Times of War Development Team

Now Zaei you know I won't have any of that. :D

Wazupguys it will be available at times.of.war.tripod.com, with the NORMAL password. :o

For the fantasy campaign, give me some ideas on what it would be. Eg. A world like ours, different species, intelligent life, storylines, names, anything.

I'm currently giving it the name Callistia.
I also think it should be a swamp planet ruled by amphibians and reptiles... What views do you guys have?

! 7h1nk 7h47 W3 $h0uld h4v3 d1phph3|23n7 71l3$37$ ph0|2 v4|210u$ pl4c3$. G1v3 u$ $0m3 p0|274l$ 70 g0 70 d1phph3|23n7 pl4c3$, 4nd c4ll 7h3m d1phph3|23n7 w0|2ld$. $33 wh47 1m $4y1ng h3|23? =) 7h3 n4m3 $0und$ ph1n3 70 m3. ! h0p3 j00 c4n 4ll |234d 7h1$... =P.

Yes, I hate illegible writing =).

Z.

roll call ok who still has the balls to stay. uhhhhhhhhh im just rambling to dont mind me sas what r u trying to do for our webpage man i dont get the idea or r u not done yet oh hows the anual/outline cause me no recive a copy oh well back to the roll call. hay has anyone gotton normans pics yet or have we gotton nothing from him.
and i would like tile engine dont car what problems there r maybe i can find it (maybe althought i do have a good chance). ok i guess ive said enought for now by u all (ill be back latter for more. :) :( :o :D ;) :p :cool: :rolleyes: :mad: :eek: :confused:
time to get email account so u all can check me latter when u want.

You don't really need that email account, I set us up one:
[email protected]

You can use it with outlook.. I will tell you guys how to set it up.

I use Outlook Express, So:

NAME: ToW Team
ORGINIZATION: Times of War
EMAIL ADDRESS: [email protected]
REPLY ADDRESS:

POP3: pop.gmx.co.uk
SMTP: mail.gmx.co.uk

ACCOUNT NAME: [email protected]
PASSWORD: *****
(you should know the password by now, same as website)

SECURITY ENCRYPTION: 3DES

OUTGOING PORT: 25
INCOMING PORT: 110

And actually wazupguys I DO have the balls to stay :D and the webpage is nearing completion:

http://times.of.war.tripod.com/
Or you can go to the WEBPAGE link in my signature.

Zaei, would you do a bit of the graphics if we used 2 modes (3d and 2d rendering) for TOW? I mean, using DirectDraw / DirectGraphics. (DX7 & DX8), since you are the resident D3D8 guy, this would be a challenge for you (also fun maybe ??) It's up to you, if I can't get the 2d tile engine working we will do this... also the website is nearing completion!!

You guys arent doing anything; you have nothing to do?

Then here is some for you -

ANYBODY --
Events
Death (0 hp)
Decay (no decaying corpse)
Damaged (when damage is dealt to them, both this and death raised when they die)
Ready (first created, also when newly trained)
Upgrade (new armour, etc.)
Add any I may have missed or you want in.

Methods
Attack (has a source, eg. an enemy unit, give the unit #)
Damage (has no source, eg. terrain damage)
Train (train into unit TYPE #)
Kill (when user deletes them with DEL key)
Assign (same as Train but no wait)
Add any I may have missed or you want in.

Properties
UnitType (changed when trained, (UnitType as CoreType) -- UDT called CoreType which holds base unit info, i'll create this just make a blank UDT called CoreType.)
HP (how much HP it has)
X (pixels from left of map)
Y (pixels from top of map)
Armour (Armour as CoreArmour, leave this one alone for now)
XSpeed
YSpeed
Frame (integer)
Action (Action as CoreAction, leave alone)
Add any I may have missed or you want in.

If anyone wants to do this send me an email or post it here --
Posting here would be better.

Psyvision, do you know DirectGraphics or just DDraw, cause DG8 looks like it would give the game a HUGE speed increase!

The site will be fully up 9:00 PM GMT-5 time.

^^^ THIS IS A CLASSMODULE FOR THE UNITS ^^^

I decided to make the peasants carry the wood in the front, here is an animated gif of what it looks like: (going downwards, towards bottom of screen.)

(all animations have in total 64 frames, 8 frames in each direction. Normal units have 128 frames each. (1 attack anim, 1 move anim), while peasants have 320 frames. (attack & chop, move, mine for minerals, carry lumber, carry sack).

Attachment \/

http://161.58.186.97/attachment.php?s=&postid=378487

the email account isnt for us its for me so thhhhhhh
and for the unit modules do u want a class or a type
cause i thinking about some of it infact i think i
have a fragment of it. so how many pics do we have
from normain today i talk to him during lunch to see
whats up. and tell him to visit here some time.

Sas, sorry for not replying. I havent touched a computer with internet access for 2 days =(. Anyway. Give me more info on what you actually want for the possible 3D part. I am working on a 3D RTS in C++, so i know a bit about it. Also, I will need a working copy of the rendering engine to start really getting the AI woking well. For now, its just a bunch of good ideas in my head (which happens to be the best place for them, as of now, where they can grow into full grown adult AI ideas =). Anyway. more info on your ideas for 3D, and ill let you know what i can do =).

Z.

I want you to render lots of square tiles in 3d, and then after all of them are blitted, rotate the view, oh, 45 degrees up and 45 degrees left. Then we can make all of the terrain features (elevation, water, translucency, alpha effects) in 3d, and then blit the 2d units onto the drawing plane. (ddraw surface). This is how we'll do it.

WORKING ON SOMETHING ELSE?
Why...?

I said Dedicated workers.
But if you do this all will be forgiven. :D

You guys'll be able to do more over the summer, right?

And wazupguys, I want a CLASSMODULE.
Also I only have the peasant, but as you can see I've been working hard...

Some more information: I can give you a zip off the website of what I have, it's BUGGY (it works but not as I want it to...)

hey sas,
i need a compy of all the charictor information. ok i guess ill try my luck with that and i might not be intouch much during the summer but i will be working on whatever u want. so u expect this to done soon dont u. oh do u thank the rain for making that puddle that changed that d to a m.
oh reason for my disconection soon is i dont have the internet at home but a friend does and ill be visiting his house alot.

ok i done talking any one else.

I tried using that method for the terrain in my first try Sas. Even in C++, it wasnt pretty. At current, Im using maps that are 25x25, using 1 Render call, and im getting around 33 FPS on an 8meg card. The big problem is that 1 "tile" is 2 triangles, and that adds up FAST. 25x25 is 1152 triangles, 27x27 is 1352, 50x50 is 4802. The one way i know to get around this is to make the tiles a LOT bigger, to get a bigger map. I CAN do it, but i dont think i can promise a miracle =).

Z.

Surely we can use culling, eg. Only draw the side of the tile we can see? And only draw the tiles we can see?
And Zaei, the max. triangles on the screen would be 1024 (or 512 if we dont render the backside, or something, whatever) because I make the tiles so they go an even 16:16 ratio on the monitor (50x37, 40x30, 64x48) for 800x600, 640x480, and 1024x768 resolutions. Also using trianglestrips can make the graphics go a lot faster.

I haven't yet looked into frustrum culling, but the numbers I had up before ARE backface culled, with a clip range of 30 (there are certain camera angles where you can see the triangles get clipped out). The nice thing about 3D is that you dont have to resize your tiles for different resolutions. A single triangle in the middle of the screen at 640x480 is at the middle of the screen at 1024x768.

Z.

Yeah, I agree, one of the best things about 3D. It also means our textures can be super-complicated without losing performance.

Zaei, how would I go about using Hardware Transform & Lighting in D3D8? I heard you can pass it instead of the HAL device, but that was in D3D7. How do I do it now??

Also I made a D3D enumeration program, here it is:

Here...
Sorry it didnt upload.
Me and my numerous upload problems :D.

I THINK you would pass in "D3DCREATE_PUREDEVICE" or "D3DCREATE_HARDWARE_VERTEXPROCESSING" when you create your D3D Device. Look in the Documentation under the "D3D.CreateDevice()" function.

Z.

I updated it a lot now, it looks better.
I have also decided to use TnLHAL if the card supports it, rather than let the user decide.

'kay peoples

I want a status report, please check in, I'm tired of waiting for posts!

Could you guys post more often (and work more often) I am working so I would like to know if you are too....

Okay Psyvision havent heard from you at all of late, how is the C++ DLL going?

i think we all know how it is during wekk of finals well thats been the past few days for me. i got some code at home and my mom doesnt want to let me usethe computer for a while so when i get back on most likly ill have the code to move the units around and attack things.

Hey, im not working on the C++ dll at the moment, though i am getting a book soon that may help with this so when it arrives i shall take another look.

In the mean time, anyone with some docs on Direct Play would b e nice.

http://www.vbexplorer.com/directx4vb/

Need I say more...?
I'm compiling my SasSmooth Algo. into a DDraw DLL, as to brush back up on my ddraw skills (learner app)

I'll try to use DPlay, I'll play around with it (no pun intended)

Sas. Here is a little app ive been working on. Tell me if this is sorta what you had imagined for the 3d stuff.

Z.

Yep Zaei it's pretty good, but, you need to be able to assign textures to coordinates, and also you need to point & drag (not select, change option, drag)

Psyvision:
http://rookscape.com/vbgaming/

Great tutorials they have.

In TOW, we'll be having Blacksmiths make armour. This armour is seperately fitted on units, adding to the base armour of the unit.

There are two diffferenet %s for armour; AR and AC. (Armour Rating, Armour Coverage). Armour Coverage is a percent that determines if the weapon hit the armour. Armour Rating is how much damage will get through should the weapon hit the armour. So damage:

VB Code:

Function Attack(Unit as Long)
Dim Hit as Boolean
Dim Dmg as Integer
 
   Randomize Timer
   If Int(Rnd * 100) <= Units(Unit).AC Then Hit = True
 
   If Hit = True Then
      Dmg = Atk * (100 / (100 - Units(Unit).AR))
   Else
      Dmg = Atk * (100 / (100 - Units(Unit).UnitType.Armour))
   End If
End Function

i'm over at a friends house sad thing is i cant do any programing
and im not able to look at the file. i might be getting the internet at home. :) im really happy about that when i get it ill be able to upload the app's that ive worked on. (i think theres three of them.

Wazupguys- Great!

I think we should turn this into a fully 3D rts before doing the graphics, it would be easier (faster, looks better) in the end. Also that way we could use point sprites, alphablending, fsaa, etc. and we wouldn't be overshadowed by War III as much. (although I know we will)

So what do you guys say?
Also, I made 2 "Crystal Rain" intro screens.
Here they are:

Here is the second:

I find if you use tissues and lotion.............oops wrong thread, must be a bumbling fool:rolleyes:

Let's see if i can reply this time...

I can do the 3D graphics. Just tell me what you want, and I will tell you what can be done.

Z.

[edit]
And if you guyd want, I can post some screen shots of what I've done, so you can see what it can look like.

Psyvision said he was looking into doing DX8 with C++, you guys could get together and get it started.

• Ability to have multiple terrain heights
• Particle Effects (billboarded & point-sprites)
• User-Definable Z-Buffer!!! (I cannot stress this enough, see below)
• Dynamic Lighting
• FSAA and large texture support (upt to 1024x1024)
• Hardware T & L

* I have a Savage4 Card. I runs everything fine. In D3D, if there is no Z-Buffer (a certain kind, i think 24bit Z buffer) other than a 24 bit z buffer, all of the polygons will flicker, causing me to writhe in horror. So I need this Z-Buffer. And apparently, the company that makes the card doesn't support it. Nobody does. Therefore in 2 days I am buying meself a little ol' GeForce 2 Ultra...

Ive got the terrain thing implemented in C++ already. As I said, I can post some screen shots if anyone wants to see them.

Z.

[edit]
And you would be hard pressed to find a 3D card that DOESNT support 1024x1024 textures.

Why exactly am l receiving email about this thread. Don't do games programming:confused:

You kinda posted as a bumbling fool.... =P

And Zaei bring on the screenshots

Vol. 1

Vol. 2

Vol. 3

Vol. 4

Vol. 5

Shot 1 shows a wireframe view of the scene.
Shot 2 shows the fully rendered scene.
Shot 3 shows the menu system.
Shot 4 shows the GUI, and context menus.
Shot 5 shows how the GUI is fully user configurable.

Each shot has a few extra lines in it, the red line goes from the current position to the destination of a unit, the yellow goes from the origin to the unit position, the green line goes from the unit position to the current mouse position in world space.

Z.

Could we perhaps change the ground textures and menus, because that looks kind of futuristic.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Sastraxi
You kinda posted as a bumbling fool.... =P

---

Thanks, some one is going to get a good slapping for using my login again.

Could we perhaps change the ground textures and menus, because that looks kind of futuristic.

The ground texture is just a test that I created (thats why it looks like crap =). I can easily texture the menus/windows, I just havent done it yet.

Z.

Hey, the screen shots look nice but we need some new textures :d lol.

I got my open gl game programming book and can make a particle engine for us ? i can only do it in open gl atm coz i dont know how to use direct x in C++ too much like alpha blending etc. But ! if anyone know this stuff then they can redo the render function ???

Um the game is leaning to C++ here atm, do u want this ?

Correction: the GRAPHICS are leaning that way...
But if you want, we can do it all in C++, just I won't do any programming (I can't)...

Would that be okay for you guys? Except in this case wazupguys' code modules would be lost (unless there is a conversion to C++)

I can probably do the particle systems. Actually, it was what I was about to start working on.

Psy is right, though. The project is really looking pretty C++-y at the moment, but if someone wants to see what they can do with that map edtor i posted a while back, i can put up some source code. Let me know.

If someone is feeling kind of bored, try writing a texture blending program. Have fun...

Anything else, just let me know. My email, as always, is [email protected] .

Z.

I dont mind doing all of the programming with Psy. I dont know how everyone else will feel about that, but its fine with me.

If Psy doesnt mind, we can just start with what I have down so far, and build on it.

Z.

I have some algos that do grayscale surface & colour surface -> alpha channel texture (from lucky's vbgaming), and I can easily implement vbDABL to do the alpha-blending. I could store these all in a class module, along with the infamous SxGraphics Algo.... (originally known as SastraxiSmooth)

Jorj has started to make some SWEET concept art. I have done some work as well (art). We really need a 3DSMAX developer in this project...

I also have a good idea, with DX8 and OGL we could provide the best experience for our users, just have the same 'inputs' to VB or whatever in your DLL, and then draw it using DX8/OGL depending on a value, such as glOGL or glD3D passed to a renderer value.

I had the strangest idea that I should post who is doing what and what positions need to be filled. Sorry if this is redundant, but a six-page discussion is sometimes hard to wade through.

MAIN TASKS

VB programmer to do main DDraw loop - wazup guys
3D modellers to make models from 2D unit graphics - ???
General programmer - Zaei / PsyVision
Gameplay, interface programmer - Zaei
AI coder - Zaei
Terrain, unit graphics - Sastraxi
C++ DLL - D3D & OpenGL - PsyVision / Zaei
Level Design - Jorj so far...

SMALL TASKS

Manual - Jorj / Sastraxi
Website - Sastraxi
Concept art - Norman_Nomein / Jorj
Particle systems - Zaei
Texture blending - ???

If you see any errors, please notify.

A small update:

For the 'real-world' campaign(s), if Sastraxi has told you about the campaigns, I have made a mission outline, complete with maps, objectives, strategies, et cetera.

I have also made two Saxon units in concept art: the Fyrd, and the Housecarl. I hope they will be posted on the website soon.

That is all. Valete!

I forgot one thing. Since we are moving to 3D, we can't have a whole lot of units on screen. I suggest a max of 20 Units per level, although I havent tested it yet. Also, since we cant have as many units, it may be a good idea to move away from a true RTS, into what Blizzard was planning for War3, more of a RPG/RTS game, you know, with stats, levels, and all of that stuff.

Z.

We could keep the LOD low. Very low. Such 200 face charas. With imaging technology what it is now, I dont think we'll have a problem. You may think it'll be a problem for your card, because as you said earlier you test on a 8mb card...