ZEQ2 Lite

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Zeth wrote : My overall point on this 2nd topic is that it's VERY misleading to let people think "all that Earth Special Forces has done with Half-Life" when you aren't actually USING Half-Life functionality.

Last I checked HL1 had no VBO support, no vertex shaders and defenitly no normal maps. We even used Bullet to replace its original physics system (though granted we only use it for everything except player models)

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Last I checked HL1 had no VBO support, no vertex shaders and defenitly no normal maps. We even used Bullet to replace its original physics system (though granted we only use it for everything except player models)

Exactly my ENTIRE point. You are NOT using Half-Life other than anything but a simple shell with networking, input, and sound support.

You completely replaced what DEFINES the distinction in engines -- it's rendering core. Not only that, but you additionally swapped the physics/collision library as well. It honestly makes no sense why you wouldn't just plop out the other few libraries too. Input? OIS or SDL. Sound? OpenAL, Fmod, or Audiere. Networking? Custom Sockets, Racknet, or Hawknl.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Zeth wrote :

Last I checked HL1 had no VBO support, no vertex shaders and defenitly no normal maps. We even used Bullet to replace its original physics system (though granted we only use it for everything except player models)

Exactly my ENTIRE point. You are NOT using Half-Life other than anything but a simple shell with networking, input, and sound support.

You completely replaced what DEFINES the distinction in engines -- it's rendering core. Not only that, but you additionally swapped the physics/collision library as well. It honestly makes no sense why you wouldn't just plop out the other few libraries too. Input? OIS or SDL. Sound? OpenAL, Fmod, or Audiere. Networking? Custom Sockets, Racknet, or Hawknl.

Actually we swapped the Half-Life sound with FmodX. H
And we changed the imput a bit so its more cliend side instead of standard Half-Life server side (should help with lag issues) ^^;

I know the level of modification to the engine we did is somewhere near 90%. So yeah its a total conversion of the engine. Yet there is still those 10% that are used of standard Half-Life. And with those 10% we don't need to worry about servers or a master server. Its all taken care of by Half-Life itself.

So yes we are driving round a beetle car with a ferrari engine and calling it a beetle, because you need the beetle keys for the ignition.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Your analogy is misdirected.

You are in a car that looks like a Ferrari (rendering), drives like a Ferrari (physics), sounds like a Ferrari (audio), behaves like a Ferrari (logic), and has the same steering wheel/gears/pedals as a Ferrari (input).

You cannot JUST put Beetle tires (networking) and then give a Beetle certificate/manual (Half Life) on it and expect people to still call or classify it a Beetle.

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Grega. Developers have done what Earth Special Forces has done before. Regardless of how you want to glorify the situation, you fall under the same rules and classifications as any other similar project of this design.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing (please don't take that away from it). Earth Special Forces has done a WONDERFUL job of creating their own modern engine environment in Half-Life wrapping paper, but don't mislead your users and yourself into believing that you made everything possible with vanilla Half-Life and it's functionality.

If I start with a toaster and then add a rocket engine, mini-gun, mechanical legs, a sentient AI conscious, 14 piece speaker system, and a nuclear power source capable of sustaining half the world population I CANNOT go around telling people that I "made it all possible just by using a basic toaster that anyone can get!" when the original product has and contributes next to nothing.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Zeth wrote : Your analogy is misdirected.

You are in a car that looks like a Ferrari (rendering), drives like a Ferrari (physics), sounds like a Ferrari (audio), behaves like a Ferrari (logic), and has the same steering wheel/gears/pedals as a Ferrari (input).

You cannot JUST put Beetle tires (networking) and then give a Beetle certificate/manual (Half Life) on it and expect people to still call or classify it a Beetle.

------

Grega. Developers have done what Earth Special Forces has done before. Regardless of how you want to glorify the situation, you fall under the same rules and classifications as any other similar project of this design.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing (please don't take that away from it). Earth Special Forces has done a WONDERFUL job of creating their own modern engine environment in Half-Life wrapping paper, but don't mislead your users and yourself into believing that you made everything possible with vanilla Half-Life and it's functionality.

If I start with a toaster and then add a rocket engine, mini-gun, mechanical legs, a sentient AI conscious, 14 piece speaker system, and a nuclear power source capable of sustaining half the world population I CANNOT go around telling people that I "made it all possible just by using a basic toaster that anyone can get!" when the original product has and contributes next to nothing.

don't worry about that to much though. We never did say its possible with Half-Life functionality. Every update we made we stated that we switched or improved the old with the new. We only say that you'll still need Half Life 1 as a game if you'll want to play HL1 ^^

And we can not stress enough times that what we did was one big hack of the game engine.

Also yes your analogy is better than mine ^^;

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

See, now I'm just baffled more than anything else. I had not realized so much of the core engine had been completely replaced already. Why don't you guys just fill in the missing pieces and deploy it as your own standalone game/engine? You literally have next to nothing to write at this point to make that possible.

In a nutshell, all modern game engines are comprised of the following :
Rendering, Physics, Audio, Networking, Input, and Window libraries. As I mentioned briefly before, what separates something like Crysis and something like Unreal 3 is the handling and features of the rendering core (even though everyone pretty much uses DirectX or OpenGL libraries in the end as a basis).

Lets break down what you are telling me here.

Rendering [Custom OpenGL solution]
Physics [Bullet]
Audio [FmodX]
Networking [Half-Life]
Input [Half-Life or ?]
Window [Half-Life]

If I am understanding you correctly, you have already established two of the most difficult aspects to a custom engine -- rendering and physics linking. Hooking in an input library would take a couple hours tops and a window manager (SDL, GTK, etc.) less than that. There are already PLENTY of master/server browser solutions out there to boot as well (with lots of major API hookups to matchmaking services).

Basically, you are stone throw away from a FULL standalone, portable, custom, no-strings-attached engine and deployment solution, but are you fretting because of a network library solution? Need I remind you of Half-Life's EXTREMELY poorly written client-prediction and messaging code?

Please, tell me this isn't true and explain your decision not to open up the doors of possibility.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Zeth wrote : See, now I'm just baffled more than anything else. I had not realized so much of the core engine had been completely replaced already. Why don't you guys just fill in the missing pieces and deploy it as your own standalone game/engine? You literally have next to nothing to write at this point to make that possible.

In a nutshell, all modern game engines are comprised of the following :
Rendering, Physics, Audio, Networking, Input, and Window libraries. As I mentioned briefly before, what separates something like Crysis and something like Unreal 3 is the handling and features of the rendering core (even though everyone pretty much uses DirectX or OpenGL libraries in the end as a basis).

Lets break down what you are telling me here.

Rendering [Custom OpenGL solution]
Physics [Bullet]
Audio [FmodX]
Networking [Half-Life]
Input [Half-Life or ?]
Window [Half-Life]

If I am understanding you correctly, you have already established two of the most difficult aspects to a custom engine -- rendering and physics linking. Hooking in an input library would take a couple hours tops and a window manager (SDL, GTK, etc.) less than that. There are already PLENTY of master/server browser solutions out there to boot as well (with lots of major API hookups to matchmaking services).

Basically, you are stone throw away from a FULL standalone, portable, custom, no-strings-attached engine and deployment solution, but are you fretting because of a network library solution? Need I remind you of Half-Life's EXTREMELY poorly written client-prediction and messaging code?

Please, tell me this isn't true and explain your decision not to open up the doors of possibility.

Being just a tester, I don't know the real reason for not doing it all. I know some coding basics along with some modeling basics and I have knowledge of the basic workings of our changes. So what I said about the master server thing was my own opinion. So I was only guessing.

As for your list it would be more correct this way.

Rendering [Custom OpenGL solution]
Physics [Bullet env models and enviroment CD, Player character physics and player CD Half-Life]
Audio [FmodX]
Networking [Half-Life]
Input [A keylogger sort of hack that reads the key press on the client rather than the server customly made]
Window [Half-Life]

Though there are talks about doing a totally independent game of any copywright restrictions and the sort after Earth Special Forces is finished. So that could be the reason for not going the full mile.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Though there are talks about doing a totally independent game of any copywright restrictions and the sort after Earth Special Forces is finished. So that could be the reason for not going the full mile.

I've heard similarly as well, but by the sounds of what all is done it'd be a weeks work tops to adapt Earth Special Forces to be its own standalone game.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

seriously get it stand alone , because I ain't using steam stuff , tough I do have a account ,

Thursday, November 25, 2010

najeeb wrote : seriously get it stand alone , because I ain't using steam stuff , tough I do have a account ,

That won't happen. Not for Earth Special Forces. And even if we do go indie game after Earth Special Forces, we will be using either steamworks or desura.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

*shakes head* Truly what a waste. Am I to believe Earth Special Forces additionally won't be releasing the source code and other assets so the community can expand on it as well? At one point I was told that it was an objective subject, but I've heard different things from different developers.

Friday, November 26, 2010

Zeth wrote : *shakes head* Truly what a waste. Am I to believe Earth Special Forces additionally won't be releasing the source code and other assets so the community can expand on it as well? At one point I was told that it was an objective subject, but I've heard different things from different developers.

There was some talk about releasing the beta 1.2 code once the final was out. But I haven't heard anything about it in a long time.

That aside once we unlock the custom content lock people will be able to add attacks, characters in a matter of minutes provided they already have the model, sounds and sprites.