330 replies to this topic

[xierxior]

the graphics are such a big update from the origional, poeple from voodooextreme cant beleave it their saying it prerenderd, but we knows its not so

[Joel Schultz]

Lookin' really good! If I had three thumbs, they'd all be up! (Perhaps possible if I changed my BC race?)

You know you're helping to fund the computer industry, SC? Definitely need to upgrade here, more $$$ for the hardware guys again.

I probably shouldn't be saying this, but this was simply too weird; I must share! That peaked thing on top in the middle of the station in Image 3 reminds me of the pavilion my dad's company would always reserve for their Kennywood day (for those of you who aren't from Pittsburgh, PA, Kennywood's our area amusement park). Not exactly like it, but that was the first thing that popped into my mind when I saw that particular angle (and was done drooling over the first two shots). Go figure.

Hey, but like I said, it looks really, really good. Just ignore my odd mental abberations.

[ 02-08-2002, 20:50: Message edited by: Joel Schultz ]

[Sean Mudge]

Excellent work Jason. That is top notch stuff. I am a little curious though SC, do you provide the "Sketches " to him first of what you want or is he creating this new stuff from scratch with your final approval on what he sends you?

Either way kudos to to the both of you. Can't wait to buzz it in my asset.

Cheers

[Supreme Cmdr]

quote:

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Originally posted by Epsilon 5:
I see a poly count and the size of the textures, but no kilometers

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oh?

Well, from BCS, the stats (in meters)are:

5600.07M (H) x 1005.70M (W) x 3512.71M (L)

[ 02-09-2002, 11:48: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ]

[Supreme Cmdr]

quote:

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Originally posted by xierxior:
the graphics are such a big update from the origional, poeple from voodooextreme cant beleave it their saying it prerenderd, but we knows its not so

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Like, who cares what they think? Every game asset on the planet, is created in Max and exported to the target engine (in this case BCM) format as-is; so am not sure what they're talking about. In fact, Peter did that skybox about three weeks ago and is used in one of the shots on the XP1 shots page.

[Supreme Cmdr]

quote:

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Originally posted by Oban:
Excellent work Jason. That is top notch stuff. I am a little curious though SC, do you provide the "Sketches " to him first of what you want or is he creating this new stuff from scratch with your final approval on what he sends you?

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It depends. Sometimes I give him open season (as in the case of this station) and other times I give him a description of what I want and he takes off with it. I get to approve and sign off on everything, including whatever changes are required etc. Thats normal - but usually I give all my content folks a general idea of what I want, the direction they should be heading in etc. And they just take off and go do it, without any further from me, other than whatever changes are required for my final sign off.

heh, if you see Eric's new character animations, you'll just scream out load. Wait for the AVI.

[Supreme Cmdr]

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Originally posted by Tac:
Impressive chief. You plan on replacing all the existing starstations with new models or are these just new stations (plural)?

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ALL the original BCM assets will be touched up (materials e.g. bumps, rust, metal etc) and some will have improved models (more polys) etc. The new models (e.g. these stations, characters+anims etc) of course are from scratch. With the addition of shadows, point lights, multiple dynamic light sources, materials etc, even the older assets will look as-new in XP1. Several models (e.g. some of the ground vehicles e.g lav, hav etc and some fighters) are being redone from scratch (new model+texture) for XP1.

Here is an EMBM (supported on Matrox G400, ATI Radeon and GF 3/4) bump mapped Warmonger. DOT3 bump mapping may also be supported, though that one is more of a programming feature rather than an art one. For EMBM, the artists create the bump map etc.

There is a brand new graphics rendering engine in XP1 (no, its not the Serious Engine) and which will power XP2, BCO etc. It supports every DX8 feature that I need and which I don't have to worry about implementing in the current BCM graphics engine (which is being gutted).

That engine supports every high-end rendering feature you can think of and its tools allow Jason, Eric and the other content folks to export all materials, point lights, anims, paths etc from MAX, directly into its tools. From there, it goes directly into BCM XP1 as-is. Apart from my adding my own technologies (tags, AI params etc) which that engine doesn't support (and which we are jamming into its tools, using the source code), very minimal post-modification is done to the exported assets. In fact, that engine's own tools allow you to view exported assets as they appear in MAX and as rendered using its own engine.

For more on whats in XP1, read the features list.

I will be releasing two AVIs on Monday, to go with my new dev diary. They are promos AVIs showing off the new assets, a new sound track etc.

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Please tell me they are 3d cockpits..that we can click on the buttons and get things going

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Probably not. I'm not creating a realistic flight sim. I'm creating an alternate world which uses modern day units. That world (from XP2) will also be a unique world on the BCO servers so that if you don't want to play on a sci-fi server, go to a realistic one. Its your monthly fee, so you can create avatars on any server (sci-fi or modern day) you wish. The benefit of flying an F15 over an F14 is in the model, slight flight dynamics change and the armaments; as well as the launch platform (e.g. F14 will only launch off carriers).

[ 02-11-2002, 08:52: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ]

[Commander Jamont]

look at that warmonger , *drooooool*
i have no words only great thoughts and my joystick wants to fly such a baby

[Epsilon 5]

quote:

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Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr:

quote:

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Originally posted by Epsilon 5:
I see a poly count and the size of the textures, but no kilometers

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oh?

Well, from BCS, the stats (in meters)are:

5600.07M (H) x 1005.70M (W) x 3512.71M (L)

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You said the station what the biggest yet.. but GHQ measures at 12424.27M (H) x 27882.35M (W) x 27880.98M (L)... did you missed a zero somewhere?

quote:

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heh, if you see Eric's new character animations, you'll just scream out load. Wait for the AVI.

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I can't wait to see a marine coughing *g*

quote:

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ALL the original BCM assets will be touched up (materials e.g. bumps, rust, metal etc) and some will have improved models (more polys) etc. The new models (e.g. these stations, characters+anims etc) of course are from scratch. With the addition of shadows, point lights, multiple dynamic light sources, materials etc, even the older assets will look as-new in XP1. Several models (e.g. some of the ground vehicles e.g lav, hav etc and some fighters) are being redone from scratch (new model+texture) for XP1.

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Cool. I was thinking about asking that...

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Here is an EMBM (supported on Matrox G400, ATI Radeon and GF2/3/4) bump mapped Warmonger.

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SWEEEEEEEETTTTT!!!!

quote:

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That engine supports every high-end rendering feature you can think of and its tools allow Jason, Eric and the other content folks to export all materials, point lights, anims, paths etc from MAX, directly into its tools. From there, it goes directly into BCM XP1 as-is. Apart from my adding my own technologies (tags, AI params etc) which that engine doesn't support (and which we are jamming into its tools, using the source code), very minimal post-modification is done to the exported assets. In fact, that engine's own tools allow you to view exported assets as they appear in MAX and as rendered using its own engine.

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Good move

quote:

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I will be releasing two AVIs on Monday, to go with my new dev diary. They are promos AVIs showing off the new assets, a new sound track etc.

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I can't wait

quote:

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Probably not. I'm not creating a realistic flight sim.

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Awww....

quote:

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That world (from XP2) will also be a unique world on the BCO servers so that if you don't want to play on a sci-fi server, go to a realistic one.

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Will there be some way in XP2 to bring a battlecruiser in atmoshphere and start beating up F22's and B-52H bombers?

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(e.g. F14 will only launch off carriers).

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Huh? a F14 can launch from an airport last of my knowledge.

[Soback]

Amazing, just amazing. I guess that GeForce 3 will really pay off. Can't wait untill I got XP1 in my drive.

[netshaman]

quote:

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Here is an EMBM (supported on Matrox G400, ATI Radeon and GF2/3/4)

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As i know the EMBM feature is not implemented in the geforce 2 cards,only in geforce 3 and 4 cards, or am i mistaken ?
In this case, will you implement this to work in software mode ?
Just a thought...
Cheers.

[R_wilco]

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin Pelletier:
Sweet!

Is it ready yet?

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Don't make me pull out the SC's old sig

[Supreme Cmdr]

quote:

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Originally posted by Epsilon 5:
Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr:
You said the station what the biggest yet.. but GHQ measures at 12424.27M (H) x 27882.35M (W) x 27880.98M (L)... did you missed a zero somewhere?

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It hadn't been upscaled. So no, there is no zero missing. Just multiply the numbers by x4

quote:

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Good move

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Well, its only a renderer + tools, nothing else. So, its a no brainer. It is cheaper and faster to use a third-party renderer, than for me to spend time upgrading the 2.5yr old BCM rendering kernel.

The BCM terrain engine will also use this same renderer (look for amazing water fx), as will the XP2 terrain engine upgrade (PTE3) which Darrin is working on. This third party engine also has a terrain engine, but it is vastly inferior to Darrin's; so we're not using it. When I designed PTE2, it was to do everything that PTE (used in previous BC titles) did (ground zero, low alt flight, high alt flight etc) and Darrin did just that - AND - we have sub-terranean areas as well. Most of the work for XP1 is for me to integrate it into BCM (thats not Darrin's job, he just wrote the SDK) and to ensure that the new renderer works. I'm excited about it because I just love taking stuff apart.

This new renderer will complement the BCM engines quite well, which is why I made the decision to use it.

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Awww....

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Well, I'm not. You think its easy to develop an F15 flight model? Let alone an AH64?? Companies spend YEARS writing just a single flight model, let alone several. Sure, the flight dynamics will be Newtonian physics based and flying an F15 will feel like it somewhat, but don't expect anything overboard or even remotely accurate.

quote:

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Will there be some way in XP2 to bring a battlecruiser in atmoshphere and start beating up F22's and B-52H bombers?

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There won't be ANY sci-fi units in XP2. Haven't you been paying attention?

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Huh? a F14 can launch from an airport last of my knowledge

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In XP2 I am currently restricting them to carrier launches only.

[Supreme Cmdr]

quote:

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Originally posted by netshaman:

quote:

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Here is an EMBM (supported on Matrox G400, ATI Radeon and GF2/3/4)

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As i know the EMBM feature is not implemented in the geforce 2 cards,only in geforce 3 and 4 cards, or am i mistaken ?
In this case, will you implement this to work in software mode ?
Just a thought...
Cheers.

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GF2 supports DOT3 bump mapping, last time I checked. In my excerpt above, I was talking about bump mapping in general, not just one method. I stated it incorrectly and have edited my post accordingly.

No, there won't be any software emulation of any hardware feature. If your card doesn't support a certain feature (e.g. hardware shadows), then the feature will auto-disable. You can also disable it in CONFIG of course.

[ 02-10-2002, 08:49: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ]

[netshaman]

Thanks SC for your response, so i need to buy a new card
All the possibilities that XP1 offers are amazing, and the one about the autogenerated missions, like in the Elite series is tooooo coooollll
Just can't wait.

[Epsilon 5]

quote:

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Well, I'm not. You think its easy to develop an F15 flight model? Let alone an AH64?? Companies spend YEARS writing just a single flight model, let alone several. Sure, the flight dynamics will be Newtonian physics based and flying an F15 will feel like it somewhat, but don't expect anything overboard or even remotely accurate.

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I'm not "awww'ing" for the flight models, I'm "awww'ing" for not being able to press the buttons on the conckpit

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There won't be ANY sci-fi units in XP2. Haven't you been paying attention?

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Well I thought since xp2 is an exapnsion, it would be plugged onto BCM/bcxp1, so we could attempt to merge it for fun...

quote:

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|In XP2 I am currently restricting them to carrier launches only.

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I see.

[Supreme Cmdr]

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Originally posted by Epsilon 5:
Well I thought since xp2 is an exapnsion, it would be plugged onto BCM/bcxp1, so we could attempt to merge it for fun...

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Unlike XP1 which has upgraded sci-fi units, XP2 has its own modern warfare units and are used in the single campaign that it ships with. It will also support roam mode as well.

The difference being that when you start the campaign designed for XP2, like IA, TA etc, it will use its own environment and units.

[ 02-10-2002, 14:14: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ]

[Epsilon 5]

quote:

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Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr:
Unlike XP1 which has upgraded sci-fi units, XP2 has its own modern warfare units and are used in the single campaign that it ships with. It will also support roam mode as well.

The difference being that when you start the campaign designed for XP2, like IA, TA etc, it will use its own environment and units.

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Too bad then... would have been cool to try the "invaders from space thing