Hello, making a game

Sph!nx · Post by **Sph!nx** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 7:58 pm

Hello everybody,

I kinda registered on behalf of a small developers team. We have always focused on creating maps, models and other content for the populair Half-Life mod called SvenCo-op. (im a moderator on those forums as well)

Now I have stumbled on RF and after some research I have found out that the step from making a mod to a stand-alone game with RF is not too big. I have already found quite some tutorials and other documentation which I defenitly going to read.

This is going to be a great challange for us since we barely have any coding experience and are only used to the Half-life engine. Now here's my question. What tips, documentation, site's or other forums can you suggest? And what are the major differences between creating content for Half-life and Reality Factory?

Thank you

Juutis · Post by **Juutis** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 8:08 pm

Wow, you are a developer of SvenCo-Op? Cool!
That mod is like the best LAN-game.

Making games with RF is pretty much like making a mod. I don't have any experience of modding, but since RF is like a game and you make it your game by modifying it, I think that makes it modding of some sort. It's all about making your own levels and models and customizing the gameplay without compiling the source.

There are probably plenty of differences between RF and HL mods, but I think you'll get along just fine.

I can recommend one document for you: Making 3D Games With RF -ebook. It's a must-have.
You can download it from
http://www.realityfactory.info/cms/inde ... umentation

Welcome to the forums!

Anonymu$ · Post by **Anonymu$** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 8:43 pm

Rf is based on genesis3d and that was wrote in 1998... i dont think it could handle Hl modz

But its always worth a try ...

But irrlicht would!!!

its engine that will be used on rf2

the discussions could be found at
this place

irrlicht.sourceforge.net ( i guess ) search for it in sourceforge.net if it wont work

Sph!nx · Post by **Sph!nx** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 9:44 pm

Thanks for your quick replies!
Just to set thing right; I'm part of the comunity moderators team. The mod is actually being coded by one person in particular and that's Sniper. All content is being made by a fairly large Beta crew of which our own little development team is part of. So in a way I am involved, yeah

Well our team is already diving into Reality Factory and I'll take a look at irrlicht. I really liked what I've seen so far. Are there any games made by RF you can recommend?

Hezus · Post by **Hezus** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 9:52 pm

I'm part of Sphinx' developement theme, we know eachother from SvenCo-op for years. I'm an administrator on the SvenCo-op Forums, and I handle everything mapping related and managing the Betatest Team for version 3.5.

I've been mapping for Half-life for more than 7 years now and most of it for SvenCoop. Most of my work can be found on my site, tho I havn't updated it for ages

http://www.goannasvencoop.com/Hezus

This shot is from one of my best creations so far : Last Stand

psYco · Post by **psYco** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 10:40 pm

Well that looks really good! Oh and welcome to RF

Some demo's and games that can be found made in RF include House of Shadows (a great demo showing off RF's various strengths) Juutis's game Nirhis, you can download it from http://koti.mbnet.fi/jutkula/NirhisInstall.exe also the full game I made "School of the Dead", (its rubbish but hey Its in RF) that can be downloaded for free at the site here http://www.sotd.co.nr there are also loads of others that I have probably left out, you can find some at the downloads - resources & demo's section on the RF home page.[/url]

LtForce · Post by **LtForce** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 5:47 am

[quote="Juutis"
There are probably plenty of differences between RF and HL mods, but I think you'll get along just fine.

[/quote]

Actually, if they're using Hammer edit(from Source SDK) it's just like RF. Even editing screens are them same, and you have to add pawn just as in RF and there are alot of same things as in RF. BTW, you can download source SDK for free

Juutis · Post by **Juutis** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 9:02 am

Yeah, the level editors are very similar. Actually, Valve Hammer Editor could be used to make RF levels. I don't think that's legal with the newest versions, though.

Neat looking screenshot, Hezus!
RF's graphics engine (Genesis3D) isn't new or fast or anything, but creating graphics like those in HL1 should be possible.
RF might get a big choppy when rendering for example the place in the screenshot, but after cutting down some polygons, it would probably be playable.

Sph!nx · Post by **Sph!nx** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 11:17 am

Well yeah the source SDK is free, but also requires a fair bit of coding experience. I have been focusing on the half-life engine limitations and I have been developing and testing all kinds of techniques to keep system stress to a minimum. (detail aplication, model\brushwork combinations etc.) I do believe alot of these techniques are also posible in the RF engine.

If I understand RF2 is still in development and I have found no other platform that makes the step from modding to a stand-alone game this small. We are defenitly going to give this a try and perhaps RF2 will be our next step in the future.

scott · Post by **scott** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 12:07 pm

the step from moding a game to making one with RF is very small, i just made a profile on a site called gameflood, part of turbo squid company that is trying to get all the moding comunity from different games together to share their work, for this reason and rf being the way it is i thought it wouldnt be hard to get moders to join and make a full game. while RF is limited and getting a little old now, if you use the right triks you can still get decent quality out of it.

Sph!nx · Post by **Sph!nx** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 1:31 pm

Sorry to be such a nuecence, but I have searched but could harldy find any games made by RF. If anyone can recommend some games that are a good example of what RF can handle, please share them with us. We are curently trying to find the engine limitations. Also we encountered a little problem to which we also cannot find the sollution (a certain .exe)

Juutis · Post by **Juutis** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 3:52 pm

There aren't many actual games made with RF. The only one I know is psYco's School of the Dead. There'a link in his previous post.

But there are a lot of demo games. Short levels showing RF's features.
You can find most of them here:
http://hosted.filefront.com/realityfactory/

scott · Post by **scott** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 2:20 pm

yea even tho the engine has been going for some time not many serious game designers have found us and actualy made a game with it as yet, while i say that there are a few demos as people have mentiond that show the capability of RF, my suggestion is to import bsp geometry and play around with a few things if you need any hints or you come up with a problem we are more than happy to help.

about the missing .exe im not usre on the solution, my advice is to install RFeditpro dirctly to your C: to avoid complications, when installed there run the rfeditpro and make a new level, when you want to preview your level i dont think the preivew works for some reason (i hardly rmember it but do remember having a problem some time ago, mabe theres a solution as i posted it on the forums) i would suggest to compile and pre-view your level, its in the build menu at the top, make sure pre-view level is ticked and your sorted.

Sph!nx · Post by **Sph!nx** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 3:47 pm

Thanks, I do not seem to have the problem, only Hezus does and I also have suggested him to reinstall the package.

Here's another thing I'm trying to figure out. In Half-life mapping there is a texture called "NULL" (or "Nodraw" in hl2) and that textures is used on faces of a brush that are not visible en not need to be rendered. During the compile process all faces will be removed so to say. I was wondering if there is a similair feature in RF since that would greatly boost the speed of the game.

This is looking more and more like a help thread ... Next questions will be posted in the correct board.

Post by **AndyCR** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 4:31 pm

Welcome to the forums!

Very exciting to people from Sven Co-op. I used to play that constantly about 3-4 years ago.

I did extensive mapping for the Half-Life engine, and RF is VERY similar. The transition isn't too difficult. RF offers the advantage of unique behavior without code or script, and really unique behavior with simple scripting.

I answered your post; hope it helped.

Sorry, I don't know about the brush bit - I never has to mark faces not to render, as visibility takes care of most of it and I never had to optimize a level.