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Originally Posted by
aybe
I started playing with WO shortly after it's been in stores I guess around Sept. '95, then WOXL followed and is too my favorite esp. the music ! The Prodigy music was simply insane, it never gets old :guitar
For WO3 actually I haven't played until it around 2006 IIRC when I bought a new PSX and I was simply amazed by its look. However now I can hardly cope with Rapier class, let alone Phantom class ... it's just too fast :blarg
I've never returned to WO XL/2097 after I've touched WO3. For some reason WO3 simply fit my bill... I liked the lighter look and the cleaner style and the sounds and all that... the funny billboards and everything make it look more idk... "happy" or something like that... less "rugged" and "brutal". Idk, it felt more like a "sport" than a crazy "futuristic AG fight"... And that's coming from a Survival Horror fan :)) Same was with Gran Turismo. When GT2 came out it felt more "open" and "relaxed" although more complex overall... I didn't like GT2 very much at first, probably simply because of change... But man, did I loved it after I've got accustomed to it... still do. Last time I've finished GT2 was actually last year around Christmas. And if I'm still on the PSX chapter... I've also finished Parasite Eve 2 just about 2 or 3 months ago... something like that. Dang fine game!
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Not sure if you have access to this thread
http://www.wipeoutzone.com/forum/sho...mages-allowed) (I think one needs at least N posts or something), the whole history of the reverse engineering of WO3 I did is in there, and it started in April. I did start the previous project with WO/WOXL exactly a year before, so this one is about 3 months old.
Nope, got no access to that thread just yet :g Maybe later, Idk what's the post count requirement for that.
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For a timeline I would love to say tomorrow :D but I really have no idea but ASAP !
The timeline doesn't matter. Only the end result ;) Be it when it's done :)
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Here's a rough list of top-priority things:
- hovering/jumps: mostly done except that tracks like SampaRun are problematic and this is likely to need a refined approach; it is really hard at the same time to try play WO3 properly and try understand the inner logic of it
- finish track collisions -> shouldn't be very long
- levels/scenery -> low-level stuff figured out, high-level stuff needs manual work (checkpoints, booster/pads: not found in game data and therefore I have to run through each track and write down section/face) -> not complex but very repetitive and long
- animations -> shouldn't be very long as there is a dozen by track, instantiation by code has been figured out (in fact with Unity when you step out a bit from their intended path you are on your own, in my case 95% of stuff is done by code rather the mouse, a way (officially) not supported by Unity) of course I do profit of Unity facilities by it's not like when one imports models but OTOH there are advantages with code: my scene is not littered with a billion things placed manually
This is looking so good and promising :nod This sounds like dedication and attention to details, not the random run of the mill "quickest way possible to make it run until the dead-line hits" :+
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Now when I have these things which I consider essential to qualify the project as a honest 'preview', the cake topping should be addressed:
- audio/video : will be quick, all low level stuff is written: VAG, WAV, looping, extraction etc ... in fact it was not a matter of simply getting PCM or frames, Unity should be able to consume them, i.e. videos must be OGV and so on
- the installer : mostly done, basically one will simply insert his WO3SE CD and it will take care of the rest, extracting videos manually is not the faint-hearted and I don't actually expect an end-user to do this.
- AI/multi-player : will have to be done, no previous experience about it but there is significant info out there and I might even get help from BnG crew
- interface/navigation : not particularly complex but there are a couple of things I need prepare before
- shadow/lighting issues : in fact they have 'baked' them in the textures and therefore applying Unity standard shader simply looks worse, this is likely to happen when topping the topping ,i.e. when the game is done and could be modded or whatever (we're not there yet)
1. Good idea with the Installer :+
2. I'd imagine that the AI it's the same deal as the handling, in the sense that it cannot be "reverse engineered"... ? If I recall right, BNG devs also made their own AI.
3. Are you willing to keep the "origianal-ish" UI style ? Most noticeably, the in-game HUD.
4. About the pre-baked textures: I totally understand what you're saying and for starters it would be perfectly fine to use no shading (maybe only shadows for the pods... if possible ?) But for the future, when the game it's already playable I'd suggest something like "TexMod" but only "integrated in the game". Much like what Counter-Strike 1.6 is doing since the 2013 Update - It introduced an "Addon Folder" actually named "cstrike_addon" that's "mirroring" (sub-folders structure and all) the actual game folder, (named "cstrike" that's containing the standard game assets) and replacing every asset in game with the content found in the "Addon Folder". So if i drop a proper named replacement custom model in the "Addon Folder" in the right sub-folder, when I load the game, that custom model will be loaded instead of the original default one. So with WXX-Rebirth maybe we could have a folder named "HQ_Textures" and a reference index text or html file with texture names and their "description", so people could slowly populate that folder over time with "standard" ("not baked") textures, or why not, even higher resolution ones. Maybe even better, (easier for the end user) have a console in the game to introduce commands and have a command that will dump all textures as they're loaded by the game and create the folder automatically. Or if an in-game console would not fit the purpose of this project, maybe a launch parameter to the shortcut would put the game in "dumping mode" and dump all loaded textures in the folder. From there, people could edit the textures while already seeing what they're editing and have the names already in place. So, with all said and done and having all textures in high quality and "not baked" we could have another launch parameter so when the game runs, it will load any texture found in the "HQ_Textures" Folder. Also with all those new textures, we could now use some shading :g Maybe we could even go as far as using multiple textures like bumpmaps and stuff like that... ? Ex. texture_01.dds > texture_01_bump.dds ... ?
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To sum it up / TL;DR:
Pretty much all the low-level stuff is done, high-level remains for the game internals but as a well as for the Unity side.
Actually as time passes on, I spend a more and more significant time on the research part and not that much as one would think on coding, i.e. how can this be done efficiently, would it work and is this really what I need ? On the Internet 99% of stuff is crap when you do a search about game programming/Unity/books, beside people here that helped out for physics and stuff I rely on my own approach but this takes time (but in the end it is reliable).
Another thing is testing, whenever I make changes I have to test and there are 22 tracks, I do not run through all but a few like Sampa Run and Prototype 3 as these have tight tunnels and unless I get an approximative WO experience I'm not happy.
So progress in this project is like a roller-coaster !
Reliable and slow it's much better than fast and ugly :))
:hyper:hyper:hyper:hyper:hyper Can't wait!... to :rock on those tracks :g
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The red triangles you see are the missing ones I've told, was about to drop off completely if I couldn't get these but an intensive week with an hex editor and a calculator allowed me to figure it out entirely :D
I thought those were some selected faces in a 3d editor or something. Glad you figured them out :+ It's a pain to be so close to something and not having it all just because... random reasons. That week's work well worth it ;)
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So many things are ready but I'm simply not pushing them because they need to be optimized, i.e. the scenery loading takes almost 10 seconds on its own because nothing is merged for debugging purposes, if I have say to run the project 100 times a day it equals to ~20 minutes lost in waiting. Add to this the Alt-Tab I have to do everytime I go back to Unity and wait for it to pick the changes (a few more seconds), you quickly end up in lots of time lost by waiting.
But don't worry, I think I'll soon reach the summit of the coaster and gain a huge speed boost downhill (until next uphill :D)
Until next uphill... :g