Realistic/WWII total conversion?

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Watermelon
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Realistic/WWII total conversion?

Post by Watermelon »

I was bored yesterday,so I messed around with pieslicerDX a bit,more much extensively this time.It seems pieslicerDX is not that hard to use,and I created 3 pie models in a few minutes,not to mention I have zero skills in modelling.Then some crazy ideas come to my mind:

A total conversion mod of wz set in modern time:
1.realistic weapon range(this will be relatively easy,thanks to wz's realistic artillery and AA weapon)
2.realistic unit 'sight',infantry has great sight while armored vehicle has very limited sight.
3.no design system and more action orientation/fast-faced(imo vanilla wz one game lasts too long)
4.air and navy? units
5.different 'factions' and units.(not sure how to do that,maybe require heavy modification to both source and skirmish scripts)
6.replace power point with command point or something,and oil derrick with command radio site.

imo the major focus of such mod will be gameplay/realism,because wz engine is definately no match for other RTS games nowadays,when most ppl pursuit 'perfect' graphics and keep pushing polygons.Also,the relative low poly pies will speed up the overall development speed of the mod,since the creation of high polygon models is always lagging the whole development speed of a mod imo.

any thoughts/ideas? :)

btw,the 3 pie I created:(a simple plane,sherman turret,sherman chassis)
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pies.zip
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tasks postponed until the trunk is relatively stable again.
ratarf
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Re: Realistic/WWII total conversion?

Post by ratarf »

That would be very nice... But you will still need VERY much time to complete your project in a way that it doesn't look like "warzone 2100 with some minor changes". Good luck!
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Watermelon
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Re: Realistic/WWII total conversion?

Post by Watermelon »

ratarf wrote: That would be very nice... But you will still need VERY much time to complete your project in a way that it doesn't look like "warzone 2100 with some minor changes". Good luck!
yes,I'll be focusing on expanding the 'source base' features at the moment,and try to create  more pies for such mod,hopefully we will get more artists and coders soon.
tasks postponed until the trunk is relatively stable again.
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DevUrandom
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Re: Realistic/WWII total conversion?

Post by DevUrandom »

I intended to start working on a SMAC total conversion somewhere after 2.2.
But till then I see no way with the current code. :( So my idea was to increase modability for 2.1 and 2.2 in such a way that GUI design, easier model design, different factions with different boni and mali, and different game aspects is possible.
As I said I wont start before 2.2, which probably doesn't come before mid/end 2007.
Then we could perhaps work together, at least when it comes to making the engine more flexible and implementing certain features for our mods...
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Re: Realistic/WWII total conversion?

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DevUrandom wrote: I intended to start working on a SMAC total conversion somewhere after 2.2.
But till then I see no way with the current code. :( So my idea was to increase modability for 2.1 and 2.2 in such a way that GUI design, easier model design, different factions with different boni and mali, and different game aspects is possible.
As I said I wont start before 2.2, which probably doesn't come before mid/end 2007.
Then we could perhaps work together, at least when it comes to making the engine more flexible and implementing certain features for our mods...
imo the current code is modable,though the .txt files are a bit hard to understand without looking at source code that read them.

I can take a look at the GUI functions,maybe I can make them more flexible by reducing the usage of constants and macros etc.

the pie slicer is not that hard to use,as long as you dont want tons of polygons on a single model,you can still use pcx/bmp texture when creating models,then covert the textures into png and change the .pie file texture filename info accordingly after the model is finished.

factions is the only problem with the current code I think,because the skirmish seems to be some kind of scripted controlled sequence and I dont understand a single piece of the .slo or .vlo file.  :D
tasks postponed until the trunk is relatively stable again.
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Re: Realistic/WWII total conversion?

Post by DevUrandom »

Intention with the GUI was to also remove the need for those IMHO ugly CSV files and instead use something more "GUI-compatible". My idea was to use Lua for this, probalby with some kind of tabled-functions, so GUI-scripting comes directly integrated. But till now I didn't even create a mockup of that format, as it is of rather low priority compared to improving the code's overal structure...
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Re: Realistic/WWII total conversion?

Post by Lixtan »

Watermelon wrote: A total conversion mod of wz set in modern time:
1.realistic weapon range(this will be relatively easy,thanks to wz's realistic artillery and AA weapon)
2.realistic unit 'sight',infantry has great sight while armored vehicle has very limited sight.
3.no design system and more action orientation/fast-faced(imo vanilla wz one game lasts too long)
4.air and navy? units
5.different 'factions' and units.(not sure how to do that,maybe require heavy modification to both source and skirmish scripts)
6.replace power point with command point or something,and oil derrick with command radio site.
If the things in bold are what you want, go play C&C:G, really...
I like Warzone how it is, it's the uniqueness that makes it so fun. If we convert it to something like that, it'll lose playability really quickly, because it's like other current games, but with less options, and not as good graphics.

I'm not saying that these kinds of games are bad, by all means (I play C&C myself, anyway), just that it's already been done, and better than we can do. It won't go anywhere, get any publicity, etc... So my vote is that we don't waste our time with it.
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Re: Realistic/WWII total conversion?

Post by C01eMaN »

Lixtan wrote: If the things in bold are what you want, go play C&C:G, really...
I like Warzone how it is, it's the uniqueness that makes it so fun. If we convert it to something like that, it'll lose playability really quickly, because it's like other current games, but with less options, and not as good graphics.

I'm not saying that these kinds of games are bad, by all means (I play C&C myself, anyway), just that it's already been done, and better than we can do. It won't go anywhere, get any publicity, etc... So my vote is that we don't waste our time with it.
they arent converting it into a new game their making a mod... to see what they can do with the engine... i say they go for it  :P
Im Addicted To Warzone!!!!!!!
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Watermelon
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Re: Realistic/WWII total conversion?

Post by Watermelon »

yes C01eMaN is correct,we are not going to change the stock wz,but to make a mod based on wz engine.At best,we will have a decent working mod in wz.At worst,we will have a broken mod but also improved wz moddability by trial and error inevitably.
tasks postponed until the trunk is relatively stable again.
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Re: Realistic/WWII total conversion?

Post by lav_coyote25 »

Watermelon wrote: yes C01eMaN is correct,we are not going to change the stock wz,but to make a mod based on wz engine.At best,we will have a decent working mod in wz.At worst,we will have a broken mod but also improved wz moddability by trial and error inevitably.

which , if you look at all the mods from the past is how they were done ( good ol trial and error... :D)
‎"to prepare for disaster is to invite it, to not prepare for disaster is a fools choice" -me (kim-lav_coyote25-metcalfe) - it used to be attributed to unknown - but adding the last bit , it now makes sense.
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kage
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Re: Realistic/WWII total conversion?

Post by kage »

if you can hold on for about a week, watermelon, if you want them, i'd be happy to send you the pies and other mod files i'd made for my own attempt at a wwii total conversion a few years back -- the game engine just couldn't support what i wanted to do back then, like have seperate factions with seperate research trees (i tried a few hacks, but it didn't really work), or, heh, multiple weapons allowing for multi-role fighter/bombers and the like, and i abandoned it.

i've got a pretty decent f-4u corsair (usaf fighter/bomber), infantry (modified the scav infantry to lose the mowhawk and get a player-color-based uniform) -- this mod was designed to have lots of sheep - er... infantry... and, if coyote gives the okay (his decision on this one), you can play around with a really really really big piece of artillery (in-game, that is).

reason that there's about a week's wait is that i have to access a sata hard-drive from a recently gone-comatose computer, and accessing that data is not too easy right at the moment.
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Re: Realistic/WWII total conversion?

Post by lav_coyote25 »

3 barrel naval gun in a land based emplacement.  used to be 6 barrel - but kage had a bitch of a time getting the guns to not cut through the roof...it is a pretty nifty piece of hardware. ;D

go for it - if you cant find it - i think i still have the files somewhere...
‎"to prepare for disaster is to invite it, to not prepare for disaster is a fools choice" -me (kim-lav_coyote25-metcalfe) - it used to be attributed to unknown - but adding the last bit , it now makes sense.
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kage
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Re: Realistic/WWII total conversion?

Post by kage »

lav_coyote25 wrote: 3 barrel naval gun in a land based emplacement.  used to be 6 barrel - but kage had a bitch of a time getting the guns to not cut through the roof...it is a pretty nifty piece of hardware. ;D

go for it - if you cant find it - i think i still have the files somewhere...
cool. yeah "bitch of a time" is about right... don't think i fiddled around with anything more than that in anything i've done -- not to say i was doing it just for coyote at that point: it looked damned sweet having a few of those sitting around the base.

now that we have the source code, there are lots of ways to get around that, such as allowing multiple barrel sub-connectors, which is only really useful if all the barrels aren't along the same x,z plane, which, while rare, does happen on occasion -- not to mention, the other odd graphical type issue was in seeing six shells that were in perfectly fixed location to each other, which wouldn't happen -- each shell should be able to be considered seperately instead of having to have a shell model containing six shells, and being able to see them means they're travelling too slow.
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Watermelon
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Re: Realistic/WWII total conversion?

Post by Watermelon »

kage wrote: cool. yeah "bitch of a time" is about right... don't think i fiddled around with anything more than that in anything i've done -- not to say i was doing it just for coyote at that point: it looked damned sweet having a few of those sitting around the base.

now that we have the source code, there are lots of ways to get around that, such as allowing multiple barrel sub-connectors, which is only really useful if all the barrels aren't along the same x,z plane, which, while rare, does happen on occasion -- not to mention, the other odd graphical type issue was in seeing six shells that were in perfectly fixed location to each other, which wouldn't happen -- each shell should be able to be considered seperately instead of having to have a shell model containing six shells, and being able to see them means they're travelling too slow.
that is possible with minor source changes,we can send number of projectiles based on weapon pie imd's number of weapon connnectors,then add some speed variant to the projectiles.

the easiest way to implement faction is to make a huge research tree and tons of different units of different factions,and only make the ones belonging to a 'faction' available to the players who choose that faction.I'll look into this while you are looking for your pie imd's.  ;D

just hope your coma'ed pc is not due to harddisk failure.
tasks postponed until the trunk is relatively stable again.
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Re: Realistic/WWII total conversion?

Post by kage »

Watermelon wrote: that is possible with minor source changes,we can send number of projectiles based on weapon pie imd's number of weapon connnectors,then add some speed variant to the projectiles.
good thought -- that's a lot cleaner than what i was thinking
Watermelon wrote: the easiest way to implement faction is to make a huge research tree and tons of different units of different factions,and only make the ones belonging to a 'faction' available to the players who choose that faction.
lol! this was exactly the kind of thing i was trying to do using normal mod tools -- you just couldn't trick it that way... one thing i didn't do much of back (or now) then was warzone scripting, so there might be some way to "deresearch" the root node at game start to disallow each player from getting another faction's tech.
Watermelon wrote: I'll look into this while you are looking for your pie imd's.  ;D
heh... looking for the files is not an issue: if the data is intact, i know exactly where it is -- it's just a matter of being able to give one of my servers some scheduled down time (they're frequently in use by other people for various things), and can't just "pull the plug" at will.
Watermelon wrote: just hope your coma'ed pc is not due to harddisk failure.
luckily for you, not getting any video out and having the ram idle after 3 seconds (doesn't even try to post) is usually not indicative of hard drive failure.
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