Anglachel Posted May 19, 2003 Report Share Posted May 19, 2003 I saw that Deimos liked my idea of cars in battles. Car models for the need for speed games that fans have made can be found at NFS Unlimited The makers of the cars might be willing to let us use them, and there is a very large selection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deimos Posted May 19, 2003 Report Share Posted May 19, 2003 There are some very nice cars on that site. I'm going to have to dig out a copy of NFS to have a play with them If we can get permission to use them in game it'd save us having to model them up, however I think it'd be a bit strange just having supercars in battlescape. However much fun it'd be to plant a blaster bomb on a Lamborghini I think we should either find or model up quite a few of the more mundane vehicles as well. It'd be a bit strange just having supercars in battlescape We'd need Trucks, SUV's, people carriers, 4x4's and lots and lots of Fords and little Japanese cars. They're sold all over the world so they could be reused. Not sure what the concentration of European cars is like in the rest of the world but we have a good proportion of all euro cars like bmw's, mercedes, renault's, seat's and fiats. I guess this is something would have to be localised again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Breunor Posted May 19, 2003 Report Share Posted May 19, 2003 We could just say that in the near future, everybody makes enough money to buy any car they like, and of course everybody wants the supercars, right? If we work in that cars are using fuel cells, I doubt there'd be as much demand for 0-100 in 4 seconds. Your battery would last about 6 minutes... Yeah, more mundane cars are a definite need for car models. Perhaps we could just do a search for car models, and invite anybody we find to join the group, get their work some exposure through the game? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anglachel Posted May 19, 2003 Author Report Share Posted May 19, 2003 (edited) I only have NFS 4. That is also the largest collection of vehicles they have. Here some you are probably looking forLand RoverSemi truck can get it with no trailer.HummerCrown Vic.Here is what is available in the Chrysler division, 300m, concord lx, prowler, pt cruiser, and voyager (the van)The list I am going off of is this one. There are a lot of racing and standard cars. The racing ones could be for a high end district of a city and the others could be your middle class area. Edited May 19, 2003 by Anglachel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deimos Posted May 19, 2003 Report Share Posted May 19, 2003 We could just say that in the near future, everybody makes enough money to buy any car they like, and of course everybody wants the supercars, right? If we work in that cars are using fuel cells, I doubt there'd be as much demand for 0-100 in 4 seconds. Your battery would last about 6 minutes... Yeah, more mundane cars are a definite need for car models. Perhaps we could just do a search for car models, and invite anybody we find to join the group, get their work some exposure through the game?I don't know, are we going to put the tech level so far in the future. With our weaponry being contemporary I thought it might be a good idea to keep all human tech at a contemporary level rather than having a sliding scale. I think we need to decide what the tech level is going to be, otherwise we'll have the patchwork effect creeping in. The problem with setting things in near future is similar to what I call the '50's effect'. There was the great vision of the future in the 50's where everything was chrome and cars had fins and so on. However we look back at it now and it looks so 50's. The same applies to pretty much every decade that has tried to show a vision of the future, it just ends up looking dated. Some examples of films that have broken that dated feeling off the top of my head are Blade runner and Aliens (though not Alien as the ship interiors suffer from the 70's look) both of which still look belivable today. I think they still work because the design of the films didn't use 'trendy' (at the time) visions of the future. If we use models that don't fit in with contemporary design we could quite easily slip into the '50's effect'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cubik Posted May 20, 2003 Report Share Posted May 20, 2003 Or, if someone would like to model a car, I've got quite alot of blueprints to base your model on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest drewid Posted May 20, 2003 Report Share Posted May 20, 2003 (edited) Maybe we should look round for "classic" design.Most of the cars are going to be dull boring family cars, so should look like it. Other progs that succeeded "Space 1999" (apart from the jumpsuits) Edit. some of the interior design was pretty grim too. but the craft were great. UFO (thinking of Strakers car). Aliens worked because the craft and weapons were firmly based in reality. The dropship was basically a big apache gunship, the weapons were all based on todays designs, I thought the tank was probably the weakest design, but only because of the lack of ground clearance. the rest of it was a clean-lined but realistic armoured car. Thinking about it that's why the Space 1999 Eagle transporter worked so well too, and their space suits. So basing stuff on todays tech may well not be a problem. ?? Edited May 20, 2003 by drewid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deimos Posted May 21, 2003 Report Share Posted May 21, 2003 The further someone has to stretch their imagination the harder it is to believe what they're seeing. That's why IMO Aliens and all the others mentioned work so well. That's why the current crop of films (I'm not going to say which ones ) have problems standing up to the masterpieces, because the technology is being used to show off instead of complimenting the storytelling. There are examples where it works well but for the most part I feel the technology is used for its own sake. In our case, imagination is a wonderful thing and we're only bound by the restrictions of the game specs. However using the full extent of our imagination just for its own sake, is going to end up feeling similar to using technology for it's own sake. We have to place restrictions in that we want the player to be pulled into the game and the best way is to follow the examples of 'classic' films and use models and tech that at least has a base in the real world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest drewid Posted May 23, 2003 Report Share Posted May 23, 2003 If we use models that don't fit in with contemporary design we could quite easily slip into the '50's effect'.I think you've got it there. I tell you what guys, we'll use cars of today, and if people are still playing the game in 20 years time, and things start to look dated then we can do them a new set Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red knight Posted May 24, 2003 Report Share Posted May 24, 2003 Off-topic: There gonna be PCs in 20 years???? Deimos you are right, the point of cool cars, aircraft and technology in general is complement the history... but if you mistakenly try to do it the other way arround then the user will not feel as it is right.... GreetingsRed Knight Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Breunor Posted May 25, 2003 Report Share Posted May 25, 2003 According to the site linked above, the files are in .viv format. Can that be converted for use here? If so, should we compose an official request to use the models? Or at least to use them as an optional add-in if there's licensing issues? The other issue is how many polys those models have, as always. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest drewid Posted May 25, 2003 Report Share Posted May 25, 2003 They might have lower LOD versions perhaps.They will be very hig, but it's easier to kill polys than build from nuthin. It might be worth looking as 3dcafe.com or other sources of free models, for some of our comtemporary objects Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red knight Posted May 25, 2003 Report Share Posted May 25, 2003 Make sure Cafe license is compatible with GPL... Just to be sure... and start keeping a list of the outside assets we use... GreetingsRed Knight Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anglachel Posted May 25, 2003 Author Report Share Posted May 25, 2003 According to the site linked above, the files are in .viv format. Can that be converted for use here? If so, should we compose an official request to use the models? Or at least to use them as an optional add-in if there's licensing issues? The other issue is how many polys those models have, as always.I believe the .viv format contains the model with other stuff like color options and damage scripts. There is a utility I downloaded that I think will let me extract the model. I will try it and report back on it when I have time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Breunor Posted May 28, 2003 Report Share Posted May 28, 2003 Hey Drewid, you used an app to reduce polys on the osprey transport model, what's the name of that program? Is there a demo or free version out there? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest drewid Posted May 28, 2003 Report Share Posted May 28, 2003 I'm afraid it is called elbow grease.I tried a couple of plugins and they were taking out the wrong polys.So I rebuilt it from scratch, using vertices on the original model as snapping points for the new one. Plugins don't work too well when the poly count gets under a certain level. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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