What is MekArcade?

What is MekArcade?

Postby fawstoar » 01 Oct 2012, 18:17

It keeps popping up in threads, but I have no idea what this mod (game?) entails. The website http://mekarcade.com/mekdesktop.htm is somewhat bizarre and difficult to use. The sourceforge page is also without much info. http://sourceforge.net/projects/mekarcade/

Is anyone here involved with the project? A mech-based game on the Cube 2 engine sounds great - is there a download link somewhere that I can't find?
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Re: What is MekArcade?

Postby TheLastProject » 01 Oct 2012, 18:49

MekArcade is a game from cdxbow, with quin as one of the main developers. It's a Mech game based on Red Eclipse.
Hats, Afros, wings and raptor feet. This game is showing progress indeed.
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Re: What is MekArcade?

Postby fawstoar » 01 Oct 2012, 20:02

Is it playable yet? Do you know of a download link?
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Re: What is MekArcade?

Postby ballist1c » 01 Oct 2012, 20:15

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Re: What is MekArcade?

Postby TheLastProject » 02 Oct 2012, 14:44

fawstoar {l Wrote}:Is it playable yet? Do you know of a download link?

As far as I know it's still under development, and no release is available yet (at least, that's what it looks like for me on the site).
Hats, Afros, wings and raptor feet. This game is showing progress indeed.
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Re: What is MekArcade?

Postby Julius » 02 Oct 2012, 17:23

http://www.moddb.com/games/mekarcade

Seems to be another communication channel for them. I while ago they posted that a release is imminent, but it seems that has been delayed.
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Re: What is MekArcade?

Postby qreeves » 02 Oct 2012, 18:00

There's been a bit of trouble on the modelling front, and I'm not getting code done as quickly as I'd like. At the moment I'm in a post-release tweaking binge, trying to polish the overall look and feel of the engine. That being said, if you can help cdxbow get his models up to scratch, it'd greatly help me, as I'm kind of waiting on the content so I can implement the various things necessary for the class/mech-based combat. This would be the first step toward me re-implementing the league mutator (or providing general character customisation) in Red Eclipse too, as I have a more concrete testbed for that kind of mechanic in MekArcade.

On a general note, MekArcade is a Mech Assault inspired game which is using the Red Eclipse base (and formerly, Blood Frontier). While it was once a mod, I have encouraged cdxbow to release it as a standalone game to avoid people requiring a Red Eclipse install in order to play (while the games may have some crossover, not everyone who would want to play it would also want to play RE).

The project could use some help in a few areas, including mapping, models, and other assorted content. I'm only really useful when it comes to the code aspect of things, and have absolutely no idea what I am doing when it comes to models. I've been considering merging the two trees together to better share resources and time; as I am fairly involved with Red Eclipse already, it makes sense to use what I already have available there and not split my focus (which I have been having trouble doing anyway). So if you'd like to get involved somehow, let me know.
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Re: What is MekArcade?

Postby Inogord » 22 Nov 2012, 12:14


youtu.be/udEAEARD-Fo

youtu.be/NcYqkk6OdUk

I also love this genre, but it is not very popular
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Re: What is MekArcade?

Postby John_III » 22 Nov 2012, 16:15

I'd be able to assist with mapping and modeling.
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Re: What is MekArcade?

Postby cdxbow » 23 Nov 2012, 00:34

Thanks John_III, we can use all the help we can get. Thanks to everyone else for their interest and offers, I am sorry that we haven't quite got something to show yet and for you to play with, but I promise you, it's coming. Watch out Hawken! Thanks to Quin for the post, it's a good summary and he did it while I was away.

wrt to Modelling. You need to tell me what you use (OS, modelling packages), what skills you have and what your interest is. We can support you with various resources. We have any number of modelling tasks to keep you entertained!
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Re: What is MekArcade?

Postby John_III » 23 Nov 2012, 04:43

For modeling packages, I use Maya 2012/2013 and Blender - both on Mac OS 10.6 and Win 7. I also use Zbrush from time to time.

I have experience modeling primarily mechanical objects or other inorganic props with Maya and Blender. I can also rig and animate to an extent in Maya.

My interests are in prop modeling and environmental scenery.
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Re: What is MekArcade?

Postby cdxbow » 23 Nov 2012, 06:26

Thanks John_III. Maya was used for the original production of MD5, and I have always wanted to have someone to ask about Maya issues.

It sounds like you be most comfortable working with mapmodels rather than NPC or character models. Please correct me if I am wrong. We have many outdoors models in the pipline, in varying states of completion. They are arranged in a few sets:
Vehicles is a large set which I am shortly going to release as a work in progress, then cull a few, convert to md5 and animate.
Buildings is the largest, and will be the most work to animate, and I am trying to put off until we see how destructible entities work. It is so big it should probably be broken up.
Aerospace is another large, mainly eye caandy set. Most of these will probably just use a generic explosion.
Road - set of road side signs, need to be animated.
Old - ye olde stuff, because there are low tech prime worlds in MekArcade. No urgent need to animate.
Vegetation - so far I have only used what comes with RE, which I think are the same sad and sorry ones that come with sauer. I have been tossing around a options, one of which is to use other models such as the Skyrim set (see Quad) and to animate them. I have made an md5 tree animation that sways and falls over; I then planned to rig up 'some' models, but hadn't decided which. Would you be interested in working on this? If you are I can send you all 'the stuff' to get you started. I am sure if the new vegetation is better than the old RE ones Quin would be pleased to use it.

If you want to work on NPCs we have a droid, a tank, vtol, a chopper and meks, and if player models are your thing we have about 15 of those.

Can you tell me how/if your versions of maya and blender can import smd, milkshape, max and md5 models. We tend to use smd to exchange animated skeletal models between different modelling packages. I know blender does import and export of smd, but I know nothing of maya
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Re: What is MekArcade?

Postby Evropi » 23 Nov 2012, 13:29

cdxbow {l Wrote}:snip

Why MD5? Why not IQM?L :(
You just wasted 3 seconds of your life reading this.
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Re: What is MekArcade?

Postby John_III » 23 Nov 2012, 16:40

cdxbow {l Wrote}:Thanks John_III. Maya was used for the original production of MD5, and I have always wanted to have someone to ask about Maya issues.

It sounds like you be most comfortable working with mapmodels rather than NPC or character models. Please correct me if I am wrong. We have many outdoors models in the pipline, in varying states of completion. They are arranged in a few sets:
Vehicles is a large set which I am shortly going to release as a work in progress, then cull a few, convert to md5 and animate.
Buildings is the largest, and will be the most work to animate, and I am trying to put off until we see how destructible entities work. It is so big it should probably be broken up.
Aerospace is another large, mainly eye caandy set. Most of these will probably just use a generic explosion.
Road - set of road side signs, need to be animated.
Old - ye olde stuff, because there are low tech prime worlds in MekArcade. No urgent need to animate.
Vegetation - so far I have only used what comes with RE, which I think are the same sad and sorry ones that come with sauer. I have been tossing around a options, one of which is to use other models such as the Skyrim set (see Quad) and to animate them. I have made an md5 tree animation that sways and falls over; I then planned to rig up 'some' models, but hadn't decided which. Would you be interested in working on this? If you are I can send you all 'the stuff' to get you started. I am sure if the new vegetation is better than the old RE ones Quin would be pleased to use it.

If you want to work on NPCs we have a droid, a tank, vtol, a chopper and meks, and if player models are your thing we have about 15 of those.

Can you tell me how/if your versions of maya and blender can import smd, milkshape, max and md5 models. We tend to use smd to exchange animated skeletal models between different modelling packages. I know blender does import and export of smd, but I know nothing of maya


For Blender, I can import MD5s, as well as Max and SMDs. I can also look around for additional import scripts.

For Maya, I cannot import or export SMD directly. One possible workflow would be to import an SMD to Blender, export as FBX, import to Maya, and edit it there. Then I'd need to find a Maya-compatible plugin that could directly export animated models or convert them into something compatible with Blender.

I'd be interested in taking a look at whatever models need work.
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Re: What is MekArcade?

Postby cdxbow » 24 Nov 2012, 08:04

I am very surprised Maya doesn't handle smd easily, I'm sure you will find a way. We have had a lot of problems with fbx files.

I will package up the skyrim trees, a few others and the animated ones. Won't be for a day or two.

Evropi asked why md5 rather than iqm. Mainly because it is easy to work with and mod for us because we have solid Max exporters and our very own Misfit Cubed does md5 in a very efficient manner. They all could be compiled to iqm but there is not much point until there are finished.
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Re: What is MekArcade?

Postby eihrul » 25 Nov 2012, 11:23

cdxbow {l Wrote}:I am very surprised Maya doesn't handle smd easily, I'm sure you will find a way. We have had a lot of problems with fbx files.

I will package up the skyrim trees, a few others and the animated ones. Won't be for a day or two.

Evropi asked why md5 rather than iqm. Mainly because it is easy to work with and mod for us because we have solid Max exporters and our very own Misfit Cubed does md5 in a very efficient manner. They all could be compiled to iqm but there is not much point until there are finished.


If you are talking about the skyrim trees on quadropolis, those are not legal to use. They use parts of the actual skyrim models, so are not actually licensed for legitimate use. Do not use them.
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Re: What is MekArcade?

Postby cdxbow » 25 Nov 2012, 21:26

Thanks Eihrul, you have saved me some grief. I was going to check with the 'artist' before commiting to them. Back to the falling pine then.....
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Re: What is MekArcade?

Postby John_III » 01 Dec 2012, 01:19

I managed to export the animated .max tree to Maya and reduce it to 7898 tris while preserving the original animation. It does not loop perfectly, so I will work on lining up the starting and ending frames. I also still need to apply a UV map and textures.

Here's how it looks at the moment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFBVbrQG_3M

I found a Maya 2012 md5 exporter online, but I have yet to try it out.
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Re: What is MekArcade?

Postby cdxbow » 01 Dec 2012, 07:29

The palm looks great but too many polys! Most of its in the fronds, I should have changed the fronds to a a few simple polygons with a transperent png. There are example palms using this way in the vegetation\palms folder. I would suggest defronding the palm and replacing the fronds with one of those. If you want me to make up a kosher power of 2 texture let me know.

Looking at the model again the other problem is too many bones. The trunk should have only 3, max. I don't think you could cull much from the top, but the trunk has way too many. At present its would impose a graphical load about the equivalent of an extra player.

Thats great you have got an smd exporter. Export something simple and send it to me. i am always very keen to make sure it 'really' works.
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Re: What is MekArcade?

Postby Julius » 01 Dec 2012, 10:04

The palm looks like it is in a heavy storm, normally they don't move that much in wind. Is it the one by yughues from OGA btw? Would be cool to see more of his stuff integrated in RE/MekArcade: http://opengameart.org/users/yughues
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Re: What is MekArcade?

Postby quintux_v » 02 Dec 2012, 01:47

@Julius: I'm guessing that John_III actually made it himself, though I do agree that Yughues (who is also known as Nobiax for those of you who don't know who we're talking about) is a great artist and that we could use more of his work. Since we're talking about MekArcade, I've always though it would be cool if the Nobiax decals were applied to Mechas, kind of like logos. They'd work just fine as detailing, but they glow and such.
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Re: What is MekArcade?

Postby John_III » 02 Dec 2012, 04:02

I did not make the original, but I am working to reconstruct the topology for use in game.
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Re: What is MekArcade?

Postby Sniper-Goth » 02 Dec 2012, 13:29

Originally, Mekarcade was gonna be a Red Eclipse Expansion pack, isn't?
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Re: What is MekArcade?

Postby cdxbow » 02 Dec 2012, 14:02

@Sniper Goth: Yes, it was going to be an RE expansion pack, but Quin convinced me otherwise. Ironically the codebases have recently been merged.

@quintux_v: the palm tree is a max model which gabriella was working on earlier in the year. I am afraid it was not a good choice to start with because of the high number of bones and polys in the fronds, but it was the only one we have that we can distribute. Decals would be nice, as would the whole customise your mek thing. Not on the radar yet, maybe 0.9

@Julius: Thanks for the link, Yughues does very nice work, some of the best I have seen at OGA.
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Re: What is MekArcade?

Postby John_III » 04 Dec 2012, 03:43

Here's a completely retopologized version composed of 850 tris. It still needs to be rigged and animated.

I will also probably adjust the frond angles because they are rather flat at the moment.

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