Homeworld in torque

#1 I loved Homeworld 2. Those models look awesome in TGE. It would be really cool to see something like that done in TGE.

#2 Absolutely adored the Homeworld games. Agree with Rubes, would rock to see something like that with Torque.

#3 looks pretty good!

#4 Yup im glad to hear a homeworld 3 is a possibility (and most likely) . To me its the only rts game i could get into and enjoy, the whole atmosphere/story e.t.c is what really drew me in.

Ive been tinkering with both the rtskit and considering the flight starter kit also but not sure what direction i want togo just yet .

#5 Those models still rock.

But, if you are going to do a homeworld-style game, then you should do it with the TGEA if you can.

Using features like illumination texture and bump mapping on such kind of ship models (those have a lot of light effects on textures) totally improves the scenes.

I personally love the old fashioned textures but if you are planning to sell the game, you need to use the new technology most of the time.

#6 Korkut - Totally understand what your saying but this was just a quick and easy test. If i were to try my hand at my own homeworld style game it would definetely be on tgea , or if on tge, with a completely different art style.

My original plan was to try and replicate the awesome homeworld camera system as much as possible and try things like squads e.t.c but i didnt get too far into it unfortunetely. Sounds like there is alot of interest in a homeworld style game so might be something i continue on with,

#7 So cool.

#8 Looks cool!

One word of caution though, if your mission areas get too big (which they tend to do in space games) you'll start to suffer from camera jitters. This is due to floating point precision in your object and camera positions when the numbers get too large. An issue I ran into awhile back when messing around with a space-sim prototype in TGE. Just a heads up.

#9 Homeworld 1 used a very interesting technique of mapping a vertex coloured grid using a spherical projection. I reproduced that a few years back in TGE by taking output from a C# test app that mark wrote and mapping it into spherical coordinates (like a skysphere but using vertex colours and gouraud shading). The fun thing with the app, was that you could map verts anywhere in a rectangle and it would project that rect into the spherical coordinates. You could also load up and image and have the vertices take thier colour from the background image in order to quickly create the spheres.

Worked bloody well too if I do say so myself. :)

#10 Nice work Phil :) My plan was to just use the skysphere and convert my 2d images so it wraps correctly.

Jon: i remember reading about that issue, not sure if it ever got resolved, my plan was to scale them quiet small anyway to give a good size mission area so hopefully wouldnt come across that problem.

#11 Homeworld FTW - looks real nice in TGE. Nice work

#12 @ BK and group:

"But, if you are going to do a homeworld-style game, then you should do it with the TGEA if you can."

I agree but remember a lot, if not most every game now is wrote in a shader engine of some kind or another. Shaders have given games their look and feel... take Doom 3, Quake 3A and the last few Hitman games, and you will understand where im coming from. If your going to do a game such as something like a HW, which I thought was awesome from the first game, then you should try hard to maybe include a shader set tech demo vs the TGE 1.5.2 engine and see what one you like most, then go from there....

The TGEA is really a good engine though it lacks in some areas and you must be a coder or have a programmer on your team to really make the best use from it. Ive had TGEA and I've touched it very little due to I do all my own programming in scripts mainly and have very little hard coding experience. But aside from the coding, it will look sharp in the end using a shader engine like TGEA but you have to weigh the headaches vs the rewards if your going to do a shader game cause of the detail your about to undertake.

Best of luck with the project man.

Will
dlstorminc@yahoo.com
Waskom, Tx
PS I have a ambient sounds pack here at GG besure to check it out for your game it might be worth your liking... check under content packs and Ambient Audio... just a thought :P

#13 Thanks will, the tge versus tgea is worth discussing. My initial plan is to use it in the rts pack (tge) since ive owned that for sometime now and feel i should do something with it :)

Art styles could work on both engines. Homeworld 1 (which i still think is a good looking game, is purely non shadered), but obviously to get it looking good would require some nice effects.

Even if i did continue on with the project i would struggle to get ship models as awesome as homeworld was . But i might consider carrying on with the project in my spare time.

If anyone wants to talk more about making a homeworld esque game in tge/tgea/rtskit let me know :)

#14 i like the nebula.

#15 Ian:

If your looking for help please count me in... :) I can provide you with some music and Ambient scores for the game that would work in either engine. I also am pretty decent with tecture editing and rendering too if you need some textures. All I ask for is credit in the game and a little cash from the bag if you get it to sales status and make a killing on it :-). Nice that you are going forward carefully on the project. I too am working on a more secretive project right now myself that isnt ready to go public yet but it will shortly. Just been working on it in my spare time called "Torque Titans" kinda like a Quake Wars meets UT3. The project is way over my head but I'm holding firm, since mainly my love is Ambient music and sound packs plus texture making.

Right now throwing myself into the fire with modeling and stuff like that I don't know much about but taking each day as a learning experience. I'm doing fairly good on my own but it's so long on one thing when your on your own vs in a team. Drop me a line and lets talk since I love both Home world games and understand the rough idea they had for the scores to begin with. I use Reason 4 for my projects for sounds and music, I use Live 6+ for all the plug-in stuff such as Atmosphere and reverb. Roughly I've been making music off and on since I was 16 or so, and am 37 now. So like I said maybe I can help you with a few small things for some credit or maybe trade services for each others game? Just a idea. Type at you soon.

Will
dlstorminc@yahoo.com

#16 All:

Check out the post on the blogs about the Torque Titans... it should give you a good idea of the game. Yeah I just had to post it since I leaked it here!! :-P

Will