FreeGameDev

One of Red Eclipse's pros is it's open-sourceness. Due to this, It can be modified to suit just about anything, and I think one thing it needs to be modified to suit is the Android Platform. Phones, NO, too low-resolution and not powerful enough. Tablets, YES! There aran't very many epic games out there for tablets, and red eclipse would be in a class of it's own. It would need to be optimised (I.E. lower-poly models, different HUD, on-screen controls, slower gameplay to name a few) But it could definately run, look at the brand-new SHADOWGUN. Also, the new Tegra IIIs will definately have enough power to run it. I've already started modeling new charectors/lowering the polycount on the old model that comes with the download, but I have almost no programming skill, especially not enough to go porting things across platforms. So, in short, I need someone with a good understanding of Red Eclipse's inner mechanics, and a good understanding of porting things to a different platform, both of which I lack. Correct me if I'm wrong but judging from their little blurb on the webpage "OpenGL allows it to be easily ported to a variety of different platforms" I think it could be done fairly quickly.

Resources Needed/Mods Needed

Lower-resolution textures or an option to reduce texture resolution.
Lower particle count.
Lower poly models.
New models?
HUD guns can probably remain untouched if we stick with the old models.
New control system.
Minimalistic HUD, but bigger text for smaller screens.
On-screen controls.
Slower gameplay too make up for the impedience on-screen controls cause.
Other things hidden to all but the programmer.

Systems like that would require porting to OpenGL ES, which is a different ballgame altogether. You would need to rewrite most of the engine.

qreeves {l Wrote}:Systems like that would require porting to OpenGL ES, which is a different ballgame altogether. You would need to rewrite most of the engine.

This. Besides that, slower gameplay would make Red Eclipse not very... Red Eclipse-ish, I would say.

Have you tried playing a F/TPS on a tablet? How well could you use complex commands and how easy was it to aim and shoot? Ignoring the technical aspects of the process, playing such a game in a tablet is insane, you would need to change the way the controls work to fit the lack of controls in a tablet.

And like qreeves said, you will need to change the engine to work on OpenGL ES, a much limited version of OpenGL. It has less features, different methods and will force an engine rewrite. You can try and rewrite Cube2 and then see how that works, it could give you a general idea about how easy/hard it is.

I, for one, think this is an interesting idea. I haven't spent much time looking at the rendering code in RE, and I don't know any OpenGL ES, but I wonder how much work this would actually be (days / weeks / months)? I'd think low poly models / low resolution textures would be pretty easy to create. I don't see any fundamental reason an FPS couldn't be playable on a tablet. Doesn't seem any more clunky to me than playing an FPS on an Xbox

If this was possible, I think it might be very successful. Would you charge for the application?

I know he only said JUST TABLETS, but if I may add, there are phones that can run games similar to Red Eclipse (with say half the graphics) just about as well as about any netbook (i remember there being a thread about someone wanting to play RE on a netbook). For example, newer phones (the expensive ones lol) have DUAL CORE processors. This would be phones like the Samsung Galaxy S2 which boasts a Dual Core 1.2Ghz processor and Motorola Atrix 2 which has a Dual Core 1000Mhz processor.

And it's not just the CPU in standard handsets that are stepping up, they are adding graphics cards (yeah that's right) to phones now to run games, as well as GPU intensive applications. A good example would be the Motorola Atrix 4G which was released I think earlier this year and has NVIDIA's dual-core Tegra 2 processor, clocked in at 1 GHz, which is accompanied by 1024MB of System RAM. Another notable phone which we all have probably heard about is the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play phone, which has about 512MB of system RAM (and some graphics card which I have yet to do any research on, but it's probably ok). Of course, the phone was made for portable Playstation games on a Sony console, rather than PC games on a Windows desktop, so I doubt you'd get Halo running on it. But it does have two joysticks and a directional pad.

I guess my argument here is that phones, or well at least the newer ones can do some of the same things that tablets can do, gaming wise at least. But then again, it all comes down to how complicated it is. I'm no programmer lol but I'm sure trying to install RE on a phone would take about as much work as trying to get it on a Playstation !

cube 1 is allready ported to ipad http://itunes.apple.com/fr/app/cube/id292763299?mt=8

I've heard about some Cube2 tablette port test and also a Wii port, I think....

Back when I played Assaultcube (the best realistic looking game for computers made in '95 and dial-up, based off Cube), which REALLY needs to be on android i asked a lot about that. So i ventured onto android forums and got a nice response. http://androidforums.com/application-requests/386545-assaultcube-port.html <-there

If you don't wanna click, here's the big thing he said.

paulscode {l Wrote}:For the basic requirements, I've already ported OpenAL to Android, and Pelya's SDL port would cover most of the remaining ones. So my initial assessment is that a port to Android would be totally doable.

BTW, it would be really nice if somebody made an Assaultcube port because it would work on all android phones (the earlier ones have hardware and 3g connection is just like the computer described up there!)- the controls would be virtually the same, and they're based off the same game...sorta.

In fact, android phones have so many buttons, it would be cool if the controls were customizable. Like, if you were on android on an iPhone (ftw!), you wouldn't have many buttons, so you'd want most stuff to be on screen/in menus but if you were on an Android, you could have the 3 or 4 android buttons, sometimes the camera button, sometimes the voice button, and sometimes even a whole psp of buttons (Xperia play)! By default, it would be cool if the camera button half pushed was scope on rifle, semi auto on everything else, and shoot/fully auto for fully pressed.

@ qreeves, like I said, I don't know much about programming, I'm just a dabbler. I didn't even know there was a difference between OpenGL ES and OpenGL

@ thelastproject, It's intense-ness would still be kept up by the slower controls. For example, playing Halo CE on the xbox is much slower-paced then for the PC, because you lose the rotation speed limitiations of the joysticks on the controller, and gain the variable-speed and more sensitive mouse. Both are extremely fun though.

@ knitter, I've not yet downloaded SHADOWGUN, but I've heard great things about it. I do have two tps-type games (Dungeon Defenders, and Guerilla Bob) on my tablet, and personally I like on screen joysticks better than mouse control.
Also, there's been alot of to-do about hooking up wireless controllers to tablets
Me? Re-writing Cube II? Ha! You're funny =)

@ orbitaldecay, Especially when the Tegra IIIs come out, the line between consoles and well-done mobile will get even thinner. Check out some youtube trailers for dungeon defenders. Coming out on the xbox soon. (Already on my Transformer lol)

@ fawstoar, I probably wouldn't sell it, considering Red Eclipse is open source for the computer. If it isn't illegal, it would still be unethical to make a profit from other people's (unpaid) hard work.

@ inpersona64, The main reason I think this would be pointless for phones is the screen is just too small for this game

@ LuckyStrike-Rx, I have Cube2, but Red Eclipse is quite simply better in every way. I'll have to see if they have it on the android market though...

My ASUS Transformer TF101 is more powerful then my desktop as far as graphics go I think (Tegra IIs come loaded with an 8-core graphics processor, or so I've heard) and I get a consistent 30-50 FPS on my desktop, so I believe it can be done.

SpiritOfOnyx {l Wrote}:@ inpersona64, The main reason I think this would be pointless for phones is the screen is just too small for this game

You make a good point, but as any good debate there is another side to that, and that is customizable resolution. Case in point, I play Red Eclipse on BOTH my desktop and laptop at approximately 640x480 resolution (that's roughly 480p). I own a Samsung Captivate phone by AT&T (4" touchscreen for the win!) and it's highest resolution output 800x480. Therefore, you could fit any number of resolutions on newer phones because Red Eclipse doesn't play by screen size, it plays by resolution which you can customize in game (I could play 320x240 on my 24" monitor if I wished). The game stretches to your window, or well in this case, screen. I know my dad's phone (HTC Inspire has a 4.5" touchscreen (he's old so therefore he needs large screen lol) and the Xperia Play's highest resolution output (the Playstation phone) is 854x480 (4" touchscreen like mines).

To be honest, I'd probably end up playing it in 640x480 on my phone if RE were made for android because I'm comfortable with that resolution now. If you'd like to see what that resolution looks like, check out one of my videos on my signature.

So in fact, one would think Quin made almost a nearly perfect game for any type of device compatible with its technology, but Red Eclipse is a PC game and I'm sure he wasn't thinking "Some day, my kids will be playing this on their Moto Droids" lol

Just curious, did the stuff he said in OpenAL for android make any sense?

Like I said, C++ is a foreign language to me.

Just my 2 cents,a map editor on touch screens would be nice but, most tablets are arm (which can be more powerful than atoms) and arm uses a completely different instruction set to x86 (desk top CPUs) so it will be quite a challenge to port it but mobile tech is slowly catching up. Do you think you could do cross platform multi player with ps4 and the next box (they're supposed to be x86 too making porting less difficult then the current Gen Wii u, xbox 360,ps3 which all have IBM power pc ) I just think it'll be cool as there will be more people to play this masterpiece

edit 1 most PC gpus have 100 plus cores and sadly even the best arm gpus aren't as good as Intel HD Instead the games are basically just optimized for them quite well (I think....)

edit 2 Ive been reading a lot about this even though it might sound like I'm against ARM I'm not as even unreal engine and unity are available for it (but way to pricy)(by this I mean these engines and a bit about the arm architecture)

I agree that a fast paced game like red eclipse wouldn't be appropriate for a mobile (phone, tablet, ipod, etc), but how about RE server apps that would allow you to set up, run monitor,control, and browse red eclipse servers from your phone or tablet (iOS, android, windows)?

Xaran {l Wrote}:I agree that a fast paced game like red eclipse wouldn't be appropriate for a mobile (phone, tablet, ipod, etc), but how about RE server apps that would allow you to set up, run monitor,control, and browse red eclipse servers from your phone or tablet (iOS, android, windows)?

The last one: http://redflare.ofthings.net/mobile.html - it is more portable this way.

qreeves {l Wrote}:

Xaran {l Wrote}:I agree that a fast paced game like red eclipse wouldn't be appropriate for a mobile (phone, tablet, ipod, etc), but how about RE server apps that would allow you to set up, run monitor,control, and browse red eclipse servers from your phone or tablet (iOS, android, windows)?

The last one: http://redflare.ofthings.net/mobile.html - it is more portable this way.

I probably should've elaborated a bit more. I've used red flare before, and it's a good piece of software. Would it be possible to expand red flare into a full server client app (for mobile devices as well as a possible temporary workaround the lack of an OSX server binary) with the previously mentioned features?

So... basically you want to run a server from your mobile device, or at least remotely manage it from your mobile device?

You can do that by SSH-ing into the server for the latter use case.

As much as I would like that, it is not something I am currently capable of doing.

"off topic" is there a way to use a tablet that has wifi as a well wifi screen and touch input device (I mean what software could one use for this) as I think that would "compliment" the editor quite nicely(with some UI tweaking)

edit 1 just noticed something the first post here is technically wrong as nowadays you get phones with 1080p screens and tablets use the same ARM processors cellphones O_o except if you mean the surface pro, razer edge and other x86 tablets but all of those run windows so it doesn't apply, and also those android tablets can use controllers hypothetically.

edit 2 even though I said all that stuff about ARM cpus their gpus are taking massive leaps tetra 3 was "excellent" with its 12 core gpu and the tegra 4 with its 72 core gpu but they are nothing in comparison to a gt 640 (384) and HD 7750 (512) and not to mention memory bus width frequency and all that other sh*t but its still a good mobile gpu its just not as good desktop quality yet...

Jamestonjes {l Wrote}:"off topic" is there a way to use a tablet that has wifi as a well wifi screen and touch input device (I mean what software could one use for this) as I think that would "compliment" the editor quite nicely(with some UI tweaking)

edit 1 just noticed something the first post here is technically wrong as nowadays you get phones with 1080p screens and tablets use the same ARM processors cellphones O_o except if you mean the surface pro, razer edge and other x86 tablets but all of those run windows so it doesn't apply, and also those android tablets can use controllers hypothetically.

edit 2 even though I said all that stuff about ARM cpus their gpus are taking massive leaps tetra 3 was "excellent" with its 12 core gpu and the tegra 4 with its 72 core gpu but they are nothing in comparison to a gt 640 (384) and HD 7750 (512) and not to mention memory bus width frequency and all that other sh*t but its still a good mobile gpu its just not as good desktop quality yet...

For your information: Tegra 3 == some Intel Atom in terms of CPU power.
Now compare a Tegra 3 to a Celeron G1610 (currently the slowest desktop Intel CPU): the latter is easily 3 to 5 times more powerful.

However, you don't need lots of CPU power to run a RE server (so it should work fine); you can even run a 12-16 player server on a Raspberry Pi!

Note that I'm talking about server here because I think it's probably the most useful thing, first person shooters suck on phones/tablets.

Jamestonjes {l Wrote}:just noticed something the first post here is technically wrong

That would be expecting an open source first person shooter to port to mobile devices. It is just wrong. On so many levels.

OK my phone doesn't want to quote right now (or ever) I agree with you qreeves about the mobile thing as it wouldn't be nice to use touch controls and it would be awkward to carry a controller with you every where (even though I also peronaly think that it would take quite some getting used to to play with one to) but I still think a tablet would be nice for map editing ONLY

and Calinou I think I agree with you too (if your also (like I was saying) saying that they dont compare to desktop cpus)

Not just the touch controls, but having only one guy porting an entire game to a mobile platform is insane. I'm certainly not interested in such an endeavour (reward is far less than the investment).

qreeves {l Wrote}:Not just the touch controls, but having only one guy porting an entire game to a mobile platform is insane. I'm certainly not interested in such an endeavour (reward is far less than the investment).

Pfff. I can port an entire game to a mobile platform.
*casually ignores the fact that his game is in HTML and Javascript and that he can just put PhoneGap around it and is done, unlike Red Eclipse which will need a lot of actual work to be ported*