What about 3D engine ?

[David]

Supporting linux mac and windows is a requirement.  How many people want to play games on solaris or irix?  How many of those boxes even have the necessary hardware and software?  Obviously some people do as the patches exist, but it gets to a point where it's not worth the effort.

[jm82792]

I agree it's not worth it.
We need to realize that the majority needs to be served first.
People with old computers won't have them for much longer.
Quad core desktops will hit $500 soon enough,
a new game engine is a wise idea to say the least.

[Odin]

Just for the record, if we switched to XreaL right now it would not require re-doing all the artwork for the game. Having a per-pixel renderer does not mean you have to utilize all the features. Adding (real) dynamic lighting and shadows would make trem look and play nicer(flashlights anyone?). One game that is based on the idtech3 engine, True Combat: Elite(a mod of Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory), had a fake(but stunning, nonetheless) hdr implementation that made its environments realistic looking even without per-pixel rendering.

The only issue I can see with dynamically lighting textures with baked-in shadows and highlights(100% of the media in trem) is overbrightening when its close to a light source. If proper normalmaps, heightmaps, specularmaps, etc are used it minimizes the realization of a fake environment, but it's worse with totally static textures.

The artwork could be re-done later on(or we could steal the normalmaps etc from Nexuiz since they use the same texture sets as we do) after the switch. It would only require writing materials which is hardly a problem(XreaL can generate them if needed).

[BriareoS]

Odin, imho this is what this game -really- needs.

[biggig]

This has been suggested many, many times. French community wants to split and port, please do so (insert Quebec joke here).

Also, I think XReal looks like a piece of shit. Everything looks wet, overly shiny, and ugly as anything.

COMLETLY AGREE DUDE

[Haraldx]

This has been suggested many, many times. French community wants to split and port, please do so (insert Quebec joke here).

Also, I think XReal looks like a piece of shit. Everything looks wet, overly shiny, and ugly as anything.

COMLETLY AGREE DUDE

Finally somebody who actually use their eyes and head, not just like this:
- Oh cool HDR effects, I know they are cool because it's only for top-notch games
- Oh it also has reflective water, awesome, Crysis also had these (Crysis was a game that's main goal was to show off CryEngine 2, therefore the game was a complete failure due to the AI and other shit)
- Wow, look at the textures and the extreme model detail! They look so real!
- There is much used Bloom and Motion blur - only the best comps can run it, that's why it is cool
- Wait a minute, all this shit doesn't even look realistic, BUT I STILL LIKE IT, because it has great graphics.

[Asvarox]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM7kz9t-sMk
Yes it's xReal. This engine can make your pants wet when used properly.

[David]

That is very impressive, however 99% of the xreal vids I see look like pure shit.

[Thorn]

99% of foss 'art' is shit. What is your point?

[David]

My point is that unless trem gets a team of artists who have a lot of time to spend on this, it'll look shit too.

[Odin]

Not necessarily true. If the XreaL engine were used you could get the benefit of shadowing and other various effects not in ioquake3, and the new artwork could be made gradually.

Didn't I already go into this before?

[your face]

Finally somebody who actually use their eyes and head, not just like this:

Wow, somebody who used neither their eyes or their head.  I am impressed.

[jm82792]

When a NOOB uses a great tool, any tool they push a lot of noob "do cool stuff without work" buttons.
Be it Maya, Bojou 3d tracker or whatever.
Xreal is another example,
tons of advanced features and they are using them without talent or much thought.

[Crava_Loft]

[deleted]

[Odin]

so you waste your one year to port Tremulous to some awesomely cool engine. Then you realize that there are no good artists willing to re-make the models and textures for free. Now your Tremulous looks the same, other than some funny looking shiny textures.
FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

You can skip the shininess altogether if you want with a material like this:
models/players/human_base/base
{
    diffuseMap models/players/human_base/base
}

Like I said a thousand times already: switching to xreal does NOT require you to re-do everything!

[Plague Bringer]

ONE) Crava's trollin'.
TWO) I think the argument is: "Why port ([to IdTech4 ¹] if we're not going to take full advantage of the new engine[skeletal animation AND bumpmapping AND dynamic lights AND map scripting ²]?"
¹ EXAMPLE
² EXAMPLE

[SlackerLinux]

support for new features can be added later. also newer engines use far newer techniques and may provide better performance after being ported (the opposite can be true too)

IDTech4 isnt an option till it gets opensourced which doesn't seem to be happening

[Crava_Loft]

[deleted]

[Plague Bringer]

support for new features can be added later. also newer engines use far newer techniques and may provide better performance after being ported (the opposite can be true too)

IDTech4 isnt an option till it gets opensourced which doesn't seem to be happening

¹ EXAMPLE
² EXAMPLE

WHY DON'T PEOPLE READ POSTS ON THIS FORUM!?

[Asvarox]

ONE) Crava's trollin'.
TWO) I think the argument is: "Why port ([to IdTech4 ¹] if we're not going to take full advantage of the new engine[skeletal animation AND bumpmapping AND dynamic lights AND map scripting ²]?"
¹ EXAMPLE
² EXAMPLE

Because even "not full advantage" would be an advantage?

[gimhael]

The big problem is that when you port to another engine you cannot simply take all the data with you. Every new engine, even Xreal means that maps, shaders etc. have to be adapted. And having skeletal animation doesn't help if all models are in MD3 format.

On the other hand there are good programmers in the Trem community. So there is potential to improve the engine and there are projects (e.g. AMP) that should be finished and merged into the baseline Trem. The Q3 engine will never be able to compete with Crysis, but I work on a fully compatible bumpmapping patch in my spare time and I have also some ideas how to improve the dynamic lights.

PS: The bumpmaps in the screenshots have been generated with the gimp normalmap plugin, a good artist could probably make better ones.

[TANK]

bumpmapping patch in my spare time and I have also some ideas how to improve the dynamic lights.

It looks very nice .
It should definitely be in Trem 1.2!!

[Asvarox]

Woah, extremely nice, especially eggs and booster look sexy. Though FPS are a little bit scary

If you think that looks nice probably it is time to buy a good game.
IMO it looks cheesy

If you think it looks cheesy it's time to turn off the computer and check out how cheese looks like.

[Crava_Loft]

[deleted]

[UniqPhoeniX]

...there are projects (e.g. AMP) that should be finished and merged into the baseline Trem...

YES PLEASE

[Taiyo.uk]

The development of AMP and friends has been relatively quick because they are largely code based; they give mappers more versatile ways to use the current assets instead of improving the graphics. As such it doesn't require a huge art overhaul to be put to good use. However, changing the engine for XreaL or similar just isn't worth the effort without the associated asset upgrade to make use of it's updated renderer. Using XreaL with the current assets will not improve the graphics*, and it'll incur a performance hit on those with older hardware. Unfortunately Thorn is right about the asset situation - there are precious few examples of FOSS game assets which come close to the level of those of good commercial titles. That's unlikely to change unless the FOSS crowd can find the teams of expensive professional artists that game development houses employ today.

* Flat shininess doesn't count.

[gimhael]

The development of AMP and friends has been relatively quick because they are largely code based; they give mappers more versatile ways to use the current assets instead of improving the graphics. As such it doesn't require a huge art overhaul to be put to good use. However, changing the engine for XreaL or similar just isn't worth the effort without the associated asset upgrade to make use of it's updated renderer. Using XreaL with the current assets will not improve the graphics*, and it'll incur a performance hit on those with older hardware. Unfortunately Thorn is right about the asset situation - there are precious few examples of FOSS game assets which come close to the level of those of good commercial titles. That's unlikely to change unless the FOSS crowd can find the teams of expensive professional artists that game development houses employ today.

* Flat shininess doesn't count.

Ok, no one produces new assets, so we don't need to improve the engine. And as long as we keep the old engine, certainly no one produces new assets. Sounds like Chicken & Egg to me. So we need an engine that can use the old assets and run on the same old hardware, but can also use new/better assets on more potent hardware. Unfortunately that engine does not exist.

If you think that looks nice probably it is time to buy a good game.
IMO it looks cheesy

Yes, I own some newer games like Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age (don't know if you consider them good or not, I buy most BioWare games). I agree that they look better, but then they don't really run smooth on my GeForce 6 either.

[nubcake]

Using XreaL with the current assets will not improve the graphics*, and it'll incur a performance hit on those with older hardware.

The irony is that new-ish hardware takes as much of a performance hit in q3 as old harware does for newer games. In a *case specific* example I have a Geforce 260gtx, dual core 3ghz, 4GB RAM, can run UT3 at full settings on HUGE/detailed maps, left4dead2 with a hundred zombies, but itll be dammed playing Transit with 20 players on a 10 year old engine (I still get 70fps, but a noticable drop in FPS). Also given that 1.2 is probably another decade off anyways, alof of users might have upgraded by then, given that the average system now is alot beefier than when trem was released.

Perhaps devs could put up a poll to let users give there specs? Ie low (single core 2ghz or less, Geforce 5200 or less) - mid (single core 3ghz to dual core 3 ghz) - high (Quad cores etc).


As a mapper I often feel limited to corridor, brown corridor, grey corridor,, base, corridor etc because the Q3 engine is lmited. I would LOVE to make a forrest type map like from Alien vs predator games, or a really detailed military base, or series of caves, but with this engine it aint gunna happen. And that makes Nubcake sad

[Thorn]

That's really not a fair poll considering a dual core 3ghz proc can be ~6 times faster than a single core 3ghz. On top of that, trem couldn't care if you have 256 cores running at 3ghz.

[SlackerLinux]

well the tremulous team doesnt have to port the game to another engine because its opensource anyone can give it a shot i doubt though that anyone will

maybe when if idtech4 is released something like that will happen i know xreal is another good option but its very similar to idech3 if the time was put in i would like a newer engine also tremfusiuon is doing a port kinda in that they are trying to replace q3 renderer with xreals renderer not to mention someones partially ported trem to their svn already(playable but extremely dark when i tried also low fps but still smooth)

* SlackerLinux wonders if idtech4 suffers from noob mappers using textures off other maps so when you get 1 map but not other textures missing :/ i hate that