Freeworlds: Tides of War - A Star Wars Mod

[Sushi]

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



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.


And here is a video of it in game:

[Sushi]

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:
http://demios.org.uk/MiscUpload/rev1_img1.png
http://demios.org.uk/MiscUpload/rev1_img2.png

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

[Sushi]

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.



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

[Sushi]

Over the last few months, I've been working a lot on the graphics engine of Freelancer. Inspired by Timeslip's work. I wrote a Direct3D8 to Direct3D9 wrapper for Freelancer to be able to directly access the graphics pipeline.The ultimate goal is to somewhat modernize Freelancer's graphics engine. I'm not sure about the features I will be able to add further on, but let me show you the first enhancements that I already implemented.
Before getting to the eye candy, let me quickly talk about mouse lag. I guess almost everybody is familiar with the mouse lag problem that occurs in some games. In almost every case, the laggy/delayed input is to blame on VSync. If you turn VSync off, it solves a lot of the mouse lag problems for many games, including Freelancer. I did some research on the topic and found this article on a private blog by "Vorlath". Basically, to fix mouse lag in the DirectX pipeline, you have to make sure that after any present call, the screen has really received the frame you just rendered. This is easily done in Direct3D9 as stated in the article and it was one of the first things I implemented. Thank god, no more VSync-related mouse lag in Freelancer!
Lets get to the eye candy. One of the top wanted post-processing effects in older games is bloom. As of now, I added a relatively cheap and subtle bloom effect, but in the future I want to do a proper HDR lighting implementation. Another post-process effect is Color Correction, which to me seems to be very underrated. You can completely change the feel of the game by including a nice color correction effect. The implementation I chose was very simple, yet powerful, based on this article.

The vast benefit of this method is the what-you-see-is-what-you-get effect. We simply take an ingame screenshot, load that screenshot in Photoshop and do some color correction with the Curves or Levels tool. We then apply the same color correction to a special texture that will be used by the game. Very easy to do, yet very powerful.
Here is a comparison, with color correction added in the second screenshot:


The color correction effect is implemented per-system. Its a very good tool to give systems their very own feeling, making the ingame experience as varied as possible. For example, we could give rebel and imperial systems their very unique color correction, so you quickly know in which territory you are.Finally a little video to show the effects in motion:

http://www.moddb.com/mods/fwtow/videos/ ... ion-shader

[Sushi]

This is the latest development image of all our new graphical toys rolled into one. Colour Correction + Bloom + Wireframe Viewer

This is two ingame screenshots that have been merged together. One with the wireframe viewer on (on the left). This image splits the models into two.

This is NOT a render. This is an actual ingame screenshot:

http://i496.photobucket.com/albums/rr32 ... ooWire.jpg

[Sushi]

Thought you guys might want to check this out! Freelancer gets a whole new graphic engine:

http://www.moddb.com/mods/fwtow/news/de ... -particles

[Sushi]

For those who have been brave enough to follow us, be prepared for some more eye-candy: We recently got Normal and specular mapping working! Now, being a gamer that keeps up with the industry you might not be impressed at all. However, we are talking about a now 8-years old game engine based on Direct3D8. This and deferred rendering have been huge steps towards bringing the Freelancer engine to current state-of-the-art graphic levels.

On the technical side, implementing normal mapping was really no easy undertaking, since we had to change the existing Freelancer mesh formats to handle the tangent/binormal data that is required for normal mapping. Normal and specular Mapping can greatly enhance existing models, giving them a lot of depth. You can see the difference in the following dev-video where at some points I switch normal and specular mapping on and off:


Normal maps by Dr.Knickers.

Coming back at our developer activity problem, we are actually searching for interested people that would like to help us out. We've had multiple developers go AWOL and others just being plain busy in real life. However, I think we've shown that we are an ambitious project that is well worth the effort.

Due to our normal/specular mapping breakthrough, we are actively searching for any talented texture artists and/or modelers that can help us out with specular and normal maps.
Also, if any Freelancer developer is listening, we are searching for an .ini coder to help us with mod development in general. We are only looking for experienced Freelancer developers though, since our mod structure has become quite complex.

Finally, we are looking for C++/C# programmers to help us with tools and engine hacks around our mod and Freelancer.
If you're interested in helping us, simply write a short but informative application to freeworldstidesofwar@gmail.com or contact us via PMs here at ModDB or at our developer website.

Stay tuned for more updates!

[Feil]

I'm pretty sure you're wasting your time by this point. It's pushing two years on the development, assuming you were going for a few months before posting this thread. Are the people who are still playing a video game from 2003 really going to care about normal maps? Soft particle effects? There comes a point in every dev cycle where you need to say enough is enough, wrap up everything that's close to being finished, file the rest away for a possible future update, and then put all your resources towards pushing out a working product that does what it says on the tin. I realize that as a mod project you aren't constrained by budget, since you don't have one and all your labor is donated, and therefore some work, like graphics and such, can be ongoing while other people are doing other things, since somebody who is skilled at graphics may not be able to help you produce a game that's fun to play. But that shouldn't stop the rest of your team from pushing through a good, working product in six months to a year, and then releasing periodic ship packs, new systems, and graphics updates as they become available.

[Sushi]

Well, everyone is entitled to their opinion. As for people still playing Freelancer, they most certainly care, and we've seen a huge response from several of the freelancer mod communities. The mod has also a large following from those that have played the game and moved on; we're showing that the game can still keep up with some of the newer generation space sims (which are few and far between at this point).

In terms of popularity, currently, we have over 750 followers on moddb and 660 on facebook and other social media sites. All I'm doing is sharing the information for those that would be interested in a star wars space sim for freelancer. As for the time it has taken, creating a total conversion mod is no small feat and there are several mods out there that took 3+ years to create and have huge success. I think your timeline would be more accurate for a mod that was using existing models, textures and features not for a mod that's literally redesigning the engine without the source code.

[Vehrec]

When you said a 'huge response' I would have thought you meant ten thousand people or more. 750 is...really very marginal. I can see a real-life version of the SOS-dan having more followers and friends than that.

[Temjin]

For a mod of a game that came out in 2003, in a dead genre, 750 isn't that bad at all. It's more than I was expecting, in fact.

In any case, the mod looks interesting. I might actually dig out my old freelancer cd if/when this gets released.

[Sushi]

Well, as Temjin pointed out, for an 8 year old game, having that many followers before release is pretty decent. The reason why we're focusing on upgrading the graphics engine so much is to attract new attention to the mod, which I'm hoping we'll accomplish upon release. That being said, I'm quite cognizant of the importance of gameplay in keeping players. Upon release I'm hoping it's the blend of these two important pillars of our mod that will attract an even greater following.

[PREDATOR490]

While its an exemplary show of work... making stuff look pretty is a poor substitute for actual gameplay and will rapidly become obsolete with graphic upgrades.

So the Star Destroyer is suddenly shiny and has nice effects...

Assuming the 700 translates to actual players how many of them are actually going to be able to get on the server OR have a shot at flying the 'limited' ships after the admins / developers and 'friends' of such get to cherry pick in advance ?

[Stofsk]

This is the first I've heard of this mod. I'm interested in playing it, when you're done of course. It looks fantastic, and really it's a crying shame that there isn't a real Star Wars space fighter game.

[Qi__]

Actually, FW:TOW is the next version of Freeworlds, allready a Starwars total conversion mod which can already be played for years.

We have a multiuser server that is free to play on and the mod is free to download.

You will find it here
http://www.freeworlds-tow.net/forum/