TrueCombat: Elite Revival

(Nail) #41

nah, just a wish list for my collection

($omator) #42

http://www.truecombatelite.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=27272#27272

Still alive. Just wanted to drop by and assure everybody that I am still on this project. However, real life has been kicking hard and CQB progress is very limited except for some minor tweaking.

Actually, I’ve noticed that I declared the weapon selection finished for two posts already, but, guess what, this will be another time about weapons …

The reason why I am reiterating the weapon selection once more is that I was not satisfied with the current internal handling which doesn’t allow any further addons without major recoding anymore. In connection to this, I would very much like to deliver the final state of the equipment system already with the first release, since the past told us that further massive changes are very unlikely to happen :slight_smile: .
Well, I think I’ve now found an easy way out which requires little coding and gives the option for a number of alternative sights being used as addon on the individual weapons. It also allows me to add two more weapons, most importantly my favorite AKS-74U. It will be complemented by another 8 inch barreled weapon, the KAC PDW for Specops. Finally it also leaves two free spots for bolt-action rifles (eg. M24 SWS and TRG-42) which I will, however, not implement now.

Have patience with me.

($omator) #43

http://www.truecombatelite.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=27600#27600

Time to report again. There was some slow but steady progress with CQB during the last weeks. As indicated in my last blog entry, I did some final touches to the internal weapon handling. There are now plenty of free slots for future weapon addons and I will not have to recode the whole system later on. Along with these changes there was also some tweaking of the gear, attachment, and ability system. As before, there are primary, secondary, and grenade slots, in addition to the new primary attachment slot, a combat ability slot and a physical ability slot. The primary attachment slot has the options extra mags, high-grade ammo, and muzzle attachment (suppressor or choke disperser for shotguns). These attachments will be dropped and picked up with the primary weapon. The combat and physical abilities stay as planned and will be finished in the next week.

I did some tweaking in the sidearm section where the Beretta 93R (+Akimbo) was replaced against a regular Beretta 92 (+Akimbo) and instead the Glock 18 is now available for spending one credit point for a sidearm. The Akimbo 93R was just spraying too many bullets at a combined fire rate of 2400 RPM.

My plan is to play a first version of CQB at a private LAN party we have at the end of the year. I order to be able to play, I will have to finish the integration of the abilities and will then have to work on the test map. Sounds doable for some x-mas holiday spare time. This will be a one map version then and I hope that I can aim for an initial public release afterward.

I wish everybody a happy x-mas and new year and be patient with CQB :slight_smile:

($omator) #44

http://www.truecombatelite.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=27660#27660

Well, unfortunately I didn’t get around to finish a first version of CQB for the x-mas holiday LAN party. Nevertheless, the LAN party was massive fun, mainly Cod4, Cod5 Zombies, and UT3.
I managed to finish the ability system but I was not able to work on the map. So, pretty much the mapping and the final packaging are left. I will try continuous integration of the missing map features and will stop the earliest possible moment. For the packaging I will opt for a release independent of TCE pak files. This means some more work but it will reduce the mess with different alpha and beta and game versions. I will also include the map source and everything required for map compile (tweaked q3map2) including all models and the appropriate batch for QCB map compile.
After the LAN party, I got side tracked a bit and played around with a cel shaded (toon) version of QCB with actually fantastic visual results. The aged edgy player models and anims as well as the missing pixel shaders somehow cry out for toonish visuals when compared to up-to-date engines and make the whole combo really look like it was exactly meant to be like this. I might develop this into a minimod (please spare rants and raves), but currently only use the altered HDR effect and the possibility for color toned post processing which can be used to alter the color style and thus the atmosphere of a map (like used in UT3, MW2, and Cod5, …)

(B0RG) #45

Sorry, wrong topic. My apologies.

Anyways, due to Im already here, I must say that new TCE looks awesome.

greets

($omator) #46

http://www.truecombatelite.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=27739#27739

Back for some news. Hell, I haven’t converted CQB to cel shading yet :). Actually, I rather deactivated it again, at least for now. The focus stays on a first playable version and a cel shaded minimod or a conversion of the whole project would have been way too much work right now. One other issue is that the Q3-type cel shading (with use of backfaces) adds a lot of polys, on average 25-30% in a scene, if world, playermodels and weapons are cel shaded.
I mainly did some mapping and minor code tweaks as well as some tweaking of the player skins. That’s it already for today.

from myself and lookin at code of et i would realy like all et commands working in tce, tweak of in notification area and and and, but who cares he is not listening to anyone :slight_smile:

($omator) #47

http://www.truecombatelite.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=27831#27831

Wrapping up.
At least I am at it right now. Looking back to when I started this thread, I though it would be a good time to finally freeze development for a while.
I mainly did some mapping during the last weeks. I am not really finished, nor fully satisfied with the result, but from now on I will only add some details and whatever is required for an alpha release. As a highlight I wrote a custom tool to blend and stitch sky renderings from the free version of Terragen 2 (kick ass) to gain very detailed and impressing 1024x1024 pixel skybox images after hours of rendering.
Last weekend I did the first packaging and ended up in about 300 Megs for the alpha. I am too lazy to further remove unreferenced content from the pak files, I guess 300 Megs are ok for a download. Of course, WET is required, too.
Codewise, I mainly wiped some remaining glitches and I have to do a new linux compile. I hope to make some steady progress during the next weekends.

Stay tuned.

(Dragnadh) #48

What engine is true combat using?

($omator) #49

thats ET engine + Coroners tweeks

(Dragnadh) #50

You guys considering using some features of the et-xreal engine?

http://www.assembla.com/spaces/xreal-et/tickets

($omator) #51

First of all i am not Team Terminator member, I just do the job of their PR specialist i guess :slight_smile:

Answering your question:

To my knowledge tr3b contacted/tryed to contact Coroner, or at least joined the official forums and discussion about ETxreal+TCE. But i guess nothing more happened as there were no news about implementing etxreal features to upcoming release :expressionless: I guess we will have to wait for official alpha release if it will ever come :slight_smile:

($omator) #52

http://www.truecombatelite.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=27844#27844

Get ready.

Well, things are shaping up faster then I hoped and I am now safe to announce that the
CQB Alpha will be ready for release
anytime between next weekend and March 31.

During the last days, I was able to finish a lot of all these small bits that were left, like changing the game name, menus, credits, transition from TC:ELITE to TC:CQB in the artwork, etc. I got the release chain running including the linux compile and I already verified the first feature complete package on a linux server and windows client. Now some finishing touches to the map are required and some further testing.

[B]In short, I want to address what you can expect from the alpha release:

  • No cross hair
  • Most realistic iron sight, reflex sight, and scope simulation
  • Real ballistic tracing including bullet drop
  • Minimum GPU requirements: Nvidia 6800GT or ATI X800
  • Win and Linux only
  • About 300 Megs download (plus W:ET)
  • Only Bodycount (TDM)
  • One map
  • Game is locked to sv_pure 1 and sv_official 1[/B]

Cheers, Cor

http://www.truecombatelite.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=27853#27851

Some quick answers:

To lock sv_pure 1 and sv_official 1 in the alpha is indeed related to debugging.

Limitation to Bodycount is also for the first alpha version.

The higher GPU requirement is related to much more details (polys) and alpha testing (grass, etc) in the map. Particularly the use of alpha has high impact on older graphic cards but is required to have grass, bushes and trees in a map.

Regarding future maps, my plan would be to first upgrade some TCE maps. I would as well love to see something like MW2 Favela. Much will depend on taleted future mappers. I would tend to provide the map sources of all official maps, if the formerly involved authors will be ok with such a policy.

To lock sv_official in future betas would be an option if a mapping community evolves that shares map sources, accepts quality control and contributes to official community paks.

well cross your fingers :smiley:

videos published from wip version to make you want to play it more:)



(Scennative) #53

Yyyyyyyyyyyyeaaaaaah!!! :stuck_out_tongue:

(stealth6) #54

Sounds pretty cool

(shagileo) #55

aaarw, no mac support :frowning:

(Shownie) #56

Looks close to CoD :smiley:

(shagileo) #57

Maybe it’s even better :cool:

(Shownie) #58

Doubt that :smiley: :stroggtapir:

(CVIChEK) #59

Look pretty cool, altough I hate the lack of health points.
Also, I don’t think my pc could run it smoothly :frowning:

($omator) #60

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjP1Cd-pIuo

we got ourselves another ‘recorded with a shoe’ video of pre alpha showing off the test map.
still no playable version…