Best posts made by bilal

@nainnad
I wouldn't agree; I think it's more of most people have stuff going on.

That said, I don't think it's a good idea to use C++ for a game project no matter the skill level since many would agree that any performance upgrade over C# is usually not worth the added dev time. The only reason I would use it is to take advantage of the professional grade assets given free from Unreal Engine.

Personally, I use C#/Unity for just about every project (I do full time gamedev), and in retrospect it would have made more sense to start the project in Unity since lots of beginners would likely be interested in contributing however possible, and Unity makes that easier than UE4. One of my current projects is actually an RTS in Unity.

The only reason I'm not right now working hard on OM is because I don't have time to do much more than management and doing code checks/tests. I'd be happy to run or help with the project if there were any willing lead devs and/or artists.

Good luck with C++ by the way! (If only ruby had the speed of C :D )

This is going to be a thread on the progress of 'CMD THE MACHINES,' which is a little javascript project to put you in the (mechanical) shoes of the controller with a classic computer terminal interface. Source can be found here.

Updates on progress will be posted here. By the way, this is supposed to be a short project in free time and I will put it live on a website hopefully soon.

@Pisarz
Haha, so this is OM, I've just put some models down for testing code. So far it's just comprised of unit selection/movement. In Unreal Engine, when you make a basic project, the map spawns with a table and chairs.

The models are from the original game btw.

@Aquarillis
Yeah, I mean I found the designer on linkedin here.

But we were mainly looking at people who dealt with the IP, like people involved in the acclaim auction etc.

@Pisarz Judas Warlords and Scavengers are definitely the way to go for this mission; steal lots of high value units and hold off enemies until your army is big enough to overthrow chokepoints.

@TheOriginalFoxx
Welcome back! Sorry to hear about your issues.

Anyway, as @Encrypted said I'm pretty busy right now, but hopefully will be doing more machines 'stuff' soon.

I also recently bought a copy of machines:

:)

Also would like to have the wiki up, but we're going through a Hayden Hiatus atm (HH for short? haha). I guess I'll shoot him an email.

@Pisarz
So with any program, unless the developer allows it, nothing can be changed by the user.

In other words: Unless the machines developers made the program have some interchangeable path to a video to play before the game starts, it cannot be added or modified. However, since hard coding paths is often a bad idea, programmers can use files to read data that can be added easily without changing code and recompiling.

Moving on, I know that one video is played before the game starts, which is sort of the trailer for the game. So, if there is a file or some changeable option that says "load this video," with proper decoding (you would have to know how it is encoded, unless it's not encoded at all), you could change it to say "load that video."

That's why most of Judas' modding posts are basically file data changes.

Another example is that the images that are shown before the video are loaded, but they are not hidden anywhere and can be seen or modified. So to mod those, one could just replace the picture with a different picture of the same name and have that picture show up when the game loads.

Anyway if someone really wants to put video in the original game, he/she could go ahead and investigate on how the game loads its video at the start and just replace it. I doubt that we would have the ability to add more videos in without changing source though (which isn't available).

With UE4 we're trying to make a very, very early version of a new machines game with just viable AI and netcode, since both don't work very well in the first game. What it will be at the end will hopefully be a community collaboration of ideas.

This thread will contain all of the resources used for OpenMachines. It will be updated with new resources as they're created.

Current Resources:

Github Page - Where the code is located.
Getting Started Page - A quick guide to inform anyone interested in the project how to help.
OM Roadmap - Used to specify which tasks are to be completed next.
List of Units - All units in the original game. *Missing unit values

Upcoming/Desired Resources:

Game Wiki
List of Units to add

@Encrypted @Pisarz

You can always look at machines compared to the current maps since there are trees and other natural objects. Of course you go between planets so the scale depends on your artistic vision for new maps. ;)

Unless you're trying to keep the scales Earth-like.

Picture of WIP login screen:

This one is an actual executable (not just a mockup), except it doesn't do much yet other than accept typing and close. :p

@Pisarz said:

Is it going to be for testing if we can actually establish a link with each other "in-game"? (With in-game I mean if that app can be included in Unreal Engine 4. If not, how would it work?)

There would be a server application for the launcher that would allow players to join and create lobbies. Then, once a lobby is launched, each player's games will start, and the application will tell the game what to do next to make sure all players get in the match together.

The current system I'm thinking for multiplayer is using master servers to host multiple games so that players wouldn't have to worry about hosting. (This might be too server intensive, so I'll do more thought about it once I get to multiplayer in the actual game.)

@Pisarz
The font is called SF Transrobotics

Edit: Going to attempt creating a quick log in application with a mysql database of users

Quick example I did in photoshop:

(only to include basic features like joining and friends for now)

EDIT: Updated; I forgot the slider next to the friends list originally. Oops.

So I had a spare 30 minutes yesterday. Thoughts?

And with black Background:

Here you'll see problems that I've gone through when getting used to UE4. I will add onto this list as more problems occur after using the engine.

• If you derive a blueprint from a custom class, you cannot use it with version control because it is based on class reference, rather than class name. I will stick to using blueprints with only base Unreal classes (Pawn, Actor, etc...). I don't have this problem anymore!

• If a Wacom tablet is plugged in and the output log is clicked, the engine crashes. Patched!

• I have received a crash on compile several times after editing the game mode class constructor with the following code:

  APlayerController* MyController = GetWorld()->GetFirstPlayerController();
  MyController->bShowMouseCursor = true;
  MyController->bEnableClickEvents = true;
  MyController->bEnableMouseOverEvents = true;
  

This is because it was in the constructor rather than in BeginPlay function. I've moved this to the BeginPlay function in a custom controller class. Be careful what you put in the constructors. These should only set default values. These love to crash!

After this crash, the engine will crash again after reopening the project every time. This can be resolved by removing the code the crashed the engine and rebuilding from VS. Before doing so, the editor will crash, so make sure to do this!

• Sometimes if code is compiled while a Blueprint is open, the engine will crash. This has stopped happening so far after unplugging the Wacom tablet, which therefore may be related.

• So far, I am implementing most RTS features through blueprints. C++ seems to keep giving instability issues, but I will still make some classes. I have not heard of any true downside to blueprints other than unreliable opinions of it being slow, but it would make sense that it could be slower than C++. Perhaps after functionality, systems can be redesigned in C++ after some crashing issues are resolved...

• IntelliSense... is just so slow. Have not gotten around to testing QtCreator, but I will update if I find that it is faster. Other Unreal users suggest using Visual Assist, but there is an additional cost.

• If your editor crashes during a compile and then always crashes upon reopening the project, it can always be resolved by removing the code that crashed the editor on compile and rebuilding from Visual Studio.

I wrote up a quick guide to help anyone interested in contributing to the project on the Github wiki here. It's nothing too complex, but I suggest reading it if you're new to any aspects of the project.

Feel free to edit the page in case some information has been left out or other improvements could be made.

Thanks!

@JRL101
There are a bunch of screenshots of units here taken a long time ago: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3hJvIPdNZp-YmVkZjA4NGYtZGYyZC00NjMzLWFjNDItNzg5YjE0MjZlZmE0

Unfortunately, it's not all of them, which is a little weird because I thought we took more.

Looking good! Let me know when/if you have a unit finished.

@Ddc_Cl

I wouldn't worry about the Unit Editor (That's already going to be included in UE4 anyway), but yes, the units would have to be modular anyway so different parts can move properly.

On another note, when you opened the extracted models in Maya, were their parts all in pieces and disconnected? I found it kind of difficult to put them back together when I first looked at them. I did that so far with a pod and an assassin warlord.

@Pisarz Beauty.

The pink boxes might be a direct play issue. I recently bought a copy of Machines and installed everything, and got the pink boxes, but I also had a notification from windows saying that the game required Direct Play, and it installed it through the same notification window. After restarting, the boxes were gone, but the frame rate of Machines on Windows 8 is very low so it's pretty much unplayable anyway.

Also, I did uncheck the restrict resolution box, and I changed the resolution to 1920x1080 before restarting, but I don't think those had anything to do with it.