Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: YU_Skywalker on June 28, 2004, 08:43:54 am
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Dear friends,
Galactic Federation is officialy released!
Galactic Federation is a space combat simulation.
This version is only beginning, it will be folowed by many updates and expansions in the folowing months.
The game features battles of large number of ships confronting at a time, one hundred of fighters and capital ships fighting in a misison create spectacular atmosphere and give unique gaming experience. Game is built on an in house developed DirectX9 engine and possess dynamic geometry modification damage model which alows realistic ship cutting, burntrougths, hull piece choping, subsystem and turrets destoying ans so on. Player can pilot over 20 fighters and bombers, and equip them with arrays of energy and projectile weapons from the fleet arsenal.
You can download and try the demo for free.
Download from Gamershell (http://www.gamershell.com/download_6334.shtml)
If you like it, you can purchase the full game trough the game site.
Galactic Federation official site:
http://www.am-games.com/GF/
Note: Buyers before 1. july 2004. gets special discount!
Thank You for Your time!
Regards,
Radivoj Radivojevic
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I smell a blatant plug...
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Just looked at the screenshots. It looks pretty much like a Freespace rip off down to the HUD display. And far worse graphics I might add.
I'll stick with FS, thankyouverymuch.
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Looks like someone botched trying to make FreeSpace mod for VegaStrike (vegastrike.sourceforge.net). And at least with VegaStrike you get the virtues of free, open-source software and being able to explore a lot more than you can with FS.
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The graphics look too cartoony to be a serious space-sim. And the HUD looks like a cross between the FreeSpace HUD and the one in TIE fighter. And those laser effects look a little cliched. The ship design is a bit bland too.
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Graphics could use a bit of polishing. Textures are awfull.
Geo mod looks o.k.
Tons of laser burts all over the screen - looks o.k.
Sorta reminds me of X-Wing Alliance...
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Tiara: yeah, considering it the work of one person, working on his spare time, instead of 20 people working full time, I'de say it damn good. This was never billed as a Doom 3 killer or whatever. Don't knock it unless you can do better.
I've played some of the previous versions, and I'll get this installed when I get on my other computer. So I'll have some comments on this build later on.
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Considering it's not a free thing, I think it's Tiara's own right to criticize.
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Exactly. Once you move onto charging for software, you enter a different area where you have to accept criticism of work in professional terms.
Frankly, charging $29.99 for that (i.e. full retail price) is taking the piss.
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I hate to be pessimistic in this case, but it especially is, considering the texturing alone at first sight.
YU: I know you probably put a lot of work into this and are looking to go somewhere with it, but start from the from the ground up. If you're looking to sell, go around $5, tops. I'm not saying this as a bad thing, but the truth. People are going to laugh if you ask $30.
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I've got to agree, as an achievement it is one you should be proud of, you've done an incredible job, but the fact is that you need to either get together a team to enhance those graphics etc or charge less for the game.
I know you are planning for this to grow into something much bigger, but until it actually does that, I don't think you're going to have much luck charging the bigger price for it :(
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[color=66ff00]Is this programmed from scratch?
[/color]
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i played an early alpha of this game like version 0.1 or something. Back then it was a total fs2 rip. Sobek corvette, perseus fighters, etc. There was this neat warp speed thing too. Personally the dogfighting is too complex in this newtonian environment. The lasers should be instant or do more damage. It took me 20 minutes to kill one dude because my shots missed 90% of the time and the ones that hit were quickly reduced to **** when the shield recharged.
$30? :lol:
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thirty bucks USD?!... you're dreaming!
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i've been following the progress on this. played each update as it came out. I agree about the graphics and textures. They need work. On the other hand, this is a bang up start for a one man show. I think that what people are trying to say, some not so politely I might add, is that while this is a great achievement, it isn't finished from a proffessional standpoint. I actually enjoy the complexity of the dogfighting. I think that with a good graphics set, you would have a much warmer reception. releasing this as a demo to promote it and mayhaps find a good team of graphics engineers i can see, but it isn't done. In other words, be proud of what you've accomplished, but finish it.
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I thinked that this game is for free
But 30$ :WTF: I say but price around 5$
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So why don't he guys led him some help? Most of use are experienced modelers/texturers.
I'm sure we can make a few textured ships or at least textures for him to use.
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This game is writen from scratch and it is not yet completed when the graphic is considered. But it is not all about graphic you should check gameplay. I have spent 3 years making this game, I cant give it for free. $30 might be too much for someone but once you buy it you will get all updates in the future which will improve graphic and extend gameplay. I have lowered price to $24.95. This game have geomod! which other game have geomod? Any genre?
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Originally posted by YU_Skywalker
This game is writen from scratch and it is not yet completed when the graphic is considered. But it is not all about graphic you should check gameplay. I have spent 3 years making this game, I cant give it for free. $30 might be too much for someone but once you buy it you will get all updates in the future which will improve graphic and extend gameplay. I have lowered price to $24.95. This game have geomod! which other game have geomod? Any genre?
I'm sorry, but you have to price it relative to the quality of the product, not the time spent. I appreciate you worked your arse off, but if you're going to sell it, you're going to have to accept the same level of criticism I (or indeed anyone) would give to a commercial product.
And I'm afriad that I wouldn't consider geo-mod a good enough USP to justify pricing it that high.... no-one here wan;ts to slag off your work, but you have to appreciate we're looking at it from a consumer perspective - at that price range I could get UT2004, Far Cry, Thief 3, etc (play.com) - and also that we can't make a purchase based on the prospect of possible future work. (you're basically asking full price for a version which is incomplete, in that respect).
I'm sorry if that is harsh, but that's what you have to look at if you go pro.
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Originally posted by YU_Skywalker
This game have geomod! which other game have geomod? Any genre?
i can name two :p
Red faction
Red Faction 2.
so basically, you're saying, that if we buy the game, we'll get support for it for a good long while..
hmmm...
y'know, i'm not usually one to be critical of somebody's lone efforts, which, i might add, your efforts at making a game, and rendering engine, all solo, is very impressive..
so, is this game moddable to any extent?.. 'cause what i can see here, is a reasonable effort into making a 3D-space-sim...
just imagine what havok you could wreak if you and the SCP team joined forces;)
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:shaking:
The Ultimate Space Sim
*prays*
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So why don't we help him? There's certanly enough talent on these forums!
That is...if YU_Skywalker is willing to accept any help from us...
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Of course I will accept help ;)
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Originally posted by TrashMan
So why don't we help him? There's certanly enough talent on these forums!
That is...if YU_Skywalker is willing to accept any help from us...
I can;t speak for everyone of course, but might it be because we don;t have enough talented people to support the projects we're all already involved in as it is?
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Well, if he's selling this, then anybody that helps should get at least a little cut of the profits. If that's the case, I'm sure people's time will free up magically...:D
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I model
;7
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Originally posted by Turnsky
i can name two :p
Red faction
Red Faction 2.
Heh. Possibly the 2 worst Pc games of all time? (RF1 is definately the worst game I have ever played)
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aldo, you must not play alot of games.
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Originally posted by Carl
aldo, you must not play alot of games.
Well, I try to avoid the ****e ones. Unfortunately, RF caught me out and I can't rate it lowly enough to express how utterly abysmal it is.
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Nothing really wrong with RF, when you consider it's quite an old game...
Other than the total freeze up's that kept happening. Go away, come back 5 minutes later and it might start again...
.... and the total waste of the Geo-mod concept .....
and the iffy robot level where the big floating robot kept getting hung up....
apart from that, it was good.
Except for the silly stealth levels.....which were bad....
anyway.... ;)
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you forgot the apalling stop-motion animation on the enemies.
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O.k. then people -
all those who want to help Yu_Skywalker, report!
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And it would be helpfull if you told us excatly what you need the most, in what program you made your models, how do their weapon hardpoints work, do their normals need to be set in a specific way, etc...
Same as with textures - what format, size, etc...
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Originally posted by TrashMan
O.k. then people -
all those who want to help Yu_Skywalker, report!
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And it would be helpfull if you told us excatly what you need the most, in what program you made your models, how do their weapon hardpoints work, do their normals need to be set in a specific way, etc...
Same as with textures - what format, size, etc...
How much money is on offer?
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Well I haven't played the game so im not really in a position to judge, BUT from the screenshots i theink its a bit of a rip off of FS, but to do it on your own is a fabulous achievement. I would reccomend lowering the price again.
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Trashman ... I had a chance to download the demo, and it all looks pretty simple really.
Models are in DirectX format, with a .X extension. Textures are simple bitmaps. ll the models in the demo are pretty low poly, and use only a single texture. The player model is the only one with a 'proper' UV map.
I would assume that the rest of the ship details lie in the 'DATA' folder, which has encrypted txt files that I can't read. I don;t think there is any way the model format would hold info in the sam way that a POF file does. POF (as with a lot of game specific model formats ) is doing a lot more than just holding hte geometry. These just hold the geometry. You can open .X files with 3D Explorer.
Most of what you are asking about won't be all that relevant here. You could easily hold weapon positions, types etc. in a text file with just the physical polys in the model.
In theory, anyone could build models for this.... just not the code to make them act differently. I have a few 3D apps that will write out .X files, or you could convert them using 3D eXplorer
Additional:
Am I the first to mod the game ;) ... I converted one of my WIP Homeworld ships over to .X and swapped it for one of the demo ships.... works as expected :D Gunfire comes from where it did before. Just changed the physocal model. Rendered it quite nicely
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I download a demo like last year that looked a lot lie this called vega-strike. It even had a few FS2 ships like perseus and sobeks... Is this a related piece of software? Or am I totally of base?
Anyway a few suggestions. HUD needs to be crisper, reminds me too much of early X-Wing vs Tie fighter.
Weapon Grapics, same. Looks like a start but rough and unfinished compared to Homeworld 1.
Keep in mind people can still buy FS2 for $15-$29 depending on the source so that's the kind of benchmark serious gamers take into consideration.
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You're completely off-base. VegaStrike (vegastrike.sourceforge.net) is open-source software, and the fighters are more 'inspired by' FS2 than directly based on. That said, there are some bloody close designs. I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed the resemblance here (see my first post in this thread).
It's a very good game, very much in the mode of Wing Commander Privateer. And usually easier to get running on modern systems, without resorting to dos emulators.
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Looks fun, but ugly and sadly priced.
More impressed with the B5: IFH team.
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Originally posted by Hunt Smacker
More impressed with the B5: IFH team.
They have a big name to start with.
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Well I have good news!
I have contacted guys from
http://www.astralprime.co.uk/
(just look at their models!)
and they are willing to make models for my game!
Now imagine my game with those models.
It's gonna rule!
Would it justify price then???
You have mentioned my ship format.
Take a look at my ship editor that writes binary files in models/data folder:
http://www.am-games.com/GF/shots/gfshipedit.jpg
The whole game is designed with great potential for moding, easer than fs2.
I have weapons editor, mission and campaign editors.
If for example someone of you make good model for my game and want to give me for money, how
much you think I should pay to him?
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Some of those ships are pretty good, others are well no comment :)
I have a couple of questions about the engine, I'll post here with them later.
Mainly it relates to whether or not it can support things like overexposure, normal maps, and shaders. Also how good the netcode is.
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In the ship editor, is there a way to delete ship types?
How about the editor making a blank template for you if you press, say, a 'New' button?
I haven't downloaded your game, but is there an equivilent to the FS techroom with vessel descriptions? If so, you may wish to include a way to change the techroom description.
(My poor example can be found here (http://swooh.com/peon/ttfclusiop/TTSO/TTSOShipEditorScreen.png).)
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(http://www.am-games.com/GF/shots/gfshot08.jpg)
If you're charging, this'd better be an old screeny... It's one thing to Use [V]s textures for a free mod, completely another for a commercial game.
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Blackwolf's got a point. changing those textures would be a good idea, copyright and all that.
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Originally posted by YU_Skywalker
Well I have good news!
I have contacted guys from
http://www.astralprime.co.uk/
(just look at their models!)
and they are willing to make models for my game!
Now imagine my game with those models.
It's gonna rule!
Would it justify price then???
Missed this earlier.
Anyway, First off, those models are cool (though I hope there's more than two of them :)).
As for justifying the price, I don't know. There's lots of other stuff that determines game quality - the other effects (including weapons, backgrounds etc), the quality of the story (something I've been able to find almost nothing about from the website), the ease of use of the interface, the modability etc. etc.
The price of a game is a fairly complex thing to figure out. You need to strike a balance between what people will pay for your game, and what you need to cover your costs. I appreciate you want to make some cash off this, but in this state, I really doubt you will. To be honest, I reckon your best bet would be to make it either free or really cheap, and open it up to become a community effort (which would involve massive advertising, but ultimately would probably result in a better game. FS2 had dozens of people working on it), and then put it in your CV and apply for a job at a gaming company.
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Those editors look nice...
So I'm willing to help you (have allready tons of models that are done..jsut need to convert them do .X), but that means that I will need the ship editor too (how the hell am I gonna set the weapon/engine sfuff otherwise).
You should put the editor for download, so people can start converting their FS2 ships and give them to you for use....
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That screen shot is very old.
I need to improve editor a bit, then I will release it.
And I still need to extend file format.
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Thse second you release a editor, I'm you're man!
Come to think of it, I cna try to convert soe of my models right away...I have several converters so one of them should have a .X option...hehehe
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Okay, I downloaded the demo, and here is my opinion:
Gameplay wise, it's actually pretty fun. It definitely feels like a space sim. however, i wuold really like some joystick support. there is no way you can expect a space sim to do well without it, as that's what most people are going to use.
Graphically, it could use alot of work. don't just use tiled textures. make some ship specific ones, and get an artist to make them. The current textures look like they were made in MS Paint. Higher polygon models would also be nice, and then all that other frilly stuff like specular highlights and reflections, but those are not really as necissary as the textures and higher poly models.
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It have joystick support, couldn't you play with joystick?
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no. Is there a configuration menu anywhere?
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The stick worked for me...but only in terms of up/down/left.right. Fire was annoyingly not on the stick, but the Spacebar, and also the throttle slider didn't work for engines.
What is needed is a key-binding / joystick setup option, so you can configure how the game is played. Essential!
On the graphics front, the polygon count is REALLY going to hold things back. Look at games like 'X2 the Threat' for an idea of where the current commercial games market is expecting. Then, look at the FS Open standard. I know the plan is for lots of ships in a battle, but realistically, how many cap-ships are ever going to be in a single mission?
Taking the flight-sim world for comparison ( coz I know it better ) ...
There is an inevitable trade off between detailed planes and lots of planes. Careful control of levels of detail helps a lot here, with higher detail models for up close. You have to reach a balance, but there should be a point at which you can get high FPS and good enough detail. The trade off may be smaller battles.
Might end up raising the minimum spec for the PC requried to play...
Either way, you need to get this thing looking better to attract buyers, and make the mod possibility more enticing for those who might want to buy a 'sandbox' game.
p.s. ....PLEASE.... correct the text on the website! If you want, I will happily edit that for you :) Commercial products need a commercially polished presentation.
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So I have converted a few of my models to .X and have the textures allso..
Erm..say, do you use LOD's?
I only converted LOD0 since I didn't know if others are nedded yet..
And...your'e e-mail?
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Game loads one LOD then try to generate lover.
My email: [email protected]
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2 ships sent...
Say, do your ships have turrets?
Judging by the screenshots I would say no, but I could be wrong....
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Some of the Capships do :)
My only real complaint about the game is that it seems to use bounding-box collision detection, which means you bounce away from the capitalships when you are still quite a distance from them, or at least, that what it seems to be.
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No it is not bounding box it is spherical shield, once shield drop below 25% you can colide with, hull (triangle to triangle collision).
This ships looks great TrashMan, Im adding them to game now!
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Ah right! Ok, sorry 'bout that, didn't realise :)
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So how do the turrets work?
I have several capships and I have to know how to make the turrets work by you before I can convert them and send them to you....
I allso have some stations & fighters and stuff...
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Im having dificulties with your models, I had to convert it to 3ds and then scale and rotate it, but I lost texture coord in that converting.
You don't need to model turrets on the model.
Turrets are added from the ship editor.
Can you send me .3ds format mesh with texture coordinates?
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Hmm...
I have more detailed 3DMax models of the same ships, alltough that much detail is not needed.
All righty, I'll see what can be done. And I'll probably send you some more ship stoo.....
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Hmm...any chance of increasing the poly counts some?
I have had a couple of goes at making something nice, but I can't get anything I like. The poly budget is very low...back in the levels of pre-FSO, and made worse by the fact that you can only have triangles...
Last time I made models this low in polys was for online massive multi play... surely with a modern Dx9 grpahics engine more polygons can be used.... I know you want lots of ships...but fewer ships that look good would be better.....
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Sent you the same two ships...this time 3Ds..UV map is present the last time I checked...
Anyway, I have tons of other ships, but most use V textures...
I can send you just the 3ds models, and you can have those guys(the ones that you said that will help) make textures for them.
There's too many of them for me to make all the textures.
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Here is the screenshot, looks nice :yes:
Send me what ever model you want
(http://www.am-games.com/GF/shots/phoenixf.jpg)
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When I asked on the polygon limits I was told they were about 1,000-2,000 triangles. So that matches about with pre-FSO limits.
Personally I'd like to see fewer ships but with counts around 10,000-20,000. The ability to have cinematic quality models.
Of course that should also go along with the ability to support more LODs. So that older systems can still use under 1,000 poly models.
High resolution textures (1024x1024) as well as decals would also go a long way to making ships look better.
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Hmmm...I have higher detailed models of the two shups I sent you. I did them for Freelancer along with several other ships...
I'm gonna send you several ships (some textured, most not) in 3ds format in the next few days. Can't right now..have some exams to do..
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Since it looks like you need some planet textures, here's some I did up a while back:
(http://www.savant-online.net/graphics/planet103d.png)
http://www.savant-online.net/graphics/planet_lightblue.png (2048x2048)
(http://www.savant-online.net/graphics/planet93d.png)
http://www.savant-online.net/graphics/planet_olive.png (2048x2048)
(http://www.savant-online.net/graphics/planet63d.png)
http://www.savant-online.net/graphics/planet_yellow.png (512x512)
(http://www.savant-online.net/graphics/planet53d.png)
http://www.savant-online.net/graphics/planet_grey.png (2048x2048)
(http://www.savant-online.net/graphics/planet73d.png)
http://www.savant-online.net/graphics/planet_red.png (2048x2048)
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I have absolutely no talent and cant think of anything I could do to help, but I want money. ;7
Hey, you GOT to have a useless slacker on the team SOMEWHERE! :nod:
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Originally posted by .::Tin Can::.
I have absolutely no talent and cant think of anything I could do to help, but I want money. ;7
Go work at a fast food restaurant then. Just tell me where you work so I don't get exotic diseases from eating food you prepared.
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I am a very good cook, thank you very much... :D
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Nice planets, how did you made them?
Can you render them with black background and alpha chanel?
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Can you just tell me how you made them so I can make some too? :D
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Originally posted by YU_Skywalker
Nice planets, how did you made them?
Can you render them with black background and alpha chanel?
I thought that you were using planet models and not sprites.
I'll do up some high resolution renders for you then.
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How to make?! :eek2:
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Tin Can: Painted in photoshop. Applied to a sphere model.
Here's the images in .png format with an alpha channel. 512x512 resolution:
(http://www.savant-online.net/graphics/pgrey.png)
(http://www.savant-online.net/graphics/pblue.png)
(http://www.savant-online.net/graphics/pred.png)
(http://www.savant-online.net/graphics/pbrown.png)
(http://www.savant-online.net/graphics/pgasblue.png)
(http://www.savant-online.net/graphics/pgasyellow.png)
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Id say you should hold off the game for purchase and spend another 3 years further developing the graphics engine so that way you could have a reason for pricing it for 24.95! IMHO. Good job btw it looks like it could be a promising game in future.
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Painted in photoshop? Incredible! How in the world did you get that planet effect?! I mean... did you use a kind of blender that would mix up colors, or did you actually paint it with a brush? Tin must know!!!
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Basically, the skin was painted in photoshop, and wrapped around a 3D sphere model, which was rendered up on a white background, by the looks of things :)
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Yup :)
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Got a suggestion for the ingame audio/video:
Since you're using DX9 try looking into DirectShow, if you can get it ingame you'll get an easier way to add media support and improve the overall quality (high quality compressed sources are better than low quality wave) and future MOD support, not to ention that it would be codec independant this way ;)
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The game mechanics looks promising (with beams cutting troug ships and all).
Now I don't know if this is actualyy in yet, but you should do armour levels. The thicker a capships armour, the longer it takes for the beam to cut trough.