modern warfare reaches 0 A.D.

[Ilves]

Ok, guys, I wish I could say that everything is nice & easy now, but I'm afraid I still even haven't got shaders working (yes, I read and closely followed all your guys' instructions, but still..).

This is how it looks like in the 3ds max standard renderer:

This is the ingame I get:

I even doubled the normal and speculars intensivity in the material option - still no use.

I also noticed that the texture is heavily impaired by mip maps :\ For God's sake, can this be turned off in 2012 AD?

EDIT: after some playing with the material's setting I found out that the shaders are actually working in the screen. But still, kinda ugly :\ If I increase the normals - it gets bizzare, the speculars seem to be ignored at all.

My top secret actor's code

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no" ?>

<actor version="1">

<castshadow/>

<group>

<variant frequency="100" name="Base">

<mesh>rr/beagle.dae</mesh>

<props>

<prop actor="rr/beagle_turret.xml" attachpoint="turret"/>

<prop actor="rr/beagle_tracks.xml" attachpoint="tracks"/>

</props>

<material>player_trans_parallax_spec.xml</material>

<textures>

<texture file="rr/su_t80u_hull.tga" name="baseTex"/>

<texture file="rr/su_t80u_hull_nm.tga" name="normTex"/>

<texture file="rr/su_t80u_hull_spec.tga" name="specTex"/>

</textures>

</variant>

</group>

</actor>

Turret's code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no" ?>

<actor version="1">

<castshadow/>

<group>

<variant frequency="100" name="Base">

<mesh>rr/beagle_turret.dae</mesh>

<material>player_trans_parallax_spec.xml</material>

<textures><texture file="rr/ru_be_turret.tga" name="baseTex"/>

<texture file="rr/ru_be_turret_nm.tga" name="normTex"/>

<texture file="rr/ru_be_turret_spec.tga" name="specTex"/>

</textures>

</variant>

</group>

</actor>

If somebody of you sussed out the turret dilemma - you're welcome to post me the code here I also want to know where is the code of the unit itself, the actor seem to provide only the graphical code and nothing else. Speaking shorter, I want to make a moving\shooting tank buildable from a building (and of course with rotating\shooting turret).

Edited November 3, 2012 by Ilves

[Mythos_Ruler]

I'd need to see it in action to get an idea of what is "wrong." Care to post the files in a zip? Just one tank won't hurt.

[feneur]

Speaking shorter, I want to make a moving\shooting tank buildable from a building (and of course with rotating\shooting turret).

The "active part" of the unit (aka the entity in Pyrogenesis-speak) is stored in: binaries\data\mods\public\simulation emplates (and they inherit from each other, so in your case you might have one template for all tanks, and then individual templates for the different tanks). To make a unit buildable from a building you need to add it to the building, see the following example from the Athenian barracks:

<ProductionQueue>
    <Entities datatype="tokens"> units/athen_infantry_spearman_b units/athen_infantry_javelinist_b units/athen_infantry_slinger_b units/athen_cavalry_swordsman_b units/athen_cavalry_javelinist_b
    </Entities>
</ProductionQueue>

To have the unit do moving/shooting independently from each other there probably needs to be changes to the C++ code of the engine as that essentially requires two entities in one.

[Ilves]

I am not a programmer, I'm just a 3D\2D artist, and I will owe anybody who will implement the thing these project needs.

I'd need to see it in action to get an idea of what is "wrong." Care to post the files in a zip? Just one tank won't hurt.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/57592616/just%20one%20tank.rar

Here you go, one top secret tank

Before I can continue further progress on your engine, I need to get:

- turrets working

- texture looking not mip mapped to hell (the skin is 1024x1024, but it looks like if it is 128x128 in the screenshots above)

- shaders doing their work

Cheers to anybody willing to help, cuz I have ran out of my few ideas

[zoot]

- texture looking not mip mapped to hell (the skin is 1024x1024, but it looks like if it is 128x128 in the screenshots above)

For images, if you don't want to use forum attachments, please use imgur or some other relatively clean service - I can hardly see the screenshot through all the nasty porn ads.

[Ilves]

excuse me, plz, the forum attachments simply do not co-operate with me

[feneur]

The WFG forums/web site was moved from one server to another the other day, that's most likely the cause of the current issues with attachments.

[Mythos_Ruler]

excuse me, plz, the forum attachments simply do not co-operate with me

http://www.imgur.com <=== A most-excellent image host, I highly recommend.

[Almin]

I can hardly see the screenshot through all the nasty porn ads.

lol, myword, I thought exactly the same, but I didn't have the guts to say so

[Ilves]

Sorry, the forum upload didn't work and I use adblock, so I didn't see there was any porn :/

and my humble request for the working tank code remains intact

Edited November 4, 2012 by Ilves

[Mythos_Ruler]

Is this okay? Not sure what you mean by "mipping." The textures look fine to me.

The problem on your end may have been that the meshes were scaled too small. Dunno. I scaled them up to a realistic scale in the above is what I get (albeit, my graphics card settings were all on highest).

[Mythos_Ruler]

teehee....

A shot from Atlas with all my graphics card settings set to "performance" (low quality). I see some mipping in the 3 farthest tanks, but what does one expect when the graphics settings on so low?

(P-51 Mustang by me and Brightgalrs)

[Ilves]

:Thumbs up!:

you saved my project's day

now remains the turret and I'll start loving this engine

[Mythos_Ruler]

[Mythos_Ruler]

:Thumbs up!:

you saved my project's day

now remains the turret and I'll start loving this engine

Yeah, the textures and models are fine. They'll look good in the engine. Just need to get the entity within an entity problem solved. Something we've wanted for things like archers and catapults on ships, but I think we postponed for Part 2. Though, we'd probably be persuaded to do some work on it if your mod looks to be a big deal and could expand the reach of 0 A.D./Pyrogenesis.

[Ilves]

Forgot the alpha channel :| (you can notice the weird texture on the fuel canister and roadwheels). The screenshots look plain o-som, after researching through 3 different game engines, I didn't even dream of smth like that on a free engine.

The tanks should be still scaled a bit lower, since if we will keep the real-life ration between tanks and infantry, the latter ones will be looking like ants from RTS perspective. In C&C Generals, for e.g. you can clearly see the lack of realistic ratio comparing a soldier and a scud launcher.

Secondly, can I use this beautiful tileset for unit renderings?

And thirdly, why my screenshots made at Kronos were so disturbing? :/ (speaking of textures, not the porn )

BTW, my colleague (the 2nd 3D artist in our team) has finished today a new unit, Russian anti-aircraft system Tunguska-M1:

And we're currently both working on a building, power generator (if some may be interested to comment):

Edited November 4, 2012 by Ilves

[Mythos_Ruler]

Nice stuff. Looking good. Can't wait to see how this develops.

What kind of gameplay you going for? C&C clone or?

[Ilves]

developing Rogue Republic (the name of our game) would have been useless if all we were going to do is to create an another C&C clone. I've started all this because over years of RTS modding I collected a wide list of spicy ideas, "my dream RTS"-style.

This includes:

- Customizable factions - an ability to create your own army by selecting units, special buildings and powers

- over 9000 countries available (not really that much, but still) - the Army Manager adapts the units after the country you select. You can create hi-tech Russia with combat laser emmiters and no tanks and same way - low-tech Russia with cheap rusty tanks and piston planes. The same for #enter_countryname#

- customizable units - select upgrades and features for units in your army. For e.g. the unit I gave you is Main Battle Tank upgraded with Heavy Armour. There is also a stock version of the same unit and a Basic Armor upgrade version: http://www.moddb.com...lution#imagebox Except armor, player can also select a different gun for the tank, different shells, more powerful engine and Active Defense (destroys projectiles fired at the tank). However, the more upgrades - the more the cost of the individual unit and the more the technological requirements. So the player will have to think wisely before picking a basket of upgrades. Besides, there is a limit on both number of units and upgrades.

- BTW, we also have navy

- what we actually DO want to clone from C&C is the way they presented their storylines. If our resources will allow, we are going to make some kind of video\CG movies to present the campaign story. The global storyline consists of "episodes", each will be released as add-on and contains a full campaign. Our first episode deals with the fictional country of Dzungaria, whose eccentric ruler believes himself to be a reincarnation of Genghis-khan and using long-forgotten Soviet secret biological program plans to create a new Mongol empire.

Well, this list can be continued very long, our design doc consists of many pages. We differ from C&C in many aspects. As for the combat system I opt for smth like C&C Generals, but with indirectly controllable aircraft (you just summon the aircraft on a selected area) and greater role of infantry squads.

Edited November 5, 2012 by Ilves

[Mythos_Ruler]

Sounds like good stuff. I like customization (my ideal "ancient" RTS would allow the player to customize their armies in real-time with different levels of weapons and armor, maybe similar to your ideas for RR).

My advice would be to come up with a slimmed-down design for your first release, then when you have a successful first release you will have more people interested in helping out with the game development (whether with donations of money or their time and efforts). After that, you can continue with subsequent releases that increase the number of features and content until you have a full-fledged AAA title on your hands.

I do like your idea of having real cut scenes filmed with actors and a story line. Reminds me of those old 'Red Alert' cut scene with Stalin strangling one of his generals. lol

BTW: Feel free to use any of the screenshots I posted here for your promotional material (moddb, etc.).

[Ilves]

Thank you, but my audience most likely won't understand the presence of ancient Romans beside the tanks Also the skins lack alpha-channel there.

If you would have time, can you screencapture the same scenes (night, forest and tile) with the tank but without ancient units and alpha-channeled skin?

And in order I can make further screens, can you give me your code of the tanks and connected things (since my attempt in Kronos resulted in poor skin visualization)?

[Mythos_Ruler]

Does this shot here accurately show the player color you wanted?

EDIT: I won't be able to do anything more with this for you until maybe Monday afternoon or Tuesday afternoon.

[Ilves]

it does, except that the white lines on the fuel canisters are also meant to be housecolor

[fabio]

The in game shots looks really nice!

Secondly, can I use this beautiful tileset for unit renderings?

What type of license do you plan for your game? If you use the same CC-BY-SA used by 0 A.D. there should not be any problem in using every 0 A.D. arts.

[leper]

Just some input on the simulation side of things:

Rotating the turret should be possible with a rotation animation and some of the enhancements described in ticket #1550. This shouldn't require a huge amount of work. (If using animated textures as proposed by Wijtmaker)

Rotating the turret and changing the angle of the cannon could require some work (especially since we don't support playing two animations simultaneously or combined afaik).

For implementing the first point a rotation animation (360°) would be needed.

[Ilves]

Unfortunately, I'm no programmer, all I can do is to write a simple circle program in C++ for scientific calculations, but no more, so I (at least, for some time) rely on external help on the programming part.

But for my noob's point of view, animation isn't the best solution, since:

- animations means pre-definition, while in game the turret should have an ability to conduct arbitrary direction of rotation, arbitrary degree of rotation (the target can be anywhere).

- And what's more difficult - the turret has 3 levels of freedom: rotation of turret itself, erection of the gun (esp. important for anti-aircraft guns and artillery) and recoil of the gun

- some units should have a limited sector of rotation (like 90 degress instead of 360)

I had a curious idea about faction customization today. While I can't code a full ingame faction editor, is it feasible to make a "faction editor" relying on a external file, being written by players? The idea is that you have a table, you check "yes" or "no" there after each unit until you ran out of "unit points" available, pass it to the other player, synchronize it and the game adjusts the factions according to the table. Hence we get an easily done faction editor:

NOTE: "1"s denote here nothing else that this faction POSSESSES this unit in its factories, not the quantity of unit or anything else. Empty space denotes lack of unit in the build list.

Edited November 6, 2012 by Ilves