Comments - Aurel_Tristen

Congrats on the move to UE4! I think this is nothing but good news for your project, and I'll bet you folks won't be able to leave that engine once you get settled in. I've played with quite a few in my time, and UE4 is the most artist-friendly and flexible engine I've ever seen.

UE4 Model Pipeline: Export as FBX, Click import.

Other engines: Get special tools for your 3D or 2D software. Conform your work to the engine's expectations. Fight to use the over-complicated tools. Import your asset just to find it is horribly broken because you missed step 314.

Have fun!

This. And I was skeptical as hell until I saw what looks like dynamic destruction. Should be interesting!

I just came across this mod today. Looks interesting, and anything on UE4 looks slick.

Just a note: I know it isn't as fun, but bullets tend to just punch tiny holes in leaves (holes small enough not to be worth simulating), so the way you can strip a tree in 10 seconds with a rifle seems a bit off to me.

About the 1st person rifle animations, I agree with the others. Look at references of real rifles being reloaded if you want a more realistic and sluggish approach. Notice things like how the magazine might bounce off the mag well on the first try. Give the animation time to suggest the player is actually retrieving another magazine from a pouch. Consider modeling some of the head movement during the reload to add weight to it.

A great example of wonderful weapon animations would be from Project Reality (BF2 mod).

Youtube.com

I fully support and applaud this move to feature freeze. I LOVE all the cool stuff you guys are doing, but it isn't much good with things as buggy as they are. Take as long as you need, there are plenty of cool features to play with for now.

Wow, very ambitious of you to develop an open-world game like this without a billion dollars :)

It already looks quite impressive! I'm guessing you'll just be adding more building types over time?

If you could make this export back to, lets say, 3D Studio Max, you might have a nice spin-off product. There are quite a few city generators out there, and most of them are unbelievably overpriced, and also do not generate traffic lanes.

That is very very cool stuff! Now we just need a huge asteroid, or perhaps a planetoid to cruise around on. :)

I thought I had read you guys pulled that off, but it has been soooo loooonnnggg. O____O

Sadly Source Gold does not support vertex weight in any meaningful way. But then again, it didn't support the many amazing features ESF has managed to hack in so far either, so maybe someday.

Love it! I think this game has finally reached a point where players can construct a game (with objectives) in the sand box. I imagine making something like ye old trench run, with turrets shooting at players who have to make ships small enough to maneuver, but with a good enough design to survive.

Now just give is a basic structure for creating game mods and we'll be off!

Also, joystick support!!!

Now just let me tie group commands / pre-set states to a keypad button and the UI will be officially no longer cumbersome!

Very impressive. I've spent some time modeling Japanese architecture with the intent to have it modular (for a now dead project), so I can empathize with you about the unique difficulties presented. But one nice thing is there is no lack of detail to be found. No shake is without gables or adornment, and yes, prepare to curve that roof in all three axises and THEN figure out how to get the roof tiles to follow it. Very challenging indeed.

And I'm glad you guys are working so hard to make the animations and fighting system as authentic as fun gameplay will allow. I find learning game systems that are based on reality to be way more fun, and often times reality can help solve many game issues too.

Keep it up and keep us posted :)

I just ran across this game by chance when you posted to the front page. I really like the concept, but you're going to need a very impressive water shader, especially if you want the sinking of ships to look realistic.

I'll be following this project with great interest.

I'm curious what Valve thinks of how incredibly far the ESF team has pushed the old Source Gold engine. I mean, the kind if ingenuity it must take to implement so many advanced features without having access to the full source code, it's just shocking.

This is good stuff. I think about such things often when imagining converting existing IP into a game, though I have the benefit of not doing the heavy lifting to put it into practice.

I did take issue with one point though. When dealing with warp speeds, I don't see how the physics engine and its limitation with high speeds makes any difference, as unless you're going to allow in-warp-combat (Startrek Into Darkness style), as soon as a ship goes into warp, no hit detection is necessary. In fact, you don't even need to track the position of the ship, as it should be a probability curve anyway right?

I want to warp from A to B. The game looks at the distance from A to B, and decides how long it should take to get there. My ship 'enters warp' visually, but is actually just removed from the universe and put into a nice looking space-tunnel, while the game just counts down until arrival.

Admittedly, I'm more familiar with non-StarTrek FTL theories, and am only a casual ST fan.

This sounds fantastic, though I'd like to make one suggestion. This may have already been considered, but while you're singling out who has what honor, please consider including exclusive items for those who have a perfect record either way. It would be very interesting to see players who have never, or always take the path of dishonor.

Keep up the good work!

You didn't just hack multiplayer into a single player game without an SDK, you did it so efficiently that hundreds of players can play together at once. I don't know how the hell you did it, but well done!

Awesome, though I'd recommend deleting effected geometry only after the explosion has reached full size. As it is now, you clearly see things just disappear, followed by an explosion. More shrapnel would be cool too.

I AM a big fan of Doctor Who, and this looks awesome. :P I really like the art style which reminds me of Kings Quest and Space Quest, though I'm curious how you are managing this pixel style in Flash.

Will you be doing sweet midi music too? Oh I do hope so!

So, I didn't see anyone ask, but maybe it is deeper in the comments.

How can the BM team sell a game that uses IP that Valve owns? Did Valve bless off on this or something?

Don't get me wrong, I'm all about it. It is just curious. The wording makes it sound as though Valve approached their team with the idea or something. Can someone fill me in?

Love it. Love almost everything about it. My biggest sticking point is, while the cockpit looks really cool and all, it looks like this pit has a terrible over-the-nose viewing angle. I'm also really hoping all those cool flashy displays will actually be relaying useful information to the pilot, and doing more than just looking cool.

Then again, I've probably been playing too many DCS games >_<

Over all though, a very cool in universe commercial, and all shot in-engine!

I first got into modding when I saw my older brother making maps for Duke Nukem 3D. I got into that and also started making 'real' 3D levels in Quake.

Now I've got the bug, so I can't play a game for more than a few hours/minutes before I see something I want to fix. After many bad experiences working on mod teams, I've now learned to do just about everything myself, and I just make mods for my own use.

To be fair, StarMade has been around for a while too, it isn't like it just popped up recently.

Also, Zan Management is a team made up of siblings, so unless their parents are going to adopt Schema, getting on the team might be tough.

Finally, if you see these two games as direct competitors, the only thing having both going at once will do is improve them both. Competition in the market is good for the consumer.

I personally own Blockade Runner, and have never played StarMade (though I've been watching it), but I like to see different takes on the same idea.

As an experienced 3D artist familiar with game art assets, I must say that this is a spectacular work of art. The thing I think many will overlook is that this model looks this good while still conforming to real-time-render poly counts. Excellent texturing, UVW mapping and normal map work!

Was this modeled as a high poly pass first?

This is some exciting stuff!

Thanks guys. It took a few times starting from scratch to get the look I wanted, but it looks as though it was worth it.

I LOVE games with 1st person cockpits, so I really enjoy working on this project.

In space, everyone's necks hurt from always sitting at right angles! :P

In all my time modding Source I never was sure how this worked. Thanks!

I can't imagine what it is like to be paid to do what you love, without any restrictions like being in a 'real' dev studio. This business model is truly the future of PC games.

Congratulations!

The inspiration for the glass was actually from Mechwarrior 3. I loved their cockpits and how they really 'sold' the glass by having it wear and crack were it met the support struts.

If the engine is ever retrofitted to change textures based on damage, I'll happily make glass damage textures to fit, but I can't say were such a feature might sit in priority.

As to a military craft using glass: First off, it wouldn't actually be glass, it would be many layers of composite materials and plastics (Like real ballistic 'glass') which in the end may actually be tougher than the metal skin of the craft. Secondly, ignoring the fact that manned space fighters would never be practical, one would probably use screens instead of a transparent material anyway, but that isn't any fun. :P

For the record, as much as I am entertained by videos showing off the cool things you guys have done as of late, this article gives me a deeper understanding of the 'less visible' stuff that is being worked on. I think we're fast approaching a time when free, open-source games match the complexity of triple A titles. But the key is that 'indi' games are free to try new ideas that monstrous publishers would never approve of. (Instead they'll let games like this figure them out, and then copy the crap out of them)

Keep up the great work. I'm looking forward to playing with this engine!