UniqueOne

Name me one game with huge maps/open world with twitch gameplay. The two don't match up well. And nor should they. Open worlds are meant to have every nook and cranny explored, not blazed through.

http://www.trionworlds.com/defiance/en/

Even Skyrim itself could be considered a twitch game with melee. In fact it's manual blocking system is better then JKA's blocking.

I think you're high if you think Skyrim or any of its mods have as good of sabering as JKA does. Like mega high.

... because its really hard to imagine how a mostly melee based game would work with lightsabers... lol. You may want to actually look.

Oh please. If you think that fancy water shaders, depth of field, ambient occlusion or FXAA don't reduce framerate, then you've completely lost it. Do a benchmark test, latest rend2 vs yours with all the stuff on it.

Also you're talking out of your ass. rend2 has always supported culling of PVS clusters, I say support here because the code that actually handles the PVS stuff isn't in the renderer at all last I checked.

FXAA replaces slower MSAA. DOF and AO are part of pretty much any new game and they run fine.

Try modifying all the maps surfaces to support rend2 cubemaps and shaders and compare yourself. Don't compare FPS with everything off with that of things actually being used (you know, the whole point of an enhanced renderer).

Add some npcs and look toward them them through a wall and see how well the culling works. Maps have partial culling, but entities are not culled at all.

Xycaleth is only one person and getting little help from anyone.

Pixel shaders objectively make the performance worse at the cost of graphics. They don't magnify any problem with the engine. Unless of course you're writing ARB shaders which is what dglow was written in before, then of course you're magnifying those shit issues, but you've got bigger problems I think if you're writing those outdated shader programs on something which supports GLSL. That's literally the only case where that makes any sense.

I guess performance analysis is wrong then.

I certainly wouldn't consider it a platform with any merit since there's no games made specifically for it, planned or otherwise.

... and that is why we are having this discussion.

I never said that engines aren't alternatives to each other. I said that games aren't alternatives to each other. Plus there's different design philosophies behind both anyway.

Honestly if you want to make an open world Star Wars game, go mod Skyrim. If you want tight combat with smaller settings, this is the game to mod. Trying to make a catch-all modding paradise is way beyond the scope of OJK, and quite frankly beyond the point of this thread. If you want that, go use Unreal. Doesn't mean it won't be a Jack of all Trades at what it does , however.

Maybe it is beyond the original scope. Maybe the original scope was misguided. After all, we are where we are. It is nothing that can not be fixed.

I don't expect that this map stuff will ever be done... and you know what? Skyrim will go on with a strong community for years to come. Not because it is a good engine, but because it has good tools and an open world that any noobie can add to.

This community will die completely because of short-sightedness of people who are not even representative of the "new" people needed to rebuild a community (and seem incapable of thinking like them, they want simple tools, they want shiny, they want to not get bored after 5 minutes playing and go play something else - nearly all the things people are talking about are for the people already still here, not for the new people we need).

This game community will also die because Xycaleth is only one person who nearly everyone seems to have abandoned for other things.

Everything (with the exception of radiant sucking and maybe saber combat - although I think skyrim does that nearly as well too with the various lightsaber mods) you just said is ... wow... what?

Twitch gameplay not compatible with large maps? What world are you living in? Do I really need to link nearly every latest shooter?

Side scrollers? 2D games. huh? JKA/Q3 are not 2D games.

FPS issues from pixel shaders in my mod? Actually I added culling to rend2 (so it no longer draws all that stuff you cant see) last night and its much better. Problem has nothing to do with pixel shaders - they just amplify the inherent issues of the renderer (and the shaders that like to draw in multiple stages - doubleing/trippling/quadrupling/etc render times).

OJK not an engine? wow. speechless...

Every engine is an alternative to this engine. Is there an infinite number of potential modders? Why would they select JKA over UE4 or Skyrim or whatever - you know, where everything doesn't take months to get done, look better, and isn't restricted to a linear fishtank?

Every engine that offers what modders want to mod in 2015 is the death of this engine/game. Period.

There sure is one way and strategy to get people back to the game. Making it the equal of what they left for. Making it the equal of the alternatives for new people... And making it as easy as possible for them all.

Unfortunately, I'd have say that it's too late to revive the modding community. My closest friend just left the jka modding community yesterday, it's truly sad. For me, I am remaining loyal to Jedi Academy (and its modding communities) for the next few years at least, but eventually I'll be moving on as everyone else has.

 

I've tried continuing the development of the Stargate Event Horizon mod, but without actual players or interested players it's extremely difficult to find the motivation to do so. I was even making plans with the original developers to continue development but the idea was canned when they stopped answering my messages (i.e. they stopped getting online).

 

However, I'll support any idea(s) for keeping it alive for much longer and/or bringing more players & modders back to the game.

You need some "worlds" to stargate too hehehehe. The worlds from Stargate, again, are huge. To do huge maps without taking forever, and without having horrible FPS, a new map format is required (and stuff like generating large vegetated terrains quickly, with a better tool then radiant).

On a side note, we should chat, your project is probably very compatible with what I am working on at the moment (a MMORPG mod of OJK engine).

@@UniqueOne -- using an exporter is simple! And using Assimilate/Carcass or Noesis is not complicated either.

Ok. If you guys believe the models are not an issue. I'm fine with that. I am no modeller, just want to see a growing community again. The map thing though I swear will be my dieing breath  .

Models:

There's nothing wrong with the MDX formats (MD3/GLM) in and of them-self. In fact I would say that using them is far better than a format like OBJ, FBX or others because they're not compact like MDX is. The only thing wrong with them is the lack of exporters...and the big one that's missing right now is Maya.

Well I am happy to bow to DT's knowledge of modelling. If he feels glm is an easy enough format for a new wannabe modder to want to learn.

I put it second in my list because it is less important then the mapping issues. Let's face it, theres already plenty of glm animations to select from and exporters would probably be good enough. I'm just thinking about new people here.

Maps:

BSP format is ideal for corridors and the type of mapping you see in JK2, Q3, Doom, etc. but it kinda falls apart once you have the mapping of JKA and mods with large expanses of outdoor area. It would be nice to use more than one format here, but q3map2 and (especially) Radiant would need to be reprogrammed anyway. Did I mention that Radiant is dated as hell?

 

Yes it is,

The days of corridor engines is over. Herein lies probably the biggest reason we don't have a community.

There is really 2 choices here. Either rewrite radiant, or support a new map format. Rewriting radiant would be a much larger project then supporting an open source map format which already has a good editor. It would also not come with the other benefits. (Note: I am not saying remove support for BSP, just added a new format as well).

Comparing JKA to Skyrim is frankly stupid, the games weren't designed the same way at all and each one has its own set of problems (let's talk for a sec about how Bethesda totally fucked up their scripting engine and had to have modders repair it...). Yes, it'd be nice to have good looking graphics, but saying "we should make it look like this" is not really helpful.

I completely disagree with this.

If we want people to use this engine then it had damn well better offer at least the same advantages as the newer alternatives. Otherwise we may as well all give up right now. If the engine gave people a reason to use it then they would. At the moment all JKA has is a license that we are not taking advantage of.

Skyrim has its horrible issues, but it offers good tools and doesn't make you feel like your in 1990's running around in a fishtank. This is why it's community is still strong as ever (even to the point of stopping steam from allowing payed mods, passion) 5 years later. You can not get sick of infinite large open worlds. You can sure as hell get sick of small boxes.

Star Wars has never had a game that offered a true open world experience (BF2 is not going to offer this either - it will have the shiny, but not the long term playability or the "expansive star wars universe" feel), the games have always been rushed to the market for profit. Here we have a license and no time restrictions to do it right.

As for nice looking graphics. Rend2 can do that now if you make use of it's abilities in your mod (see screenshots below) or get people mapping for it (which we will get little or none of with radiant). It's missing things like dlight shadows, it's fps can be quite bad (mainly due to multi-stage shaders and a bad map format *cough*), and there's a few minor bugs, but whatever.

 Rend2 can be pretty... but it's not enough to get long term community over a newer engine. You realise that they all do this too???

I'd like to see a type of Garry's Mod or something with large amounts of scripting, that would ensure lots of replayability to me. I had some crazy one-off ideas for mods that would be good as server scripts for fun.

No disagreement here. But I think this is something for the community to do with an updated, robust, engine to work with, not necessarily by the OJK team themselves. There is also little point having advanced scripted AI on tiny maps.

I did not come to these conclusions either lightly, or quickly. I have been working on various Q3 games for like 16 years now (as I think you already know), I have watched every Q3 based game community die. Even those new shiny Q3-mods have a very limited shelf life because they don't give people the tools or the reason to choose them over a newer engine. We can screw around with a fish tank until all the water leaks out or we can expand the fish tank into something people want to be in.

Can't really compare JKA to Skyrim...

I think that sums it up. Doesn't it? You can't compare Q3 to even a 5 year old engine. Hence all of this talk.

As for the "players" vs "mod tools", the two are completely interlinked. Both require some big change to get attention.

Getting players is short term if there is nothing to keep them here. Getting modders is the basis of a long term community.

*yoda voice* Tools leads to modders (and news). Modders (and news) leads to community.

Pardon my cynicism, but that sounds like even more work than a simple mod project, which history has shown takes miracles to finish and release.

Nobody said it would be easy (hence my suggestion of using another project's format(s) and tools). Just necessary if we want a real long-term community.

Give people the right tools and you will see projects like this.

New model format? Why?

For the new tools... to make it easier for noobies, and to reduce long term work for everyone by outsourcing that work to teams already working on these projects.

Xycaleth already knows my thoughts on this. I assume the timing of this post has a lot to do with our talks.

But for everyone else, this is what I have suggested - in order of priority.

1. New map editor. No point trying to remake radiant though (let's face it q3 bsp is old and too limited), much better off to take a modern map format from another open source project like ogre or something, use their editor and tools. Saves work long term, and gives us the ability to have large open world maps like modern engines.

The ability to have worlds like this in Q3 engine is by far the best thing that can be done to bring in community and new modders. The possibilities are endless.

2. New model format. See above. Same story - use tools maintained by another project.

3. Add things like foliage and grass to rend2. These would probably come as part of (1.) anyway though - or an addition later to that code.

4. (The final part) Add renderer shiny. This is where rend2 has been heading, but is much less important then getting 1 + 2 done, as good modern tools bring in the community and the community will add shiny.

The man might act a little crazy, but he is right.

This is Star Wars. We have a huge community that makes games like Skyrim pale in comparison. We just need the tools to get the community active again. Easy to use, modern, tools. Modern map/model formats.

-this only support the MP right?

Yeah it is only MP. But the long term goal is to make it into a multi-server MMO platform - so it would have single player style elements... but with quests and stuff.

It would work similar to how dungeons and dragons online works with main cities and questgivers. After taking a quest you would be directed to a door which takes you to another server to run the quest with your group.

The initial versions will probably be single server based, but with a main city area, and a bunch of small areas you teleport to to run the quests.

We need a lot of help to make this happen though.

-You changed the codes and graphics. Have You changed shader files too? Or it makes every map this awesome from the start?

We do not change original shaders, other then assigning a material type to anything that does not have one (which we use to apply various graphic options). Also, for any texture that has no shader, we generate an advanced generic one to support reflections, speculars, normals, etc.

Most maps will just work with all the advanced graphics from the start. Unless the mapper has used some weird shaders that do not support the advanced stuff. We can add overrides in such cases for some stuff as required.

-what are the needs to later install this mod? It is not just putting it into base folder and Everything is beautiful right?

The game creates its own exe and renderer files, separate from jka and openjk's. It will run along side anything else.

Anyway i am not MP player at all but I am sure that You create a Godlike stuff for those who play it. Keep going this awesome stuff! I hope that Jkhub community will help as much as they can

Hopefully when the MMO stuff comes, you will find the same enjoyment as sp, but with friends.

I hope we get some help too, there is a lot to do, and I am no mapper or modeler.

I think we would all like to see a free star wars MMO created by the community, for the community. No crappy subscription fees or pathetic free limitations like the other alternative.

A lot of this is basically HD versions of the textures with bloom added in.It looks good though.

Actually, these are all unaltered original maps and textures. All maps get these upgrades by default.

The magic is done through generic shader generation, material type selection, and glsl.

EDIT: Actually that's not quite true. Just realised I do have a few hoth textures in my mod folder, so the hoth pic probably has some modified textures.

Thought I might post some of the shinies worked on this week.