Stuff to make a HD tremulous

[Tremulant]

I played an instagib mod of some description a few years back, it involved humans shooting humans with MDs, it took place on a map that reminds me of the one in your sig, it wasn't much fun.

What would you do if you got the engine improvements you want? would you start working on all the replacement assets to make it worth while or would you just start adding bumpmapping to maps? What can you, ignoring your team of clan-devs, actually do once those renderer enhancements appear?

[CATAHA]

Years? Seems it was Spanish instagib version. Our was made not so long time ago and it more improved than just 'tk+knockback' version.

Im not great modeller (last time worked in 3dsmax years ago), so cant give much help with model animation. But i can work on re-texturing and maps remaking. If your question is 'with new engine can you remake Tremulous alone' then answer is NO. But after all i'm not alone here, a lot of creative peoples working on Trem. Do you think they going refuse new possibilities? I wish Trem long life, thats why i care about game improvement and upgrade. Tremulous amazing game with incredible gameplay, but it need some more for attracting players nowdays. Tremulous really deserves better than oblivion after all these years.

[swamp-cecil]

Tremulous really deserves better than oblivion after all these years.

This

yeah, it does. They have to release 1.2 before commercialing the game. Trem would be very good on the markets. Its Action, Strategy and no other game is like it. I was thinking steam but it needs to stay open source.

[Pazuzu]

Tremulous really deserves better than oblivion after all these years.

Don't get your hopes up.

To be honest, I've given up on an "HD" Tremulous (we've apparently decided "HD" means "better models, more detailed textures, and an engine less than a decade old", so I'll go with that). There's too much infighting, too many conflicting goals, and not enough manpower to make Tremulous any more impressive to potential new players than it is. But finally getting 1.2 out, after more than 4 years, seems like an admirable goal for now.

[CATAHA]

Its Action, Strategy and no other game is like it. I was thinking steam but it needs to stay open source.

There also Natural Selection 2. But i still think Tremulous is better. =D

[Tremulant]

Years? Seems it was Spanish instagib version. Our was made not so long time ago and it more improved than just 'tk+knockback' version.

Taking a closer look at your map, the one i remember is pretty crude by comparison, is there a thread somewhere for your instagib?

But after all i'm not alone here, a lot of creative peoples working on Trem. Do you think they going refuse new possibilities?

New possibilities are lovely, but they're not necessary to improve upon the existing game, we haven't hit the limits of ioq3 yet.
We need an end to all this pointless speculation, if you want the renderer improvements then go code them or make the port, if you don't care that much about them then work on improving assets up to the limits of the existing engine.

[CATAHA]

Assets already reached limit. =) MAy be im wrong, but can you give me example then? afaik all possibilities of ioQ3 was used in mods and maps.
About instagib, it wasnt anounced on forums. We worked on 'final' release of mod, but 1.2 release was anounced, so right now mod development suspended due to difference between 1.2 and 1.1 code. I can describe mod, may it that you played. Mainly we have basic instagib with instakill md, system of random bonuses (different weapons, bulk of nades, invisibility, plague, etc) on killstreak, becoming lisk after 'out of ammo', 'butcher' feature (instead of lisk random evolving to tyrant), invisible nodes, special 'highlander esd mode on end, 'arcade' moving style (jumps from walls, improved circlejumping code, crouch-sliding, etc). Thats simplified description of mod.

[Pazuzu]

Its Action, Strategy and no other game is like it. I was thinking steam but it needs to stay open source.

There also Natural Selection 2. But i still think Tremulous is better. =D

You just had to make me look that up, didn't you? Now I can't wait for it to come out.

[CATAHA]

Not at all, just noticed.

[Meisseli]

Assets already reached limit. =) MAy be im wrong, but can you give me example then?

There are only a few alien, human, and buildable models/animations that look that good. The rest could be improved significantly. I very much think the community could make a competition or something to improve most of the models currently in the game (of course keeping in mind the upcoming chompers). Also, why not make a big graphical update on every default map for example, or work to make the sounds that need to be replaced? We've hardly reached a limit in anything in my opinion.

I don't really get the we-need-an-engine-transition-i'm-not-creating-any-new-assets philosophy. That's just people being lazy. Make a great upgrade of an alien model for example, and I guarantee that it will be praised and included in the next version.

[Tremulant]

I bet the devs could just add a strong environment mapping effect(or whatever the hell that shiny stuff you see on the tesla and a couple of other structures is, i have no idea what i'm talking about, sorry) to absolutely everything in the game and convince at least half the players that they've just made a huge improvement to the engine. I'm only partly joking, it does seem to be an underused effect that looks rather nice in the right setting, on nano for instance.

[CATAHA]

There are only a few alien, human, and buildable models/animations that look that good. The rest could be improved significantly. I very much think the community could make a competition or something to improve most of the models currently in the game (of course keeping in mind the upcoming chompers). Also, why not make a big graphical update on every default map for example, or work to make the sounds that need to be replaced? We've hardly reached a limit in anything in my opinion.

I don't really get the we-need-an-engine-transition-i'm-not-creating-any-new-assets philosophy. That's just people being lazy. Make a great upgrade of an alien model for example, and I guarantee that it will be praised and included in the next version.

New models and textures? Its not question of engine limits. I can make highly-detailed map and it gonna lag like hell... Or you improve human model and apply to it more detailed textures. Right now many players crying due to heavy ATCS lags on bases. No imagine what lags they gonna have with more-poly models and high-res textures. Q3 engine just not optimal enough for endless improvement and not supporting modern hardware acceleration. So thats limit. Using 1024x1024 textures with Q3 rendering procedures wont make much visual difference, only result will be much lags/fps drop. =\

[gimhael]

Using 1024x1024 textures with Q3 rendering procedures wont make much visual difference, only result will be much lags/fps drop. =\

Using larger textures would *not* matter for 90% of the surfaces as they don't use the highest mip map level of the texture anyway. But you are right that the Q3 engine doesn't exploit the capability of modern GPUs.

[Tremulant]

Using 1024x1024 textures with Q3 rendering procedures wont make much visual difference, only result will be much lags/fps drop. =\

Really? Many trem textures are extremely low res and some appear to have been wrecked by jpeg compression, do you really think we're at the upper limit there? You've talked about rebrushing existing textures in the past, do you feel it's not worth bothering now?

[Meisseli]

There are only a few alien, human, and buildable models/animations that look that good. The rest could be improved significantly. I very much think the community could make a competition or something to improve most of the models currently in the game (of course keeping in mind the upcoming chompers). Also, why not make a big graphical update on every default map for example, or work to make the sounds that need to be replaced? We've hardly reached a limit in anything in my opinion.

I don't really get the we-need-an-engine-transition-i'm-not-creating-any-new-assets philosophy. That's just people being lazy. Make a great upgrade of an alien model for example, and I guarantee that it will be praised and included in the next version.

New models and textures? Its not question of engine limits. I can make highly-detailed map and it gonna lag like hell... Or you improve human model and apply to it more detailed textures. Right now many players crying due to heavy ATCS lags on bases. No imagine what lags they gonna have with more-poly models and high-res textures. Q3 engine just not optimal enough for endless improvement and not supporting modern hardware acceleration. So thats limit. Using 1024x1024 textures with Q3 rendering procedures wont make much visual difference, only result will be much lags/fps drop. =\

So you think the current stuff is at its max? Your honest opinion is that for example the human model is the best-looking, state-of-the-art quality one is able to make with Q3 without getting heavy performance problems?

[CATAHA]

Its like driving car at max possible speed. You overheating engine, breaking car. Best engine is the one that has a reserve of power. Yes, we can improve all those things. But look... exchanging all jpeg textures will enlarge installer size. For example map with jpeg textures have 5mb size, but when i switch to tga sources it become over 20mb size. Real ingame effect (due to Q3 limitations) quite small. Sure we can do all that stuff and it will improve picture. But it's not worth it.
PS Lil example. One guy show me his new lasgun model (not so low-poly). That modal had 200 triangles more than old one. You can say its few, but... x10 humans at base with lasguns = 2000 triangles.
According ioQ3 specification:

ioquake3 forces everything through the CPU and you hit performance limits with scenes involving 60,000 triangles on hardware that can easily do scenes of 1,000,000 to 10,000,000 triangles

.
So with every small improvement we closer and closer to engine 'red zone'. Most modern engines in addition to improved productivity as well use the effects to make the surface depth without increasing the number of triangles. Generalizing all the above - we can not seriously improve situation using the current engine.

[jm82792]

+1

Its like driving car at max possible speed. You overheating engine, breaking car. Best engine is the one that has a reserve of power. Yes, we can improve all those things. But look... exchanging all jpeg textures will enlarge installer size. For example map with jpeg textures have 5mb size, but when i switch to tga sources it become over 20mb size. Real ingame effect (due to Q3 limitations) quite small. Sure we can do all that stuff and it will improve picture. But it's not worth it.
PS Lil example. One guy show me his new lasgun model (not so low-poly). That modal had 200 triangles more than old one. You can say its few, but... x10 humans at base with lasguns = 2000 triangles.
According ioQ3 specification:

ioquake3 forces everything through the CPU and you hit performance limits with scenes involving 60,000 triangles on hardware that can easily do scenes of 1,000,000 to 10,000,000 triangles

.
So with every small improvement we closer and closer to engine 'red zone'. Most modern engines in addition to improved productivity as well use the effects to make the surface depth without increasing the number of triangles. Generalizing all the above - we can not seriously improve situation using the current engine.

[Tremulant]

But look... exchanging all jpeg textures will enlarge installer size. For example map with jpeg textures have 5mb size, but when i switch to tga sources it become over 20mb size.

Are you serious? Don't use TGA for textures unless you need the alpha channel, JPEG is fine, but the existing textures can be redone at a slightly higher resolution and saved with a higher quality setting. Even if they're not scaled up, the textures are hardly state of the art, i feel there's some room for improvement even within the limits of existing resolutions.
This is a silly example using an unfeasibly large texture, but look, it's more detailed than the old one, shock horror.

Real ingame effect (due to Q3 limitations) quite small. Sure we can do all that stuff and it will improve picture. But it's not worth it.

Not worth it why? Again, we're working around limitations of an old engine here, but do stannum's new weapon models and skins look no better than the existing ones? They seem pretty bloody good to me, as a layman.

You're a big fan of UrT, it obviously uses higher poly models than trem but on the same engine, do you feel that it's unacceptably laggy because of this?

we can not seriously improve situation using the current engine.

You're right, but then we can't improve the situation with any engine, as we're all a bunch of lazy defeatists.

[CATAHA]

You're a big fan of UrT, it obviously uses higher poly models than trem but on the same engine, do you feel that it's unacceptably laggy because of this?

Im big fan of Trem, not UrT. And about engine - urt dev improving it with every release to get better speed and quality, so you already  cant say they 'just using ioQ3'

[Tremulant]

Im big fan of Trem, not UrT. And about engine - urt dev improving it with every release to get better speed and quality, so you already  cant say they 'just using ioQ3'

Every release? They've had two releases, one of which was the initial standalone, right? What kind of engine improvements went into 4.1?

[SamOz]

I never said that just HD engine is awesome without any assets, etc. I only said that with improved engine Trem community gonna have possibilities bring game to new level of quality.
About mods... You never played our Instagib mod, right? =) And what about footsteps, heh? When you get different footstep sound when walking on grass it making game more atmospheric. Its just small detail. But such details making games good. Without attention to details games just plain.

PS Again about ur screenie. model looks better than in Trem, even with fact its from urt alpha and gonna be replaced. =]  

I like those footsteps. You did a great job adding them. I don't like Instagib, but I love your maps anyway.

I'm not waiting for 1.2 because it's been a wait too long for something that apparently is not as "great" it has been promoted to be. I've read the "soon coming, soon coming, on it's way" for so long, that it's like reading the excuses for the delays in a government project. I have not been impressed by the 1.2beta either. I will be sticking with 1.1 and it's wonderful variety of mods for awhile yet. Waiting for someone else to do things, as many people on Tremulous seem to do, means just waiting for it not to get done.

[cron]

The Unvanquished is hosting a new community-driven project called TremHD, which aims to make assets for Tremulous clients that utilize bump mapping features, as well as implement better support for wide-screen displays.

The TremHD forums will serve as a roadmap for development, as well as a place to discuss and learn the techniques needed to make the new assets.

The project has not officially 'launched' yet, but I would love to get some feedback on the site, and get some additional help setting things up if anyone has time!

[Pazuzu]

The Unvanquished is hosting a new community-driven project called TremHD, which aims to make assets for Tremulous clients that utilize bump mapping features, as well as implement better support for wide-screen displays.

The TremHD forums will serve as a roadmap for development, as well as a place to discuss and learn the techniques needed to make the new assets.

The project has not officially 'launched' yet, but I would love to get some feedback on the site, and get some additional help setting things up if anyone has time!

Where's the IRC channel you keep mentioning?

[CreatureofHell]

The Unvanquished is hosting a new community-driven project called TremHD, which aims to make assets for Tremulous clients that utilize bump mapping features, as well as implement better support for wide-screen displays.

The TremHD forums will serve as a roadmap for development, as well as a place to discuss and learn the techniques needed to make the new assets.

The project has not officially 'launched' yet, but I would love to get some feedback on the site, and get some additional help setting things up if anyone has time!

Where's the IRC channel you keep mentioning?

He didn't...

[Cadynum]

Barf, jpegs.
Isn't it finally time to abandon those lossy formats when space and bandwidth isn't an issue anymore?

[gimhael]

Most games use the .DDS format for textures, they can be decompressed on the fly by the GPU.

[Pazuzu]

The Unvanquished is hosting a new community-driven project called TremHD, which aims to make assets for Tremulous clients that utilize bump mapping features, as well as implement better support for wide-screen displays.

The TremHD forums will serve as a roadmap for development, as well as a place to discuss and learn the techniques needed to make the new assets.

The project has not officially 'launched' yet, but I would love to get some feedback on the site, and get some additional help setting things up if anyone has time!

Where's the IRC channel you keep mentioning?

He didn't...

On the site.

[cron]

You can access our chat room #unvanquished on the Freenode IRC network by clicking the 'Chat' button on the Unvanquished forums.

[CATAHA]

Barf, jpegs.
Isn't it finally time to abandon those lossy formats when space and bandwidth isn't an issue anymore?

Tremulous installer gonna be 2Gb size then =D

[jm82792]

P2P will fix all your woes.