Large Free Roaming Game idea with heavy physics usage [IDEA]

[AquaGeneral]

This is really a dream game, one where everything single part is interactive and there is a zombie outbreak. Very much like Dead Rising but with more expandability. This is really a idea of a game intended to the future for better hardware to make this possible.
Hope you all enjoy the read :)

From watching/playing; Left 4 Dead, Dead Rising, Cortex Command B18 (with a Zombie Mod), Counter Strike Source, Monster Madness – Battle For Suburbia, Half Life 2, Garry’s Mod, Perfect Dark Zero and World In Conflict. I have gathered all what was fun about physics, cowardness and zombies that would make an awesome physics game.
Example of Gameplay: The first level you have awoken inside our house, you peer through your window and find a lady running for her life, you see some type of living carcass following her. You pickup up a household item such as a chair (all small sized objects can be picked to use as a weapon that react physically correct and have the right mass), you go outside and you then thow your object at the zombie. The chair splinters during impact on the zombie and receives some splinters on wood stuck in the body. The lady has a weapon and fights alongside you as more zombies enter the street.

Thousands more follow a few parts of game play forcing you to retreat into your house, you actually run back with full control with the need for control because you could trip over an object. When you enter your house you find that the lady you saved disappeared. You must gather objects to secure the entrance stopping the zombies from entering. The zombies actually do damage in real time to the door. A few minutes of shooting of the zombies to stop them from breaking into your house you spot a couple of survivors in a car with deep spikes on each side, just like the Real Matter demo the zombies gib when the car hits them plus the spikes strike them. As they all mow down the zombies you find that your house has been damaged by the zombie bashing at the front constantly.

You have the free roam to choose where to go to survive the zombie outbreak. All buildings are destructible and act like real wood like in the upcoming Star Wars Game (Star Wars – Force Unleashed) There are lots of other physical aspects such has Digital Molecular Matter, ragdolls, destructible ground/terrain, tree physics, soft bodies, dinting, wind, earthquakes, fluids (simulation based) and gibbing (like in Cortex Command).

Imagine you are driving through the city as you see in the distance a Tornado which is ripping though the ocean, it reaches the land line and all the water from the sea sprays everywhere and floods some part. There could be a full drainage system with drains and pipes that really carry the water to another area. You have the full choice the watch the zombies get swept plus everything else around the tornado including buildings and trees or evacuate to another part of the city.

Or possibly the army coming in (over 100K of AI’s) too destroy all of the remaining zombies (probably 500K would be a good mark). The AI is really going through the city looking for survivors and remaining zombies. They come in tanks, jets, helicopters and more destroying the outbreak all in real time. Let’s say your currently flying a helicopter over the city when you see the army come in, you could be on the other side of the map and still see the destruction happen such as artillery barrages and the sound of tank shells bouncing onto the cement ground.

Or possibly the game could take place on an entire State, on the other side of a map you see a nuclear blast destroying everything on impact in the area. All of the parts get blown into the air then landing on the other side of the map destroying cars, buildings and hitting the zombies.

Imagine starting the game and there is a counter “Zombies Remaining – 100,000,000”.

Players: Probably up to 32 for an ultimate online co-op experience.

Wow that took a while to type :P Please tell if you find any errors in this post.

Tell me what you think about the idea.

Edit: Fixed spelling.

[Sporbie]

Nice idea, only impossible on todays computers, I mean cmon, 100k of ai characters at once?

[Dj Demetrius]

That would be a fantastic game, but i don't think it's possible to make yet. Save the idea for later, eh? (and don't forget to copywrite it)

[OkumTheLostNinja]

I think this would be a cool name for the game!

(Zombie Apocolypse)

[digitalmanifestation]

It's totally possible tbh, you just don't have the A.I. being updated for 100k zombies, you update the ones in your area, all the rest could have some basic homing A.I. that is used to home onto the nearest "living" thing. Which could be the player, a marine or an animal. You could do the same with the marines but they kinda just go on their random "search and destroy" path.

To get it working with these kinda numbers, u just needa only update things near you with full A.I., things in distance get updated with a simpler A.I. and get updated less in general. Also not having to render the stuff in distance will save a little bit more power.

Deformable terrains, i have got a terrain system pretty much made, and it's able to be deformed.

Destroyable buildings, mmmm, easy to do i guess if the buildings are made of blocks that when destroyed turn into 5 pieces and have physics applied to them. But increased overhead. Could you use boolean commands to cut stuff up? In lightwave boolean operations such as carve and add manipulate the mesh and cut holes in it, add pieces and so on. Could you not make some kind of modified boolean function that u just tell it what model you want to effect, the x, y, and z of the explosion and the power of the explosion. Then the function cuts the object, gets the chunk it cut out, apply some random slices to the chunk and then add physics bodys to these sections and add force based on the power of the explosion? Time to read some papers on boolean operations me thinks :P

I would love to work on a project like this once i got sphere finished, i love zombie gore movies so i would like to work on something like this. Lemme know what you think of the above ideas and whether you think they could work. If so then i would like to work with you on this but the only down side to me is the fact i use blitz3D, i think this kinda thing is possible in blitz, but it would be lacking in the graphics department. Gonna start using the blitzSDK soon tho so i may be able to add in shaders and stuff providing using the SDK doesn't limit this.

Anyway awsome idea, a lot of people would like a game like this :P peace out

[futuramaguy42]

You spelled throw wrong.

That would be an awesome game. Having the army come in might make it too easy because they could just gun down all the zombies. Or, lets say, the army is helping you but then they all get infected because the plague got in the army food. Then you could fight zombies in tanks, helicopters and other vehicles.

Another cool idea would be Dead Rising 2, where your in a big city where 90% of the people are zombies and in a week there gonna nuke the place, so you have to get to the helicopter on time. Same idea as the first game, but on a much bigger scale.

[You Fail Me]

I think he was talking about more of a first-party game or something. A very high budget game to be released in the near-ish future.

[sakiskid]

You could make the front door (or anything else) like toribash parts. The zombie claws are like half instagib (half instagib?!?!) and when they strike the door its gibs into pieces. It might take a lot of parts- maybe 50 to 100- but its worth it.

Tell me if it's good or not.

[Xerxes]

I am drooling now. This reminds me of my old Titanic game idea... what was it called? Crap, I'll search for it.

EDIT: It was Titanic Zombie Battle Ship Sinking Mega Fun Time Zone: The Game, also known as TZBSSMFTZ:TG. Maltor's idea.

[Maltor124]

I am drooling now. This reminds me of my old Titanic game idea... what was it called? Crap, I'll search for it.

EDIT: It was Titanic Zombie Battle Ship Sinking Mega Fun Time Zone: The Game, also known as TZBSSMFTZ:TG. Maltor's idea.

And a damn good one at that. ;)

This is a great idea, as soon as someone decides to make this, and when hardware is up to it, count me to be the first to buy. And maybe you could recruit survivors and have sort of a tactical system going, possibly GRAW style? You know, you find survivors, arm them, and you can do the basic "shoot this," "run here," "complete this," commands with a certain button.

[sakiskid]

What about my idea for the door? RATE!

[AquaGeneral]

I was thinking of something like CC mixed with Star Wars: Force Unleashed. Zombies attacks are physically simulated, each attack is different because the force, mass and strength of the zombie is. The way is is similar to CC is because characters are really walking, think of the zombies really moving there arms to attack. The door idea sounds great by the way but the best way to make this possible is Digital Molecular Matter.
(here (http://www.pixeluxentertainment.com/)

I don't think that this would be possible to do in real time in a large 3D environments but 2D would probably work 100% fine. Imagine it looking somewhat like the Polluted Planet Game with all of the destructibility already possible, ground deformation would not be too hard either. But it might be possible by using a PPU... think of it, the best CPU's can handle about 1000 rigid bodies (as an example) without poor collision detection and a bad unplayable frame-rate. But I hear the a PPU can handle about 10,000 still with a good collision detection and frame rate.
Thanks for the support everyone.

digitalmanifestation is one the right track there. The buildings could be made with something like 20 or so bricks that all have a breakable joint. If you would like some help making this after Sphere than I could give you some models, ideas and some level concepts.

[You Fail Me]

Oh you were thinking 2D?

Meh. I don't know if it'd work in 2D. In 3D it'd totally kick ass, but in 2D...I just don't know...

[AquaGeneral]

I meant it is possible to do in 2D, but I would rather not.

[You Fail Me]

Oh, I gotcha. Yeah it'd be possible in 2D but I don't really think it'd be fun in 2D.

It just seems like most of your gameplay ideas require the game to be 3D with DMM and also probably Euphoria.

[Xerxes]

The idea would still work completely under the Polluted Planet engine, just without freeroaming. The particles would be tiny, though.

[You Fail Me]

It'd be interesting to see this pulled off, even in 2D. Honestly I'd be a lot less likely to play it though.

[AquaGeneral]

It would be far too hard to make this in 3D without a high budget and a large company, think of how many modelers you would need to make thousands of different zombies for a start.

Though I would really be interested in helping someone to make this. It would be great if we could get a team together.

[digitalmanifestation]

Aqua, when sphere is made let's deffo team up :)

I got a really good idea for the zombies :D

Anyone played sumotori? If not check it out on here with a quick search. Basicly it has A.I. that was used in real world robotics, but instead it controls a rigid bodied ragdoll in a simulation. If you wanted to have A.I. that all behaved differently i may have a solution, but it may be a little long winded :P

If you have played sumotori you will know that it is funny as hell watching the A.I. try to balance. At best they seem like they are drunk and fall over all the time :D this would be extremely funny applied to a zombie.

So we create a neural network which we use to control the zombies at close range.

For different sized zombies we would first create a child ragdoll, and apply A.I. to it. We save the data into a new neural file we could call "Default A.I.". This default A.I. would be the basis of each A.I. character in the game.

We start a new A.I. neural network called "Fat Zombie.AI". At first it starts as the child A.I. We put the neural network into "teach mode" and let it walk about and stuff so it starts learning. Here's the cool part tho, each bone of the A.I. will be a physics object. If we want a fat zombie we start to grow the A.I. slowly untill it resembles a fat guy. By extending the bones and adding a little more weight to each bone/joint, the A.I. would have to alter the way it walked about. But the trick is letting the A.I. grow slowly from the default child A.I+ragdoll to the "fat" ragdoll+A.I. so each time the bones get a little more weight and get a lil bit longer the A.I. only has to adjust slightly and can cope. If you were to just give the child A.I. the body of a overweight 32 year old instantly it would take a lot longer for it to get used to it's new body and we would see some hella funny results :P

This would be so cool because you could blow a zombies leg off, and it would start to try and crawl about on the floor or it would totally spas out maybe which would be funney too.

Imagine having a Program specificly to create new A.I. You load up a new A.I. and run the simulation, the A.I. stands there, we add more weight to it's back bones, it starts to slouch over. It then starts learning to stand up a bit more straight and gets used to the new modification. Or make an A.I. with extremely long legs and watch it learn to walk with them.

It would be cool if we could teach some zombies to run too, and give them other senses like sight, smell and hearing.

Let's assume the basic A.I can stand, walk, turn, walk+turn and attack. These could be the 4 basic states or being. Each A.I. has a destination they are always walking to. Let's say your on the roof of a building and some A.I. are walking past the building not having noticed you. You make a noise the a.i turns and looks towards the noise they heard and if they see something or smell you there "destination" changes to roughly where your standing and they turn and start to walk towards you. If they see nothing they may just carry on walking to where they were going in the first place. But if not then they will pursue your "Brains" :P and maybe alert some other zombies near them.

Sumotori has 2 of these type characters in game, i wonder how many A.I+ragdolls you could have running at the same time, this may be the only killer of this idea but there may be a way to get a fair few going without to much slow down.

For the visual models and stuff you could make a procedural generation system similar to the stuff LionHead studios been using for their games. Fully morph able characters which you could factor the bones into and get a mesh that fits on the skeleton. Blitz can handle bones and you can add physics to them with ODE. So not only would the bones morph the model the bones would be controlled by the neural network which have physics to :D would work out brilliantly.

What you think agua?

peace out

[Nintendo-Guy]

Whoa! That sounds great. But it would take a very long time to mane and it should cost alot and i have a crapy computer.

[AquaGeneral]

Aqua, when sphere is made let's deffo team up :)
Yeap, I will start some work up today and hopfully throughout the Christmas Holidays (which is in about 4 weeks) I can get a really lot of stuff done.


What you think agua?
peace out
It sounds great, would it be difficult to pull of though? Does ODE support physics joints? If yes than it should be quite easy to create a building.

Hopefully through the day I can send you some PM's with some work and ideas.


I am really looking forward to see how this turns out. If you would like me to, I could send you some more ideas and concepts for Sphere, if you would like me to.

Thanks :)

[Xerxes]

Learning zombies? Sounds AWESOME. Learning zombies with senses? 40 LEVELS IN EPIC AWESOME PRESTIGE CLASS. There should be a special code for a certain model of zombies that never lets them learn beyond a certain point. They could be drunk redneck zombies. :p

It's amazing how much I've learned here... I've been a member of this forum since day 1, and I can understand so much more of the technical talk now.

[digitalmanifestation]

Yeah joints are possible in ODE, but i think it would be better to carve sections out of the geometry and then add physics to these carved pieces. But we shall see when it comes to it :P

[muffinmonkey]

I think you could get away with a random zombie generator
have 10 base zombies (e.g. soldier, child, woman, businessman etc.) and then have deviations (clothing colour, decomposition amount, back slouchedness, hair etc.) which are picked randomly.

[AquaGeneral]

I think you could get away with a random zombie generator
have 10 base zombies (e.g. soldier, child, woman, businessman etc.) and then have deviations (clothing colour, decomposition amount, back slouchedness, hair etc.) which are picked randomly.

Yes that would be really handy except that I have no idea how I would create something like that but Digital Manifestation might.

[digitalmanifestation]

That is possible, but let's see what happens when it comes to it :P

It would be cool at the start of a game if you can select who you want to be. Like civilian, cop, parliament member, military or some other randomer, and also pick a place to start.

[danahribo]

I Soo need to get in on this.

(If i manage to setup my Linux server, you could use it for SVN +stuff)

[AquaGeneral]

What does SVN stand for?

Edit: Sorry just checked Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subversion_(software));

It would be great if we have a web designer. Do you want to help on this?

[Jokker]

So we create a neural network which we use to control the zombies at close range.

For different sized zombies we would first create a child ragdoll, and apply A.I. to it. We save the data into a new neural file we could call "Default A.I.". This default A.I. would be the basis of each A.I. character in the game.

We start a new A.I. neural network called "Fat Zombie.AI". At first it starts as the child A.I. We put the neural network into "teach mode" and let it walk about and stuff so it starts learning. Here's the cool part tho, each bone of the A.I. will be a physics object. If we want a fat zombie we start to grow the A.I. slowly untill it resembles a fat guy. By extending the bones and adding a little more weight to each bone/joint, the A.I. would have to alter the way it walked about. But the trick is letting the A.I. grow slowly from the default child A.I+ragdoll to the "fat" ragdoll+A.I. so each time the bones get a little more weight and get a lil bit longer the A.I. only has to adjust slightly and can cope. If you were to just give the child A.I. the body of a overweight 32 year old instantly it would take a lot longer for it to get used to it's new body and we would see some hella funny results :P

This would be so cool because you could blow a zombies leg off, and it would start to try and crawl about on the floor or it would totally spas out maybe which would be funney too.

Imagine having a Program specificly to create new A.I. You load up a new A.I. and run the simulation, the A.I. stands there, we add more weight to it's back bones, it starts to slouch over. It then starts learning to stand up a bit more straight and gets used to the new modification. Or make an A.I. with extremely long legs and watch it learn to walk with them.

It would be cool if we could teach some zombies to run too, and give them other senses like sight, smell and hearing.

Let's assume the basic A.I can stand, walk, turn, walk+turn and attack. These could be the 4 basic states or being. Each A.I. has a destination they are always walking to. Let's say your on the roof of a building and some A.I. are walking past the building not having noticed you. You make a noise the a.i turns and looks towards the noise they heard and if they see something or smell you there "destination" changes to roughly where your standing and they turn and start to walk towards you. If they see nothing they may just carry on walking to where they were going in the first place. But if not then they will pursue your "Brains" :P and maybe alert some other zombies near them.

Sumotori has 2 of these type characters in game, i wonder how many A.I+ragdolls you could have running at the same time, this may be the only killer of this idea but there may be a way to get a fair few going without to much slow down.

I have done neural networks for rigid body dynamics, particularly teaching one to walk. It's impossible. Almost ALL the neural networks will fall over as soon as it moves 5 feet. Believe me.

Even if you manage walking, even adding new stuff needs even more neurons added, and eventually even one single zombie will lag your cpu to hell.

[digitalmanifestation]

Hey jokker thanks for sharing your experience with us, will save me doing a ton of trial and error :P

Do you have any example of what you have done i would love to see it in action. I wonder how sumotori does it? then again they do only move a few steps and fall over like drunken bums :P

So does the neural network take up a lot of CPU, memory or hard drive space or what?

How did you train the neural network as well? Do you specify a particular pose and give it's neurons a positive weighting, and if it deviates from the target pose give it a negative weighting?

Any info would be handy cheers

[Dj Demetrius]

Hey peeps, this project is sounds Great! (with a big G)
i was thinking of something..will you be playing 1st person, like a normal FPS, or 3rd person, controlling your character the same way the zombies move (the sumotori kinda way) Because i thought it was really hard to properly move in Sumotori... Also, if you want some music for the game, the soundtrack for 4x4 Unleashed is over here (http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=7eac9f41432ea53cb4e0c5efb3960d79024c0a54 d0e34b16)

4x4 Unleashed seems dead anyways, and i can't get any contact with D'arjwood either :(

[AquaGeneral]

Thanks for the feedback. We might do this in 3rd and 1st person. I know alot of people hate 3rd person shooters, and a lot of people hate 1st person shooters. Maybe we could have this in a options menu.

For the music I think we really need to look for some. However if we make this commercial with a copyrighted soundtrack... But thanks for the suggestion because I have not even thought of music and sounds yet.

[Jokker]

Hey jokker thanks for sharing your experience with us, will save me doing a ton of trial and error :P

Do you have any example of what you have done i would love to see it in action. I wonder how sumotori does it? then again they do only move a few steps and fall over like drunken bums :P

So does the neural network take up a lot of CPU, memory or hard drive space or what?

How did you train the neural network as well? Do you specify a particular pose and give it's neurons a positive weighting, and if it deviates from the target pose give it a negative weighting?

Any info would be handy cheers



Lost half my projects when I reformatted, so no code, but the idea is still in my head.

It will use up a lot of CPU once you get to a point. Basically the inputs will be so many that the hidden layer will be HUGE. Only for walking. Add anything else to that, and boom it goes.

I preferred a fitness type thing. Basically make 10 instances of the same neural net in "training" mode. Give it a task (walking or balancing a stick or something), then give it points when it's doing the right thing (points based on how far it moved, or how much it kept it balanced), then after x simulation time passes, rank, and remove the lowest scoring neural net, and introduce a new one, with weights being an algorythm of the first and second. Effectively breeding.

If you give it a task such as walking, and give it control of its limbs (something like two pogo-stick type legs on a box, in a physics simulated environment), and start breeding, you'll come across 90% completely unsuccessful variants, then you come across some incredibly complex patterns, IE somersaults. But even something this 'simple', takes about 10000 iterations of the breeding pattern to reach, and is very easy to mess up just by changing one single detail.

Also, as far as I recall, removing from its scores when it isn't doing well isn't usually a good idea, as it will end up just getting worse. Might have been a flaw in my coding though.

I could remake a small project such as the walking box with pogo-sticks thing, just need to get a copy of ODE.

[You Fail Me]

Thanks for the feedback. We might do this in 3rd and 1st person. I know alot of people hate 3rd person shooters, and a lot of people hate 1st person shooters. Maybe we could have this in a options menu.

For the music I think we really need to look for some. However if we make this commercial with a copyrighted soundtrack... But thanks for the suggestion because I have not even thought of music and sounds yet.

I offer my services as far as making some noise specifically for this project. Maybe some creepy drone or something.

Edit: Just as like some ambient sounds, y'know? Not like specifically as the music. Having an all noise soundtrack for a game would be retarded.

I'm thinking I could just make one loooong track with some odd scraping sounds and almost no distortion. Or I could make some distorted stuff. Or instead of an ambient background track meant to generally creep you out, I could just make a really intense and disgusting sounding noise track similar to the ones on my myspace (check the sig).

But I am thinking that would be inappropriate for zombie killing. I would say something more like some random creepy noises stretched out over a long period of time used as an ambient track and when there are say 3 enemies attacking you at once or something, it sorta zorps into some intense music appropriate for killin' zombies.

I dunno, just chucking a couple ideas at ya.

[Dj Demetrius]

I offer my services as far as making some noise specifically for this project. Maybe some creepy drone or something.

Edit: Just as like some ambient sounds, y'know? Not like specifically as the music. Having an all noise soundtrack for a game would be retarded.

I'm thinking I could just make one loooong track with some odd scraping sounds and almost no distortion. Or I could make some distorted stuff. Or instead of an ambient background track meant to generally creep you out, I could just make a really intense and disgusting sounding noise track similar to the ones on my myspace (check the sig).

But I am thinking that would be inappropriate for zombie killing. I would say something more like some random creepy noises stretched out over a long period of time used as an ambient track and when there are say 3 enemies attacking you at once or something, it sorta zorps into some intense music appropriate for killin' zombies.

I dunno, just chucking a couple ideas at ya.

Doom 3 had a great soundtrack, but if you played the game and heard it outside of the game you probably wouldn't recognize it. The soundtrack mainly consisted of rythmic noises, like metal on metal, scraping and heartbeats etc. It was awesome as an atmosphere-raiser, but for example, it had no "main theme". (except for the menu music, but it sucked)

[You Fail Me]

Hmm. I didn't play Doom 3.

[pavlion]

Could we really do this I mean I could see this being sugested to like a game company but I myself have no idea how to make something like this Im not saying this could'nt be done but that it would be massive job for anyone.

[juju02]

how bout the [F-M] GAME COMPANY

[Dj Demetrius]

Hmm. I didn't play Doom 3.

You should.

[CHEDDAR]

man i posted a cuple of ideas and get yelled at...tipical. :rolleyes: but did i just post it in the wrong board? tell me!!!!!
ps i like the idea

[You Fail Me]

You should.

Wanna buy me a better computer?

[juju02]

ya, me too.

also, mah parents our out for dinner WOOT!

[You Fail Me]

fapfapfapfapfapfapfap

[juju02]

we better not start this off-topic shit again. oh-well:)

also, unceunceunceunceunceunceunce

RAVE!

[Xerxes]

Maybe we should all contribute to this in some way... and be the F-M GAME COMPANY!! Sounds like a theatre troupe... Yeah that's right I spell like a Brit. Whatchoo gonna do 'bout it?

[juju02]

heh....i'll make the names(and handout achievements) (and make achievments for the 360 version of this game)

[AquaGeneral]

Achievements... Maybe, would not really fit into the game and I don't think there will ever be a Xbox 360 version.

Please keep this ontopic.

[muffinmonkey]

I could help with some art possibly
It might be a bit weird though

[AquaGeneral]

"You Fail Me" and "Muffin Monkey" it would be great if you both also help out. Digital Manifestation you say yeah?

We can contact each other through mail.

[Dj Demetrius]

I'll help with anything that i can. Like music, trailers, ideas, feedback etc.

[AquaGeneral]

Dj Demetrius you can also be in the team.

The team is now:

Digital Manifestation
AquaGeneral
Dj Demetrius
You Fail Me
Muffin Monkey


We cannot really start because Digital Manifestation is busy on Sphere at the moment. After he is finished that he will begin to create this.

What we need is ideas and concepts.

[Dj Demetrius]

What we need is ideas and concepts.

We should try to gather all the ideas we have, and sort out which of them would be possible, and which of them that wouldn't.

[juju02]

i can do ideas/concept art. maybe keyboard which you fail me will distort cause i play piano

[muffinmonkey]

Oh yeah, forgot to mention, firstly, I have no experience in 3D game art so I'll have to pick it up pretty quick

but more importantly I can MIDI till the cows come home (I actually do it as a school subject so I know what I'm talking about)

[Xerxes]

Can I help with the ideas/concepts? I have massive amounts of creativity juice.

[AquaGeneral]

Xerxes you can also be in the team.

I am going to add you all to mail so we can contact about stuff on there.

Now the team is;

Digital Manifestation
AquaGeneral
Dj Demetrius
You Fail Me
Muffin Monkey
Xerxes

[danahribo]

Xerxes you can also be in the team.

I am going to add you all to mail so we can contact about stuff on there.

Now the team is;

Digital Manifestation
AquaGeneral
Dj Demetrius
You Fail Me
Muffin Monkey
Xerxes


What about me D: I could host SVN and such. i also now a bit of C++

[juju02]

i offered help! altough very little experience.......

[AquaGeneral]

Sorry juju, forgot to put you in.


Digital Manifestation
AquaGeneral
Dj Demetrius
You Fail Me
Muffin Monkey
Xerxes
JuJu02


So here are the roles;
Digital Manifestation - Programmer (not sure)
AquaGeneral - Level Editor/Concepts/Videos/Ideas
Dj Demetrius - Sounds/Music/Concepts/Videos/Ideas
You Fail Me - Sounds/Concepts
Muffin Monkey - Artist/Concepts
Xerxes - Ideas/Concepts
JuJu02 - Concepts? (not sure)

Please correct if I am wrong.

Edit: Can everyone please send me an email at aquageneral AT hotmail DOT com It will be difficult for me to add you all in when your email addresses are hidden :P

[danahribo]

don't ignore me completley D:

[digitalmanifestation]

I'm kinda an all rounder tbh, i can model well if i have good concept art or reference pix, so it's great we got some concept artists onboard. If anything is done in blitz then i could help out a lot, but i haven't really had that much of a go at c++/c#/java/ although i'm sure i could pick them up quick.

I have been researching the use of XNA which uses c#, so if we ever wanted to port it to the 360 we should all study it.

Either way, i can contribute a lot.

People,we need to decide something, are we going to use c4, blitz3D, c++ or something other?

*edit* danahribo, i'm sure your c++ knowledge will come in handy.

[Z3R052]

I could help out, I have no experience with programing but I'm taking a "gaming" course at school we haven't got very far into it but I have made quite a few models and animations in Cinema 4D. I would have to learn a new modeling program for this project but I'm willing. I also have a good understanding of HTML so put me up for web design, you can look at my site thats in my signature but its very low quality for what I typically do (if only I was willing to dish out a few dollars).

[AquaGeneral]

danahribo you can be in the team also :)

I just want to do a quick comparison of the engines;
C4 Engine:

Uses C++, meaning all the things we can do in C++ is possible in C4
Fully Featured World Editor
You can use for the physics engine; PhysX, ODE, Bullet, OPAL, Newton, Tomak, True Axis, Havok and more
$200 License (pretty low for what it is)

Website: http://www.terathon.com/c4engine/index.php
Videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/AquaGenerals
Game Created with C4: http://www.questofpersia.com/main/index.html

C++:
Well, too much too type in but I think everyone knows what C++ can do.

Blitz3D:
To save me some time click here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitz_BASIC#Blitz3D)

[digitalmanifestation]

i have to admit the c4 engine would be a good choice, does anyone know what pixel shader version it uses? My crappy GForce4 can only handle 0.7 :mad:

[AquaGeneral]

I think it uses 2.0a. Just had a check on the forums on there website and thats what came up a lot.

It would be pretty convenient upgrading your GFX card. You can probably get a good AGP card for about $70 AUSD or less.

[Xerxes]

Just emailed you, Aqua. I'm looking forward to this... also, I'm working on developing 1ns4n3 C++ sk1llz, so I might be able to program physics a bit in summer 2008.

[AquaGeneral]

Cool, I wish there was a subject in school called Physics In Graphics :)

I have sent you a a email back

[muffinmonkey]

I might do some concept art

TO THE GIMP

[danahribo]

May i suggest Ogre3D (http://ogre3d.org)?
It's in C++, but it's really simple to use.
Ogre::Entity* mBox = mSceneMgr->createEntity("BoxName","Box.mesh");
Ogre::SceneNode* mBoxNode = mSceneMgr->createSceneNode();
mBoxNode->attachObject(mBox);
That will make an object and display it.

[muffinmonkey]

Here is just a little concept art for the character
FIIIIREEEE

[digitalmanifestation]

Here is just a little concept art for the character
FIIIIREEEE

hehehehe :)

[You Fail Me]

Only problem with me being on the team is that my computer won't be able to handle trying it out, hahaha.

But seriously, I'm excited to help out.

[muffinmonkey]

Here is a.... well, it's not concept art, more like a style design
I don't know if anyone else thinks like this, it's kind of how I think the graphical style should be.


It's a kind of Dirty Brass

[Fox-Fool]

I may be able to do some simple 2D art.
But that's about it.

[AquaGeneral]

May i suggest Ogre3D (http://ogre3d.org)?
It's in C++, but it's really simple to use.
Ogre::Entity* mBox = mSceneMgr->createEntity("BoxName","Box.mesh");
Ogre::SceneNode* mBoxNode = mSceneMgr->createSceneNode();
mBoxNode->attachObject(mBox);
That will make an object and display it.

In C4 all you do is draw a box and apply physics. Though OGRE3D or Blitz3D would be a good second choice.

[danahribo]

In C4 all you do is draw a box and apply physics. Though OGRE3D or Blitz3D would be a good second choice.
But with Ogre3D it's free, even to make a commercial game, just as long as you provide a link to their site. (and maybe show a logo)

[Jokker]

I can help, as long as you PM me with an exact description of what is needed. I can be the person who codes whatever he's asked, but nothing on his own, since I'm really lacking the time for a full-blown participation.

[AquaGeneral]

I can help, as long as you PM me with an exact description of what is needed. I can be the person who codes whatever he's asked, but nothing on his own, since I'm really lacking the time for a full-blown participation.

Ok, I will PM you soon. We cannot really start properly yet because everything is just too early at this stage, we do not even know what engine we are actually going to use.

But with Ogre3D it's free, even to make a commercial game, just as long as you provide a link to their site. (and maybe show a logo)

Yes, but C4 has a lot more of the features that is needed for a game like this, plus it should have a faster work flow. If C4 is not the choice then it will be Ogre3D.

[danahribo]

Ogre != Game engine
Ogre is a Rendering engine, you give it things to render, it renders them :)

[You Fail Me]

Aquageneral, I will be recording some stuff on monday to upload to my myspace, is there anything you might like me to record for the game?

[AquaGeneral]

I don't really know what you can record. As we speak I am actually uploading to YouTube what I FRAPS'ed earlier.

danahribo I do not need a renderer. C4 is fine, Ogre would be the second choice.

Edit: Here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GJG9WIFg4s) is a video of what you can do with C4 and using PhysX Ageia integration.

[You Fail Me]

Alright. In that case I won't worry about it.

[Xerxes]

That "dirty brass"-type image Muffin posted looked good for a brass texture...

[You Fail Me]

For what? Bullet casings?

[muffinmonkey]

I was thinking that could be the...

how it feels, if you catch my drift

yellowy lighting, dirty windows, multicoloured light reflection thingies, a city more like the Backstreets of Tokyo than anything else

edit: a quick example

and the sky for it which I like

[danahribo]

http://www.ogre3d.org/index.php?set_albumName=album59&option=com_gallery&Itemid=55&include=view_album.php
"MOTORM4X" is using Ogre
http://www.ogre3d.org/gallery/albums/album59/ac_03_1024.sized.jpg

[digitalmanifestation]

http://www.ogre3d.org/index.php?set_albumName=album59&option=com_gallery&Itemid=55&include=view_album.php
"MOTORM4X" is using Ogre
http://www.ogre3d.org/gallery/albums/album59/ac_03_1024.sized.jpg

I have to admit ogre does look good, but i think C4 is the prefered one that agua uses. Does ogre have a level editor and all that stuff?

Not saying C4 is better than ogre ( because tbh i haven't really looked into it enough ), i think aqua knows that engine more than ogre so it would make sense to use C4, would save a bit of time unless ogre is pretty much the same editor and stuff...

Anyways, i can't use either of them >< PIXEL SHADERSSSSS!!!!!!!

Feel free to send me you send me your spare graphics cards lads ;)

Hopefully once sphere get's made i can get a new computer, if it doesn't flop :P

[kotsoft]

the engine you use doesn't really matter. stuff like shadows and postprocessing and particles and other effects are standard in most engines. so you should just go with the engine you can actually use. i've seen good graphics come out of both engines.

i hate it when people blame stuff on their engine or tools, like, "i couldn't make a good physics game in flash because it doesn't have physics." oh really? that's because you have to code the physics.

[danahribo]

For the last time, OGRE ISN'T A GAME ENGINE! IT DOES HAVE A .SCENE FORMAT BUT IT'S A PLUGIN , SO STOP TALKING LIKE IT'S A GAME ENGINE.

And I already have the base of an engine using Ogre, but it's no-where near finished.

[kotsoft]

i know it's not a game engine and i don't think i ever said it was a game engine in my post. but perhaps you were talking to somebody else. i was talking about how the graphics stuff is all pretty standard and i'd be surprised if c4 couldn't do that motorm4x graphics stuff. you just have to know how to use the engine.

[digitalmanifestation]

I was pointing out that aqua will most probably be using C4. No point discussing it further then. And who cares about the technicalities of what is an engine or what isn't.

I have not used C4, ogre or any of this 3rd party crap cos i make my own shizzle, therefor i am not privy to the true definitions of such things, nor will many people here so there's no point spurting on about, "OMG i am l33t and these guys are noobs cos they don't know ogre isn't an engine".

Please keep on topic......

[muffinmonkey]

What do people think of my concept?

[Dj Demetrius]

What do people think of my concept?

I like the city picture. Looks great, and it matches good with the "dirty brass" texture from earlier :)

[digitalmanifestation]

What do people think of my concept?

I dunno man? Shouldn't it be like an artistic drawing or something? It's hard to get inspiration from the picture cos there isn't much detail.

Is the brass thing an environment map for reflections?

Could the concept artists post some of their previous works please?

[AquaGeneral]

http://www.ogre3d.org/index.php?set_albumName=album59&option=com_gallery&Itemid=55&include=view_album.php
"MOTORM4X" is using Ogre

Sorry for saying that Ogre is a game engine. It would seem silly to use another engine even though you already know so much about another.


I was thinking that could be the...

how it feels, if you catch my drift

yellowy lighting, dirty windows, multicoloured light reflection thingies, a city more like the Backstreets of Tokyo than anything else

edit: a quick example

and the sky for it which I like

They both are good looking, plus good for the zombie theme but there needs to be some more details, like gutters and abandoned cars. Could you draw a concept for a zombie?


I was pointing out that aqua will most probably be using C4. No point discussing it further then. And who cares about the technicalities of what is an engine or what isn't.

I have not used C4, ogre or any of this 3rd party crap cos i make my own shizzle, therefor i am not privy to the true definitions of such things, nor will many people here so there's no point spurting on about, "OMG i am l33t and these guys are noobs cos they don't know ogre isn't an engine".

Please keep on topic......

I will be using C4. The only thing is that the $200 license. My parents will never let me buy anything over the internet. But I will find a way :)

[danahribo]

I will be using C4. The only thing is that the $200 license. My parents will never let me buy anything over the internet. But I will find a way :)
Ogre is Fre.. I'll stop trying to get you to use ogre now. $200? That's a bit steep?

[AquaGeneral]

That is true, but I am still unsure how I am even going to do some aspects such as integrating the AI and creating the terrain.

Okay, soon I will have a look at Ogre and explore everything. Then I will make the choice of what engine to use.

[You Fail Me]

On monday when I record with my friend, I'll see if he wants to get in on this.

Here's some of his art, I think he'd be a great concept artist. He does more realistic and less wacky stuff than is on his deviantart, but for fun he usually does some abstract, wacky oddness.

http://joolin.deviantart.com/

[AquaGeneral]

Thanks for getting some more artists.

Is anyone here a good modeler? Because I am only good with simple object like bowls.

[juju02]

i can draw concept if i can get a scanner.. not good with pc art.

also, i could try to learn, but i probably won't work.....

[Christcross9]

IF there wer a game like that i would ply it for 3 days nonstop(oh and virtue if u see this check your pm)

[kotsoft]

well, i can do a little more than bowls, but not that much.
http://kotsoft.googlepages.com/gallery

[Maltor124]

I could help out, I have no experience with programing but I'm taking a "gaming" course at school we haven't got very far into it but I have made quite a few models and animations in Cinema 4D. I would have to learn a new modeling program for this project but I'm willing. I also have a good understanding of HTML so put me up for web design, you can look at my site thats in my signature but its very low quality for what I typically do (if only I was willing to dish out a few dollars).

Same here, except scratch out the class part and replace Cinema 4D with Blender. Except I'm not very good at it. D:

*cough*thatmeansidliketobeontheteam*cough*

So can I be on the team? Pretty please?

kotsoft, those look amazing, I think you can a lot more than bowls...

EDIT: Do not take Maltor Games as a direct representation of what I can do. The stuff there is mostly premade and just patched together by me. I can make a pretty mean website, though. ;)

[digitalmanifestation]

i can draw concept if i can get a scanner.. not good with pc art.

also, i could try to learn, but i probably won't work.....

Do you have a digi cam?, how about mail them to someone on the team who has a scanner/digital camera?

well, i can do a little more than bowls, but not that much.
http://kotsoft.googlepages.com/gallery

Whoah, nice site dude ^^

Aqua, i may be able to get the blitz3D SDk, which means i can plug it into c++ and use the commands from blitz3D in c++, this may allow us to get my terrain system working in C4 maybe?

Atm it isn't seamlessly loading but it can handle 2KM x 2KM worth of data, and thats if 1 terrain square = 1m, but u can scale it to twice that and get 4km x 4km plus even more if needed.

[muffinmonkey]

I dunno man? Shouldn't it be like an artistic drawing or something? It's hard to get inspiration from the picture cos there isn't much detail.

Is the brass thing an environment map for reflections?


It could be if anyone wants to use it
I knocked that image up in minutes to try to explain what I was getting at with the mood/theme whatever you want to call it

I'm working on a zombie now and improving the scene

[AquaGeneral]

Aqua, i may be able to get the blitz3D SDk, which means i can plug it into c++ and use the commands from blitz3D in c++, this may allow us to get my terrain system working in C4 maybe?

Atm it isn't seamlessly loading but it can handle 2KM x 2KM worth of data, and thats if 1 terrain square = 1m, but u can scale it to twice that and get 4km x 4km plus even more if needed.
That sounds like a good idea. I am still thinking if we should use C4. Because the price tag.

well, i can do a little more than bowls, but not that much.
http://kotsoft.googlepages.com/gallery

That is some really good looking pics, what did you use?

i can draw concept if i can get a scanner.. not good with pc art.

also, i could try to learn, but i probably won't work.....
You could probably buy a scanner for $20 on its own. It would work sending it out in the mail but I think I live too far away unless you plan to post across the globe


Edit: I sent out a PM to everyone in the team, if you did not receive this and you are in the team please let me know because I think I forgotten someone.

[kotsoft]

i used modo.
http://www.luxology.com/

[danahribo]

Edit: I sent out a PM to everyone in the team, if you did not receive this and you are in the team please let me know because I think I forgotten someone.
I didn't get a PM D:

[Dj Demetrius]

i used modo.
http://www.luxology.com/

I just checked the videos, and it looks great!

just check out this (http://www.luxology.com/video/view.aspx?id=178) one. Amazing.

[AquaGeneral]

I just had a look a Modo and when I clicked "Try" there is no download link.

[muffinmonkey]

ZOMBIE
hurrah
is it alright?

my computer seems to have had all it's RAM turned to treacle today, this may take a while to upload
(sorry, had a big download going, firefox was using 97% of the CPU)
here it is, or not, now it's too big

[AquaGeneral]

That looks sweet.

Plus a very good start to the games concept :)

[HARDHEAD11]

May I be on the team? I'll help with concept art and maybe some 3d models with Blender.

[muffinmonkey]

That looks sweet.

Plus a very good start to the games concept :)

I DID SOMETHING GOOD :)
*victory dance ensues*

want anything else doing?

[Xerxes]

Are our zombies going to be the traditional zombie, animated from the grave by an evil necromancer? Or are they going to be one of the other zombie family trees...

Haitian zombies: Fabled to be undead creatures, but were actually just hypnotized by a potent mix of herbs by a shaman. The basis for all reanimated monsters as we know them.

Diseased zombies: You've seen 28 Days Later, right?

Brain-eating zombies: A variant on the traditional zombies, these are usually animated by a burst of magical or ectoplasmic energy that somehow makes them evil and brain-eating.

Bloody zombies: Zombies containing an amount of blood out of proportion to their body mass. See: Kloonigames.

[AquaGeneral]

May I be on the team? I'll help with concept art and maybe some 3d models with Blender.
Yes, we especially need a modeller :)

The team is now something like 10 people already.

I DID SOMETHING GOOD :)
*victory dance ensues*

want anything else doing?

Well maybe some zombie sketches and something like blood splats for textures.


Diseased zombies: You've seen 28 Days Later, right?

Brain-eating zombies: A variant on the traditional zombies, these are usually animated by a burst of magical or ectoplasmic energy that somehow makes them evil and brain-eating.

Bloody zombies: Zombies containing an amount of blood out of proportion to their body mass. See: Kloonigames.

A variety of all. Maybe for the bloody zombies we could do something like Toribash or maybe something like in that Real Matter demo.

[muffinmonkey]

I think we should have good old fashioned zombies
you know the ones that eat brains
(I never understood why really but...)
and walk round with there arms out moaning

OR

I think we should do it "realistically"
as in making them look like corpses
eating all in their path
probably the disease scenario

[You Fail Me]

Zombies such as in Night of the Living Dead. It's never explained why the dead walk or why they are so damned bitey, but they're there, and being bitey is what they do, so live with it.

I like that scenario.

[Virtue]

I want half-life zombies...except maybe for the headcrabs. I think that traditionsl zombies are overused. Evertone expects a green frankenstien type monster to pop out when it's a game about zombies. Or you could mix it up and put a bunch of differnt types.

The extended arms thing is a load of crap. Don't put it in.

[muffinmonkey]

so, not traditional zombies.

more like corpses
follow the explanation in the Zombie Survival Guide?

[AquaGeneral]

Too me a lot of games do use traditional zombies but they do not have the way they should. Plus in the game you do not have the openness to do watever you want.

For example in Dead Rising you have a timer, you have to do all the main missions or you will be put to the last checkpoint and friendly survivors do nothing but walk slow and wine.

Think of it how fun it will be having about 100 survivors and about 10,000 zombies on the street. Using physics to block the zombies from getting to you but they probably would be able to get over them if they walk over them or the explosive zombie comes (maybe).

[digitalmanifestation]

Here's a kind of generic idea that we could use.

Everyone knows America has got a black budget that is used to fund secret projects. One of these black projects could be some research a team of scientists was working on, research into BioChemical weapons. The scientists came up with all sorts of crazy and wacky concoctions, being unhindered by time and money limitations. One of these projects was research into the creation of a zombie virus.

The virus attacks the frontal lobes of the brain and kills neurons in that area, infact it destroy all neurons in the brain apart from the reptilian brain or "R Brain". The R brain controls stuff like:

Territorial behavior,
cannibalism,
carnivorism,
ritualistic behavior,
jealous thoughts,
violent behavior and a shed load more negative stuff.

All of these thought patterns without the power of reasoning and the ability to love, unleashes hell on earth like you have never seen before.

The virus has two main ways of transmission.

1. The virus attaches itself to the saliva glands in the mouth, what was once a saliva gland now becomes a fully fledged virus producing gland which spreads the virus to any organism that gets bitten.

once infected in the above way, the victim normally becomes a fully fledged zombie with total loss of conscious brain control within 1 - 2 days.
If infection is not treated within 1-3 hours of being bitten your pretty much screwed.

2. The virus also seeps into the lungs and mutates to become an air born particle, emerging from the depths of the infected persons lungs gives a new meaning to the word "Death Breath". This air born version of the virus is not as contagious as the previous. Infection can normally be avoided by simply wearing a make shift face mask although a gas mask is preferable.

If infected in the above way, the victim normally becomes a fully fledged zombie with total loss of conscious brain control within 3 - 4 days. If infection is not treated withing 1-2 days you going to hell.

But don't fear, if you get bitten in the game, you can opt to carry on as a zombie once turned and try your best to infect everyone else. But being the player you are naturally more intelligent than the rest of the zombies :cool:
You are a super strong zombie that can punch a man flying into the air (in ragdoll form :D) and rip off limbs. You will also be able to use the "group consciousness" to inform your fellow zombies of any humans you may have seen, shout to near by zombies and create a gang to follow you. Use them as cannon fodder, give one a grenade and make him run at the enemy, do whatever you want but above all cause mayhem!

Feel free to expand ideas and what not.

Peace out.

[Xerxes]

Hey Mikey, I like it! Good take on the "infection" type zombies, with a dash of government stupidity mixed in. Ew, government.

Also, I don't think the military should be in this. It would probably be way too complicated to have a third faction running around, with a homing/eliminating AI running, in addition to the zombies and the survivors. Besides, knowing our government, they'd probably just evacuate the state and then nuke the hell out of it.

Maybe the object of the game should be to survive until you can a) find a working phone line and b) call in an evacuation helicopter.

[digitalmanifestation]

I guess it depends how it all gets balanced. On one hand we have infection probability, if the virus was hyper infectious, some military wouldn't harm the population to much. Military NPCs don't have to always be good soldiers, meaning they will most probably be consumed in a similar way to most civilians. On the other hand we have death rates. Death rates of civs, military and zombies. If a lot of zombies were getting wiped out, you could turn up the infection probability. If civilian casualties were really high you could turn down infection probability or allow the soldiers to become a bit more accurate. I really don't think military would be a problem providing you keep tabs on their behavior and adjusted it accordingly. Of course you could always just randomly create everything based on some options, allowing the player to set the types of ratios he/she would like before entering the game.

Area size_x, size_z in KMs

Zombie %
Civilian %
Military %

Infection Probability%
Military effectiveness%

Woodland%
Mountains%
Rural land%
Business%, housing%
Urban land%
Goverment buildings%, housing%, business%, religious%
sea%
Oil rigs, gas rigs, boats?


Weather : Random or fixed type of weather.
Date

Resources and item drops.

Plus tons of other stuff and options. Everyone is happy then :P

[Xerxes]

The virus infection chance option shouldn't be able to go over a certain percentile, though, because otherwise someone will be like "Bleagh 100% bleagh" and the game will be like "Spawing..." But then less than a second later EVERYTHING will be infected and it'll be like "ZOMG HAX! I CRASH NOW" because the engine probably won't be able to handle that many entity changes at once.

[digitalmanifestation]

"Bleagh 100% bleagh", "ZOMG HAX! I CRASH NOW"

HAHAHAhahahaHAH :P

Yah if it was to rapid it could cause problems :P

In blitz3D you have things called type definitions, you define what makes an object (not 3D object).

Type Zombie

field mesh
field x, y, z
field rotation
field health
field control_type (player or AI, equals 1 for player and 2 for AI)

End Type

Spawning the zombies would be as simple as saying.

Function SpawnRandomZombie()

a.Zombie=New Zombie

a\mesh = LoadMesh("Zombie.x")
a\x = rnd(-1000, 1000)
a\z = rnd(-1000, 1000)

a\y = GetHeight(a\x, a\z) ;Gets height at where the zombie is standing.
a\rotation = rnd(0, 360)
a\health = 100
a\control_type = 2

End Function

Updating them would be something like

Function UpdateZombies()

For a.Zombie=each Zombie

If a\control_type = 2
UpdateZombieAI() <<<another function i would have to make :P
Else
UpdateZombiePlayer()
EndIf

PositionEntity a\mesh, a\x, a\y, a\z
RotateEntity a\mesh, 0, a\rotation, 0

If a\health > 1
ZombieDeath() <<more functions :P
EndIf

Next

[danahribo]

I guess it depends how it all gets balanced. On one hand we have infection probability, if the virus was hyper infectious, some military wouldn't harm the population to much. Military NPCs don't have to always be good soldiers, meaning they will most probably be consumed in a similar way to most civilians. On the other hand we have death rates. Death rates of civs, military and zombies. If a lot of zombies were getting wiped out, you could turn up the infection probability. If civilian casualties were really high you could turn down infection probability or allow the soldiers to become a bit more accurate. I really don't think military would be a problem providing you keep tabs on their behavior and adjusted it accordingly. Of course you could always just randomly create everything based on some options, allowing the player to set the types of ratios he/she would like before entering the game.

Area size_x, size_z in KMs

Zombie %
Civilian %
Military %

Infection Probability%
Military effectiveness%

Woodland%
Mountains%
Rural land%
Business%, housing%
Urban land%
Goverment buildings%, housing%, business%, religious%
sea%
Oil rigs, gas rigs, boats?


Weather : Random or fixed type of weather.
Date

Resources and item drops.

Plus tons of other stuff and options. Everyone is happy then :P
I don't think it should be that customizable, since generating a 500*�x500km square Each time would take ages. Maybe we could use this method to create the map, but not at the user end.

[muffinmonkey]

I like the way this started out as "This is my dream game, it's impossible"

and now it's "What colour skin should the zombies have?"

[danahribo]

I like the way this started out as "This is my dream game, it's impossible"

and now it's "What colour skin should the zombies have?"

It's best to know what you want to make before you start making it ;)

[Xerxes]

I like the way this started out as "This is my dream game, it's impossible"

and now it's "What colour skin should the zombies have?"

Green. ZOMG HAX 10CHAR MIN

[muffinmonkey]

I meant it's becoming a reality rather than an impossibility

and corpse grey

[digitalmanifestation]

I don't think it should be that customizable, since generating a 500*�x500km square Each time would take ages. Maybe we could use this method to create the map, but not at the user end.

I dunno, providing it's all in memory you can generate a lot in a short amount of time. You have an update process for each type and cull anything that is to far away from the player.

Obviously have a single player mode, and have generator option for people to generate their own levels once they had completed the single player. If a player set it to 50km x 50km then we could warn them it might take a while to generate the environment. They could make a 1km x 1km city (100% urban) or make a small village (100% rural) or what ever they want. We just give them as many options as we can.

Would also be cool to unlock certain options in the generator, like being super strong, telekinesis, flying, being able to command the army and use their resources like calling in bomb drops from jets and stuff. Ninja mode, Guyver mode, fist of the north star. All weapons, giant mode etc, etc.

[danahribo]

I dunno, providing it's all in memory you can generate a lot in a short amount of time. You have an update process for each type and cull anything that is to far away from the player.

Obviously have a single player mode, and have generator option for people to generate their own levels once they had completed the single player. If a player set it to 50km x 50km then we could warn them it might take a while to generate the environment. They could make a 1km x 1km city (100% urban) or make a small village (100% rural) or what ever they want. We just give them as many options as we can.

Would also be cool to unlock certain options in the generator, like being super strong, telekinesis, flying, being able to command the army and use their resources like calling in bomb drops from jets and stuff. Ninja mode, Guyver mode, fist of the north star. All weapons, giant mode etc, etc.Ah, i think i see what you mean, A Story Mode, with a set map, and once they complete that, they get access to a "Sandbox" mode?

P.S: C++ + Ogre would probably be best for what we are aiming for, since it's hella fast.

[AquaGeneral]

We should try to make this game as least linear as we can. As in the survivors should not be on purpose stupid.

Dead Rising was disappointing because everything you think that would happen doesn't. You would probably think there would be squads coming stopping the infection and survivors building strongholds. Instead it is entirely up to you wiping out the zombies.

Wouldn't it be fun having so many zombies, you should be able to rely on survivors and yourself second. Not making the game too easy though, we could probably make the health a lot more realistic.

Now I have got some ideas :)
Matrix Mode - Game is a bit slower than normal and when you kill a zombie it does a crazy 360 degree camera turn in paused motion. Like in Conkers Bad Fur Day.

Zombie Invasion Mode - Probably 2x more zombies spawned for a crazy invasion experience.

Deployable Items - Such as in Conker: Live and Reloaded and Team Fortress 2. You can deploy mines, turrets and more.

[danahribo]

Have we decided on an engine yet?

Because i want to code something (Other than Suf)

[AquaGeneral]

Lets have a vote.

I will say C4

[kotsoft]

how about you show us some awesome graphics you can do yourself using ogre and then we can decide. just a screenshot from motorm4x isn't enough. do you know how to use ogre or whatever graphics engine well enough that you can beat what they can do with c4?

[AquaGeneral]

I am not an artist, but they look alright.
Here are a couple; here (http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/2459/c42007112308551284pz0.png) and here (http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/1382/c42007112310035609xy5.png)

This is a game made with C4: Official Screenshots (http://www.logic-illusion.com/Main/Screenshots)

What I done was made in about a day, the reason is because all of the physical joints where not balanced right so I had to continuously change and test.

I am pretty sure Ogre can look better.

Edit: My images may looks a bit jaggy because they were resized to upload.

[digitalmanifestation]

Hi i know this probably wont be used but i just made it in the past hour or so for a laugh. Got the zombie model off Psionic's site. (http://www.psionic3d.co.uk/gallery/index.php)

There is only 2 idle animations and 2 walks animations so it is a bit lacking in depth but ah well only a mess about anyway.

Download it here (http://www.freewebs.com/digital-manifestation/downloads.htm)

[Xerxes]

If it's an infection, we'll want faster zombies than that, but good!

The "random destinations" would work well for when they didn't know where any humans were, as they would just lurch around until they found somebody by chance.

Also, would it be too difficult to give them AI that used the environment? Examples: picking up a crowbar or something to use as a weapon, throwing stuff, etc.

EDIT: Just decided to mess around with it a little more. I ran it with 1000 zombies onscreen at once with 8 FPS. Shameful, but still, that's pretty damn powerful.

[digitalmanifestation]

If it's an infection, we'll want faster zombies than that, but good!

The "random destinations" would work well for when they didn't know where any humans were, as they would just lurch around until they found somebody by chance.

Also, would it be too difficult to give them AI that used the environment? Examples: picking up a crowbar or something to use as a weapon, throwing stuff, etc.

EDIT: Just decided to mess around with it a little more. I ran it with 1000 zombies onscreen at once with 8 FPS. Shameful, but still, that's pretty damn powerful.

Lol i can run it with 250 zombies at 10 FPS, i am running a AMD athlon XP 2500+ (although i can't run it faster than 1.1 gig cos it overheats), a geforce 4, and 1 gig of ram. What spec is your machine?.

It wouldn't be to difficult to add in some actions and stuff.

[AquaGeneral]

Yay, I get 9fps with 1000 zombies. Even though I have got Vista.

digitalmanifestation how would we go about making it more optimized?

[digitalmanifestation]

1 thing you could do is, spread the zombies over a bigger area. Hide all zombies that are far away. Still update them in memory but instead of the whole lot each cycle, update only 4 and then next cycle update the next 4. I'll have a play about with this and try to get it running better.

Earlier you guys were getting 8fps-10fps with 1000, i was getting 10fps with 250.

Good news, i'm now getting 20 fps with 1000 zombies, so god knows what you guys will get now :P. Will post an updated version of the program soon

Ok i update the download, get it from the same place (http://www.freewebs.com/digital-manifestation/downloads.htm)

[AquaGeneral]

Know I get 62fps :) Thats 6.8x faster than before :P

Would you be able make it so when you press a certain button you throw a ball and it damages the zombie? Possibly followed by a ragdoll? Just as a suggestion.

[digitalmanifestation]

Know I get 62fps :) Thats 6.8x faster than before :P

Would you be able make it so when you press a certain button you throw a ball and it damages the zombie? Possibly followed by a ragdoll? Just as a suggestion.

It would probably go faster but vertical sync is turned on :P

To make them loose health is possible because they already have 100 hit points. Getting them to be hit by physics objects wouldn't be to hard and you could do it in more then one way. The easiest way i can think of right now would be to have a bounding box that's invisible, set it to be a physics object and position it at the particular zombies x, y and z coordinates. In this way you should be able to detect physics collisions and get the force of that collision allowing you to deduct from the health accordingly. Once health is smaller than 1 apply rag doll and add force from collision.

The format of the zombies is .b3d which has bones i believe. I just gotta work out how to access them and apply a ragdoll to it. I'm guessing it's a case of scanning through all the bones, create a cube for each bone, match the bone's position, rotation and scale. Using the bones hierarchy join all the bone's physics equivalents using the pivot command in ODE. Once that's done update the physics for them. It will probably be a bit more trickier than that but i'm sure it wont be to much more effort.

[muffinmonkey]

I'm having a look at editing the zombie image

[digitalmanifestation]

I'm having a look at editing the zombie image

Ok cool :P

[AquaGeneral]

This is what I changed earlier; http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/210/zombieix9.jpg

Constipation :p

So anyone going to help decide what engine we should use?

[digitalmanifestation]

Another new demo (http://www.freewebs.com/digital-manifestation/downloads.htm), now with physics implemented. Will start on the rag doll stuff tomorrow, it will probably take longer than the stuff i have been working on today, although it shouldn't take to long.

About the engine aqua, i don't know tbh. Blitz will end up holding us back somewhere along the line. I think we might be able to use it as a Proof Of Concept demo to show any potential investors what we are capable of, seeing if we can secure some finances and create it in C4, but to a much higher standard. This is highly unlikely to happen but we can dream can't we?!?! :P

Even if we don't use it, i'm sure it would make a funny screen saver or a sandbox program for peeps to piss about in. I've been up all night so i better crash out, it's 11:10 am !!!!!!!:eek:

[Xerxes]

Nice, again! I had endless fun with it until there was a stack overflow error and it did the crashing...

Still, though. When we have ragdoll, it's practically a minigame already.

I'll start learning to code now so I stop being totally useless.

[danahribo]

Another new demo (http://www.freewebs.com/digital-manifestation/downloads.htm), now with physics implemented. Will start on the rag doll stuff tomorrow, it will probably take longer than the stuff i have been working on today, although it shouldn't take to long.

About the engine aqua, i don't know tbh. Blitz will end up holding us back somewhere along the line. I think we might be able to use it as a Proof Of Concept demo to show any potential investors what we are capable of, seeing if we can secure some finances and create it in C4, but to a much higher standard. This is highly unlikely to happen but we can dream can't we?!?! :P

Even if we don't use it, i'm sure it would make a funny screen saver or a sandbox program for peeps to piss about in. I've been up all night so i better crash out, it's 11:10 am !!!!!!!:eek:
I'm still thinking C++, Since there are 'No' Limits to what you can do.

[muffinmonkey]

I'VE CREATED A MONSTER

sorry, I've always wanted to say that

yup, the zombie thing is hereby reskinned into my zombie style
LEENK (http://hosted.filefront.com/muffinmonkey/)


also, on that free 3D site there's a pack called 12 free crates you could use instead of those cubes

[digitalmanifestation]

New version of demo is on my site in the downloads page, it's in my signature. It now has a mini map, and you can spawn walls (for Aqua :P).

About the stack overflow problems, don't worry about those i know what causes them. Basicly you can only spawn so many physics objects at a time, meaning if i want to spawn 1000 cubes in one cycle of the code it will crash. The way to get round this is to limit the amount of physics objects that gets created and spread it over the course of X frames.

For instance, if you spawn a ton of zombies, it will crash because, any zombies that are in your immediate area which could be 300 let's say, well have a physics object applied to them and 300 is to much for one frame, it will crash. So i'm guessing make it so all zombies are spawned out of sight, that way they don't get physics applied to them all at once, only when they come into range. This should sort the problem.

[danahribo]

Cool!

:eek: i crashed with 3 walls :(

[muffinmonkey]

Those walls have given me a great flash-forward of gameplay, you're in an ally with your allies (try saying that 10 times fast) while in a building on one side of the ally, zombies are piling up, pushing against the walls. Suddenly the wall collapses and all the zombies come pouring through. The wall falling down knocks down the opposite wall and both the buildings come tumbling down. You have to run for your lives out of this ally while all the zombies are crushed under the rubble. You have a quick check of your party and find one missing. You go back to look for him and buried zombies grab at your legs. You find your friend, unconscious, but alive, you drag his ragdoll out of the rubble so he doesn't get zombied.

I can't be bothered to reskin the latest zombie messings with the new zombie so just copy the image across.

[digitalmanifestation]

Yeah man it would be cool to pull someone you know from the rubble ^^ good idea. A team play mode would be cool for stuff like that. I think this would be cool to setup as a LAN game, i know people always bang on about how hard it is to get physics working over a network, for a pvp game i can see this being a problem but for cooperative it should be ok. For instance it's cooperative, no one really has a need to hack the physics so you can have it all done on the host computer. Send state updates for the physics objects to each computer and have them updated on the clients.

I know how to program networks in blitz to, i already have made a basic server + client that you can talk to each other on, attack each other and kill each other also build stuff like buildings, castles all in third person. I was working on this before i realised it will take me a long time to finish it. So i started on something that will be a bit quicker to make and thus try to get some funds before i started it again, this is where my terrain editor came into creation also but i kinda gave up on that for the moment too.

http://img48.imageshack.us/img48/3426/promo1kz3.jpg

[danahribo]

Yeah man it would be cool to pull someone you know from the rubble ^^ good idea. A team play mode would be cool for stuff like that. I think this would be cool to setup as a LAN game, i know people always bang on about how hard it is to get physics working over a network, for a pvp game i can see this being a problem but for cooperative it should be ok. For instance it's cooperative, no one really has a need to hack the physics so you can have it all done on the host computer. Send state updates for the physics objects to each computer and have them updated on the clients.

I know how to program networks in blitz to, i already have made a basic server + client that you can talk to each other on, attack each other and kill each other also build stuff like buildings, castles all in third person. I was working on this before i realised it will take me a long time to finish it. So i started on something that will be a bit quicker to make and thus try to get some funds before i started it again, this is where my terrain editor came into creation also but i kinda gave up on that for the moment too.

http://img48.imageshack.us/img48/3426/promo1kz3.jpg
Looks neat.

Hey, Digital, is it ok if i make my own version of the techdemo in C++? I have PhysX SDK installed here so i could try that.

[muffinmonkey]

Yeah Multiplayer would be as cool as a frozen Fonziepop. I have no one to play on LAN though :(
Ai would be too stupid though
And Internet Multiplayer is not possible?

I am not up on all that malarchy

edit: I just thought, maybe there could be a mode where there's everyone in one city, you know, bands of zombie hunters roaming around, rivalries, that kind of thing

[digitalmanifestation]

Looks neat.

Hey, Digital, is it ok if i make my own version of the techdemo in C++? I have PhysX SDK installed here so i could try that.

Of course it it :p

You don't need to ask me for permission, aqua is really the one who started all this and even he would be cool with it. If you could create something similar to this in C++ that would be awsome and it would run a hell of a lot faster. Get it made !!!

Even if we end up with like 10 prototypes, it's all gravy baby :p

peace out.

[danahribo]

Sweet, I'll try to get some pictures tonight if i get it working before i have to go. :)

[AquaGeneral]

That was pretty funny seeing my name in there :P It is true spawning to many walls causes an error :)

I got about 60FPS with 1000 zombies and about 50 boxes. Its a great demo, makes me wonder what we are going to end up with.

danahribo that demo sounds like it is going to be awesome.

What we could do for online is make the zombie count a bit less so there is no major lag and also detracting the physics object count by making objects reset if you walk about 200 meters or less from them. I do not exactly know what I am talking about because I have not looked into networking.

Great work everyone :)

[danahribo]

About Physics over networks:
There are 2 ways of Sending physics data over a network:

Send the position AND the Velocity, and "Predict" where the object is. (Used in racing games)
Send only the position (Used By Source (I think..))

[Xerxes]

In the new zombie demo (digital's), are those walls one panel that spawns into a ton of cubes when it's walked into? If so, it might look better as a wall made of said cubes, held together with a loose constraint. That way, the whole thing wouldn't collapse whenever one or two cubes hit it.

Also, I vote we use C++ because there really is no limit to what we could do. Just time constraints. :p

EDIT: Could we take advantage of that already-semi-created terrain editor?

[AquaGeneral]

In the new zombie demo (digital's), are those walls one panel that spawns into a ton of cubes when it's walked into? If so, it might look better as a wall made of said cubes, held together with a loose constraint. That way, the whole thing wouldn't collapse whenever one or two cubes hit it.

Also, I vote we use C++ because there really is no limit to what we could do. Just time constraints. :p

EDIT: Could we take advantage of that already-semi-created terrain editor?

C4 uses C++. Just the world editor and graphics/geometry etc etc is in internal engine.

[digitalmanifestation]

In the new zombie demo (digital's), are those walls one panel that spawns into a ton of cubes when it's walked into? If so, it might look better as a wall made of said cubes, held together with a loose constraint. That way, the whole thing wouldn't collapse whenever one or two cubes hit it.

Also, I vote we use C++ because there really is no limit to what we could do. Just time constraints. :p

EDIT: Could we take advantage of that already-semi-created terrain editor?

Should be able to make constraints, it's not an inbuilt command tho, i'm thinking make a new type called Spring:

Type Spring
field mesh1, mesh2
End Type

And create a couple of new functions

Function CreateSpring(mesh1, mesh2, length, strength, stiffness)
End Function

length is the total length it can stretch to, strength is the length at which it will break.

Will make an update function as well, the easiest way to update it would be to scan through all the springs and make add force to mesh1 in the direction of mesh2 and add force to mesh2 in the direction of mesh1. Now i have not tried this so it could go beserk, but i will test it first :P

As always i will post a demo of it, will do it tomoro tho i'm tired gotta get some sleep.

peace out all

[muffinmonkey]

You could develop experimental weapons or steal them from dead army people or something. There could be one that destroyed the springs in the walls so they just kind of crumbled. And a bomb that only affected structures. And one that produced a shockwave that only hit living things. And maybe a gravity gun. You get the idea, weapons that do cool things using physics.

[digitalmanifestation]

About the terrain editor:

Atm you can't edit the terrains in it because i haven't built all the brush functions and what not but, you can edit a height map in photoshop as it loads height maps onto the terrain. You can also calculate the shadows for the terrain and it will save this as a shadow map image. I can easily make the terrain exportable to .X but it will have to do it in sections as there are to many verts in the mesh to save it all as one mesh.

Because i was editing my terrains in photoshop i kinda got to like the brushes and all that stuff. Really helps when creating terrains, so i am gonna have the editing tools kinda like photoshop. You edit the terrain but your not really altering the mesh, you would be painting onto a 2D image and after you changed the image by painting on it, it would then update the mesh's verts to the rgb values of the pixels.

I already have the functions made for games tho:

LoadTerrainCells()
KillTerrainCells()

And another functions that you can use to cull terrain cells that aren't in your area.

UpdateTerrainCells(distance)

We could use it but only if someone made a mesh loading system in c++, or i was able to port it and i don't think that will be happening anytime soon.

[muffinmonkey]

I never found out if you liked my zombie reskin

[digitalmanifestation]

Hey sorry dude, a lot of posts in here, i don't always remember to address everything everyone says :P

Yah man it's cool, although it doesn't really bother me what it looks like atm. Did you check out psionics site? he is extremely talented, i'd suggest looking at some of his stuff and taking inspiration from him. What program do you use to do 2D?

Could you make the texture a little more defined? It seems a little blurry especially around the eyes. I do like the increased amount of gore tho ^^ that's always good :D About the blood color, i'd say make it a little more crimson so it's darker like blood. If you have got photshop i have some excellent blood brushes for it, that coupled with a darker shade of red would deffo make it look better.

Hope that helps, peace out (lemme know if u want them brushes)

[danahribo]

We could use it but only if someone made a mesh loading system in c++, or i was able to port it and i don't think that will be happening anytime soon.
Ogre can load Heightmaps.

http://www.psionic3d.co.uk/gallery/displayimage.php?album=2&pos=3
This could be a good vehicle placeholder if we add vehicles.

[sakiskid]

I am thinking this is possible IF someone REALLY rich AND has a SUPER COMP because if someone can make a game where you draw something and it comes to life(look at the Pseye thread) then this is definatly possible.

-KEYWORDS- IF, REALLY, AND, SUPER COMP.

[muffinmonkey]

What program do you use to do 2D?

The Gimp, I used to use Paintshop Pro but it was *shifty eyes* too legal....

I'm new to the gimp so I'll have a mess around

I had more detail but I got a bit over-zealous with the blur tool

[You Fail Me]

Man, I missed a lot in the some days I've been gone.

Too bad the links aren't working for me. They all end up being 1 pixel by 1 pixel .gif images...:confused:

[AquaGeneral]

Updated List Of Team:
HARDHEAD11 - Modeler
Jokker -
You Fail Me -
Digital Manifestation - Coder, 3D/2D Modeler/Level Designer
AquaGeneral - Level Designer/Trailers/Tester
Dj Demetrius - Sound/Music/Trailers/Tester (?)
danahribo - Coder/Level Designer
Muffin Monkey - Concepts/Art Design (?)
Xerxes - Level Designer

Could everyone say what there role in there team is (ie; programmer, level designer, etc, etc)?

Also what should we name our team?

Please tell me if I forgot to include you. I did a search though the entire topic and I could of missed someone.

As a weapon idea what about some type of big vacuum cleaner. You can such objects and then release, like in Monster Madness - Battle For Suburbia.

Edit: Updated List

Edit 2: Removed JuJu. Updated list.

[Xerxes]

Xerxes... the uber leet skillz idea and level design man!

Also, I vote our team is Xerxes and the Persians. Barring that, the F-M Game Company.

[Dj Demetrius]

Dj Demetrius - Master of Sounds. I dunno...

[muffinmonkey]

Muffinmonkey- Lord of the eyes

I say we call ourself

TEAM AWESOME

or

Gods of Motion

[digitalmanifestation]

I am a coder, 3D modeler and can do 2D stuff as well. I'm kinda a jack of all trades but a master in none :P

Got the constraints working btw, it works perfectly, but i doubt it will be usable for what we want to be doing. The best idea is to learn how to program mesh boolean commands or a crave function if you like. Once you have carved the chunk out after say a bullet hits a wall, you could add physics to this new mesh and apply some force to it. Constraints would be better for other things. The new download is at the same place on my site.

My friend came over today with his beefed up computer, his computer was able to run 3000 zombies at 62 FPS, the downside is it took about 40-50 seconds to load them all, when the map was active it slowed right down, i guess 3000 line commands is to much :P He couldn't be bothered to take it home so i have been playing COD4 all night :P completed it in like 3 hours >< damn this games are short these days. Hopefully he wont come and get it for a few days so i can try out bioshock and some really hardcore physics stuff in blitz :D

peace out.

[AquaGeneral]

I am a coder, 3D modeler and can do 2D stuff as well. I'm kinda a jack of all trades but a master in none :P

Got the constraints working btw, it works perfectly, but i doubt it will be usable for what we want to be doing. The best idea is to learn how to program mesh boolean commands or a crave function if you like. Once you have carved the chunk out after say a bullet hits a wall, you could add physics to this new mesh and apply some force to it. Constraints would be better for other things. The new download is at the same place on my site.

My friend came over today with his beefed up computer, his computer was able to run 3000 zombies at 62 FPS, the downside is it took about 40-50 seconds to load them all, when the map was active it slowed right down, i guess 3000 line commands is to much :P He couldn't be bothered to take it home so i have been playing COD4 all night :P completed it in like 3 hours >< damn this games are short these days. Hopefully he wont come and get it for a few days so i can try out bioshock and some really hardcore physics stuff in blitz :D

peace out.

Sounds like fun, I will add you and Muffin Moneky's role to the list. If you can have a look at how C4 goes :)

I just though of some names;
- Motion Gods
- Photion
- Photiantic (pronounced fo-tian-tic)

[muffinmonkey]

I say we call ourself

Gods of Motion


I just though of some names;
- Motion Gods


How inventive :D
Updated Zombie graphic if anyone's interested
http://hosted.filefront.com/muffinmonkey/

edit: Gods of Motion banner

[Dj Demetrius]

I like the "Gods of Motion" banner.

Also, i updated the Mediafire (http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=7eac9f41432ea53cb4e0c5efb3960d79024c0a54 d0e34b16) page with some more music, it's 2 pages now w00t ^^

[You Fail Me]

Me - Sounds, ambience, crappy gameplay ideas.

Those are the instruments I play.

[danahribo]

What are your MSN/IM's? As i have story ideas, but i don't want to tell everybody.

[Dj Demetrius]

MSN - madmupp(at)hotmail(dot)com
Email that i regulary check - madmupp(at)gmail(dot)com

[AquaGeneral]

MSN - aquageneral AT hotmail DOT com
Email - /\ same /\

Updated List Of Team:
HARDHEAD11 - Modeler
Jokker -
You Fail Me - Sounds/Tester
Digital Manifestation - Coder, 3D/2D Modeler/Level Designer
AquaGeneral - Level Designer/Trailers/Modeler
Dj Demetrius - Sound/Music/Trailers/
danahribo - Coder/Level Designer/Modeler
Muffin Monkey - Concepts/Art Design
Xerxes - Level Designer

Added the list to save everyone from back tracking.

About the name shouldn't we go for something a lot more meaningful, not saying that the name is not good but think of how many game companies would of had the word God in there companies name. Not that my suggestions where any better :o

[danahribo]

I could do a bit of 3d models, But only simple stuff like Crates n barrels.

Just an update on my protoype:
It's coming along nicely now. The zombies can walk along a path, (And become Idle once completed their path..)
I just need to clean it up a bit, and add Humans for them to hunt :3

[Dj Demetrius]

how about....

http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/4716/scorchedslopesstudioskx3.th.jpg (http://img116.imageshack.us/my.php?image=scorchedslopesstudioskx3.jpg)
(click to enlarge)
lol.:D
G'night everybody.

[Xerxes]

Hmm. How about Pub Games?

[kotsoft]

how about....

http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/4716/scorchedslopesstudioskx3.th.jpg (http://img116.imageshack.us/my.php?image=scorchedslopesstudioskx3.jpg)
(click to enlarge)
lol.:D
G'night everybody.

the only thing weird about it is the flames on the text is pointed down, but usually flames go up.

[digitalmanifestation]

How about "We Did Your Mum, Games!" :eek:

Did anyone check out the new demo with springs?

[AquaGeneral]

How about "We Did Your Mum, Games!" :eek:

Did anyone check out the new demo with springs?

Just had a try of the new demo. The walls finally stand still without velocity :)

But there is a crazy stack overflow after spawning a few walls :P

I like the new color of the floor also.

Edit: I just thought of a way to keep up the frame-rate; the zombies you cannot see should not be rendered until they are in sight, meaning they still move around and when they come in sight they then get rendered. Sorry if I sound like a noob :/

[Dj Demetrius]

Edit: I just thought of a way to keep up the frame-rate; the zombies you cannot see should not be rendered until they are in sight, meaning they still move around and when they come in sight they then get rendered. Sorry if I sound like a noob :/


sounds good, that's what they do in racing games, right?

[digitalmanifestation]

Hi, maybe we should think more about making this a "franchise" or "brand", like "Zombie Apocalypse". Maybe use that as a status platform for other games we make.

How about a first person free roaming game, a RTS and maybe a puzzle game :P (puzzle game not likely).

Point being, if danahribo did the coding for the first person game in conjunction with C4 i think you guys could rapidly develop a prototype level, then it would be a case of making levels/areas in the C4 editor, i take it C4 can't handle areas that are to large? If you made the areas out of sections you could brute force it so it culls anything outside of your FOV, only thing that might take a while to do is making character models and animating them. I think we should contact psionics and see if he would be interested in helping out on that aspect of things.

As for me i kinda want to make something in blitz as coding is where my passion lies. I was thinking about a RTS game based on a similar theme, infact i have created a design document, a first for me tbh. A design document is a very handy thing to have as i know, having started projects and wasting loads of time because i can't figure out what part of the project to work on next and/or loose focus. Design documents help you to stay focused and from this point onward i will never start another project untill i have made or received a design document. I will let you all check out what i have done once i have refined it and am happy with it.

Splitting the team into 2 is not necessary, i may still help out with trivial things like modeling items for the game world but i can't really offer any help coding apart from concepts/ideas on how to code something. That said you are all welcome to contribute to both projects. We may be able to use some of the same models in each game but no to much.

People playing the first person game that really love it, may seek info on it and find out about/purchase the RTS game and vice versa. Which would help strengthen both games.

Please don't post any ideas for the RTS on here, i am thinking we need a private forum to do all this stuff in. If you guys wish to discuss the FPS game then that's up to you. When i get a forum sorted that can be private i will let you all know the address.

Let me know what you think about this idea and did anybody check out the springs in the new demo><><><><!!!!!?????

I hope you read all the above (it's a lot to read i know!!! P)

Peace out :cool:

[digitalmanifestation]

Edit: I just thought of a way to keep up the frame-rate; the zombies you cannot see should not be rendered until they are in sight, meaning they still move around and when they come in sight they then get rendered. Sorry if I sound like a noob :/

Lmao, that's how i am doing it anyway, not only with objects and rendering, but the physics also, if the cube go off screen they get disabled from being updated:P

Walls, spawning to many physics objects in one go is sure to crash the demo, walls consist of 12 x 12 cubes, that's 288 physics objects spawned at once, no wonder it crashes. A way to overcome this would be to spawn only so many cubes per cycle.

sounds good, that's what they do in racing games, right?

It's a common practice in any game tbh, if something is out of sight, no point rendering it and wasting valuable GPU time. First person games take this idea one step further by haveing "portal culling". If a door is shut all the polygns behind the door and beyond get culled.

There's a few ways to do this also, you calculate what verts/polygons can't be seen. You can either turn their transparency to 0 meaning it would still be used in collisions or you can straight out delete the polygons so it also saves your memory.

To summarize:

Changing transparency, will allow you to save GPU time but you still have the geometry stored in memory, big levels may run fast but it will require more memory to store all the polygon data. This method is memory intensive if you have a big level, the size of the level is the bottle neck.

Deleting polygons, will allow you to save GPU time also but you save memory that may be better utilized elsewhere. Using this method means you have to access the hard disk to get the geometry data again and load it back into the level by creating new polygons and applying textures and what not to them. This can take longer than the above method but saves a ton of memory. This method is CPU intensive and requires you to perform more computations but the level size is only limited to the size/speed of your hard drive.

[AquaGeneral]

Lol you where already doing that? Sorry :o Is the demo multi-threaded?

Lets just ditch C4. C4 would be good for a less open ended game like a traditional FPS but I have been on C4's forums and I hear a lot of developers say they a limited to what they can do for and open world game.

I agree with you about splitting the team, we would still work fine in the one big team anyway.

About the crashing with physics objects. Does the engine force the crashing upon? Because really C4 does not have any limit, for example I did a test of 5000 cubes made into a rectangular pyramid, sure the frame rate was bad but it still worked :P

When I come home I will be making little concepts in C4. I am going to make a building, lots of physics actors and make the building destructible. I might try and get some concepts going when I am "reading" at school :P

By the way check your PM's.

[Virtue]

Question...are .obj files standard for models? or is that only in certain applications? If they are, I could help model...

[muffinmonkey]

If we're officially working on this we should get into that restricted bit

If only we had a good reason

Any work for me to do?


Ooh, name

How about:
Coders of the Apocalypse
<10
Foam Studios
Caustic Art
Gray Goo Studios
Purple Haze
Intelligent Cube
Residue of Genius

[Xerxes]

As an ideas-man, I don't really think it'd affect me too much if the team split. I'd just go over and be like, "Hey man wouldn't it be cool if _______ kthxbai."

Hey man wouldn't it be cool if instead of animations for the FPS, the arms were seperate characters (as I stated in my email to Aqua), so thy could have their own special AI commanded by the player; that way, they could grasp different objects without need for a constraint or anything, and could do many more things than we could find the time to animate kthxbai.

Also, I like Grey Goo Studios and Purple Haze... I loves them colors.

Name Ideas- Zombified Studios; Good Times; Open-Heart Coding; Hi-Poly Army; Legion of Code; Code Nation; Gelatinous Cube Studios; Amnesia Incorporated; etc. Woo, burst of creativity.

[AquaGeneral]

Great names!

Gray Goo Studios and Purple Haze sound really good. And also "Good Times" or maybe Good Time Studios.

What would have to do to get into the restricted part?

[Xerxes]

Probably just email Matthew.

[digitalmanifestation]

About the crashing with physics objects. Does the engine force the crashing upon? Because really C4 does not have any limit, for example I did a test of 5000 cubes made into a rectangular pyramid, sure the frame rate was bad but it still worked :P


There are a few factors which govern the error:

1. The amount of physics objects you can spawn per cycle is relative to your computer. Good computer spawns more per cycle.

2. The walls are different from normal cubes, for instance when you spawn cubes they only spawn 1 per cycle, which if you frame rate is 62 FPS you are spawning 62 Cubes per second.

3. The physics engine and how it works ( i use ODE, and it's not even ODE it's a library for blitz3D that lets you use commands out of the ODE dll)

However the walls spawn 12 x 12 as i said before is 144 per cycle, and if you spawn them inside each other your going to cause even more problems. One other thing, the cubes in the wall are disabled, enabling to many objects per cycle can also cause the same error.

One way around this is instead of spawning all them objects per cycle, take the max amount you want and divide it over so many cycles so you are only spawning a little per cycle.

I am guessing this is how C4 can do 5000.

Question...are .obj files standard for models? or is that only in certain applications? If they are, I could help model...

.obj files is the format wavefront uses, i can always export them into a file format we could use, such as .x or .b3d. plus there is always bound to be a extension for C++/blitz3D that lets you load them into your engine.

You gonna make some stuff then?,we would be most grateful :D

[muffinmonkey]

Also, I like Grey Goo Studios and Purple Haze... I loves them colors.


Grey Goo is a phrase that means what will happen if Nanobots replicate out of control

Purple Haze is a song by Hendrix so called because he had synaesthesia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaesthesia) and the Chord he played made him see purple

[Dj Demetrius]

Purple Haze <3 (the song, name's good too)

The new demo with the walls, are good btw. I tried the C4 thing, and it looks cool, but it seems like it has some problems with larger environments..True or false?

[muffinmonkey]

Which one's that?
I'm confused

[AquaGeneral]

Which one's that?
I'm confused

C4 is this (http://www.terathon.com/c4engine/shots.php)

On the holidays I will be making models/textures/concept levels and more so I think from then on we are going to get a fair bit done.

[digitalmanifestation]

C4 is this (http://www.terathon.com/c4engine/shots.php)

On the holidays I will be making models/textures/concept levels and more so I think from then on we are going to get a fair bit done.

MMmmm, just looked at the screenies for C4, what commands has it's scripting engine got? I'm sure i could pick it up quickly, i used to script for others games also. If it has good commands it could be very powerful.

[AquaGeneral]

Okay, I taken some screen shots of the scripting menu. I have not used it much but I have some understanding with it. Such as if you want to copy AI's you must have them activated through the scripting menu.

Picture 1 (http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/6636/c42007112807112217oj6.jpg)
Picture 2 (http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/6196/c42007112807121144ni8.jpg)
Picture 3 (http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/8138/c42007112807121250us7.jpg)

This is internally included in C4. Meaning that you must be able to run C4 in order to use the scripter, if you do not have Pixel Shader 2.0a or higher support on your GFX Card than you cannot run C4.

Edit: Nearly forgot to mention that I am using PhysX Ageia integration, that is why I can choose things like freeze physics, set gravity and debug physics. On the side is all the commands there is. I do believe that C++ can edit these if you have the source.

[danahribo]

This is internally included in C4. Meaning that you must be able to run C4 in order to use the scripter, if you do not have Pixel Shader 2.0a or higher support on your GFX Card than you cannot run C4.


The 2.0a+ bit kills C4, Since some people still use legacy hardware.

I do believe that C++ can edit these if you have the source.
Yes, simply by going object->freeze() (I think, I don't use PhysX directly)

[muffinmonkey]

This is internally included in C4. Meaning that you must be able to run C4 in order to use the scripter, if you do not have Pixel Shader 2.0a or higher support on your GFX Card than you cannot run C4.

Edit: Nearly forgot to mention that I am using PhysX Ageia integration, that is why I can choose things like freeze physics, set gravity and debug physics. On the side is all the commands there is. I do believe that C++ can edit these if you have the source.

Nooooo
I'm helping to build a game I cannot play

[AquaGeneral]

Nooooo
I'm helping to build a game I cannot play

Again, a PPU is not required with the PhysX Ageia integration. It is only the physics engine which was originally Novodex.

For a GFX card they are not very pricey, you could probably pick one up for less than $80. Especially AGP graphic cards.

[danahribo]

Again, a PPU is not required with the PhysX Ageia integration. It is only the physics engine which was originally Novodex.

For a GFX card they are not very pricey, you could probably pick one up for less than $80. Especially AGP graphic cards.

Some people can't afford it.
Try and keep the System Req. to about the same level as Source, dx8+

[Dj Demetrius]

Face it, you're gonna have to upgrade someday, might as well be today. (says the guy with 8800GTX xD)

[muffinmonkey]

Face it, you're gonna have to upgrade someday, might as well be today. (says the guy with 8800GTX xD)

yeah, well, I don't have my own computer so I can't

[Dj Demetrius]

yeah, well, I don't have my own computer so I can't

Oh well that's a problem..

[digitalmanifestation]

I'll upgrade my computer once i have become extremely rich from making games :D

Pixel shaders aside, i have a very fast way to create buildings, it's like autocad but for lightwave and it's very rapid at creating buildings. Trust me :D

You can build walls, floors/ceilings, windows, doors and fences. The even better thing about it is that you can make a custom model of a window and add it to the windows library and can spawn it into walls with ease, jut by clicking the wall. Same goes for doors and fences and fence posts. Almost forgot there is also a roof tool.

I'm thinking some of us should draws some kinda cool building layouts on paper, perhaps some textures to help me make the doors look better, also any weird window and door designs would be cool. Then we could sell the packs on a site to help fund the game. We could do medievil/future/wild west/victorian era/present day and a whole ton of stuff. This has all been done before i am aware of, but there is a big market for models in games. Ima start making stuff right away. I will also make buildings exclusive for the free roaming and the rts zombie game. If people can help out with good textures and stuff that would be cool.

Check out the sales stats (http://www.gameproducer.net/category/sales-statistics/) for indies games on this site, it's very interesting indeed and should give us all a boost

Peace out,
Lee

[Xerxes]

A quick note on control, from the squeaky-clean idea factory that is my head:

When the character(s) move(s), his (their) speed(s, okay I'll stop now) should accelerate to a top speed, go at that for a several minutes, and then slowly decelerate to a hunched-over walking speed. This would simulate actual real-life running. For instance, it could be 2 mph the first second, 4 mph the second, 5 mph the third, 7 mph the fourth, 8 mph at fifth, and 10 mph at sixth. It could max out at 10 for 2 minutes, then slowly go back (with the same progression, but in reverse) to 1, where the character is hunched over, favoring one side of the abdomen. There could be a system where the more you ran, the faster your character went and the longer he could go his top speed, but very slowly. Like, for 1 mile of running, he could go 0.1 mph faster for six seconds longer. Therefore, the longer you played the game, the faster and better your character would get.

A similar but slower strength system could be in there too. It'd be an annoying formula though. The heavier the object is that you're lifting, the stronger your character should get per second. It'd have to be a very small number, like 0.5%. Same goes for punching, wielding a melee weapon, etc.- for every strike, that's 0.5% in strength.

Yay for ideas. Also, here's (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2322/game_feel_the_secret_ingredient.php) the development article I was reading when the idea came to me... it's a good article.

[digitalmanifestation]

Awsome dude, i like RPG stat systems, ^^


I have been working on a test building, to get used to all the little tricky bits that one faces. I have discovered most of the drawbacks of which there aren't many tbh.

http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/1286/testmg2.png (http://imageshack.us)
http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/1286/testmg2.3e3cae20ce.jpg (http://g.imageshack.us/g.php?h=528&i=testmg2.png)

Now that building looks cool even tho i needa put more windows doors and stuff in, but the best bit is it's all hollow. Stuff like this sells in packs on turbo squid for $240.00 and it's just the outside!!! damnnnnn!!. Buildings with interior must be worth more although i haven't checked, like $1kk per pixel :P

Here is one with the insides so you can see...
http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/465/test2uk8.png (http://imageshack.us)

Not the best texture choices i know but it was just a test!, the newer ones will increase a lot in quality. If you want any buildings made i can do it, just jot down on paper what you looking. Whether the scene your thinking about is a huge mansion of just a crappy little shack. This tool can do it all :D Even just a rough sketch of the level will do.

Also if anyone wants custom windows making and doors i can do this also, even if you provide me with a door model i can add it into the library of this and we can use it.

Peace out,
Lee

[AquaGeneral]

Yeah, we should make some leveling up characteristics such as agility, strength, and more. Sort of like in Dead Rising. This would really add to the game because some people that are not really hardcore physics lovers would probably get a bit bored after a while but with an RPG level up system it would make it rewarding to play even in years to come :)

By the way this is a website about what they did in Sumotori. http://neurolife.com/

One thing I just found out is that Sumotori uses Blender.

[muffinmonkey]

Yeah, we should make some leveling up characteristics such as agility, strength, and more. Sort of like in Dead Rising. This would really add to the game because some people that are not really hardcore physics lovers would probably get a bit bored after a while but with an RPG level up system it would make it rewarding to play even in years to come :)

By the way this is a website about what they did in Sumotori. http://neurolife.com/


That would make good zombies
just make them walk round a bit till they have to stop then tell 'em what to do

I think the stat increase should be logical none of the you gain xp which goes into levels by doing specific tasks. But like every time you pick something up or walk somewhere you gain tiny amounts of a skill

[digitalmanifestation]

Yeah, we should make some leveling up characteristics such as agility, strength, and more. Sort of like in Dead Rising. This would really add to the game because some people that are not really hardcore physics lovers would probably get a bit bored after a while but with an RPG level up system it would make it rewarding to play even in years to come :)

By the way this is a website about what they did in Sumotori. http://neurolife.com/

One thing I just found out is that Sumotori uses Blender.

Cool man, that neurolife looks cool, who was it that was saying stuff like, you can't make neural networks they too hard and never work :P It's all about how you approach stuff.

Got any ideas for buildings and stuff?

[AquaGeneral]

Well I am currently making a concept level in C4. I then will FRAPS it and upload to YouTube so you can watch. If you have played Monster Madness's first level then you will see what I was going for. Though it does sound stupid of me creating an entire level in another engine it is still pretty convenient because C4 does have most the things that Blitz3d has got.

[digitalmanifestation]

Well I am currently making a concept level in C4. I then will FRAPS it and upload to YouTube so you can watch. If you have played Monster Madness's first level then you will see what I was going for. Though it does sound stupid of me creating an entire level in another engine it is still pretty convenient because C4 does have most the things that Blitz3d has got.

Yah man it's all cool, the models of buildings i have been making are 3D models and not a engine level format. So we can use them for anything we like really.

[AquaGeneral]

Yah man it's all cool, the models of buildings i have been making are 3D models and not a engine level format. So we can use them for anything we like really.

OMG! Just found the export scene button! Looks like we actually can use what I made :) http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/9969/omgexportswm6.png

By the way those buildings you made are really good. Looks like I actually can be a modeler if C4 is exportable :P

[digitalmanifestation]

cool dude, .obj is what your looking for i believe, cool ^^ although i doubt it will be able to export the physics stuff with the .obj too?

Lol i added one of the house models to sphere, i'm going to edit the sphere editor so we can place buildings in levels/maps and make it into a level editor for the RTS game. That will make it 3 editors i have made purely from the terrain editor source code :P recycle your code!

http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/139/test3wb6.th.jpg (http://img144.imageshack.us/my.php?image=test3wb6.jpg)

[Dj Demetrius]

Woah! The Neurolife thing looks really nice, and so does the houses! This is really making some progress, wouldn't you say? :)

[danahribo]

The models Could be in "Flatpack" form, So say you wanted a shed? just slap some of our "Prefabs" together and viola!

[muffinmonkey]

I'm pretending to understand

[digitalmanifestation]

New building in progress, check the screens out.

http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/2338/picture1yf6.th.jpg (http://img144.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture1yf6.jpg) http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/6956/picture2vw0.th.jpg (http://img144.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture2vw0.jpg) http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/4166/picture3hy4.th.jpg (http://img144.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture3hy4.jpg) http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/5809/picture4nk5.th.jpg (http://img84.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture4nk5.jpg)

If anyone got some good quality tiled textures i could really use them right about now :P

[muffinmonkey]

New building in progress, check the screens out.

http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/2338/picture1yf6.th.jpg (http://img144.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture1yf6.jpg) http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/6956/picture2vw0.th.jpg (http://img144.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture2vw0.jpg) http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/4166/picture3hy4.th.jpg (http://img144.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture3hy4.jpg) http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/5809/picture4nk5.th.jpg (http://img84.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture4nk5.jpg)

If anyone got some good quality tiled textures i could really use them right about now :P


That'd make a good place to be held up in
You could shoot off those balconies and stuff

it'd be AWESOME

[digitalmanifestation]

That'd make a good place to be held up in
You could shoot off those balconies and stuff

it'd be AWESOME

Yeah man it would be cool, but not easy to do. I just found some CSG commands for blitz3D so we may be able to do the carve out a chunk from an existing mesh, then add physics the chunk that just got cut out, this may even be a way to have a fully destroyable world. Having the whole level made of bits and pieces set as physics objects just wont work for this i'm afraid.

Also just found out i was wrong in saying you can't get the bone data from .b3D files, you just gotta use the "get children" command as bones are parented to the mesh. This means we should be able to have ragdoll physics in the real time strategy game too, [i is are am praying] <<< Engrish (http://www.engrish.com/) check out that site it's got loads of funny translations :D.


RTS progress so far:

Level editor complete (although we will add more to it in the future no doubt)
Levels load into the game engine and you can look about like it's a FPS in noclip
Can spawn zombies into the world but they walk through walls so i am currently botching a way to make them not walk through walls using a sensor.

Gonna have a go at getting the ragdoll stuff to work in the Zombie test program thingy, if i get it working it will be a case of copy pasting the functions into the actuall RTS engine.

http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/4910/picture5xn9.th.jpg (http://img144.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture5xn9.jpg)http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/4525/picture6qf8.th.jpg (http://img208.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture6qf8.jpg)
I gotta crash out, been up all night again, peace out,
Lee

[AquaGeneral]

Looks great Digital :)

It is true that having the entire world destructible would either be practically impossible off or it would be a system hog. I will get some textures uploaded so you can use them for the house.

I m really looking forward to when we see how this turns out. Also tonight I am making a house for the game. Also I am modeling a look out tower :)

[digitalmanifestation]

Looks great Digital :)

It is true that having the entire world destructible would either be practically impossible off or it would be a system hog. I will get some textures uploaded so you can use them for the house.

I m really looking forward to when we see how this turns out. Also tonight I am making a house for the game. Also I am modeling a look out tower :)

Awsome, to hear it, you making it in C4, and cool about the textures dude.

Erm, tbh i am not totally sure. The way i see it is with a .BSP type level which i think C4 uses then yeah it could get pretty messed up. With the RTS system we're using it should be ok, as each building is a separate mesh. If you carved something it doesn't have to effect the whole level mesh like with .bsp as the level is one great big mesh. Obviously, if you carve something it's gonna add more polygons to it and in this day and age polygon count is not so much a bottle neck anymore. The carve function should only take up so much computing power and as long as you didn't do to many of these carve operations per cycle it should be ok. I think you might need to update it's mesh for the physics engine but that also is not to much of a drain as long as you only do it so many times per cycle also.

[AquaGeneral]

What picture format do you prefer?

C4's worlds are saved as a .wld so I think that should be ok.

Got another question; How would it work when I save a building as a Wavefront (OBJ) with the textures? Would they be mapped on there or would you have to map them yourself?

Edit: Here is a preview picture of the watch tower. The layout of the tower is not finalized yet with the placement of the objects.
http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/9708/watchtowerlw0.th.png (http://img503.imageshack.us/my.php?image=watchtowerlw0.png)

[digitalmanifestation]

What picture format do you prefer?

C4's worlds are saved as a .wld so I think that should be ok.

Got another question; How would it work when I save a building as a Wavefront (OBJ) with the textures? Would they be mapped on there or would you have to map them yourself?

Edit: Here is a preview picture of the watch tower. The layout of the tower is not finalized yet with the placement of the objects.
http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/9708/watchtowerlw0.th.png (http://img503.imageshack.us/my.php?image=watchtowerlw0.png)

Looking good man, reminds of when i used to play farcry :)

Yeah it should export the model/level with all surfaces and textures on it, maybe even the light map as a seperate layer that fits over the whole level mesh. Do you have to calculate lighting in C4 each time you change a light or are they dynamic? Do geometry changes need a recalculation of the lights also?

png or bmp will suffice

[muffinmonkey]

Is it me or have we got stuck?
we were going so well

[AquaGeneral]

Looking good man, reminds of when i used to play farcry :)

Yeah it should export the model/level with all surfaces and textures on it, maybe even the light map as a seperate layer that fits over the whole level mesh. Do you have to calculate lighting in C4 each time you change a light or are they dynamic? Do geometry changes need a recalculation of the lights also?

png or bmp will suffice

C4 is completely dynamic. When you have done anything to the map all you do is save and test play.

You can choose "Light Doesn't Cast Shadows" and "Light Is static" to improve performance.

I will finish up the watchtower with texturing and fix the placement of the objects that make it up then I will have a test of exporting it.

Is it me or have we got stuck?
we were going so well

We are actually going pretty well aren't we?

[Loplop]

500ghz cpu anyone, jeez 100k people on screen, BSOD for all xD

[digitalmanifestation]

Is it me or have we got stuck?
we were going so well

Errrr?.....it is going well it's just we aren't running on about new ideas just now, we are trying to get some prototypes done in the next week and we are building models for scenery. If you think we a slacking then you should learn to model in 3D. It's not hard and we can help you with it, giving you assistance along the way. Infact anyone who hasn't got anything better to do may aswell download Wings3D or similar, it's free to download and from what i hear it's a pretty good tool.

Don't be daunted, there are tutorials on the internet and you can always ask us here about anything you are unsure about, which when i started to learn didn't have access to, so no excuses bishses!!!! ;)

Failing that you could always have a go at some 2D stuff like making textures and so on.

If anyone wants to design a zombie/monster feel free, try to make it like the pic here. Will help the modelers to make it.

http://www.psionic3d.co.uk/gallery/albums/uploads/10001/scientist514x600.jpg

[AquaGeneral]

Sorry for the delay but I am having some trouble exporting the tower. It is only working when I choose nxb which we cannot use I believe.

I will be happy to start some of the environment concepts such as what we can include is say a house or in a backyard.

Edit: Can you use .mdl?

Edit 2: Wow free models alert http://www.terathon.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=3801

[digitalmanifestation]

Not for blitz, it does .B3d, .x and .md2 (quake 2). .mdl is a format halflife uses for it's character/item meshes and .bsp for level data. How come .obj doesn't work? does it export the file and it's broken or does it not export it at all? You could probably use .mdl in C++ but i think it's best suited to animated character. Not totally sure tho.

What's going on with the FPS game? Not much activity, Dan? have you done anything in C++ yet? It's looking like we gonna have to make both of them with similar models to get any work done. Btw, we can use my level editor for the FPS game too as it can save the whole level as a single mesh (or fragment it) in either .x, .b3d, .lwo and .bsp, we could then light the scene with either a .bsp editor or put it in lightwave and bake the lightmap onto the mesh. Mmmmm, man, i'm thinking RTS/FPS. Have a commando mode that brings up a laptop so you can see the level from above and controll operations. But being able to snipe zombies in the head from a balcony would be cool also. Or we could make these games seperate and then make the 3rd one a combination of the 2 and more. As by this time we should be able to pay concept artists for stuff and then pay modelers to make it and skin it.

Started learning how to get the bone data from a .b3d model, on this picture i made it create sphere at all the joints in the skeleton. Now it's just a case of working out how to add in the physics joints to them spots and make cubes for each bone attached together.

http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/9978/picture7zk6.th.jpg (http://img227.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture7zk6.jpg)

After that it's just a case of seeing if altering the bones in real time actually morphs the mesh, i hope so!!...

[muffinmonkey]

Errrr?.....it is going well it's just we aren't running on about new ideas just now, we are trying to get some prototypes done in the next week and we are building models for scenery. If you think we a slacking then you should learn to model in 3D.


No, I just meant that, well, this thread really is slowing down. But if that's just because you're modelling and stuff that's fine
I tried modelling...

[digitalmanifestation]

yeah man been modeling those buildings and also working on the engine :D

Good news :D someone has already used that zombie with physics and using ODE.....WANKAS!!!!!

http://www.goddysey.com/pmkode001.gif
link to thread (http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=47237)

[AquaGeneral]

How come .obj doesn't work? does it export the file and it's broken or does it not export it at all? You could probably use .mdl in C++ but i think it's best suited to animated character. Not totally sure tho.


I asked the question on C4's Forums and they said that exporting to .obj is not going to work because it only exports a single geometry. Better explained by this guy;

Sorry it was only meant for a single piece of geometry that could be exported into CreateDynamics and actor/tetra mesh created for the geometry. It only includes the vertices and normals, nothing else - so wouldn't be a good idea to use to export to Blender.

I am uncertain but I think that C4 doesn't actually have the exporting functionality it should. That really gets me because I just finished making the tower. I will add a picture soon.

Edit: Yay Pictures;
Close Up: http://www.freewebs.com/superjesse/Close%2DUp.png
Full View: http://www.freewebs.com/superjesse/Full.png
This is where I drewed the fires: http://www.freewebs.com/superjesse/Marbles.png

[muffinmonkey]

yeah man been modeling those buildings and also working on the engine :D

Good news :D someone has already used that zombie with physics and using ODE.....WANKAS!!!!!

http://www.goddysey.com/pmkode001.gif
link to thread (http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=47237)

nice, is the any dl?

[digitalmanifestation]

nice, is the any dl?

No download i'm afraid, unless you pay for it. Was on the blitz forums and discovered that someone had already done .b3D + ragdoll, which basicly give us hope to get the same thing working. Which brings me onto the fact i have got the ragdolls working but i haven't added in the joints yet.

http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/5498/picture8oh6.th.jpg (http://img64.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture8oh6.jpg)

Lol poor zombie his, limbs have fallen off xD Gonna work on the joints now, justlooking up some info about it. Also, in that program above, the bones are put in manually, i've made a functions that scans through all the bones and adds the ode physics to them automaticly, this might cause some problems and if it does, i may have to make a program similar to the above one so we can rig the characters or we could just buy that program. You can setup any physics type objects in it.....cars, ragdols etc etc. It also exports the code for you to use in your program, pretty handy really.

[AquaGeneral]

I might just make some things in Blender and Wings 3D. When I get a fair bit of models done I will than import them into C4 and see what they look like in-game.

Do you have any suggestions to what I should model. Besides characters because I really cannot model something that well.

[danahribo]

Do you have any suggestions to what I should model. Besides characters because I really cannot model something that well.
Some crates?

[AquaGeneral]

If anyone would like a crate I made download the attachment. It is in .mtl and .obj

Next up I will make a hammer for a melee weapon.

[digitalmanifestation]

I might just make some things in Blender and Wings 3D. When I get a fair bit of models done I will than import them into C4 and see what they look like in-game.

Do you have any suggestions to what I should model. Besides characters because I really cannot model something that well.

To start with try some static everyday normal objects, stuff like chairs, tables, doors, windows, weapons can normally be quite easy to make, all These can usually be constructed out of cubes using differing dimensions.

Another thing to do is to get a reference photo, let's say a side on shot of an m-16... Most modelers allow you to take this reference image and let's you put it in one of the winow. You can then add points to the mesh based of what you can see in the photo.

Check out these Vids, a lot of concepts that will help you get your head around the whole thing. All following concepts can usually be used in most modeling applications.

Vid1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xls25e08sSg&feature=related)
Vid2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1mExXURsWk&feature=related)

[Xerxes]

Help me... when I try to run the zombie demo now, it tells me it "cannot configure video" or something along those lines. The same thing happens with Stevie G's Car-Thing demo, and a few other things, I can't remember which ones. What's going on?