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Topic: UQM Recreation (Read 84437 times)
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guesst
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You're doing RIGID BODY PHYSICS? I take it back. Now my question is are you sadistic or something?
It is going to be the originals 2D pictures, unless you have a complete set of high quality 3D character models or know some one who is extremely good and is willing to spend months making the models for all the races for free. What is more likely is convincing some one like Arne to spiff up the current images a bit. Like what clay is doing in the “ make it better thread.”
Well, if Arne does them, IMHO it'd be better if he made original picutres. It seem to me Arne would find it more satisfying and so would everyone else with the final product.
I've been playing with the idea of quasi-3D models, the sort that you find on animatics for movies where they take the storyboard drawings and animate them as sort of 3d cutout animation. Sort of like Parapa the Rappa but a bit more grown up. The effect, while unique, is perhaps not appropiate to this sort of thing tho. It would work for the ZFP or supox, but for the more human characters, especally the syreen, it's not soft enough. Maybe appropiate for a different project, but not StarControl.
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« Last Edit: February 23, 2006, 01:38:55 am by guesst »
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Regis
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I might not be in a position to really offer praise because I'm just a new guy but I like what I see thus far. I even thought it was nifty with the effort you put into your stub ships, the flat point ones that will eventually be replaced by 3D models. They're pretty nifty as temps.
It'll be fascinating to see a remastering of Star Control II based off such physics aswell and being a redo of the game, there are many new ideas you can take into account. I have a few awesome ones but I won't share them because I don't want to burden you with ideas until you're ready to work on the core game.
As for your progress thus far though, it's very, very impressive. I even bothereed to read the entirety of the 15 pages and it's surprising how fast the project has evolved. It's more surprising that you're so free and open with your sources. It's always a nice thing to see yet another person who's very talented and yet not greedy regarding their works.
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Amscray
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Let me be honest; if there was some way for me to get money for doing this I would try it.
The obvious answer seems to be to use original content and sell it as shareware (or tipware). I'm still more than slightly baffled as to why you're remaking an essentially flawless (or low-flaw) game. It's like remaking Casablanca so that it could be done in color . . . . Why bother?
I'm sure you have two dozen awful writers and at least two or three good ones itching to help you with a story. Art, for all his obnoxiousness, could probably do an all right job, and I always found Arne's SC3 idea pretty compelling.
What I’m thinking is replacing the current system with a quests system like that in many RPGs today.
This seems like it's a weird replacement, like, "We're going to take out his failing lung and replace it with dialysis." The quests system you describe is just a journal / log system and is totally separate from dialogue; or, at least, is just a supplement to dialogue.
FWIW, I think the dialogue in SC2 worked pretty well, especially for its time. I'm not sure whether many games at that point were doing talk trees yet. (The VGA Sierra games would've been the first ones, right? Ultima 7 used a word-list system. Darksun used talk trees but came later, I think. Star Flight used "moods.") I don't see any reason to change it, esp. given that there's already so much (maybe too much) talking.
A journal / log system would be a nice addition, since it's just annoying right now to alt-tab out and do it in Notepad yourself. I can't see why you'd need a library to do it, though. It's just variable tracking, very basic stuff.
for x = 1 to Total Quests
for a = 0 to QuestParts(X)
if QuestAssigned(X,A) > 0 then
Display QuestText(X,A) ' and indent if A > 0, skipping lines after each display
if QuestAssigned(X,A) = 2 then StrikeThroughText ' to show that the quest is complete; 0 = not gotten, 1 = assigned, 2 = complete
end if
next
next
Wouldn't that do it? So for example, you would have
Quest 1
QuestParts(1) =3
QuestText(1,0) = "Unite the Three Rings of Power"
QuestText(1,1) = "Obtain Ring 1 from Elrond"
QuestText(1,2) = "Obtain Ring 2 from Gandalf"
QuestText(1,3) = "Obtain Ring 3 from Galadriel"
When you first meet Saruman, the gam esets QuestAssigned(1, 0-3) to 1. So you have the heading that says get the rings, then the three parts. When you complete each part, it sets that to 2. When all three are 2, it sets 0 to 2, thus completing the quest.
I don't really see why you need a lib for that . . . .
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JHGuitarFreak
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I might not be in a position to really offer praise because I'm just a new guy but I like what I see thus far.
The ability to Praise has no qualifications only the ability to criticize, but people do that without the qualifications anyway. I even bothereed to read the entirety of the 15 pages and it's surprising how fast the project has evolved.
So am I. Though it hasn’t evolved it has been continually redesigned and recoded. I wouldn’t want to see what randomly changing the code would do. It's more surprising that you're so free and open with your sources. It's always a nice thing to see yet another person who's very talented and yet not greedy regarding their works.
So I’ve been mostly thinking not programming and I have come up with a few ideas I would like to share. Right now I’m thinking on how to do the dialog. In UQM (correct me if I’m wrong) there seems to be a very rudimentary event system. Where some global event happens and it changes the dialog options of a race or 2. What I’m thinking is replacing the current system with a quests system like that in many RPGs today. The quest system would include a quest log that is automatically populated. For example: After talking to commander Hayes about broadcasts from the rigel star a entry would appear like: “Investigate Rigel Star System.” And after you talk to the zot fot pik there the entry would be crossed out. And a subfield would be put in under it saying: “Go to <insert zotfotpik coordinates>” And maybe you could click on an item in the list and get the original conversation where you got this information. Also by programming it dynamically I could make it possible to add simple quests that will earn you RU or add an entire subplot. Another feature would be ability to browse the information of all the stars and planets you have visited so far. With ability to sort by estimated mineral worth or by planet hostility. It would also contain information about ships presence and so on. Could also add the ability to buy star system information from multiple races including the melnorme. Like you could get information about all the planets in the spathi’s sphere of influence just by threatening them. Like in the above quest system when a race tells you about their home world the information will be updated to include partial data on the system. Another thing I was thinking about is having an end of game screen that tallies up thing like number of enemy ships killed, speed at which you won the game. And so on and gives a final score. This would add replay value so you can try to beat your own score. So what do you guys think of these ideas? Do you guys know any libraries for quests systems?
I think this would be a great addition, but that's only my opinion
plus the ability to buy information on star systems before you visit them is a great idea
and threatening a spathi seems even better 
and the revised event system is a great idea too
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The artist once again known as Kohr-Ah Death 213. Get your MegaMod HERE |
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JonoPorter
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Don't mess with the US.
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Mr. Amscray, what you've just said is one of the most insanely currish things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent, self-deprecating response were you even close to anything that could be considered a constructive or encouraging thought. Everyone on this forum is now lesser for having read it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
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« Last Edit: February 17, 2006, 05:59:05 pm by BioSlayer »
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JonoPorter
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Don't mess with the US.
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He caught me in a bad mood, but mainly I just didn’t like the negative attitude of his post and that’s what I said in very extravagant way.
Yea it’s the event system that I’m thinking about replacing with a quest system.
He also massively over trivializes the programming needed to do the quest system.
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TiLT
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Don't let the idiots get to you. They're everywhere, and will make you insane in the long run if you let them.
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Amscray
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self-deprecating
Do you even know what that word means?
He also massively over trivializes the programming needed to do the quest system.
Quest systems are absurdly easy to do. It's all just a simple scripting system. You could always use LUA or Python if you wanted to go over the top, but it would be totally unnecessary. I don't understand why such an obviously strong programmer as yourself is wigging out over something so easy . . . .
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TiLT
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Amscray, please do us all a favor and find a different open-source developer to "encourage". Thank you.
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JonoPorter
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Well I decided to do something special since I’ve not been working on this game as much.
Here is a screenshot of the result.
Yep I did 2 ships at once.
It ended up that the syreens siren call was that hardest part to do.
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JonoPorter
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Got the cleaners done.
The only thing that is not “working” is that the blades lifetime is different. They now last about 20 seconds and you can have as many as you can put out in that time.
New Status:
Concerning the 3D models:
I’ve been trying to figure out how I’m going to do it. If I was still using DirectX then it would be easy because the .X files are native to DirectX. Unfortunately the only way I can find to use the .X files is to buy a program that converts them to a format that is usable by OpenGL and I don’t have the money for.
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guesst
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I find in amusing, perhaps telling of you as a person, that the ships that were major concerns were the first ones you attacked and got out of the way. Way to go.
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Arne
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Yak!
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I've got a friend who seems quite enthusiastic over the Xbox live indie game thing (with that geometry wars game doing good). I suppose there would be problems with copyrights/trademarks though, unless you change the designs and just makes it an SC-ish game :/
I'm still curious about the ZFP stinger, are you gonna have a little telescopic ram come out and do... collision stuff?
...and I do realize that the graphics aren't important at this stage, I was just curious what you had in mind there. If you want help with some 2D stuff I might have time to do something. Fully animated stuff might be beyond my patience though, and 3D models are totally beyong my patience (and skill), plus I think they look poopy anyways, being biased towards 2D as I am.
Have you played rival schools? Maybe I have mentioned this (I always bring up Rival Schools in this context), but RS has this neat system with character that comes sliding in against a background. They're sort of like pinups (knees and up), and there's a couple for every basic mood (angry, happy, neutral, crying, etc). This makes the characters feel quite alive, despite being still images. Many other Japanese RPG's uses this system. It helps to create a wider range of emotions than what SC is doing now with some 'jittering' images.
I can imagine the Utwig having a couple of sad and ultra sad images, then a super happy delirious joyous pink flowersprinkling ultra kawaii image that comes just out of the blue when you finish the ultron thing.
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« Last Edit: February 19, 2006, 10:44:58 am by Arne »
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