Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Ace on July 06, 2004, 11:59:17 pm
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A few months ago I posted some screenshots from the game wEvil and I are working on, Rimscape, in the HLP art forum.
Since we're slowly but surely getting closer to beta testing, I decided to post some more shots here to get some exposure.
Rimscape is a scifi combat and trading game in the style of games such as Escape Velocity, Solar Winds, Elite, and Privateer. You can fly a variety of ships and wield an arsenal of weapons from mass drivers to fusion cannons and heavy duodec torpedoes.
(http://www.savant-online.net/graphics/rshrscreen1.png)
A general shot of a planet, offscreen indicators show some nearby traffic and a capitalship is in view.
(http://www.savant-online.net/graphics/rshrscreen2.png)
This shot shows off one of the bits of "interactive space terrain" in the game, asteroid fields. Fields have regions of denseness and sparsity, this is a rather empty part of the field where a planet and a transport are in sight. Asteroids are slow but can damage your ship, but they also hinder the tracking systems of seeking weapons such as missiles.
(http://www.savant-online.net/graphics/rshrscreen3.png)
This shows another environment in the game, a nebula. They do nasty things to your sensors but allow your ship to recharge its energy for weaponry, shielding, and manuvering faster. In this particular nebula there's a ship belonging to a very nasty and ancient secret that should probably stay that way...
(http://www.savant-online.net/graphics/rshrscreen4.png)
Another beauty shot. This time of a dim white star and an icy planet.
Rimscape is very loosely based off of Nodewars. There's lots of references and omages to NW, but it's a whole different universe then FS.
Rimscape is for PC, as well as Java supporting phones and PDAs.
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I know it's probably not nearly final, but the HUD needs to have a unified look to it IMO.
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Looks nice. :yes:
I wish I could program like that in Java. :sigh:
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That's Java? Wow...
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So is it going to be freeform? I've been looking for a descent freedorm game like Elite but can't seem to find one that measures up to Elite.
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Originally posted by Liberator
That's Java? Wow...
You do know that java is a proper grown up programming language, don't you? :p
Seriously, it supports OpenGL & Direct X (directly or through the Java3d wrapper classes) - there's some neat stuff you can do graphically wise, even if it primarily used for distributed apps.
Although I half-expect someone to come in and whinge at this point....
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those screens remind me of hegemonia (which is a good thing :) :yes: )
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Originally posted by ARothers
So is it going to be freeform? I've been looking for a descent freedorm game like Elite but can't seem to find one that measures up to Elite.
Yup, completely freeform.
Sandwich, please elaborate on what you mean by uniform look. I'm curious about your ideas. We're sort of aiming for minimalist because it's supposed to also run on itsy-bitsy screens, but we want things to look consistent.
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Looks cool :)
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Well, mainly across the bottom row, you have 2 boxes in grey borders, and the three rainbow-colored power bars. Current-day HUDs are mostly mono- or bi- color dealies AFAIK, and where color is used, it's used for far more "crucial" bits of information than just "engine power", "shield power", "hull strength" (or whatever). Color also brings a meaning with it for humans - red is danger, green is a-ok, yellow draws the attention, etc. Use colors to designate, not just differentiate. :)
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also...it might be a good idea to color a few of the ships...from the screenies you've shown, they all look rather grey, except for the evil-ancient-alien-thingamabob. I'm not saying you should have Supar Rainbow Ship!!11 or anything like that, but a few stripes here and there, some differentiating marks, etc... would be nice
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Originally posted by Sandwich
Well, mainly across the bottom row, you have 2 boxes in grey borders, and the three rainbow-colored power bars. Current-day HUDs are mostly mono- or bi- color dealies AFAIK, and where color is used, it's used for far more "crucial" bits of information than just "engine power", "shield power", "hull strength" (or whatever). Color also brings a meaning with it for humans - red is danger, green is a-ok, yellow draws the attention, etc. Use colors to designate, not just differentiate. :)
Don't worry, the color scheme does make sense. You can set the indicators between a faction color mode (seen in these screenshots) as well as an IFF mode. (red showing danger, etc.)
How various colors attract the eye, etc. were also kept in mind for the "rainbow bars." Green being related to hull (red is saved for warning/danger things), purple (energy) flucuates a lot so a less in your face color is being used. Yellow is used as a bar for ammunition based items as it is noticable and it'll attract your attention when the bar changes a lot. This gets your attention to check the ammo bar.
If it wasn't for the fact we're trying to keep everything consistent between highres and lowres versions the HUD would be a bit fancier, with a few more things to bluntly spell out what everything means. As it is, it's supposed to match with the lowres art, so are the menus in the game.
Originally posted by Anaz
also...it might be a good idea to color a few of the ships...from the screenies you've shown, they all look rather grey, except for the evil-ancient-alien-thingamabob. I'm not saying you should have Supar Rainbow Ship!!11 or anything like that, but a few stripes here and there, some differentiating marks, etc... would be nice
Each faction has a unique look and style. The grey ships belong to one faction.
Stripes and marks will not be on the ships because we are having versions scaled to sizes down to 38x38 pixels and everything needs to be recognizable.
Now if we were doing a 3d version with the latest graphics bells and whistles it'd definately have a squad logo and custom color scheme feature like Homeworld 2 has.
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when it comes time to beta, Ace, let me know. I'll give it a shot on my Zaurus and we'll see what happens. ;)
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Instead of creating a new topic I decided to bump this one. We're a lot closer to being ready to beta test the game, but there's still some tweaking to be made on the non-online .jar. Some other balance changes are being done. We've also going to add some more AI tweaks and change some of the universe generation things relating to factions. We're also adding in some OpenGL to help improve performance, visual quality, etc.
Here's an image showing a transport Venom made for one of the factions, the Rim Combine. Some debug stuff can be seen in the shot:
(http://www.savant-online.net/graphics/rshrscreen5.png)
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"Where'd all the stars go?"