Engine?

Discuss the future of Warzone 2100 with us.
suicideidiot123
Rookie
Rookie
Posts: 31
Joined: 14 Oct 2006, 02:16

Engine?

Post by suicideidiot123 »

i dont know if this has been asked before but is there a change of engine planned? if so what are we looking at? im curious as to what the future for warzone is because it needs a new engine if we want people to really get onboard. ive been discussing this on a different forum and many people have recommended the unreal 2 engine, the source engine, and Q2 engine (although they are unsure how this would work for rts...). What do you guys think?
User avatar
Serman
Trained
Trained
Posts: 244
Joined: 25 May 2007, 03:54
Location: New York City

Re: Engine?

Post by Serman »

Lol Source Engine.

I don't think that's a very good engine for RTS, more for first person shooters.

But there is an RTS modification for Half-Life 2, and it actually works out pretty good.


At a battle overview, polygon count on models should be drastically decreased to alleviate performance issues, because in that modification, having too many units in view causes alot of lag.

Mapping could be tough also, as mapping for FPS is much more complex than warzone 2100
User avatar
kage
Regular
Regular
Posts: 751
Joined: 05 Dec 2006, 21:45

Re: Engine?

Post by kage »

only issue is... the source engine (and afaik, the unreal 2 engine) is closed source. there's no way we could make the game available to even a mote portion of those we can with the current engine. q2 is an option (and has been used for some rts/squad strats), as is q3, though both of those were designed from the ground up for... quake.  for the point of discussion, to make an fps engine anywhere near efficient for a warzone style rts, the map and net subsystems would have to be (almost) entirely replaced from scratch, and the renderer would have to be tweaked, but after that, you get nice lighting effects and water reflections for free =)

note, though, we have great talent among our developers... indeed, it would much simpler to just boost the graphics in the wz engine rather than retool to work with something new.
suicideidiot123
Rookie
Rookie
Posts: 31
Joined: 14 Oct 2006, 02:16

Re: Engine?

Post by suicideidiot123 »

is the current engine capable of high polygon counts? or water reflections? particle effects or bloom effects? those would all be awsome if they worked in the wz engine. What is the engine called anyway? just wz engine?
HCN-Trooper
Trained
Trained
Posts: 79
Joined: 03 Dec 2007, 12:19
Location: The Wastelands of Nowhere

Re: Engine?

Post by HCN-Trooper »

IF there will be an engine shift, i'd recommend the SAGE engine(used in: CnC3,CnC generals(ZH) , BFMEII) but afaic we stick to the old engine(which drives almost on all PCs :P )
EvilGuru
Regular
Regular
Posts: 615
Joined: 23 Jun 2007, 22:41

Re: Engine?

Post by EvilGuru »

There will not be an engine shift.

Warzone currently has an extremely unique engine which provides a lot of features not available in other open source engines. This would make shifting very hard.

Kage's summary is spot on in my opinion; our time is better spent working on the current engine.

Regards, Freddie.
User avatar
Rman Virgil
Professional
Professional
Posts: 3812
Joined: 25 Sep 2006, 01:06
Location: USA

Re: Engine?

Post by Rman Virgil »

-------->

* It's already out of the realm of theory & squarely a demonstrated fact.

* The WZ engine can definitely be retooled for vastly improved GFX & already has been. Within a year you'll hardly notice the difference with state of the art.

* As it's already been proved, it would be foolish, totally unecessary & a  pure loser to switch-up to another.... The closest possible candidate would be Garage Games "RTS Torque" & even that is unsuitable for a number of reasons.

- RV :)
.

Impact = C x (R + E + A + T + E)

Contrast
Reach
Exposure
Articulation
Trust
Echo
.
suicideidiot123
Rookie
Rookie
Posts: 31
Joined: 14 Oct 2006, 02:16

Re: Engine?

Post by suicideidiot123 »

well that does make alot of sense. i see the point you guys make...i just cant wait to see the graphics improve...i wish i could help but i have NO idea how to code so i must stick to maps...
Chojun
Regular
Regular
Posts: 518
Joined: 25 Nov 2006, 17:49
Contact:

Re: Engine?

Post by Chojun »

The only difference between the Warzone "engine" and a different one is its implementation.
The best thing to do when your philosophies don't stand up to debate is to lock the thread and claim victory.
User avatar
Rman Virgil
Professional
Professional
Posts: 3812
Joined: 25 Sep 2006, 01:06
Location: USA

Re: Engine?

Post by Rman Virgil »

Chojun wrote: The only difference between the Warzone "engine" and a different one is its implementation.
* Dang bud, that makes my post downright verbose. ;)

* I hope down the road there will be more opportunity for you to excercise your literary & musical gifts along with your current focus. :)

- RV :D
.

Impact = C x (R + E + A + T + E)

Contrast
Reach
Exposure
Articulation
Trust
Echo
.
aart3k
New user
Posts: 4
Joined: 21 Nov 2007, 20:32

Re: Engine?

Post by aart3k »

But... i like the way current wz looks...
But some kind of revamped wz-edition (with implemented all these sparkly nice features people expects from current games in engine and new models, textures etc etc everything) would be nice :)
Ursa
Trained
Trained
Posts: 66
Joined: 16 Jul 2007, 18:36

Re: Engine?

Post by Ursa »

Right now the ugliest part of Warzone, without a doubt, is the texture. They were made in a day and age when 640X480 was typical. Right now the textures are kinda Quake 2... if they could go up to System Shock 2 or Quake 3 levels... if all of the textures were upgraded the way Grim upgraded the Arizona landscape it would indeed be a great accomplishment, and would make the game look much, much better.


I'd have to disagree with Chojun, there are massive differences between the Warzone engine and the ID tech 5 engine for instance:

Lots of the 'ugliness' your average gamer sees in warzone is because of the rendering engine, which is a problem, because AFAIK it takes a specialized programmer to do anything with Open GL implementation. The engine as it is uses vertex shading for the (sparse) lighting as mentioned in another thread the Warzone engine is pre OGL 2.0. That means that shaders are not possible.

Shaders are where most of the eye candy in modern games comes from.  Bump mapping for instance could make all of the current models and ground look better. Specular mapping would allow for shiny textures (like metal). And the lighting system could be revamped. Taken to it's full extent effects such as blooming might be possible.

The obvious problem is... that's a lot of work from someone who not only "knows how to program" but someone who knows how to deal with Open GL... extensively. I don't even know if it's possible using only C (and GLSL).
User avatar
The Commander
Trained
Trained
Posts: 66
Joined: 17 Jan 2008, 05:23
Location: New Zealand
Contact:

Re: Engine?

Post by The Commander »

I dont know much on programing code, but why not do what the Eduke32 project has done for Duke Nukem 3D and make Warzone use High Res textures and surport for .MD2/.MD3 models instead. If there was surrport for these then even I could get involved then with re-texturing and modeling.

If you have no idea what im talking about just do a sherch on Youtube for "Duke Nukem HRP"
Stargate Mod
User avatar
Rman Virgil
Professional
Professional
Posts: 3812
Joined: 25 Sep 2006, 01:06
Location: USA

Re: Engine?

Post by Rman Virgil »

Ursa wrote:


I'd have to disagree with Chojun, there are massive differences between the Warzone engine and the ID tech 5 engine for instance:

* Where do you see any mention of ID tech 5 ?

* Chojun ia already working on a New WZ GFX Engine. Right now it's called "VisiRaptor"

* You'd be mighty suprised over what is possible with an optimal architectonic approach....as opposed to one that leads directly to a nettlesome cul-de-sac.

- RV :)
.

Impact = C x (R + E + A + T + E)

Contrast
Reach
Exposure
Articulation
Trust
Echo
.
Ursa
Trained
Trained
Posts: 66
Joined: 16 Jul 2007, 18:36

Re: Engine?

Post by Ursa »

Rman Virgil wrote: * Where do you see any mention of ID tech 5 ?

* Chojun ia already working on a New WZ GFX Engine. Right now it's called "VisiRaptor"

* You'd be mighty suprised over what is possible with an optimal architectonic approach....as opposed to one that leads directly to a nettlesome cul-de-sac.

- RV :)
I was pointing out that there are differences between engines, and I used the Warzone engine and id tech 5 as examples.

I wrote that post at 3:00 in the morning so I apologize about any offense my post may cause.

I had no idea about this new engine... that's damn cool
Post Reply