Sorry your browser is not supported!

You are using an outdated browser that does not support modern web technologies, in order to use this site please update to a new browser.

Browsers supported include Chrome, FireFox, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer 10+ or Microsoft Edge.

Work in Progress / Operation Desert Fallout (Dissertation project) Image heavy!

Author
Message
Cash Curtis II
18
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 8th Apr 2005
Location: Corpus Christi Texas
Posted: 23rd Jun 2006 12:16
Ooh, make it Man vs. Desert Ape. Battle for the Atomic Bomb...




Come see the WIP!
Briere
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 28th Feb 2005
Location: Amherst New York, United States
Posted: 23rd Jun 2006 18:47
I wish I knew how to model
Then all my problems would be solved!

Well, 75% of them anyway

Current Project: CTA Beta
Lines: 559
Last Updated: 6/23/06 at 12:23 AM EST.
Diggsey
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 24th Apr 2006
Location: On this web page.
Posted: 23rd Jun 2006 19:24
Why not laser weapons?
We've already invented lasers which can cut through six inch thick steel in less than a second

There are three types of people, those that can count and those that can't.
Airslide
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 18th Oct 2004
Location: California
Posted: 24th Jun 2006 19:32
Really Diggsey? I didn't think we have yet....but do you have proff?

Get Decal Maker Now!
Click Here!
Cash Curtis II
18
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 8th Apr 2005
Location: Corpus Christi Texas
Posted: 24th Jun 2006 20:16 Edited at: 24th Jun 2006 20:16
Quote: "We've already invented lasers which can cut through six inch thick steel in less than a second "

We've had that since like, 1978. Lasers can cut through diamonds. You must note, though, that the laser must be right up on the material that it's cutting to work. We don't have anything like Star Trek Phasers. Ranged lasers are just a bit cliche. Much more impressive in game are physics guided projectiles.


Come see the WIP!
bosskeith
18
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 5th Dec 2005
Location:
Posted: 25th Jun 2006 12:17
If i recall properly the SDI during the reagan years did develope an effective ranged laser system...It was suppose to be sattelite mounted but the power draw was too immense to be practical so they scrapped it...however a anti personell laser would not be too far fetched

Ink all over the screen...and dang it! Signature still does not show.
Lazlazlaz 1
18
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 18th Sep 2005
Location: England
Posted: 25th Jun 2006 16:13
well you can use laser pens to blind people...

jasonhtml
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 20th Mar 2004
Location: OC, California, USA
Posted: 25th Jun 2006 17:21
Quote: "We've already invented lasers which can cut through six inch thick steel in less than a second"


Quote: "We've had that since like, 1978. Lasers can cut through diamonds. You must note, though, that the laser must be right up on the material that it's cutting to work. We don't have anything like Star Trek Phasers."


Cash is right there...

Quote: "If i recall properly the SDI during the reagan years did develope an effective ranged laser system...It was suppose to be sattelite mounted but the power draw was too immense to be practical so they scrapped it...however a anti personell laser would not be too far fetched"


but boss is also right, but they didnt scrap the project. its still going on. only about 2 years ago, on the news they were talking about how the gov. was working on laser-mounted jets. there not the kind of lasers most people think of though. these kind have to stay on the target while they burn through. they dont just fire a 'super-beam' that fries the thing on impact.

Deathquest (MMORPG)
Deathquest Thread: http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=78971&b=8&p=0
*New Website Coming Soon*
Briere
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 28th Feb 2005
Location: Amherst New York, United States
Posted: 25th Jun 2006 19:06
Fallout, how are you (if you are) protecting your game files like Images and Music?

Current Project: CTA Beta
Lines: 762
Last Updated: 6/24/06 at 1:26 PM EST.
Fallout
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Sep 2002
Location: Basingstoke, England
Posted: 25th Jun 2006 20:00
That's something I'll consider later on. It's not something I've thought about yet seeing as I've not released a demo or any content online. As for the laser debate, that's all well and good, but lasers just arent the same as good old bullets and rockets.

Note to any MODs:

Feel free to unsticky this post. This game won't be updated for several months and I'll probably create a new post when I continue work on it again. I'm happy for it to be left stickied also.

Cerafem
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 29th Jun 2006
Location: here
Posted: 29th Jun 2006 21:19
Not to tell you what to do (I know how annoying that is) , but maybe you could have some variation (using a random # for each) in each type of building, like some mats on top of the roof (objects on top of your original object), etc.

---

-Agent Toaster Productions
Cerafem
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 29th Jun 2006
Location: here
Posted: 30th Jun 2006 18:58
...in such a way that if you are to have the same building over and over, they would look different.

---

-Agent Toaster Productions
Van B
Moderator
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 8th Oct 2002
Location: Sunnyvale
Posted: 30th Jun 2006 19:47
Gah!

Just unstickied this and it dropped out of sight! - thought I'd deleted it by accident .

Aegrescit medendo
DVader
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 28th Jan 2004
Location:
Posted: 9th Jul 2006 14:58
I heard about this off Pincho, thought I'd take a look as it is similar to a project I have started recently. It looks very good indeed. I like the graphics a lot, you must have put a lot of work into them. I know how long it can take to texture objects. Even simple buildings can take hours and hours. Well, it can for me anyway, some of the buildings in Project Desert Storm have taken me more than 2 days going back and forth between my model and the texture! That's down to my lack of talent for this I know but still, even great artists take time to get this stuff done.

How did you do your video by the way? I used a dll I saw on this forum in program announcements. You add in some lines of code to your game and presto it saves a video as you play. Trouble is it slows the game down so much I had to shrink it into a little 400x300 window to keep speed up. I was chuffed it worked though. I then had to re-encode it in animation shop to divx so I could post it (and add a title effect). I think the 300 odd MB original DB made would have been a little too big.....

I'm guessing you used some sort of program to video this? Say something machinima people would use?

I also like the track effect the tanks leave. Still not sure how to get that to work if at all in my game. I'm using a matrix for the floor and although I can update each matrix tile with new images, I can't think of a way that would work. Well, apart from slowing the game down to half speed anyway, and 60 fps is the speed I want it to stay at if at all possible!

Well, good luck on the game, I'll keep my eyes on this. Oh, and nice explosions by the way, I hate trying to draw exposions. I'm working on those now and well, looks good when I get one in but the pain of getting it right!
Fallout
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Sep 2002
Location: Basingstoke, England
Posted: 9th Jul 2006 15:49
Thanks for the comments and good luck with your game. I use Fraps for recording video. It does the job nicely. The trial version gives you 30 seconds recording time, but I bought the full version which is unlimited. I'd definitely recommend it. Having said that, it doesnt compress the video either, so you end up with hundreds of MBs of video. You need to compress it afterwards.

As for the tank tracks, they're made it the particle system. They're simply textures plains that fit over the landscape. If you went for a similar system on your matrix you'd need something more complex to deal with the gradient changes. That's a challenge I haven't really taken on yet.

wh1sp3r
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 28th Sep 2003
Location: Czech republic
Posted: 1st Nov 2006 19:05


PS: Real programmers aren't afraid of math!.

☺☺ AthlonXP 2500+, Ati Radeon 9600 128MB, dualDDR 512MB 400Mhz CL3.0, SB LIVE!, monitor 19" ☺☺
Xenocythe
18
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 26th May 2005
Location: You Essay.
Posted: 1st Nov 2006 21:27
woah... last post back in July


I don't mind if this project is dead. It was so incredible, that I'm already satisfied


Fallout
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Sep 2002
Location: Basingstoke, England
Posted: 1st Nov 2006 21:44
haha. Don't know why wh1sp3r revived it, but it's not totally dead. I have plans for converting it. It's good knowledge ... and it got me a 1st for my degree, so eh! It's all good.


SunnyKatt
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 16th Sep 2006
Location: USA
Posted: 2nd Nov 2006 02:18
this is great! never ever give up! u have something good here

IM NEVER ONLINE TILL SOMETIME AT NIGHT!!! god dont expect me to be sitting at my computer all the time
Bizar Guy
18
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 20th Apr 2005
Location: Bostonland
Posted: 2nd Nov 2006 06:55
Yes, this is pretty awesome, but...

I thought threads automaticaly locked after a month...


Please don't post in the thread my sig leads to.
Airslide
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 18th Oct 2004
Location: California
Posted: 5th Nov 2006 19:45
Quote: "I thought threads automaticaly locked after a month..."


They removed that feature awhile ago I beleive...

Thy whom forces such labor as that of homework sacrifices thyself to eternity in blackness amongst the horrors of which they bestowed upon others during thy life.
Valle
18
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 10th Mar 2006
Location: in your girlfriends bed
Posted: 5th Nov 2006 22:39
Just saw this and .... WOW!

I didnt know that stuff like this is possible with dbp

awesome! keep it up!


Xander
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 3rd Mar 2003
Location: In college...yeah!
Posted: 25th Nov 2006 07:47
Quote: "I didnt know that stuff like this is possible with dbp"


It's comments like that which make people want to keep working on projects that they previously dropped.

Have you done anything on it for a while? I know it can be hard to pick up a project after so long, but it can be fun at the same time. Sometimes you think of things that you never would have thought possible before. That is, if you have any time. I know you just got that job...

Xander Moser - Bolt Software - Firewall
Fallout
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Sep 2002
Location: Basingstoke, England
Posted: 25th Nov 2006 12:01
Thanks for the continued interest peeps.

@Xander

Yes and no mate. I wanted to switch to 3DWS landscapes because of their simplicity. I mean, literally, the painting system and sculping system allows you to whip up a great looking landscape with alpha blended textures in very little time. Also, you have the facility to do lightmapping, so hills can cast shadows onto the rest of the landscape, as can extra 3D objects you place, such as trees etc. Basically, I could get an awesome looking landscape with relative speed/ease. But there is a bug in the lightmapping that Josh hasn't got round to resolving yet. Once he has, I think that'll be a great solution for ODF landscapes.

I could then take my lighting engine from Claymore Island, which works best in 2D style environments (obviously RTSs are predominantly 2D in terms of movement) and then have all the objects, vehicles etc. lit properly according to their positions on the maps, behind buildings etc. I've got lots of good ideas to make it look awesome, and push the visuals to the next level, but I dont feel like getting stuck in until Josh fixes 3DWS. I'll also resort back to A* style path finding, otherwise it gets overly complicated when lots of units are moving together.

So no, I've not really dont anything more to this, but it's not dead, and there're plenty of ideas in the pipeline. Just need to wait a bit for them to fall into place.


Programmer Dave
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 25th May 2003
Location: Australia
Posted: 26th Nov 2006 01:00
All I know is I'd buy this game!
It looks sweet

Fallout
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Sep 2002
Location: Basingstoke, England
Posted: 27th Nov 2006 18:37
Xander is spot on actually. It does inspire you to have another go. I've binned 3DWS as my landscape editor now and have made my own landscape engine over the last few days. Here are some preliminary screenies.





Needs a lot of refinement, and it drains the GPU, but it can be highly optimised, and with better textures in there, it should look pretty good.


Xander
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 3rd Mar 2003
Location: In college...yeah!
Posted: 27th Nov 2006 18:55
That looks great so far. I think that having varying heights in the terrain adds a lot to the gameplay. Even if it doesn't actually change very much in the actual game, it just makes it more realistic and more fun.

Xander Moser - Bolt Software - Firewall
MikeS
Retired Moderator
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 2nd Dec 2002
Location: United States
Posted: 27th Nov 2006 19:13
Agreed, the landscapes depth adds so much to the game. The texture work also is a great improvement from the previous landscape from what I've read in your above posts.



A book? I hate book. Book is stupid.
(Formerly Yellow)
Fallout
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Sep 2002
Location: Basingstoke, England
Posted: 27th Nov 2006 19:45
Yeah, I agree, although my vehicle trails won't work anymore. I'll have to try and come up with a 3D method for trails and roads. One of the things that inspired me to get back into this is all the ideas I've had for the stategy. Like I said ages ago in this project, I'm not a big fan of RTSs most of the time, as its all too mathematical ... build units, click attack, unit A beats unit B, repeat. I've got some good ideas to counter that. Hopefully the landscape will be a start to making more progress.


wildbill
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 14th Apr 2006
Location:
Posted: 27th Nov 2006 20:00
I was thinking about your trails before and a 3d method. Could you not create a triangle object with another triangle limb(a plain in other words), texture this and place directly under the vehicle. You could than have the vertexes of the trail object conform to the terrain object. I have not started working on this yet (other fish to fry). This should also work for roads.
Fallout
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Sep 2002
Location: Basingstoke, England
Posted: 27th Nov 2006 20:14
Yep, I think that's the way to do it, although if the vehicle is moving directly over a map node/height point, the tracks plain could feasibly be over 4 polygons, meaning itself would need to be comprised of my than 2 polygons. If the vehicles moved in an A* constrained "square-based" approach, then I could constrain them to moving per map square, and avoid that problem, but I really like the freedom of being able to move anywhere, and precisely position your vehicles.

Definitely need to spend some time on the drawing board.


TEH_CODERER
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 12th Nov 2003
Location: Right behind you!
Posted: 27th Nov 2006 20:52
Or you could use the 'enable object zbias' command to ensure that the tracks are always drawn over the terrain so that any small glitches in rotation/position will not be noticed. Think I know what I'm talking about! Project looks great anyway and I can't wait to see more.

Fallout
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Sep 2002
Location: Basingstoke, England
Posted: 27th Nov 2006 21:35
That'd work until the track went behind a mountain, and then you'd see it through the mountain. Maybe a combination of both theories, but it's something I'll worry about later.

I've just coded in some shadowing. The mountains now cast shadows onto the land, rather than just relying on normals (which only darkens the faces not facing the light). It's just a diffuse technique, but it makes the landscape feel much richer.




Xenocythe
18
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 26th May 2005
Location: You Essay.
Posted: 27th Nov 2006 22:20
Looks cool


wildbill
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 14th Apr 2006
Location:
Posted: 28th Nov 2006 00:00
Yeah I was thinking it might take more than 2 polys, but I didn't want to go into a long dissertation. I was handling some trouble calls at the time.

If you keep track of pitch/roll and rotate in your vehicles, maybe you could use the same info to make the track decals. It might not be as precise as using the terrain vertexs, but it should be easier to try.
Mason
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 20th Mar 2004
Location: Arizona
Posted: 28th Nov 2006 04:19
the lightmapping looks great on the terrain!


Airslide
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 18th Oct 2004
Location: California
Posted: 28th Nov 2006 05:48
Looking quite nice Fallout! Hope you get the trails working, it's little details like that that really add to the realsism and immersiveness of your game (not sure if immersiveness is word, but, eh, who cares )

Fallout
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Sep 2002
Location: Basingstoke, England
Posted: 29th Nov 2006 18:23 Edited at: 3rd Dec 2006 19:20
I pushed the landscape engine a bit further. Playing with more layers and testing performance at the moment, plus working on a test landscape. Gonna work on tree, rocks, and other landscape entities next. Here's a little video of a chopper going on a little fly. I added some chopper dust particle effects as per a suggestion someone made ages ago in this thread.

Vid updated in post below




Vampiric
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 30th Oct 2006
Location:
Posted: 29th Nov 2006 19:07
looks like it's getting better by the day i love the videos do you use dark ai or a custom coded ai?

All bow down to evil
wildbill
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 14th Apr 2006
Location:
Posted: 29th Nov 2006 19:09
I was listening to some comedian talking about the over use of the word "awesome", but that was truely awesome.

Your shadow projection may be the answer to your vehicle trails, with a little thought.
zzz
18
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 13th Nov 2005
Location: Sweden
Posted: 29th Nov 2006 22:14
This looks professional, really cool!

Fallout
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Sep 2002
Location: Basingstoke, England
Posted: 30th Nov 2006 00:45 Edited at: 30th Nov 2006 15:11
Thanks chaps. I think the music gives it atmosphere the visuals wouldn't have been able to give it alone. I had the airwolf theme tune in there to start with ... didn't work quite as well.

@Vampiric - All my AI is custom coded, although the chopper movement in that demo is scripted (its not AI really). I'll aim to have similar movement when the chopper AI is done though. I'll just adapt the script.


Fallout
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Sep 2002
Location: Basingstoke, England
Posted: 3rd Dec 2006 19:19
Ok, added some foliage. I have a cool system where I just use bitmaps at the moment to edit the map, so I have a foliage bitmap with red and blue dots on it to represent where to put trees and bushes. It works pretty nicely. Also updated the landscape vid to show off the foliage. Not much different to the first one, but eh, I like making vids.

Landscape V2 Alpha vid (10MB WMV)




Inverted
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 19th Nov 2006
Location: Oregon
Posted: 3rd Dec 2006 19:56
Awesome! keep it up

Opposites are different, not wrong
Steve J
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Apr 2006
Location: Vancouver, Washington
Posted: 3rd Dec 2006 20:45
Very professional.

http://phoenixophelia.com

Steve J, less, and less Controversial!
Airslide
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 18th Oct 2004
Location: California
Posted: 4th Dec 2006 00:34
Really well done, keep up the good work!

Crazy Fish Bait
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 5th Sep 2006
Location:
Posted: 4th Dec 2006 17:32
Damn Fallout! Everytime I see your work, my jaw starts dropping and I can't help but drool! You're just possibly the best games developer on the DB forums!

Keep up the excellent work! Been following ODF and CI for a while now and I gotta say I can't wait for them to finish!

Crazy Fish Bait
draknir_
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 19th Oct 2006
Location: Netherlands
Posted: 4th Dec 2006 20:52
looking really impressive!
Xenocythe
18
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 26th May 2005
Location: You Essay.
Posted: 5th Dec 2006 00:38
Looking very cool!

-Mansoor Siddiquie

Gil Galvanti
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Dec 2004
Location: Texas, United States
Posted: 5th Dec 2006 03:08 Edited at: 5th Dec 2006 03:09
holy crap! Those are awesome shots! Any tips on making a landscape editor ? And I thought this looked good before...
EDIT: I'm assuming you made that landscape editor in DBP? If so, are those shadows real-time with the editing? Looks simply amazing either way though...better than many commercial RTS'

Pirates of Port Royale
Live the life of a pirate.

Login to post a reply

Server time is: 2024-03-29 02:37:04
Your offset time is: 2024-03-29 02:37:04