[Styxx]

Originally posted by Mr. Fury
At very least, asking won't hurt you. Even if they won't give the source code of IFH-engine, they may still help you in other ways. They surely have experience in that area.

That's true. All you people wanting to do this: go there, ask them, and then tell us what they replied.

[Inquisitor]

Just realized something.

You can grab the core of the Torque engine (not the C++, just a precompiled binary) and get an idea for what it can do at:

http://www.garagegames.com click on "Realm Wars" it's 5 megs. I THINK that if you have that, and tribes 2, you can follow some public tutorials for getting flying vehicles working.

Otherwise, if you are feeling brave and have the bandwidth, you can grab my personal, "I am messing around" 30 meg build at http://www.shatteredstar.com/friendlyfire

Same core tech, I've done some things to the exe. The bulk of that I would say took me 3-4 months of work, with a LONG break after Christmas, and based on work I had done for a professional paper I presented at GSA last November (so i had a head start), GSA build is here:

http://www.deckersds.com/endeavor

The script language is educational in and of itself. Any of those builds should give you some sense for things and the garagegames  site is full of info.

Not advocating Torque, just arming you with as much information as possible.

[IceFire]

Wow...there seems to be some interest.  Are you guys prepared to dig in for the long haul and try and make it work?  I'm sure all sorts of projects would benefit but this is going to be of blood sweat and tears.  More blood sweat and tears than TBP ever was....and I've spent more time on that thing than anything else.

I wish you guys luck.

[Kazan]

very good points people-

hey HLPBB admins, perhaps we should get a forum up for this with the kind of traffic I forsee being generated.


As for a new file type to replace pof - i agree that is a viable option, but we really need Eternal One, because I don't quite grok BSP splits - i figured out how to generate adquetally compliant data for the POF BSP/IDTA but I really need to grok that kind of information... this project is going to require me to learn a lot about 3d programming.  As for the alternative file types - that is a great idea, my idea for that is

All supported data types can go in the data tree or vps for the engine, the engine then auotmatically compile those models each time they're changed [UTIME compaired against the compiled version] and places them in a temp dir.

Mods can be switched on-the-fly on a mission-by-mission basis - by the data tables only be loaded into memory in the pre-mission loading, instead of at engine startup like volition does, with the origional engine.  This will allow there to be multiplayer mods that automatically switch, you can have multiple data structures at a time - ie the directories are "data" for the main data, "babylon5" for the babylon 5 mod, "Derelict" for derelict, and so on.  The mods can also have vps - the data tree and the associated vps are listed in "mod data files" in the main directory - and the default vps can be loaded, or completely overwritten - or you can load one vp with the customizations, then load the normal vp with all the other data [the first VP loaded owns the file, occurances in later vps are ignored]

I would like to raise the polys that can be in a scene, and even make missions where you skim terrain [that will require some huge terrain models], with fog, etc, other atmospheric effects


I naturally want new effects, new weapon types, etc.


With the documentation you could design an entirely new game, will all fresh data.  We're just writing a new engine, with knew capabilities - just because it groks Volitions VP and POF files doesn't make it illegal, groking MVE would though - because Volition doesn't care about the VP and POF types, but Intergay [Titus now is it?] cares about MVE - some anonymous programmer could make a 'contraband' converter from MVE to like DivX mpeg for the cutscenes and make it a 'add-in module' for the engine, not official endorsed by the developement team....  aren't loopholes lovely

[wEvil]

I still think something based off the .XSI format would give you greater flexiblility..specially seeing as its a relatively new way of doing things.

It also removes headaches of model compatibility etc.

Using the existing FS2 tools would be a little difficult.  I could never work out how to get anything into FS2 from MAX - there were just so many things to go wrong that it wasnt worth my while.

As far as polycount goes..well, since you're going OpenGL the graphics card ICD handles the T&L support so you can go up to 50,000 onscreen with top-end cards at a reasonable framerate.

[Stryke 9]

that will require some huge terrain models

[raises hand]

Carrara up! Want 'em in 3DS, COB, LWO, or something else altogether?

Of course, I suppose that is the million-dollar question at the instant...

[Ace Pace]

I don't know a thing about programing but I have one thing to say. please let people with older cards play this . (whenever it will coem out. im betting 2595)

[Inquisitor]

Ah yes, the ever present "system requirements."

[Fineus]

Originally posted by Kazan
hey HLPBB admins, perhaps we should get a forum up for this with the kind of traffic I forsee being generated.

Not yet, untill you have something concrete or a webpage of some sort for hosting all conversations on this can be confined to this thread or similar. Right now all this is discussion, get something of substance done and we'll take a look at hosting, websites, forums and so on.

[Kazan]

yeah.. there will naturally be "level of detail" considerations

as for the file formats you keep talking about - the compilers will take care of it - native support for modeling environement formats - WON'T WORK, the data would have to be converted to a BSP format of some type - so even if the converter is internal to the engine, it'll still be converted to some game data format

then the question would also be - how do you automatically convert the file type and have all the game data like firepoints, docs, etc

[an0n]

Use TXT files to designate all the guns and stuff.

Or some kind of inbuilt ModView where you can import any model format, add all the stuff and it'll save it as something useable and add it to the game data files.

[Kazan]

Originally posted by Thunder

Not yet, untill you have something concrete or a webpage of some sort for hosting all conversations on this can be confined to this thread or similar. Right now all this is discussion, get something of substance done and we'll take a look at hosting, websites, forums and so on.

HLP won't be hosting the website, i depise gamespy's servers

[Kazan]

Originally posted by an0n
Use TXT files to designate all the guns and stuff.

use "ship table files" to load from.. that was an idea.... i don't particularly care for it, but it is an idea

[Stryke 9]

Ideally, the model file will be POF if it can't be native. PCS was nice, but but without modelview's grpahical display, I'm sorry to say it was next to useless for the non-math-minded (me in particular), and a similar prog would be no fun to play with.

[Kazan]

i _was_ working on a graphical display until i moved over to linux.. I haven't yet learned KDE GUI programming

[Stryke 9]

Ah. That's all right, then.

BTW: You might wanna check out POVray for this, actually. Open-source, programming-type modeler, and I believe it comes in Linux, too. See "Frick the System", somewhere dead here...

[an0n]

Have an inbuilt section call Shipyards or something where you can import a 3ds, MAX, LW whatever, add all the guns, rotating section and whatnot and save it into the game. A POF file could be used for exporting ships to other copies. Give it some extra useful things like normal fixers, scalers and stuff. That way you'd know for certain, straight away that your model was gonna work in the game and you could quickly and easily tweak the size and various other attributes. A mission too hard? Open the Shipyard and add some more gun ports to your fighter.

Basically, mush together PCS, ModView and some basic 3d modelling tools.

[Stryke 9]

And make it have a psychic interface.

[Fineus]

Originally posted by Kazan
HLP won't be hosting the website, i depise gamespy's servers

IIRC Your not the project leader - you said as much yourself

Oh, and if your not hosted with us - no forum for you.

[CP5670]

The additional pof data should definitely be specified in the tables; would make it a lot easier to work with.