Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - Non-FreeSpace => MechCommander OmniTech => Topic started by: Starman01 on January 06, 2011, 05:34:41 am
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Hello there, HLP community.
A few weeks have past, and after the warm welcome we received we made our self at home here. Since we are currently at the start, and mostly depended on codechanges (which already shape up quite nicely) there isn't that much "substantial" to show in the first place. However, I want to pick up one suggestion from one of the welcome threads and introduce the current team, and besides that show some minor stuff and grant some foresight to what's coming in the future.
First, let me introduce the team to you :
Currently we are 6 Members, 2 of us HLP Veterans. The coding department is based on magic and codemonkeyjonathan, and newly reinforced with niue. On the modelling side its currently karl, hades and myself.
The Goal of our project is, as I already said, a technically enhanced, and more modding friendly version of the game. That's why I picked that name for it. For those of you familiar with Battletech will know that "Omni" could be taken as the term for "easy moddable" (meant for mechs that could be refitted easy with different weapons in the field, developed by the clans, and therefore called "omnimechs"). IMO it fits very well to what we have planned with Mechcommander.
What's currently in the works ?
Our coders are currently working on two major issues.
Magic is revamping and creating a completly new logistic system, that will be in the end turns out more similar to the Mechlab from MW4/Mercs, which will allow a more battletech like fitting for the mechs, also there will be a enhanced economic part in buying and selling components and mechs. Besides that, he is fixing the existing alpha and the editor.
Codemonkeyjonathan is giving the graphic part a revamp, that will include many different objectives once finished. Not only will we be able to raise the polycount of objects with a LOD System together with the max polycounts the engine can display per screen , but also the resolution of textures will be raised and will be enhanced with bumpmapping. Since the game is 10 years old, and was developed for the systems from the past, we have quite a huge playing field for upgrades to newer systems).
Both will be assisted by Niue whereever he can.
Karl has volounteered for the job of the "mech creator" and is adding new and even never seens mechs to the game. Here is one of his first works, which turns out very great already :
(http://omnitech.hard-light.net/team/starman/news/hellfire01-small.jpg) (http://omnitech.hard-light.net/team/starman/news/hellfire01.jpg)
Hades is already upgrading buildings to give them a higher polycount. Take a look at this to get a feeling what we are aiming for (the dark one is the old lowpoly) :
(http://omnitech.hard-light.net/team/starman/news/trafcon2-small.jpg) (http://omnitech.hard-light.net/team/starman/news/trafcon2.jpg)
I for myself decided to give the vehicles a try and will also create a few more buildings in the future, sofar only turrets have been done. Take a look at this, to get another idea what the changes will become like. Again the small truck in the lower left is the retail version :
(http://omnitech.hard-light.net/team/starman/news/lrmc04-small.jpg) (http://omnitech.hard-light.net/team/starman/news/lrmc04.jpg)
Of course, this will all still take a lot of time, and will need a lot of testing. So everyone asking questions like "when are you done ?" will be punished to help us :D
And to give you people something to stay focused on this project, let me say this :
We have agreed to release the Alpha to you once we fixed a few bugs in it. it features :
- ca. 75 different mechs (more than 90, if you take Clan variants into account). Retail Editor had only 29.
- ca. 70 vehicles (including variants) featuring different chopters, powered armor types or the vehicle probs movable. Retail had 34
- a few new buildings
- a different purchase system (different from what we plan, so this one is obsolete)
- an updated Carver 5 campaign ( a little more challenging)
- Magic's Exodus Campaign
- Single missions, replaying MW2 Mercenaries
- the editor allowing you to make missions with all the new stuff.
Cudos to magic, for creating most of the new units !!!!! :)
So, that's it for todays update. And even if it is already a few days old, the Mechcommander Omnitech Team wishes you all a happy new year !
Best regards
The MC OT Team
(Starman, Magic, CodemonkeyJonathan, Karl, Hades and Niue)
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Glad you guys are settled in and i hope you enjoy many years of sucsess
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Big plans you got people, and a lot of dedication as I can see from this post.
Nice to have you around with us :yes:
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Anything I can help with? I've already got a mech model that i mentioned on dropship command forums (Champion IIC)
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Can you UVMap and texture as well? And can you post a screenshot of the mech?
We could use a bit more help, yeah.
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Anything I can help with? I've already got a mech model that i mentioned on dropship command forums (Champion IIC)
Enjoy your welcome Laser!
:welcome:
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I'd be willing to help, too. Maybe this'll provide the push for me to finally properly learn modeling/texturing, and doing it to add more mechage to the game would be a worthy cause.
I'm also a good/decent writer and balancer; perhaps my ridiculous Mech document of doom may come in handy to determine slottage (I'm assuming that's what you're aiming for since you mentioned MW4/Mercs-esque mechlab).
There any plans to announce the project's existence on BT/MW sites or forums, or is this being kept mostly in-house here at HLP?
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Yeah, I want to announce the project into the BT Forums too, but I would like to wait a little before doing that. Since the MC2 community is pretty dead, I want to have a little more substance before doing so.
Regarding help, what we really need most are 2d Artists and UV-Mappers (but which project doesn't ? :) ) Also, there are of course tons of models that need to be upgraded, which is pretty easy actually, we are not going so highpoly as Freespace. So anyone who can create textures from scratch (most needed are metallic effects and wood/concrete) and can do a little UV mapping is welcome :) Just drop me a PM and maybe show me a little bit of what you can do :)
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Have you guys set up some svn or similar for the code stuff? And if yes, is there a public checkout address?
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Have you guys set up some svn or similar for the code stuff?
Sort of :)
And if yes, is there a public checkout address?
No, not at this moment. Maybe later, once we create the combined alpha
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Can you UVMap and texture as well? And can you post a screenshot of the mech?
We could use a bit more help, yeah.
I can sort of UV map, but I can texture. It's already textured in RGB colors, but am I supposed color/texture my model in some other way? I have an image attached, but it's a bit outdated. Can anyone tell me if there is anything that needs to be changed and/or added?
[attachment deleted by admin]
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May I ask what 'Mech that is? I don't recognize it at all.
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A... Cestus? Maybe? :confused:
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This is a custom mech based off of the Champion. I call it Champion IIE because it will be in a new campaign i'm trying to make (unfortunately I hav very little time).
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The polycount of the joints could probably be reduced without any noticeable effect. I've found with walkers that cylinders tend to look more stable than ball joints, too. Just an aesthetic thing.
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May I ask what 'Mech that is? I don't recognize it at all.
Did you play Mech Warrior 3? If not I suggest you do it (if you can overcome the crash issues with newer operating systems....) because it's a really great game and I like it more than even MW4 Merc (though that already is a big improvement over MW4 Vengeance).
The Champion was featured in MW3, though it didn't have a big "belly gun" like this variant.
I'm not completely sure, but I think it was in the lower reaches of heavy mech tonnage.
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I've played all the MechWarriors, both MechCommander, both MechAssaults (which probably doesn't help much), and the tabletop for the past.... eight years or so.
The Champion doesn't look anything like that. The head fin, the oversize feet, the spindly rest of the legs, and the belly gun are all not present on it for any variant.
Oh, and the Champion doesn't have distinct arms. The "wings" serve that function in the tabletop.
He's already said it's a custom, anyway.
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Do you have a profile for this mod on ModDB?
I suggest you get one, it's a great way to keep it all organized.
www.moddb.com
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I will make one later. Though I do not need it to get organized :)
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The Champion doesn't look anything like that. The head fin, the oversize feet, the spindly rest of the legs, and the belly gun are all not present on it for any variant.
Oh, and the Champion doesn't have distinct arms. The "wings" serve that function in the tabletop.
But the most iconic features of the Champion are still there. The unique shape of the torso (like the front of a jet-fighter) and the wings. If it would look exactly like the original, why bother making it in the first place?
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But the most iconic features of the Champion are still there. The unique shape of the torso (like the front of a jet-fighter) and the wings. If it would look exactly like the original, why bother making it in the first place?
That looks far more like tinyMarauder than it does any sort of Champion, man. The wings have been nearly deleted, the torso is in no way aircraft-shaped unless your aircraft is a very overfed Concorde.
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Awesome. Just wanted to say I've always loved commanding little mechs around in MC2, sure the gameplay and graphics have always been a bit simplified by it flows very well.
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I need to know how to make these mechs look MC2-ish. Anybody here have some sort of "tutorial"? Don't give that kind of "hey, here's a tutorial, change the whole thing!" I'm only going to make the wings a bit wider and change the legs.
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What exactly do you mean with "making them MC2 ish ?" Despite the fact, that the original MC2 mechs were quite low on polygons, they are very close to the canon design, and to be honest, I do not really want any "made up" stuff in there also, no offend :) Besides that, the original texture were RGB coded. Karl can tell you more how to create those type of texturemaps. I don't think that there is already some sort of tutorial, except the text that magic posted over at DSC
If you aim for the champion mech, well, if you build the mech for the retail game, you should keep it below 1500 polies. We aim for something around 3K for mechs in the new engine, once it will be functionial. So if you stay close to the original maybe you already want to build it with a little more detail (though I have learned, that you can create reallly good looking mechs with around 2500 polygons)
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I'm already making the origional Champion. The thing is, I can't calculate how many polys i alredy have. I'm using Blender 2.56 and i can't afford any expensive 3D modeling programs like 3DS Max.
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If you wish, you can upload your model, and I check it. Or you get yourself the 3D explorer, you can view quite a lot of formates with it, and it also tells you the polycount. Despite that, you can use it to transform some file types :)