Hi everyone,
I have never again worked with games, and I am not used to play games, but I have to build one for my phd word. I am graduated from a c.s. Department but my experience is on databases, unix, c and vb.
I need to create a first person RTS game.
Game story: you are the captain of a sea ship and the screen is splited in four areas:
At the bottom-centre of the screen you handle the bridge equipments (radar, steering wheel, machine control, compass, satellites (GPS) coordination of your ship etc) (interrior scene)
At the bottom - right you have a mini map (GIS map) and when you click to a point you get the satellite co ordinations of that point. You can also see your spot along with the spots of other ships on that map.
At the bottom left there is radio equipment where you communicate with other people getting orders and making contracts.
At the upper - centre part you can sea the horizon (mountains, other ships, towns, lighthouses) and the sea in front of you.
At the upper left of the screen you have the ship status, weather conditions and you handle the crew of your ship ordering it with pre determined orders that appears in a drop down menu.
At the upper left there is your score and your rank.
There are no battles, it is a trader game.
Questions:
Can I make it with RF?
What other tools shall I need, except RF, and what for?
Is RF suitable for outdoor scenes?
Is there a demo showing the use of maps and how you can handle them?
Is it possible to have a real sea map of an area as a mini map.
What about the A.I. of the opponent ships?
Is there a tutorial about spliting the main screen in four parts?
Is there a demo like the one described where I can start from??
Any help acceptable.
Thanks in advance for your help.
need help
To my knwledge RF has no split screen capabilities. So you cannot split the screen into 4 different camera's. Although my opinion is it would be better to have views switched vie keys to change from station to station in the ship.
Also RF has no in game type of GUI where you can simply move a cursor and click to use things.
Also water effects in RF are ok for a FPS style game but not for a ship sailing game. As the ocean has waves, and it seems 90% of the time in your game all you would be doing is staring at the ocean so it should be a sweet looking ocean.
As far as tools for making any game you will need a 3D Modelling package. These vary from free to thousands of dollars.
You will need a photo editing texturing program which I would say use the Gimp which is free or get Photoshop.
Also depending on which modelling software you use you may also need animation software, and UVW Unwrapping software.
Also what kind of time frame are you looking at completing this game?
Because if you said 1 year to complete I would say no way with any engine.
It would take a year just to get somewhat comfortable with texturing, modelling, UVW Unwrapping, Animating, Scripting, and learning whatever engine you choose to use.
But seeing as how your game idea does not fall under any normal category of game such as a FPS, 3rd person action game, RTS, etc. Your going to need a engine to program most of everything from scratch. Which means learning a engine, and game coding at the same time.
I wish I could recommend an engine but as a non-programmer my experience is mainly with engines like RF.
Also seems a game like this would be better suited to a 2D map style game interface where you ran a trading company. Like a "High Sea's Trader" game where you build up your fleet etc.
Your idea sounds more like a ship simulator. Is this just your idea for a game or are the requirements mandated for your PHD?
I hope I don't sound negative. Just trying to give the best advice I possibly can give.
Also RF has no in game type of GUI where you can simply move a cursor and click to use things.
Also water effects in RF are ok for a FPS style game but not for a ship sailing game. As the ocean has waves, and it seems 90% of the time in your game all you would be doing is staring at the ocean so it should be a sweet looking ocean.
As far as tools for making any game you will need a 3D Modelling package. These vary from free to thousands of dollars.
You will need a photo editing texturing program which I would say use the Gimp which is free or get Photoshop.
Also depending on which modelling software you use you may also need animation software, and UVW Unwrapping software.
Also what kind of time frame are you looking at completing this game?
Because if you said 1 year to complete I would say no way with any engine.
It would take a year just to get somewhat comfortable with texturing, modelling, UVW Unwrapping, Animating, Scripting, and learning whatever engine you choose to use.
But seeing as how your game idea does not fall under any normal category of game such as a FPS, 3rd person action game, RTS, etc. Your going to need a engine to program most of everything from scratch. Which means learning a engine, and game coding at the same time.
I wish I could recommend an engine but as a non-programmer my experience is mainly with engines like RF.
Also seems a game like this would be better suited to a 2D map style game interface where you ran a trading company. Like a "High Sea's Trader" game where you build up your fleet etc.
Your idea sounds more like a ship simulator. Is this just your idea for a game or are the requirements mandated for your PHD?
I hope I don't sound negative. Just trying to give the best advice I possibly can give.
Fear not the textures for the almighty stylus is with thee - Book of Zen
Things are getting hard
The game I have described is in a full version mode.
I just want to build a working demo of it.
The spliting of the screen is a mandatory thing.
I don't want the player be tired wathing the waves all the time.
Do you really think that 2D is suitable for sailng among land masses???
Anyway, I get your point, I would appreciate if anyone could suggest me a suitable game engine.
thanks
I just want to build a working demo of it.
The spliting of the screen is a mandatory thing.
I don't want the player be tired wathing the waves all the time.
Do you really think that 2D is suitable for sailng among land masses???
Anyway, I get your point, I would appreciate if anyone could suggest me a suitable game engine.
thanks
I was speaking in 2D as more of a RTS game where you direct your cargo ships etc. Sort of like a map view or a trading board game sort of thing. Just an idea.
Try checking out Gamedev.net they have a list of engines there from free to expensive. Each has their own sites you can check out and decide whats best for you.
Try checking out Gamedev.net they have a list of engines there from free to expensive. Each has their own sites you can check out and decide whats best for you.
Fear not the textures for the almighty stylus is with thee - Book of Zen
-
Guest
Things are getting hard
The game I have described is in a full version mode.
I just want to build a working demo of it.
The spliting of the screen is a mandatory thing.
I don't want the player be tired wathing the waves all the time.
Do you really think that 2D is suitable for sailng among land masses???
Anyway, I get your point, I would appreciate if anyone could suggest me a suitable game engine.
thanks
I just want to build a working demo of it.
The spliting of the screen is a mandatory thing.
I don't want the player be tired wathing the waves all the time.
Do you really think that 2D is suitable for sailng among land masses???
Anyway, I get your point, I would appreciate if anyone could suggest me a suitable game engine.
thanks
3dgamestudio would also be great for this... i know extremely little about 3drad, but 3dgs has shaders, which would help immensely with the water, and things such as easy-to-use "item click detection", as you described. however, i cannot reccomend one over the other since i do not know what 3drad is capable of. just another alternative.
you could technically do this with rf, having the other parts of the ship bitmaps captured of 3d models of those areas of the ship, but you would have to resort to using arrow buttons to go between items instead of clicking, etc. and it would almost not be worth it.
you could technically do this with rf, having the other parts of the ship bitmaps captured of 3d models of those areas of the ship, but you would have to resort to using arrow buttons to go between items instead of clicking, etc. and it would almost not be worth it.
actually, the splitting of the screen as well as the cursur controls could theoretically be accomplished with Nout's new scripting commands available in the physics test build.
Water effects can either be crappy or decent, depending on the time you put into them. Theoreticaly, by using an animated water mesh, combined with spheremapping, one could create seemingly realistic waves, but collision detection would be a major issue, unless you could find a way to use the new physics system for bouyancy (i think this feature is actually working).
Water effects can either be crappy or decent, depending on the time you put into them. Theoreticaly, by using an animated water mesh, combined with spheremapping, one could create seemingly realistic waves, but collision detection would be a major issue, unless you could find a way to use the new physics system for bouyancy (i think this feature is actually working).
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now im noe expert with reality factory i just use it for build geomitry and compiling games but i do think it would be possible.
if there is a ranking system, does that mean you want to be able to play it online?
At the bottom-centre of the screen you handle the bridge equipments (radar, steering wheel, machine control, compass, satellites (GPS) coordination of your ship etc) (interrior scene)
couldnt this be done with keybored commands like you do with weapons, and design a hud that would aniamte, like you can do to tel you how much ammo you have got, and we already have a radar i think, isnt that the green arrow in the top middle of the screen? and the machine controls would be your weapons but instead of firing your gun it controld somthing else.
At the bottom - right you have a mini map (GIS map) and when you click to a point you get the satellite co ordinations of that point. You can also see your spot along with the spots of other ships on that map.
isnt this the same as radar? just using colours? in wich case, just make another radar with a diferent texture on the hud?
and then for land, with a little bit of programing or changing of the atributes that you cant make it show up like an enimy would.
At the bottom left there is radio equipment where you communicate with other people getting orders and making contracts.
now i dont know exactly to do this part but i read up on how to make yourself comunicate with AI, so i think you could do this by using that tool what ever it was called.
At the upper - centre part you can sea the horizon (mountains, other ships, towns, lighthouses) and the sea in front of you.
this would be your geomitry, creating the actual game.
At the upper left of the screen you have the ship status, weather conditions and you handle the crew of your ship ordering it with pre determined orders that appears in a drop down menu
im not to sure how to do this part, but im sure it would be possible.
At the upper left there is your score and your rank.
wel depending if its online, just use it like a hit count, but when u get to a certain stage you go up a level.
adn to trade items could be done by ammo count, so when you do somthing your amunition goes up (ur stock goes up) and you can drop it like you would firing a weapon, and recive money or somthing, but whats the idea of erning money or going up rank? to get a different more advanced ship? as this is the only thing i could see that would keep people interestead in playing the game, trading isnt exiting if there is no point in trading.
wel i hope that gave you a few ideas, if i am wrong about anything i have put im sorry, i havnt used those functions in RF yet so i dont know what it is capable of, what dou you guys think, would it work?
if there is a ranking system, does that mean you want to be able to play it online?
At the bottom-centre of the screen you handle the bridge equipments (radar, steering wheel, machine control, compass, satellites (GPS) coordination of your ship etc) (interrior scene)
couldnt this be done with keybored commands like you do with weapons, and design a hud that would aniamte, like you can do to tel you how much ammo you have got, and we already have a radar i think, isnt that the green arrow in the top middle of the screen? and the machine controls would be your weapons but instead of firing your gun it controld somthing else.
At the bottom - right you have a mini map (GIS map) and when you click to a point you get the satellite co ordinations of that point. You can also see your spot along with the spots of other ships on that map.
isnt this the same as radar? just using colours? in wich case, just make another radar with a diferent texture on the hud?
and then for land, with a little bit of programing or changing of the atributes that you cant make it show up like an enimy would.
At the bottom left there is radio equipment where you communicate with other people getting orders and making contracts.
now i dont know exactly to do this part but i read up on how to make yourself comunicate with AI, so i think you could do this by using that tool what ever it was called.
At the upper - centre part you can sea the horizon (mountains, other ships, towns, lighthouses) and the sea in front of you.
this would be your geomitry, creating the actual game.
At the upper left of the screen you have the ship status, weather conditions and you handle the crew of your ship ordering it with pre determined orders that appears in a drop down menu
im not to sure how to do this part, but im sure it would be possible.
At the upper left there is your score and your rank.
wel depending if its online, just use it like a hit count, but when u get to a certain stage you go up a level.
adn to trade items could be done by ammo count, so when you do somthing your amunition goes up (ur stock goes up) and you can drop it like you would firing a weapon, and recive money or somthing, but whats the idea of erning money or going up rank? to get a different more advanced ship? as this is the only thing i could see that would keep people interestead in playing the game, trading isnt exiting if there is no point in trading.
wel i hope that gave you a few ideas, if i am wrong about anything i have put im sorry, i havnt used those functions in RF yet so i dont know what it is capable of, what dou you guys think, would it work?
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