Reality Factory

Anyone interested in forming a team for the GameDev.Net 4 Elements 6 contest? We can't use RF, but it would be fun to make a game using OpenGL, DX or XNA. Who knows...a more modern codebase may come out of this. The elements will be announced tomorrow at 11AM EDT.

I'm in

paradoxnj wrote:Anyone interested in forming a team for the GameDev.Net 4 Elements 6 contest? We can't use RF, but it would be fun to make a game using OpenGL, DX or XNA. Who knows...a more modern codebase may come out of this. The elements will be announced tomorrow at 11AM EDT.

Sounds fun! Why can't you use RF?

Entrants are both allowed and encouraged to use 3rd party libraries, engines, and middleware to develop their entry, provided that whatever they use permits unrestricted distribution of the resulting entry executable per the Legal requirements of this contest.

Oh...it's not about RF being a 3rd party library or being "good enough". It's about the technology and quality of rendering. XNA produces some good quality rendering with little effort. Check out this screenshot from someone's engine they are using for this contest. It's a new ballgame this year...XNA wasn't around for last year's contest. I'm not saying we should use XNA. I personally don't like C#. I'm saying if we used RF, we'd be relying totally on gameplay and replayability while sacrificing looks and technology. Looks and presentation count for almost 1/3 of the points. I prolly shouldn't have said we "can't" use RF...we could, but we would lose points for the technology being old.

We could probably leverage the toolset. Writing a loader for the BSP files shouldn't be that hard. Using the actors by extracting the BDY and MOT files is possible also. I'm not sure if that violates the Genesis 3D license though.

I'd love to be a part of the team. Though I don't know if I actually can do anything. I'm not an expert at anything, really.

I'd love to enter too, but as Juutis I'm not an expert in anything

You don't need to be an expert. Everyone can do something. This is the perfect opportunity to learn. I figure to get this going, we need at least 5 core members.

2 Programmers - Responsible for all game shell programming and scripting
2 modellers - All 3D work (levels, actors, static meshes, etc...)
1 2D artist - Responsible for GUI, HUD, Textures, Decals, etc...

I think everyone should contribute though. For modelling and 2D, we can make a list of what is needed, post it in this forum somewhere and people can just claim something. Same for music and sound also.

I figure AndyCR and I can program if he's interested. If QuestofDreams, Jay or Federico want to join up, that would round out the programming team perfectly. I can also do sound and music as that is not needed until later. I'm not sure what everyone else's talents are yet.

There is also the issue of design. We need to keep this within reason. I figure a simple adventure game with a few puzzles and boss battles would be sufficient. Maybe we can leverage the RF2 codebase and kill 2 birds with one stone? We get that moving along faster while designing a game using it (not that you are moving slow Andy, just that you could use more help). The game would also be perfect to show off RF2's feature set also.

For the prize splits...so far there is only 5 memberships to GDNet+. I am already a GDNet+ member so I don't need that. To tell you the truth, unless the prize is a sound application, I pretty much don't care for them. I just want the experience. More prizes will come as the contest goes along. The entry must be in by April 08. That is 8 months away. Plenty of time to test our wits.

As this is your baby, I think it is up to you to tell us what type of game ( horror, si-fi, 2D actors in a 3D world, 3D actors in a 2D world, cartoon, war, ect ).

The same for a story-line and picture-boards of what you want the world and models to look and feel like.

This I know is a lot of work for you, but your our leader.

So start working mate

i would love to help, but i cant be relied upon, i have my own project and work wich takes up 99% of my time (the other 1% seems to be sleeping and eating, lol) well i probably have the ocasional spare moment but i cant promise anything, this is why i do belive the idea of posting what you need and claiming it for your own would be the best, well it would for me, but as before many have tried this so this possibly could fall through, but as ardentcrest has said this is your idea and so i think would be best if you came up with the story.
about the prize if its money that we should invest it in either RF or RF2, possibly get a profecional programer who will be paid to make things a bit more shinier for the engin, or some other way to invest it into either of the engines, after all this is a community effort and we are all here for RF so i cant see anyone complaining about that. if its anything other than money, and is worth more than a few bob then possibly sell it and get the money and invest it in the community that way.
possibly even pay the bill for the hosting server for the forums for years to come?
thats if we win anything at all

Good idea Scott that is if rf wins of course.
I will help where I can but I do have a serious problem with the net IE 28k max dialup for upload. Download is no problem but it's this one way sat system of mine and I can't get anything better. Snailmail a CD to ardencrest and him upload for me is the only answer as long as he is still prepared to do it that is. Anyway I will do what I can. I'm not much good at anything mind.

to let you know that i will only be able to help in modeling and texturing, possibly animation too, but i would belive you would have to get a move on with the story in my opinion, becuase this is a community project that it should be rated PG or 3+, this in mind would mean that not too much gore and blood, however i fo belive a 12+ rated game would be alright, just thinking of the yungsters that might come to the site.

paradoxnj wrote:I figure AndyCR and I can program if he's interested. (...) Maybe we can leverage the RF2 codebase and kill 2 birds with one stone? We get that moving along faster while designing a game using it (not that you are moving slow Andy, just that you could use more help).

Sounds good to me, I'd love to work with you on it! Yes, certainly. Making the game in Python would be quite a bit quicker than C++, and the tools the Script Editor provides should be a big help (including doing most of the tabbing ugliness you (if I remember correctly) dislike for you, and pointing out tabbing errors with red underlines). Right now we're in the middle of putting the Python-Ogre bindings into the RF2 shell; we won't need to provide a wrapper for all of Ogre - it would simply provide one for us, meaning all features of the engine would be accessible to us in a matter of weeks.

No, I am moving much slower than I should be. This would help speed development up considerably.

Would you need a level editor, or is the game idea simple enough that the scenes can be hard coded? I've barely begun work on the level editor. I can probably have a usable version of it up and running in time, or if it won't be ready in time we could use one of the RF level editors or the Jet3D editor and write an importer for its level format into RF2, writing an entity file generator which makes all entities declared in Python placeable in the level editor, etc.

bernie wrote:Snailmail a CD to ardencrest and him upload for me is the only answer as long as he is still prepared to do it that is.

My letterbox is always open for you.



Sorry did that sound dirty to you.

ardentcrest wrote:As this is your baby, I think it is up to you to tell us what type of game ( horror, si-fi, 2D actors in a 3D world, 3D actors in a 2D world, cartoon, war, ect ).

This is not MY baby. It should be OUR baby. A community project. We should all agree upon what genre it should be.

AndyCR wrote: Would you need a level editor, or is the game idea simple enough that the scenes can be hard coded? I've barely begun work on the level editor. I can probably have a usable version of it up and running in time, or if it won't be ready in time we could use one of the RF level editors or the Jet3D editor and write an importer for its level format into RF2, writing an entity file generator which makes all entities declared in Python placeable in the level editor, etc.

As of right now, there is no idea. We have to formulate one. We have to include at least 3 of the 4 elements. My thought is that we can make a simple RPG with Ponies, Crystals and Explosions.

There are a couple of Scene Editors for Ogre we can leverage for this. The Jet3D level editor is so tied into Jet3D, it's not worth the aggravation of exporting to another format. RFEditPro is old and we'd have to write an exporter for it.

There is all of these that we can leverage along with these model exporters. Let's not forget about GtkRadiant also. There are plenty of tools to leverage for Ogre. We don't need to reinvent the wheel.

Is the RF2 code available to the public? If so, how do we get it? Do you have a plan as to what is needed next? I'd like to get a start on helping. If you want to chat, I use AIM. My SN is linuxparadox. If you see me offline, message me anyways. I have to add you to my friends list for you to see my status.

Thanx Derek. No it doesn't sound dirty it must be your mind