CMDBob
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Posts posted by CMDBob
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18 hours ago, NodGuy said:
Another great update. I like the style of Cold War's Makarov but what's with the Sillitoe tartan pattern on it? Reminds me of the police from Australia and the UK and not something I would expect to see on a Soviet pistol.
If you mean the pistol grips, it's an attempt to replicate the checkering on the bakelite grips. It's very tricky when you've got 9 by 6 pixels out of a texture that's 16 by 16 pixels! 😋
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@CMDBob here, and I think it's time for a proper announcement for my W3D game; Cold War Confrontation.
The Situation
The year is 1987… more or less. The forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact (WARPAC) are facing off. Escalating tensions between the two factions have led to a situation where one small spark will be enough to set off a war.
Then, out of the blue, both sides come under attack. NATO forces begin tactical airstrikes, and WARPAC tanks begin pouring over the border. The cold war has gone hot. However, forces beyond both factions are moving, deep underground…
At this point, neither side knows, though. Even if they did, neither side cares. Each believes the other struck first, and it’s now a fight to the finish, be it the Red Army at the Rhine, or NATO at the Russian border. Will this end in stalemate, a victory for one of the armies, or nuclear fire? That remains to be seen.
The Game
Cold War Confrontation is a W3D based FPS game, involving combined arms warfare, with a unique visual style for the engine. Use a large number of weapons and vehicles across a variety of terrains, from urban city centres, luscious islands, and cold winter mountainsides to destroy the enemy team. Not every mission is a search and destroy, however, as sometimes, your objectives will be things beyond simple destruction, and may require more strategy.
At this early stage, the 2 main factions are the US Armed Forces and the Russian WARPAC forces. The initial release will be infantry and light airdropped vehicles, as to give people a taste of the full warfare that is coming. The plan for the future is a full US/Russia release with full land/helicopter combat/bases, then releases with more NATO/WARPAC factions (such as the British Armed Forces, Czechoslovak People's Army, Bundeswehr, Nationale Volksarmee and more), as well as fixed-wing air forces and naval at some point.
Know Your Equipment - Issue 1
I'll be presenting some of the weapons, vehicles, buildings, etc, that make up Cold War Confrontation. For this announcement, here's the basic weapons of the NATO forces and the Warsaw Pact infantry.
The Beretta M9 and MP-443 Grach pistols are the primary sidearms of all soldiers. Every soldier has one (except for a few certain classes, which get something with a little bit more of a bang...), and these have infinite ammo. They aren't the most effective weapons, but it's better than nothing.
The M16A3 and the AK-74 are the basic rifles for the basic infantry class within Cold War Confrontation. Reliable, dependable and sturdy, these weapons are good starting weapons. They also have numerous variants within the game, which I will expand upon in later updates. Keep your eyes peeled for updates within the W3D weekly updates.
A final word from @CMDBob
So, finally an announcement. I’ve been working on this for quite a while (the first Git commit to the project repo is on the 15th of December 2018, but I’d been working on it a while before that point. Plus, a lot of the vehicle models date back to as far as 2014). Glad I’m finally formally announcing the project. I’m having a lot of fun making it, and I hope that people eventually have fun playing it!
As for my plans: I hope that I can get a build of the game out to testers as soon as possible. The main thing that I need to do is content at this point, as I’m essentially building everything from scratch. However, the more content I make, the more stuff I can use in other maps, so it’s not all bad. 😊 I’m not sure on the public release timeframe, as I want a fair few more maps before any sort of release. Still, I’ll try and release some news as often as I can. Might only be a short update on a weapon, vehicle, building, or even a game mechanic, but it’ll be something to keep people's attention!
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Yeah, I can do green!
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Here's some quick screenshots I've taken of RA_Bunkers and RA_TheWoodsToday.
Oh, and here's a quick couple of shots from Shallow Grave, showing the gem island in the middle (that's missing from the original RA map), for reference.
My own thoughts? I do quite like Shallow Grave, but I do also love The Woods Today, and with some nice work could be something really nice.
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The roadmap is looking really good, and I can't wait to see some of the new stuff in action.
I'm really glad that there's tools being worked on to replace the ancient LevelEdit and Max 8 W3D exporter, should make modding W3D a whole lot easier with the more modern toolchains (especially 3ds max, it's such a pain building stuff in a newer version of Max and having to backport it to 8... not fun.)
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Sorry I've not posted anything, I needed a bit of a break (plus work takes up a lot of the day, really...). At any rate, I've been working on the shadow issues with all the props, and I've worked out a nice, neat little solution.
I light mapped it. (The first shot is a little older, before I created a proper 3ds max transparent material for the railings. Now, it's not perfect, by any means (and I still need to relightmap the shelving, as that's why there's a really strong shadow, the ambient occlusion was a bit too high, it seems. It's tweakable though.), but it's way better than it was before, AND it'll take less polygons. I still want to get some sounds added, and the chairs won't be perfect, as they aren't lightmapped (but I have, in an effort to try and help fix the shadows on them, subdivided the seat and the backrest part. I might go back and redo that a little bit.)
The room lighting might still be a bit off, but it's a tradeoff, make the lights any smaller and they won't cast light properly, any larger and they'll swamp the room out. (besides, it doesn't look that much worse than the existing APB building lighting...)
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Since I've last shown stuff off, I've done a lot of work. Took Raap's advice in the mainframe room, and made the new supercomputer fit in better.
I also took some advice from Pushwall, and added 2 new exterior doors to the building. Plus, added a small little storage closet as well, makes it feel a bit bigger inside.
Then, I also went and made some new props, including some new shelving for the new storage room:
As well as a new console to replace the ugly one I ripped right from Renegade:
And a smaller miniconsole to replace the old Missile Silo computer box thing:
(oh, and some new chairs to replace the roughly 20 poly chairs that were there before, you can see them in the pictures above.)
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I was going to change that texture, I noticed it looked like crap, and while it was the original texture, it's outlived it's original purpose. I've redone it with a much, MUCH nicer, higher res texture. I was also going to slap some trim down and make the edge look nicer and carved in, but forgot.
EDIT: New trim. Much better.
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Right, couple of things: Got the computer centre version of the building pretty much done. I still want to make the oscilliscope version of the tower computer, make a new chair for everything and retexture the sit down desk console that I have at the moment, but otherwise, it's pretty much done. The big dome now has this inside it:
A large supercomputer unit, in the middle of the room. The "atrium" room with the ladder to the roof now has a tonne of desks in:
Many people on the Discord have said that it looks like it's out of the Facility in Goldeneye. I'd... have to agree with them. (Plus, I wish APB had more posters and stuff in it, it's kinda hard to decorate rooms like this without them... Ah well.)
Oh, and one last thing, I did a new version of the Iron Curtain effect on the testbed.
It's now a simple two pass material, one with the base vehicle, and then the existing Iron Curtain effect I whipped up alpha blended on top of the vehicle, so you can more easily identify the thing, but it still glows with ominous, red, invulnerable, communistical energies.
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I've worked something out for the Iron Curtain effect and it's test vehicle:
(it's just a Tesla tank without the Tesla dome. Perfect for filling full of scientific equipment for monitoring the Iron Curtain effect.)
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That's a good idea, and I'll probably end up doing that. It'll be a slight squeeze, but nothing too bad.
Blinkenlights! As I said on the discord, it's just one mesh for all the 32 lights, with a detail texture set to Scale and using the Step UV mapping, to go through a sheet with the brightnesses for the lamps. 8 different patterns, so 4 lights per pattern.
They look quite good actually in game, too!
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Well, got the C unit made for the data center. Was quite fun to make, as well. Got some nice scanlines on the screens, as well as a lovely reflective effect. Just got the two other units I want to do (the blinkenlights unit, and a round, radar/oscilliscope screened unit) and then a few other ancillary props, like desks and that. Then layout of the computer center version, then onto the chemlab version with lots of barrels, vats of goo and workbenches. Then, I want to make an Iron Curtain research center version, which will combine elements from both the computer and chemlab centers, as well as a mini-iron-curtain in the largest dome.
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3 minutes ago, Ice said:
Looking good so far! It will be interesting to see how it all turns out!
Computers and electronics can be really fun to design as props, especially old-fashioned ones since their typically clunky and instrumemt-laden designs can give them an interesting and dynamic appearance. I linked a few more images below if you're looking for further inspiration:
Yeah, it's handy to have inspiration. I've taken a little bit of inspiration from Team Fortress 2, as it's computers full of blinkenlights and such are very useful for ideas. I've got 4 of the big mainframe towers planned, the A unit which is just the plain box, a B unit which has a reel to reel drive on it, a C unit which will have some screens, and a keyboard attached, and a D unit which will be lots of blinking lights and such. (I plan to have some fun with the blinking lights and make them flash in patterns and that, using UV scrolling and detail textures for the brightness of the lights...) I might go and make some half height units too, and a console and that, in the same style. (Then, some simple desks as well, for the "atrium" type room.)
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(quick note, I wrote the majority of this a couple of days ago, but forgot to post. ah well.)
Yeah, I'm more mashing them together as this "layout" is just to get some of the rooms all laid out and some of the props (such as the chemistry workbench) tested. (Testing did reveal some major alpha sorting issues with the glassware on the chemistry workbench, as they were fully transparent. Got rid of the alpha transparency, unfortunately. Ah well...)
I'll probably do 3-4 variants of the interior (data vault, chemical lab, iron curtain lab and prison). For now, just want to get a few more props made up (such as a desk) and that.
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Since I wrote this, I've been working on a new set of "mainframe" props, similar to the untextured wip props shown above. I've got a quick W3DView screenshot of one of them. It's not as detailed as the above props, but it'll do for my purposes. Looks a bit better than the existing one, at any rate!
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I've been taking the advice into account, and I've done some renovation to two of the domes, one into a computer center and the other into a bit of a chemistry lab. I've changed a good amount of the textures, to make it feel more like a clean, clinical lab.
Still debating what to do with the last dome. I was thinking some sort of sciency radar... gizmo, maybe iron-curtainy, or a prison block area. Could potentially do both, for different purposes. The building looks more sciency at any rate. (It's hard to fill buildings with stuff, especially if you have to make it all.)
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Yeah, I did think some of the textures were too tiled. I'll probably end up re-texturing and using different, less obviously tiled textures, as well as bumping up the vertex count for the large, flat polygons. I've made a couple of "new" textures that match the colours of the building from the render, and I've remodelled the domes, so they're actual polygon domes.
The main issue is props, as there's not that many "sciencey" props in APB. Hell, there's not that many props as is. I'll see what I can do, though.
Put a quick snap of the "renovated" exterior with the new domes. (I still need to subdivide the mesh for better lighting...)
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55 minutes ago, Einstein said:
Hey that looks really good! I was wondering when this thing would get finished
Thanks. I might have a go at upgrading the hospital, too, as that's in the 9935 files. The hospital actually seems harder, really, as it's in a much later stage of development, and there's textures that are totally missing and I'll have to work out replacements for. (also, I think the hospital is bigger than this!)
45 minutes ago, JigglyJie said:You know, back in RA1 (that was my first C&C game) I always thought it was some fancier radar dome due to the similarities it had shown. I know it's unlikely to happen and probably shouldn't but a recent change locking Volkov/Tanya at the radar dome reminded me of something. Since it's very unlikely that both the Allied and Soviet tech centres are to be implemented in the way as we know it, I thought, why not the shared technology centre act as both the radar dome AND the prerequisite for Tanya and Volkov? Like I say, don't take that too seriously, was just a random thought I had.
Anyway this would be neat if the technology centre were to make an appearance, like Seamist but with the Soviets defending it or something.
Yeah, a Soviet Seamist with this being the objective could be rather fun.
There's some interesting things in the old 9935 building pack, really, like a few alternate layouts for building interiors like the War Factory, which has 3 different interiors in the pack (the one we know and love, minus the stairs which came later, and 2 variants, which both have underground sections, but they're both very different), as well as an alternate refinery interior that had stairs (and a really awkward set of stairs to the downstairs "tunnel" area), plus a few other bits and bats (like the old ice covered warehouse from Fjord, as well as the aforementioned Tech Center and Hospital.)
EDIT:
Made a big whoopsie, had the old 9935 bunkerwall texture in my APB dir. New shot of the exterior with the proper texture:
(I'd have edited the first post, but there's like an hour timer on it. oops.)
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So, I was poking round the really old APB 9935 gmax building source files, and I noticed there was a civilian technology centre model that was half finished. So, I decided to finish it.
The exterior of the center.
The entrance to the facility. Simple, but it works.
One of the research domes, with a couple of computer(?) stations.
The largest dome, still under construction.
The last dome, with just a few crates and a catwalk.
The central atrium, with stacks of crates, and the roof access ladder.
Going up...
The roof. Be careful not to fall off!
Finally, a view from the top, complete with a look into the domes!
I've attached the 3ds max source files (the building itself, plus a proxy and edge for cutting into the ground), as well as the two textures that are missing from APB. (Just the metal floor on the roof and the actual dome texture.) They're all in one archive.
In terms of what this could be used for, I'm not sure. It's big, sure, but not too massive. (It's a little bigger than 2 x 2 war factories, but the inside is a fair bit smaller than that.) It could make the centrepiece of a TDM map (with extra ramps to the roof added, and maybe one of the domes removed and a ramp up there...) or an objective in a mission map (defend/assault the tech center? Capture the tech center and hold it for 5-10 minutes to win? The possibilities are endless...) or, it could just be a big prop. (Capture it to unlock the ability to produce a special trooper/tank?) Anyway, it's there for people to use.
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As I said, a bunch of crashdumps from 3.1.0.0. Hope these can help diagnose what's wrong.
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2 minutes ago, Raap said:
Nope, doesn't answer my question. A mesh can be created from any number of ELEMENTS. The question unanswered is whether or not W3D prefers meshes to be a single connected element, versus more than one.
Ahh, slightly misunderstood the question. My fault. I believe it doesn't matter either way, as the Exporter only exports at the individual object level, so it'd only export one item (and use only one draw call, unless there's more materials or what have you). I imagine the 3 element version would be ever so slightly faster to render, due to it having less vertices, but it'd be imperceptible.
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In the APB SDK, there's an RTF file called Perfdocs.rtf that has a bit more explanation on drawcalls in Renegade. I'll quote the text here:
QuoteFirst up, some terminology: A W3D file can contain multiple meshes, aggregates, and proxies. When I say mesh, I'm referring to a mesh object inside of a W3D file and not the file itself. Skinned meshes are meshes that have a WWSkin modifier applied. A draw call (or batch) is a unit of measurement which we’ll be using in this tutorial. On most hardware, the Renegade engine is limited by overall CPU power and not the video card in use, so we’ll be trying to reduce how much the engine has to do each frame.
Now for some basic optimizations: We’ll handle rigid meshes first. If you modeled it and it isn't alpha-blended or skinned, it's a rigid mesh. In general, each rigid mesh produces a draw call. If you use multiple materials in a mesh, each material will produce a draw call. Each additional pass in a material will produce an additional draw call. If you’ve been completely oblivious to rendering performance and want to optimize existing meshes, the simplest thing you can do is to merge meshes that use the same material but don’t actually need to be separate objects for rigging purposes (like wheels). It’s always faster to render an object with 4000 polygons than 4 objects with 1000 polygons. You should strive to keep objects using a single material; this means a barrel or crate should be using a single material and not a different one for each side. These optimizations are most effective when done on meshes that are used often (like props.)
Skinned meshes act roughly the same like rigid meshes; they must be deformed and uploaded to the video card every frame however. If you decide to skin an object, you should use as few polygons as needed to make it look good. Skinned meshes additionally do not have support for collision detection and cannot have decals applied to them, nor can they use precomputed lighting (ie “Compute Vertex Solve”.)
I think that'll help with your question about draw calls and seperate/connected objects, Raap.
In terms of making things for W3D, I find the hardest stuff (for me) tends to be the actual "getting it into the engine" and "LevelEdit". The rigging takes time, especially as it has to be done in Max 8 which is flaky at the best of times, and LevelEdit can be super temperamental (not to mention having one of the menus completely non-functional in any Windows OS past 7), as well as some of the documentation and tutorials being a touch lacking, especially for some of the more complicated things. I'm glad we've got the Discord, as it's handy to pop onto it and ask some questions about aspects of W3D, though. (A specific mapping/modding/whatever channel could be handy on it, though, so questions don't clutter up the other channels where they're not quite applicable.)
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Personally, I actually don't mind the grenadier, apart from like 2 things: You often can't quite tell where he's hidden sometimes, which could be solved by slightly bigger models for the grenades, with a somewhat shortish trail so you can roughly tell where he is; and that he's not too hot against infantry, which isn't that big a problem, as that's not quite his niche. (maybe a pretty short ranged impact grenade sec-fire/grenade type, with quite a bit less splash and damage vs inf, but it'd be reliable? Perhaps give those impact grenades limited ammo [10 grenades?] and replace the Makarov? Just spitballing, here.).
I'd hate for him to go completely or become part of another unit, as he does feel like he has a unique role; that of long ranged infantry artillery.
And on the Volkov topic, I don't mind that some units might be better individually than Kov, as they're not uncrushable nor full of HP (and the individual units cost a LOT less than Kov). If you want to do that one job really well, get the specialist, but if you want to do a lot of things pretty well, and be able to switch roles when needed, with the longevity to do the multiple roles, then get a Kov.
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Just now, ChopBam said:
Can you elaborate? We don't currently have a Glacier, and the only other Glacier I'm aware of is the Aircraftkiller/Renegade edition, which I actually ported to APB at one point, but it was too large and meatgrindery.
...now that I think about it, I think I may have gotten it confused with Complex. Whoops.
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Looking back, I remember a lot of these maps. I think i'm going to go over what I remember of each of them (and whether I voted for em).
- AlliedAssault: Good idea, flawed execution. Could work really well as a player vs bots assault, or as an... er, Allied Assault map.
- AlpineLake: A bit bland, and way too big. Wasn't a lover of this map, really.
- APathBeyond: A true classic, it'd make for a good modern map. Even if it is a big, BIG map. Hell, it'd be interesting as a Air/Sea/Land map.
- Bunkers: Another classic map that I have fond memories of, and with the greater toolbox of modern APB, it'd be even better than it was back in the day.
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CamosCrossing: Oh god no. Oh please no. This map was... not fun. With an AI ore truck, it could be better, but as is, with the single player controlled ore truck? Nah. - Fjord: Another map I have fond memories of, and with the modern APB toolbox, would work well in my opinion.
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Glacier (Metalfej edition):
I don't quite see the point, the current Glacier we have is way better, in kinda every way.Disregard this one, I got it mixed up with Complex. (I do kinda think Complex does work as a better Glacier though...) - IvoryWastelands: Another bland, unremarkable map. Not a fan.
- Metro: Another classic map, but it looks like barf and doesn't really fit APB in terms of art. It'd need a full on remake that the team just can't do.
- NorthByNorthwest: I loved this map back in the day, had some GREAT matches on it, blow the wall then APC rushes erry day. If there was one map that I'd want done first, it'd be this.
- Partium: I... really don't remember this map at all.
- ShallowGrave: Another classic map I'd love to see remade.
- TechnoWars: The map itself is bland as all hell, BUT it had a Gap Gen, Phase Tanks and Camo Pillboxes all in .9935. Interesting purely for the stuff it had, not the map itself.
- TheWoodsToday: A great map, with a combo of no defences AND nukes, it made for some hair raising matches. Now I think about it, the current Bonsai has taken on a fair bit of this map, in terms of having the missile silo and that. I'd love to see this map back though, to compliment it.
- Volcano: Again, another classic, fun map from back in the day. It'd be nice to see this map back too.
So, yeah, that's my thoughts and votes.
EDIT: Oooh, actually, one last thing, I'd like to see ClassicZama again, with the bases right next door and a lot of unused map. I kinda miss that version of Zama.
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W3D Weekly #14 - 22/09/2021
in Community News
Posted
That's actually a good question! At the moment, they're AI controlled, I'd rather not have players have to constantly man defences if I can help it, as it's not the most fun thing in the world. However, I am considering some defences that are unmanned that a player can jump into as well. Those would be smaller affairs, more a gun on a mounting than a full position like these. Having a few positions where the defences can be bolstered if needs be is a fun idea. (They could even be purchasable and deployable/undeployable... Plenty of ideas for things that could be done, but ATM I'm trying to keep it simple with an anti-infantry, an anti-vehicle and an anti-air defence for each side.)
As an addendum, I've got ideas for larger defences, for larger, higher tech bases (stuff like artillery guns, full sized SAM defences, CIWS type things...)