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Looking for homegrown AN artists, modellers and testers..


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Looking for homegrown AN artists, modellers and testers..
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scratt
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2006-02-20, 02:53

Hey all..

I have spoken to a few people here about a project I am working on in my spare time...

It's a simulation, first person, space related and eventually online and multi-user.
It will also be developed exclusively for the Mac.

It would be fair to say it draws influence from Elite and the X series of games.. But I am trying to achieve slightly different final goals than those projects.. Put simply it's the space simulation that I have always wanted to experience..

A web site with a blog and wiki is being put together, and the code I am using is both my own and certain open source 'things' which I have spoken to the original authors about using.. The developemenrt process will be documented, and I will ask all involved to contribute to the blog, wiki and project as a whole. All work will be credited.

The project should hit Alpha in about 18 months. It is completely Open Source and as such there is no money involved, and it will be free for people to use when complete. But I am hoping eventually to build a community around it as we produce future iterations of the simulation and grow the scope of it's capabilities as a simulation..

It is also being written so that it runs smoothly on quite high end hardware at present. i.e. The Dual G5 Macs with nice graphics hardware and so on..

So I am looking for content... Graphically, Model wise, Sound effects and Music wise...
If anyone wants to come play.. Please PM me or post in this thread..

'Remember, measure life by the moments that take your breath away, not by how many breaths you take'
Extreme Sports Cafe | ESC's blog | scratt's blog | @thescratt
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drewprops
Space Pirate
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
 
2006-02-20, 07:56

What about storylines and scenarios? By "space based" am I to assume that this will be a "hard science" type environment (along the lines of a Ben Bova, Larry Niven, etc) instead of a sci-fi fantasy (like Star Trek, Star Wars, etc).

Steve Jobs ate my cat's watermelon.
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scratt
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2006-02-20, 08:21

Thanks for the feedback.. Storylines and scenarios would be very welcome..

I must admit that is definitely somewhere where the project is lacking.. I am very much a geek in that sense!

"Hey look at my spacecraft and the atmosphere shading on the planet and the spline paths stuff...etc."

"But where's the gameplay? What's the point of this simulation?"

"huh?"

So if someone can come in and shape the project with a good story line then I would be very very receptive to that...

You are absolutely right in your assumption that it is going to be more in the vein of say Larry Niven, as opposed to the more "pop-science-fiction" of Star Trek and Star Wars..

(Heck, I definitely want some kind of Ring World in the Universe somewhere...)

For example, space travel will involve a certain amount of planning. Your ship will be affected by gravitational fields over long distances so you won't just be able to point at a planet, or star and fly there.. You will also have to orbit planets, not just float in the space above them.

Also the Universe is 'real', so if a star is 4ly away, you will have to travel 4ly at whatever speed you craft is capable.. There will of course be things to discover in the Universe, and technologies to develop or buy which will enable travel over great distances, and more effective weapons / communications.. etc. etc.

You will still be able to zip around like a loony using thrusters if you wish, and dog fight and so on, but if you want to get the most out of the simulation you will also have to learn about all the capabilities of your space craft, and really explore the Universe.

Leaving a planet will not be as simple as jumping in your old space jalopy and blasting off... There will be launch sequences, and then docking with your ship in orbit, changing cockpits perhaps, and then setting a course and escape trajectory from the solar system..

The above will all be of course assisted by navigational aids of varying degrees of upgradability and so on, but you will have to be a little more savvy than simply being quick with a joystick and thrust button..

I also want to experiment with the real problems of different languages and communication between species, and a Universal political system...

As you can tell. A lot of it is Blue Sky at the moment, and the beauty of this project from my point of view is there is no commercial constraint, and we can try try try again until we get it just the way everyone wants it...

'Remember, measure life by the moments that take your breath away, not by how many breaths you take'
Extreme Sports Cafe | ESC's blog | scratt's blog | @thescratt
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mickey.herman
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Join Date: Jan 2006
 
2006-02-20, 09:59

I PMed you before I fully read the last post you made. I am very interested in developing a story line for the game, as I have been thinking and have some great ideas.
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scratt
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2006-02-20, 11:56

Thanks to everyone for the PMs and support so far....

I will post back here with the URL of the developement web site in the next few days, once there is a bit more to see... Developement comes first on this at the moment, so organising text and screen shots of ideas is done during compile periods. Unfortunately my G5 and G4 and Xcode are too damn fast at compiling the code to give me many breaks!

In the meantime any storyline ideas, requests, thoughts, words of wisdom are very welcome...

scratt.

'Remember, measure life by the moments that take your breath away, not by how many breaths you take'
Extreme Sports Cafe | ESC's blog | scratt's blog | @thescratt
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Brad
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Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
 
2006-02-20, 12:18

Quote:
Originally Posted by scratt
draws influence from Elite
I'm so in!

Quote:
Originally Posted by scratt
It is also being written so that it runs smoothly on quite high end hardware at present. i.e. The Dual G5 Macs with nice graphics hardware and so on..
Err, I'm so out.
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ghoti
owner for sale by house
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Charlotte, NC
 
2006-02-20, 12:22

I'd be interested in participating as a lurker . I don't want to promise anything, because I get excited too easily and then lose interest. But I'd be interested to follow what you guys are doing and offer my valuable insights as necessary
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Batman
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2006-02-20, 14:27

Ooh! Ooh! I'm sooo in
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scratt
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2006-02-20, 21:51

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad
Err, I'm so out.
Heh! I am actually developing it on my Rev 1 17" Powerbook, and it is usable.

I generally fire it accross to the G5 to soak test it..

By the time the project reaches Alpha the current G5 configuration will be pretty standard in terms of what we all have on our desktops.. I am talking Alpha in 18 months..

Don't know if you were joking Brad, and I know you are busy... But if you want to play you are very welcome..

'Remember, measure life by the moments that take your breath away, not by how many breaths you take'
Extreme Sports Cafe | ESC's blog | scratt's blog | @thescratt
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scratt
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2006-02-20, 21:53

Quote:
Originally Posted by ghoti
I'd be interested in participating as a lurker . I don't want to promise anything, because I get excited too easily and then lose interest. But I'd be interested to follow what you guys are doing and offer my valuable insights as necessary
No problem.. I have other commitments too.. Heck the last two weeks nothing happened because I was jumping out of planes again.. From the 7th to the 17th of March I'll be doing the same.. Do please feel free to jump in at any stage. Right now the more the merrier, and I'll understand if people lose interest, or go through phases...

I really hope this simulation ends up having a consderable amount of AppleNova input.. That would be cool.

'Remember, measure life by the moments that take your breath away, not by how many breaths you take'
Extreme Sports Cafe | ESC's blog | scratt's blog | @thescratt
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SpecMode
Wait what
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
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2006-02-20, 23:45

I'd be more than happy to chip in whenever/whatever I'm capable of. Being a general all-around sci-fi geek, plus spending over four and a half years on an aircraft carrier, should hopefully have given me something useful to add.
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scratt
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2006-02-20, 23:55

Cool SpecMode.. The aircraft carrier thing really interests me. I once toured a US aircraft carrier stationed just outside Tokyo.. Actually I spent the weekend on the base.. I was amazed at the size, and having a friend on board was able to see a lot of the places most people don't get to go..

The fact that there are ATM machines on board, and tarmac on the runway blew me away, oh.. and that quite often people just didn't know others on board, because it's basically a small floating town, and who knows everyone in their home town?

I would love your take on what a military space carrier would be made up of..

Any input, any time is very welcome. PM me and I'll send you my private email address..

'Remember, measure life by the moments that take your breath away, not by how many breaths you take'
Extreme Sports Cafe | ESC's blog | scratt's blog | @thescratt
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SpecMode
Wait what
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
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2006-02-21, 00:14

The sheer size is probably the part that took me the longest to get used to; after four and a half years aboard, there are still parts of the ship I've never been to!

That aside, my focus on Nimitz is propulsion and electrical systems (we operate eight 8MW steam turbine generators, more than enough for a 'small city' , plus all of the associated distribution equipment). I've got a passing grasp of overall ship operations, but I'd say my strongest point would be engineering.
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bassplayinMacFiend
Banging the Bottom End
 
Join Date: Jun 2004
 
2006-02-21, 14:05

I'm not sure what I could add, but I'm interested in the project. Maybe I could work with other musos to provide tunes, sound fx, etc. I do some coding and OpenGL is on my list of things to check out so I could try to add / check code.

I wouldn't mind brainstorming on plot lines either.
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Dave
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Join Date: May 2004
Location: Bay Area, CA
 
2006-02-21, 15:15

Quote:
Originally Posted by scratt
Leaving a planet will not be as simple as jumping in your old space jalopy and blasting off... There will be launch sequences, and then docking with your ship in orbit, changing cockpits perhaps, and then setting a course and escape trajectory from the solar system..
Anything is an escape trajectory if you've got big enough engines
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curiousuburb
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Join Date: May 2004
Location: that interweb thing
 
2006-02-21, 18:37

Soooo... are you referencing any other sci-fi games other than Elite/Oolite?

Any old text/adventure games?

Lucasarts stuff?

Escape Velocity Series?

Spaceship Warlock? Titanic?

Any of the Trek games? Yexi?

Pseudo-familiar themes might make things easier for folks to adapt to than a 'virgin' universe, even if you're just riffing on fictional constructs from Niven or Asimov or Heinlein or Orson Scott Card or whomever...

Such direction might also help those of us who are considering dabbling get a sense of how much micromanagement -vs- gameplay you're looking for.

I can think of a few old school games which did well with in a particular area but lacked in others that might provide convenient reference points for a clearer project description... "plot branching like x, with ship movement/combat like y and alien contact like z".

But maybe you're looking open ended now and aren't rejecting anything.

Let us know.
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scratt
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2006-02-21, 20:59

Quote:
Originally Posted by bassplayinMacFiend
I'm not sure what I could add, but I'm interested in the project. Maybe I could work with other musos to provide tunes, sound fx, etc. I do some coding and OpenGL is on my list of things to check out so I could try to add / check code.

I wouldn't mind brainstorming on plot lines either.
Plot and storyline ideas are always welcome from anyone.. Please make your mark...

Your comments about OpenGL are interesting. Part of the Open Source code I am using has some OpenGL stuff in it, and for that reason I have had to pick up a certain amount of OpenGL to interface to it. In fact my Scene Graph core runs as part of the OpenGL window that the entire engine runs in at the moment.. If you want to jump on as the OpenGL guy and build your skills up as we go you are more than welcome..

'Remember, measure life by the moments that take your breath away, not by how many breaths you take'
Extreme Sports Cafe | ESC's blog | scratt's blog | @thescratt
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scratt
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2006-02-21, 21:19

Quote:
Originally Posted by curiousuburb
Soooo... are you referencing any other sci-fi games other than Elite/Oolite?

Any old text/adventure games?

Lucasarts stuff?

Escape Velocity Series?

Spaceship Warlock? Titanic?

Any of the Trek games? Yexi?

Pseudo-familiar themes might make things easier for folks to adapt to than a 'virgin' universe, even if you're just riffing on fictional constructs from Niven or Asimov or Heinlein or Orson Scott Card or whomever...
I am not familiar with all of those games you list, but I am sure I will draw reference from some of them..

EDIT : I tell you one I did love, but I can't rememeber the name. You have to land a space ship in valleys on planets and rescue downed pilots, but aliens also try to invade your ship when you open the bay doors. It was a LucasFilm one. Used to scare the bejesus out of me when I played it at night and an alien would jump right up at the cockpit window. It was quite a revolutionary game because it used fractal landscapes so they were infinite.. Now some features from that I would like to add in to this simulation!

Agreed on the 'pseudo-familiar themes'.. Actually the Universe is going to be pretty much based on the *real* Universe. We have explored so little of it that I think that is much more fun.. Also, we all know pllaces like Alpha Centari etc. so having them as potential destinations is a great idea. I have a working title which is basically the name of a form of constellation, and that is pretty much where the standard storyline will start..

Quote:
Originally Posted by curiousuburb
Such direction might also help those of us who are considering dabbling get a sense of how much micromanagement -vs- gameplay you're looking for.
This will definitely be one of those games that you set aside a few hours a day, week or month to play. There will be realtime sections where you can either use a 'speed-up' feature, or leave the software running and enjoy the eye candy. Flying from the Earth to Mars in a 'normal' (whatever that is) spaceship will take months, so initially you will be limited to a very small area of space, and quite low tech craft. That is not to say that more advanced influences won't enter your immediate area in space, or that there won't be hidden features that enable you to do a 'Buck Rogers', but initially you will be learning about piloting your ship, landing, exploration etc. etc.

There will perhaps be some small cannon fodder around, or excuses to use piloting skills, so you could kind of see the first solaer system you are in as a training sandpit, if you like. Once you leave that system all bets are off.. And I guess that system may become more unforgiving once the simualation leaves 'training mode' and you then visit it again.. Storyline ideas I have at the moment are along the lines of an invasion of your home system, around the time that you leave it.. Heck that might be the reason you have to leave.. But is that a bit cliched? See! I need help with the story line!

I have always loved the sequence in Aliens when they go down to the surface of the planet, flying through the green squares on the cockpit hud, and then enterring the atmosphere. I want to have that kind of attention to detail in parts of the simulation. That is not to say that you won't be able to then automate docking, and landing and takeoff and so on.. as you progress... But in order to progress I would like people to have gone through a learning curve..
You will need some of these skills in order to explore other parts of the Universe.

Blue Sky here for a moment.. In this simulation there are already over 2 million stars. Each can have a planetary system with any number of planets. Each planet has the potential surface area of say, the Earth. I have always loved the Willy Wonka story... What if we hide 6 artifacts in the Universe, and finding those artifacts are one of the sub-plots, with some kind of prize... How long do you think it would take to find them? Or what if you needed to have two or more.. What kind of battles would ensue, and gossip be created on the Universal Internet about rumours of so-and-so having on on an asteroid in such-and-such a system... You'd have hundereds of pirates, and mercenaries and police types turning up on the hunt... Just a thought...

Part of the challenge is making this leanring curve fun, and not boring. I hope that's where everyones input will come in. We can always have a few different options for people to set when they first enter the simulation so that they can each have the experience that suits them..

Quote:
Originally Posted by curiousuburb
I can think of a few old school games which did well with in a particular area but lacked in others that might provide convenient reference points for a clearer project description... "plot branching like x, with ship movement/combat like y and alien contact like z".

But maybe you're looking open ended now and aren't rejecting anything.

Let us know.
If you want to PM me for my email address please do, or list the games you are talking about and the pros and cons as you see them here in this thread.. I would be very interested in that..

Thanks for your feedback.

'Remember, measure life by the moments that take your breath away, not by how many breaths you take'
Extreme Sports Cafe | ESC's blog | scratt's blog | @thescratt
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drewprops
Space Pirate
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
 
2006-02-22, 00:08

I've been mainlining the books of Jack McDevitt for the past two months and am especially receptive to this topic at present. Like most hard sci-fi writers he peppers his stuff with "big" ideas like Clarke's Rama and Niven's Ringworld, but he also employs the standard space workaround of "jump" technology though it is imprecise and takes weeks upon weeks to cross large distances even in that state.

Passengers spend a lot of time hanging out, participating in holo-adventures (kind of like karaoke except with movies) and there are occasional shipboard romances.... sounds like a regular day on LJ or MySpace if you asked me!!

Eventually your players could discover alien technology.... get faster engines. doot doot doot

Steve Jobs ate my cat's watermelon.
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billybobsky
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Join Date: May 2004
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2006-02-22, 00:14

There was a freeware space simulation that allowed you to fire rockets and move into and out of a planet's atmosphere (with real gravity effects)...

It was for OS 8 or something, a long time ago... sort of a proof of concept 'game'...

What the hell was it?

Edit: Nevermind it must have been the beta for Elite... which has been ported evidently....

Last edited by billybobsky : 2006-02-22 at 00:26.
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scratt
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2006-02-22, 01:01

Quote:
Originally Posted by drewprops
I've been mainlining the books of Jack McDevitt for the past two months and am especially receptive to this topic at present. Like most hard sci-fi writers he peppers his stuff with "big" ideas like Clarke's Rama and Niven's Ringworld, but he also employs the standard space workaround of "jump" technology though it is imprecise and takes weeks upon weeks to cross large distances even in that state.

Passengers spend a lot of time hanging out, participating in holo-adventures (kind of like karaoke except with movies) and there are occasional shipboard romances.... sounds like a regular day on LJ or MySpace if you asked me!!

Eventually your players could discover alien technology.... get faster engines. doot doot doot
Exactly.. Heck I was going to actually use cryogenics earlier in the game...

The cryo system would wake you up if you enterred a risky area, got too close to another ship, picked up a distress signal from an alien world etc..

Later, as you say, discoveries and alien intervention could later bring exciting things like warp drives, sub-space and so on.. Or just stupidly powerful and dangerously unreliable drive systems!

This also opens up huge opportunities for piracy for the players.. Imagine scanning a ship, finding it's inhabited but the life signals are low, suggesting cryo.. So you follow at a safe distance and attack with deadly force, or even cloak and try and board the ship..

The turnabout of this is that people may want to try and shield their ships and drift along pretending to be in cryo to attack would be pirates.. and so on..

The eventual aim, of having this online and multiplayer would make this a really exciting experiment.. You would have to dock and find safe haven when you log off, or run the risk of your ship being attacked in open space..

'Remember, measure life by the moments that take your breath away, not by how many breaths you take'
Extreme Sports Cafe | ESC's blog | scratt's blog | @thescratt
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scratt
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2006-02-22, 01:04

Quote:
Originally Posted by billybobsky
There was a freeware space simulation that allowed you to fire rockets and move into and out of a planet's atmosphere (with real gravity effects)...

It was for OS 8 or something, a long time ago... sort of a proof of concept 'game'...

What the hell was it?

Edit: Nevermind it must have been the beta for Elite... which has been ported evidently....
There are quite a few out there...

If you want a quite good shoot em up style space game FreeSpace2 is now fully open source and ported to Mac as a free standalone app...

I have spent the last 6 months going through all the various sims, and what they do and don't do... And there are a suprising amount of good Elite style sims out there.. But they all lack depth to some degree or another, and don't model space as a real system.

X2 The Threat, to my mind, is the best yet... and I am hoping they will port X3 to the Mac also. I even considered buying a PeeCee so I could go through X3 now and take a look...

'Remember, measure life by the moments that take your breath away, not by how many breaths you take'
Extreme Sports Cafe | ESC's blog | scratt's blog | @thescratt
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billybobsky
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2006-02-22, 01:24

Actually...

I figured out what it really was... Exobattle...

Matt Burch's foray into 3d...

It was ok for what it did...
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scratt
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2006-02-22, 01:32

Quote:
Originally Posted by billybobsky
Actually...

I figured out what it really was... Exobattle...

Matt Burch's foray into 3d...

It was ok for what it did...
Is there still a copy of that around on the web anywhere?

I would be curious to look at it... It seems that there are a lot of threads about it but it's 'disparooood', and even the unofficial version has gone....

'Remember, measure life by the moments that take your breath away, not by how many breaths you take'
Extreme Sports Cafe | ESC's blog | scratt's blog | @thescratt
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billybobsky
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2006-02-22, 01:35

The last time I played the game was probably in 2000... so I wouldn't even know where to look...
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curiousuburb
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Join Date: May 2004
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2006-02-22, 07:42

Links added (many from Apple's downloads pages)

Space Combat ~ 3d simulation etc

Moon Lander ~ 3d version of 2d vector classic

No Gravity ~ freeware FPS spaceship shooter akin to WC

Escort Wing ~ free top down space combat 2.5d game

Elite/Oolite ~ written to replace Elite? source code available under creative commons licence

Any old text/adventure games? Planetfall? (I'd add links but Macintosh Garden seems to be down)

Lucasarts stuff? (X-Wing/Tie Fighter style? or more "Day of the Tentacle"?)

Escape Velocity Series? The original and EV Override (neither OS X compatible) - compared to the rewritten, OS X friendly EV Nova
EV series are classics of branching plot, multi-ship piracy and exploration, and pretty damn cool graphics/sound for 2.5D.

Spaceship Warlock ~ google links to reviews on one of the earliest CDROM adventure games, set in space.
Starship Titanic?... a more modern take on the same 'cinematic CDROM in space' concept, except by Douglas Adams.
You're probably not looking for a Myst-style, but for the in-ship/cinematic/story segments, it might be a useful reference)

Any of the Trek games? Yexi? ~ trek style game with familiar crew positions and interface
Yexi apparently supports network play with up to 8, but I've only tried the solo missions, which are OK. The interface is clumsy, though.


Quote:
Originally Posted by curiousuburb
I can think of a few old school games which did well in a particular area but lacked in others that might provide easy reference points for a clearer project description... "plot branching like x, with ship movement/combat like y and alien contact like z".

Last edited by curiousuburb : 2006-02-22 at 07:53.
  quote
Banana
is the next Chiquita
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
 
2006-02-22, 07:48

I suppose I'll go ahead and ask this here-

If you want models, what file formats do you need they to be in? Any constraints on the models? (I'm assuming I can't quite submit you a model with 10,000,000 features, requiring 768 MB of RAM just to load it. )
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ghoti
owner for sale by house
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Charlotte, NC
 
2006-02-22, 08:00

Quote:
Originally Posted by scratt
Your comments about OpenGL are interesting. Part of the Open Source code I am using has some OpenGL stuff in it, and for that reason I have had to pick up a certain amount of OpenGL to interface to it. In fact my Scene Graph core runs as part of the OpenGL window that the entire engine runs in at the moment.. If you want to jump on as the OpenGL guy and build your skills up as we go you are more than welcome..
The graphics part shouldn't be taken too lightly. A decent graphics engine will not only make the game prettier, it will also make it run much more smoothly, use the existing graphics memory much more effectively, etc. So I think you should find somebody with experience in graphics programming to do some designing there. After all, the graphics are the main/only interface to experiencing your world. And since you're looking at such a large-scale operation, just slapping on an existing graphics engine with a bit of tweaking probably won't cut it.
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scratt
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2006-02-22, 08:03

Hi Banana, Sorry I saw your PM just now. I must have missed it this morning..

Model Format - Any format. Really. Any at all.

At the end of the day the more polygons in each model, the less stuff we can have on screen.. So try to work a compromise between look and load.

Fast moving objects need less detail, and static objects which we can stop on, at, or next to and look at will need more detail.

We can also have different versions of the same model, with reduced polygon counts for when they are futher away. You can do this by hand, or I can use a program to 'optimize' models. However, the latter can not look as good as it being done by hand. In the end it's good to have, say a lo-rez, med-rez, and high-rez model.

Obviously things we are never gonna get that close to don't need so much work.

Also models should only be single sided if possible. Insides of models will be a different model altogether.

This sim will cache data, so you can have large models as we'll cache them in and out of memory as we approach their location, or just sit them all the way up to the rafters in 64 bit machines! But I feel that 10,000,000 polygons and 768MB of ram is perhaps going a little silly!

'Remember, measure life by the moments that take your breath away, not by how many breaths you take'
Extreme Sports Cafe | ESC's blog | scratt's blog | @thescratt
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scratt
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2006-02-22, 08:09

Quote:
Originally Posted by ghoti
The graphics part shouldn't be taken too lightly. A decent graphics engine will not only make the game prettier, it will also make it run much more smoothly, use the existing graphics memory much more effectively, etc. So I think you should find somebody with experience in graphics programming to do some designing there. After all, the graphics are the main/only interface to experiencing your world. And since you're looking at such a large-scale operation, just slapping on an existing graphics engine with a bit of tweaking probably won't cut it.
Oh don't worry the OpenGL 'engine' I am using is pretty neat, and very well documented.. I am capable of adding the requisite lens flare effects I want, and a lot of the graphics effects we are used to in modern engines are already there... I am quite happy to throw this open to someone with more experience at the right stage.. RIght now however, the imaging am getting is up to the level of X2 or Homeworld.

Also, Open Scene Graph, which interfaces 100% with any instance of OpenGL is even more impressive, and I am very familiar with that.. This I am using as an integral part of the OpenGL instance, as well as a separate overlayed 3D display for the Hud and internals of the ship.

Rest assured this will look the bomb!

I am more concerned about keeping the frame rate up at the moment... But thank for the input on that.

'Remember, measure life by the moments that take your breath away, not by how many breaths you take'
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