Pictures for the up and comming BspViewer ver 0.3

[Produkt]

Magicly spiffy

Maybe this fella can show us his portfolio or give us a demo I'd like to see something

[bobcobb]

This looks awesome. When you finish the engine, I will be ready to model up some guys to shoot at.

[MaxSMoke]

If you have Unreal Tournament 2004, you can download the latest Unreal4Ever from this website:

http://u4e.beyondunreal.com

All my work on UT2k4 is high-polygon, from 800 to 3000. That's much too high for a project like this though. This kind of project would definitely call for low-polygon stuff. Here's a sample video of my work on the old UT99 mod, our original Unreal project from about 5 years ago. These sort of models would work well within the PSP's system restraints, using 250 too 400 polygons each. They are a bit dated though, I was pretty new to video game modeling when I did them. I'd make all new models for this project.

http://www.dangerous-minds.net/Pics/album45/aaz.mpeg

In both cases, all models, artwork, and animations were done by me. The code was done by several other programmers, at least one of which I would hope to enlist into this endeavor.

And here's a shot of my very recent work in Low-Polygon models for the online game "There.com". All of these models were under 200 polygons, very well suited for this project. I've made over 500 such models for There over the 2 years I've been a member, and I have developed quite a following in that game. It's thanks to these models I was able to afford my two PSP's.

http://u4e.beyondunreal.com/pub/NewS...Screenys01.JPG
(Ignore the guy in the Blue jacket, that's my avatar in the game!)

[MaxSMoke]

Just a thought, but what if the developers like myself could make individual "Monster" and "Weapon" packages that the game can load up via a Menu, completely separate from the map itself?

This package could be a sub-directory containing the models, textures, and some simple Text script file that defines how the monster and/or weapon acts. After dropping the sub-directory with files into the game directory, the game would automatically list all of the weapon, map, and monster packages available. So you just pick the map, the weapons you want to spawn on the map, and the monsters/bots you want to fight against. (The only difference between a Bot and a Monster is that the Bots can also pickup weapons, where as monsters would automatically spawn with a weapon they never drop)

It would be like Super Smash Bro's for Deathmatch!

By allowing the players to mix and match Monsters and Weapons, players can setup the difficulty of their games. Also 3rd party item makers, like myself, can add new elements that people can download and install at any time. To save on memory card space, we could also delete the weapons, monsters, and maps we don't want without effecting the game itself, since those elements are separate from the maps that use them.

Of course, I guess map makers would need a little more. They would not only need to have the Map itself and all of the textures, but they would also need to have their own coded items, like exploding barrels, moving doors, traps, and ect. Maybe maps could have their own speical sub-directories where the Map's components are held?

But for the most part, the map maker would just define the Generic Spawn location of the players, the weapons, and monsters. (Powerups would be just like weapons, only they automatically effect the player instead of needing to be selected)

By keeping the maps, weapons, and monsters all separate, the possibilities for Deathmatch's are unlimited!

Anyways, it's just a suggestion. As you can tell, I'm VERY excited over the possibilities this opens up! And if done right, you wouldn't have to worry about supporting 3rd party developers at all. We could just make stuff for your game without having to bother you at all, allowing you to focus on making the engine better without distractions. And the end players can setup their "Dream" Deathmatch!

[Produkt]

This would be best handled the way valve does with their games...

Do these alterations as mods which since we dont have dll's I suppose bin files could substitute?

Each mod has its own folder and similar folders to the root game. the mods have access to all of the root game's resources any item not found in the mod folder, will be searched for in the root game folder.

Mappers and Modelers will want to cut EVERY corner the possibly can. to conserve every form of ram...

if polygons can be made up with textures AWSOME! do it.. if yo dont see a polygon in any animation or steady pose ITS NOT WORTH HAVING! If a brush is detail but isnt realy obvious detail REMOVE IT and dont forget he nodraw/cauk function is your friend

All of the resources needed to play a level should not take up more than 2/3rds of the ram amount... if they do go back and optomized less than 16mb is what you should aim for to keep speeds at their best

And remember if nothing elce at all... Have fun with it

[PSmonkey]

If you have Unreal Tournament 2004, you can download the latest Unreal4Ever from this website:

http://u4e.beyondunreal.com

All my work on UT2k4 is high-polygon, from 800 to 3000. That's much too high for a project like this though. This kind of project would definitely call for low-polygon stuff. Here's a sample video of my work on the old UT99 mod, our original Unreal project from about 5 years ago. These sort of models would work well within the PSP's system restraints, using 250 too 400 polygons each. They are a bit dated though, I was pretty new to video game modeling when I did them. I'd make all new models for this project.

http://www.dangerous-minds.net/Pics/album45/aaz.mpeg

In both cases, all models, artwork, and animations were done by me. The code was done by several other programmers, at least one of which I would hope to enlist into this endeavor.

And here's a shot of my very recent work in Low-Polygon models for the online game "There.com". All of these models were under 200 polygons, very well suited for this project. I've made over 500 such models for There over the 2 years I've been a member, and I have developed quite a following in that game. It's thanks to these models I was able to afford my two PSP's.

http://u4e.beyondunreal.com/pub/NewS...Screenys01.JPG
(Ignore the guy in the Blue jacket, that's my avatar in the game!)

Very very nice stuff. I do actualy have ut2k4 but dont have the 5GB atm to reinstall it. :P

As for the engine I am not sure where characters will go.

I have a question for you. Which would you prefer.

A) Decent polygon characters with only single texture & no shaders.
B) Low poly (around 300) with shaders (multi texturing, effects, etc, pretty much q3 models).

[PSmonkey]

Just a thought, but what if the developers like myself could make individual "Monster" and "Weapon" packages that the game can load up via a Menu, completely separate from the map itself?

This package could be a sub-directory containing the models, textures, and some simple Text script file that defines how the monster and/or weapon acts. After dropping the sub-directory with files into the game directory, the game would automatically list all of the weapon, map, and monster packages available. So you just pick the map, the weapons you want to spawn on the map, and the monsters/bots you want to fight against. (The only difference between a Bot and a Monster is that the Bots can also pickup weapons, where as monsters would automatically spawn with a weapon they never drop)

It would be like Super Smash Bro's for Deathmatch!

By allowing the players to mix and match Monsters and Weapons, players can setup the difficulty of their games. Also 3rd party item makers, like myself, can add new elements that people can download and install at any time. To save on memory card space, we could also delete the weapons, monsters, and maps we don't want without effecting the game itself, since those elements are separate from the maps that use them.

Of course, I guess map makers would need a little more. They would not only need to have the Map itself and all of the textures, but they would also need to have their own coded items, like exploding barrels, moving doors, traps, and ect. Maybe maps could have their own speical sub-directories where the Map's components are held?

But for the most part, the map maker would just define the Generic Spawn location of the players, the weapons, and monsters. (Powerups would be just like weapons, only they automatically effect the player instead of needing to be selected)

By keeping the maps, weapons, and monsters all separate, the possibilities for Deathmatch's are unlimited!

Anyways, it's just a suggestion. As you can tell, I'm VERY excited over the possibilities this opens up! And if done right, you wouldn't have to worry about supporting 3rd party developers at all. We could just make stuff for your game without having to bother you at all, allowing you to focus on making the engine better without distractions. And the end players can setup their "Dream" Deathmatch!

I can understand your excitement but you're gettting way to far ahead of me. :P

Bots are definantly way off in the distance. As for object & monster/bot spawn points. This is all handled in the q3 bsp file format. I already can parse out objects, locations & etc but I dont suport them yet (atm just only pull out map names & first spawn location). Eventualy this all will be suported.

Regarding things like exploding barrles. They are all still handled the same way things like health and etc are loaded. Their location and type are specified by the map. Exploding stuff like barrles wont be in for a while.

Over all mods are heavly based on how quake 3 handles things. Mods will be more then posible, swapable models, later builds will have a proper map loader (so you can select what maps you want, spawn items in the map like characters and etc, load up a script list (ie, something that setups everything automaticaly like which map, what characters to spawn, how things will run, etc). Just this is not comming imediately. It will be a while.

[PSmonkey]

This would be best handled the way valve does with their games...

Do these alterations as mods which since we dont have dll's I suppose bin files could substitute?

Each mod has its own folder and similar folders to the root game. the mods have access to all of the root game's resources any item not found in the mod folder, will be searched for in the root game folder.

Mappers and Modelers will want to cut EVERY corner the possibly can. to conserve every form of ram...

if polygons can be made up with textures AWSOME! do it.. if yo dont see a polygon in any animation or steady pose ITS NOT WORTH HAVING! If a brush is detail but isnt realy obvious detail REMOVE IT and dont forget he nodraw/cauk function is your friend

All of the resources needed to play a level should not take up more than 2/3rds of the ram amount... if they do go back and optomized less than 16mb is what you should aim for to keep speeds at their best

And remember if nothing elce at all... Have fun with it

There are 2 major things to keep in consideration for this engine.

1) Textures need to be TGA atm (24 bit).
2) Textures must use less then 256 uniq colors (this helps on vram space)
3) Map size is not an issue but try to not have huge open areas with heavly amounts of polygons. If you do, target using vertex colors and not lightmaps so a solid framerate can be achived (lightmaps are costly since every surface is rendered twice).

[PSmonkey]

Hey also small update for all.
I was told in the past that Return to Castle Wolfenstine maps dont work. I gave it a go today (had to modify an error check) and they do work now. Yet there are a few issues

1) They are too freaking large. Ranging from 8MB to 16MB, so it's best nobody maps out like that.
2) Heavy use of bezier surfaces for the ground (great concept but atm, beziers not working correctly).
3) Heavy use of geometry is maybe a bit too much for the psp to handle.

[MaxSMoke]

Very very nice stuff. I do actualy have ut2k4 but dont have the 5GB atm to reinstall it. :P

As for the engine I am not sure where characters will go.

I have a question for you. Which would you prefer.

A) Decent polygon characters with only single texture & no shaders.
B) Low poly (around 300) with shaders (multi texturing, effects, etc, pretty much q3 models).

How many more Polygons would I get to use without Shaders? 400? 600? 900? It get's harder to make real-world models when less polygons are involved, but for Alien Monsters and Sci-FI stuff, low-polygon limits are easy to deal with.

So, for a Tactical or WW2 shooter, more polygons would help ALOT. But for Unreal or Quake, Low Polygons isn't much of a problem if it allows for cool special effects, glowing characters, shiny chrome, and ect.

Hehe, of course the best of both worlds would be the option to turn off Shaders in improve framerate. Then the models could have the Shader data there, but only use it if the Mod maker feel's it helps the end project.