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New Showcase Level


marauder2k9

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I was curious about possibly starting up a team to create a showcase level for torque3d. I remember wanting to do this before but unfortunately life kind of got in the way.


Been playing a lot of far cry 5 over the past few days and have been getting a few ideas for things that torque in its current state is definitely capable of. The showcase needs to show the beauty torque is capable of and does not need to run perfectly on every system. It is a showcase rather than a playable level.


The idea is simple. First person shooter with some objectives, mainly simple waypoint objectives with some enemies at certain locations. I can get some really high res textures and sound effects where i am and create some really nice textures too from older photographs and things that i have collected over the years.


The level i was thinking about in my head goes like this:


Player starts in an underground base and has to collect a crowbar and break open crates to find a key to open a door to get out(could come up with a more in depth puzzle type deal but this is simple stages) Typical industrial sort of underground setting with rusted leaking pipes built from modular assets then u exit through a doorway with the key into a forest area with high res trees and foliage im thinking of a dense typically european forest not a tropical climate with rolling fields and things like that. As soon as the player comes out of the bunker there are dead soldiers strewn about and he picks up a hand gun and ammo from these soldiers and tries one of their radios(it doesnt work). The level then progresses as you see a house off in the distance that you have to get to to hopefully call for help, once you reach the house you see enemies around it (im thinking some sort of alien creatures) the player has to kill the alien enemies then enter the house. Once inside the house the player tries to use the phone but once the phone is picked up the phone doesn't work. Then aliens spawn in and attack the house and the player has to fend them off. Once the aliens are killed the next objective is to find the key to a truck parked in the garage/shed outside and then you get into the truck and then fade to black.


The breakdown

GUI Necessities

-UI markers for objectives that highlight in 3d space.

-UI text for current objective possibly a tickbox animation on the ui when the objective is completed.

-Weapon readouts for ammo and weapon in hand

-Weapon Select Screen.


Artwork Necessities

-As stated all modular artwork - house needs to be in several pieces not just one model. the underground bunker needs to be modular artwork as well

-Animated particle emitters for smoke and bullet hits.

-Tracer art for alien projectiles and bullet projectiles

-HIgh Res Textures for indoor and outdoor environments.

-Human textures for body parts bullet wounds etc


Sound Necessities

-Sound of a pistol (could use stock torque sound here)

-Ambient sounds/distant animal sounds

-Steam escaping sounds

-Water drip sounds

-Bullet hits and whizzes

Bullets need to sound different compared to what surface they are hitting same as footstep sounds as i remember Azazel was working on something like this to add into 4.0?


Game Mechanics

-Puzzle goals

-Objective goals and triggers

-enemies spawning at key moments


AI

-Ai doesn't need to be too smart as they would be spawning in moments before the player sees them although they cant know the player is there before they are seen or the player gives themselves away.

-Some cover points.

-Some path-finding around the house.

The walkabout addition that was added as mit should be able to cover all of this, the enemies will only need to have one waypoint when they spawn in the second time which is attack the player in the house.



This is pretty much all ive thought about so far, torque is capable of some beautiful renders that would rival some of the engines that are out there today even without PBR although the end goal is for this to be released with 4.0. But the current level that comes with torque doesn't really show it at its best i love torque and want to bring some new attention to it and only way i can think of other than finishing a game and releasing it is to do a good level for it.

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Thats already far too work intensive for just a showcase level.


Just the garagegames demo they released did cost them $100 000 or so to make, don't know if it was the chinatown or pacific demo, but just so you get an estimate about the amount of work or money such an undertaking will cost.


And thats not that much yet, the bigger engines probably spend much more on their demo, probably millions.


So there is no way this is going to happen for Torque, you also have to consider that what you are suggesting as a demo is already a better more complex game as the average indie title that is released as a full game.

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I really don't mind working on it for free and it wont cost me anything to do because i already have all the equipment needed to do everything i stated but certain things im not that good at so i would need help. I don't see how it would cost that much if anything at all only time and it could end up being something we will all benefit from if it draws some big attention to the engine. It just seems that torque needs a re-boot to go with the new engine release and a showcase level might be the way to go. I just need people who can devote some time to help me with whatever they can

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If you really want to do it for free, then fine, but you would be probably the first then, in case you get it done, since in almost all cases nothing gets ever done from my experience.


I remember the time when the engine was first given into the community, we made a trello board with all the tasks of stuff to do, including example assets, templates etc. After a while of nobody picking any task or doing anything I thought I had to do something, so I picked an easy task and picked making the new example terrains, immediately when I picked that task and told others, multiple people got angry at me saying "who are you that you are allowed to decide that you can just make the new example terrains? We have to vote on it, who is allowed to do it" and some others even claimed, they will be making terrains now as well, which never happened of course. So I just finished them anyway and uploaded them, but by then the project was already abandoned and nobody cared anymore, so my work was totally ignored until this day and the 2-3 other people who picked also tasks just vanished as well without ever contributing anything.


So we can watch back now at a 5 year period at doing nothing and a few times inbetween where people at least claimed to do something, but then got all enraged over each other, that they sabotaged everything so much, that everyone ended up again doing nothing like before.


This forum just exists because someone just did it, despite many people being against it, otherwise we still would have no community platform and would have to use an abandoned spam filled garagegames forum. So in case you want a demo, you probably just have to do it. don't expect any help.

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I'm pretty busy but I do think that this is a great idea. In my opinion, it would be better to try to get it in 4.1 so that 4.0 can be used to create it. I wonder if we contacted GG about releasing their past art packs, they might release some assets to MIT. I'm thinking the aliens and weapons. Twisted just released his AI kit to MIT.

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I started working on the assets for the bunker last night, i think i want to make all new assets leave the old assets were they are, while they are great i just think something new is required for this, in for a penny in for a pound type thing lol only its going to be released for free.

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I started working on the assets for the bunker last night, i think i want to make all new assets leave the old assets were they are, while they are great i just think something new is required for this, in for a penny in for a pound type thing lol only its going to be released for free.

 

If you are not a professional artist, it is not very likely you will produce something that is better than the demo assets for example. It will also set you back months or even years in your time schedule.

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Hi. I like the idea. It will be a bit work intensive if you are new to t3d. When you are on the last steps, i can provide some eye candy shaders and light presets. But this should be on the last phase.

 

Thank you :D that'd be perfect i want to incorporate anything from the community i can so that its not just one person getting credit for it. Torque community made showcase. I'll upload images when i have something brought in to torque. Any of yas ever used blender sculpting to make ground covers and cliff faces? I'm starting to use it to cut detail into certain assets atm but im seeing more and more level designers using the likes of zbrush for more organic large scale assets


And don't worry duion i know the amount of time it will take this ain't my first level and i'm not new to t3d so i understand the magnitude of what i'm talking about here but I'm not gonna be deterred from taking it on.

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Perfect I’ll get on discord when I get home from work, having your interest means a lot Jeff, you do a lot for torque I’ve been following all your blog posts and looking forward to giving something back.


Note: I’ve changed the melee weapon that u use to break open the boxes from being a crowbar to being a torque wrench ;-) :)

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I don't get why everyone wants to build such complex "showcase" games, the average "indie game" released is of less quality than what you guys are planning here, I mean the mere fact that you make the assets yourself and not just make an asset flip, makes it already higher quality than the average indie game. So why not make a game out of it?

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One game level idea isn’t enough to make a full game lik plus it’s an extremely simple idea with the very basic game mechanics in it, the idea is to not only inspire but it’s like we always joke “the click to make a game” button we all know there is no engine out there like that but they do give that outward appearance in their showcase level for a very good reason. Creating this and having assets that people can use in their own games changing them how they want will draw some well needed attention and can only be good for torque if it’s done well. I think I’m right in saying that the example artwork that comes with torque has been there for what 5 years? It needs something

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@marauder2k9

To think that the existance of more sample assets will draw more people in is a false conclusion.


I'm probably the biggest and best free open source game ready 3D asset producer in the world and I never observed any evidence that it drew significant attention in any way or that anyone significantly made use of it. So I think you are totally wasting your time here, almost everything you produce will be directly for the trash, if you do not make use of it yourself.


Even in the open source or indie game dev scene there is hardly anyone left who could make use of those assets, since in the last years everything has become targeted to small primitive 2D or cheap 3D mobile games. All assets and game engine that target the 2D and mobile market experience a boom right now, if you produce assets or game dev tools targeted to that market, you will become super popular, but if you do serious full 3D game development, there is hardly anyone left who even cares or even has the skill to make use of what you are producing.

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"I'm probably the biggest and best free open source game ready 3D asset producer in the world and I never observed any evidence that it drew significant attention"


I'm sorry to be brutally honest but if your not getting any attention for it or observed anyone using what u produce, chances are your not the biggest or the best

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I'm sorry to be brutally honest but if your not getting any attention for it or observed anyone using what u produce, chances are your not the biggest or the best

 

The joke here is, that I'm the only one... Thats how I know I'm the best.

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Alright, we don't need to be inviting the drama llama or anything.


The biggest compelling reason to make as fleshed out and technically impressive demonstration as possible is two-fold. Shiney things attract people, and more importantly, it makes for an excellent testbed.


The harder the scene can push(within reason, of course) and the more features and elements it has on display, the easier it is to test things and make sure stuff is working, how changes to the engine impact behavior, and so on.

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Exactly :-) after a bit of tinkering around last night I have the wrench melee weapon model done both high and low just need to bake off, cliff face modelled and sculpted high and low, various simple boxes made, going texture hunting this weekend to fill in the gaps of what I have

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Went on a near 200 mile journey today texture hunting, got some really good textures to help me add some nice details, on my travels of taking photos of trees and some ground covers, got a lovely photo of this little guy :D


zKQcLkI.jpg



What yas think, torque 3d mascot? lol

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sure thing, i will be sharing them with the level anyway but i will upload the raw format images anyway onto a google drive or something for people to use at their leisure to pull whatever they want from them, i got a good few wood textures few ground covers, couple of tree trunks, a cliff face, stones, all the usual stuff, going out again this weekend to get more too so if theres anything specific you need let me know and i should be able to find it somewhere

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