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Topic: Project 6014 Demo v 0.2 release (Read 24365 times)
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Alvarin
Enlightened
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Posts: 801
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I'm on base content (not hi-res) and windowed mode in 800x600
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Alvarin
Enlightened
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Posts: 801
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Several graphical issues on hi-res 640x480
Earthling ship encounter (had only one, with old guy as captain) was not animated.
On Slylandro battle encounter the ship icon in mellee was not centered, but placed to lower-left corner of it's window.
When selling a lander there is red outline left in the box
When loosing crew in lander, the "empty space" does nor cover the green sphere fully, leaving fat green outline.
On outfit ship screen the crew dots are not aligned with ship outline. Fuel bar is in weird place too.
Buying fuel the fill bar is taller than the "window" for it and leaves ~25% empty on the right.
Lurg encounter animation had problem with right lava lamp
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dczanik
*Smell* controller
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Posts: 306
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I think I have a fix for the graphical issues of weird text:
I think I figured out the problem:
1. Don't set the graphics to 640x480 or 1074x768. Use the Hi-Res640x480 or Hi-Res1280x960 options instead. (If you can, choose the 1280 option. It's better)
2. Set the Scalar to NONE.
3. Quit setup menu.
4. Probably will need to restart.
5. Enjoy!
To those with the garbled text:
Hi-Res1280 looks like: OIRAS12&OX9$0
Hi-Res640 looks like: OIRS$"0X"&0
SCALAR set to none looks like: NONA
The "4ATURN TO MAIN MENU"
More info on fixes will be here:
http://code.google.com/p/project6014/issues/detail?id=29
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KaeseEs
Zebranky food
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Posts: 3
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Will there be an 0.2.1 release with the recent fixes to the crashing bugs?
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KaeseEs
Zebranky food
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Posts: 3
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Alright, so if I have VS installed my best bet is to build from source to get past the area where it crashes?
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dczanik
*Smell* controller
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Posts: 306
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Alright, so if I have VS installed my best bet is to build from source to get past the area where it crashes?
Yes. But if you're able to fix the bugs, why aren't you helping us already?!  Join the team! I guess I should clarify. I'm not saying an update won't be released in tomorrow. But the programmers were working many late nights and some times until 5am. They may need a week or two to take a break. They also have obligations of family, jobs, etc. Updates are mainly in their hands. I'm mostly just an artist. Right now, I'm not trying to bother them. Only reason I'm any sort of coordinator, programmer, 3D modeler, etc. is because I'm a control freak Right now, I'm just trying to field as many questions while drawing some stuff (that will likely not be seen until the full game is released).
They're already working on bugs though (possible spoiler alert):
http://code.google.com/p/project6014/issues/list?cursor=project6014%3A41
And you can see what they're fixing stuff here (possible spoiler alert):
http://code.google.com/p/project6014/updates/list
Truth is, we're not going to force people to download updates for every small bug fix. We'll release something as soon as we think it's ready. But you're more then welcome to download the code yourself and compile it. We host our code online, anybody can view it, compile it, and even fix it.
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Lokik
Zebranky food
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Posts: 13
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Really liking the game so far, excellent work with the plot! The new race was very impressive as well, cool voice and music.
The HD graphics and new animations look great. Although what's with the huge chin of the Syreen ship captain?  It even seems to change into a smaller (and better looking) one while she speaks.
I'm not so good with computers, and I have to ask is there a way to properly use the hires 1280x960 resolution in a wide screen monitor? In full screen the aspect ratio is off, and if I have it windowed, the window doesn't fully fit on the screen, which is really annoying when I can't see everything I should (part of the planet scan is hidden etc.).
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dczanik
*Smell* controller
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Posts: 306
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Yeah, I'll have to change that Syreen pic. My fault there.
There is no easy answer for keeping the correct aspect ratio. That varies on the video card, the monitor, operating system, etc. Without knowing your system specs, I'm not sure this is even possible for you. Sorry.
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hackdx
Zebranky food
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Posts: 26
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Just downloaded and played a bit -- this is awesome!!
So, I figured I'd share a few thoughts:
Things I loved:
- The feel, the setting and the tone. Spot-on.
- Having a well-equipped ship. None of this reset-button nonsense; we were victorious last time and it shows!
- Loved all the high-res interface artwork: the starbases, the com screens, and the module/crew upgrades.
- High-res hyperspace is great.
- The font choices are very nice.
Now a few things I didn't quite like:
- The single biggest danger with a naive resolution increase is that something that used to look like a game now looks like an MS Office application. Many early high-res games had this problem. This effect is the most pronounced in the starmap and in the main interface screen (navigating a star system and landing on a planet). The aesthetics are just off; the ships look like sprites pasted onto the background. Getting visual and aesthetic continuity between the background and the ships is very important, and somewhat tricky. This is the only aspect of the game where I prefer the look of the low-res version, scaled up to fill my screen. On the starmap the effect is even more pronounced: At 1px size, stars are extremely fiddly to select, and the cursor moves at frustratingly slow speeds. The scaled-up low-res version doesn't have this problem. So, if I could chose, I'd have all the high-res ambience, and the main screen would be like in the low-res version.
- Some of the dialogue and text might benefit from a bit of polishing. The intro was great, up to that very last sentence, "you wonder if you're prepared". That's totally out of character and at odds with everything else. Similarly, would the Captain really go around saying "this ship is lame"? A bit of cheeky humour is great, but the overall tone has to fit.
- I'm not sure I like the idea of erecting slave shields on the conquered worlds. Somehow this feels out of character for everything the Alliance stands for. After all, the fallow slave races of the hierarchy didn't really join out of their own desire, and it seems unnecessarily cruel and insensitive on part of the alliance.
If you would like assistance with any part of the project, I would be very happy to help where I can!
Thanks again for this wonderful project, and best of luck!
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« Last Edit: December 09, 2011, 07:27:47 pm by hackdx »
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dczanik
*Smell* controller
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Posts: 306
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Well, I did most of the artwork that you seem to like, so that thrills me. And if it feels like the original, well that's the programmers and writers.
MS Office interface: Certain things may feel like they're from an earlier era. Sometimes it was done on purpose. To almost make the game feel like it was released after the original. But the larger truth is, we are a little tied to the engine and have to support the original resolution too so without massive re-writes I'm afraid some stuff will just feel that way. A lot of the interface is not artwork but actual code. This was probably done to save on disk space. I'd love to completely design a new interface but we would need more programmers on the team to help with that. 
On the planet: Currently the planets are limited to 256 colors. I can't speak on if that will change in the future because I don't know. The planets are generated dynamically so I can't just modify their artwork. Also adding things that help blend the ship into the background like shadows just isn't possible with the current implementation. I can fake some stuff. But if a creature were to hit your shadow, it would hurt you.
Regarding story: I'm not the writer, and purposely keep myself in the dark as much as possible regarding the story. So I can't really comment on too many aspects of the writing. But what I do know is that many of the stuff that may seem strange in the demo will be understood later. I do think the player helps decide what the character is like.
How you can help: Send us your suggestions. If you think the dialog needs changing, well the .UQM files are just renamed zip files. Open it up, modify the text file and send Cedric your suggested changes. If you want the artwork changed, show us what you mean. It might be impossible with what we've got, but at least it will give us a better idea of what you mean. Lots of people are happy to help with this project but few tell us how they could help. Artist? Programmer? Writer?
Also consider everything (story, art, code, etc.) a work in progress. It's not finished yet and won't be for a while.
Thanks for the comments!
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hackdx
Zebranky food
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Posts: 26
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Thanks for your reply!
MS Office interface: Certain things may feel like they're from an earlier era. Sometimes it was done on purpose. To almost make the game feel like it was released after the original. But the larger truth is, we are a little tied to the engine and have to support the original resolution too so without massive re-writes I'm afraid some stuff will just feel that way.
Hm, let me try and be a bit more specific. I think the graphical elements that suffer worst from the transition are buttons and text boxes. At low-res, the buttons feel "solid" and sturdy, with some sort of tangible appeal. They're big and bulgy. (I'm referring to the starbase screen buttons as well as the menu items on the right of the screen here.) But at high-res, they're flimsy and look like they're squeezed for efficiency, like in an MS Office dialogue window. I hope this is making some sort of sense... the menu items especially are far too squeezed with not enough padding inside the button. While at low-res all the graphical elements harmonized perfectly and divided up the limited screen space in the best way possible, the new screen is huge, but has loads of empty space on it. That feels off. Amidst all this empty space there are tiny, squeezed buttons... also, the font appears too thin and fragile. With high resolution comes higher level of detail, but somehow I think I would prefer if the UI elements retained a large, solid, bold feel. Padding, spacing, font weight, I suppose.
Same for the star map: The stars should be a lot larger (at least several pixels across) at the higher resolutions, so that finding them shouldn't be a matter of literally selecting the correct pixel. Some sort of locking-on would be nice, too. By the way, even at highest resolution, Vela doesn't make it onto the star map at highest zoom level! :-)
Finally, it'd be nice if the cursor speed could be adapted to the high resolutions. At the moment it is dreadfully slow, with a sudden jerk to a very fast speed. (This is for both the star map and the lander dispatch screen.)
These are all just little, superficial details, but I feel they would add greatly to the overall polish!
On the planet: Currently the planets are limited to 256 colors. I can't speak on if that will change in the future because I don't know. The planets are generated dynamically so I can't just modify their artwork. Also adding things that help blend the ship into the background like shadows just isn't possible with the current implementation. I can fake some stuff. But if a creature were to hit your shadow, it would hurt you.
You know what, I would actually suggest going the opposite way and reduce the level of detail on the ships instead! That way, the entire screen retains a uniform artistic style. You wouldn't have to redo any large amounts of background artwork, and rather you'd retain the solid, harmonic feel of the original game. The little additions like spinning planets and revolving moons already add a ton of "wow"!
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dczanik
*Smell* controller
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Posts: 306
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Well like I said, a lot of the GUI is already done in the code itself. But I'll see what I can do.
Little work has been done on the starmap as we've been concentrating on the more important things.... like getting the game to run.
Regarding the planets: I figured you would say that. We're still dealing with a basic design that's 20 years old, so adding any improvements is always going to feel a little weird. Certain things like the 22.5 degree angle of the ships is going to look weird with the increased resolution. One thing I am planning is to create drawn, 2D drawn versions of the ships too. That should help create a more uniform style. I'll take your suggestions under advisement but right now we're focusing on the larger issues, like bug fixes that crash the game. Like you said, these are just minor details, and we have so many more pressing issues than the font weight of our buttons.
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