FOnline 2238 goes 2.5D with Van Buren Assets

Dude101

Vault Fossil
Modder
A few months ago Senpay created a script to export Van Burens resources and since then the Fonline team appears to have been very busy. The video and screen shots show fully animated VB critters and people:

<blockquote>FOnline: 2238 Announcement, Jumping into the 3d era
(or: how we learned to not be that flat anymore.)

A long time has passed since we released our last developer video and really, it was about time this changed. The new developers video features a topic that we have been working on for some months and we are proud to finally have it in a shape to present it to the public: 3D models.

We decided to move the FOnline engine from a pure 2d to a 2.5d engine, due to the fact that sprite editing is a long and tiresome job. With every change on the player characters, it is nesaccary to edit more than 10.000 single images, even if it's something simple like a different hair color or a new armor type. The use of 3D models helps us in developing more and diversified content in a shorter timer span and still keep the look and feel of the original games.

After the release of the first 3d model converter for the Van Buren models (Van Buren - the code name of the cancled Fallout 3 by Interplay, for the ones who don't know it), we thought it was a great idea to reuse the material we could get out of the tech demo that has been released in 2007. Even if not complete, the build featured character models with already more than 90 animations and a lot customisations for body type or hair and beard styles.

In the third developers video, Anton "Cvet" Tsvetinskiy, FOnline main programmer, is talking about the details of how the new 3d critters are working and will work in the future of FOnline: 2238. Check it out:
<center>
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0NtCHSjNoc[/youtube]
The video can also be found on ModDB
</center>

The first update-wave will introduce 3d models for the animal creatures, such as models for the rats, ants, venus mantrap, thorn slinger, desert stalker or the lovely rad toads. Also a big content update is going to hit the server, which includes new game features and quests for both, PvP and PvE-friends.

In combination with this, the server has to undergo a full wipe. This will happen in approx one or two weeks at most, when the update will be available on the public server.

As an appendix, beside the video, here are some actual ingame screenshots:
<center>

</center>
- Cvet & Rotators</blockquote>

The FOnline engine will soon be made available for modders to create single player games of their own. This looks to be the future of all classic Fallout total conversion mods.

Links:
Discussion on NMA
FOnline 2238 Dev blog
 
Yeah I already read about it on FON. This is looking great. Those guys did an awesome job. I love how it fits with the "old" graphic. The Junktown part is just ballin'.
 
I really hope our next TC will be in this engine. It looks fantastic. No more engine limitations. :D
 
Now I can finally post one of the first 3d screenshots in public. I think it was first or second testing session with big sized models to see if everything works correct.

 
Dude101 said:
No more engine limitations. :D
Not only this. Infamous highlight "feature" is fixed (at least I think so :P), better lighting (I could live with old ;)), and much better Mapper (super cool improvement).

FOnline engine will make this past-gen hag obsolete for TCs. And of course, as Lexx said, it can be a platform for not Fallout related stuff.
 
Wow The VB characters in FO2 look amazing!! I'm very impressed!

A few questions though. By looking at the Yoytube vid, it seems that combat takes place in RT instead of TB. Does the FO online engine still support TB combat?

Next question, with FO engine soon to be released (I hope :) ) how much work would it be to transfere both fallout games too this engine? (if possible at all)

Looking really great! gives my somehow the feeling of FO3 how it should have been! 2.5D FTW :P
 
The FOnline engine supports rt and tb combat.

Porting Fallout 1 and 2 to the FOnline engine is something that would a lot time and work, because every single script has to be rewritten in AngelScript and that's not a easy task. Also all dialogues have to be ported into the new dialog(file) format.


A release for the client and server files is still not dated. First it was planned for april, but then the decision came up to do 3d first, which slowed down everything else. So a release of the first files will still take it's time.
 
That's just great. Look forward to see the editing tools !

Yet I find it funny that a few months ago I pointed how modding Fallout 2 was a loss of time, and how a modern engine would considerably reduce mod developping time and everyone told me "no, modding fallout 2 is easy and quick"...
I feel a little strange now... And look forward to the modders explain to me how it isn't for speed and practicality that they switched, but just because of 2.5D eye-candy ?
 
yeah, as excellent as this is I thought the Van buren assets were owned by bethesda, or are you guys going to do the same trick where you use the launcher to point out where the vital files are
 
Well if the call to Bethesda Zenimax comes from someone on this forum we know that one member is a despicable weasel without a spine who best dig himself deep inside Todd Howard's ass as that would probably be the place he would feel most at home.
 
The Dutch Ghost said:
Well if the call to Bethesda Zenimax comes from someone on this forum we know that one member is a despicable weasel without a spine who best dig himself deep inside Todd Howard's ass as that would probably be the place he would feel most at home.

...

Yeah, or a number of Bethesda's staff are known to read our frontpage, or at least follow our RSS.

shinymans said:
yeah, as excellent as this is I thought the Van buren assets were owned by bethesda

Not really. I mean, they're not assets used or even going to be used in a commercial products, and while Bethesda owns some of them, Obsidian owns quite a few of the assets as well, though how much is unclear.

Regardless, they can't really claim standard copyright infringement here, what with the assets being unreleased and FOnline non-commercial, they'd more than likely have to claim damages to copyrighted products, such as Fallout Online, only Bethesda can't really make that claim - at least not as easily - if Interplay has that license.

In other words, it's not cut and dry. Not that that'll stop 'em
 
Okay okay BN, I overreacted, and I apologize for it.

But I do find it rather low that there are people on the forum who would immediately run to Bethesda Zenimax to warn them of possible copyright violations.

It is not as if the FOnline team is cutting in on their business.
 
Arr0nax said:
"no, modding fallout 2 is easy and quick"...
I feel a little strange now... And look forward to the modders explain to me how it isn't for speed and practicality that they switched, but just because of 2.5D eye-candy ?

Eye candy is a bonus. Modding F2 is easy if you know how, but more ambitious stuff can be a challenge. FOnline engine does not have any retarded hardcoded issues like FO2. We reached the tile limit at MR recently, which is a pain in the ass. Other retarded stuff includes the need to cut up objects and reassemble them like a giant puzzle. Look at the Morrows base screen shot in the MR gallery:

http://mutantsrising.com/uploads/images/mr/huge.jpg

I feel sorry for our mappers, as that had to be cut up into a million pieces to work in the crappy F2 engine. There is every reason in the world to jump ship. Not just for shiny nostalgia.
 
Back
Top