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G_Redeye · Forum Member Joined: 25 Aug 2007 Posts: 24

As I said it earlier there is at least one existing good implementing of a mouse control for a simulator game even if the mouse control is only a part of the entire control in that case, so it's not impossible to implement it. What I just tried to explain above is that trying to "simulate" a joystick control with a mouse control is a bad approach (in my oppinion).

On the other hand, most of the flying crafts (especially the fighter aircrafts) are controlled with a control stick in the reality, while it's obvious that the control and manueverability of the starfighter crafts of the SW Universe are based on real fighter aircrafts' behaviour. It seems obvious from these that the most effective way to "accurately" simulate flying starfighter crafts is simply using a joystick control. I think working out a mouse control what is entirely "independent" from any joystick control (and it doesn't "try to be" a joystick control simulation) with keeping the "accuracy" of flying starfighter crafts (what is subjective) is not easy. I guess this is the reason for hanging on to joystick control for many SW space sim fans (including - may be - me). On the other hand again, I get your approach that this is just a game, it's up to every1 to decide if he "converts" himself or not. I guess there always will be peeps who can't "convert" themselves and we must understand it too.

P.s.: I've noticed your effort to improve "simulator feeling" by importing new cockpit interiors, bringing them in is definitely a step-forward, those cockpits look good. (mentioning the efforts have been put in by cockpit designers of First Strike Mod and every1 else who participated, e.g. from XWA Upgrade Project).
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Sushi · Forum Member Joined: 01 Dec 2008 Posts: 27

Here are some new videos for you fellas:

Our New 130k Polygon ISD:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfV-9kIC5RM

Some new asteroid FX:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqyIxFHZtR8

Sushi · Forum Member Joined: 01 Dec 2008 Posts: 27

Now that summer has come, the FW:ToW Development team is back at full steam. We've been busy adding in vessels into the mod, making sure that attention to detail remains our top priority. With 108 ships, and custom hitboxes to be made in Milkshape 3D for each one, it's a huge task. To model/texture, hitbox, hardpoint and code a single ship into game takes upwards of 30 hours. However, slowly but surely, we're working on way through them all. I'm also pleased to announce that we're in the process of working on our capital ship prototype. Hopefully, by the end of the month, we'll have a team of testers from the FW USA and FW France communities test the prototype for further modification.

Concurrently, Oma and Deety have been burning the mid-night oil making the FW:ToW systems a spectacular sight to behold. They have just completed the system layouts of all 22 systems. Deety is now busy placing the Non-Player Characters within these systems to bring them to life. I hope to capture a video of these systems, with Oma's explanation of how he designed them, in the next FW:ToW Development video.

Now, without further adieu, this is a development video of just a few of the notable ships we have into game. I would have included more of the New Republic Capitals, such as the Quasar Fire, MC40a and MC80 but Arvis Taljik, creator of the Tides of War: Old Republic mod (an example of his work found here Sith Destroyer) has graciously agreed to redo their textures. So, as soon as he's finished with them, I'll be sure to show you all his brilliant work!

I also wanted to give a appreciative shout out to Overfiend, who has been working many hours to make sure the FW:ToW hitboxes are perfect. He's already done over half of the FW:ToW 108 vessels.

http://www.youtube.com/v/tMfQzd-gDa0

Anyways, I hope you enjoy the newest video in the FW:ToW series. As always, any questions or comments are greatly appreciated, as well as your continuing support!

And, as a bonus treat, I wanted to show you all the MC-90 we have in game. It was created by EvilleJedi and imported into game by Sovereign and Dev.

Sushi

aliannahfth · Forum Member Joined: 12 Jul 2009 Posts: 1

Great job

Sushi · Forum Member Joined: 01 Dec 2008 Posts: 27

Thank you

Here's a video of some ingame footage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OirlytD_upI

Sushi · Forum Member Joined: 01 Dec 2008 Posts: 27

It has been a few months since our last development video, so I thought I'd try to include some of our most recent happenings in the 11th edition. Unfortunately, I was not able to capture all of our work because I personally do not like making these videos over six minutes in length. So, for the work that wasn't included, I thought I'd show you some of the short clips/images here.

This 11th Development video focuses on the capital ship prototype that is being developed, primarily, by Deety. He and I have spent many hours conversing over what we want capitals to be in the mod and thus far, I'm quite thrilled with the results. He's spent countless hours recording statistical data and coding it into the mod to bring these beautiful gigantic ships we have to life. With Deety's determination and work ethic and our new capital testing crew, we're inching closer to the final capital ship prototype. In addition to that, Deety has been requesting many custom capital effects that I've been assisting him with. You'll see that there are many new shield hit, hull hit and explosive effects, which have been a joint project of Deety and I. We are also using some of the work Why485 left us to further the immerse feel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Myw_2niQ6zQ

Another developer, W0dk4, has done some incredible things for the mod. His recent creation brought animations to our game. Through the tutorial he gave us, we were able to recreate many of the wing folding animations you see in the movies: Lambda Shuttle, B-Wing, X-Wing and ETA-2. In our next development video, I hope to show the wings folding appropriately when you engage the ships hyperspace drive. In addition to this, he also has written a FL Hook that increases the turning rate of fighters/bombers/interceptors when they go to 33% throttle. Those of you that have played X-Wing Vs. TIE Fighter or X-Wing Alliance know that this throttle percentage was the optimum level to turn quickly in the game.

As a personal mini project, thanks to a little prod from Lancer Solarus, I've been working on a new enter/exit hyperspace effect for the game to take away the standard Freelancer jump tunnel. Although it is still a work in progress, I've been quite happy with the results. The only sad thing is that there is no possible way to slow down the effect at the end of the sequence. This means that I cannot slow down the stars at the end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LX2H3mKcUUM

Overfiend and Mirkha have also being working incredibly hard on hitboxing all the models in the game. I can assure you, that is no easy task. Fortunately, with our newest hitbox technique, which allows us to use infinite hitbox groups, they've been able to hitbox things that we only dreamed about. The image below is our 10km long Mon Calamari Shipyards generously donated by EvilleJedi.

This hitbox took over 298 parts to make. But, we do believe it's paid off as you can see in these early images: 1 and 2.

Overfiend also has been working very hard on new Mon Calamari Cruiser textures as well. I won't get into this now as I've already discussed his work at length in my last news piece.

As always, if you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please feel free to post. And please click this link to keep up-to-date with Freeworlds: Tides of War.

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Sushi

G_Redeye · Forum Member Joined: 25 Aug 2007 Posts: 24

Sushi, if you'd have to tell us an overall percentage of completeness of Fw:ToW, how much would you say ?
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Sushi · Forum Member Joined: 01 Dec 2008 Posts: 27

Hmm...I'd say 70% complete. Most the foundational coding is done. A lot of the work now is testing and balancing. We need to start to get the economy into place, but after that, it should be ready for Beta testing.

Sushi · Forum Member Joined: 01 Dec 2008 Posts: 27

The Freeworlds: Tides of War development team has been busy over the past few weeks bringing the mod to life. Deety and Myself have completed putting in all the code for all the mod's small craft including the shuttles, transports and freighters of the mod. Deety has also been busy working on creating new missions for the mod, similar to the scale and nature we previously mentioned in this news piece: Battle of Yavin. We'll be releasing more details about missions as Deety completes more of the project.

As for systems, Lilfire has joined the team to help fill in the large empty space we have. By tediously placing numerous ships, bases, shipyards and container fields, we hope to breathe some life into our massive systems. Below are some images of what Lilfire has been doing with the assistance of Deety:

Fondor Shipyards:

We also have head some significant development with Fondor Shipyards. The model was originally built by Overfiend and has been textured by Super D. Here are some images of the large base:

Furthermore, Qi has almost completed the groundwork of our economy. Unfortunately, there's not much to show you regarding this, but you'll have to believe me when I say that it's going to be epic Smile

W0dk4 has also been busy with FW:ToW by creating many new FL Hooks for us. Some of the creations include:
Having mass of cargo/missiles affect how the vessel will handle (More mass = sluggish)
Preventing players from moving while in cruise (that means that players will have to point themselves in the right direction before they engage their cruise engines)
Speeding up turning rate when you throttle down. Some of you that remember XvT/XWA know that when turning your optimal speed to turn was 33%.
Creating a missile view mode
Creating a key that causes the ships wings to fold prior to engaging cruise:B-Wing, X-Wing

And last but not least, this is the latest FW:ToW Development video so show you the amazing new bases that we're going to have populate our systems. The movie also includes some footage of the huge fleets Lilfire has been working on. I hope you enjoy it!

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

As always, any comments, questions or suggestions are welcome!
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Sushi

Sushi · Forum Member Joined: 01 Dec 2008 Posts: 27

The Freeworlds: Tides of War mod team has been busy over the past few weeks fixing bugs, building an economy and, of late, creating more of the mission systems for players to enjoy (ie. Battle of Yavin). Below, you'll find the latest video of this new mission system Deety has designed called, "Battle of Bilbringi." Essentially, this mission will feature a gigantic ongoing battle between the New Republic and the Empire full of huge capital ships, hundreds of laser beams and a whole lot of fun!

Battle of Bilbringi

In other news, Qi, our resident Economy Guru, has completed the first alpha prototype of our economy and it contains over 1000+ trade runs. He strove to make this economy as canonical as he could to further the immersion factor of the mod and we all really think you will love what he's done. In addition to this, Qi is working on a web interface that will allow players to view the changes in commodity prices based on what is being traded on the server. However, I will release more information about that when the graphical interface is near completion.

Lastly, I wanted to show you all the new Pirate factions Deety has created based on what systems you're in. Below is an image on how the territories will be seperated:

Thanks again everyone for following this mod. We've really appreciated the ongoing support and compliments.

And please, if you haven't already, please take the time and give us a vote for the mod of the year awards over at http://www.moddb.com/mods/fwtow

Happy holidays,
Sushi

Sushi · Forum Member Joined: 01 Dec 2008 Posts: 27

Sushi · Forum Member Joined: 01 Dec 2008 Posts: 27

We wanted to know how good our Star Wars models are when compared to the best models out there, ones from the Star Wars movies. So, our FW:ToW testing team (Slyder, Cropto, Orac, Avenger, Shadow and Chewie) have taken it upon themselves to use all ingame video recordings to reproduce some of the most epic scenes from Star Wars. Much to our surprise, we found the quality of our ingame models were almost as good as the movies. I don't have a finished video to show you yet, as we still are in the process of filming, however we are excited to show you a sneak peak of what is to come.

The following image montage are all ingame screenshots that have not been digitally edited or enhanced.

Episode IV Intro
Tantive IV is being chased by Darth Vader's ISD

Episode VI
Vader's Lamda undocking from his ISD

Images courtesy of Cropto

Sushi · Forum Member Joined: 01 Dec 2008 Posts: 27

Performance is a huge issue for any mod or game development. Sure, it's every developer's dream to make the most incredible graphical experience as possible, but at the same time, if the computer cannot handle the content, gameplay will suffer. And, in the end, I think we can all agree, it's all about the gameplay.

So what are we doing over at FW:ToW to improve this? Well, over the past few months, we've started to notice a little bit of a slow down in systems that have a high amount of polygons. Fortunately, the Freelancer Engine allows us to create Level of Detail (LODs) models to remedy the slow down. Essentially, a LOD is a model that has less detail, sacrificing polygons, that displays at further distances. What this does is reduce the strain put on the graphic card from the model. Because, in the end, you won't be able to see tiny details on a A-Wing from one kilometer away.

Knowing this, Icewolf and I have been churning out LODs for all our 104 ship models and, in the past 3 weeks, have done 1/4 of the shiplist. Below are some of the images of the LODs:

MC 30c
Z-95
V-Wing

Here's a video of the concept. This one shows a 3 part LOD made by IceWolf for the MC80

LOD Prototype

The work involved in making these LODs is tedious, to say the least, but we've already noticed an improvement in the performance of the mod by doing this. Essentially, we have to make a new model for the ship and uvmap them. Each ship takes around an hour; more if it's more complex. In terms of how many polygon's we're saving the graphic cards from rendering, it's quite substantial :

Fighters:
Assault Gunboat = 4362 polygons AG LOD = 284 polygons
A-Wing = 5352 polygons AW LOD = 372 polygons
B-Wing = 5900 polygons BW LOD = 540 polygons
E-Wing = 3366 polygons EW LOD = 770 polygons
ETA-2 = 7497 polygons ETA-2 LOD = 474 polygons
K-Wing = 6338 polygons KW LOD = 982 polygons
X-Wing = 7461 polygons XW LOD = 846 polygons
Y-Wing = 4913 polygons YW LOD = 578 polygons
Z-95 = 6573 polygons Z95 LOD = 772 polygons
TIE Avenger = 7923 polygons TA LOD = 772 polygons
TIE Bomber = 8241 polygons TB LOD = 324 polygons
TIE Defender = 12117 polygons TD LOD = 432 polygons
TIE Fighter = 9703 polygons TF LOD = 314 polygons
TIE Interceptor = 8690 polygons TI LOD = 300 polygons

We also have some other plans to improve performance, but I'll write more about those when more is complete in the area.

In other news, for those looking for some nice eye candy, we've recently given the Corellian's a new capital ship. It's known as the Corellian Cruiser (Cruiser Class Capital Vessel) and it's a modified model of EvilleJedi. This work was also done by IceWolf, and I must say, I'm thrilled with the results.

Corellian Cruiser Images
And here is a video of it in game:
Corellian Cruiser InGame VIdeo

And here's our new T-Wing texture for the XWAUP model
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Sushi · Forum Member Joined: 01 Dec 2008 Posts: 27

Over the past few days, Demi, our resident computer guru, has been hard at work making a brand new developer website for the Freeworlds: Tides of War Developer team to use. As a team, we decided to create these boards because we needed more space plus wanted more features for development than our current forums had. Using the webspace provided by Qi, Demi made a wonderful layout. With this new site, you will be able to get the latest news, development blogs, images, 3D representations of the vessels and ask questions on the development forums. As for the layout of the site, below are the two prototypes Demi worked on:
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As you can see from the layouts, the Freeworlds: Tides of War Development team has accounts on facebook,youtube, twitter, and google buzz. We welcome everyone interested in this mod's development to follow us there as we are regularly updating the sites.

Another special feature that I wanted to mention is the ability to see all of our models in 3D. While we're still in the process of converting all of our ships for viewers to see, I wanted to show you what you can expect 3D Models click me. Demi is still in the process of refining the viewer to optimize the performance, however, for now, I think it's an excellent proof-of-concept that I cannot wait to see running on the site.

Lastly, we welcome everyone to join us on our forums where you can ask the developers any questions, comment or give suggestions. We welcome all feedback from our followers.

To view the sites main page, go here: Freeworlds: Tides of War Development Site
To join our forums go here: Freeworlds: Tides of War Development Forums
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Sushi · Forum Member Joined: 01 Dec 2008 Posts: 27

Explosions, explosions, explosions, every gamer loves them; they have pretty colours, dazzling lights and most importantly, they inflict significant amounts of damage! Over the past several months the team has been at work discussing the prototype of the system we hope to put into place in the mod. The prototype that has been created has largely been influenced X-Wing vs. TIE-Fighter and X-Wing Alliance. I've created the 14th Development Video to discuss key features of the types of missiles/torps/bombs and how they will be used in the mod.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yUe2XzksBs

Also, since I haven't updated this link in awhile, please enjoy our Capital Ship video created by ChewieBacca

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg3abDWcUmw
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