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

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

https://youtu.be/ERlMGYKOh20

Since data storage is nearly free nowadays:

Backup - OneDrive

In case this website ever goes down.

Hi all,

Here's a quick roadmap for the version of OpenMachines I'm creating. Goal here is to enable developers to continue working on it in the far far future. To enable this, I want to build a ready-to-eat development pack that you can download and work on.

Milestone 1 - All models in UE4, skinned & merged (Note: not animated)
This will make the game really visible and nice to look at. Plus, it's crappy work to have to skin all the textures & such. I want to provide a OpenMachines download that's ready-to-go for anybody that wants to start building.

Milestone 2 - All buildings are buildable via GUI
This means that the simple game-mechanics work. Since I'm using a template, harvesting resources & such is already handled. Completing this means I will be able to create Machine City.

Milestone 3 - Add all units to UE4, skinned
Not looking forward to this. I also can't animate, so I will stick to wheels, tracks, fly and hover. Sorry reapers :(

Future Milestones:

1. Create nice maps
2. Menu's
3. Shooting
4. Other colors (Green, Yellow, Blue)
5. AI
6. First Person Controls (If any)
7. Change resource types

Download latest project here:
http://download.wiredforwar.org/Template/Machines v0.1.rar

3 Player Mayhem Free4All

2AM EDIT: I suddenly realize where the green bitmaps that I switched with the red bitmaps ended up. Check out those (green) Goliath missiles!

Okay

Joust 2.0

@bilal

I just installed/played Machines on my new WIndows 8 pc. It feels slow but no issues whatsoever. Haven't installed patch or .dll files

Edit: Nevermind:

The pink spots are the .bmp files that are going crazy. Normally the pink means 'see-through' but apparently something isn't telling Machines.

@bilal

Sound like we're in agreement then :D

@bilal

I've asked the guys that created the converter if we could get a free key (even if it's only for a single use), this being the product of love, sweat and tears. :) (But looking at others is wise, as I don't know if they'll respond positively if at all)

Just wondering!

Who here has succesfully done the little Judas Dance with the Gorillas in the final mission and completed the entire campaign without any cheats??

Took me 20 reloads to finally establish a presence in that darned room. No shame in creating a savegame every minute... right?

ALL THE MODELS + TEXTURES

http://download.wiredforwar.org/Game/Machines Models %26 Textures.zip

In .x and .obj (Wavefront). If anybody needs the files in another format, call me!