Game Engine Project

[Nigh™a®e]

Hi,

im looking for people who like to help me building a game + game engine.
I'm working on it for few years now, started in vb6 with dx8.

At this moment im writing the engine in c++ (better performance)
Im a beginning c++ programmer (have lots of vb expierence), so i need people who can help me.
The project is in a pretty far stage.
I have some screenshots online at http://groups.msn.com/CityRiots/shoebox.msnw
The msn group is not really used anymore (i dont like the groups so much, to limited) the screenshot are few weeks old now.

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What is the game about?
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At this moment there is not really a game planned, just building the engine. The original game plan was called City Riots, so the game engine is called City Riots Engine or CRE. The engine is using DirectX9 and support graphics, sounds and input. Input component is as good as ready for testing, the sound component is still empty (dint work on that part yet) and the graphics component has some nice features but im rewriting the full component (code was to messy).
Part i have completed of the graphics:
- 1ste person / 3the person camera
- Skybox (Skydome will be added later)
- HeightMap terrains (can load different types of terrains)
- Meshes and animated skinned meshes
- Texture and material libs (collection classes to make use of textures and materials easyer)
- Billboards

Features to be added:
- Shadows
- Environment mapping
- 2D Interface system (for the menu's)
- Particle system (smoke, fire, .... )

The engine is made to support different types of games, so there is still a lot of work on it.

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C++ vs VB.NET
===========
I choosen c++ cause the performance is higher. But still i want vb programmers to be able to use the engine. Therefor warpers will be writing.

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CRE Online
========
At this moment there is only a msn group available. Once the engine is ready, a dedicated server will be put online (gone do co-located hosting, so need to save money for the server first).
The server will be use for the website and community site of the engine. Next to that the server will be used as testing gameserver for the game's made on the engine.

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Who can help
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First of all im looking for some good c++ programmers to help building the engine and some tools/editors for the engine.

I also need a c++.net programmer who can make a .net dll writen in c++ that is calling the engine win32 core runtimes.

VB.NET and C#.NET programmers can also help us when the warper is ready.

Web developers to make and update the site for the engine. There will also be SDK docs available (using help integration kit so the docs are available in the vs help), so the web developers will also be working on the html pages for the help, the pages will also be put online for online help.

3D modellers. I really need them to make the game objects, we can't keep testing with the DXSDK x files for ever

People who run a server and can provide us with temporary server (secured ftp for the source files, http to put a site and/or forum online for the team)

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C++ vs Managed version
==================
What will be the difference between the C++ and managed version of the engine?
The c++ (or win32) version is the real engine. The managed (warper) version, i just dummy .net dll's that call the functions on the win32 version.
Therefore the win32 version will not be available for public download. There will be an c++ sdk available but only on request.

The managed version and sdk will be for public download. Next to that there will come an community site including forum for the users of the managed version. The managed sdk will contain samples and tutorial, something the c++ sdk wont have.

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Payed or free?
==========
At this moment im unemployed so the project is made for free.
But there are some plans to earn money with it if the engine has the features and performance of the commercial engine. (thats one of the reassons the win32 source will only be available to the c++ programmers in the team).
If it works to make a commercial engine of it, the plan will be to start a game dev company. but im sure some years will pass before the final result is ready

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How to join?
=========
If u want to join the team,
Mail: [email protected]
MSN: [email protected]
ICQ: 59781659

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When to start
==========
At this moment im cleaning my code (started new project and put cleaned code in it) so u cant render anything, and old test project are to mesy to work on (no comments )
Once the code is cleanup and we have a server to store our files the c++ programmers can start working on the engine.
For the vb or C# programmers, they have to wait till the warper is ready (once my code is cleared a warper could be made of the available features, i hope to be ready in 2-3 weeks with it).
Web developers who can make a site for it, can start whenever they want, thats not really releated to the progress of the engine.

================================

Greetz Nightmare

[wossname]

Warper? Do you mean wrapper?

[kishore.kr]

hi,

i am new to programming world. i am intrested in c++ and good in vb also. like to participate in the project.

[Darkwraith]

DX9, eh?

Are you supporting older graphics cards with your engine?

[Nigh™a®e]

Hehe, din't check this topic for a while

Here's little update of the dev status

The input component is completed for now (need some extra features later, but has good keyboard/mouse and joystick classes)
The graphics are also working now, still have to implement few things.

There is now also a static lib framework with the engine SDK for handling the base application (rendering a mesh only takes about 3 lines of code)

A first test version of the engine should be ready by the end of the month

i am new to programming world. i am intrested in c++ and good in vb also. like to participate in the project.

Contact me on msn or icq for that plz.

Are you supporting older graphics cards with your engine?

yeah, the engine should be supporting older graphic cards.
At this moment the engine does not support software rendering, all graphic cards must support hardware rendering (need to run tests on ref rendering to see performance of it)

Older cards supporting hardware rendering are supported, cause the engine can check if any shaders are available on the graphics and what version of shaders to use.
When having high performance graphic card the game will just look beter and run faster cause of the shaders.


p.s. my hotmail address is also down, din't check it for to long
new email address will follow l8r.

I'm also looking for people who can set up a game plans
i have small plan for making little shooter game (Operation flashpoint kinda game) but i wanna work out a sneak trough game like splinter cell or hitman (very strong game scenario needed for this).

Greetz Nightmare

[Darkwraith]

DX9 has troubles with older graphics cards, even if you do not use unsupported features. Software rendering is slow (very slow). I have not done all that much with DirectX (because they would not allow me to use DX8.1 or DX8 for that matter with a Voodoo 5), but what you could possibly do is to dive through versions of DX and see which one your card could support.

I have not done this because I converted to OpenGL, but this idea may be possible.