Reality Factory

Juutis wrote:Hey MoG! Man, it's great to have you back. I'm glad you haven't given up on your project. TBH, I never thought you were the quitter type. Seems I was right.

I like the whole concept of only giving the ground for the player to build his own action upon. It's definitely different than the traditional FPS. And different is usually good. I also love the idea of a world full of low-poly stuff. I'd rather have ten 1,000 poly characters than one 10,000 poly character on the screen at once.

I will be working on this project until I die if it takes that long. I will never give up .

I'm glad that you like my ideas, I hope they really redefine the genera or aspects of it once my project is completed.

As I have said before, major accomplishments with my game will lead me to changing my avatar, so here is a new one as I have come back from a long leave and have made much progress since my last Avatar change. It's a soldier from the mechanized faction, which may be slow moving but their armor and power easily make them something to fear.

I like your new Avatar. Looks like a painting.

Thanks. I made it in Photoshop with my Wacom tablet. Actually it also reveals partially the art style I will be using for my game as well. Instead of focusing on creating photo-realistic textures I will be making it more stylized for a new art style and a way to cut time creating textures as it will be easier to make textures not having them to look as close as possible to the real thing. My games graphics will look better(clearer/brighter) than that avatar though, I just made that up a while back without designing its style for any purpose. I actually can't give a good description of how my game will look until I make some objects and texture them. It will be a completely new art style.

Oh, while Im at this, I will post my scripted player keyboard controls:

forward: E
backwards: D
Left: S
Right: F
Jump/stand up: Space
Crouch/lay: C
Manual Reload: R + right or left click(which one you click will reload)
Pick up/swap weapon: W
Zoom in: Q
Zoom out: A
action key: Caps Lock
Walk/run: Shift

I would Prefer:

forward: w
backwards: s
Left: a
Right: d
Jump/stand up: Space
Crouch/lay: C
Manual Reload: R + right or left click(which one you click will reload)
Pick up/swap weapon: q
Zoom in: f
Zoom out: v
action key: e
Walk/run: Shift

It's more traditional, and won't make me curse you for shifting "WASD" over by one key!

Also,

Oh, I must note I was thinking about having the default fire keys be as so:
left click: right hand
right click: left hand

I would prefer:

left click: left hand
right click: right hand

It's more natural.

I'm sure other people feel the same way.

P.S. I love the cell shading idea! It'll be epic!

dylanwinn wrote:I would Prefer:

...

It's more traditional, and won't make me curse you for shifting "WASD" over by one key!

Since it's gonna be made with RF2 I don't think making customizable controls is gonna be an issue. The scripting in RF2 will be very powerful. Actually, I think the controls feature is on its way to RF1 too.

Ah yes, the control scheme. I haven't looked at that in quite some time. I will look ever it and most likely I will end up scripting a traditional WASD along with my ESDF. I'll make sure I get both completed as soon as I get player movement scripted. Personally I was going to use ESDF as it opens up 2 more keys for easy access and it allows your hand to fall into the natural typing position which may help some gain control of the controls faster if they are not familiar with the traditional WASD key-set.

Also, I would just like to announce that all posts before Oct. 2008(End of page 6) are no longer accurate for my project. Almost everything has been scrapped from the past and a completely new idea has already been almost entirely developed. A complete redesign of everything was completed within the past year between update posts. This however does not mean that I am further away from completing my project but actually closer as this is the most complete design I have made. Also, I have finally become satisfied with my designs and ideas over the past year that everything up to this point will not be scrapped. If there are features within the first 6 pages that you would really like to see happen, please post what they are.

Current Main Feature Set:(Will be included)
-Dual Wield Guns
-Realistic Inventory System(you can only carry what you think you should be able to)
-Destructible Environments
-Drivable Vehicles(destructible too)
-Realistic weapons(accurate ammo counting for dropped weapons/clips)
-50 Unique Weapons
(^*subject to change if it becomes too much, but I know I want 50 weapons!**this counts grenade and melee weapon variants along with gun variants)
-Open World Environment
-Realistic Movement/Control(advanced movement system that borrows much from 3rd person action games to enable proper world interaction with climbing, jumping, dodging etc...)

Multiplayer features to be listed at a later date

If there is a feature I mentioned earlier in this thread that has disappeared form this list, but you think its a good idea, please post what it is and I will either remember I forgot it and immediately add it, or reconsider it.

I'm going to take a C++ class, but I don't think that'll work for writing stuff into RF2 will it?
And whatever plans end up for TT will start again with RF2, rather than getting upset with RF1 and being so confused when scripts don't work....

The scripting system in RF2 will utilized python. So all of us who wish to make custom scripts will need to become fluent in python. RF2 is being written in C++ so in that case, if you know enough of it you may be able to help out the RF2 team. I took a class on C++ and I got a C+ in the course( , I still can't get over the irony ). If I was better at C++ I would do everything possible to try and help out with RF2. Sadly though, I'm more of a fan of Java. But it will be python that will be needed for RF2.

I am personally still going to make at least basic scripts and test actors in the current RF. Mainly as I just want to get an idea of how things will look when I port it to RF2. I don't plan on using fancy shaders or things like that so RF should render my graphics just fine with my chosen custom-cel-hand-painted art style. For everything else though, I will need RF2. I am going to be putting a lot of stuff on screen. At least until RF2 debuts it is wise to make all the 3D content that you will need as then you only have to assemble the peices to make the game. That's my plan anyhow.

i personally like python or C++.

I made a little bit of progress! I have successfully made the brick texture that will be used in my project!

I think it turned out pretty well. It does not contain any special effects. Only a texture and a bump map. I tried to make a grass texture to go along with it and it turned out ok but I threw it together with a few filters in photoshop from an old texture map I made. Honestly there will be no need for a grass texture when I am done with my game as their will be 3D grass all over the place, but I needed something to help the scene. The gray texture in the background was a texture test object experimenting with different looks.

Any feedback on my art direction would be greatly appreciated. I know its not much, but its a start.

Also, I apologize to those who have small monitors or slow internet connections as I forgot to resize the image. However not scaling it has retained its full quality.

Great work there MOG, but I think the brick texture is perhaps a little too clean at the moment, could do with the brick faces weathering & dirtying a bit otherwise perfect.

Thank you for the feedback, glad you like it. I agree it does look a little too clean. I will be updating the texture later today. Also, I will be starting work on a graphics test room where numerous textures will be created and exhibited. From there I will model and texture at least one of the characters and at least one weapon. I may mock up the HUD while I am at it. Right now I am focusing on creating the art style for my game and getting something to look at. Once I have that much it should further inspire me to keep at it and I will start modeling all sorts of objects and creating many many textures. I will post snapshots of my work as soon as I get some more completed. I am really eager to get the art defined to show what exactly I have in mind.

Back again with two new images. I think I added enough depth to them now. I really like the way they turned out. Again its only a texture map with a bump map on a giant box. No shaders, no special effects. You can do some pretty interesting things with just textures. Anyhow, all of the screens posted are from trueSpace 7.6 workspace view meaning they are activley being rendered. I tried to use the render scene option but it ignored the bump map for some reason. I hope that in game it will render what I have here. Note: The images have been scaled by imageshack to be 800 pixels wide. I chose it to not resize the images so I am confused as to how that happened. This has caused some quality to be lost. Either way here is a good look at the graphical style that I will use in my project. It may be subject to change but I am very satisfied with its outcome.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. If you like it, dislike it, think its ok, I would like to know. If you don't think you would like to stare at graphics like this for a FPS let me know that too. If you think the texture is not right, or even if the red is too red I want to know! The goal with my art style is to create visually pleasing graphics with an artistic flair to it. So I will need many opinions to make sure my graphics can be a strong element of my project.

[Note how distance affects the look of the texture. Distance it is a plain flat texture, but up close a whole new 'drawn look' is created. I think this is one of the most interesting effects I have seen combining gestural style textures with bump maps.]

MPG thats quite stunning. I love good graphics just wish I could produce textures like that. If you are using actors rather than built in geometry its better for framerate and stuff and better for looks in general but bumpmapping ain't too good in rf for actors. It's very difficult to get the lighting righ. I gave up using bump mapping for actors myself.

So far, great work. Although I'm afraid bump maps and RF don't make a good couple, as bernie already said. So it's pretty likely you won't get the same result if you render it in RF. But that won't be a problem since the you're gonna make it with RF2, anyway. I'd like to hold my opinion on the overall visual style back for a while - just until you show us some more stuff. The brick texture looks excellent, though.