Has any choice of an engine been made?
If not, I would suggest Unreal or Source since both are relatively easy to modify(in terms of tools given) and both have good graphics.
The choice of the engine will be made after the team has been fully assembled. Don't forget that there are quality open source engines out there too.
ElShotte did post a list of possible engines.
Quote from: ElShotte on November 19, 2006, 03:06:37 AM
This was originally written by BlueKorrie (http://"http://www.3dbuzz.com/vbforum/member.php?userid=110970")
on the 3d BuzZ (http://"http://www.3dbuzz.com) forums. Minor changes by me.
Quote
List of 3D Engines
--------------------------------------------------
1. Amp 3D Game Design System http://www.slamsoftware.com
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Amp provides fast scene rendering with per pixel lighting, normal mapping, specular highlighting and stencil shadowing, all advanced hardware rendering pixel shaders used to create stunning real time graphics that were previously only possible with pre-rendered movies. It also features an advanced skeletal character animation system that provides exceptionally smooth animation and the ability to dynamically combine and play more than one animation simultaneously (for example, the mixing of different upper and lower body animations). Also, Amp supports vertex blending of up to four bones, for very realistic joints and facial animations without the typical crumpling you see in other game engine joints..
The Amp Editing package provides the tools for building and viewing levels. The level editor is integrated with the engine for WYSIWYG editing. (What You See Is What You get)
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Amp II Licensing starts from $200.00
2. Aleph One http://source.bungie.org/
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No comments...
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Aleph One Licensing starts from $0.00
3. Axel http://www.mindavenue.com
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AXEL is the most powerful and cost effective solution for creating high impact interactive multimedia for web/CD/DVD. AXEL allows you to easily incorporate 2D, 3D, video, Flash, text and sound, add animation and interactivity without requiring any other 3D tools or any programming or scripting skills.
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Axel Licensing starts from $595 US (download) trial is available.
4. Anark Studio http://www.anark.com
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This unmatched authoring tool allows you to develop and deliver rich, interactive multimedia presentations for a variety of applications that engage your audiences on a whole new level.
Anark Studio provides the power to integrate 3D models and 2D graphics with video and audio to create visually superior interactive experiences that range from training, visualization and corporate communications to complex process demonstrations and interactive web applications.
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anark studio student Licensing starts from $99
5. APOCALYX 3D Engine http://apocalyx.sourceforge.net/
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6DX is a 3D simulation engine. It includes support for Rendering, Collision, and scene management. You can use 6DX to make games, or any other sort of simulation that needs 3D - Architectual walkthroughs, or process visualization, etc.
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APOCALYX Licensing starts from $0.00
6. Alice v2.0b http://apocalyx.sourceforge.net/
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Alice address both the mechanical and sociological barriers that currently prevent many students from successfully learning to program a computer. Alice addresses the mechanical barriers to programming by making it much easier for students to create programs. Rather than having to correctly type commands according to obscure rules of syntax, students drag-and-drop words in a direct manipulation interface.
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Alice Licensing starts from $0.00
7. 6DX http://www.aztica.com/modules/news/
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6DX is a 3D simulation engine. It includes support for Rendering, Collision, and scene management. You can use 6DX to make games, or any other sort of simulation that needs 3D - Architectual walkthroughs, or process visualization, etc.
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6DX Licensing starts from $0.00
8. XEngine http://xengine.sourceforge.net/
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XEngine is a platform- and rendering-API-independent 3D engine for real-time visualization with support for programmable graphics pipeline architectures and is implemented in C++. The engine aims at flexible support for many of the shading languages available today, so that existing shaders can easily be re-used.
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Aleph One Licensing starts from $0.00
9. Ogre http://www.ogre3d.org/
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Simple, easy to use OO interface designed to minimise the effort required to render 3D scenes, and to be independent of 3D implementation i.e. Direct3D/OpenGL.
Powerful material declaration language allows you to maintain material assets outside of your code
Export from many modelling tools including Milkshape3D, 3D Studio Max, Maya, Blender and Wings3D
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Aleph One Licensing starts from $0.00
10. The Irrlicht Engine http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/
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The Irrlicht Engine is a cross-platform high performance realtime 3D engine written in C++. It is a powerful high level API for creating complete 3D and 2D applications like games or scientific visualizations. It comes with an excellent documentation and integrates all the state-of-the-art features for visual representation like dynamic shadows, particle systems, character animation, indoor and outdoor technology, and collision detection.
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The Irrlicht Engine Licensing starts from $0.00
11. The Torque Engine http://www.garagegames.com/
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The Torque Game Engine (TGE) is a fully featured AAA game engine with award winning multi-player network code, seamless indoor/outdoor rendering engines, state of the art skeletal animation, drag and drop GUI creation, a built in world editor, and a C-like scripting language. Unlike most commercial game engines, as part of the low cost license, you receive all C++ source code to the engine, so you can make any additions you need for your game.
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The Torque Engine Licensing starts from $0.00
12. PPTactical Engine http://aspc.cs.utt.ro/~karg/ppt/
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No comments
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PPTactical Engine Licensing starts from $0.00
13. The Yeti Engine GBA Engine http://www.theteahouse.com.au/gba/index.html
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The current GBA viewport is 120x80 pixels, 15bit.
MD2 Rendering. Models are converted to a ARM friendly format.
3 Levels of texture mipping.
Coloured lighting. 4 pre-calculated light models. White, Red, Green & Blue.
Engine supports radiosity lighting and shadows.
All textures are 64x64 8bit.
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The Yeti Engine Licensing starts from $6000.00 when try to sell a game
14. V3X 3D Engine http://www.v3x.net/v3x/v3x_3d_engine.html
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A C or C++ cross-platform programming API for all Win32 platforms (Windows CE included), MacOS X G4 and BeOS.
A fast cross-platform software renderer (V3X software renderer)
SSE and Altivec optimised code.
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The V3X Engine Licensing starts from $5000.00
15. neEnginehttp://www.v3x.net/v3x/v3x_3d_engine.html
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Scene Graph based
Dependency Graph animation system
Full DirectX 8.1 support (DirectX 9.0 soon)
Fast collision detection
Dedicated file system, supporting text, binary and compressed formats
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The neEngine Engine Licensing starts from contact@fluidinteractive.com.
16. Genesis3D http://www.genesis3d.com/
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Genesis3D is an Open Source 3D Game Development Engine, with a license designed to allow use of the game in commercial, or non-commercial applications for free.
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The Genesis3D Engine Licensing starts from 0,0 for home use and $10,000 per title.
17. Cipher Game Engine http://www.cipherengine.com/
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Genesis3D is an Open Source 3D Game Development Engine, with a license designed to allow use of the game in commercial, or non-commercial applications for free.
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The Genesis3D Engine Licensing starts from $100
18. Auran Jet http://www.auran.com/jet/default.htm
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Genesis3D is an Open Source 3D Game Development Engine, with a license designed to allow use of the game in commercial, or non-commercial applications for free.
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The Auran Jet Engine Licensing starts from $136.50
19. Power Render SDK http://www.3dengine.ca/
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The Power Render SDK is the most powerful middleware solution for PC game developers. By combining indoor BSP and outdoor terrain rendering, character animation, particle effects, 3D sound, and exposing the latest 3D hardware features, Power Render will help jump start your 3D application.
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The Power Render SDK Licensing starts from $89.95
20. LIGHTSPEED http://lightspeed3d.cjb.net/
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Dynamic Shadows
Support for 3dfx's Glide, partial support for Microsoft's Direct3d, software rendering using Span Buffering, and OpenGL support
DirectSound, Direct 3d sound, Aureal 3d sound, and partial Linux sound support.
Support for Win95, Win98, and WinNT and Linux
Game editor
TCP networking code, supporting UDP and TCP
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The LIGHTSPEED Licensing starts from $xx.xx
21. Twilight 3DGE http://www.twilight3d.com/modules.p...=thread&order=0
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For speeding up development of most types of 3D projects, and getting a wealth of know-how as a bonus, the Twilight 3DGE v2.2 has proved itself as a working solution. Not only has it been sold on an ethical "Twilight 3D only makes money if you make money with it"-basis, which has been ideal for new development teams looking for a kickstart into high-tech development
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The Twilight 3DGE Licensing starts from sales@twilight3d.com
22. neoengine http://www.neoengine.org
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No comment...
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The neoengine Licensing starts from $0,00
23. Cat Mother http://catmother.sourceforge.net/
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No comment...
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The Cat Mother Licensing starts from $0,00
24. Nebula2 http://www.radonlabs.de/nebula.html
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Nebula2 is the next step in the evolution, fully unleashing the power of programmable graphics hardware in a flexible high level framework.
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The Nebula2 Licensing starts from $0,00
25. Faked Reality http://fakedreality.sourceforge.net/index.shtml
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Highly modular architecture.
Built in game editor.
Engine Configuration based on XML.
FlexShaderä system, which provides a unique shader based technology, allowing programmers to produce new rendering effects with ease, and use the latest VS2.0x,PS2.0x shader technologies.
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The Faked Reality Licensing starts from $0,00
26. Quest3D http://www.quest3d.com
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Quest3Dâ,,¢ is a fast and easy way to create digital entertainment. By using a real-time interface that does not require any programming, creating a game is easier and quicker than ever before.
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The Quest3D Licensing starts from $89,00 or a demo edition
27. Revolution3D http://www.revolution3d.de/postNuke/
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Basing on Microsoft DirectX 9.0
Written in c++ for maximum speed and flexibility
Open ports for Visua C++, Visual Basic 5.0 and better
(C#, Visual Basic .NET, Borland Delphi are in work)
API COM Crossroad in development for every other COM-able language
very easy to use interface and well structured classes
(optional) user controlled device enumeration
Best W/Z-Buffer detection (support for 16, 24, 32 bit)
Automatic detection and use of hardware TnL feature if supported
Anti Aliasing (2x2 and 4x4)
Multi Buffering
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The Quest3D Licensing starts from $0,00
28. Quake engine http://www.idsoftware.com/ http://www.planetquake.com/qer/news.html
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No comment...
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The Quake engine Licensing starts from $0,00
29. Visionâ,,¢ http://www.vulpine.de/index.php?sec...e&subject=intro
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Visionâ,,¢ is a universally usable high-performance game development system, being developed and continuously improved for the special needs and wishes of the entertainment industry. Rather than being centered around a single game project or even a specific genre like First-Person Shooters or Strategy Games, Vision is the development system of choice for virtually any kind of 3D title.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Visionâ,,¢ Licensing starts from $xx,xx
30. DarkBASIC http://darkbasic.thegamecreators.com/
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DarkBASIC allows you to create your own games, demos, slideshows, even business applications using the easy to understand BASIC programming language. Even if you've never coded before, just follow the in-depth tutorials and you'll be generating results in minutes! Harness the power of Direct X and make 3D objects come to life in just a few simple commands.
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The DarkBASIC Licensing starts from $49,99
31. 3D GameStudio http://www.conitec.net/a4info.htm
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It combines a high-end 3D engine, a 2D engine, a physics engine, a map and model editor, a script compiler and huge libraries of 3D objects, artwork and pre-made games.
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The 3D GameStudio Licensing starts from approx $49.00
32. Sunspire http://www.razor.sk/sunspire.html
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No comment...
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The Sunspire Licensing starts from approx $0.00
33. Vegastrike http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/
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Space simulator engine (heavily inspired in games like Freespace and Wing Commander Prophecy)
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The Vegastrike Licensing starts from approx $x.xx
34. The x engine http://www.thexengine.com/licopt.htm
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The X Engine is an extremely powerful, extensible and easy to use game engine targeting a wide array of modern platforms including Microsoft Windows, Macintosh, and Linux, as well as console gaming systems from Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft.
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The x engine Licensing starts from $199.00
35. The Unreal 2 Engine http://udn.epicgames.com/Powered/UnrealEngine2Runtime
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The Unreal 2 Engine is an extremely powerful, extensible and easy to use game engine targeting a wide array of modern platforms including Microsoft Windows, Macintosh, and Linux, as well as console gaming systems from Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Unreal 2 Engine starts from $xxxxx.xx
As to open source... Will the game be an open-source?
My vote is heavily AGAINST any mod-job.
The best option for controlability would be to develop an in-house engine with either custom or public open source libraries.
I still agree with mic :D If we decide to use a game SDK though... I would go for source
I'd personally only go for a game's SDK if it would be Chaos Theory's versus mode SDK and that just not going to happen. That's just my two cents.
I can't immagine Ubi letting us have the CT versus SDK. Unreal engine would be nice but it costs alot of money. If you can afford that cost then you deffinitely have a position on the development team. ;D
Hehe ^. Ogre or Source are my choices at the moment but Ogre would be best, my opinion
to use an engine like Unreal costs in the hundreds of thousands to use.
I think that it *MIGHT* be a possibility to get a CT SDK. MAYBE.
I think that we should use Unreal 3. We don't have to have licenses for the engine, we can simply do a total conversions mod on an existing game.
Quote from: iservealot on November 15, 2006, 01:55:44 AM
I think that it *MIGHT* be a possibility to get a CT SDK. MAYBE.
I think that we should use Unreal 3. We don't have to have licenses for the engine, we can simply do a total conversions mod on an existing game.
Wouldn't the game look like Unreal and not CT?
CT is a game in the Unreal 2.5 warfare engine. DA uses Unreal 3, so that's not the problem.
An in-house SDK using an open-source engine like Ogre still sounds best to me, tbh, but we're not passed the concept art stage yet so keep the debate alive.
Let's get some pros and cons in here because right now everybody is just yellling "ENGINE X IZ TEH BEST !!!1!!1!1". The only arguments I've heard so far are "Open Source is free and a game engine is not" and "yea, but if we mod the game then it's free too".
Furthermore, I'd like to hear exactly HOW we'll get that SCCT SDK because that would be a major breakthrough. The only reason we're evaluating engines and talking about cloning is because we are sure that the SCCT SDK isn't an option.
we need to get whomever is going to program this engine to decide what engine he wants. Basically, they need to start getting involved in this right now before we can make a decision on the engine.
Hey guys,
Thought id give a few suggestions on choice of engine.
If you can find an open source engine, that natively supports shader model 3.0 effects (perhaps even 4.0, that would be really cool), then your going to save yourselves a lot of work, as you wont have to mess around under the hood to get things like normal/parralax mapping, specular, HDR and all of that jazz working.
One drawback of using an open source engine however may be the size of the product after its finished, having to include the engine with the download may increase the filesize hugely... I dont know if that concerns you or not, but huge file sizes can be a turn off for potential players if its too big.
On the other hand if you do a total conversion of a currently existing game, the filesize will be much smaller, but you will be limiting your audience to those who own the game your modding for.
An advantage of this, is that the engine you mod for may already have support for various Shader effects, meaning you wont have to program your own.. my 2 pennies on each of the most popular engines available below:
Unreal Warfare 2.5: As far as I understand its definately the easiest to code for, the downside? no DX9.0c features, think about the best shader effect it has is specular, meaning you would have to write your own code to implement other shaders.. Also the Lighting system sucks completely.. another stealth mod team ran into probems with the shadows.. so coding your own would be preferable, meaning lots of work.
Unreal 3.0: A few games are starting to use the engine now, and its looking damn pretty, nice lighting system from looks of things.. Shouldnt be too different to mod for than Unreal Warfare 2.5 meaning it will probably be easy, but means waiting for UT2007. Who knows how long untill they release an SDK after it comes out?
Half-Life 2: Native support for most SM3.0 effects, but from what i can tell has a really shitty lighting system. A very popular game, so a lot of people are going to have it..
Doom3/Quake4: If you dont want to have to play around with your own lighting system, then Doom3/Quake4 is weapon of choice. A singleplayer Stealth Mod based off the Thief series called the Dark Mod is using this engine solely because of the Lighting/Shadows. I believe very much like CT/PT/DA, anything in shadow gets pixel shading effects applied to them so they blend in no matter how high you put your gamma - might be worth a look.
the question is.
We cannot pay for the game engine...so what is the best engine we can use, for free.
From what I can tell, Ogre can reproduce Unreal Engine 3 quality with decent shaders, it can be done, on top of that, it's free. The main thing is, do we want to start from scratch with the engine or do we want to modify one (UT2K7), which would be alot easier seeing as how most shaders would be done, we would have some kind of gameplay mechanics to start with and UnrealED.
The least amount of work involved is more important then the engine we use.
We have certain requirements:
Pixel Shaders
Dynamic Lighting (sm 3.o stuff)
Free
No peripheral stuff. ie: This game needs to be indipendantly distributed from other games.
We dont want people having to install Chaos Theory or Unreal Tournament just so they can play our game.
Well I been working with the Source engine for a while now i say it is a great engine but yes way to many mods are using it and yes lighing for it is not very good. I would rather stick with Unreal Engine for lighting effects and shadows another thing is It would be easier for coding in the Source engine as for i know how to add models and prefabs in to it allready from maya and 3d max. but still i say yall should stick with the UnrealEd Engine for it shall be better in the long run. As i am hearing that SPDA is releasing the new Unreal havoc engine in a few months. Go with the Flow! lol WOOT!
Over and Out!!
Meathead
So basically, People with SM2.0 still don't get to play it..
No, it's going to most likely be like Chaos Theory, with support for both.
Thought I would compose a list of noteworthy free C/C++ libraries. Add to the list if you wish but please use the same formatting.
General purpose
Allegro (http://alleg.sourceforge.net/)
kjAPI (http://www.kjapi.com/)
Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL) (http://www.libsdl.org/index.php)
Graphics
Ogre 3D (http://www.ogre3d.org/)
Irrlicht (http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/)
Audio
FMOD (http://www.fmod.org/)
OpenAL (http://www.openal.org/)
Networking
Enet (http://enet.cubik.org/)
I really like kjAPI so far. Do check it out.
I've tried some things with Allegro a few years ago ;D
3DState (for Visual Basic - Not so good graphics though :/)
great...we are still in need of a programmer...otherwise we wont get anywhere with this.
is there stil no1 for the programming then? i would i could help u but i cant do al that shit :) i know jsut a thiny thing of photoshop and al other over here know much better ;) so al i can do is testing
There's no lead programmer yet. We've got some programmers already but we're still looking for more xp.
I've had this site's URL forwarded to Ubisoft Annecy's development team. Let's not exclude possible help from the inside. Some might be able to help on their free times, sharing some knowledge and experience making SvM.
Word up....
I just spoke with a producer from JoWood...a big games publisher in europe. He had some experiences on a project using Ogre and said it was not very flexible....and from his comments I would avoid it.
BUT, i was recommended another engine: http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/
From the him, and another game devoloper I heard very positive things about it. 1. its small, 2. its very fast, 3. its open source, 4. you can communicate with the developer himself.
I was even told that Adobe wanted to buy the software and use it for their own needs....but then later changed their mind.
Sounds good 8)
btw: He recommended Torque, mostly because it is already integrated with Micorsoft.
Still....i am not the programmer...so its hard for me to judge.
In fact, i know the guys at Rabcat that worked with him to make this vid:http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/images/projects/rabcat/rabcatengine.wmv
Since TorqueX runs on C# and XNA, I could help programming after a little bit. I'm working on teaching myself C# for XNA right now, and I'm getting a book to help me learn more over the next month or two.(a lot during breaks)
Once I learn that, I could help some if Torque and XNA are used.
Another nice thing about using XNA is: A. It's free for noncom PC development. B. If you pay some, you can run it on the 360.
I don't think we should even consider another language than c++ to be honest.
We'd look like any average amateurs if we'd run on XNA.
Unreal Engine would definitely be the best way to go. It is one of the most scalable engines out there.
As far as being able to distribute the game freely....thats where the problem lies. I mean... we could so something crazy like use another Unreal game, that had a demo release. Then, we could have people download the demo, and our mod can run from the demo. Though, I don't know how legal that would be.
I reckon it would be fine cause if the new Unreal Engine 3.0 comes out we can just upgrade the levels for it :D I guess.
This is a non-commercial project, right??
So why not use the Unreal Engine 2 - The UnrealEngine2 Runtime: Demo Version is licensed for non-commercial and educational use only.
Don't forget the open source stuff, especially considering distribution and independency.
(https://community.projectstealthgame.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.shapesandlines.com%2Fart%2FColor%2520Concepts%2FColorConceptOgre.jpg&hash=34303a9d1fda939e34d7efe5628f0e801e6f5c47) (http://www.ogre3d.org/)
True but remeber the lighting is not that great. :/ And we need good lighting and shadows.
Quote from: goodkebab on November 17, 2006, 12:45:48 AM
btw: He recommended Torque, mostly because it is already integrated with Micorsoft.
Still....i am not the programmer...so its hard for me to judge.
In fact, i know the guys at Rabcat that worked with him to make this vid:http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/images/projects/rabcat/rabcatengine.wmv
Looks kind of pretty.. somewhere between the source and cry engines.
As for M4 contacting the annecy dev's... no disrespect dude, but i dont think that was smart.
Not only were they too arrogant in the past to think that anyone who played SCPT was smart enough to use UnrealED (so help is unlikely), but if word reaches the brass that a Chaos Theory clone is in the works, this project could have a cease and desist order on it before it get's airborne.
Seen it happen before many times with projects that are similar to a full product.
For instance, The DnD Roleplay game "Neverwinter Nights", allows you to create your own MMO persistent worlds with the toolset provided. Also its easy to mod for, so creating your own classes/proffesions, and adding your own assets in the form of models and audio is simple.
So some guys decided they wanted to make a "Star Wars" themed mod, so people could play as thier favourite space opera fantasy universe, using the DnD rules in a free MMO format.
You would think that with it being a free mod it would be no threat to LucasArts right?
Well apparently not, NWN was a massive hit for roleplay fans for about 4 years (and still counting), hundreds of mmo servers, and as soon as word reached Lucas, a cease and desist order was slapped on.
There was potential for the mod to be so popular that it could overshadow thier own Star Wars MMO which was terrible. The mod was scrapped because Lucas wouldnt let them use lightsabers, jedi, sith or anything remotely SW.
Same with a mod for a popular RTS engine that mimicked Halo, MS put out a cease and desist order (even though they blatently copied and stylised Master-Chief off the marines of Doom/Quake).
I can see Ubisoft trying to protect thier SvM, cause this project has the potential to overshadow it.
scope, the examples you mentioned are clear copyright violations. We are on the other hand are deliberately making the characters our own copyright. UBI cant touch us if we create our own original visual style. Also, gameplay cannot be copyrighted.
Ya. And we are not creating a fantasy game :P
That has got nothing to do with it, Meathead. :-\
And Kebab's right, Scope. The story you've told has multiple intellectual property law infringements. We're only using the ideas from versus mode (which can't be protected) and everything else is our own creation.
Quote from: Meathead on November 17, 2006, 02:06:27 PM
True but remeber the lighting is not that great. :/ And we need good lighting and shadows.
The support is there for stencil and texture-based shadows. It also supports normal maps and specular hilights. With this framework, we could make something on par with Oblivion or Doom 3 in graphical quality.
I suppose you are right kebab, as long as you keep references to copyrighted materials out of the way then you should be ok - as i suggested to the guy who was making the halo RTS mod, and as you have been doing so far.
But I cant help but think ubi would try thier best to find fault with what you are doing, i guess i was just trying to say 'be carefull', these big game companies men in suits seem to like to squash any competition wherever and whenever they can.
^^or buy the competition
:)
"Hey guys....we don't like this mod youre making, how about we buy out for $5 million? That sound good?"
Quote from: Vega on November 17, 2006, 06:13:04 PM
"Hey guys....we don't like this mod youre making, how about we buy out for $5 million? That sound good?"
Oh man, that would totally suck!
Yeah... I think I'd settle for 1.5 times the amount they offer :D
Quote from: Vega on November 17, 2006, 06:13:04 PM
"Hey guys....we don't like this mod youre making, how about we buy out for $5 million? That sound good?"
Yay, that means a quick ass computer for each one of us.
sounds good;) maybe when we are done and its a goodgame we can go to ubi and aks them if thay want to buy it ;D ;)
Meh. Steam distribution will give us more money I think.
Steam would be awesome.
I would also like to add that we shouldn't be too worried about the latest shaders like some guys do. It has to have good shadows yes, but even if it was cell-shaded and cartoonesque it would be awesome.
Quote from: M4_007 on November 17, 2006, 08:50:09 PM
Quote from: Vega on November 17, 2006, 06:13:04 PM
"Hey guys....we don't like this mod youre making, how about we buy out for $5 million? That sound good?"
Yay, that means a quick ass computer for each one of us.
Or approximately half a million bucks each for the pre-production team. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
(Make that $1m and I'm in.)
Count me in lol :D
Quote from: goodkebab on November 17, 2006, 12:35:23 AM
I just spoke with a producer from JoWood...a big games publisher in europe. He had some experiences on a project using Ogre and said it was not very flexible....and from his comments I would avoid it.
Did you get some examples of the inflexibity of the engine? What did they try to do?
Are we really considering turning this into a product? Or are we resolutely saying that this WILL be open-sourced?
Quote from: psyichic on November 18, 2006, 06:47:29 PM
Are we really considering turning this into a product? Or are we resolutely saying that this WILL be open-sourced?
We're considering one, the other, and both at the same time.
I don't see how it's going to be realistically possible to make it a product.
Realistically possible? Pff... more than likely dude. Create a demo on an open-sourced engine, send to publishers, wait. If the quality is mindblowing on par to Doom 3 and Source, past SvM in gameplay and graphics, then I will bet my left arm that EA would most likely be our publisher because Ubi is a worthy competitor and what we would have is a pretty good killler. Not only we would get something for our time to finish the product, but also we would get some percentage from sales. :D
Quote from: ElShotte on November 18, 2006, 08:28:48 PM
Realistically possible? Pff... more than likely dude. Create a demo on an open-sourced engine, send to publishers, wait. If the quality is mindblowing on par to Doom 3 and Source, past SvM in gameplay and graphics, then I will bet my left arm that EA would most likely be our publisher because Ubi is a worthy competitor and what we would have is a pretty good killler. Not only we would get something for our time to finish the product, but also we would get some percentage from sales. :D
Your left arm, eh? I could use a third arm code faster .... you're on. Quick! lets do it and see how EA will react to a tech demo done on an open-source engine
I believe they would give us all bonuses seriously, seeing as how alot of games done on commercial engines (Such as Unreal Engine 3) get signed and the publisher ends up paying $500K (I believe) for the bloody engine itself not to mention the development costs.
Guys, don't bet any bodyparts on a big-time publisher buying up a tech demo. Seriously... You'll miss them when they're gone and then you'll think "I should've listened to MacBryce".
Nah dude, I have no clue what you guys are thinking but the way I take it is this is going to be an AAA title we're gonna do here, and publishers are going to contact us themeselves.
Quote from: Overstatement on November 18, 2006, 05:13:29 PM
Quote from: goodkebab on November 17, 2006, 12:35:23 AM
I just spoke with a producer from JoWood...a big games publisher in europe. He had some experiences on a project using Ogre and said it was not very flexible....and from his comments I would avoid it.
Did you get some examples of the inflexibity of the engine? What did they try to do?
Basically, fromt the producers experience with the programmers (which were not that good from what i understand) was that they were not able to make changes that the publisher wanted because it would be to complicated to do. Imagine a fine tuned car engine...tweak one thing, and any number of others things might go wrong. The programmers also told him they were not able to integrate certain kinds of animations and what not.
When I have some more time...I will need to make a list of things the engine will need to do from an animation standpoint because CT animations are very complicated (DA even more so) compared to a run and jump game or a sports game. This was why i was recommending irrlicht (i posted link earlier), because its open source, supports all levels of pixel shaders, we can communicate directly with the creator himself, and it has strong recommendations that it is better then ogre.
Of course, i am only quoting form what i have been told. If we can use the Unreal Engine legally,.....then I would be amazed.
I didn't follow it closely, so I don't know, but does anyone know if there will be another "build something Unreal" contest for UT 2k7? If so, then it might be worth it to use Unreal as a basis for a mod since winning the contest(which we COULD do if done right) would give us a full license for the Unreal 3 Engine.
why dont u look into that Aj?
I read up a bit on irrlict, and it looks sexy.
Yeah there will, there's always a "Make Something Unreal" contest.... if anyone is familiar with theresults of the last one, Red Orchestra was first, we were 2nd...
Alien Swarm came close too I think made by black-cat games, makers of the stealth mod 'Thievery UT'.
There probably will be another make something Unreal contest for the Unreal 3 engine, but when that will be is anyones guess.
If you want use of the Unreal 3 engine legally without forking out hundreds of thousands of dollars, a total conversion mod is the way to go. A lot of people (Myself included), bought Unreal 2004 for the total conversion mods alone as some are sheer quality and extremely innovative. I dont think you will be limiting your audience, as UT2k7 is going to one hell of a popular game, and a must buy for the coming year. look at Red Orchestra, so successfull its a full product now available by steam.
Also look at Counter-Strike, most successfull TC mod to full game success story ever. And still has thousands upon thousands of players :)
Quote from: MR.Mic on November 19, 2006, 02:18:08 PM
I read up a bit on irrlict, and it looks sexy.
Did you read up equally on the OGRE engine for an unbiased opinion?
Quote from: Overstatement on November 21, 2006, 12:56:16 AM
Quote from: MR.Mic on November 19, 2006, 02:18:08 PM
I read up a bit on irrlict, and it looks sexy.
Did you read up equally on the OGRE engine for an unbiased opinion?
I'm not comparing. OGRE looks very damn featureful, as well.
Plus, I dont need to care about the engine from a programmer's perspective, that's for the programmers to fool with. I only need to look at it from an artist's perspective, and they seem to be almost identical in that arena.
I spoke with our lead programmer at work about Irrlicht...he is of the opinion that is certainly not AAA quality when he looked at it 2years ago....but i didnt hear a lot of bad things either.
Have any of you considered the idea of a modified quake 3 engine?
It's now open-source, so we can add pretty much anything we need (real-time lighting).
On top of that, the game has rock-solid netcode, as well as collision detection.
Reading C code gives me a headache. Its like reading old english, you can try to read it but it hurts and its confusing and odd (and there is less support?). Another reason is that any engine made for a specific game has the tendincy to be limited to that game. Because the line between the engine and the game is a blurry one, sometimes game specific code (like how the camera sways while walking) gets put into the engine code (sometimes deliberately, for convenience). Does Quake3 engine support input for actual shaders? Not the scripted shaders, actual HLSL, GLSL or asm shaders.
Edit: Oops, forgot you arent a programmer (sometimes, I wonder if you really aren't...). But the fact that I looked at Quake and still dont know how it works is credit to how completely confusing C is.
Of course C code isnt meant to be read. The specification is... only if you need to change stuff, dig into the code.
Quote from: frvge on November 22, 2006, 02:33:05 AM
only if you need to change stuff, dig into the code.
Like updating an engine 6 years into the future?
Quote from: Overstatement on November 22, 2006, 01:54:56 AM
Does Quake3 engine support input for actual shaders? Not the scripted shaders, actual HLSL, GLSL or asm shaders.
Not out of the box, but it can be modified (http://tenebrae.sourceforge.net/) to support them.
conversation with a coworker on using openSource engines for game dev. He has experience with Irrlicht and coded the Rabcat game which you can find on the irrlicht website.
///////////////////////////////
Mason (11:09 AM) :
got a friend that want to make a mod and we are still choosing the engine. It needs to be an FPS and 3rd person combined....you think Irrlicht can handle something like that?
Tiv -Stefan- (11:12 AM) :
hmmm, I used Irrlicht for the FPS we wanted to make at Rabcat (of course it was an improved version of Irrlicht)
Tiv -Stefan- (11:12 AM) :
should be possible
Tiv -Stefan- (11:12 AM) :
I'd decide between OGRE and Irrlicht
Mason (11:12 AM) :
my main concern are what problems to expect
Tiv -Stefan- (11:12 AM) :
has your friend ever used an engine before?
Mason (11:13 AM) :
no actually...which is why he wants to do it....
Tiv -Stefan- (11:14 AM) :
then I'd choose Irrlicht, and not OGRE
Tiv -Stefan- (11:14 AM) :
quite easy to learn
Mason (11:15 AM) :
any problems to expect? We are going in Splinter Cell style and direction....so animations are going to be very important, needs to be online and multiplayer
Tiv -Stefan- (11:16 AM) :
wait wait wait... are you going to make a MOD or a completely new game?
Tiv -Stefan- (11:16 AM) :
normally when you create a MOD for an existing game, you don't need an engine
Mason (11:16 AM) :
need an engine
Tiv -Stefan- (11:16 AM) :
you use the stuff that's already there (provided by the game)
Mason (11:16 AM) :
so yeah...we create our own content
Tiv -Stefan- (11:17 AM) :
yes, your own content. but you don't need an engine for a MOD
Mason (11:18 AM) :
my bad...
Mason (11:18 AM) :
we call it a mod only because we intend to clone an existing game
Tiv -Stefan- (11:18 AM) :
ok, so you basically want to create a new game...
Tiv -Stefan- (11:18 AM) :
then you need somebody with experience and something bigger than Irrlicht
Mason (11:19 AM) :
open source?
Tiv -Stefan- (11:19 AM) :
will be a problem I guess
Tiv -Stefan- (11:19 AM) :
you want something to be online and multiplayer
Tiv -Stefan- (11:19 AM) :
these things are not THAT easy
Tiv -Stefan- (11:19 AM) :
and Irrlicht doesn't understand anything of that
Tiv -Stefan- (11:19 AM) :
neither does OGRE
Tiv -Stefan- (11:19 AM) :
those are only rendering-engines
Tiv -Stefan- (11:19 AM) :
not game-engines
Tiv -Stefan- (11:19 AM) :
you'd have to build the rest yourself
Mason (11:20 AM) :
thats why i ask ;-)
Mason (11:20 AM) :
do you suggest something?
Tiv -Stefan- (11:20 AM) :
I don't know of an open-source game engine
Tiv -Stefan- (11:21 AM) :
a game engine is something like Gamebryo
Tiv -Stefan- (11:21 AM) :
complete package for rendering, animation system, physics (if needed), network, etc...
Mason (11:22 AM) :
but you were able to work on an FPS for rabcat using irrlicht?
Tiv -Stefan- (11:23 AM) :
yes, we were.
Niko (the lead programmer which already had 4 years experience of working at JoWood) started on the game and the game logic, etc. which took him about year. then they hired another programmer (which was me), and I started working on extending the engine with shader-stuff, working on the game-logic, and started building our own physics engine (which took me another 3 months)...
Tiv -Stefan- (11:23 AM) :
so you need somebody experienced, or else everything will certainly explode
Mason (11:24 AM) :
gotcha
Tiv -Stefan- (11:25 AM) :
it's certainly easier to create a real MOD for an existing game if people are not that experienced or have never worked on a game before
Mason (11:26 AM) :
yeah...which is why we are trying to decide what the programmers can really do before we even start this thing
draw your own conclusions on that....
So apparently there is a dramatic differance between a Game Engine and a Rendering Engine. Our programmers need to seriously start hunting down something that they can use. At this point, using Unreal Engine or a Quake Engine is sounding realistic.
We are NOT a professional development team that can afford full time work to create and use our own game engine.
I suggest kjAPI (http://www.kjapi.com/). It is being developed by a commercial company based in Singapore and it has a "free for non-commercial use" type of license.
UDP networking is not yet implemented though and it looks like they are prioritizing other stuff at the moment but maybe if we ask politely they will implement it sooner. :)
It doesn't have a lot of documentation yet but the creators are very helpful and a question asked on their forum is normally answered within a day.
Anyway, check out the features list.
and check out the games using it. No big titles but good looking ones none the less.
UDP seems to be inprogress....and because it is being used for what look like real games...it sounds good for what we need.
Quote
any problems to expect? We are going in Splinter Cell style and direction....so animations are going to be very important, needs to be online and multiplayer
The most interesting question in the whole conversation and he dodged it. Thats very disappointing.
Quote
those are only rendering-engines
They have collision detection and input components too (animation is part of rendering btw). Its hard to make tech demos without these. For the stuff it doesnt have, we can combine other (http://www.libsdl.org/index.php) libraries (http://www.ode.org/) with OGRE or Irrlicht. Ask him the question again, don't let him throw you off. Get really technical.
what is your experience in Game Dev?
I mentioned this project to a couple of the guys here. Basically what we are doing is NOT a mod but an actual new game. From a programming perspective...something like this would take an incredible amount of time (months if not years) and it is starting to dawn on me that this project may not be technically possible because of time constraints.
I dont have any experince aside from trying to make my own engine. So far, we haven't had any programmers who apply with more understanding of engines but if one does come, you should ask him all this stuff. Personally, I think that being a free project will bring on much more programmers than a company. They may not have experince or knowledge but game coding is really about creativity and guidance. And you (assuming you are not a programmer, the pre-dev team really need to make introduction threads) are as much qualified on judging the programmers workload as I am qualified to say 30 models a month is too much for the modellers (a complete guess, I'm not qualified).
i am certainly not a judge on programmers...but i am working with them and so far from what i have asked of them...doing a Mod is possible, but creating a new product is just not realistic for what we are trying to do.
I guess it depends on what our goal is. Most of this thread was about choosing an engine on it's flexibility, a lot more flexibility than would be allowed on a mod. And it's not like we have a time limit to complete this.
Well, that depends what you start with, check out CipherEngine (http://"http://www.cipherengine.com"), it has all of the above mentioned built in, it would be a big leap over Ogre. And is ready for game specific coding, so that you don't have to bother with alot of shaders and such.
http://unrealtournament.com/ut2003/contest.html
hmmm....you guys thinking what i am thinking?
I am starting to think it is far more realistic to take a highend engine like Unreal or Half Life and make something kick ass instead of trying to fight with using an unknown engine. We have several people on here that have knowledge and can work with these engines even though they are not programmers.
We invite you to download and play the Phase 1, Phase 2 and Phase 3 winners. Next up is Grand Finals and it closes on November 15th, 2004! <---- We would be a little bit late
Yeah I know the competition was old...it just seems smarter to use a proven engine when we dont have programmers with real game dev experience.
I already knew they were "just" rendering engines, that's an obvious answer. The point is to pick a library that does something, and does it well. And then combine it with other libraries that do other things well. (like physics, sound, and networking)
EDIT: That's why I also suggested Quake 3, it's an all-in-one package that contains everything to make a game. On top of that, there are other Open Source projects that have modified the game to support shaders and stencil shadows from which we can base our own code on. On the other hand, we could very well make a mod for an existing engine.
whichever is going to be the fastest and easiest for the programmers ...at least that is my opinion because it is going to be a lot of work.
I agree kebab, if you use the Unreal 3 engine you already have proven to work netcode (in previous Unreal titles anyhow and considering UT2007 is primarilly multiplayer...), and a graphics engine that supports modern shader effects without having to program your own support.
Its a lot less work compared to the task you would have to make this game from an open source engine, meaning a working beta would be possible after about a year of work.. and perhaps an internal alpha after a few month's if your lucky.
How would we acquire the UE3 engine... ? I thought licensing was in the millions of dollars. Or at least hundred thousands
We can use any engine as long as it is written in C++ (sorry Mic) and you don't need to have owned the game to play it (but if we are going to do a mod, might as well be Doom3. it has cool lighting and 4 player multiplayer too). Preferability, it should be open source because CT is a unique game not the typcial FPS that most engines CAN run.
And OGRE and Irrlicht are both "proven" engines with lots of games made with them. Probably a lot more in quantity than professional engines because of their availability. And lets admit it, professionals screw up, that is why most of us are here instead of playing DA, right?
I would still vote for Unreal 2/3 seeing as it's the engine that SC uses. I don't know if they will do it immediately, but for Unreal Engine 2 there is a non-com runtime for people to use to create things. They might do that with Unreal 3 so we *could* use that if it is available and build on that. Or just do a mod.
here is something new ....for free from Microsoft.
please, someone qualified to judge engines....look into it:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/XNA/default.aspx (http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/XNA/default.aspx)
"Right now XNA Game Studio Express is only designed and tested for Windows XP SP2. Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003 are unsupported platforms, although we are working on bringing Vista support in a future update."
"The initial release of the XNA Framework on the Xbox 360 does not have any support for networking. We realize this is a big area of interest for game developers and are actively working on a solution for the next release."
These 2 bits seem to be to be the largest drawbacks for our project.
Aj said he could program a bit of C# and XNA. I think with a bit of practice, I should be able to do the same.
^^ I am assuming that all of us would be using XP sp2 to develop the game. The gamer should not be limited to this....or am I wrong? If it is a limiting factor to the gamer....how significant is this in comparison to using a UE 3.0 mod?
We wont concern ourselves with the 360 right now anyways.
I dont know if the games themselves are playable on Vista.
Ok, been looking at this for a while which is very hard because the online copy of it on MSDN currently have non-working scripts.
Short answer: XNA is a stupid name (stop it with the recursive acronym already. They aren't intersting, they aren't cool and they aren't here to stay), too low-level, no one knows C#, C# has less game libraries we could use and historically, Microsoft has already been poor at design and implementation (bugs) on the early versions of programming stuff (ok, I don't have any proof of this. It's just my impression after reading the horror stories of early DirectX).
Long answer:
For those who don't know. Direct3D is seperated into two parts. The Direct3D core is that part that has daily lunches and good working relationship with your graphics card (this is low level stuff). The Direct3D extention is just code of stuff commonly used (like math and models) so programmers don't have to keep "reinventing the wheel". By extention, game engine pretty much do the same thing at a much higher level. XNA doesn't seem to be a "game engine". I would probably call it a D3DX library for C#. So far, only new thing I've seen in XNA is a lighting model based off of a callback effect system for customization (a plugin system with basic stuff as default). Which is not terriblly hard thing to code yourself. I suspect it only basic light because I've seen nothing to indicate any kind of mapping, it doesn't pretend to be an engine, it expects you to replace the default with your own (with all those cool lighting features all the young girls are screaming about). Most importantly, it doesn't include any shadow casting, HDR, memory management or space partitioning structures. There is also no physics engine, anyone know of any popular free C# physics engines out there that isn't just written in C++ and binded to C#? I could be compeletly wrong about this. That section of MSDN is very slow and buggy so I couldn't get a good look of it. But if anyone can find (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb200104.aspx) those things I see are missing, post them with a link here.
Also, in my experince, pretty much all games have slow-motions problems with pre-SP2 and using a Microsoft product completely destroys the hope of rewirting this to cross-platform.
Edit: Really short answer: It's a framework, not an engine.
Thanx Overstatement, we need more of these kinds of critical analysis on engines from programmers. At the moment it seems our biggest concern with UE 3 is that the players will have to buy UT 2007 first.
We do have the advantage of a very solid engine that the SC series uses anyways. So look and feel should be very similar....leaving us with the question of how much do the programmers have access to the SDK in mod form.
Just because it comes out in 7 months, should not stop graphics production -modelling and animation need to be done before the coders can start anyways.
CT and DA players are in a decline now....but i dont doubt we can get a lot of them back if we can remain loyal to CT gameplay as much as possible.
Quote from: goodkebab on December 13, 2006, 10:17:53 AM
Just because it comes out in 7 months
That is one huge assumption. I bet it will get pushed back to September. Apparently, they don't teach you how to estimate development time in school. Such a humungo risk for something we have no information about, awesome. But hey, what do I know about engines?
Quote from: goodkebab on December 13, 2006, 10:17:53 AM
We do have the advantage of a very solid engine that the SC series uses anyways. So look and feel should be very similar
See, you can't ever say that! They had the complete source code, that may not mean much from the outside looking in but it's a HUGE difference. And I don't know what you were playing but CT feels nothing like UTanything. I only recall vague memories of playing a UT demo but it was pretty clear how unCT-like game it was (god, I hope I'm not digging myself a hole with that).