Author Topic: 1 month push for Outpost 3D  (Read 22609 times)

Offline Zhall

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1 month push for Outpost 3D
« on: August 12, 2017, 12:43:45 AM »
My current project is coming to a close and I am looking for another one month push which is my favorite development style.

I have made some progress in the past on a starcraft 2 mod, figuring out how to import custom models and get certain features such as mining to work almost identical to the original.

Starcraft 2 arcade is free,so there's no real downside to using that engine. Of course its $20 to use the editor or as low as $7 on eBay. Building a custom engine is a hellacious waste of time,  and the spring engine pisses me off too much.

Of course there's copyright bullshit, but please look past that as if the project gets pulled from battlenet the content produced can be reused on a different engine.

We can use all free software to make models and textures.

Who's in?  Ill dedicate a whole month to it if a few other people are willing to push aswell.

We won't finish,  but a first playable version will result.

Thoughts?
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Offline leeor_net

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Re: 1 month push for Outpost 3D
« Reply #1 on: August 12, 2017, 02:52:11 AM »
This is the fourth time you've announced a project presenting an ambitious idea with unrealistic time frames. It's not going to garner you much response. To give you a bit of context:

Projects with little to nothing to show for themselves

Outpost 2 On Iphone
New Outpost Project
Remaking Outpost 2 Muliplayer With Galaxy Editor
Outpost Sequel/rpg Story
Outpost 2 Remastered
Outpost Remake Thoughts
Outpost Open-core
Modding Continuum
Outpost 3: The Final Chapter
Outpost 3: Genesis ← Calling myself out
Outpost 3: Alien Worlds
Outpost 3: A New Power
Outpost 3D
Outpost: A New Beginning
Outpost: Tactical Frontier
Outpost 3: Reboot
Outpost Undivided
Outpost World
Outpost For Spring
OP1 Remake?
Outpost: Missing in Action ← Calling myself out again
Epsilon Eridani


Your own announcements and projects

Teaser
Haven (not posted about much on OPU and NTCS's forums are down so I can't link to it).
Haven relaunch?
Outpost 3 Starcraft 2
Industrial Giant




With all of this stated, I know you and I haven't seen eye to eye before and the last time we talked you stormed out of the IRC channel and claimed that within a month you'd have a new prototype. I chalked it up to a heated quip but I low-key wanted you to prove me wrong. That was two years ago.

If you can make it happen, awesome! Hell I'd be excited to help out. But... you have a proven history of not following through, coming up with prototypes that haven't gone anywhere, dismissing advice that experienced people offer you and stopped working on a project because you didn't understand the technology (Haven, in this case. I've looked at the source code for Spring and it's a solid base to build a new game off of).

If you want to get a few developers together to do something awesome, you need to have more than an idea. You need to have laid down some ground work. If you've developed code, put it up in a public repository like GitHub, GitLab or SourceForge. Specify what you need help with, what the goals are and so on.
« Last Edit: August 12, 2017, 06:08:01 AM by leeor_net »

Offline Zhall

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Re: 1 month push for Outpost 3D
« Reply #2 on: August 12, 2017, 12:57:43 PM »
First off id like to say i regret my unprofessionalism and hope to move past it.

Id like to restate that this would not result in a finished product but would focus on getting some components done and perhaps a barely playable proof of concept.

Industrial giant has since been merged into a different project and Haven was paused due to not having enough people involved,which ultimately will be the fate of this project.

Regardless of how many failures there has been I don't see the harm in trying again even if we are certain that it will fail again. As long as the progress is saved add open sourced at the end it will not be hot nothing!
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Offline leeor_net

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Re: 1 month push for Outpost 3D
« Reply #3 on: August 12, 2017, 06:35:46 PM »
Fair enough.

A suggestion -- I've looked over the Spring code in more detail (the actual base C++ code). It's not bad and it's very usable. As I recall your previous effort with Haven involved using a pre-built engine and Lua scripting. That could work but from what I saw I seriously doubt you'd be able to get the Outpost 2 behavior out of units via lua scripts. Very likely the behavior would have to be built into the engine itself.

Structure placement would also have to be modified with an included 'connectedness' algorithm. This can be done relatively efficiently with a depth-first search -- it's the same technique I used in OutpostHD. I would only run such a search in an RTS maybe once per tick (maybe every 2000 - 3500 milliseconds? that would have to be tested) and if possible in a separate logic thread separate from the rendering thread.

Lastly, you're right about failure rate. Sometimes it's not about being ablet to succeed, sometimes it's just about learning. If that's the case, I'd suggest instead of a full-on project just coming up with some sort of prototype that demonstrates the basic mechanics. I made the same suggestion to LordPalandus in his thread. Still haven't seen much out of it but it seems like he's made some good progress understanding his own limitations and the scope of what he wants to do so basically a lot of positives.  ;D


Offline Zhall

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Re: 1 month push for Outpost 3D
« Reply #4 on: August 14, 2017, 05:46:27 PM »
I'll put together a trello board and make the expectations for the push realistic.
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Offline Zhall

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Re: 1 month push for Outpost 3D
« Reply #5 on: August 16, 2017, 05:30:38 PM »
A trello board has been started here.

Trello board Outpost 3 - https://trello.com/b/5J1sXcJt/outpost-3.

Ill be adding things as i get closer to the push time.

Some things that will probably be the focus are...
  • Finishing the leftover to-do list from earlier development
  • Implementing a custom UI similar yo the original
  • Reimagining kits and their handling
  • Creating previs assets of pretty much everything in the game,ultra low quality place holders if you will

ill start with that and see what else can be done near the end of that month.
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Offline Hooman

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Re: 1 month push for Outpost 3D
« Reply #6 on: August 20, 2017, 07:29:52 AM »
Your board seems to be private.

Offline Vagabond

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Re: 1 month push for Outpost 3D
« Reply #7 on: August 20, 2017, 02:25:32 PM »
Zhall,

I'm a pretty big fan on using Trello for basic project goals and task management. It has enough features without being too much for a small team to use. As Hooman pointed out, I also cannot seem to access the board.

Best of luck with the project. I'll look forward to seeing your results. Maybe you can plan on posting screen shots or a short video of your end result after a month of work?

-Brett

Offline Zhall

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Re: 1 month push for Outpost 3D
« Reply #8 on: August 20, 2017, 04:18:22 PM »
Sorry about that, it's public now.

Let me know if you want to be added to it, it's a group project after all
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Offline Zhall

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Re: 1 month push for Outpost 3D
« Reply #9 on: August 28, 2017, 01:28:34 AM »
I compiled a video of the current state of the project.

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Offline Hooman

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Re: 1 month push for Outpost 3D
« Reply #10 on: August 28, 2017, 01:36:33 AM »
Interesting. This was more than I expected to see.

There seems to be a bit of a mix of art style. Is the other style native to Starcraft II?

Offline Zhall

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Re: 1 month push for Outpost 3D
« Reply #11 on: August 28, 2017, 01:45:57 AM »
The texture-less models are from back in 2010 when the project started and there was no easy way to import models with textures.

The common ore smelter was created earlier this year and is in a state I like to call "Pre-vis" which is simply a basic texture.

The other models are stock from Sc2 itself.

I plan on utilizing any models that already exist and creating really fast simple versions "Pre-vis" of any model that doesn't exist.

This will give us the basis for all of the content in the game and allow for it to be slowly replaced with better content.
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Offline Hooman

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Re: 1 month push for Outpost 3D
« Reply #12 on: August 28, 2017, 06:09:17 AM »
Cool. Do you have any source to show for the project?

Did you use any of the pre-existing models from other people? I couldn't really tell, but the tokamak and cargo trucks reminded me of the models Fenrisul posted years ago. What about the models White Claw has produced recently?

Offline Zhall

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Re: 1 month push for Outpost 3D
« Reply #13 on: August 28, 2017, 12:02:04 PM »
Yes they are the models Fenrisul created.

I don't have the ones that White Claw made.

Here is the current Sc2 Map.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6i8oCa06m0HZU85dVN0ZGJkSTQ
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Offline Zhall

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Re: 1 month push for Outpost 3D
« Reply #14 on: August 28, 2017, 12:31:52 PM »
I plan on making weekly videos, 4 in total to document the progress during the month push which I hope to start soon.

I am wrapping up my current project in order to prepare for this.
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Offline Zhall

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Re: 1 month push for Outpost 3D
« Reply #15 on: August 29, 2017, 12:45:16 AM »
If anyone wants to go round those up for me that would be greatly appreciated.

Any help towards the end goal helps. This has already been a 7 year project, abandoned multiple times, but I always made sure to save what I had so I could come back.

My skills using the StarCraft 2 engine have greatly improved since it's advent and I think it's a great engine with a lot of potential.

While the spring engine could be used there's too much missing and it's a language I don't know

« Last Edit: August 29, 2017, 01:02:54 AM by Zhall »
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Offline Vagabond

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Re: 1 month push for Outpost 3D
« Reply #16 on: August 31, 2017, 01:50:36 AM »
Zhall,

Looks like some great progress. I like how you even have the trucks disappearing when delivering ore to the smelter. It feels really weird seeing the 2 games merged in the engine like that. I guess as you get more content to skin over, it won't appear as StarCraft like. I've only played the first StarCraft, although the second does look similar in interface design.

What is the little symbol that floats between the two planets in the beginning of the video about?

I'm also curious, what sort of licensing is on the StarCraft 2 game engine?

Looking forward to seeing your weekly updates. Glanced through the Trello board and saw you are using it pretty heavily.

-Brett

Offline Zhall

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Re: 1 month push for Outpost 3D
« Reply #17 on: September 01, 2017, 02:44:18 AM »
That logo is my YouTube channel logo and company logo [don't go to my site right now its down lol]

I think there's a clause that they own everything you make on their engine, but it's mostly just you can't monetize your shit.

ill be damned if they think they own my stuff though, maybe the code but not any of the custom assets.

I'm really pushing to start on sept 15, trying to finish up small things that are holding me up from starting.
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Offline Zhall

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Re: 1 month push for Outpost 3D
« Reply #18 on: September 05, 2017, 02:10:07 AM »
I've done a heavy amount of restructuring to the Trello board.

https://trello.com/b/5J1sXcJt/outpost-3-september-october-push

I've tried to be conservative in what will be done, aka no Plymouth at all.

Anything that doesn't get done in the week before will be pushed to the week after, ultimately the final week, week 4, will be the week that will catch everything up if I start to fall behind.

I am  trying to identify the amount of snafu's I will encounter along the way and are doing the necessary research required to iron out those problems before the 1 month push starts.

I hope to have a playable version on battle.net by the end of the push.

This may put my account in jeopardy, but it's worth it.
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Offline Zhall

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Re: 1 month push for Outpost 3D
« Reply #19 on: September 10, 2017, 02:26:27 AM »
Been listening to this in preparation for the push.




EDIT (leeor_net): fixing bb tags
« Last Edit: September 10, 2017, 03:01:31 PM by leeor_net »
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Offline Zhall

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Re: 1 month push for Outpost 3D
« Reply #20 on: September 15, 2017, 11:09:39 PM »
It's the 15th and development has started.

First up: Robosurveyors and Robominers and the unknown deposit

-Earthworkers

You can track progress here
https://trello.com/b/5J1sXcJt/outpost-3.




« Last Edit: September 15, 2017, 11:40:38 PM by Zhall »
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Offline Vagabond

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Re: 1 month push for Outpost 3D
« Reply #21 on: September 16, 2017, 03:50:17 PM »
Looks like a good start.

-Brett

Offline Zhall

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Re: 1 month push for Outpost 3D
« Reply #22 on: September 16, 2017, 09:17:22 PM »
Day 2:

Fixed selection issues with convec and cargo truck
Cleaned up the import folder, was a complete mess and now its beautiful.

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Offline Hooman

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Re: 1 month push for Outpost 3D
« Reply #23 on: September 17, 2017, 04:24:23 AM »
Heh, good to see  :)


The models look a bit blocky, but they're very recognizable.

Player coloring seems to work.

Offline Zhall

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Re: 1 month push for Outpost 3D
« Reply #24 on: September 17, 2017, 04:35:19 PM »
Day 3:

Went to fix my extra "ram" (not even installed derp) and remembered I gave it to someone else because it "wasn't working"... O well, I'll make due with what I have.

Backed up the project incase things go all Hellen Keller.
Imported 3 music tracks that I optimized from 19.8MB to 2.5MB and they sound basically the same
Mining now adds metal
Groups of trucks can be routed at the same time
All Trucks are initialized at map start
« Last Edit: September 17, 2017, 06:18:25 PM by Zhall »
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