Building the next best space game.

I will now attempt to build the next best RTS space game using Game Studio A7.

All of my art, musical, Lite-C programming, & story writing skills will be pushed far beyond their limits.

I'm sure I'll run into problems along the way & I wish to get some advice every now & then.

As your previous posts suggest that you're not trolling, I'll give you an advice:
You have already failed. Stop the project right there, it's doomed. Even if you were John Carmack or some guy from Blizzard, you would probably fail, you underestimate the difficulty and effort by a hundred times.
Try to create a different game instead, I suggest a sidescroller or something like Pong/ Ploing.
What's the point of your post anyway? It's very likely that someone will make fun of you in the next 60 minutes.

I'm not sure if I will fail or succeed in what I'm doing. This will be the greatest challenge that I have ever faced.

Since I'm to sick to hold a normal job I've got nothing else better to do and my eye sight may be completely gone by the age 40 (I'm 27 now).

Building a great game is my childhood dream and if I don't get started now then I may never get another chance. That's why I will pour all of my talents and abilities into this game.

Even though I've learned much about Game Studio A7 I still don't know everything.

When I built 2 large hollowed cubes & assigned a different sky texture to each one, it would show only the first added sky texture on both hollowed cubes when the level was ran.

Can you have more than one sky-box each with a different sky texture?
Thanks.

Superku is right, this project will undoubtedly fail. Upon hearing of your condition I must say that I pity you and wish you the best. Nonetheless, you should really consider making a game that you will be able to get into a working state before you lose your sight. A less ambitious game does not necessarily equate to a worse game overall. Some of the most famous/fun games known to the world, such as Mario, Plants vs. Zombies, and Minecraft, are built on very simple concepts and designs.


Yes, but due to the way sky blocks work in Gamestudio you will have to manage this by script.

I don't mind doing it by script.
Thanks for the reply.

I'm sure that I'll have more questions later but for now I will continue to build away.

Just Do it then.

But to do it, you need to make another game first.
Thats called the leaning curve.
Else you WILL fizzle around picky details very soon
without getting the core components propperly working.

You need to plan your own motivation and experience curve
to stem a bigger project.
And thats where you need a smallscaled project to
learn about rendering, gameplay, codearchitecture and
an efficient Artwork-workchain.

Too all.

Please only judge my talents & skills after I have posted screen-shots. I know that I'm only one person but I truly believe that I am capable.

Thanks and please continue to reply to questions as it helps allot.

Am I the only one who is having deja vu?
Good luck anyway..

First of all: good luck!

But as a RTS fan, I can tell you it is more difficult than making a simple shooter, where you mostly have to deal with the level design (enemy behaviour is generally not too complex).

For example, what AI system do you plan to use for dynamic pathfinding and decision making? It normally requires good map decomposition into usable data structures for managing buildings, developing technologies, and strategic and battle army/unit command.

So first start with a simple game, and you will see what you need for further developments...

Screenshots are not really saying much.
(making a nice scene just shows if you know how to set up a nice scene,
or in other Terms: a detailed AK-47 model does not make a good Shooter already)
I judge when I see a demo or at least a througout gameplay video.

The point still stands: first make a smaller project to
get familiar with the engine and workflow.

... I actually plan on making an RTS again, just not shure
if I should use gamestudio again or Java+OpenGl,
It would be more work, but the advantage is it can run on all systems and even directly in a Browser.

And I could keep the whole game (without the libraries) under 100Kb.

I bought A7 a little over a year ago & played around with it on and off.

I've already figured out how to do most of what I will need to do. I currently have about 87% of know how for building this game.

I have at least a basic understanding of the exact code I will have to wright for everything the game will do.

It will be a multi-player RTS space game. If the development process goes smooth enough I may even make it a FPS / RTS but only if everything comes together nice enough.

I will say that building the actual game is not nearly as hard as sticking with one decision. Deciding on how something will look is my biggest challenge.

I'm always 1,000,000 steps ahead of myself during development.

Best of all, I'm having allot of fun facing this challenge.

Not the secure mp part? The shader part? The gameplay mechanics? Or creating all the needed graphics?

Anytime I know exactly what to do I can normally work at a decent pace. Lite-C has many automated features which I plan to take advantage of.

I have the multi-player part well planned out (created a MP code template).

I'll most likely be using the built in shaders.

The gameplay mechanics is well thought out (I make sure I know how to do something from the beginning by building small practice levels).

As far as graphics go, I'll be using purchased textures and will edit them to my needs. The models however (most if not all) will be development by me.

Everything is going smoothly so far although I do expect to run into some minor problems during development.

If you are going for an RTS with many units, you should look into
syncronized simulation for the multiplayer.

Its revolves around the concept of only communicating action-commands to the server and back to all clients.

The game itself must make shure that all clients have receive the
SAME actioncommands every game-logic tick.

Then they execute them based on the exact same (using syncronized seeded Random values) manner.

This is the concept used in the Age of Empire games for example.
It enables you to control several hundred RTS units by only
sending a few bytes of actioncommands.

Its not appicable to fast-reaction MP Games (Shooters/Racing)
but to slower reacting games with many entities.

Here a doc on that:

SyncronizedSimulation

thank you for the link Damocles


,
gri

This one is even better, with more detail to the topic

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3094/1500_archers_on_a_288_network_.php

nice articles, thanx!
in connection with age of empires I-II, there are some ai related interesting atricles too. if anyone interested, I can give some links...

Just post them, AI papers are always welcome

I will collect some, and post in user resources section... I saved a lot of articles but have to find the links again...

but until that, just something to read:

http://aigamedev.com/insider/tutorials/influence-map-mechanics/

Yes, read that one a while ago, very interesting.

Thanks for all the links.

The modeling is more tedious than anything but I'll get it done. My time-line goal is within 2 months. Since my daily activity is only working on this game it is well possible.

Anyone have any suggestions on 3D clouds?
Thanks.

like gas in space or normal clouds?

But before thinking about specifics of the rendering you should go ahead and work
on the gamelogic and framework first.

Make a number of placholder objects without any fancy artwork to
visualize your gameobjects and develop the game based on that.
This keeps from beeing ditracted by the visuals when working on the logic.

For me it's a kid, and nothing serious at all or someone not experienced in game development at all , but i put some responses !

I will now attempt to build the next best RTS space game using Game Studio A7.

Incredible, how some lonewolf guy would be better than Blizzard or some other big RTS ?
even with a team, i'm not sure you'll make such great AI, such great UI, great levels and units , animations, effects, scenario, voices etc ... etc ...

All of my art, musical, Lite-C programming, & story writing skills will be pushed far beyond their limits.

First post some 3D art you already done.
There is no limit you always imporve your 3D work , texturing, programming : IT TAKE YEARS


I'm sure I'll run into problems along the way & I wish to get some advice every now & then.

Why not UT3 engine or other big ones, you 'll have also problems like any 3D engine.
And saysing already you'll have problems it's like saying from beginning that you will fail or quit the game making

I'm not sure if I will fail or succeed in what I'm doing. This will be the greatest challenge that I have ever faced.

It's like saying i'm not enought motivated.
It's like saying , i want ot make some better game than Skyrim , i don't know if i'll succeed ,it's the biggest challenge : INDEED !

Since I'm to sick to hold a normal job I've got nothing else better to do and my eye sight may be completely gone by the age 40 (I'm 27 now).

If it was the case , you should really enjoy the must you can everything in the world before your eye sight drop down in some little years already !!
And game making requires very good eyes, specially for texturing and modeling ? why choosing game making so ?



Building a great game is my childhood dream and if I don't get started now then I may never get another chance. That's why I will pour all of my talents and abilities into this game.

You are like lot of kids wanting to make some big game or dreaming about some big MMo etc ...
Stop dreaming : MAKE A CASUAL GAME FIRST OR A VERY VERY LITTLE ONE !
It will take you years before you'll make a little good game !
Stop Dreaming :
Your first games will be bad generally ; so try to make some little games first.

AND ONLY LOT LOT LOT OF WORK IS THE KEY TO MAKE SOME GOOD GAME AND MOTIVATION !

What is your real goal ? really ?
money : alone , not skilled today in 3D , you won't make any great game better than the big ones made by thousand of highly skilled poeple !
You should serach pleasure of creation , perhaps work in a project with a team ?

Well ... another useless thread !

I have all the required talents & skills to complete this project and I will within a few months.

Using Game Studio A7 Pro & Lite-C is what makes things over 1,000,000 times easier.

The game is well planned out and development is going smoothly. I will continue to click away at the mouse & keyboard until its finished. The fun part is seeing everything come together.

The fun part is fixing numerous random crashes that sets you back another 3 months.

When people fly down to different planets, I think it would be nice for the battleships to go though some 3D clouds. Was trying to figure out a way to make the clouds nice & fluffy like I've seen in some flight sims.

Most of the game programming & AI is already planed out.
Thanks.

Everything is rigorously tested as I make progress in order to avoid random crashes & so far so good.

I just zoom in when my eyes aren't doing that well.

I've been practicing Lite-C for over a year now. Sure when I first got the engine I was too inexperienced to do anything but after so much practice I figured out how to do nearly everything to complete the game including AI.

I choose Game Studio Pro because after doing hours of research, I was so impressed by the engine that I decided to spend the extra cash for the pro edition.

Well back to the endless clicking of my mouse & keyboard to complete this awesome game being developed.

Thanks for your thoughts.

I've played many games and there seems to be a shortage of good space games.

You can find an unlimited amount of first person shooters & most of them seems to be similar to the other.

Even some of the best space games out there now seems to be lacking a few features that I always look for but never find.

I will wait no longer for other companies to develop the perfect space game.

I have taken it upon myself to do what needs to be done and develop an RTS space game with features like no other.

Thats why I've chosen this type of game to build and I will succeed.

I may have screen-shots in a few weeks.

And i'm practicing for ~10 Years now. And i am feared of making an RTS...
It's a really hard piece, if you want to do it all yourself, so again think about wasting time with programming a RTS
Do something easier and try to sell this
If you really want to make money with games, have a new idea, don't copy old stuff and try to improve it. You can't get better than all of the games which are sold today.
You need something what makes your game interesting to others. Your game has to be unique to get money with it.
Simply take a look at minecraft. It's a sandbox game with an "unlimited" world. You can build what you want or you can play some survival. Minecraft is a mixture of RPG, Fighter, Sandbox, Open World and Survival Game. There was nothing like this before.

I'm thinking about redoing an old game, which many people played for hours and weeks. This game has a really good rating (sometimes 95/100), altough the game was buggy as hell, crashed every 20 minutes. It was the concept of the game which made it special. But afaik it's the only game with this style.

Think about it...

EDIT:

7% of all games published per year are shooters....

please check the Artificial Intelligence section of the forum!
I added some useful links of articles and demos, and some comments. Many of them specially for RTS games.

Thanks for the links. Development is still going smoothly. I think that many will be impressed with my work.

Be sure to check back in a few weeks for some awesome screen-shots.

I'm late, I know and I don't want bring up the beginning posts, but this single quote got my attention.


I don't know why so many people believe its hard to learn a programming language and I don't know why it took you a year. You should be able to pick up C in a week, learn the syntax and all the concepts like pointer, structs and so on. But, and now we come the part that isn't learnable in a year, its hard to master a language in a way that allows you to write fast and pretty code.
You don't want to solve problems by taking a tank and shooting at them until they disappear (yes, this is a metaphor), but you want to solve the problem as smart and effortless as possible (thats not a metaphor). And no matter how long you practice a language, you should be able to learn something new about it every week or month! Be it a new programming idiom or a totally new concept and approach to solve a problem.
For example, I found this very excellent SO question recently ( http://stackoverflow.com/questions/500607/what-are-the-lesser-known-but-cool-data-structures? ) and its full of extremely awesome stuff I have never heard of!


From you posts, dear OP, I can't see that you are already at this stage in learning a language but still at the "woah, I found out what a pointer is, now I can write the whole world in less than two days!" (this was an exaggeration). And no, this doesn't mean that you have to write posts full of buzzwords like "Yeah, I'm using agile development and plan to refactor my code twice a day, I check in every change and maintain five VCS branches to test my code. For every committed function I write at least five unit tests and I run all unit tests when the nightly build compiles." (this wasn't an exaggeration)


There are so many things in game development that its impossible to cover them all in a single post but you want to face them in just two months! Don't get me wrong, its great that you have ambitious ideas and that you are really trying to commit yourself into your project, but please don't fool yourself into thinking that you are better than the rest of the world! I know its easy to think things like "hey, this looks easy, I just have to write X and this solves my problem. It can't be that hard to make a complete game", but try to think what comes with this. Try to think of every single detail that you have to do, not just the big shiny picture that looks like its so easy to draw. (Yes, this was another metaphor)

@kmega99 :
Sure, only screenshots and videos count at final when someone is claiming to make great game.
My post wasn't against you, but i we've seen lot of people dreaming about big , next big games ... a lot failed.
Even in 3D Game Studio , some great games started very great, but failed due to team splitting, lack of motivation, problems with doing it, real life taking the step etc ...

Sometimes some failed due that they targetted big without having already done some little game to alredy know how much the work to produce sometimes can be very big.

But yes we'll wait for a screenshot and be impressed with stars in ours eyes


Like JustSid said :
Indeed programming side can be very big challenge, for tools also, like games having their own editors and tools.
And i do'nt talk about pathfinding or integrating some free pathfinding libs, making good artificial intelligence etc ...

The other very challenging part also is 3D creation, with good models, good textures, good 3D effects and animations.
Making some solid style , with solid levels and units it's lot of work also.
But adopting RTS without any character models will already reduce the amount of work :
- no rigging
- not all animations possible to make for each character
- some more easy to make hard surface than wanting to make
convincing Faces and realistic textures for the character.
skinning (perhaps less when your game

But again i don't think you'll do better than Starcraft 2 , it was made by thousand of skilled people and lot of very skilled programmers

It's not to de motivate you, but to show you some reality.

Even this game made one guy with Ogre 3D took him some 2 or 3 years (he had to pay for some freelance 3D artists some times to improve some models and textures).
So alone don't dream about making something big and better than AAA games in some months.









Salvation Prophecy

I understand that some people may think it to be impossible for one guy to have enough skills to build a great game in just a few months, but that's just what I'm doing.

All models are being built from scratch (vertex to vertex & face to face) and there turning out good. I enjoy tough challenges so I will not turn the other way and give up.

Besides I'm making excellent progress.

Make any suggestions about things that I should do with the current game after a demo is finished.

However since I'm super glued to this project I won't stop building & programming anytime soon.
Please wait until screen-shots and the demo before judging my skills.

Thanks.

we wait

ok sounds like a deal.

RTS are not that common to see here.

I will not disappoint.

That will be interesting..
If i think of Starcraft 2.. where 40 Developers, 30 Model Actors and 5 Production teams were working for 7 Years...
And the Game IS Amazing..

Wish you best of luck.. but i´ve not really Faith into your Skills (you´re really optimistic), as you can beat SC2 or Vanquish or any other Triple-A SciFi Title ^^"


I´m working on a greater Game, too.. But we are now 12 People with different Jobs on the project.. and i calculate with 1-2 Years to finish it..

So.. good luck guy

If you can even nearly reach SC2, I will buy it for sure .

Most of the effort in SC2 went into Balancing, stable Multiplayer + Lobby
and a very advanced Singleplay campaign with cutscenes and such.
(plus Blizzard having the habbit to sack much development work if it does not feel perfect yet)

In an Indy RTS you can simplify that.
Having no or just basic Multiplayer, and textbased intructions
for the missions + only using ingame graphics.

Having an RTS that runs and controls smoothly with nice graphics is managable in an Indy RTS.

There are several Indy RTS out there, wich work quite well.
Only for some reason most look quite ugly.
(probably because RTS are a typical coder-centered domain)
The opposite goes for shooters, wich look good but play like crap.

Progress is not going as fast as I had hoped but development is now beginning to pick up. Here is a couple of screenshots (large fleet size endurance test). The multiplayer part has been tested & working.

I'm not sure how many ships there are but the test fleet was way to big to capture all. There is about 3 times as many ships off screen.

The ships are unarmed at the moment but that will soon change


I can't wait for weapons testing. Battles will be very large and intense. Progress is at about 10%.
I estimate completion time to be between 2 and 3 months.

Early stages but looking good so far.

I really don't think your timescale of two months is going to be achievable though...

Its really hard to distinguis ships from the background, that should be made easier by drawing something around them or placing lights on them or whatever...

Plus: Everything MrGuest said.

2 or 3 months for a simple demo perhaps ?
You can't make better than Starcraft 2 in 2 or 3 months !
Stop beeing too much like a kid.


And where is the RTS functions, we don't see any unit selection or AI, your ships are dark, your scene is dark and
the sky is too much simple , we see only some planet on background ??

I think you are taking the simple way, space combat RTS :
there are already some bunch of games , even some indie amateur in WIP also lot better than yours.

Space RTS is lot more cheap to make, caus you don't have to make very complex AI for terrain , building , obstacles , no rigging and unit animations etc ...

And because it's space you just need some sky and far away planets : you don't need to make beautifull textures and models, so you spare lot of work.

So your game will be space , so empty in terms of level design.

And it seems you've changed your mind you talk about multiplayer now ??
Will it be some solo campaign or not ?

If you choose Multiplayer only, it's again a big sortcut , that will spare you all AI, Obstacle AI stuff to manage.
And it will avoid you to create a good compeling story , coherent levels and progressive difficulty !

-----------------

So your first title and posts saying i'll make best than any existing RTS was pure cheap talking like lot of kids do !
I don't like people saying too much and showing poor things.
I prefer people just showing something without saying it will be the best , and watching the progress !

So don't compare to Starcraft 2 !


Could you post some clear screenshots of your ships ?
3D model in some modeling program or in MED ?

even a space RTS can look good. See Star trek Armada 2.
But 2-3 Months.. is extremely unlikely.. Rather, i would write a better Engine than A8, before you finish a Game that is better that ST-A2 or SC2

I think you should be a bit more realistic and honest to yourself

WTF are you complaining about?
You're the only one who's compared it to Starcraft 2...

As you've already said, he's ONE person but now you criticise for not trying to remake Starcraft 2...

RTS does not necessarily mean it's going to be on land, he's making a space game, so after all your wrong assumptions of what kmega99 said he was attempting to make, accept you were wrong and stop comparing EVERYONE's game to AAA games on the market!

The main purpose of the screen-shots is to show the game has some amount of potential & proof that I am making progress.

Large scale RTS space ship battles over territory in space is the objective but it will have features unlike any rts to date.

When I said building the next best rts space game I was referring to battles between space ships and not games like SC2.

All of my modeling is being done with MED which seems powerful enough for me to create everything I need.

@MrGuest:
I agree with Starcraft 2.
Nevermind, he can something, but saying the best ever made ?
For me it should have at least that sort of graphics :



And some great GUI, animations , effects, AI pathfinding , great music , great sounds , great multiplayer gameplay etc ...
(He should begin to be more humble in the goals, even if he's dreaming for big !)


And for the moment like i said the sky is poor, very amateur.
The ships are hidden perhaps to hide how bad they are ?
So well ... the best ever made space game ??


Well 2 or 3 months ??
We are 18 Fev , lets' wait for me 18 April ...

I agree with that, the dates definitely not possible but he's said 10% through.

Every project I've worked on (except this current one) has place holder models until about 40/50% through. He's not showing anything spectacular just showing he's making/made progress.

If by 18April he's further than 50% finished I'll be amazed!

@Ratchet:That's enthusiasm, and is invaluable in game development.

His progress is looking great. So what if he's not meeting his own expected timeline? What differentiates him from others is that he's actually still going.

Please be more constructive. Also, for me personally, I prefer when people don't embed screenshots of other games in threads about a particular game's progress. (EDIT: I think it's better if you just post a link to such screenshots)

Those screen-shots posted by ratchet are nice.

For me there has to be a balance in graphics and performance. The goal is for nearly 1000 or more ships to be fighting it out at any given time.

I can't say that the graphics will look as good as SC2 but for someone with 0 experience in graphics design except for what I've done so far, not too bad.

The screen-shots of SC2 are however a good example on which way to go. Meaning that, I should do my best to look just as good but not the same.

Multi-player performance is one of my biggest goals.

I do appreciate honest opinions about my current & future screen-shots as it helps to steer me in the right direction of becoming a true game developer.

Even though I'm in the process of developing a game, I cannot call myself a game developer until I've built at least one awesome game.

I should have more screen-shots available soon.

I agree to be enthousiast.

But the thread he begun was more like some young kids saying :
"I'll make the best MMO ever"
He targetted best space game ever, it means best graphics ever, best AI ever, best UI ever , best music ever , tec ... etc ... (This means best than Blizzard game !!)
with unrealistic goals, i can't take that seriously ??



But now it seems he targets lot more standard space game, nothing incredible, nothing new, etc ...
I won't annoy anyone in this topic, he's free to say :
"It will be the best game ever , made in two months"
If this keeps him motivated ??

That's just me that i am some more realistic and aware in terms of 3D work what some lonewolf game can cost on time,
and how 3D skills need lot of practice.

So good luck for it's game if he finishes something !

Sorry to go off-topic so much in this thread but the way everyone interprets what's written on this and most forums is if there's any possibilty of it meaning something negative it gets jumped on at the first opportunity.

The way your read a post isn't always as it was intended to be read, one of the joys of being unable to listen to tone of voice, see body language etc...

You (and this isn't just directly aimed at you) as others do, judge so quickly and make your own opinions in your translation of what your think the composer of a post is trying to say.

Imagine someone comes onto a forum and posts I'm going to create a game it'll be the best flight game ever and introduce a game mechanic that'll be copied all over world!

You and others may thinkthough that's not what has been said.

The game could've been Angry Birds, that post didn't actually exist (to my knowledge anyway) and was meant only hypothetically though hopefully you can see the point I'm trying to make.

While people are trying to be creative, do something new and have ambition don't quash or seem to quash it so much and give them a chance to show they have the skills to do something. It might turn into nothing, as we've all seen in so many similar posts, but it may turn into something glorious. He's asked for no criticism, ideas or guidance but we all (yes, me included) are always too quick to interfere when that's not what was being requested. Who are we to judge anyway?

But don't forget that that how you chose your words, you also change the expectations of others.
How you choose your wording, and this also includes written words, change to which conclusions people jump and in this case it was a big announcement with bold words.

I'd say, if you don't want people saying you are nuts for making bold statements, don't make them (I should probably learn from this too *sigh*)

The only possible way for me to meet my time-line is to do everything right from the very beginning.

Before I start building a battle ship I have a question about model design.

The models file size must be as small as possible while looking very good.

Would it be better to use several small skins on a model or better to use a bigger single skin that has all the colors?


I've decided to step up the graphics to match quality of SC2 or higher.

The command carrier that I'm working on does look awesome so far but with a cost of extra polygons. This game will be far above standard.

All of the unique features will be a surprise but for now I only share progress.

I won't be showing all of my work, just samples.

I hope if I do a good enough job on this game that I may get a job offer from any game development company.


The game that I'm building now will show my potential in graphics design & programming.


It will also show my commitment in finishing what I started.

Another reason for making my progress public is a self discipline thing.

It's much harder for me to quit if I know that allot of people are watching.

Therefor I'm pushing myself much harder to succeed in what I'm doing to avoid embarrassment.

Above all other things once this game is finished, it will show how skillful I am at building my first game with Game Studio A7 & lite-c programming.

You should think a little before posting :
You say you target SC2 graphics or better , than you say :
" This game will be far above standard. "

Well , what do you mean by standard ? there is any standard !
There are big games, indie games, between that, amateur games
amateur looking pro etc ....
Standard means nothing ....

I can also say i can do better characters that Uncharted 3.
it's just words.
That's too easy to say : "I can do best than X ..."


Instead : STOP COMPARING witg standard or other games !
Forget them, and JUST SHOW US WHAT YOU CAN DO :
SCREENSHOTS !

--------------

There is no space RTS game made with 3D game Studio; so sure
it will be easy to be the best even with bad graphics and gameplay ???



"I'll push myself as far as i can etc ..."
Ok that's cool, you don't need to repeat that you have motivation.

You should be lot more constructive if you talked about coll things on your game like scripting , 3D assets making , solutions you've found etc ...
and .... SCREENSHOTS !!

Anyone know of any good royalty free sound effect websites?

I'm not lacking music. Just sound effects.

Thanks.

freesound.org

Hahaha, sorry, you´ve absolutely no clue.

Well....

I've never claimed to know everything.

Regardless of how the game turns out, I fully intend for it to be one of the best ones out there because "we will always need new and better games", "we all want to experience new things".

I admit that I may not reach my 2 or 3 month development goal but that will not effect the outcome of the game.


By aiming for better graphics then SC2, the project will look much better.


This is my way of squeezing every ounce of creativity out of myself (even on the first game).

I've always demanded nothing but perfection from myself on every project that I've ever worked on.




You don't know how much I fear that happening. To prevent such an event I perform full testing after each small change or adding of lite-c code.

I also create many backup's while I'm programming.

Testing in form of unit-tests or testing by just clicking run in SED? Because the former one works, the other one doesn't...
Btw, I merged all your posts, please edit your previous post if you have something to add within 24 hours. Afterwards, maybe add a second post.

By aiming for better graphics then SC2, the project will look much better.
That's good to claim high your goals, ok !

Anyway it will be no way to verify if it was made space ships yourself or by some 3D artist for you ?? (some paid job)
So making best space ships is not that's hard if you have some money

Gameplay, 3D effects will be another issue for you not as easy as buying 3D ships models !

Your thread is a little borring really, i would like to see screenshots, gameplay, 3D ships models close and their textures and wireframe versions etc ...

Here is a shot of the basic layout of a Command Craft with no skin yet.

This should show that I'm doing the work myself in med?


After more tweaking around I'll begin the skinning process.

You can and should seriously cut down the number of polygons on that ship.

Given the simple looking shape you waste a lot of resources
on it.
There is a lot of detail you could put into the ship with them.

Use the resources efficiently.

You've received a lot of negative comments here. So, here is a positive one: I like your first screenshots. They look much better than I expected.

You have a lot of enthusiams. So I wish you good luck, to finish this game. But even if you do not succeed and start developing something other (like I did many times): game design is a never ending process of learning and of bettering oneself. And it's fun.

What you are doing is absolutly right: Try doing everything on your own (programming, effects, shaders, modelling, music, sond effects,...). Thats the only way to find out what you like. Maybe you are mult-taleted and you succeed in every discipline. Maybe not, than you know what to concentrate on.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to see more screenshots or even videos.

@bodden :
We are not negative, he claimed lot of things very similar to beginners saying : "I'll make the best next MMO !!"
And now he begins to understant that he talked too much , and reality, creation, is lot more hard , time consuming than just thinking and planning, sometimes impossible (specially in 2 months !!)

I doubt the author of SC2 will appreciate someone beginning in some 3D game making areas saying :
" I'll make lot better than SC2 "
SC2 is a great achievment and great game with great graphics, he should respect the game and the author behind and stop refering to that game.

It's cool to be enthousiast, and talk about impossible goals, like :"i"ll make the next Crysis in two months"
But some of us don't like a lot that unrealistic way of talking

It's somewhat like saying , none of you in that forums have done Crysis, i'll make it and better than anything else or better than X 3DGS game !

@kmega99:
You should reduce the polycount on your ship.
It's too much detailled ,specially if you want 50 or 100 ships at screen (you'll have to use LOD also).

Your actual version should be for cinematics or very close
camera view !

Don't forget you'll have HUD, path finding, network, 3D special effects etc ... all that running at same time.

For the rear cylinders elements of your ship you shoudl have :
- 8 or 10 side cylinders for close view
- 5 or 6 sides for mid range
- 3 Side for very far range (or another type of optimisation)

Perhaps you can make it detailled like now, then use it like that in your game ; than decide after if you have to weld vertices to decrease the polygon number depending on frame rate.

Don't forget :
Your model don't need to be so rounded, faces smoothing and shaders will make it smooth on surface even without beeing well rounded !

Here is what i made in 10 minutes maximum :


You can see it looksvery similar to your ship model !
But the polycount is very low compared to yours



Even this polycount should be for close views or near, for distant it should be reduce a lot !
The texture and shaders will make all the work to make it look very detailled and rounded.

@Ratchet, again you now criticise people for mentioning and comparing to SC2...
YOU compared it first and nowhere in this post has kmega said "I'll make lot better than SC2" (unless it's been changed somewhere)


The only comparisons he's made are

Nice poly reduction model of the ship though, as most have already pointed out the polycount is wayyy too high, there's more polys in the ship than there are in my whole game!

@kmega99 while I defend what you're trying to do and hope you achieve it, I doubted you'd make the game in 2 months before it was aiming to look like SC2 (sorry again for the referencing) but trying now to achieve this, just look at the dates of when production started and when it completed, calculate the number of hours worked and multiply that by the number of artists alone... work that to your timescale and see if you can achieve it before you're over 150 years old...?

you really need to concentrate on the core elements, get them working and if it starts to take off join a team, then maybe you'll release something better than SC2 before you're 75

I stop saying bad things about kmega99.
I wont take care could he says it will be the best game of the planet ever done

@Mr Guest :
Nice poly reduction model
It's not a poly reduction, i made it from zero.


@kmega99 :
One big rule that could help you is keep it little and simple at beginning, specially if you do all yourself alone.
Begin your ships, textures, some programming, some HUD step by step; for example:
-two textured ships (with LOD)
-some basic unit selection and move to pointed destination
-some first HUD elements.
-some first 3D effects (nebula, asteroids, 3D explosions etc ...)

Continue posting screenshots, we will give you tips and advices perhaps like we did for your commander space ship.

Reducing polygons doesn't require it be made from the original.
Which country are you from?

nice
REduction is a attribution (lat. reductio).
You reduce a bigger thing in a smaller thats the way in chemistry, computer science, boiling, ... abstract: Reductionism.
But i didn't know that the meaning of reductions is addicted to the place, you come from?
Please stop offending on little details, mrguest.

but i went offtopic, sry.

For the first model, your ship looks great, but as said, there a a lot useless polygons. It's great, that ratchet took his time to show you, how you could create a ship with less polygons.

Thanks to ratchet for showing!

After modelling, you can draw a skin where you add a lot of details without using that much polygons. You can use also LOD - level of detail, so ships far away will use models with even less polygons or smaller textures.
A normal-mapping-shader will be great, too to add more details.

edit: just wanted to notice the normal mapping, maybe he didn't know it :-)

A normal-mapping-shader will be great, too to add more details.

He will have to use the shader if we want to make the Next Best space RTS game

Nice, it's just a shame most of it's wrong.
:to bring down to a smaller extent, size, amount, number, etc.
There is no necessity for a reduction to exist only within a single entity. Should a concept be redesigned and it's weight be lowered, it would have a reduction in weight though it would not necessarily have to be the same entity. The concept of the object is where the attribution exists.

Neither did I. Why would you even think the two questions were related?

Then don't prompt me to and that's somewhat hypocritical isn't it?

To clarify for those who misunderstood my earlier postNice recreation of the concept kmega99 created, well done in reducing the number of polygons required to achieve a similar looking model.

Still wip.

I'm still new to modeling. I now see where I over did the polygons.
Skinning such a large ship is quite the task. It may take a few days for this one.

The main reason I started with so many polygons is because I'm building a large command ship. I'm still in the middle of deciding where to put stuff (dents, & other things). I like to first start off with a no polygon limit, then reduce as I complete the model.

Thanks for the advice.


150 years old?
But no one lives that long.
Guess I'll just have to build faster.

@Mr Guest :
No worry, that just "most" of the time , polygon reduction in 3D artist sites, is used to talk about taking some high poly model than reducing down the polycount (manually or with a tools like Zbrush "Decimate" plugin and others or methods like retopology !

@kmega99 :
Nice texture start.
The term skinning is mainly used for "character skinning" , this means defining the weight of vertex to each bone of the skeleton.
I doubt your ship have some skeleton ?
You meaned perhaps : UV mapping or texturing ?

Very first ship design.

wow, looks great!

Looking good!

Wip Earth Alliance Super Dreadnought Warship


I have a few questions. Please answer.

1. I would like to light up key parts of the ship.
What is the best way to have light following a model to illuminate it in space?

2. Having a little trouble with camera rotate code.
What would be a good short lite-c code to use to rotate around a model in space?

3. I notice that when I zoom out a large distance from the ships the image quality drops quite a bit.
Was wondering what is the best way to maintain graphics quality while zoomed out a great distance?
Thanks

2) in aum100 there is a tutorial called isometric tutorial. the only useful part of it is camera rotation, since it uses a hidden model to which the camera is aimed continuously. not ready to use so should be transformed for your case...

I am also creating a spacegame since 2007. And i am far away from a finished game. Creating 2d and 3d objects are easy. Creating sounds and music if you have talent is also possible. But the realy big problem is to script a great big spacegame that makes fun. I wish you good luck with your project. :-)

1.
Thats easy:
Attach at the places were you want light, an invisible (also passable), little model per "vec_for_vertex" or "vec_for_bone" (I dont know if you model has bones) and let that light (like, set(my,LIGHT); ...
Notice: "vec_for_vertex"/"vec_for_bone" should be in your case in a while loop.

2.
Try this one out; there could be some syntax errors because of typing (I almost broke my arm today -_- ):



3. T
ry to change video_results and clipping length.
Otherwise, I don`t know if you ship as an spezial fx (material).

I found an old video about my first try in creating the spaceships for my game :-) :
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D92GWw6-JSNQ%26feature%3Dplayer_embedded&feature=player_embedded&v=92GWw6-JSNQ&gl=US
And my old thread about my spacegame is *dead* :-)
http://www.opserver.de/ubb7/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=379062&page=1

How good are your scripting skills?
Maybe i could help you in some parts of your project

@ratchet
Yes I did mean uv mapping + texturing. Thanks for the correction. I don't mind being corrected as it helps form me into a better game developer.

@all
Thanks all for the quick replies.

It's thanks to the advise and help from the community my game will have a higher chance of success. I'll continue to post screen-shots as I make progress.



I believe that my scripting skills are very good even though I'm still learning. My musical skills are great and art/modeling skills seems to be getting good now that I've learned what I was doing.

The first ship I posted was built without knowing what I was doing which resulted in excessive use of polygons. Still was not too bad for my first ship. The last warship picture I posted, in the picture is only 6 polygons yet everything looks 3D ("nearly a whole day spent on the texture though").

@maslone1

If you feel as if you have the time then why not? I'm willing to give it a chance.

For others who might join in the future:
I plan to do at least 90% of all the programming using lite-c.
I'm putting in allot of extra effort to produce a commercial quality game.

Could use help with (if interested):

Very low polygon ship models (extra work will be done with textures to give a realistic look).

Star Stations.
Planets.
Asteroids.
etc.

I can pay a little in the beginning and will pay out even more once the game is finished.

...I always thought thats called (preparing) animating...
Strange choice to name it that way.
I would call it "boning"

Damocles is right.....
Setup the texture coordinates for a 3d model (map a skin onto a model) = UV-Stetup.
Setup the vertex-weight is normaly used for animation with bones.
If you are professional you also could use an uv-setup for bone-animation, and a vertex-weight setup to manipulate a texture.... but this is for shure not what you want to do

@kmega99
sorry, but with my offer in helping you -> i just mean to give you feedback and tips. I have a big project that take a lot of my "sparetime" and i also have my mainjob to do.

Building textures seems to be the most time consuming part for me.

I wounder what the best site for royalty free textures might be?

in my humble opinion and as far as i know, this site: CG Texture

Wow
I've been using cg textures from the very beginning and purchased the membership. Textures are edited too perfection in Photo Shop.

Building this game is allot of fun + hard work and I won't stop improving the graphics until it at least compares to other top quality space warfare games.

it could be really difficult to use your own photos for making textures in case of a space game, except you work at NASA (or its Chinese equivalent because I think they will travel more than USA in the near future)

Alien planet?
Working on planet creation skills.

I can't quite tell if this planet looks good enough to be in a space game or not.
I'm no astronomer expert & would like some advice on this planet please. I need to know if it looks good or not and if not then please recommend some changes (lighter, darker, etc).
Thanks.

a bit more discreet textures for the underwater surface would be better.. Actual, it looks like some paper folded surface ^^

I like the ships textures

Change the planet Water , it is too much bright and blue ?
Or perhaps it's some alien planet with special liquid ? perhaps change color to avoid people comparing it to heart ?

You should avoir point lights on the ships , it will be GPU intensive and A8 is not Unreal 3 or Cryteck engine !
What you can use is simple oriented sprite flares with culling perhaps.

Example :
http://www.unrealsp.org/images/gameguide/whatis/tournament.jpg

Thanks for the quick replies.
I agree that planets should not look like a paper folded surface.

Better?
I took away the spec bump material, adjusted water color in photo shop, and adjusted material color settings in MED.
Always open to more ideas.
Thanks.

hi

just google for planet images, like this:
http://fragile-stock.deviantart.com/art/Desert-Earth-Planet-2-0-70049878

what is very important to be much more realistic is adding atmosphere!

Thanks for all the advice. Everything helps allot. I will gracefully accept any criticism or compliments from all future screen shots because I'm building the game more for the people than myself. My goal is to add to the good space game tittles available on the market, not the bad ones.

I've been thinking about upgrading to A8 for a while now. At first I was afraid that my A7 lite-c code would have compatibility issues with A8.

I spent a whole year learning the very basics of A7 lite-c and do not want to spend more time learning all over again the basics of A8.

After reading about the upgrade, it's my understanding that if I was to program an A8 game (after upgrade purchase) using only A7 lite-c, I will not run into any compatibility problems. I would only have to handle engine physics programming differently.

If I'm wrong about this than please let me know.
Thanks.

A8 lite-C = A7 lite-C

hmm.. i think you need to overwork the whole texture..
It looks way to small sized ^^

Take a look on these 2 Earth Skins (Colormap and Bumpmap):
1: http://minecraftworld.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/earth_flat_map.jpg
2: http://www.3dstudio-max.com/textures/images/earth-bump.jpg

And additional cloudmap: http://naturalearth.springercarto.com/ne3_data/8192/clouds/europe_clouds_8k.jpg


Yes i know.. they are a way tooooo large. But i don´t want you to use them.. they show how to create the colormap of a planet surface. Mat colors for water and Ground textures for landmass. The depth comes from a second skin (the bumpmap).
That will look like that: http://www.imagesload.net/img/Earth.jpg


Your texture looks to bright with to intense colors. And the clouds look like a kid had fun with Photoshop brushes ^^"

There are some minor differences (e.g. decal shadow handling, some terrain related things) what could cause problems, but if you read carefully the update history, you can find the source of all malfunctions appearing after upgrading.
But maybe you are lucky and will not meet any problems... And A8 is really faster than A7!

06/01/2012 :
"I understand that some people may think it to be impossible for one guy to have enough skills to build a great game in just a few months, but that's just what I'm doing."

It will be 3 months soon : we are already 23/03/2012 !

And you'll have showed only some model ship and a planet ??
(perhaps you didn't know alreaday what means real game making!)

You should work lot more on your game, you was supposed to work very hard , all the time on it !
I really think now it was some big joke and lies.

I have failed in trying to build a game in just 3 months. I ran into problems and delays that I did not expect.
However
The development of this game will continue until finished. It will also take a little longer since I'm aiming for top quality graphics & game-play.

There is a good chance that I will unleash a new great rpg space war this year.
I'll be posting more shots as I make progress.

Alone without help you will need years for a good spacegame. Just start with scripting the basic code for the 3d flight and fighting.do the modeling and other artwork after scripting. I also still usng alpha_models. My gamecode is still not finished (after many years!!!) For shure it is possible, but not alone in that short time. You should create a timeline (deadline) for single parts of the developing process....

Starting with models (as single developer) is always the wrong approach.
At this stage its enough to put in some prop-models consisting of some cubes.
(For performance testing a huge number of cubes lumped together)

What you really need to develop at this stage is the game architecture.
First a prototype to test the tech and methods,
and then take the prototype apart and craft some cleaner implementation of it.

yes, you could get placeholder models to test and set game performance properly (even from existing games). gameplay is rather depends on proper code than on model quality.

Progress is not fast but still flowing. Development speed may gradually increase along with my graphical skills. No matter how long it takes it's still more fun then I thought it would be.

I've looked at other game development software and after comparing prices & features, it's my opinion that Game Studio is still the best deal.

I wish that I could show my mother some of my work but she lost her eye sight a few years ago and I will most likely lose mine also in the next 5 to 10 years . Regardless I'll be doing something that I've always wanted to do for as long as I can, building games. The power to bring your imagination to life within a virtual environment is the coolest thing ever.

I've looked at other game development software and after comparing prices & features, it's my opinion that Game Studio is still the best deal.


It's also my opinion, the script si so fast and easy to use.
It lacks on the interface, and outdated tools (lacking terrain editor , more easy to apply shaders etc ...)

I wish that I could show my mother some of my work but she lost her eye sight a few years ago and I will most likely lose mine also in the next 5 to 10 years
Perhaps it can exist some solution for your eyes ?
You should stop complaining, people die every day, some of us experience painfull things in the real life sometimes.
If you want to "speak" about your personnal problems you can do it in the Off Topic or Morbius threads, it's lot more appropriated

I have failed in trying to build a game in just 3 months. I ran into problems and delays that I did not expect.
Indeed :), some of us that already started some game projects knows how much it is time consumming, motivation drop lot of times, real life priorities etc ...
It's Hard Wrok, and sometimes, you need to take a break from your game project, to regain energy and motivation.
It's so easy also to play Mass Effect 3 for example, and let down some game propect for some time also
There are lot of examples of abandonned projects, or projects taking years due to non continuous work on them.
Specially a lonewolf wanting detailled models and textures, will put even more time than using simple Minecraft style or simple 2.5D Black and white game ithout textures (Limbo game) etc ...

Good luck !

Or, you know what, perhaps people who have it tough should really REALLY be allowed to vent once in a while.
Sorry, but your (ratchet's) reply seems wildly inappropiate, off-topicness be damned.

-
Anyway, if you, kmega99, feel like posting a Morbius-thread about it - if only to further vent and get some moral support, I think that may be something I'd post in - But, of course it goes without saying that this is entirely up to you.


~~~

Regarding the topic, unrealistic (and overly optimistic) original timeframe aside, I still think you've created some impressive stuff. Let's see some game logic and mechanics!

if I compare your screenshots of the planet, your last screenshot looks really nice!
Although I know, that shaders are for the end of a game-development-state for "buffing" I wanted to write down the things that came to my sense as I saw your screenshot:

If the camera can be very near to the planets in your game, maybe you could add a bump-mapping/normalmapping to see some unevenness? Your planet reminds me to a athmosphere-shader in the wiki, just in the case, you didn't noticed it, here the link , maybe its helpful

As Error014 mentioned, I am happy about your stuff, too, it looks nice so far and I am looking forward to see some game-mechanic in action!!

i agree it totaly needs admosphere when you get to it ,i thought when looking
at the clouds that you could possibly use more layers to add more depth
like a bunch of transparent spheres at diffrent sizes with clouds to build up layers but i dont know how this would give off when applying shaders
and also every planet with life needs a bit of sunshine (lighting) but
then again maby your not aiming for that look

p.s dont ever let life get you down ,for all we know we live it once
so why worry/rush it through,its ment to be taken in like a ladys kiss.

how do you get along?
i may have fond something that can speed up your progress.
http://www.terminal26.de/produkte/cd-47_...ture%202_3.html