Astroseries

SomeNick · Post by **SomeNick** » Sun Apr 11, 2004 8:14 pm

Greetings. I am one of the persons working in the Astroseries RTS game (more at http://www.astroseries.com , also found as astroseries here in sourceforge) and right now our game has been only conceived within the Stratagus project (a 2D strategy game engine, from whom we have received a LOT of help and even some of them work with us). Allright, since im done with presentations, here comes the real inquiry.

We in Astroseries, in a future (maybe a couple of months from now), have been playing with the idea of making a space exploration / space fighting game, and we have found your project Vega Strike. We are wondering... Is it ok if we use / modify the Vega Strike to make our own game / universe? We are already in the process of downloading a copy of Vega Strike for such purpose, however, if we aren't allowed to make changes to Vega Strike, we will abort this idea. Any replies are appreciated.

SomeNick · Post by **SomeNick** » Sun Apr 11, 2004 10:58 pm

Needless to say, if after those months (or years lol!) we come up with a playable product based in the Astroseries universe, we would still place advertisements for Vega Strike and in favor of Vega Strike, in compensation. Just as we have done and do with the people of Stratagus. Even though the game woudl be Astroseries based, we will keep it clear who has the credit for the engine itself (you people).

richard · Post by **richard** » Sun Apr 11, 2004 11:48 pm

See the "Modding" forum. I believe that shows that the developers of Vega Strike are completely OK with your goals :)

Post by **hellcatv** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 3:55 am

We really would love it if you took Vega Strike
and modified it/bastardized it/ improved it

we are willing to provide whatever help we can offer you to help you make VS of the most possible use to your team

a fair warning: Vega Strike internals are not particularly well documented at this point...but changing that so that others can use it better would be a worthwhile goal

just keep us posted with how things are going and what questions you have...

most of the non-engine specific stuff can be done using python and modifying the XML scripts--doing that is pretty straighforward and has plenty of documentation-- in the wiki and newsgroup

so it's a good place to start

SomeNick · Post by **SomeNick** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 4:06 am

Allright. We think we will begin with the exterior stuff, the XML and Python stuff. We will not make any changes to the engine itself unless we really need a feature that the engine does not provide. I have been talking with Dark_Gaiya (one of the people working with me in Astroseries) that we should be able to explore inside the planets. Not really develop any gameplay there but just a series of photos (in JPEG or GIF or wathever format) which can be unique for each planet describing special locales, such as monuments, etc, and maybe add some action buttons (such as Weapons Store button or refuel options) related with images. Or no buttons but just the images, depending on the place. In this way each planet could hold anywhere from 1 to, say 30 images, which will give players the feelign they are actually exploring the planet. Each place could be exploring via a list or maybe arrows or wathever, or mouse clicks. To make arrivals to new planets more exciting, each providing unique visuals. So obviously if Vega Strike does not provide such (we dont know yet, we haven't downloaded the file, at 30% of download right now), we will probably try to get something of the sort done. Maybe not rigth away, but eventually.

Post by **hellcatv** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 10:10 am

we have planets that you can explore
you can even make mazes and complex base stuff happen
(you can do most of what Kings quest type games did--without the animation riight now--well we added animation but we're not sure it if works--we can add if you need)

but ya... it's easy to add new base art--and then you edit python scripts to trigger the right base at the right time
or add click windows to spawn somethign (a new character, transition to a new scene, etc)

it's quite simple

I think you'll appreciate it

but ya...any help we can give you is offered...
if we have have a game powered by the VS engine it'd be cool for everyone involed--and it means a wider platform of support

SomeNick · Post by **SomeNick** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 4:00 pm

Well, seems then that we require no special changes in the VegaStrike engine anytime soon, considering what you said in your last post. Seems we will do fine with the python and xml stuff.

Our only serious question right now... What 3D editor do we use? So far we have only worked on 2D games, and thus we don' really have any 3D editing software. I personally use Windows XP, so if you know about any good Windows 3D editors, let me know. Thanks.

pincushionman · Post by **pincushionman** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 4:51 pm

I believe the most "competent" editor availible right now is Wings3D, but UV mapping (controls the "texture" maps on the models) seems to be broken, unless a new version has been made availible. That (free!) product has worked *okay* for me so far, but I've been using 3DSM lately because of the UV problem. I'll still have to import my models into Wings3D before I can export to xunit/xmesh. And I have no idea how to convert to BFXM (the new binary format we've just implemented)

I believe someone is working on a converter so you can use Blender, and there are some 3DS->xmesh conversion scripts availible for download, too, but you're better off importing the .3ds into Wings3D and exporting from there, because you can add things like weapon mounts and whatnot using Wings3D.

So that was a really long answer that says: go to http://www.wings3d.com and then go to http://members.chello.at/stefbuer/vegas ... ORT_PLUGIN.

Good luck...and conquer space!

-pincushionman

Post by **hellcatv** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 7:46 pm

it used to UV map ok...did they break it or something?
can't we point him to a version that worked?

peteyg did all his star trek models in wings3d

there's also a converter from .obj--but then you have to add weapons and so forth by hand instead of using the 3d editor to select coordinates

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 8:08 pm

I really don't remember which was the last version with UV mapping still working. It was a bit before version 0.98.10e, though.

There's really nothing wrong with the older version. Like Hellcat said, I did my Vega Trek stuff with a version that still had the UV mapping features working, and I was fine.

I think some of the more recent versions are getting close to a new and better way of doing UV stuff... but they're still missing some critical features (like exporting your UVmap to an image file so you can paint your texture over it).

I'll poke around and see which old version is the best.

EDIT: Wings3d version 0.98.08e seems to be the last one with full UV mapping, exporting, and importing of textures.

pincushionman · Post by **pincushionman** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 9:21 pm

I hate to say it, but I hadn't been too impressed with AutoUV in the first place. But other than that, I agree that there's nothing really wrong with it.

-pincushionman

SomeNick · Post by **SomeNick** » Tue Apr 13, 2004 12:20 am

Allright. I will deal with Wings3D when I actually am done downloading Vega Strike. Using a download manager (so I can pause and resume downloads later) I began downloading of VS yesterday. I have been downloading during certain times during day, and so far I have downloaded 50.28 MB out of the 164.93 MB total. So Getting VS will take me at least two more days (if all goes OK). Meanwhile, I will use my time in continuing work on existing Astroseries games (there are several, the most recent of which is an RTS done with FC). Though I admit I am highly curious about the Vega Strike engine and it all in general. The screenshots are way too cool!

Post by **hellcatv** » Tue Apr 13, 2004 7:58 am

what hardware do you have by chance?

what CPU type, clock, video card, sound card

SomeNick · Post by **SomeNick** » Tue Apr 13, 2004 4:14 pm

Hehe I love having the chance to speak about my computer (which I personally designed, along with one other person) It is a Pentium 4 with 80 GB of Hard Disk, it has a GeForce FX-5200 video card (with 128 MB RAM), it has 1 GB of RAM, one DVD drive, one CD-RW drive, floppy, several USB ports, ethernet card and right now I am connected to the Internet with 56K modem (at 28.8 Kbps). Where I live there is no really a much faster ISP, but there is nothing that GetRigth cant do (my download manager). Today I resumed my download and I have downloaded already 74 MB of the Vega Strike software

I run Windows XP if you are curious.

If this computer does not meet the requirements for VegaStrike, then you guys would seriously need to rethink your programming

Post by **hurleybird** » Tue Apr 13, 2004 11:36 pm

It meets the requirements. VS is very much memory dependant so your 1GB of ram will help a lot. Your CPU should be fine, but your video card might slow you down some IF you want to use AA or aniso. I'm not sure how a 5200 (non-ultra) would run VS on highest settings, but i would think it might just be a tad choppy.

but it sounds like were getting some performance issues sorted out, so it may be faster next time around.

SomeNick · Post by **SomeNick** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 2:05 am

Allright, I will see. If I can't have the very highest settings, I will pick the second highest settings. I will keep this all in mind when we get to make Astroseries stuff into the game. When I get to run VS, I will tell you how it went with this machine.

SomeNick · Post by **SomeNick** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 3:58 am

Testing my newly registered nickname.

Vega Strike Forums

Astroseries

Astroseries

PS

Allright, we think we will begin with the exterior stuff

OK

Allright

Allright

Well

TEsting