So it's been a while guys. We're still working on Radium though, and it's shaping up great :)
As per the usual, the rest of the team is waiting on me while I get my act together. This time I have a good reason though: I'm reshaping the engine, sounds, weapons, weather, and scripts from scratch.
In terms of the engine, I went way back in time to an early commit on Open Xray to free us from any un-needed code, and began to optimize. I received two great books on Programming for the holidays, and I'm doing a whole lot better with getting things shaped together. The key word is optimized, I want people to be able to run this on a wide variety of hardware. To that effect, Nitrocaster and the rest of the people involved in the development of Open Xray have made great strides to make Open Xray multi-platform compatible, and have made many great changes. The only reason I'm not using the most up to date repo is because my computer is throwing a fit related to my Visual Studio 2015 installation, but I'll get it sorted out.
In terms of programming, we welcome aboard landofcake. He's a professional programmer interested in tackling the memory and CPU issues the engine has. Currently he hasn't begun work, but I have yet to provide the code and he's been very busy.
In terms of weather, we have abandoned the idea of using the Lost Alpha weather. Instead, we have adopted Vincent Vega's glorious and highly underrated SWTC:COP for use in Radium. It's a fantastic weather mod, which I personally feel looks a lot better. It doesn't offer new blowouts, but we may borrow a modified version of Atmosfear 3's blowout system for use in Radium, or perhaps invent a new one. There will be other unique weather types as well, but for now that will remain secret.
Sound design is another big one. I won't bore people with too many details, but I'm starting from scratch, but already making a great deal of progress. Something I hope to add soon is the FMOD sound system, replacing OpenAL entirely. What this means is that it will be usable on multiple platforms, it has a wide variety of DSP effects to be used, and if my implementation is successful I will be directly contributing it to the official Open Xray repository.
As for weapons, they've hardly been neglected, in fact their attributes are being supped up and polished. The great Gaz1k of STCOP fame has provided a very solid base to work off of, so don't be surprised if you find our two mods sharing some of the same weapons.
With weapons in mind, Comrade Bear is currently working on creating brand new animations for the PP-19-01 Vityaz that Aytabag made.
I would also like to welcome the very talented lafugix to the team! I'm sure many of you have heard of him. Right now he is creating a new Aek-918G model for us, and then an AMD-65 :)
In addition to all this, Burguois wrote up a wonderful design document detailing the story of Radium, which we will delve into in a future news post. I think you guys will be happy.
That's all for now. Stay tuned, and don't forget to subscribe :)
Dumping OpenAL is a good idea! I like where you guys are going with this.
It's a massive undertaking that sounds great so I hope everything goes according to the wishes of those that plan it. Best of luck, I look forward to the fruition of your vision.
You guys are totally changing the engine and gameplay, kinda like a reinvention of CoP.
Can't wait to see more of Radium. It looks and sounds phenomenal!
Best of luck with your work ;)
It's a re-invention of the world of Stalker, too.
I'm trying to keep a balance of the already existing lore but expanding on it with stuff from the old builds, and some extended universe stuff.
I'm not trying to make it grimdark like Misery, but there's definitely some horrific elements in the game.
This mod will be pretty much what CoP shouldve been honestly.
Not saying that CoP right now is bad on vanilla, its still good.
Thanks for the awesome update.
You got me hyped!
Good luck to ya, devs! :D
Good to see you are taking learning programming a bit more seriously. It's a nice skill to have and you done quite well on your own so far.
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So this isnt a mod 4 CoP? It is an entire new game based on open xray engine?
Sounds very interesting.
Btw: I like the way you think. I mean that you focus on optimization, animation and sound effects.
I can't wait for this mod, looking great, keep up the good work !
come on guys get it done! i cant wait!!!