Hello,
I just purchased FPSCreatorEA and am looking forward to creating a game. This post is simply to introduce myself, share some of my thoughts about FPSCreator and DBPro, and to ask a couple of questions.
I have been involved in the computer industry since the mid-70's and while I have programmed professionally, I don't consider myself to be a professional programmer. My programming experiece began in the mid-70's with assembly language and a variety of BASIC interpreters for early 8-bit microcomputers (8080, Z80, 6502, 6800, etc.). It didn't take me long to migrate to compilers such as UCSD Pascal (p-code) & Fortran. For a time, at one company, I wrote microcode to define assembly language instruction sets for proprietary AMD 2901 & 2903 bit-slice microprocessors. I've also programmed AD/DA capture/playback systems for broadcast video applications using the Intel 8085 8-bit and Motorola 68000 16-bit microprocessors. Of course along the way I also had a brief love affair with 'C' (that's the original 'C', not 'C++'). I also once wrote a 'Forth' compiler/interpreter for a home-built 16-bit Z80 using four AMD bit-slice microprocessors.
Over the years, I became disenchanted with programming. I admit it, I grew tired of the tedium of chasing down endless and inevitable entymological anomalies. So, in the late 80's, I switched job titles and became a consultant and instructor. But, still to this day, I feel naked without some kind of development environment on my computers. Thus, I keep a copy MS Visual Studio (V6) around for whenever I get a wild hair up my butt; such as a lottery analysis tool I wrote in Visual Basic. (I wanted to write the lottery tool in DBPro, but DBPro's inability to open a file for APPEND killed that idea!)
When I found out about DB & DBPro, out of sheer curiosity I purchased DBPro. I play with it from time to time, but I have not started a project with it. Likewise, when I heard about FPSCreator I had to try it. I purchased the program yesterday and had it up and running last night. I played with most of the features and read through the docs and like what I've seen so far. But, I don't have enough time with FPSC to offer any solid commentary.
Now for some honesty! For several months I've had an idea for a game in the back of my head. I've written a few proof-of-concept tests in DBPro, but that's not to say that I've started coding anything yet. At this time my game is just an idea and a collection of notes. What code I've written merely been to see if a particular idea was viable and if I could program it in DBPro.
One of the reasons that I jumped onto the FPSC bandwagon is the hope that levels created in FPSC can be used directly in DBPro (as BSD environments?). Map & level creation are the primary reasons that I haven't spent more time with DBPro.
You see, the game I have in mind is not going to be an FPS. I want to make use of the 3D, virtual-world paradigm, but the game I envision is not about combat, war, or killing. I'm keeping the exact idea under wraps for now, but I envision a player UI that is
somewhat similar to the way a 'Creature' is controlled in the game
'Black & White'. That is, the player UI will not directly control a player avatar, but will only allow a player to
influence a mostly autonomous player avatar.
For the past six or seven years I've been involved in a long-term love affair with 3D art and animation. My tools are Cinema4D, TrueSpace, Poser, Corel Photopaint, and a small variety of specialty apps for texturing and low-poly modelling. Since I'm retired with a disability, my ventures into 3D art and animation are really just an expensive hobby. But, those skills have given me the ability to create and texture my own models. At this time I'm working on an animation involving green fairies and absinthe. I don't expect to finish this animation before the end of the year. But, then, I plan to dive head first into my non-FPS game project.
Now for a couple of questions:
Can FPSC maps and levels be used as BSD environments in DBPro? I've read the FPSC manual, but either I missed something, or DBPro integration is simply not discussed.
While reading the manual I was mainly interested in the level creation abilities of FPSC; thus I pretty much glossed over the scripting chapters. But I'm curious as to how much functionality can be added with scripts.
I know that there are a variety of 3rd party level editing tools whose data DBPro is capable of using (Cartography Shop, the Unreal editor, etc.), but I'm somewhat reluctant to invest the time to learn a new 3D app when I have tools like Truespace and C4D at my disposal. And, yes, I'm aware of Caligari's GameSpace. But, from what I've read of the GameSpace docs, GameSpace is a specially packaged version of TrueSpace bundled with a set of plugins (and file format filters?) for import/export. One is still left with the task of creating maps and level geometry piece by piece. (A daunting task for a game as massive as I envision.) That's why, after playing with FPSC, I have high hopes for the level editing/integration abilities of FPSC.
Anyway, that's about it for this post. Any commentary/advice is welcome.
Regards,
thistlewait
Regards,
thistlewait@comcast.net
