My project - "Shelter".

shihonage

shihonage

Made in USSR
Hi guys,

Back in 1999 I started working on a project ("Shelter"), which has been abandoned several times, restarted, abandoned, restarted, etc. Shamefully, I even announced it on this forum sometime in 2001 never to be seen again.

It's never been the technical difficulties (I've been coding games for fun since 1988), but just general lack of time and focus.

Long story short, in the past year I've picked up the project again. It is being made by me (coding) and my cousin (level design/scripting) and it is a spiritual successor to Fallout (1) in a different universe.

Does anyone remember the movie "Screamers" ? I loved that movie's setting, which seems very similar to Fallout to me. "That GODDAMN radiation !" "So we have to smoke this shit into our lungs just to neutralize the shit in our lungs ?"

Borrowing Fallout :Tactics' graphical assets (for now?), running on top of my engine (written in Visual C), the project currently looks like this:

norp.jpg


World item population is in place (people are being assigned items according to their level). People animate and walk around. There's sound and basic atmospheric effects. Currently I am working on inventory UI, then dialogue scripting, then turn-based combat. The game already has the means of having combat(from my previous attempts) but it needs to be heavily reworked.

The game will be scriptable by modifying of various .txt files in its folders (including dialogue and NPC stats), and the isometric editor is WYSIWYG, largely. It does not allow the player to WALK on multiple height levels, but thats because I don't want to get so lost in the technology as to forget about the game.

matrix.jpg


Anyway... just an update on a project no one remembers :)
 
Hello, these screen shots look very good, i must say nice work, If you need any help with plot or back ground, anything that has to do with writing in general let me know, i'm not good at any thing else really, my mods will never get done...

But anyway "Screamers" great choise, great movie, cant wait to see it completed.
 
Very interesting project :-)

You said that you borrowed some FO:T assets: did you write your own content loader for them (based on the teamx docs in this case, I guess) or did you simply convert the graphics to a different format to be able to load them into the engine?

I'm asking because converting graphics can bring up quite some issues. You would need to ship the converter with your game as shipping the graphics with your game will bring you into trouble with the copyright holder (Though I'm not sure if Interplay cares at all).
 
Thanks Barracuda, that is a good point. Ideally our third guy (a 3D modeler) will eventually replace all FO:T assets with lookalikes.

Plan B: I'll supply an installer which will look for an existing FO:T installation on the user's hard drive and perform a one-time extraction of assets.
 
Looks really fine, Cant help on script or any tech aspect but still, Ill be following progress in case you need some back story/quest content sometime.
 
Item graphics are temporary/unclean, but inventory and visual reflection of the characters being equipped with different weapon and armor types functions closely to the way it did in Fallout.

I.E. if you put a different armor type or class of weapon on him, the animated in-game guy changes appearance to match.

Not that I am remaking Fallout, or anything.

steal.jpg
[/img]
 
Nice shot...

Say, I'm more interested for that "dialogue scripting" part. Any more info about it?
 
Hmmm, rather interesting. The script and the text in the same file. What can be checked in the dialogue tree? Stats, skills, weapons, armors, inventory..?

Edit: I saw item and quest checks... What else?
 
lisac2k said:
Hmmm, rather interesting. The script and the text in the same file. What can be checked in the dialogue tree? Stats, skills, weapons, armors, inventory..?

Edit: I saw item and quest checks... What else?
Click to expand...

Stats (this includes everything from small gun skill to player health), skills(actually part of stats), inventory. On-player weapon/armor are already a part of the inventory, they're just fixed to specific slots (visually and internally). When you do an inventory search, they will also be combed.

This is the core plan. I try and stick to the core until its done, then I expand it. I.E. later on I could add some fanciful checks, like "how close is the nearest enemy to player", and more actions, like "target enemy nearest to player and initiate combat mode".

But sticking to core for now.
 
Very commendable effort, mister. Any detailed project documentation, any milestones?

Also, are you going to use multi-layered sprites (like FOT), anti-aliased sprites?
 
lisac2k said:
Very commendable effort, mister. Any detailed project documentation, any milestones?

Also, are you going to use multi-layered sprites (like FOT), anti-aliased sprites?
Click to expand...

No antialiasing for me, because FO:T used some internal format which loses the alpha values upon extraction with all the inferior tools that exist out there. I'm pretty sure they used alpha values for the edges of animated sprites. However, it still looks acceptable when I ignore them, which is what I am doing now.

There's already a dynamic person/critter sprite loading system in place, so that it doesn't ahve to load every possible combinatin of everything on start-up, but only if needed (Fallout had the same system, I am sure).

As you may see in earlier screenshots, multi-layered sprites for the environment are already in use. Those walls don't come with those green screens and lockers hanging on them. Those tables don't come with monitors standing on them. Those beds don't come with an IV, etc etc.

Actually I've decided that my next goal is combat. Combat precluded dialogue, as dialogue may initiate combat but not the other way around. As long as I don't degenerate the game into Alien Shooter : Vengeance or Crusader: No Remorse, everything will be fine :)

Combat will be turn-based only, even though technically I am used to programming realtime combat. But I believe that in a traditional, single-player, cerebral RPG, realtime combat breaks the flow and mood. Multiplayer is another story, but there isn't going to be any here.

P.S. Regarding documentation, I have a development log on Livejournal but its just for me and my cousins for now. It's not really ready for public humi... consumption.

My closest milestone is fully functional turnbased combat, then scripting, then we start to get serious and create something similar to the alpha demo that came out for Fallout 1 back in 1996 ;)
 
I see. Bunch of useful info, for sure. However,
As you may see in earlier screenshots, multi-layered sprites for the environment are already in use. Those walls don't come with those green screens and lockers hanging on them. Those tables don't come with monitors standing on them. Those beds don't come with an IV, etc etc.
Click to expand...
I was interested in PC/NPCs, are those sprites going to be multi-layered? I mean multi-layered as in FOT, if you don't know exactly what I'm talking about I'll gladly explain it shortly.

Maybe a stupid question, but anyway...
 
lisac2k said:
I see. Bunch of useful info, for sure. However,
As you may see in earlier screenshots, multi-layered sprites for the environment are already in use. Those walls don't come with those green screens and lockers hanging on them. Those tables don't come with monitors standing on them. Those beds don't come with an IV, etc etc.
Click to expand...
I was interested in PC/NPCs, are those sprites going to be multi-layered? I mean multi-layered as in FOT, if you don't know exactly what I'm talking about I'll gladly explain it shortly.

Maybe a stupid question, but anyway...
Click to expand...

From what I see in FO:T sprite structures, 95% of them are not multilayered. FO:T, just like Fallout 1/2, appears to use multiple pre-rendered combinations. They have separate sprite cateogories, for instance:

Tribesman with knife
Tribesman with pistol
Tribesman with SMG
Tribesman with minigun

Leatherarmor with knife
Leatherarmor with pistol
Leatherarmor with SMG
Leatherarmor with minigun

For both male and female variations, i.e. times 2.
Then they divide into further subcategories, i.e.

"Leather armor male with SMG, walking"
"Leather armor male with SMG, shooting"
"Leather armor male with SMG, exploding"

Diablo 2 and Crusader games both used multi-layered sprites, but FO:T only uses them for some death animations which involve fire and plasma burning.

Unless you mean something entirely different that I don't understand...
 
Right, Diablo 2 is a good example for it. Though I could swear my granpa's partisan grave I used some utility made by some guy (Polish, IIRC), which shows FOT sprites as multi-layered...

Nevermind, let's stick to Diablo 2 scheme, that's a good example... I'll send you a PM soon with more questions :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top