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stefanhendriks 28-12-2003 21:27

Engine
 
8) now for l33t people at this place, what are we going to do? Create an own engine? I think that is truly insane, it would be better to take a look at an engine which is good and free. Of course we have bots to work on and several other things on our hands, this would be worth considering.

We should set our goals about the game though, i'd say, make a mixture between DoD and CS and beat the crap out of the 2 original mods. Make it so cool that we l33t coders can take over the world and get richer then Bill Gates.. muhahahaha. erm, right o_O 9_9

8)

Pierre-Marie Baty 29-12-2003 01:51

Re: Engine
 
We thought about this very seriously with botmeister a good couple months ago... The idea was, yes, take a good and free engine, preferrably open-source, hack and toy with it, get used to its internals so as to use it at best, and use it to build a REAL tactical FPS.

I mean, look! Today which is the FPS which can still boast of being something better than a Quake-style Team deathmatch ? TFC ? Too unrealistic. CS ? Two troops of kids rushing and collapsing into each other. One grenade takes away half the team ; another grenade finishes the round. DoD ? Yes, I reckon there are some ideas in it. But we'd thought of something better.

One thing first, NEVER describing one team "the good" and the other one "the evil". We were agreeing to take great care of that... for a good couple of reasons you can easily imagine, influence on young gamers and self-identification to the cause being one of them (I still remember the reactions of the many young CS gamers, on both sides of the planet, during the {invasion || liberation} of Iraq).

A second thing, was to put a strong emphasis on the penatly given to players when they lack teamplay, tactics or discipline ; like imposing some notion of "fair play" - counting NOT the player's frags AT ALL, but an overall player score, which would include the preservation of civilians, the fullfillment of the goal, the discipline, heroism, respect of the safety rules (e.g, not fire in a marketplace crowded with civilians). In such an environment, every means of war used by the guerilla/armed forces/terrorists/police ever used and in use now should be considered : human bombing against targets, civilian shields, gas, soporific bullets, drones, spy cams, bullet-proof shields, execution of hostages, etc.

I should really get a hand on those old emails... Rob at the rescue ? 8)

stefanhendriks 29-12-2003 11:26

Re: Engine
 
I guess our first step is to decide a good , flexible, easy-to-use (if any exists) engine and then think further. I knew from a past search this is not easy.

Austin 30-12-2003 02:47

Re: Engine
 
1) CS = the most played game still, period.
2) CS 2.0 would be a giant hit.

And it still hasn’t arrived and 1.6 isn’t it either.

So…

Why not take the best of Cs and improve on it.
PM mentioned some things.
Add in civilians, some method of imposing the map goals instead of mindless fragging.

How about,
More than 2 teams.
Longer rounds with more involved goals.

botmeister 31-12-2003 00:37

Re: Engine
 
Quote:

I should really get a hand on those old emails... Rob at the rescue ?
Yes I still have them. I'll summerize the contents and post here once I have enough time for it.

I think the best games are the ones where the people who play it can make it into what they want it to be. If there's enough flexibility built into it people can play for years and not get bored.

It is probably a good idea to take what is good about the most popular games such as CS, and use those ideas for a new one.

There are many things that make a game good or bad besides it being "fun" which is of course very important: too much cheating and hidden exploits will ruin a team play game, connecting to servers should be easy and fast, play through the internet should be reasonable over the typically low quality DSL (or even a modem?), server and client must have high stability levels, hardware requirements must be modest so the game can work on a typical box, identity verification for team play must be difficult to forge - and difficult to replace (charging a painfull enough fee for a new ID may do the trick), etc.

In any case, I think it may be impossible to get enough people to all agree on what a game should look like, but if we build something that others can expand on, or customise to their preference, then we can let whoever plays the game decide what they want it to be like.

My personal preference is to model it after what we see going on in real global conflicts. Make it a game for adults like ourselves, and not for little children. In the real world we see the big guys with all the money, advanced hardware and training beating up on the little poor guys who defend themselves using primitive and/or obsolete technologies (eg AK-47's, RPG's, suicide bombers, and even rockets on donkey carts!).

In this game, no one has to be the "bad guy", because you can assume whatever point of view you want to justify the "team" you choose to play on. Both sides can be the terrorists or the good guys, it's up to the individual to decide, and you don't have to care one whay or the other to play and have fun.

Yes, it sure can be politically motivated, or just fun to play, that's what will get people all fired up and determined to "win" over the other team (or teams). In fact if there is politics introduced that's great, because it will help generate publicity and interest.

Allow it to be "in your face" using custom "scenarios" and maps which can be modeled after real world conflicts (or fictional if the mapper chooses). People can follow links (if the scenario modeler includes them) to websites with differing points of view, they can include official government websites and so-called radical "consparicy" websites which attempt to expose the appearent fraud and criminal activity behind most conflicts (on both sides or whatever the modeler wants, or not at all).

Forums can be set up to discuss, debate and study each scenario + map (or maps). Imagine the fired up discussion with something like that! Strategy and team play all mixed in with politics - what a monster, but possibly a great success for a game - escpecially in our "new world order".

I can never see any of the major gaming companies put out something like this, they have'nt the balls for it, and most (if not all) of them are deeply involved in the politics to begin with - look at America's Army which is owned by the US military itself - it's an uninteresting game designed as part of its recruiting program, and the company the controls Valve, Vivendi Universal of France, is a huge monster of a company that has its fingers in all sorts of global ventures that are very politically influenced. As for Microsoft, nothing needs to be said there. You'll never see a really interesting game come out from any of these organizations - EVER!

Perhaps the idea really is too ambitious or controversial to consider? But if we let the scenario designers and mappers decide what to introduce as content, then we do not have to be involved in any of the controversy directly. We simply provided the means, and let others do what they wanted to do with it. Not up to us really, no?

We will however get attacked for introducing some of the weapons which the "terrorists" (to be politically correct) use, such as suicide bombers, donkey carts with rockets, IED's, etc. But fuck em I say, that's the real life shit that's happening, so why ignore it? besides, it would be way too cool to play inside such a simulation.

Look at the CS 1.6, they even felt the need to remove the real names of the guns! WTF is that!? Is that a situation we want to create a new game after?

*edit*

So much for summarizing later o_O

stefanhendriks 31-12-2003 12:22

Re: Engine
 
i agree with all you say there botmeister (really i read it all! :D). I think this game can only become some sort of success if other people start thinking with us. What we need is a solid engine which is easy to modifify (kinda like HL right now) in all sorts of ways. We cannot do all the jobs ourselves, i can't imagine we should map/create sounds/l33t gfx , etc. But once the idea rolls out, i bet other people get interested and start producing something.

I also agree most companies simply don't have the balls to start something new. I haven't played a new game for years now, and its getting boring! Be honest, do you really think HL 2 will be such a major hit as HL 1? I don't think there will ever be a major hit like that (and i am not talking about sales).

Nova 31-12-2003 12:41

Re: Engine
 
Yoi guys are off the nut, serously .. oh well, ill do the PR and if you need financing, im the guy to ask :)

stefanhendriks 31-12-2003 13:25

Re: Engine
 
off the nut? nah, we just want to beat the crap out of all those commercial guys! ;)

Pierre-Marie Baty 31-12-2003 13:32

Re: Engine
 
well, I thought here was the "home of a lot of crazy weirdos ?" :D it is not ? we need to move elsewhere or what ? :D

stefanhendriks 31-12-2003 14:26

Re: Engine
 
rofl! :D no, i think this is the place to be. I htink Nova was lost ;)

Nova 31-12-2003 14:38

Re: Engine
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by stefanhendriks
rofl! :D no, i think this is the place to be. I htink Nova was lost ;)

Believe me dude when i say:

IM DA CRAZY SHIT ITSELF *rofl*

Phreak 02-01-2004 12:32

Re: Engine
 
I was wondering if you all wanted to try something different. I don't personally own this but I have had it before. DarkBASIC. Its a very powerful little language. I would suggest some of you look into it and tell me what you think. I have been learning the Game Engine side to C++ and would feel quietly confident in starting an engine with anyone who wanted to also. Otherwise, if anyone wants to make a programming language, that would be more of a strong point for me... :P



DarkBASIC = worth looking into....


Phreak

Pierre-Marie Baty 02-01-2004 14:10

Re: Engine
 
What are the advantages over C ? I mean, it's not like any of us didn't knew C... Generally these little languages you find in games are more aimed at the game designers who don't know how to code in C and want to do some job by themselves... Dunno, just asking.

stefanhendriks 02-01-2004 17:15

Re: Engine
 
i'd say stick with C/C++, its multi-OS (which IS important)

@$3.1415rin 02-01-2004 18:01

Re: Engine
 
somehow basic sounds noob-like, slow, ....

I think DarkBasic can be pretty powerful to create little applications with quite nice gfx, but I guess it'll get problematic when looking at performance, extensibility ( vertex and pixel shader - hehe ) and interfacing other parts of code like c/c++

stefanhendriks 02-01-2004 18:27

Re: Engine
 
Basic is slow, but i believe the other forms of basic (not officialy by M$) can equal almost the speed of C/C++. I would say these basic things are just like C but using BASIC like commands. :)

Phreak 02-01-2004 18:46

Re: Engine
 
too true. Oh well, just a thought...


Phreak

botmeister 02-01-2004 19:03

Re: Engine
 
Basic can be very fast if it's compiled into machine code. I'd stick with C++ because it is something that won't be going away anytime soon, many programmers use it, it can do anything, and it can be compiled to multiple platforms with little differences.

DrEvil 03-01-2004 00:35

Re: Engine
 
I'd suggest looking into the Ogre rendering system http://www.ogre3d.org It's an open source engine with alot of support and alot of great features. The only downside is that it's just a rendering system but many people have been successful as integrating ODE(Open Dynamics Engine) into it, which is a pretty nice physics system capable of alot of different things including great looking vehicle dynamics. It's got quite a few different scene managers such as BSP, Octree, and several other terrain managers. Overall it appears to be a great system thats very easily set up, and in the next week or so the new release will support hardware shaders.

If you guys are truely interested in doing your own system it is definately a system to take a look at.

Pierre-Marie Baty 04-01-2004 17:55

Re: Engine
 
my god, this is some neat stuff indeed! 8o

*edited*

after reading it twice, this is the best candidate for an engine I've seen so far! 8D

stefanhendriks 04-01-2004 19:06

Re: Engine
 
I have seen it multiple times, gonna read the info when i have more time. Looks sweet indeed though!

Pierre-Marie Baty 04-01-2004 19:32

Re: Engine
 
I see nowhere mentioned that it knows the "level of detail" technology though... :(

stefanhendriks 04-01-2004 21:12

Re: Engine
 
hmm, i should not worry about that to much right now ;)

DrEvil 04-01-2004 22:40

Re: Engine
 
It supports LOD

Squalman 10-01-2004 03:16

Re: Engine
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by stefanhendriks
8) now for l33t people at this place, what are we going to do? Create an own engine? I think that is truly insane, it would be better to take a look at an engine which is good and free. Of course we have bots to work on and several other things on our hands, this would be worth considering.

We should set our goals about the game though, i'd say, make a mixture between DoD and CS and beat the crap out of the 2 original mods. Make it so cool that we l33t coders can take over the world and get richer then Bill Gates.. muhahahaha. erm, right o_O 9_9

8)

just recently have i ventured outside of the realbot forums and noticed several places caught my eye... Insane people only? so, THATS what they call that... the only problem is i have nothing to work with anymore :/. I got the software just not the cream filling... :'(

Also: it would be interesting even if i were to tag along to take some of this in considering the last time i had worked with C++ before i got visual studio 6 was using an old old old old Borland compiler. That and im a warehouse of ideas. :)

Cephas 16-01-2004 06:35

Re: Engine
 
i've been lurking the bot boards for about a month now, been testing all the bots and they are all awesome. just visited other sections and came accross this thread.

I could help with the later development of the game. My brother is an audio engineer and i have access to his personal mini studio thats in a room about 30feet from me. I know how to make realistic sound effects and background theme music. I also used worldcraft for about a year making SP half-life levels for me and my friends, so i could help with level design and have also created numerous UT skins for player models. I have 2 friends that are very good in 3DSMax and Cinema4D so they could help out in that aspect. The only computer programming i know is BASIC, PEARL, JAVA, HTML, and some Pascal. I "understand" most C code but writing it is a different story.

I also know linux and the KDE desktop very well. I have 3 computers in my room and tons of random hardware, so i could do some compatibility testing if ever needed, since you guys said you wanted it to be able to run on various computer platforms.

Like I said, if this project ever does start moving, i can help with the later parts, Sound, Level design, Skins, Modeling, and small parts in programming.

Pierre-Marie Baty 16-01-2004 06:43

Re: Engine
 
Thanks for the offer ! :)

Don't worry we WILL move on someday, but understand that most of us would like to build their existing projects to completion beforehand - furthermore the idea is just arising, and lots of things remain to discuss. Botmeister has a whole theory on this but maybe it's too early to speak up. We're actually discussing some things and others on this matter :)

stefanhendriks 16-01-2004 18:53

Re: Engine
 
I think its great to have an idea, we should just finish our stuff first before we go on with something huge like this.

However, when its time, i bet we can make a h*ll of a game together. We surely can need any help we can get! :)

Cephas 19-01-2004 03:16

Re: Engine
 
What about the Quake or Quake II Engine, Its free over the GNU and its surely proven itself over the years. I mean, Half-life was made with the Quake engine.

Pierre-Marie Baty 19-01-2004 03:20

Re: Engine
 
Yes, but take a look at Ogre... it's so much better :)

The Quake I and II engines are outdated for a certain number of reasons, especially they have rendering limitations that we can't decently have in a modern game... (polygon counts, absence of level of detail, models, sprites, etc).

Cephas 19-01-2004 04:21

Re: Engine
 
So very true, I didn't even know open source graphic engines have come that far. Hmmm, and its compatible with 3DSMAX....the one animation program i'm good with.

Ava3ar 19-01-2004 20:55

Re: Engine
 
I've got experience in WorldCraft, GTKRadiant, C++, VB5, DarkBasic, PHP, ASP, CFM, Java, and a couple of others, ive also got a mate whos making a new programming language, and im in the process of making a HL2 bot (currentlly 16% working), i would be willing to help

Fiber_Optic 19-01-2004 21:19

Re: Engine
 
How can you work on a hl2 bot?? The game isn't released yet... no?

Ava3ar 19-01-2004 21:40

Re: Engine
 
I've got the leaked SDK + game, and started looking at the code

i noticed taht the AI doesn't actually see guns or people, it see's fixed points, so it doesn't see you it see's a spot in your stomach, so ive modified the code so that it does actually see head/legs/arms/body rather than fixed points, and it see's weapons/ammo now rather than static model.

so far ive only got it to see weapon, see enemy/ally, identify own weapon, identify enemy/ally weapon, identify own ammo, estimate enemy/ally ammo, work out distance from enemy/ally, work out best target area (e.g. head or leg/arm/body) depending on obsticles in way, but i havent got it to work out walk/run/avoid/dodge/cover yet, which is what i need to work on.

Pierre-Marie Baty 20-01-2004 06:46

Re: Engine
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Ava3ar
i noticed taht the AI doesn't actually see guns or people, it see's fixed points, so it doesn't see you it see's a spot in your stomach

Impressive... so if I understand right there isn't such a thing as an "entity" in the HL2 engine ? Could you elaborate on that ?

Ava3ar 21-01-2004 00:08

Re: Engine
 
in each model there are fixed points (skeleton system) it looks at the middle point (what could be interpreted as the spine) and shoots that, also it doesnt see walls it see's material, so the thickness of a material is how it knows how thick a wall is, its complicated (but even the leaked SDK has good manuals)

Pierre-Marie Baty 21-01-2004 01:46

Re: Engine
 
ah ok, in fact it's not really different than what we're doing already... it's a generalization of the use of pfnGetBonePosition(), which is a good thing :)

The material system however was announced by the guys at Valve loud enough already, so it's also a good thing to see they did it and I'm impatient to see what its practicability is.

but we're way offtopic. :D

Ava3ar 21-01-2004 20:03

Re: Engine
 
just a bit, i recon you guys could invent an engine, all you need is the knowledge of how engines work, and then manufacture one around it, plus it would mean you could license it, but if you did go for pre-made then OGRE does look damn good

Squalman 30-01-2004 20:38

Re: Engine
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Ava3ar
I've got the leaked SDK + game, and started looking at the code

i noticed taht the AI doesn't actually see guns or people, it see's fixed points, so it doesn't see you it see's a spot in your stomach, so ive modified the code so that it does actually see head/legs/arms/body rather than fixed points, and it see's weapons/ammo now rather than static model.

so far ive only got it to see weapon, see enemy/ally, identify own weapon, identify enemy/ally weapon, identify own ammo, estimate enemy/ally ammo, work out distance from enemy/ally, work out best target area (e.g. head or leg/arm/body) depending on obsticles in way, but i havent got it to work out walk/run/avoid/dodge/cover yet, which is what i need to work on.

Now here, and im not defending this guy, because i was deeply enraged to hear of the events that befell the hl2 source, but listen to what i have to say:

The knowlege gained by looking at next-generation leaked code could be an advantage, if you learn how things work in modern games and even how the ai works as he points out, this is not only very interesting, but might be somthing to consider.

Also, off that topic:

I recently downloaded the Public GNU protected Quake 1, and 2 source codes to play with (and putting aside for a lil while my own game-development company which is still looking for staff, email me on that one) and noticed that they would not compile because of a custom build command called " ml " just out of curiosity, does anyone know wtf that is supposed to do and what i may need to do it? My point is, we should mess around with several engines and ultimately make a rounded engine out of experience and group-interest.

AlphaTrooper 24-02-2004 11:03

Re: Engine
 
while I know almost nothing about coding and anything else related to actually developing games... I can offer my opinion about certain idea's brought up at the begginning of the topic.

The thing that jumped out at me, was having more than just 2 teams, now, I have never played a FPS with more than two teams, but that could be very interesting.

Also, if you are looking into developing a game, it is a good idea to check out other games. A good game that has not been mentioned in this post, is Battlefield 1942, and it's popular mod, Desert Combat. I would urge you to check out this game, as it is so much fun to play, and many idea's could be taken from it.


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