Title: Is there a Star Control I mod for UQM? Post by: hackdx on December 19, 2011, 06:01:46 pm I was wondering if anyone had worked on making a Star Control I remake in UQM. From what I can tell, it should be a reasonably compact task: The "Practice" and "Melee" modes would just be restrictions of the existing Super Melee, so the only thing that would truly need to be written anew would be the 3D map and the strategic component of the "full game".
Rather than remaking Star Control I in a totally new program, using UQM as as a base would give us access to all the existing assets (perhaps even those from the HD mod), and it'd be a fun new thing to have! Title: Re: Is there a Star Control I mod for UQM? Post by: Death 999 on December 19, 2011, 07:10:42 pm You would think so, but no one, as far as I can tell, has tried it.
Dragon has been working on a total ground-up remake (there's a thread at SCDB), though he's done so much fundamental work one wonders whether there's a game in there. Title: Re: Is there a Star Control I mod for UQM? Post by: hackdx on December 19, 2011, 10:19:57 pm Dragon has been working on a total ground-up remake (there's a thread at SCDB), though he's done so much fundamental work one wonders whether there's a game in there. Starting from gound up sounds like far too big a project -- it's much better to get something small done than to get bored of something too big.With SC1, all the assets are already there, so the main task would really focus only on making the main strategic map, the ship movement and the AI... Title: Re: Is there a Star Control I mod for UQM? Post by: Lukipela on December 20, 2011, 05:20:51 pm You would think so, but no one, as far as I can tell, has tried it. Dragon has been working on a total ground-up remake (there's a thread at SCDB), though he's done so much fundamental work one wonders whether there's a game in there. [/quote It's fascinating though, like someone wanting to create a modern replica of the Eiffel tower beginning with rearranging things on a subatomic level to get the very best tensile strength. Title: Re: Is there a Star Control I mod for UQM? Post by: dczanik on December 20, 2011, 08:30:45 pm Dragon has been working on a total ground-up remake (there's a thread at SCDB), though he's done so much fundamental work one wonders whether there's a game in there. Starting from gound up sounds like far too big a project -- it's much better to get something small done than to get bored of something too big.With SC1, all the assets are already there, so the main task would really focus only on making the main strategic map, the ship movement and the AI... HackDX. If you want to program it, I'll put it in UQM-HD. That way we can have the original low-res and high-res versions available. I'll also provide all the graphics and animation. Since we've done most of the hard work already, I don't think it would be too hard on the art side. I think Dragon's game will eventually be even better, because it will be built from the ground up and 3D offers more potential. But you're right. Most of the game would already be done. Title: Re: Is there a Star Control I mod for UQM? Post by: hackdx on December 21, 2011, 01:57:30 am HackDX. If you want to program it, I'll put it in UQM-HD. That way we can have the original low-res and high-res versions available. I'll also provide all the graphics and animation. Since we've done most of the hard work already, I don't think it would be too hard on the art side. I think Dragon's game will eventually be even better, because it will be built from the ground up and 3D offers more potential. But you're right. Most of the game would already be done. Hehe, I was thinking that... HD would be cool, though just getting SC2-sized versions of the SC1 animations ("colony destroyed" etc.) would be important, too! Quite frankly, I'd much rather see a remake of SC1 in the style of SC2, which looks awesome, rather than something completely new. As I posted in my HD comment, developing a new aesthetic style is a titanic undertaking, and since both the original SC2 style and the HD mod style are already very well developed, I don't think that reinventing that wheel would be of immediate benefit.Yes, all told this shouldn't be too hard. Me, I don' t have too much experience with the codebase though, so I'd much rather if one of the core developers would chime in on this. In other news, I've started making some progress removing memory leaks from the UQM codebase, so with luck this will show up in P6014 soon and the debugging there will get easier! Title: Re: Is there a Star Control I mod for UQM? Post by: chenjesuwizard on December 21, 2011, 05:56:49 pm Two things:
1. When you are suggesting a star control mod for UQM, are you suggesting making it like star control 1 or suggesting that you make it more like UQM, with a story line of the entire war, flying around in a cruiser instead of a vindicator? 'cause they're completely different things... 2. If you wanted to get this done, then you're better of trying to do the coding yourself asking advice from other people. Alot of people are busy with their own projects (project 6014, UQM HD, Dark Quadrant, etc...). Title: Re: Is there a Star Control I mod for UQM? Post by: hackdx on December 21, 2011, 06:07:26 pm 1. When you are suggesting a star control mod for UQM, are you suggesting making it like star control 1 or suggesting that you make it more like UQM, with a story line of the entire war, flying around in a cruiser instead of a vindicator? 'cause they're completely different things... No, I mean a literal remake of the game exactly as it appears in SC1, just build on the UQM "engine" if you will. It could even be a new menu item, beside "New Game" and "Super Melee" -- like "Star Control I Scenario".Quote 2. If you wanted to get this done, then you're better of trying to do the coding yourself asking advice from other people. Alot of people are busy with their own projects (project 6014, UQM HD, Dark Quadrant, etc...). One step at a time .. we're getting there :-)Title: Re: Is there a Star Control I mod for UQM? Post by: dczanik on December 21, 2011, 06:47:22 pm Yes, all told this shouldn't be too hard. Me, I don' t have too much experience with the codebase though, so I'd much rather if one of the core developers would chime in on this. From what I've read here: http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/The_Ur-Quan_Masters_Project_FAQ#What_are_the_goals_for_the_The_Ur-Quan_Masters_project.3F That's probably not going to happen anytime soon. They're more focused on Star Control 2. There may be forks later. But I've been waiting almost 10 years for them to update the graphics. Nobody stepped up to do it. And like Cedric I got tired of waiting and decided to do it myself. That being said... If the UQM guys would want to, I'd love for my HD project to merge in with their stuff as an add-on. I've also got my all my stuff in ridiculously high resolutions just in case somebody wanted to add larger resolutions or even widescreen options. I'd leave the UQM memory leak problems to the UQM guys, and focus your talents on the exciting new stuff ;-) There's the technical help forums and the 6014 team who can help you with the codebase. Dragon has an intimate knowledge of developing a Star Control 1 game and can help you. And you would have the gratitude of hundreds of Star Control 1 players who enjoyed some of the aspects that the first game brought. You would also introduce players to some of the strategic elements in Star Control 1 that never bought the game. And I would build a shrine dedicated to your greatness :P Title: Re: Is there a Star Control I mod for UQM? Post by: CelticMinstrel on January 30, 2012, 05:44:35 am This is something that I want to do someday, using the UQM engine to recreate the original Star Control, retaining the new ships (which could be used in custom campaigns), removing the restrictions on which sides get which ships (so you could have a rebellious Umgah ship, for example) and porting all the campaigns from the Genesis version... I've been wondering if there might be copyright issues in there somewhere, though. In particular, isn't some of the art copyrighted? Only the SC2 art was released as Creative Commons, right?
The two things that have stopped me from doing it are time, and the fact that UQM is written in C and it's hard for me to understand the code. Title: Re: Is there a Star Control I mod for UQM? Post by: dczanik on January 30, 2012, 05:53:01 am Regarding the art: Yes, the old art would probably not be available for copyright reasons. I'm sure somebody would make it available as a .UQM file though. The old art is pretty close to the "new" SC2 art anyways.
What I really need is a programmer willing to step up and do work on it, and I'll make sure all the art is taken care of. Title: Re: Is there a Star Control I mod for UQM? Post by: CelticMinstrel on January 30, 2012, 05:58:52 am I was actually thinking of the other art that's not duplicated in SC2, such as the little animations in the corner.
Title: Re: Is there a Star Control I mod for UQM? Post by: dczanik on January 30, 2012, 06:08:20 am Ah. you mean stuff like this:
(http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2011/013/e/9/sc1_syreen_colony_pic_redux_by_zenzmurfy-d373m5m.jpg) (http://zenzmurfy.deviantart.com/gallery/25473578#/d373m5m) Just a quick doodle by Zenzmurfy. One of the guys artists working on Project 6014. We do this stuff for fun. Most of the stuff he's done for 6014 has been the 3D ships. If we get this SC1 project off the ground...the art probably won't be exact (due to copyright ), but I see no reason to have the art stopping us. Title: Re: Is there a Star Control I mod for UQM? Post by: CelticMinstrel on January 30, 2012, 06:11:04 am Yeah, stuff like that. :P If I were making this, I'd want to have art at the same resolution as base UQM; the HD stuff is really nice (I was looking through it on the other forum a little while ago), but that's a separate add-on.
Title: Re: Is there a Star Control I mod for UQM? Post by: dczanik on January 30, 2012, 06:15:07 am Totally understand. There's also nothing saying we can't have both too. The 6014 hi-res stuff is a separate add-on because not everybody wants the HD stuff. It's easy to port over to HD. Just changing some graphics, and some variables.
Title: Re: Is there a Star Control I mod for UQM? Post by: CelticMinstrel on February 02, 2012, 07:59:46 am I was trying to extract the art from SC1 (mainly just so that I could see what art there is), but so far haven't had any success. I was also thinking it'd be nice to use VileRancour's(?) ship images from PNF for "Practice" mode. For "Melee" mode I see no reason why you couldn't just use the current Super Melee, unchanged, while "Practice" mode would be a minor(-seeming) tweak of the Super Melee mode.
Oh, I also tried porting the six Genesis-exclusive scenarios to the DOS version, but the only source I could find didn't separate unexplored stars into Hierarchy and Alliance hemispheres and made no mention of additional victory conditions (destroying starbase/colony/mines), so I have to assume that the result is not entirely accurate. One thing I was wondering is whether people would prefer a straight clone of SC1, or a remake which might have some slightly different mechanical (by which I mean things like menus, not gameplay mechanics) or graphical changes (like making planets larger than a single pixel and starbases actually look like the UQM starbase). This also isn't something I'd want to do myself, since as I mentioned I find it a bit difficult to wrap my head around some of the UQM code (at least in part due to it being procedural C, I think). Is hackdx a programmer too? What he said in his last post about including it alongside the main UQM game is also something I had also thought of, so that you get both Star Control games in a single program, though it would probably be easier not to do it that way. Title: Re: Is there a Star Control I mod for UQM? Post by: hackdx on February 03, 2012, 12:47:38 am I've been going through some of the UQM code and submitted a couple of patches to address memory cleanup issues, and I'm hoping that some of those will gradually be accepted. My next goal is to find a way to start up a rudimentary SC1 game mode, but I'm not sure how long it'll take before I make any sort of progress. The idea is to have the look and feel of SC2, i.e. the same style of menu and menu sounds on the right-hand side, and of course the battles would just be using the SC2 melee system.
The main piece of programming that'll be essential to this is the SC1 starmap view. Title: Re: Is there a Star Control I mod for UQM? Post by: dczanik on February 03, 2012, 01:13:35 am I've been going through some of the UQM code and submitted a couple of patches to address memory cleanup issues, and I'm hoping that some of those will gradually be accepted. My next goal is to find a way to start up a rudimentary SC1 game mode, but I'm not sure how long it'll take before I make any sort of progress. The idea is to have the look and feel of SC2, i.e. the same style of menu and menu sounds on the right-hand side, and of course the battles would just be using the SC2 melee system. The main piece of programming that'll be essential to this is the SC1 starmap view. Can we get an ETA on when you're going to start on this? I was trying to extract the art from SC1 (mainly just so that I could see what art there is), but so far haven't had any success. I was also thinking it'd be nice to use VileRancour's(?) ship images from PNF for "Practice" mode. For "Melee" mode I see no reason why you couldn't just use the current Super Melee, unchanged, while "Practice" mode would be a minor(-seeming) tweak of the Super Melee mode. Oh, I also tried porting the six Genesis-exclusive scenarios to the DOS version, but the only source I could find didn't separate unexplored stars into Hierarchy and Alliance hemispheres and made no mention of additional victory conditions (destroying starbase/colony/mines), so I have to assume that the result is not entirely accurate. One thing I was wondering is whether people would prefer a straight clone of SC1, or a remake which might have some slightly different mechanical (by which I mean things like menus, not gameplay mechanics) or graphical changes (like making planets larger than a single pixel and starbases actually look like the UQM starbase). This also isn't something I'd want to do myself, since as I mentioned I find it a bit difficult to wrap my head around some of the UQM code (at least in part due to it being procedural C, I think). Is hackdx a programmer too? What he said in his last post about including it alongside the main UQM game is also something I had also thought of, so that you get both Star Control games in a single program, though it would probably be easier not to do it that way. At this point, I wouldn't worry about the art. I can get the graphics exact, or make alternative versions. What we really need is a programmer to start working on it. Title: Re: Is there a Star Control I mod for UQM? Post by: CelticMinstrel on February 03, 2012, 02:10:16 am What we really need is a programmer to start working on it. Well, we seem to have two of them, so...Title: Re: Is there a Star Control I mod for UQM? Post by: dczanik on February 03, 2012, 02:41:01 am What we really need is a programmer to start working on it. Well, we seem to have two of them, so...So start working on it already :P. When you two create something where I can put the art I'll send you some art Title: Re: Is there a Star Control I mod for UQM? Post by: dczanik on March 20, 2012, 11:45:21 pm What we really need is a programmer to start working on it. Well, we seem to have two of them, so...Alright gentlemen.... It's been almost 2 months. Has anybody programmed anything? Or tried to? Even a stripped down bare prototype? :-\ Title: Re: Is there a Star Control I mod for UQM? Post by: CelticMinstrel on March 21, 2012, 04:08:09 pm The most I've done is get UQM to compile and convert the scenarios to a more readable format.
Title: Re: Is there a Star Control I mod for UQM? Post by: dczanik on March 21, 2012, 04:37:45 pm The most I've done is get UQM to compile and convert the scenarios to a more readable format. Cool. So you're trying to import the SC1 scenarios? Anyways, Thanks for the update! Is this still being worked on (I know life can get in the way sometimes)?. If there's any questions, there's a ton of people around that can help. :) Title: Re: Is there a Star Control I mod for UQM? Post by: CelticMinstrel on March 21, 2012, 06:38:25 pm What I just described was about two months ago. Maybe I'll get back to it at some point though...
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