Questions About Modding

[ebola]

1. What is the average on screen polycount you're shooting for? From what I can tell from screenshots, some have over 50,000.

2. Since there is a chance you'll be releasing the source for the engine soon, would you include exporter script, map editor, etc sources in the package?

3. How many frames per second are you using for animations? 60?

4. Can you tell me about your particle system with regards to being able to add in your own stuff?

5. What shader language is pyrogensis using?

6. What textures are used on the models? (diffuse, bump, normal, etc; seems to me just the diffuse from the screenshots, makes sense when you're doing RTS anyhow)

7. I'm assuming you will have transports (and seeing how there are doors) you have some sort of reference point system besides the actors for your models to allow units to interact with other models (sitting in a vessel, going through the center of the threshold, etc). Can someone go into more detail on that?

These questions will obviously be answered if and when the source is opened, but I'd like to get an idea of what I can work on before anything is released. Thanks!

[Ykkrosh]

Since there is a chance you'll be releasing the source for the engine soon, would you include exporter script, map editor, etc sources in the package?

Yes. (Well, we don't actually have any exporter scripts - for models and animations we use Collada, with the standard exporter provided by whatever modelling program people use, and then automatically convert it to the in-game format. But we'll release all the code for our tools along with the engine code.)

How many frames per second are you using for animations? 60?

Currently we extract keyframes at 30fps, and then interpolate in the renderer.

What shader language is pyrogensis using?

There's a tiny bit of GLSL, but mostly it's done without shaders.

What textures are used on the models? (diffuse, bump, normal, etc; seems to me just the diffuse from the screenshots, makes sense when you're doing RTS anyhow)

Just diffuse.

I'm assuming you will have transports (and seeing how there are doors) you have some sort of reference point system besides the actors for your models to allow units to interact with other models (sitting in a vessel, going through the center of the threshold, etc). Can someone go into more detail on that?

We don't have that kind of interaction between units yet. But we do have a kind of reference point system for attaching props - each animation file contains prop points (that can be attached to bones), and the actor definition can attach other actors (weapons, heads, riders, etc) to prop points - and the idea is to use the same system for sticking people onto ships.

[chiefwhosm]

we use Collada, with the standard exporter provided by whatever modelling program people use, and then automatically convert it to the in-game format.

This poses a problem for people using educational licences of modelling programs since the Collada exporter forbids use with anything other than a commercial licence (which is a right pain!).

[Belisarivs]

Then use Blender. It is for free and supports Collada IIRC.

Sorry, you can't expect developers to rework model support just because someone doesn't want to use Blender or buy commercial software.

That is it. 0AD team lacks developers (I mean coders) and any less necessary work done just delays release of 0AD.

Blender is good enough. I do believe, that it isn't Blender which limits modellers, but their skill.

Same with textures. None will convince me, that you can't make in GIMP textures as nice as in Photoshop.

There's no need for cannon against sparrows.