DescentBB

Snoooop!
We SHOULD be able to have a multiplayer demo by the end of the year.
That's what we're shooting for. We fully agree on Gameplay vs Looks. I stress it constantly. We are not striving to primarily compete with big name games visually, I feel that is a huge downfall. I want to make a GAME, not a movie. Games to me are something addictive because they are fun so we are going to make that our focus. I want to blast you, not stare at you. A lot of games today do not seem to respect the fact that to shoot something you have to see it. Filling the screen with smoke and mirrors makes it hard to fight so you can definately look forward to a clear screen in combat.

Can someone post them? I can't get to their site...

A game must have amazing multiplayer gameplay (for me versatile items, beautiful maps, and comedy) OR, A really interesting and amazing singleplayer storyline. (or both)

Halflife 1 had both,
Prey has story,
Halflife 2 has multiplayer.

Descent for me has both as well.

Just my little input on what makes me buy a game.

zbriggs wrote:

Sirius wrote:Um... Indika had a lot of polys being rendered at one time, but I've beaten 3000 polygons in Descent 2 levels.

Go into Descent 2 and try to create a level that at any given time has 1.2 million polys in view and handles real-time radiosity as well as soft shadows, normal maps, bump maps, and textures that are 4096x4096. Then toss a few shaders in there and let me know whatcha get.

I'm referring to the comment about Indika 4 being one of the most high-poly levels available. Simply put, it isn't - it's one of the lowest, and far below anything which I'd call a worthwhile use of the D3 engine.

I'm not going to complain about the CD engine though... at the very least it looks pretty powerful.

Sirius wrote:

zbriggs wrote:

Sirius wrote:Um... Indika had a lot of polys being rendered at one time, but I've beaten 3000 polygons in Descent 2 levels.

Go into Descent 2 and try to create a level that at any given time has 1.2 million polys in view and handles real-time radiosity as well as soft shadows, normal maps, bump maps, and textures that are 4096x4096. Then toss a few shaders in there and let me know whatcha get.

I'm referring to the comment about Indika 4 being one of the most high-poly levels available. Simply put, it isn't - it's one of the lowest, and far below anything which I'd call a worthwhile use of the D3 engine.

I'm not going to complain about the CD engine though... at the very least it looks pretty powerful.

You're debating something amongst basically yourself because I was simply trying to give a ballpark figure for poly stats, not claim bragging rights to the highest poly level ever. Sorry if I gave that impression, which i'm sure I didn't except to you. Poly comparison was the only point. Poke holes in the rest of it if you must.

Here is a link to a gallery of the screens

http://psion.sonicwave.biz/

\"Could not be found\"

woodchip wrote:"Could not be found"

Same goes for http://coredecision.highoctane.biz/

Since the game devs themselves hopped in on this thread, I feel I owe them an elaboration of my comments.

Yes, the engine may have more features than the D3 engine, it may be able to draw more polys and do lots of nifty eye-candy stuff and whatnot. If all that is the case, the screenshots mentioned in the first post of this topic don't do the engine any justice. They were dull and could have been passed off as having been rendered by the D3 engine easily. The screenshots were neither technology demos nor real-game shots, so there is nothing new to them to show off with.

The technical capabilities of an engine are only half of the real story; gameplay quality plays an equal part (if not more) in the success of a game.

The site with the new screenshots is down, but I look forward to seeing them. I think they can do much better!

Redundancy FTW.

Stryker was nice enough to move the zip of the screens to a free public host, and I upped the bandwidth limit on coredecision.highoctane.biz another 2gb so it's back up.


http://rapidshare.de/files/30838346/Cor ... s.zip.html

Nice work Psi!

Psionik, since you're here, can you tell us what you plan for the AI to be like?
Because for a 6DOF game, the AI is usually among the most important things in gameplay.

oh the AI is going to be sick...

Do the words \"We are the borg\" and \"collective adaptation\" abilities mean anything to you?

you're a twisted person jared.

HighOctane_Jared wrote:oh the AI is going to be sick...

Was it really necessary to add puking into the game?
=P

Anyway, good luck.

psionik wrote: [truncated]
It does not focus on "me too" engine fluff even though it has it but on solid competition grade gameplay. I am very confident in our ability to make sure everything goes together to create a GREAT game that all the pilots out there will love to play. I am a hardcore descenter who plays d1 to this very day. There are tons of people in the community, both d3 and d1/2, who know me very well and I am sure noone doubts that I will personally push Core Decision to be a fantastic new 6dof shooter that is more than competetive with descent in the gameplay category.

This is great news. I wish you guys sucsess in your endevors.

I dont know about everyone else but the screen shots were uber-dark for me. I had to come way up on my gamma to really get a good idea what they looked like.

The graphics looks very cool and clean but I am hoping that the game is going to come with a brightness control.

Oh and just so you know why its dark for me. Its because I have applied the nvidia screen optimization wizard. Yes it does make the screen generally darker, but it also makes the colors in digital photographs really stand out. They dont have that washed out effect.

ok.. about lighting..

anyone that has built a Descent level (with any sucess) knows that Descent cheats on the lighting. It uses something called \"ambient light\".

This is light without a direct source (or none at all in most cases). If this was NOT used, most of the Descent levels we have enjoyed over the years would have looked just like this. D3 cheated a little less, but not by much.

so yeah it's \"uber dark\". This isn't the GAP with lights every 24 inches.

psionik wrote: There are tons of people in the community, both d3 and d1/2, who know me very well and I am sure noone doubts that I will personally push Core Decision to be a fantastic new 6dof shooter

Jeromie that you??

.

I don't think Descent used ambient light at all. It had the illusion of it because the ship (and other entities in the mine) emittted a slight amount of light.

I guess one question would be, are you using dynamic light with stencil shadows (like Doom 3?) or are you using lightmaps (like Unreal)? Vertex lighting? All of the above?

Personally, these screenshots are really dark and the world doesn't seem especially high-poly. It's hard to tell what to make of it. However, it is vastly improved over the \"pipe room\" example months ago.

Ky, Descent 3 has ambient lighting options.

In D1 and D2 (as you know) lighting is calculated from the corners of each cube as it is inline with said light source. If I recall, there is an option to effect the overall lighting of the mine. kind alike an generic gamma setting.

It has options. Which isn't to say maps used them. Of course, given the overall brightness of Descent 3, we may have wished they didn't.

Sup wrote:

psionik wrote: There are tons of people in the community, both d3 and d1/2, who know me very well and I am sure noone doubts that I will personally push Core Decision to be a fantastic new 6dof shooter

Jeromie that you??

.

Yes it is sir :]
sup Josh!

Kyouryuu wrote:I don't think Descent used ambient light at all. It had the illusion of it because the ship (and other entities in the mine) emittted a slight amount of light.

I guess one question would be, are you using dynamic light with stencil shadows (like Doom 3?) or are you using lightmaps (like Unreal)? Vertex lighting? All of the above?

Personally, these screenshots are really dark and the world doesn't seem especially high-poly. It's hard to tell what to make of it. However, it is vastly improved over the "pipe room" example months ago.

I'm trying to get some cleaner shots together, try not to judge too much by those as they are first draft work. I personally thought they were awesome simply because they show a bit of our engine at work and may hopefully begin to instill some dark rumblings from deep within the community. I haven't really stuck tons of prefabs around to break up the shell yet because I don't really have alot textured and my machine is starting to chunk. I am going back and optimizing before I shove more at it. New high quality screenshots are inbound however and they may change some opinions, maybe not...

You have to admit its pretty neat that they released 100+ screenshots! My only request is that we get a view of the ship without the docking clamps. At least thats what they look like to me. I'm not really sure why people are so disappointed. Looking at the new screenshots is more fun than playing WoW or other generic games.

Don't mean to cross post, but since a lot of people are looking at this thread:

Clicky!

Verran wrote:Don't mean to cross post, but since a lot of people are looking at this thread:

Clicky!

I love all the songs you guys have made for the game (I have heard three I think)! Good job!

psionik wrote:

Sup wrote:

psionik wrote: There are tons of people in the community, both d3 and d1/2, who know me very well and I am sure noone doubts that I will personally push Core Decision to be a fantastic new 6dof shooter

Jeromie that you??

.

Yes it is sir :]
sup Josh!

awesome, level building is in good hands then imo!

.

I went ahead and retook them much bigger and with some ambient lighting.

http://coredecision.highoctane.biz/modu ... opic&t=177


Thanks Josh :]

Yeah, engine seems to have modern capabilities... it just needs better textures mostly.

I know the level is only beta, but that's still no reason to have such a shoddy scene. Don't get me wrong, I respect you and your team. However I'm just saying that everything needs a serious amount of work before it will start to impress me.

If that's bump mapping I'm seeing, those shots are showing it off fairly well, but I think it could still use more poly's, especially in parts that are supposed to be curved. I think it was the Quake3 engine that could render curves with variable smoothness so that low-end users could turn down the smoothness and high-end users could turn it up. I don't know if that's conceivable here.

AverageJoe wrote:I know the level is only beta, but that's still no reason to have such a shoddy scene. Don't get me wrong, I respect you and your team. However I'm just saying that everything needs a serious amount of work before it will start to impress me.

I'd say it would look quite different once the bots are put in.
But that's just me.

AverageJoe wrote:However I'm just saying that everything needs a serious amount of work before it will start to impress me.

Sheesh, everyone screams "Give us screen shots of the work in progress!!!", then when they get them, they scream "Ick! That looks like a work in progress!!!"

Kilarin wrote:Sheesh, everyone screams "Give us screen shots of the work in progress!!!", then when they get them, they scream "Ick! That looks like a work in progress!!!"

Whoa buddy, I didn't say anything like that. I could care less if it was a full AAA, published title and not a single screenshot was released.


I guess since I'm a professional developer I expect higher caliber work. Potatoe, Patato.

Damn, it looks cool, and it is in the sucky stage!

THAT is a game, if it looks cool in the sucky stage!

(I do agree, the pilliars on the first or second pic need more rounding.)

AverageJoe wrote:

Kilarin wrote:Sheesh, everyone screams "Give us screen shots of the work in progress!!!", then when they get them, they scream "Ick! That looks like a work in progress!!!"

Whoa buddy, I didn't say anything like that. I could care less if it was a full AAA, published title and not a single screenshot was released.


I guess since I'm a professional developer I expect higher caliber work. Potatoe, Patato.

I guess you have to come to terms with the fact that these pictures were released to satisfy a group of people other than yourself and they are doing a great job of that. They aren't about making everyone cry with envy because they are the best work they've ever seen. They are about letting people know something very real is under way and to prepare for something other than descent. The feedback has been great and we will continue woking and developing this project into a full fledged monster. Stay tuned.

psionik wrote:

AverageJoe wrote:

Kilarin wrote:Sheesh, everyone screams "Give us screen shots of the work in progress!!!", then when they get them, they scream "Ick! That looks like a work in progress!!!"

Whoa buddy, I didn't say anything like that. I could care less if it was a full AAA, published title and not a single screenshot was released.


I guess since I'm a professional developer I expect higher caliber work. Potatoe, Patato.

I guess you have to come to terms with the fact that these pictures were released to satisfy a group of people other than yourself and they are doing a great job of that. They aren't about making everyone cry with envy because they are the best work they've ever seen. They are about letting people know something very real is under way and to prepare for something other than descent. The feedback has been great and we will continue woking and developing this project into a full fledged monster. Stay tuned.

/me turns on his "I-see-you-too TV set" and sits glued.

Hell, even if the texture work sucks ass, that doesn't make the engine unusable. That's all I care about any more.

Well, that and the toolset.