Titan-IC is back...

[ZenBudha]

Well in light of the 4e4 contest over at Gamedev I have decided to re-start the Titan-IC project in RF. Two main reasons are for one RF needs I think a whole polished game created for it. If for no other reason than drawing more interest to the RF community projects, and making people see what RF is. In that it is a great free game engine.

Second is because of the speed at which RF can produce results, and the short time to the contest deadline. Which makes using my other engine not really feasable since I am not even half as familier with it as I am with RF.

So get ready for the candy because it's coming shortly.

[ZenBudha]

Here is some concept work...



The bench is 186 poly's which isn't bad considering it's 4 seats. Texture for the bench is still a work in progress and is only about 5 minutes of photoshops and 3ds work to get it made and UVW mapped.

The floor and wall textures are game textures I've made as well. No bumpmapping is being used although the scene is being rendered in 3ds max so the shadow is about the only thing that should change when in game.

Also the model still needs some optimization done to it to reduce the poly's a bit more. It's shape won't change just need to cut out some extra slices where they aren't needed and get rid of some unseen poly's.

The wall texture needs work as well and is really just something I've been playing around with.

Opinions welcome as always.

[GD1]

Looking great, i was wondering where this went! It was a great concept, and i think its perfect to show off RF.

One thing to look out for is that your textures have a lot of straight lines, and without proper mip-mapping this will give you a lot of "texture swimming" issues.

Originally i had the same idea as you (developing a full game to showcase RF), but now i am developing my game in Clockwork (just made the official anouncement on gametunnel.com), but i did have some excellent ideas i think you might wanna take a look at. (multi-texturing, real-time specular, glow effects, etc.) if you want i'll PM you with instructions on how to do each of them. The screenshots i posted were nothing, but used properly these really have potential. To be honest i had RF looking prettier than ever, but abandoned it for lack of time.

[SithMaster]

That looks great. If the rest of the game looks that good then i think rf will soon have a flagship game that all will look to. People ask what can rf do we will say titan-ic was made with it. then they stand there.. for five weeks in amazement.

If we could have a little more info thatd be good. wondering what the story is? im a fan of sci fi storys, games, and movies and if this game is as good as im thibking it wil be then it will have a permanent place on my hard drive. Keep up the goodness.

[ZenBudha]

Hey GD1 I remember your screens for glow effects especially caught my eye. Would definitely like some info on that. As far as other effects go I'm really going to be tight as far as keeping special effects down to a minimum.

I've tested much of what RF can do and have a pretty good idea of what does what to framerate. Also as with my previous Titan-IC project that got deleted by accident (DOH!) I was seeing 60+ fps and drops down to 50fps in large areas with enemy AI and dynamic lights.

As some of you may recall I was using dynamic lights as normal lights so I could trigger them on and off. Amazing as bad as flashing dynamic lights kill framerate one large light that is either on or off has almost no effect on framerate.
But allows for some Doom III style scare tactics whith lights going out at scripted times, etc. Also I will have to work on the whole flashlight thing in RF. I've never seen good results with it that weren't buggy. So I think I'm going to try to attach a plain dynamic light to the main character. Which will have a lantern effect and void all those rotation problems the standard flashlight has.

The storyline has changed a bit since the original Titan-IC project. This time around you are still on the ship "Titan-IC" a large deep space explortion, and military science vessel.
Except this time you get transferred onto the ship as a lowly ships mechanic aid. Thus you clean the thing and tighten bolts, change filters, etc.
However as always tragedy occurs when an unknown alien vessel crashes into the ship depositing an alien organism onboard. Next thing you know all heck breaks loose and it's survival of the fittest.

The alien I think will be quite unique. Not only will it nest and multiply itself but what it does will be different than most. It's actually quite a small parasitic like alien of limited intelligence. More like an alien bio-weapon. Which in order to survive and adapt it constructs itself accorrding to various needs from all available materials. So imagine a robot built of scrap metal and body parts and you get the idea.
This also makes them tough to kill since you have to kill the alien within the construct to put it down. Kinda like having to shoot zombie in the head.

So hopefully it will be more of a skill based game than a big weapon goes boom boom game.

However things get worse. Once the ships security forces fall prey to these alien invaders everyone who can be evacuated is. However you are not one of them along with a few others you will meet along the way.
Then in an attempt to destroy the aliens onboard the last ditch emergency internal defense system is activated. Releasing various drones and other defense systems that cause you more pain than the aliens.

So the objeect is survival and to do that you must set the ship to self destruct in order to prevent the aliens from spreading, and to catch the last ride out of there. Which is an experimental space fighter deep in the heart of the ship.

Ok well I think that pretty much covers the main gist of the story.

[GD1]

Ok, i posted the first tutorial on the effects i was using, you can find it here:

viewtopic.php?t=243

it covers glow effects. If you decide you want to use some of the other effects i was using, let me know. They dont cause a very big framerate hit, when used properly.

[ZenBudha]

Got your tutorial GD1 I will try to implement it.

Well the ball is rolling somewhat sluggishly uphill but progress is being made. I just started work on Level 1 and although the setting has changed the overall game remains the same. Or gameplan that is since it's not a game yet.

Just instead of a spaceship I decided to go with a deserted mining base on a distant moon. Basically the player and crew get a distress signal from Titan-IC (name might change when I think of a better one) and go to investigate.

Titan-IC is like a huge offshore oil rig in that it is suspended high above a martian surface which is uninhabitable. The rest is pretty par for the course. Things go really bad really quick and the player finds himself stranged fighting for survival.

I changed settings mainly because I wanted to play with some non-terrain based outdoor settings with wind, rain, etc. So the action will take place both inside, and outside of the station.

The rest I will save untill at least a demo is ready. Also I plan to have in game cut-scenes since this will ease my burden without having to do a high-poly version of everything to render scene's, and frankly I find in game cut scenes if done right to keep you a little more into the game then jerking the player out to wait for a load to watch a cutscene and then get back to the game.

Will be survival based so expect have to think a good bit, and do without 10 different weapons, and always having a shortage of ammo. Basically the player will really have to be strategic and think ahead before he pulls the trigger.

Zombie like infected people will be the main enemy. But hopefully I can keep the fps up while having enough on screen to make it a fight for life. The player will have to do a lot of ammo conerving and running as well as spinning round and round watching your 6 o'clock because you just can't let another torso come popping out of an air duct behind you. lol.

Anyway I'm not trying to do anything groundbreaking. I always get discouraged when I do. Instead I'm just having fun with it right now.

Anyway hopefully some screenshots to come very soon.

Edit:

Well a picture paints a thousand words so here are a couple. Some stand in textures, and missing little things like physical lights, etc. Also I'm not liking the way the station is looking so I'm sure I will wind up redesigning the look of it a few times before I am happy.

These two shots are of the landing pad, bridge, and entrance to station.

Enjoy!

[ZenBudha]

Working on getting the skybox textures done. Have some placeholder textures now which beats the all black you see now.

Still needs a lot of work though before the atmoshpere is finished. Also can't make up my mind on what I want the lights outside to look like. I'm thinking simpler the better and trying not to go overboard on simple things like I normally do.

Comments are welcome. I've posted the shots in some other forums. Got some people interested in RF from those shots already. You can throw features at people all day but a picture of it in action I guess just has more drawing power.

I dunno the better the screens I see the more ramped up I get about using any program. So I guess it's the same for most people.

[SithMaster]

looks good. im hoping you will add your own weapons though. earlier you mentioned youd be able to fly or something how would that work-just a big hollow cube? but really your progressing nicely and look forward to a release of hopefully a demo

[ZenBudha]

Yeah it will have my own weapons, hud, textures, monsters, etc.

Probably at least 2 months away from a demo though. Which isn't much time in game dev terms.

[federico]

really Zen, I never seen one able like you to put toghether level design, texturing, modelling, lighting, art design....
You really need to get out with some demo and tut to help the community (and to give us the knowledge of your secrets ). 4e4 is too much for me (work, writing my second thesis, play music...) but you can really surprise all the judges with some special effect! If you need help in any other field tell us!

[ZenBudha]

Thanks Federico I appreciate your comments.

I did a tutorial for level design my way with RFEditPro. I dunno how many people have tried it though.

The demo like I said will hopefully be out in a couple of months. Maybe more I dunno I tend to redo a lot of things that don't meet my level of expectation.

What kind of tutorial would you like to see? There are just so many tutorials on the net for everything from level design to modelling, ai, texturing, etc.

I've probably read 1000 pages of online theory, and done 1000 tutorials between 3DS Max and Photoshop.

If there is a secret I would say it is you can'y ever learn enough about anything.

Plus a neat saying I came up with (I think) whenever I feel overwhelmed by everything. The pyramids were built 1 stone at a time. Which to me just means don't worry about 10 oter problems you've hit or will hit just focus on the one you are at now.

Edit:

And now we just get a little cyan and we paint a happy little sky and some happy little clouds.



Edit again: Trying to keep my number of posts down. Don't wanna keep bumping my own thread. Anyway here's a up to date screenshot. Moving to interiors now as for now I am pretty well satisfied with the entrance results.



I hope you enjoy and please feel free to post comments.

[GD1]

looking really good!

I'm really excited about this, this is first rate material for RF. BTW, i'm gonna send you a PM, let me know if you like the idea.

[ZenBudha]

Thanks for the comments they always help to spur me on in my developement.

Please feel free to be critical about the screenshots. We're all gamers here and if something pokes you in the eye wrong let me know. Because as people developing our various games we know how much work it takes to produce anything of any quality.
Something a gamer would laugh at an Indie would see the effort in. However I want it to be something that a gamer can play and at worst say "The graphics are pretty dated, but still a fun game."

Hey maybe if I finish it someone will give me a job in the game dev buisness and I can afford to eat more than Ramen noodles! lol

I am working two jobs now and still poor. Amazingly I seem to be getting more done now than ever though even though I actually have a lot less time to work on it.

Anyway more to come perhaps I will post a WIP shot of some of the weapons, and items that will be in game.

[SithMaster]

Are you designing it for tactical gameplay, run and gun, both, neither? Cause so far i like what i see but just wondering if the geometry is suited for providing cover from enemies.

Also that bridge pic were did you find the tutorial for the chain links? i remember an old guide for making see thru grates but cant find it. thanks