Actually haven't fully decided what I want to do with this. Either actually make and release a level or zip the assets and give it to the community as a template for building levels. If I go with the second, they could just unzip the assets into their project and then go to town (no pun intended) on placing buildings/ships/wrekage/tents/weapons/enemies, ect.

I would, however, like some help in finishing off the assets. If your intrested in helping, please send me an e-mail: Friend14 at aol dot com

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Try not, do; or do not.

What game is this? What does SWIRPG stand for? Looks really good, but I'm kinda lost as to what you were talking about in your post.

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~ Vader's Corner ~

apparently, this is jk. Ive gone blinde. So I must now smack my head against the wall until my vision comes back.

if(getThingFlags(source) & 0x8){
  do her}
elseif(getThingFlags(source) & 0x4){
  do other babe}
else{
  do a dude}

Me Want!

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~ Vader's Corner ~

Yeah, it's JK. If I were to make it a level for release, it would be part of the project I've been working on for over 3 years now. The newest name for the project is SWIRPG. Which stands for "Star Wars Imersion Roll Playing Game." I call it imersion because I've come up with several ideas for very imersive cog systems that range from NPC responds, realistic day-night transition/effects, dynamic environments (dynamic clouds, weather changes, etc). I've also got some concept ideas on the drawing board for how to get things like Pod Racing to work (and keep track of winners). And then there's the Login System. Since the level is Multiplayer, I've come up with an idea for how players can log in and out and call/save their character information. Finally, since the upon start-up, other then the login room, the only thing that exists is the one large sector that contains everything. Everything else is generated by cogs after the player enters the world (and in-game loading screen is used to buy time for everything to generate). This allows the level (project) to be patchable, allowing the dev team (yes, it would require at least 3-5 people to run it effectivly) can patch more content into the game.

If I make the assets for release as level templates, it's just a matter of finishing them out...which I would have to do for the level i'd release anyhow.

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Try not, do; or do not.

[This message has been edited by Friend14 (edited July 11, 2004).]

oh my god.

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If you can read this you're
TOO DAMN CLOSE!!

Why not do both?

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"Häb Pfrässe, süsch chlepfts!" - The coolest language in the world (besides Cherokee)

Lucas Arts would have loved to have made the game like this back in the day of '97 - it's remarkable the extraodinary heights of sophistication this game has been taken to in just 7 years!

Whatever you do, release it!

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~ Vader's Corner ~

Friend14 - Have you by chance ever played Star Wars Galaxies? That.. well.. looks exactly like most of the cities on Tatooine, to put it mildly.. At first glance I had thought for sure you modelled it after SWG. Amazing work!

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Have a good one,
Freelancer

Since when can you cog?

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Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow, and did you know
Your stairway lies on the whispering wind.
:wq

Great great.

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<landfish> FastGamerr > Satan

For this showcase, I have indeed modeled it after Mos Espa from SWG (with a few modifications).



I can't....which are why the systems are limited to pieces of paper.

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Try not, do; or do not.

BTW, did I mention I figured out how to convert entire levels into 3do's so that they can be lit dynamically AND used in projects such as this.

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Try not, do; or do not.

I see many a penis in your level....

Errm...I mean good job.

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I made a thread, that turned into the debate, so I made a second thread, that turned into a debate, then I made a third thread, that caught on fire, burned down, got flamed, crapped on, bashed, then turned into a debate...but the fourth one, the fourth one stayed on topic!

Now you just need to figure out how to get the buildings to dynamically cast shadows depending on the sun's location in the sky.

*cracks whip*

Get to work!

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Have a good one,
Freelancer

The suns are providing the light source for the level. I've played around with creating drop shadows before, but there's really no way to do it dynamically...unless you don't want your sun(s) to move.

However, I have had a few ideas on the drawning board for creating dynamic drop shadows that adjust according to the movement of the light source. But, it would require a vast amount of coding which I can't do and would probably be to calculative extisive for it to be worth it to work in JK.

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Try not, do; or do not.

Friend14 equals kickass

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"halucid is not really intelligent but is simply a better simulator of human conversation." Googlism

...how easy life would be... if only it came with a consistancy checker.
Fabricator of Neurotic for MLP4

Wow, that's impressive.

After seeing those screens, I can't wait to see the town in full detail. Even with help, thats one heck of an ambition, good luck man.

This sounds a lot like that thing Kirby was doing with the server-side cogs that contain all the player information, and something about the thing destruction system or something...

-Dunno. Wasn't really paying attention to the technical aspects.

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It's our All-American product. We got the idea from the Germans. The French hate it. It goes for half in Canada. The English have a version, but it's not so hot. There's cheap knockoffs in India. The Japanese are devolping a sleeker, sexier model. Made in China.

Ok, I'll bite. How did you turn an entire level into 3do's?
Can you make the level all into 1 3do with many layers? (is it possible)

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Sam: "Sir we can't call it 'The Enterprise'"
Jack: "Why not!"

As if on queue, the score for "Anchorhead" from Knights of the Old Republic popped in my head as I saw those images.

I suppose that can mean you've done well

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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat.

At one point jEDIkIRBY and I talked about joining our projects together. I haven't heard from him in a while. The Character Information System (CIS) was an I dea I came up with over a year ago for my project. We were going to use it for our combined project...so I guess that's where he got that from. The Thing Creation System (TCS) is a cog system created by GBK. The RVTCS (Ranged Vector Thing Creation System), which is what I use for this project, was an alternate idea I had to GBK's first version (which is far more advanced). The RVTCS is, in a sense, the little brother to that first version of GBK's cog (I believe it's name was TCTCS, but can't remember for sure). GBK wrote both systems and has modified the RVTCS several times for new ideas I've had for imporving it for my needs.



You could do that. The first thing you do is try to combine every single sector in the level. Next, you select one of the outer most edge surfaces and then switch to sector mode and select all of the sectors (hopefully only 1 at this point). Once you have done this, run the plugin "Mirror Maddness." After Mirror Maddness has completed reproducing your level, delete the old sectors to your level. Then, select the new sectors that make up your level, give them the 80000000 flag (so that they can be viewed as 3do) and scale the entire level by -1.

That's it, all you have to do then is go back and touch up the texturing, delete adjoin surfaces, and break up the level into different layer meshes as needed. It may actually be best not to merge all the sectors. I haven't tried it on a really big level yet to find out. One advantage to this is that you don't have to worry about non-convex sectors and other such errors preventing you from running your level. After you get done, export the entire level as one 3do or several into your project.

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Try not, do; or do not.

BTW, I really like that little canyon/cliff thingy off to the far-right side of the 2nd pic. How on earth do you do terrain like that?

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If you can read this you're
TOO DAMN CLOSE!!

Thank you, that's actually going to be the Arena for Mos Espa (if I finish the project).

I start with a heightmap such as this:


I modify it how I want it. In this case, you can see where I've cleared a large circular area for the city. You can also see where I've gone in and did the arena and track by hand. I then double the size. After that, I break it into 64x64 segmants, such as this one for the above seen terrain:

Then I flip them vertically and open them with Hellcat's 3do terrain program. Then it's just a matter of exporting, creating the templates, and inserting each one into the level.

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Try not, do; or do not.

[This message has been edited by Friend14 (edited July 12, 2004).]

Sweet.

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If you can read this you're
TOO DAMN CLOSE!!

I can't believe that I've never used the scale by -1! That coulda' made my life so much easier with some of my earlier projects. (I was trying to remake the delta station from EF into JK, but due to the adjoin limit I wanted to make it into 3dos. Needless to say, I was actually hollowing out every wall and building the hard way.) Thanks, this helps me a LOT.


I just realized that I didn't comment on your pics. To be honest I really didn't think that it was JK until you said it. Those shadows at the right are awesome.

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Sam: "Sir we can't call it 'The Enterprise'"
Jack: "Why not!"

*looks at screenshots* wow...
*finds out its jk* whoa...
*has heart attack*
that would be awesome to make a swg-like thing for jk.... but dont make the mistake that sony made, having it pay to play...
i accually had an idea to do something like this, only -in the consept stage- it didnt have the locations of star wars.... its still in its consept stage, for just about everything... i still need to get a team together on i-er... sorry....
looks awesome... maybe what you need to make an effect to where it looks like the buildings are casting shadows is to place a flat object on the ground around the building, it would have an animating mat set at the speed of the sun's movement, giveing the appearance of it being a shadow...
im a big fan of rpgs, so i cant wait till this comes out......... i still cant beleive what my eyes are seeing........
P.S. forgot to mension... reminds me of tattooine in rogue squadron

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Carter: "whats wrong?"
Daniel: "this tastes like chicken..."
Carter: "whats bad about that?"
Daniel: "this is supposed to be macaroni and cheese..."

[This message has been edited by Admiral Zarn (edited July 13, 2004).]

BTW- This map needs swoop bikes

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"halucid is not really intelligent but is simply a better simulator of human conversation." Googlism

...how easy life would be... if only it came with a consistancy checker.
Fabricator of Neurotic for MLP4

I diffinetly want to get pods into it if I make it. If everything is going good and I get a chance to add more content and expand the area, then yeah, I'll probably add swoops and speeders.

And no, if I make this project, it won't be anything like SWG. I'm not going to be like sony and give in to the whim of all the whiners. And of course, I can't charge for it due to the fact it's starwars and runs off the JK engine.

At any rate, I haven't recieved an e-mail of anyone intrested in helping...so it doesn't look like I'll be releasing it as a level as it stands...

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Try not, do; or do not.

Depends. What kind of help do you require?

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If you can read this you're
TOO DAMN CLOSE!!

Anything and everything. Send me an e-mail and let me know what you want to work on (ie, 3do's cogs, animations, sound, concept ideas and concept art, ect).

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Try not, do; or do not.

If you post for help in the cog forum, I could try to write some cogs. The only thing is that my free time isn't constant, so I can't actually join any mod/level full time.

By the way, did you get my emails?

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Sam: "Sir we can't call it 'The Enterprise'"
Jack: "Why not!"

Yeah, I got them. Just haven't had a chance to reply to them yet. I have tested the stuff out, though...

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Try not, do; or do not.

I remember getting a PM from you on July 5th, just before I left for DC, showing me a couple of those shots. I had to go, but I crapped myself, and even more now. Sorry, I've been gone for the past 6 weeks, but we're still certainly working together.

I'll talk to you online and help out with this thing, no doubt. I'd like to make interiors to all those buildings, and furnish them with living interiors. I can make a crapload of simple indoor items, as long as you can texture them. Also, I've got luckyjackpot working on a vehicle cog specifically for this project that gives general physics for [specifically, but certainly not limited to] speederbikes. Of course, it won't be a true vehical, in the sense, but it should work great for swoops and podracers for this level.

On a final note: Screenshot of the freaking day, people! SotFD! That's JK! Not JUST JK, that's Mother[loving] JK. MFJK! SotFDMFJK!

JediKirby

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jEDIkIRBY - Putting the Romance back into Necromancer.
Proud Leader of the Minnessassian Council

Live on, Adam.