https://youtu.be/t3uGbBv-zmU

For future reference:

Introduction

Hi everybody. I've decided that I'm going to kickstart MachinesUE.

Therefore I'll be hiring one or more freelancers that can supply steady updates to this game. Want to help? Send me a PM or reply in this thread with your skills.

Project Tracking

Getting the old files

• Extraction from 1999 game - DONE

Sounds / Music / Voices

• From old game - DONE

Creation of Blender files (3d models)

• Buildings - DONE
• Units bases DONE
• Locomotion DONE
• Faceplates DONE
• Weapons DONE
• Artifacts TO BE STARTED
• Other TO BE STARTED

Static meshes in UE4

• Buildings DONE
• Units bases IN PROGRESS
• Locomotion DONE
• Faceplates DONE
• Weapons DONE
• Artifacts TO BE STARTED
• Other TO BE STARTED

Upscaled Textures in UE4

• Upscaling to 4K DONE
• Uploading into UE4 DONE

Blueprints

• Buildings - DONE
• Units - IN PROGRESS
• Artifacts - TO BE STARTED
• Other - TO BE STARTED

Animation

• Units - TO BE DONE
• Buildings - TO BE DONE

AI

• Pathfinding - IN PROGRESS

Resource systems

• Mining - TO BE STARTED
• Transporting - TO BE STARTED
• Resource types - TO BE STARTED

Building systems

• Selection menu - TO BE IMPROVED
• Building blueprint - TO BE IMPROVED

As a start we're going to take an existing 'RTS Template' that's based on a bunch of blueprints. First step is to check if this template is any good and if we can use it to build on

The Team

• Project Management
  Judas

• Game Developers
  Tomas N..
  Marius

Note: We'll be re-using the original files in order to stay true to the 1999 version. Once we have that version (MVP) then we can consider upgrading meshes/textures/etc

Downloads

MachinesUE Game Files:
Download MachinesUE Game Files
We're going to set up a Subversion, link TBA.

Upload Game Files?
If you want to upload custom sounds/files/models, send me a message for read/write permissions. (You agree to forfeit any rights to intellectual property that you send in, because I can't be bothered to remove anything or pay up when you change your mind!)

MachinesUE will be free, always and I'm not going to make a single penny of of it :) All rights belong to Nightdive Studios!

Reaction Nightdive studio

Hey Wouter,

Thanks for reaching out, you are free to work on fan projects as long as it's not commercialized. If you want to periodically send us updates I'd love to check in on your progress. Also, if you have a pitch doc or a design doc you want to share I'd love to check it out. We've only recently received the source code so unfortunately we haven't had time to do anything with it.

Regards,

Stephen

@bilal

Ah.

1. Acclaim Entertainment was the owner of the distribution rights. Nothing else.
2. Charybdis Limited was the owner of the IP rights
3. Charybdis was owned 75% by Hit & Run Music Publishing at time of liquidation.
4. That makes them the current owner, probably?

Hit & Run Music Publishing Limited
25 Ives Street London SW3 2ND United Kingdom‎
+44 20 7590 2600

(I'm not going to call. No, I'm going to send them... a letter)

4. Try to acquire the rights nicely? Symbolic sum? They probably forgot about the game entirely.
5. We're not making any money so we're not 'morally evil'
6. It's a 16 year old game. There simply isn't money to be had by any party. There is no victim, there is no value.
7. If there is some third party that wants to acquire the rights from Hit & Run, it wouldnt be cleber to kill of the hardcore fanbase of the game. Truly.
8. We just change the name
9. If we already have implemented a lot of goodness, we can remove the offending material and create new ones. But at least we already have other things in place (Maps, AI etc etc).

What I'm saying is that we should run with it and deal with the challenges along the way. Progress in development above all. The legal stuff we can worry about when it's a thing to worry about. Otherwise it's waste of time.

Continued! I'm all for the Unity 5 Engine (Or any other engine that's the 'best', even though it's not purely an RTS-engine). For one reason: Every year, there are thousands of kids (on insanely good computers) that try their hand on pc-game development. What engine do they use to start learning? Probably Unity 5. It's free, it insanely good.

Using one of the newest and best engines out there would be a sound business idea (even though this isn't business) simply because there are so many people with knowledge out there and many more that want to acquire knowledge about this engine for future careers. That's valuable. We supply them with the resources and watch magic happen.

Those are my thoughts 'n arguments. I invite your criticism.

Just uploaded the my MASSIVE MOD Version 0.1

You get:
1 Onslaught Map
5 Testing Ground Maps
1 Machine Mayhem (Arena) Map (You have to play this with 4players, otherwise crash. WIll fix this later)

Few rebalances of Machines & weapons

VERSION 0.1 is DONE (Download Link below)

Version 0.1 contains:

• The Arena (You have to select 4 player or it crashes atm)
• Testing Ground 1 to 5 (Reaper, Commandant, Knight, Goliath, Gorilla)
• New Skirmish Map: Talonthia 8 Onslaught

Some unit adjustments:

• Reapers = Fire Bursts of 5 rays, little reload time. Nerfed damage considerably.
• Plasma Turrets/Commandants = Fire Bursts of 3 instead of 1 but 3 times less damage per shot.
• Grunts/Scouts = Do 20 damage instead of... 4? but much much longer reload time. It's now a scout/suicide trooper.
• JudasWarlord/Assassin Warlord both now have 100/100 Armor/Health, up from 30/40 Armor and 70/80 Health each I believe. A unit to be feared.
• All buildings have around 50 armor, instead of the weird low amounts then normally had. Pod now has 1000 armor instead of 1.

Version 0.2 will contain:
2 new maps: Satellite Sumo & Satellite Suicide
2 new Assault maps - Assault Jungle and Assault Deepspace
1 New Onslaught Map - Homeworld.
1 Modified Midian Prime Interior Onslaught Map (Same as version 0.1 but higher difficulty)

Version 0.3 will contain
Hunted & Hunter mods

Downloads:

• Modification Guide (V1.2) - Updated 4/4/2015
• Judas's MassiveMod (V0.1)

How to install:
Create a back-up of your files:
Machines\machstrg.dll
Machines\mach1.met,
Machines\Scninfo.bin

Delete:
Playdata.bin from Machines\savegame
Scninfo.bin from Machines\data
Optional: Scninfo.bin from User\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\Machines

Unzip:
Unzip files to your main Machines folder.

Play!

Errors? Submit them @ Www.wiredforwar.org

Sponsors
3D Object Converter

(Sponsors are in no way affiliated, responsible or linked to this project, other than being freakin' awesome and helping us/me out in various ways!)

This forum is an absolute treasure.

I believe it also depends on the bitmap depth. 24-bit bmp's crash whilst 256color(8-bit) bmp's do not. It was something like that.

Update
(I'm also wondering. I remember a .bin (or a .strg?) file somewhere which has all the texture names in it. Perhaps that's the file that decides what .bmp files to load, perhaps it's possible to tweak it so that it accepts .pngs and such? or 24bit bmp's? hmm)

update
Just an idea, but where could it say that it only accepts 8bit bmps? In the model data?

update
Could it be possible to increase the bitmaps to 24bit by editing the models itself? Or is it loaded during a centralized point aka at launch?

Update:
I found something in the extracted .x files.

Things like

Material ID_2668 {
 1.000000, 1.000000, 1.000000, 1.000000;;
 0.000000;
0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000;;
0.00, 0.00, 0.00;;
TextureFilename {
"fafA1_b.BMP";
}

which I found in agf2a35.x in \models\administ\boss\level2. What if we change these to PNG? (We didn't have a way to repack the .x files did we? hm)

Update: Isn't the .bin just a packaged file? If we remove the .bin file but copy back the packaged files in the correct place, doesn't that work?

Haha, crashes. Did you know I have 110 versions of mach1.met atm and only 3 of 'm work perfectly? The rest crashes.

I love crashes, they force me to learn. (I'm just freaky like that, hahaha)

How I feel:

Technical stuff = Github.
Creative stuff, showing off pictures, talking etc = Development Section (Like the old forum?)

@X-Lord That was actually a mistake, although I'm playing with the idea to switch out the eyes depending on the health or command.

So if the health is low = sad eyes, even if its a military unit.

If command is 'attack', then angry eyes! and so forth

@JiEndo

Work is (very) slowly progressing :)

Been working on the 3D models for buildings today :)

https://youtu.be/ERlMGYKOh20

Cool!

Sooo. how would you even start editing this? I suppose you can't drag and drop it into UE4? :'D

I just downloaded the zipped game, extracted and and ran it on my W10 Laptop.

It just worked! No fix or patch required.

No errors, no glitches! I'm actually pleasantly surprised!

Introduction

Hi everybody. I've decided that I'm going to kickstart MachinesUE.

Therefore I'll be hiring one or more freelancers that can supply steady updates to this game. Want to help? Send me a PM or reply in this thread with your skills.

Project Tracking

Getting the old files

• Extraction from 1999 game - DONE

Sounds / Music / Voices

• From old game - DONE

Creation of Blender files (3d models)

• Buildings - DONE
• Units bases DONE
• Locomotion DONE
• Faceplates DONE
• Weapons DONE
• Artifacts TO BE STARTED
• Other TO BE STARTED

Static meshes in UE4

• Buildings DONE
• Units bases IN PROGRESS
• Locomotion DONE
• Faceplates DONE
• Weapons DONE
• Artifacts TO BE STARTED
• Other TO BE STARTED

Upscaled Textures in UE4

• Upscaling to 4K DONE
• Uploading into UE4 DONE

Blueprints

• Buildings - DONE
• Units - IN PROGRESS
• Artifacts - TO BE STARTED
• Other - TO BE STARTED

Animation

• Units - TO BE DONE
• Buildings - TO BE DONE

AI

• Pathfinding - IN PROGRESS

Resource systems

• Mining - TO BE STARTED
• Transporting - TO BE STARTED
• Resource types - TO BE STARTED

Building systems

• Selection menu - TO BE IMPROVED
• Building blueprint - TO BE IMPROVED

As a start we're going to take an existing 'RTS Template' that's based on a bunch of blueprints. First step is to check if this template is any good and if we can use it to build on

The Team

• Project Management
  Judas

• Game Developers
  Tomas N..
  Marius

Note: We'll be re-using the original files in order to stay true to the 1999 version. Once we have that version (MVP) then we can consider upgrading meshes/textures/etc

Downloads

MachinesUE Game Files:
Download MachinesUE Game Files
We're going to set up a Subversion, link TBA.

Upload Game Files?
If you want to upload custom sounds/files/models, send me a message for read/write permissions. (You agree to forfeit any rights to intellectual property that you send in, because I can't be bothered to remove anything or pay up when you change your mind!)

MachinesUE will be free, always and I'm not going to make a single penny of of it :) All rights belong to Nightdive Studios!

Reaction Nightdive studio

Hey Wouter,

Thanks for reaching out, you are free to work on fan projects as long as it's not commercialized. If you want to periodically send us updates I'd love to check in on your progress. Also, if you have a pitch doc or a design doc you want to share I'd love to check it out. We've only recently received the source code so unfortunately we haven't had time to do anything with it.

Regards,

Stephen

Since data storage is nearly free nowadays:

Backup - OneDrive

In case this website ever goes down.

@marvin said:

Hi, I created a Reaper in Blender. It is already rigged and textured. For the Textures it may be helpful to have some basic Materail-Textures for the Metal, so that the Models look not too different. I already created some and if you like them I can share them. ;D

Based on the model, i uploaded two vids. In one animation i just let the legs move, to better support a moving body for aming in first person for example.

//Added: Run Animation:
Animation with moving body
Animation without moving body

Here is the Result:

Hey, that's pretty cool

So, today it took me quite an embarrassingly amount of time to get the functionality of opening up the Construction menu after clicking the 'Construction' command.

But yeah, now I got it. I have not yet found a way to reset the menu to the 'Commands' menu after placing a building or right-clicking. Right now it goes back straight into the 'Construction' menu (like a toggle has been set)

Now I have a 'Cancel' button that takes you back manually to the 'Commands' menu, but still, eh. I need it to reset to the start.

Hopefully I won't get slower returns now I'm reaching the limits of either:

1. The extremely limited knowledge I have
2. What the design of this blueprint/template allows.

I think I'm beginning to see major flaws in the design of the template, but we'll see.

PS: I'm really, REALLY effing amazed that there are NO GOOD RTS TEMPLATES ready-to-buy in the UE4 Marketplace. It's so focussed on FPS. Is there nobody with knowledge that thought 'Perhaps a Warcraft 3-Style Menu would really sell?'