Quantus (aka Allegiance - Planetside thread)

Mordechaj · Post by **Mordechaj** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 10:15 pm

i'd like to keep things confined to open space and space stations. asteroids maby. no planets please /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

radruin · Post by **radruin** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 11:27 pm

Cadillac wrote:QUOTE (Cadillac @ Mar 1 2007, 06:18 PM) This is will most likely be an Offshoot, not an integrated Expansion /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

I agree--keeping it mainly in space seems more like an Allegiance 2 rather than what we're attempting to do here, which is more of, as the thread title suggests, an Allegiance - Planetside.

Once we finish debating back and forth here (i'm not knocking it--its important we get straight in our heads what we want to accomplish), what's the next step?

radruin · Post by **radruin** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 11:51 pm

Cadillac wrote:QUOTE (Cadillac @ Mar 1 2007, 06:49 PM) First we gotta find engines etc and I need to ask Thal a few things.

then we get the concept straight

then we need programmers to do the hard part.

So we're going for a pre-made engine rather than developing our own? I have some free time here and there throughout the day...Anything in particular I should look for? and am I only looking at the free ones, or do we have money as a resource?

and thanks for the non-stupid reply ^^

radruin · Post by **radruin** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 11:55 pm

What would making our own engine involve? like, what makes a game engine? (i'm a n00b programmer, in a 12th grade Java class ^^)

muman42 · Post by **muman42** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 12:14 am

Gameplay could take part on breathable planets/asteroids or not, just like you can swith ff on in allegiance makes for a slightly different game, you could switch oxygen on or off in game setup. Alot of things like this could be intergrated as modes of play (SY on or off, map size, starting wealth, resources etc etc). I like the notion of an infantry (pod) tech tree: the scene: you have just broken through the shields of an enemy base in your htt, supported by tanks and bomber's, the htt is a traveling spawn point for infantry units to flood the enemy base for a capture, but the capturing itself HAS to be done by infantry, and bases obviously have atmosphere (unless they are Dreg?) wether oxygen is switched on or off. So unless your infantry tech is nicely buffed, you may well get owned by its occupants.

name ideas:

Broken Union, Broken Alliance, Landfall

obviously it would be graet to have Allegiance as a precursor to any title but we'll have to wait and see.

mdvalley · Post by **mdvalley** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 1:22 am

This project needs to be created with an entirely new codebase. Nothing can be borrowed from the code we have now. This is the only way to avoid the MS license hanging over our heads.

I recommend we write it cross-platform from the get-go. It is MUCH easier to do this, than to adapt an existing program. Many of us use Linux, so we can help develop and test in it, and I assume there are some Mac users among us? This does restrict us to our APIs (nothing MS-specific, OpenGL only, no DirectPlay, only the Windows APIs with Mac/*nix equivalents), but will help us reach a larger audience.

A game has several engines to worry about:

The simulation engine. Has to track position/rotation/velocity, handle collision detection, other vehicle dynamics. Has to work out the trajectories of all weapon particles. We'd have to figure out how we want collisions, weapon hits, etc. simulated.

The graphics engine. Heavy math ahoy! OpenGL's extension system (especially in Windows!) is a bitch to code for. Objects in Alleg now are just meshes that are scaled, rotated, and moved. Objects in Allegside might have moving parts. That's even more to work out. And the terrain data. Loading and rendering the entire terrain mesh is too expensive. We'd need a method to load/unload terrain on the fly. And the whole thing has to be FAST. Better to try and find an engine pre-written that we can use.

The sound engine ain't bad. What API? OpenAL? It'll handle most of the crap. Although, echoes, sound occlusion, sound bending around corners, etc. need consideration.

Oh, and if we're really serious about this, we're going to need a new forum.

Jonan · Post by **Jonan** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 1:19 pm

Well, I'm partial to voxels, nothing beats what you can do with them dynamically.

take a look at this for example. Perfect (lack of) licence, well structured code, optimised, ready and a very, very professional author.

Discussion about voxels over polygons is another thing entirely.

radruin · Post by **radruin** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 8:19 pm

1. All the screenshots on that site are...square-y. Like they've all got really huge pixels. Not very good. Is that just because of whoever made the models, or is that an effect inherent in using voxels?

2. What it said about being able to smash a wall w/ voxels: is that because each voxel thingy is a separate entity, and because polygons are all one thing (like, are voxels "bricks" whereas a polygon's the whole "wall")?

This confuses me:
QUOTE polygons do have one really big (and unfair) advantage - all the 3D accelerators support them[/quote]QUOTE Here are the features that Voxlap currently supports:
Doesn't require a 3D accelerator /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />[/quote]

3. Aren't these contradictory thoughts?

Jonan · Post by **Jonan** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 8:33 pm

1. inherent, yes, but not insurmountable.
2. yes
3. no

This is engine is six degrees of freedom and voxels are the man when it comes to landscapes.

Anyway, think pacman.

Anguirel · Post by **Anguirel** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 10:51 pm

Jonan wrote:QUOTE (Jonan @ Mar 2 2007, 03:33 PM) Anyway, think pacman.

... 'kay.