Game scenes

[adept]

...and yes, this is going to be commercial, but we can buy licenses for this stuff once we determine if we will really use it ... so dont worry about it for now.

...and for those that are wondering, at least for now I have to arbitrarily say that I'm the dictator that controls where the money goes if this thing makes anything. I have to say that up front so there are no misunderstandings. It is possible this may not make a dime, but if it does I need to have up front control over where that goes... including the possibility of keeping it all in order to fund the next game. I'm a reasonable person, and a benevolent dictator, but in lieu of having a budget for this and salaries and benefits for everyone, I have to start things with this as the framework in order to avoid having the whole thing devolve into the Lord of the Flies once we get start selling copies and everyone freaks out because they had these or those expectations. If we assume nothing then we'll all be happier.

p.s. in reality we can work out a real pay structure later, but you still have to assume I'm keeping 66% in order to cover expenses and the original IP itself. ...but again, I'm not pocketing any of this... even my own portion I intend to put it toward the next game. I don't need the money, that's not why I'm doing this.

[dvlenk6]

I don't need the money either.
Just volunteering to help out.
For the small amount of actual real-time in-game 3d model rendering you are talking aobut, the Lexiexporter should do fine. oFusion is used mainly for games that are made entirely in a 3d environment; whole scenes, backgrounds, characters, animations, everything.
Lexi can do those too, but it is a pain.
Unless I'm mistaken, which is easily possible, any static renders (.jpg .bmp, etc.) wouldn't need to be reformatted.

Also was referred to this software:
Deled 3d Editor
Lite version is free, but still powerful. Pro version is only $59.99US. I could even see my way clear to buy that myself, if it would be needed. All the import/export plugins are free too .
Either version is completely liscense free, do with it what you want, no restrictions commercial or otherwise.
It is compatible with both Max and Wings3D (and a bunch of other 3d apps. too).
Handles .obj and .3ds meshes ( and a few others, but those are the main ones mostly used), and converts to Ogre format.
Exports to OGRE 1.3 format. That's Eihort, but the latest is 1.4, which is Eihort also.
This one actually looks to be superior to the Lexi Exporter. I'm downloading it now, so I can play around with and see how it works.

[adept]

I dig your sig. That's ok right?

[Schmendrick]

Sharron was my favorite Engineer too.

[adept]

Having the encode pattern manager makes having unique crew characters a viable reality again. I didn't want to have variable crew unless it had a real impact on game play and I think the new model does that. I think that desipte manipulation that the crew shuold always tend toward their basic stats.

Thoughts? Feel free to respond in the other forum/thread.

[Schmendrick]

I'm leaning toward the idea of randomized crew members, but I also like the idea of choice. I think in the end product the game might "randomly roll" three or five (or seven; I like the odd numbers for some reason -- they just feel right) candidates for each officer, which the player chooses from.

Having randomly rolled officers, however, potentially decreases the linkage between portraits and personalities (if we use portraits). So random generation might not be the best idea, unless it's confined to relatively small fluctuations from a basic "type."

Fixed (or confined random) personalities might also be a good idea because it allows us to enforce certain crew incompatibilities; Warmth in particular (I'm going to assume we can discuss the five-factor personality model in public forum).. the "best" medical officer might have an extremely low Warmth level (House!) while the "best" engineering officer may have very high levels (Scotty!). Or vice-versa. Have fun making anything cybernetic with Abbott and Costello over there...

This would cause the player to make real strategic decision from game start about what kind of game he'd want to be playing, especially if we put more emphasis on inter-discipline cooperative tasks. (And, of course, the Creativity levels of the different officers would have a profound effect on how research progressed in a given game.)

[adept]

bingo. That's why I like the idea of fixed starting crew to choose from.

if the player wants other crew to choose from he should mod the game using the scripts that run it.

[SunnyDrake]

2dvlenk6: u can export 3dsmax scene to obj file and then use one of many free standalone converters to produce needed format(long time ago i have pain in a.. to combine work parts of poser,bryce,and 3ds max in one scene and it worked out)

No this just 'little showoff' im not voting for 'classic anime style' gfx(but quality textures with good shadow tech is good addition as i think).

2adept&Schmendrick: why no animated textures? Waaa are u bumped into hardware limitations? From my exp low geometry model+quality texture=awesome look(u can even save on shadow calculations which can give good speed boost).

Ogre is huge.. but if u have some ppl with exp in it maybe this is what u need.
If u need small not many features engenie it's better to write own in C# as dll.

[UserX]

Anyone here ever play a game called "Overlord" way back when? It had some little animations that made what was essentially a bunch static command screens interesting.

Shamelessly stealing from a great game, I thought we might have a mini-screen of daily IronSeed activities visible in the corner of some of our command screens. For example: Little scenes like a Scutter type ROV welding or decomposing equipment in the engineering bay, when the Engineer is at work. These 3 or 5 minute animation clips could finish and then switch to some other "camera view". They would repeat themselves eventually. I hope this is not that hard to do, and could help to define the IronSeed as a real place in the minds of our players. I would dearly love her to be a fully visualized member of the cast.

It would not really matter how the animation was generated, but if they were done in the 3D engine then it would be (theoretically) possible to make them full screen, if desired. To me, the inside of the IronSeed lends itself to 3D art , as there is very little organic here. Yay for Low-Poly environments!

Also, some of the scenes could be story related, as per my hull ROV in my post about ChatBots. http://ironseed.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=100&highlight=#100

Have we considered giving the chat bots avatars? The last game had static "photographs" for crew members. I think that crews that can't see themselves might have a much harder time staying sane. Perhaps this could be a research upgrade? These need not be anything fancy, just some geometric shapes (that can gesture) with a photo pasted on the "head". They might get more complex as upgrades improve? This might be an interesting exercise in minimalist design and motion animation? Five or six basic emotions? Two gestures for each?

The other obvious place for short animations is in communications traffic with alien races. Here, the IronSeed can only see what the aliens choose to show, so there might be some wide variation in transmission quality and color palette.

Remembering that the crew of the IronSeed can only see what is visible to her scanners (which will be highest resolution very close to the ship itself, probably inside). Detail of anything external that is smaller than a planet is probably not required. Ships will be at the very edge of visual range unless they are _very_ friendly.

Anyone who has a burning urge to show off might start to do some character design of alien races. A short piece of the races characteristics and environment may also help. Bonus marks for using original IronSeed races. Examples of the outsides of the ships of those races might also be interesting. Don't waste too much time, guys. Story boards can be done in crayon and still effective.

UserX

[adept]

Additions like this, while very cool sounding, will very likely come very late in the game dev process. For the moment I am planning on having most things being static 2D with some static 3D accents. At the moment only celestial bodies will be lucky enough to be animated 3D objects.

I do, however, love these ideas and would love to see them come to fruition.

[UserX]

Adept,

Yeah, I know. I totally have to agree with the timing. Animation is window-dressing. We don't even have an interface engine nailed down yet. However the project manager in me fretts at the thought of all these keen, talented artistic people with nothing to do for months. I figured that having them invent some cool alien races in crayon might be fun and also, slightly productive.

UserX

[FAD]

I especially like the idea of having emotional images of the crewmembers. Expression changes on the face of my Engineer as I overwork her, and then when she snaps...can only invision the look of insanity!
That would work great for keeping tabs-at-a-glance for crewmember status, but the question is, will we be using real photographs in IS2 or rendered?

[adept]

I think photographs... so it would be fun to have some smart/beautiful looking woman, with her hair done up carrot-top style with angry-clown face paint on