Author Topic: Project Update (Read 9358 times)

leeor_net · « **on:** September 01, 2005, 10:50:29 AM »

I have been finding it very difficult to get back into the swing of things. It's been very long since I've worked on OP:MIA and I guess it's what happens when someone works on something and then stops for an extended period of time... so things have been progressing very slowly to say the least.

That said, I have been working on a demo program for the map-drawing code. I've rewritten the map-drawing engine which allows me now to draw an isometric view to cover the whole game-window area rather than just the diamond map from the original game. It's now a matter of implementing this new drawing code into the main game module.

I was originally going to program the sound engine myself but I figure that will take much more time than is necessary. Instead I will probably be using the Audere sound mixer which not only allows for WAV files to be cached and played but also lets me play various sound files that are popular for music (e.g., Ogg, MP3, S3M, IT, XM, etc.). Chances are high that "The Planets" suite from Gustalv Holst will be in MP3 format and that the entire sound track will be composed of various music files both MP3 and XM/IT. Also, I want to allow the user to create and modify music lists for the game... sort of like a music list in WinAMP or Windows Media Player.

I've been experimenting with FLIC movie players but I think I'm going to forget that particular format and instead use AVI files. As I'm using DirectX for graphics, I think it should be easy enough to create an AVI/MPEG movie player for the game. Actually, I believe that DirectX has a built in movie file API so that should make things particularly easy.

I've been thinking about the possibility of OUTPOST being ported and I can see that it may be somewhat difficult to port it. I'm just going to bang out a working game and hopefully if someone has enough patience they will be able to port it to other OS's. It'd be neat to see Linux and MacOS users running OUTPOST. I think it's going to be mostly the networking components that will be a problem.

So that's where things stand. Hopefully I can get a playable demo out soon.

Leviathan · « **Reply #1 on:** September 01, 2005, 12:42:42 PM »

AVI video format is the way to go

!

Also with the map view, it would be good to have the option to show just the diamond section like in the orignal. But being able to c a whole screen will be great, id like to play it on 1600x1200 and be able to c loads, like in op2.

....windows emulator and ur playing it on linux in a second...and with ham installed you can multi (once thats done).

Good work.

BlackBox · « **Reply #2 on:** September 01, 2005, 05:18:21 PM »

Yeah but you shouldn't have to run the game in an emulator to play it.. it should run natively.

As for AVI files -- you'll need to decide on a codec for both sound and video and include it with the game for people if it's an exotic one.

Remember AVI is just a wrapper for codec-specific data; it's not a defined video format in itself.

leeor_net · « **Reply #3 on:** September 01, 2005, 05:46:59 PM »

That's right. The only codecs I really know are Intel and Microsoft... as Intel seems to be wide-spread I may use that.

However, MPEG is a lot smaller in size and the quality is partucularly good, so I may just as well use that. It all depends on what DirectX is capable of.

As far as high resolution goes, the game is hard-coded in 800x600 right now. I don
t know if I'm going to change that or not so don't get hopes up too soon.

I think that a diamond map option is a good idea... I guess I'll leave it in.

I have yet to find a windows emulator that also emulates DirectX at any good speed (I've tried a few on my Linux distro and thus far none of them are any good).

It would seem that network interactions are fairly standard through TCP/IP connections so I guess Ham would work well for the multiplayer.

BlackBox · « **Reply #4 on:** September 01, 2005, 07:00:59 PM »

As for the codec: the best codec there is is XviD... you can find it all over the internet. Source at www.xvid.org I believe.

Almost all the OP2 vids that Lev has done, are XviD encoded.
The only drawback would be it requires a little bit more processing power to run on slow machines (real slow machines though, majority of computers are no concern).

I'll also note that DirectShow (the movie component of DirectX) supports any ACM codec. (In other words: if Media player, winamp, any other program can play it back, so can yours. Almost all codecs -- XviD included -- are ACM codecs).

Regarding Hamachi:
Why would you need Hamachi if the program was properly designed to punch through NAT? Read this link to learn how it's done:

http://www.mindcontrol.org/~hplus/nat-punch.html

Also, another consideration on portability: Pick an endian and stick with it. This applies to files and network data. Probably little endian since 95% of the machines running the game will be little endian.

Make it easy for people porting the game to convert the endian. (Use abstract classes, I know it's all I say, but it's true

)

Hamachi should be unnecessary. Design the game the way it's supposed to be, and you don't need to worry about any of the artificial wrappers and misc crap.

leeor_net · « **Reply #5 on:** September 01, 2005, 10:18:41 PM »

As far as endian types are concerned, little endian is what I'm assuming the program is compiling for (considering Intel specs and whatnot). However, I've not bothered myself with exactly how the endians will be translated. I'm just going to simply write the wrapper classes.

Of course I get te feeling that someone porting to a big-endian machine will need to do some work in terms of changing this. I guess some good links to the importance of endian byte order would be helpful. I've never really needed to be concerned about it.

Great. If DirectShow does everything than I'm satisified.

Sirbomber · « **Reply #6 on:** December 29, 2005, 09:08:43 AM »

Old topic, but whatever. That never stopped me before.
Why not use OP2 music for the playlist(s)?

omagaalpha · « **Reply #7 on:** February 24, 2006, 05:40:07 PM »

Seem to me since lack update long while that leoner suffer for lack interest in it

Stormy · « **Reply #8 on:** February 24, 2006, 08:32:17 PM »

nah, he's just extremely busy.... like me lol

omagaalpha · « **Reply #9 on:** February 24, 2006, 08:55:52 PM »

oh casue hadn't post in long while so frigue must mean he lost interests

leeor_net · « **Reply #10 on:** February 27, 2006, 10:18:09 AM »

I definatly haven't lost interest. OP:MIA will be completed and it is indeed active. It's just moving slow right now because I've been so busy with real life. Plus the fact that OP3 kind of took off hasn't helped much...

Think of it this way: OP:MIA will end up benefitting from the development of OP3. I'll be using the same network protocol for multiplayer so kudos to that... (thumbsup)

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

I forgot to mention: The OP2 sound track doesn't work well for Outpost. I think a theatrical/cinematic style sound track would probably work best.

omagaalpha · « **Reply #11 on:** February 27, 2006, 11:06:51 AM »

oh lol
I kindya knew at least time take by outpost 3 genisues for working on stuff.

leeor_net · « **Reply #12 on:** February 28, 2006, 08:17:33 AM »

Well, it's that. But it's mostly real life getting in the way... -_-

Unfortunatly, paying for a roof over my head is more important than working on a computer game. I have no venture capitalists (investors) so I can't exactly start in a full-scale production team for a computer game. In essence, I've got very little time. Plus, with the current project that I'm working on at work (ESP International), I'm porting 20year old code from an IBM AS/400 server to a Windows platform. So I've got a lot of code swirling around my head right now... often times when I get home the last thing I want to think about is more coding.... go figure.

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Author Topic: Project Update (Read 9358 times)