FreeGameDev

=== EDIT (2011/09/22) ===

qreeves {l Wrote}:Here's a collection of screenshots dating back almost 7 years, depicting various stages of development: http://min.us/mBPufZ2SR - You can see certain ideas make their appearances, and some disappear. Enjoy

Jump to Quin's post
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tl;dr - comparative screenshots of menu, maps & weapons of Blood Frontier & Red Eclipse.
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Lately I've had a bit of nostalgia for Blood Frontier, so I decided to
install it once again & play some rounds against the bots.

My nostalgia went away quickly...

Some of BF's movement looks now odd to me, took me a while to get used to the
sprint & wall kick rebounce again, even despite the fact that I've played &
enjoyed it a lot before RE v1.0 came out.

Well, after some bot matches I started to look more at the artwork (sound &
textures) of the maps, and I've found that most (not all) of the old retextured
maps look way better now in RE than in BF.

So I thought it would be fun to see some comparative screenshots to see how RE
has evolved. I compared Blood Frontier v0.85 Beta 2 against Red Eclipse 1.1,
here are some pics of them:

Note:
- on the screenshots Blood Frontier is on the top side and Red Eclipse is on the bottom side.
- on the thumbnail image only appears BF, click and enlarge to see a full 1366x1541 image with both games (quite obvious but anyway...)

MENUS:


WEAPONS:

• Pistol:
  
• Shotgun:
  
• SMG:
  
• Flamer:
  
• Plasma:
  
• Rifle:
  
• Grenade:
  

MAPS (only those that are on both games):

• Bath:
  
• Darkness:
  
• Deadsimple:
  
• Deli:
  
• Nova:
  
• Panic:
  
• Tranquility:
  
• Venus:
  
• Wet:
  

Wow. Yes, progress is indeed for the win. I like the thinking behind the old weapon models - the thick cuffs of the hands + little wires and pipes here and there = cyber/steampunk feel, they're just a bit too realistic & scuffed up to be in RE's fairly futuristic setting.

Personally I'm wondering if RE's graphics can be expanded even further within the limits of the current engine; although part of the allure of RE is that it can run on practically anything, I do like shiny things. The game looks its best on maps like Deli, where the lighting, mist, texturing, and overall aesthetics are spot on.

That's an awesome look at the game. I can't believe how much little things like adding sunlight entities, ditching the old textures, and the tiny visual tweaks has changed things for the better. I've only ever really seen it from the inside point of view.

I also kept BF when the project died because I liked it so much and I was unsure about how long the new release would take. But once RE came out, I never looked back and immediately removed BF because RE was THAT good

I am pretty sure there is still left space for improvement.
The weapon models are pretty lowpoly (1000 tris for the rifle, e.g.) - doubling this would allow way nicer models, and I dont believe it has any impact fps-wise.
For the player model, it has a fair polycount (2500 verts), and within that range there are nice alternatives possible.

And from what I see at the screenshots.. the map textures make such a big difference, it's awesome.

I wonder if we can create a list of people who can contribute something to the game's media. Without bragging and without wrong modesty, just to see where the thin and the thick spots are.
For example, I would like to know how many people we have who can make good textures. Or is anybody here who can make animations? I am very noob at that, but I know the basics at least and did it a few times already - would give me a good feeling if there are people more skilled who could work on that as well
If some list of that kind would be created, it could also contain a "would like to learn"-section! With screensharing-tools like join.me or TeamViewer plus VoIP teaching works pretty well, and I bet there are more people who would like to sacrifice a bit time for sharing their skills with interested people.

This stuff is much work, and if we want to get something done here, then get out of your holes, guys

Now that was pretty off-topic, sorry for that, but I never really played Blood Frontier, so I cant say much to it, beside the fact that RE indeed looks way better. One exception is the pistol, where I like the BF one more. But.. I heard rumours on IRC, that there might be a new one in near future ..

fluxord {l Wrote}:Lately I've had a bit of nostalgia for Blood Frontier, so I decided to
install it once again & play some rounds against the bots.

I have too. I recorded some gameplay of a mutator I wish could be brought back to Red Eclipse. That Mutator is <Multi> which basically allows for up to 4 teams to play against each other, rather than the single two..this video is Unlisted because I don't really care much about it. Watch here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDPthGOfGI8

Props for using Min.us, fluxord! ;D

I never played Blood Frontier, as I only started playing Red Eclipse (roughly) around a week or so after version 1.0 launched. But it's always nice to look at side-by-side comparisions of the old and new, as it gives nice perspective on what your project has achieved, and where you've improved, and even where you still need improvement. And as you said, for those that were a part of the old get that nice feeling of nostalgia too ;)

Nice thread, fluxord.

Oh, thanks for the comments!
Everybody now knows that RE is way better than BF was... which is good! But, to quote riidom:

riidom {l Wrote}:I am pretty sure there is still left space for improvement.

I too, am sure there is.

An example: the map "Tranquility" in BF had a nice sound for the water, which made it feel really relaxing when playing on it. And as you can see in the screens it had a nice underwater tunnel near the bases. Those parts of the map are now gone in RE.

Also lately I had some questions about RE:

• What kind of maps are allowed into the game? Any futuristic stylish map? Or are other themes (post apocalyptic, industrial, fantasy, quake style, etc. maps) OK?
• What kind of player models are allowed into the game? CyberHumans, Robots, Aliens, Zombies, etc?
• An unified art direction (for Texture sets, Models, etc.) for RE, would be bad or good?
• What is the main story of RE? Is it the same of BF? Or is it a futuristic version of "You kill stuff. The End"(tm)?

fluxord {l Wrote}:What is the main story of RE? Is it the same of BF? Or is it a futuristic version of "You kill stuff. The End"(tm)?[/list]

This is what I suggested a while ago, if someone were to venture into making the Campaign better, they could make a nice story for Red Eclipse. Perhaps how it came to be.

A unified art direction would help a lot for potential map makers. At the moment, a lot of the maps have very different artistic styles, so some kind of background story or description of the intended setting would make it easier to choose architectural styles and textures.

I don't care too much about story in such games. It's like those FMVs in UT3 and so on. I always skipped them, I just want to shoot people and have fun doing so. Also, I never cared about background story of Mortal Kombat characters and so on

Ulukai {l Wrote}:I don't care too much about story in such games. It's like those FMVs in UT3 and so on. I always skipped them, I just want to shoot people and have fun doing so. Also, I never cared about background story of Mortal Kombat characters and so on

You sound like you would like Halo 2; it was basically only shooting and killing lol. The main story wasn't that much to speak of.

I played through all the Halo games. Halo is a franchise with a story, and I agree that some releases lacked a decent storyline

But RE is an arena shooter... Why want a story when you can just get out there and kill people?

Ulukai {l Wrote}:I played through all the Halo games. Halo is a franchise with a story, and I agree that some releases lacked a decent storyline

But RE is an arena shooter... Why want a story when you can just get out there and kill people?

RE is a game, just like any other game. And pretty much every game I've ever played has a story. Or at least a "cause-and-effect" sort of status. The reason why the game is the game. And if the game doesn't have a story, it lets you create a story (racing games for example). Only games that might not have a story are puzzle games (Tetris and Chess for instance). Every FPS shooter I've played has a story (Halo, COD, Half-Life, Far Cry, Portal lol, Mirror's Edge, Battlefield, i've even heard Minecraft has a story). So why not Red Eclipse. I mean it doesn't have to be drawn out like a Halo story (with books and movies and lore). Possibly just:

"Long ago, so and so happened. People migrated. Technology advanced. Wars started. People chose sides (Alpha or Omega)."

Obviously this is way to simple and boring but you get the idea.

...and again, it would help tie together the different artistic styles evident in the current release.

I kind of like that there's currently no real direction. Gives the artist more freedom, if you think about it. Whatever tickles their fancy, or any crazy idea they had. This is especially good for newer map makers (like me, almost) as they have one less thing to worry about when they make their maps.

However, a set style is also a good thing, as it will help define the "personality" or "flavor" if you will, of the game. But even then random maps that deviate from the style are always made, as it's supposed to be a fun and enjoyable experience.

Here's a collection of screenshots dating back almost 7 years, depicting various stages of development: http://min.us/mBPufZ2SR - You can see certain ideas make their appearances, and some disappear. Enjoy

qreeves {l Wrote}:Here's a collection of screenshots dating back almost 7 years, depicting various stages of development: http://min.us/mBPufZ2SR - You can see certain ideas make their appearances, and some disappear. Enjoy

Woah! Very cool pic collection! I'm glad that you've keept those screens!
It really gives us fans all a better overview of what happened over the years

I've noticed a lot of cool & interesting stuff:

1. Side-scroller (platformer) shooter
2. Super Mario Map?
3. the old perspective menus
4. a transparent player model?
5. vehicles (sauerhog)

I really didn't know about all them.

The Side Scroller view was it for Single player mode?
It looks very interesting (reminds me of DN:MP, Duke Nukem: Manahattan Project which was *cool*, IMHO though).

Also, I'm kind of curious:
What did the "Progressive" and "Mayhem" mutator do?
Furthermore, may I ask what happened with them and why were they removed?

fluxord {l Wrote}:Also, I'm kind of curious:
What did the "Progressive" and "Mayhem" mutator do?
Furthermore, may I ask what happened with them and why were they removed?

With that, might I ask, why was the "Multi" mutator removed? Can we bring that back if at all possible?

inpersona64 {l Wrote}:With that, might I ask, why was the "Multi" mutator removed? Can we bring that back if at all possible?

Dude, I would so love if Multi could come back. Teams vs Teams vs Teams is great <3

It should be noted that BF's lava looks much better then RE's it has a darker, more richer, and vibrant look, and feel. It's also has larger subdivisions, so it `pops` out more, for a lack of a better word.

graphitemaster {l Wrote}:It should be noted that BF's lava looks much better then RE's it has a darker, more richer, and vibrant look, and feel. It's also has larger subdivisions, so it `pops` out more, for a lack of a better word.

Only because the artist refused to listen to eihrul on matters of texture memory and would make 2048^2 textures (= 12MB vram for RGB textures).

qreeves {l Wrote}:

graphitemaster {l Wrote}:It should be noted that BF's lava looks much better then RE's it has a darker, more richer, and vibrant look, and feel. It's also has larger subdivisions, so it `pops` out more, for a lack of a better word.

Only because the artist refused to listen to eihrul on matters of texture memory and would make 2048^2 textures (= 12MB vram for RGB textures).

Lol. I can't imagine why you scrapped them~ :P

ZeroKnight {l Wrote}:

inpersona64 {l Wrote}:With that, might I ask, why was the "Multi" mutator removed? Can we bring that back if at all possible?

Dude, I would so love if Multi could come back. Teams vs Teams vs Teams is great <3

+1, count me in! Why was it ever removed anyway?

Ulukai {l Wrote}:+1, count me in! Why was it ever removed anyway?

Multi-team games back in the days of BF played more like free-for-all, and RE now is even more fast paced than the game was back then. I'm still not entirely sure this would be any different (and it requires we take a new look at the way we make maps, many are two-sided, not four). Poll it maybe?