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Khopesh

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Posts posted by Khopesh

  1. Might also use updated libraries and things like that make it run faster and better on modern hardware, though.

    I highly doubt they went to the trouble. Even so, I don't think 2D sprites would have trouble running on modern hardware.

    The problem I've had with AoK is that I can't host a multiplayer game on Windows 7, and in fact I don't think I can even reliably connect to a host using XP. My friend and I use the free GameRanger service if we want to get around this. I never found a working solution for that problem, is there one? (other than going through some sort of proxy like GameRanger which is perhaps what the new HD version does as well)

    Yes, the built in MP service in the game hasn't been supported for a while. Most, if not all, old games are like this. You will need something like Gamespy to use as a lobby/host system.

    Steam could also be used if they patched it into the game - which I doubt would be hard to do. This is exactly what they have done with this "HD" version.

    I think they should have made it available for free for people who already own the original Age of Empires 2.

    That way all fans would have been happy and they still earned money because new players can buy it from steam.

    Just recently I've red an article that making old successful games compatible with Windows 7/8 and selling them on steam is generally quite successful and profitable.

    They should have just released it as a patch, and then also released a fully patched version of the game on steam.

    What they have done is just release a fully patched version of the game on steam and neglected the people who still own, and still play the game even today. All done in the hopes that people will rebuy the game, when they don't need to, and SHOULDN'T need to. In the end it all comes down to greed - hoping to increase sales by making people rebuy the game just so they can get this (and possibly future) patches.

    I don't have any originals that still work... (are RTS CDs bad quality? or do I play them too much? or do I treat them so badly ...)

    I think it's just you, and people like you. No offense or anything. I'm just saying.

    I still have plenty of original copies of my games that work perfecfly fine. AoEII is one of them. I was playing it the other week, un-patched, and un-modded. And I had no problems what-so-ever. Yes, it wasn't in a high resolution or in widerscreen - but that didn't effect the game in anyway.

    Also, why was this moved out of the Off-topic forum?

  2. The Wildfire splash-screen (logo) should come first. No matter what. Possibly followed by other company logos (such as the game engine).

    These should be included anyway, and the intro trailer should be done once most, if not all, in-game stuff has been done (models and animations for in-game assets).

    That's not to say you cannot make a storyboard or animatic (2D and 3D) in the mean time.

    As for hidden logos in the trailer. I think it would be better if they just had a splash-screen if they're important (such as the WFG logo, and the game engine, etc). Anything else, such as Windows/Linux logos should be reserved for the credits or as fine-print for promo stuff (to show which operating systems it is available on).

    The frozen-time fly-throughs are OK for saving time in development, but most viewers tend not to appreciate them.

    Regardless, It would be silly to make assets for this before a storyboard has been made and finalised. That way you know which assets to make and don't end up making something that won't be used.

    Also, if you plan to make high-poly cinematics for the capaigns, I would recommending using snippets of these in the games opening cinematic. It would save a lot of time and you'd be able to include various factions and historical events. But I would also open the cinematic with something like this (but done with high-poly assets):

    Oh, and maybe create some epic music that builds up to climax. That way the timing of the cinematic can be edited to fit the music - maybe do this after the storyboard, but before the 2D animatic.

    • Like 1
  3. You may, or may not, know that M$ are going to be re-releasing AoEII and The Conquerer's Expansion on Steam with HD graphics.

    Now, you might be thinking that this is amazing and what we have all been waiting for, I know that's what I was thinking. But then I saw a video explaining what is actually being done.

    It turns out this "HD remastering" will essentially only be a patch - or rather, only include features that can be added in a patch - but sold as a brand new game.

    What you will find is that they have inlcuded higher resolution options, higher resolution textures, and steam support.

    Not only are higher resolutions already available for free (via mods), but all these features could simply be add into the already existing AoEII with a patch. And done so for FREE.

    If you already have a copy of AoEII, please don't let yourselves be ripped off by this. Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favour of supporting the games industry - I never pirate or buy used games - But, people who buy these sorts of things are having a detrimental effect on the gaming industry. It's worse than buying yearly releases that offer very little amount of new things - in this case, it offers NOTHNG new. Don't support this type of behavious in the games industry.

    • Like 1
  4. The outlines around units/building would be great. Especially for those times where team colour could potentially blend into the background (like green team blending with grass terrain).

    The colours choosen in the original post are generally good, with the exception of stone - it's actually harder to spot now that the trees have been desaturated.

    A couple of suggestions:

    - Allow the player to toggle a full screen version of the map that could include more pixel icons (I would suggest having one for stone and metal, civ centers, wonders, and maybe discovered treasures/relics?).

    - In AoE2 you could toggle between 3 types of maps. Can't remember what these were exactly, but I would recommend: Resources only; Teams only; All.

  5. AoE did a reasonable job of choosing distinguishable colours. Only thing that was a problem was the mini-map. One solution there might be to to include an option to toggle ful-screen mini-maps. That way people wouldn't have to squint and struggle to see specks of gold and grey in amongst all the green.

    Having the player set what team colours are would only really work for singleplayer. Multiplayer would be harder to make to fair to everyone.

    As for seeing other colours - that's not usually a problem for me. I think some types of colourblindness do see the wrong colour though. Things just get a little harder to distinguish when reds and greens are used close together. And browns tend to be greeny/redish.

    Also, if someone does struggle enough with colourblindness to the point it would effect their playing experience (especially online), they would just use a different way of describing who they are talking about (naming the civilization - I tend to do this anyway, even though colour isn't too bad for me).

    As I said, I don't really know of any solutions as far as RTS games go. Again, AoE2 had a good choice of team colours, it was mainly the mini-map that caused the problems, and having it not-so-mini would help a great deal.

  6. I sometimes struggle with colour-blindness. It's usually not much of a problem in games because steps are usually taken to help prevent this.

    The most common problem in an RTS would be Player/Team colours. Sometimes colours can look too similar to be distinguishable from one another.

    Personally, I have a problem with reds, greens and browns. It can be hard for me to distunguish between these if they are near each other in terms of shade/pigmentation (usually mid-darker greens and reds, but virtuall any form of brown). I also stuggle with light green and yellow (lime green looks like yellow to me most of the time). Other people can also struggle with other colours, such as blues and yellows.

    When playing AoE games I often stuggle with the mini-map. It can be hard for me to find resources, or the Red/Green Teams may blend in to much with the green/brown colours of the mini-map.

    Anyway, I don't really know of any solutions that can be used other than trying to pick colours that avoid this problem. But it might be hard for people who don't have this problem. Some games (like puzzles) will use numbers as well as colours, to help identify differences, but I'm not sure how viable that will be in an RTS game (it would clutter the screen to have all units/buildings numbered).

    There may be other methods out there that people have tried, but unfortunately I don't know much about them. I'll point out any time I have trouble with this for 0AD, and I trust you guys will keep these things in mind while developing the game.

  7. If you look at lilstewie's references, you'll see most of them, if not all, do. But weapons are details, will only be added when the model is complete.

    I am thinking of this in terms of animating, but if the hero in the basket-thing is to attack, would he not be standing up? Maybe he could be sat for idles, but during attacks he would need to be stood?

    I really like it, but something is buggying me. I don't know what it is... Maybe it's the specular as wraitii said... Maybe I think the collors of the texture are too bright for some reason.

    I think the colours need to be bold. Especially if you are zoomed out while playing and they are in battle and hard to spot.

    But the one thing that's bothering me is the legs. Them seem too straight: they don't seem to get thinner/thicker. And they seem to be too far apart too. Elephant legs tend to come close together to help support their huge bulk. Just type "elephant" into google image search for more reference, but here are a few:

    elephant.jpg

    3273556-large-male-african-elephant-drinking-at-a-waterhole.jpg220px-African_Bush_Elephant.jpg

  8. These models are amazing. Great work guys!

    This may just be because I am colour-blind (with reds and greens, which makes browns a pain in the neck!), but, as far as the colouring goes, I find it harder to see the stripes than the solid colours.

    This may be due to the fact that 2 shades of the colour are used for the stripes, which kind of throws me out a little (the red looks more browny). The blue isn't too bad, but if there are other shades of blue or purples used as team colours, this may cause some problems.

    I would recommend using the solid colours, but you could also try using a SINGLE shade of a colour instead of two. This might help people to identify the colour easier.

    A third option might be to just use the 2 shades of the colour and remove the white stripes.

    Hope this helps.

    • Like 1
  9. Sorry I haven't been around guys. I've had no internet connection and things have been going downhill lately. 2013 isn't looking good for me. As much as I was looking forward to working on this project, I'm not going to ba able to do the amount of animating needed (if any). Once things are better for me I MAY be able to help (if you still need an animator by then). In the mean time I will still like to give my support, advice and suggestions where and when I can.

    Again, sorry for not being able to help. :(

    I really need to get into some animation.

    If you can, you should get "The Animation Survival Kit" by Richard Williams. It's a must have for any animator, and GREAT for beginners.

  10. Sorry I haven't been around. I have been absent for a couple of months due to moving house and not having internet access.

    Unfortunately, due to circumstances I won't be able to help in the way I had originally planned (doing the animation) in the forseeable future. I will however try to stop by now and then and give my support/advice/suggestions.

    I was looking forward to working on this project and hope I can still contribute something.

  11. Making low-poly meshes from high poly ones is farily easy. It's just a matter of removing certain edge-loop. This way you wouldn't need to redo the UV mapping either. at the remaining edge-loops should be in the same place (usually). Even if you did move them, it wouldn't matter too much as being zoomed out far enough you wouldn't see any slight distortions.

    As for the texture: you can simply use the same one, but just save it out at a lower resolution.

  12. Well, we've been trying to keep it as low as possible (around 500-800 tris) for the base human characters in this thread (before adding any armour, clothes, weapons, etc).

    After doing a quick search on Google it seem other modern RTS games range between 1000-2000 tris.

    In these games you usually only have a small zoom range, yet In 0 A.D we can zoom in an out pretty far (similar to the Total War series, but not quite to that scale). Anyway, I think the Total War series uses a range of models (high poly when zoomed in, low poly when zoomed out). I'm personally wondering if we can do something like this for 0 A.D? That way we can have better looking models (and animations) when zoomed in and still have good performance when zoomed out with hundreds of characters on screen.

    Just some food for thought.

  13. OK, here's my attempt at 576 tris.

    basemalescreen.png

    I tried to keep the faces as square as possible (so they deform better when animating). I did have it looking a lot better but that was nearly double the poly count. This also meant I had to take the extra edge loops off the ankles/wrists, but I don't think they will be needed (I've seem some rigs that only go to the knee/elbow).

    I would upload the DAE file but not sure how to (that "My Media" thing doesn't seem to do anything).

    I will upload the female orthos later in the week when I have more time.

  14. That would be swell...though I might not have time anytime soon to do anything with them :)

    No worries, I've been busy myself anyway. Still got a month left at uni to go.

    Could all these models share the same animations? Or will there have to be different animations made for each model?

    Animation will be done on the rig, and all the humans in the game will share the same rig. So yes, all the human models can share the same animations.

    However, all the animals may need their own unique rig. Similar enough animals MAY be able to share, but it's best to use as few as possible to save on memory (and cut down on lag).

    That would be sweet - However I'd post it in spoiler tags, since some people might be offended as nudity. (some people around here are minors ;) )

    Sure thing.

    Khopesh, are you planning to use Blender to rig the new meshes, or Max?

    I would prefer to use Maya, but with 'potential' licensing issues and I need to learn Blender anyway - I think I'll be using Blender.

    I just made some changes to shave some polys, how is it? I removed the extra loop from the chest, but if you think its really required, then we can add it in again.

    650tris.

    This is going to sound strange... but I would open those legs and make them thicker xD

    I don't know how well will bend until I test the armature with that topology.

    The missing chest loop should not be a problem. I'm more worried about the topology around the shoulder/clavicle. The edge-loops are a bit wild on the shoulder-blade, and there's a big gap between the neck and shoulder (also the neck and chest). I really hate doing the shoulder area. It's always a pain in the neck! :P

    The knee and ankle should be fine. The upper thigh however MAY need another edge-loop, and I agree that it is looking a bit thin from some angles.

    It's really hard to find good wire-frame examples of low-poly characters to use for reference and I'm still learning myself.

    I'll have a play around and see what I can come up with. Is there a copy of those models I can use - saves having to make one from scratch?!

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