivid colors, highly stylized figures and weapons, in a word: different.
The cartoon outlining thread has been very helpful in getting up to speed with the various ways this can be done with Torque. I plan to experiment with the various code that's been posted, but TGE, unfortunately, seems to be at a disadvantage to TSE, in the lack of shader options.
TSE TSE flies
I keep looking at TSE and thinking, "Hmm...maybe...." The better cel-shading possibilities, the improvements to terrain handling and water, and so on, all make it quite tempting. On the other hand, TSE doesn't seem to be too much further along than it was a year ago.
Source Control
GAWD I hated CVS. Fortunately, Jeremy Noetzelman has agreed to help out in that regard. Mostly be not letting me use CVS again. Subversion seems really nice.
Scripting
I had considered ditching the built-in Torque scripting language in favor of something more flexible and less bizarre, particularly Python. But with (a) GG pulling the plug on PyTorque; (b) the rather awkward gyrations required to use TGEPython; and (c) all of the PBN scripting I would have to completely re-do in a conversion...I've decided to just grit my teeth, grin, and try not to think about it.
Melv Convergence
One of the nice things about TGE 1.3 is that it now includes almost all the Melv May resources I used to have to add by hand. That makes it so much easier. I can just take the latest Torque version and *poof*, most of the custom mods made in 2002 and 2003 are already there. Damn handy, I figure.
I'll have to convert my old skin modifier resource, but that's livable. I haven't researched yet whether the decaling mod made it into the engine proper, but, again, that shouldn't be too hard to plug back in.
Finally, there's the need to dig up the master server source, and puzzle out compiling a dedicated server on Linux again. And then interfacing to mySql and...and...
There are some challenges to overcome still, but I'm looking forward to them.
-David
Joe Indie
About the author
Torque Owner Jay Moore
Default Studio Name
Welcome back. Writing from Cupertino and all I can say is OS X still needs a GREAT paintball game - I think all the things you learned on the way to the paintball arena will help you find that sweet spot of fun for hardcore and for those of us who want more of the fun of say a waterballoon fight than an FPS with paintball... making it cell shaded comic book style might just give it a theme that would be distinctive and set the expectation of fun in the right place (at least as I think about the kind of game I want to play ... and well you know me... see it find its market potential).
Jay Moore
DaPimpn'ator