Reality Factory

Does anyone know the titles of any RF games that have been commercially published? I want to look them up and see what they are like.

well, I don't know about RF, but Tomb raider chronicles was made with genesis3d.

Agentarrow wrote:well, I don't know about RF, but Tomb raider chronicles was made with genesis3d.

seriously? What about the previous Tomb Raider games? Fighting Force? Death Trap Dungeon?


I was at the devmaster.net forums and there was an old RF article and it had a lot of good reviews from people from here,.. and also a lot of scathing reviews from people who had no patience,.. or only care about making money and going to retail.

I'm just learning RF and making games for fun. I'm a big fan of 90's games and the old graphics and design and I'm perfectly happy with the idea of making a game with late 90's graphics and design. I find and collect 90's games for PC and PS1 and I love the technology and design of those old games. Some people just don't get it.

RF isn't suited for any kind of retail because it can't compete with the expensive pro engines,.. but it's great for a hobby.

I guess the best platform for a retail Genesis 3d game would be a portable system like the PSP or Nintendo DS,.. if it was even compatible with those systems without heavy programming/modification.

Tomb raider chronicles

Where did you get that information?? According to the Wikipedia entry written by an employee of Eidos, they say:

Although graphically praised as one of the best installments in the series, the game was subject to numerous criticisms, primarily due to its lack of originality. Many felt that with The Last Revelation, the Tomb Raider formula had been stretched to its limits, and that a sequel would offer nothing new. In addition, the game still used the engine from the original Tomb Raider, which despite improved tweaking began to show its age with each subsequent game. Reviewers complained that the series were out of touch with contemporary game development.

Source

The only professional games made with Genesis are Dragon's Lair 3D and Barbie Got a Groove.

It's odd that there have been games made with Genesis3D but not RF. I have played with Genesis3D and it seems a little primative compared to RF even though it is the ancestor of RF. I gave up on it in favor of RF.

I beleive that if there can be retail games made with Genesis3D then there most certainly can be retail games made with RF.

It also seems to me that allot of people are still playing those older games. If they cannot compete with the new games then why would people still be playing them? Even if it is just for the naslgia of it, that is something.

paradoxnj wrote:

Tomb raider chronicles

The only professional games made with Genesis are Dragon's Lair 3D and Barbie Got a Groove.

well, you may be right, my source isn't all that reliable on any specific topic, but I try not to use wikipedia, I have pointed out obvious mistakes or errors on wikipedia and wouldn't trust it much more than my source.

oh, and that's not the same tomb raider chronicles. The one I've got Is for PC and is not from Eidos, oh, and I booted it up and it even has the genesis 3D animation in the startup. I think this one is made by a secondary company considering I got it as a free handout at a 2001 event. It has no specific markings of any company. it even has the same HUD as G3D. And in G3D, the default character, just like RF's Is Virgil, The default character looks an awful lot like Laura Croft.
just some ideas.

As for RF being a hobbby, I disagree. I believe it can create professional quality games. I tried a commercial engine, RF blew it out of the water, and decimated it.

Agentarrow wrote:oh, and that's not the same tomb raider chronicles. The one I've got Is for PC and is not from Eidos, oh, and I booted it up and it even has the genesis 3D animation in the startup. I think this one is made by a secondary company considering I got it as a free handout at a 2001 event. It has no specific markings of any company. it even has the same HUD as G3D. And in G3D, the default character, just like RF's Is Virgil, The default character looks an awful lot like Laura Croft.
just some ideas.

As for RF being a hobbby, I disagree. I believe it can create professional quality games. I tried a commercial engine, RF blew it out of the water, and decimated it.

o_0
A FREE HANDOUT?!?!?!

plus imho i dont think rf cant actually create professional quality games.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e ... livion.jpg
this is a commerical quality game(oblivion)
professional quality games are made with teams of people and would definitely want something more powerful than rf.

darksmaster923 wrote:plus imho i dont think rf cant actually create professional quality games.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e ... livion.jpg
this is a commerical quality game(oblivion)
professional quality games are made with teams of people and would definitely want something more powerful than rf.

Half-Life is a professional quality game too. And that's what RF could easily produce.

I agree with Juutis, but that is just my opinion. It's theoretically possible that RF could produce some awesome things in the right hands. I just don't think that the right hands have touched it yet. It has not been proven either way, so to say for sure is pretty difficult.

In order to show that it could be done, someone will have to produce a game and sell it in stores.

In order to prove that it couldn't be done someone would have to run every single possibility, custom and non-custom that has been thought and that has not been thought of.

The question that comes to my mind is simply this.
What one of the scenarios is the most possible?

Until one of the 2 events takes place they are both just opinions. The only things that they have to back them up are things that have been rehashed over and over and gotten no results as far as an agreeable most common belief.

If someone has it in their mind that RF is not something that can do them some good one way or another that brings up another question.
Why not find something that does? (This is not an invitation to move on. It is just a question)

It seems that we all have a hope that RF might be the tool we need to benefit ourselves some how or we would not be using it.

Agent Arrow is talking about Rayne Havoc. That is the reason why Genesis was written. It's not Tomb Raider Chronicles. If someone is giving that out as TRC, then Eidos would have sued them.

RF games cannot commercially compete with the current standard of technology in the realm of action or RPG games for PC.

On the other hand,.. casual games for the PC do not rely on cutting edge technology. There is also a big market for casual pc games. Most of them are puzzle-oriented with little action, have low system requirements and are usually rated 'E'.

My opinion is,.. if you want to actually make money on games made with RF,.. don't bother with FPS/action/rpg/racing games. Your best bet is in the casual games arena.


I personally love 90's game graphics and design. Still to this day I hunt down and buy PC and PS1 games from the 90's that I missed. I still play most of those old games. The thing I like about them is that there were more games based on original IP and had more imagination. They weren't trying to be movies. They weren't so rediculously high budget and didn't have 5 year development cycles on average. They had more of a personal touch.

Juutis wrote:

darksmaster923 wrote:plus imho i dont think rf cant actually create professional quality games.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e ... livion.jpg
this is a commerical quality game(oblivion)
professional quality games are made with teams of people and would definitely want something more powerful than rf.

Half-Life is a professional quality game too. And that's what RF could easily produce.

i meant modern......... like half life 2 o_0

If someone were to use a completely non-geometry level and just use the RF engine, It might be a pretty decent game. It would depend entirely on the talents of the artist. I have made some models that look pretty good in RF. The older graphics rendering was not an issue. That only seems to be an issue when using the geometry that the editor can create. If there is no RF geometry then the only graphics that are seen are the ones that the artist has used for the models they have created.

If one takes this into concideration then it just might be possible to create a game that would be very close to the quality of todays games. I do think that certain functions would have to be worked around because they are just not availible in the RF engine. However there are some really cool current games that don't rely on complexity and they do sell pretty well. Some even sell well enough that they have sequels that are just as un-complex.

If you are willing to put the work into it then you just might get the quality out of it.

RF needs 2 things to open the door to effects from today.

1. Upgrade DX7 driver to DX9
2. Shaders

Shaders in RF can be accomplished without hardware T&L as shaders can accept fully transformed geometry. So if someone can cleverly update the DX7 driver to DX9 as is (without touching the engine geometry), the next step would be to implement some kind of material system. I prefer either Doom 3's method or Ogre's method of materials or you can leverage RF's scripting system to create materials like Torque does.

I am willing to be part of a team to perform this update as I've spent the last 3 years mastering DX 9 for Jet3D and can implement stuff with it pretty quickly. I am not well versed in the Genesis engine technology though. I would need 2 volunteers that are well versed in C++ programming and the RF code to implement the material system (one for the modification to the Genesis engine, and one for the RF scripting system).

My design would be as follows:

Genesis Engine Changes:

1. Add a function to geEngine called geEngine_RenderMaterialPoly(). Make sure that if the driver cannot handle shaders it falls back to standard rendering.
2. Add a function to DRV_Driver called RenderMaterialPoly(). This function should not be implemented in any driver that cannot support shaders. It should be set to NULL in this case.
3. Make geWorld_Render() check for materials associated with textures. If one is found, call geEngine_RenderMaterialPoly() instead of geEngine_RenderPoly().
4. Modify geMaterial to parse materials scripts.

RF Changes:

1. Query material system for collision sounds and stuff that we choose to add to it.

Driver Changes:

1. If the driver supports shaders, add RenderMaterialPoly() function to driver. DX7 does not support shaders, DX9 and OpenGL can.
2. Make a polygon caching system for material based polys.
3. Create a DirectX 9 Driver.
4. Update OpenGL driver (use CgFX to read DX effect files) (not necessary, but would be nice to have).

Other possibilities:

1. Create another light type in the engine called "Hardware light" to implement DX/OpenGL lighting.

This was thought about in 10 minutes so I expect there to be design flaws. I hope to spark design conversation about this and implement once a design is agreed upon.