Eternity Open Source Space Sim

06casswp · Post by **06casswp** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 3:13 am

I started an open source project a few days ago. It's called Eternity and almost all of the design process is done thanks to 9 months of work by it's parent project Openlancer, a similar game but set in the freelancer universe.
There is plenty of work to be done so I have tried to raise community awareness by posting like this on several forums. If you would like to help out, more information is available at Eternity. At this stage the most of the more detailed design material hasn't been added to the site. Basically at the moment I'm not aiming to fill the dev positions but see how much interest and support there is for this project.

Many jobs need doing, most not requiring any c++ coding at all. Though coders are more valuable due to their smaller numbers.

So if your interested in space sims or MMO's then join us and we can make it happen. Projected time to complete with adequate support from the community is 1 year.

Will - Project Lead

Oblivion · Post by **Oblivion** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 6:32 am

hmm.. no preliminary screenies?

well, since you're open-source, you're welcome to any ships I contribute to VS. Tho the formats may be different.

06casswp · Post by **06casswp** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 8:44 am

Thank you, I am starting to work on some screenies.

Oblivion · Post by **Oblivion** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 10:42 am

Be warned. I am a beginner in modelling. If you could cobble up some guides I could contribute to eternity as well as VS.

06casswp · Post by **06casswp** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 1:55 pm

sweet, im still a beginner too, but a lot of the modeling that will need to be done will be very, very, very simple.

as you can imagine being only a few days old, im still compiling ALOT of information plus I'm doing my final high school exams.

Oblivion · Post by **Oblivion** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 7:18 am

I gather that the ships will be modular and can be joined in the way the player wants them too right?

Okay, just holler with orders if needed, and I can spare time form VS too. Just be very clear on the requirements and descriptions though.

and good luck with the exams.

I'm going through a lot of deadlines next week too. Then comes the finals.

06casswp · Post by **06casswp** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 6:37 am

On the weekend I'll post everything you could ever need to know.

06casswp · Post by **06casswp** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 3:25 am

New gigabit hosting has been acquired. The new site URL is http://06casswp.niteshdw.com

06casswp · Post by **06casswp** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 7:37 am

this is just an early explanation of the 3d modeling requirments. they will not be changed(except for greater detail)

Information one needs to know how to build ships.
- Ships can be any size.
- Ships are composed of hull sections, special pieces(cockpit, engine), internal systems with set size, internal systems which take free space.
- Inside of ship must have a physical way of getting to the cockpit from outside the ship
- Internal sections include corridors, rooms and any special objects.
- Sections for whatever piece of the ship vary in detail based on ship class and therefore size to reduce poly counts of large ships.
- All ships must have a cockpit, complete hull, engines, reactor, external hatch and free space for other systems. The set pieces will come in a moderate number of varieties of shape.
- Ships should be roughly aerodynamic, eg when a ship enters an atmosphere, it would be beneficial to reduce the front cross-section size.
- Hull pieces will come in a limited amount of shapes, mainly the borders of each shape will consist of straight lines of angles 30, 45, 60 90 and 180. sections can also have sides shaped as a quarter circle. pieces won't all be cubic in nature, sections can be multiple of some sides where special curved pieces exist.
- end poly count should not be too large, one aim of the game is to make it as backward hardware compatible as possible.
- ships should look fairly realistic. eg bulky in some areas and look like they could be lived in.
- some hull pieces will be modified to mount certain things. eg thrusters, weapons.
- ships are rarely curved in most games so aim to composed a good portion of ships with flat hull sections rather than the curved ones.
- not many predefined ships will exist in game.
- larger ships should not be done in much detail as all ships will be converted into a game specific format. - most likely by hand.
- ships will be needed for screenshots.

The end 3d components can be made now, however that process isnt really very interesting.

Ship components, stations, buildings and bases will be modulised. building sections and station sections will be very large, eg a floor of a building or a sizable section of a station. Terrain sections will also need to be done.

there may be something i have forgotten, a more formal 3d plan will be composed after exams (in 3 weeks).

06CassWp