Buck Rogers Countdown to Doomsday 3D
Community Forums/Graphic Chat/Buck Rogers Countdown to Doomsday 3D
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| I've been given permission to recreate a classic 1990's rpg in 3D, Buck Rogers XXVC: Countdown to Doomsday! I'm really excited about this, and have almost finished the character creation process. This pic is one of the character creation screens, and shows the cell shading effect I'm doing on the characters and environments in the game. I only learned cell shading recently, and quite like the look of it. The character is a male, Terran, rocketjock.  |
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| this was one of my favourite games ever, gfx look good too |
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| Nice! I have no experience of the original but I'm sure Buck Rogers is a fun license to play with! I am not sure if you're opening to criticism with this post, and I appreciate you're mainly showing the cell-shading, but the image of the character is quite small compared to the rest of the screen. The text looks as if the font is a little too large. That said, though, it's very neat and tidy :) |
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| Hi guys! Thanks for the comments. Malice: I'm open to criticisms and suggestions at any time :) During 'exploration mode' of the game, it is a first person view environment, and the characters aren't seen, they are only seen during the 'combat mode' of the game, which is a turn based, zoomed-out isometric view, so the 'playing pieces' of the characters aren't really big, and probably never viewed closer than the view in the screenshot. I'll have to think about the font. I'm trying to work out what size works best visually and still being readable, on different size monitors and resolutions. To me, it seems a normal size font on my 19" screen. When I do beta testing, and people run the program full-screen, I'll see what people say. Perhaps a GUI-SCALING slider in the options screen, so people can enlarge or shrink the text size according to their preferences? |
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| have you tried the sega genesis version? it was superior to the PC version IMO |
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| How did you get the license to Buck Rogers? I would have thought that it'd cost a hefty amount, even these days. |
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| Slenkar: I didn't know there was a sega genesis version? I'll look it up and check it out. I originally played it on the commodore 64. Now I'm using the PC version, emulated, for game development research. JustLuke: I put forward this first game in the series as a 'free to play' game, so its free publicity for them, and brings back the old game system :) No commerical licensing was discussed, and they've been great about it, and are really great guys to deal with. So, I'm not making money from this project, it's more of a game making hobby. I'm also using it to develop a 3D rpg engine, so I can later adapt the program code to other original projects of my own, to make my own commerical games in the future using different rpg rules and campaign settings. |
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| Slenkar: Thanks for pointing out the sega genesis version. From what I've seen on the net, it had less careers (classes), less races, and was even missing one of the character Attributes, however, it had some really nice interface features. I especially like the inventory management screens - isntead of just text, it has a full body illustration of the player character, with slots to drag item icons into to equip them. I'm definitely going to add something like that into my program! |
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| Thats why I wish I had a commodore back in those days, the RPG's were so great for c64 compared to zx spectrum. You may have the Buck Rogers licence from the dille family trust but what about the licence to copy the game text and quests from SSI?(or whoever released the original game. Also do you prefer the first person view of the PC or the iso exploration mode of the genesis? I prefer iso myself. If you want to make an original Buck Rogers adventure and sell it for cash I would work with you. I have a few ideas about turn-based spaceship combat that I have already programmed. |
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| Hi Slenkar, thanks for the offer, but at the moment I'm only interested in creating this Countdown to Doomsday project. Who knows what will come later, though? I like the first-person view for exploration, though isometric worked well in game's like Baldur's Gate. I want the player to be able to mouse-look around, in any direction. In the remake, I hope to make it more interesting than just walls and doors. When you enter a room, and it displays text saying what is there in the original game, I want to actually have scenery in the room, to visually represent it, like you would have in a more modern first-person game. For example, in the first level of the original, going into the officer's lounge shows an empty 2x2 room that looks like any other, and has text about a bombed out room with broken ceiling and shattered tables, so I want to model a broken ceiling and shattered tables to actually see it in the first-person view instead of just another empty room. So it should be much more visual. |
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| OK good luck, if you change your mind send me an email. ' I can do some work on this project if you need some help. (not artwork of any kind though!) |
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| I might be able to do some basic artwork for you. here is the quality I am already up to: http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/5255/ss2p.png |
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| Here's a pic. I'm working on the first level - a spaceport, adding scenery to the environment. That's the rocket that is supposed to take the recruits to Salvation Station at the introduction of the game - only the enemy attacks before you can get on board! I'm still developing the scenery and spaceport environment, but I'm liking the cell-shading outline effect. I found putting models at full-bright makes it look even more illustrated, than if they are effected by shading. There was a series of XXVC comic books released too, which I had never seen, so I've started collecting them (hopefully they're in the mail as I write). They should give me a better idea of the style of things like architecture in the XXVC universe, so the current environment is a 'work in progress' and may not represent the final appearance of the game. I'm keeping the same layout for the levels as the original, but showing scenery instead of just having it suggested by text, and trying to make buildings more than just a 1x1 square box.  |
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| WOW! That looks REALLY good! |
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| Nice visual style! |
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| yep very good graphics |
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| nice :D |
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| This project is promising but the screenshots look mighty familiar. Did you post them here before a long time ago, Buck3D? |
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| Tell us more about the engine you're using! |
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| Thanks for the comments, guys! JustLuke: No, I've only been creating these scenes for the last few days, so these screenshots are all new. Project start date was 30/Oct/2009, but level design didn't start until 8th of November. Kryzon: I'm not sure what to say about the engine? It's programmed in Blitz 3D. Here's some of the things in it: Camera: In exploration mode it's a free-look camera, walking around like in a first-person shoot. In combat mode, the camera rises up and looks down at the ground at an isometric angle, and you move characters around a square at a time in a turn based fashion, fighting the enemies you encounter. When the enemies are defeated, the camera zooms back down to where it was originally, at head height, and resumes first-person view again. Minimap - I've just added a minimap feature too. It takes a pre-drawn map for a level, and shows a 30 meter radius around the player, in the top left corner of the screen. As the player turns, an arrow on the map rotates to face the direction the player is facing, and the map scrolls as the player walks. Rooms: A lot of the game is based around the idea of walking around the map, going into rooms to see what is in them. To save on the amount of models and polygons loaded up, I'm thinking of making it so that when you click on a door to open it, it then loads the objects that are inside the room behind the door. When you step inside, the door closes behind you. After you are finished with the room, when you open the door and leave, the door closes behind you, and the objects in the room 'unload' again. This way, much of the content of the level only exists in the game engine when you are actually at its location. This means I can have more shapes and models for things like distant scenery and outside scenes without affecting performance or level loading times. If I load all the objects all at once, there can be a long loading time as the level generates all the objects. Doing it this way, there's just a micro-pause as the doors are opening and the objects in the room behind the door appear. Party: You have a party of up to 6 characters that you control. In combat mode, each of them has a model to move around when their turn comes. There are 6 races and 5 careers. I think there's 55 skills in the game's rpg rules system, but not all of the skills are used in the first game. I'm not sure what else to say :) |
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| What about more technical stuff like, is the Cel-Shading faked (bigger clones of the meshes), are you using any external libraries (FastLibs, Xors, etc.)? Thanks for the info. |
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| The cel-shading is fake :) I wasn't sure how to do it any other way, so main meshes are cloned, and the clone is expanded slightly, then the faces are flipped and coloured black. No external libraries. Have you used FastLibraries? I've been tempted to try out FastExtension, and see if I can get distant blur, and maybe some shadows, working with my program. |
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| Just a small point: cell-shading is different from outlines. You've not implemented cell-shading (which has to do with the way a model is shaded), you've implemented model outlines. By the way, are you getting acceptable results with your outlining method? When I've experimented with it in the path, I've been very unhappy with it. It looks okay for still shots of simple shapes, but I always disliked the way that the lines would scale with distance and perspective and the slightly "dirty" look and inconsistent look that they often had on complex models. There are ways to implement (and to approximate) cell-shading in Blitz3d, but I wouldn't use them if I were you. Your current method of full-bright models plus outlines has the potential for creating a nice illustrated effect. However, I'd look into other methods of producing outlines, if I were you. Good look with this remake. I love RPGs and one coupled with the Buck Rogers aesthetic could be very interesting. |
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| I've found that the outlining works 'pretty well' but does have its downsides. I'm creating the black, inside-out model clones, for the outline, within my modelling program, so that I can preview what it will look like, rather than generating them within blitz. That way I can move vertices around, and refine the shape if I want. Sometimes if two shapes overlap, there can be odd visual artefacts where the overlap occurs, depending on the angle you are looking at the model from, so I try to alter the black outline mesh to have as clean a line as possible. I do find that distance can be a problem. Very distant scenery, such as a city on the horizon, I have to push the faces of the outline mesh out a big amount to make them visible at all, while things that the player will look at up close I have to only push out the faces a short amount, otherwise the outlining looks too thick. If I could find a way to produce an even-thickness outline, regardless of the visual distance, that would be great. For now though, I'm happy with how it's looking when walking around in the game. |
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| Will there be any sex-scenes in the game? |
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| No, I don't think that's going to happen. |
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| lol j/k |
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| Will Wilma Dearing be in the game? Will she be as hot as Erin Gray was in her prime? :) |
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| sadly, Wilma, Tweeky, the robot politicians and the old bloke werent in the original game L:( |
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| Thank you for the info on your engine. Have you used FastLibraries? I've been tempted to try out FastExtension, and see if I can get distant blur, and maybe some shadows, working with my program. Can't say that I've actually used. Only tried the demo (which I'd recommend you do too). There may be somethings that might be useful for you (like multiple blending modes allowing for texture splatting), the filters like motion blur and general blur, and others. As MikhailV said himself: "All this done comfortable and quickly!". Good luck with your project! |
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| TaskMaster: If I remember correctly (just checking a cheat book on the later levels of the original game) I think Wilma appears near the end, in disguise, to help get you through a security checkpoint. Just a cameo appearance really. Not much resemblance to the tv show though - the XXVC buck rogers games and roleplaying games and comics were an 'alternate universe' to that of the original comics or the 80's tv show, and didn't really have much to do with the tv show at all. For example, in XXVC, Dr Huer is an artifical intelligence (appearing as a hologram), instead of a human person, and also, in the tv show, they travelled to other star systems, and there were aliens and things. In the XXVC universe, there's no such thing as 'aliens' - just genetically engineered peoples and creatures, and humanity is only in our own solar system - there's no interstellar travel. But there's lots of similarities in the main things, such as the characters Buck Rogers, Wilma Deering, Killer Kane, Ardala, and so forth. You'll definitely meet Buck, and he'll join the party for a time. |
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| The style is _awesome_. Wen I first saw the alpha shot, I thought it was Image/Quad based Rendering (early doomish), which impressed me, but getting this is _real_ 3d ... extremely good work. |
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| That looks really good. I love the effect of cell-shading/outlining and how you accomplished it! To be honest., the thinner outlines at distance seems perfectly okay from looking at the screenshot. As does the fogging on distant objects. I honestly think without those features, you would lose more 3-D appearance and it would NOT look as good. As it stands, you have an excellent artistic style that looks as if it has been drawn rather than rendered whilst still maintaining a 3D depth, if you were to obtain consisttent thick outlines or less fogging etc. you would lose that depth and the image would be 'flattened', making depth-perception much more difficult/confusing for the viewer! |
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| Yep, looks very im pressive. Another vote for Colonel Deering. |
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| You may wanna post a/the screenshot in the gallery.. it's definately worth it. |
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| Hi Guys! Some more development pics. (BeAnAge - I thought the gallery was for finished projects? I'm a long way from finishing this one.) I've started doing characters and equipment in more detail. The first pic, showing the 'playing piece' for the rocket jock, had shading, lighting, etc, and I've found that doing a full-bright with outline environment, shaded characters clash with it. So here's a pic of a Terran using full bright and outlining. I drew the face on the model like a 'black pen' to keep with the 'drawn' look of it. Still a few minor glitches in the outlining mesh I need to fix on the model - particularly where the fingers join to the palm of the hand, making his knuckles look black. With Malice's initial post in this thread, I decided I want some characters to be visible in first-person view as well as in zoomed out combat view, so I'm hoping to get character models look alright at any distance. Anyway, here's an unarmoured Terran, holding a bolt gun, and another pic showing what it might look like in combat at an isometric angle.   |
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| pretty good how many polys are in the model? dont go too crazy worrying about the outlines, most people dont care. |
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| There's around 5,000 or 6,000 for a person model, then when I outline it, the count can double, depending on how many of the shapes I need to duplicate. Someone told me 10,000 was what to aim for, so I get around that when finished, usually just a bit more. |
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| the latest screenshots in the worklog look cool |
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| Thanks slenkar! I wasn't sure how often people actually look at worklogs, or if they even did. I wish there was a way to tell, like a visitor counter, or letting people post comments, or something. |
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