65 replies to this topic

[TANTE EMMA]

I am more than just a little impressed, awesome idea...hopefully THAT will make it into the game somehow....*herePGIhere !!!!

[Johnny Z]

Noakei Siegel, on 18 September 2013 - 04:00 AM, said:

I am more than just a little impressed, awesome idea...hopefully THAT will make it into the game somehow....*herePGIhere !!!!

Ya it would be awsome. Hope the style is kind of cyberpunk like the recent Deus Ex or other cyberpunk titles.



Btw, dude doing the 3d mech bay, well done. Really hope to see it complete some time, or better yet in game.

Edited by Johnny Z, 18 September 2013 - 05:12 AM.

[S3dition]

Noakei Siegel, on 18 September 2013 - 04:00 AM, said:

I am more than just a little impressed, awesome idea...hopefully THAT will make it into the game somehow....*herePGIhere !!!!

They've alluded to some HQ elements, but nothing specific as of yet. I guess we'll have to wait and see

Johnny Z, on 18 September 2013 - 05:07 AM, said:

Ya it would be awsome. Hope the style is kind of cyberpunk like the recent Deus Ex or other cyberpunk titles.

Btw, dude doing the 3d mech bay, well done. Really hope to see it complete some time, or better yet in game.

Thanks . I'm not making it cyberpunk per se, but battletech does have a bit of retro cyberpunk infused in it, so I don't think you'll be disappointed. The big question is how much to update the technology base. The original battletech had CRT monitors, as an example, so it's always a question of whether to update that or stay retro.

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Where's the Update!?
I'm working on it! I've been sidetracked by other, life sustaining, projects. I've been trying to clear them up so I can spend the weekend on the mech bay.

Currently, the plan is to make the mech lab browser based instead of a stand alone installation. Why? Well, two major reasons:

1) The purpose of this is to allow you to experiment with mechs without using the mwo client - if you're at your computer, then you have access to the MWO client, and what's the point? This will allow you to do it on the go.

2) Updates are seamless and there isn't a bunch of emphasis on client patch management.

This will be cached on your machine, so if you're stuck somewhere without net access it will still work. Mind you, this is all subject to change depending on how much bandwidth is devoured every month. However, this is what we are aiming for right now.

Will This Ever Turn Into a Game?
No. The idea behind this is to make an extension for Mechwarrior Online, not to replace it. As such, you won't be able to die (no matter how many times you jump off the gantry), there will be no small arms, health, armor, etc. It's strictly for simple pleasures like battlemech viewing. I think the mechs so far look pretty phenomenal and I think it's a waste that we can't walk around and admire them. So that's pretty much what this will revolve around.

Release Timeline
I *hope* to have a working beta of the mech bay within the next 2 or so weeks. This will be public and open to anyone who wants to give it a go, and will only include the mech bay, not the full lab. In other words, you'll be able to select a mech and change it's geometry, but not swap out weapons and equipment.

Have Questions?
Go ahead and ask. I'll try my best to answer.

Edited by S3dition, 20 September 2013 - 08:40 PM.

[Davoke]

This looks absolutely awesome!

[GRiPSViGiL]

This what PC Gaming is all about...the community helping build and shape it. Well done good sir I raise my drink to YOU!

[S3dition]

Davoke, on 20 September 2013 - 04:14 PM, said:

This looks absolutely awesome!

Thanks

GRiPSViGiL, on 20 September 2013 - 08:39 PM, said:

This what PC Gaming is all about...the community helping build and shape it. Well done good sir I raise my drink to YOU!

I'll always raise a glass, when offered! I figure helping the community can only make the game better!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Here is an updated video. The gantry is fixed in that it is now possible to run to the top and it uses mostly box colliders to drastically reduce resource usage. There are still a few areas that need to be ironed out though, as you can see.

Edited by S3dition, 21 September 2013 - 03:13 AM.

[Tilley]

Great stuff brother! Looking forward to the finished product.

[Strayed]

If you don't mind me asking, I was curious to know what engine your mechlab runs on?

[S3dition]

Tilley, on 21 September 2013 - 01:59 PM, said:

Great stuff brother! Looking forward to the finished product.

Thanks . The "finished" product will be a while. But I hope to update frequently.

Strayed, on 21 September 2013 - 05:05 PM, said:

If you don't mind me asking, I was curious to know what engine your mechlab runs on?

I'll be announcing that information just before the public beta.

[S3dition]

Friday(ish) update:

I haven't had as much time to work on the mech lab as I would like. I'm actually working towards a new job in the next few months (fingers crossed) but it means spending time out on the campus that I may be getting the job at.

Anywho, I don't have anything super pretty to show off this week, as I've been working on pulling mech, weapon, equipment, and module icons from the game files for use with Mercpedia. I've also been working on extracting the mechs for the mech bay. The original 6 or so mechs are fairly easy, but PGI changed their asset pipeline for all of the newer mechs. Instead of being a single model, they're in pieces like a lego set.

This means I have to extract the part, convert it to quads, remove doubles, orient it correctly, then re-export it for the game engine. Once in the game engine, I have to snap all the pieces together to assemble the model. This is why all the newer mechs have custom geometry for weapons, while the older mechs do not - the new stuff is fully modular. The downside is that it's a pain to organize them for GUI integration. But before I can do that, I have to bulk rename all the models from *.cga to *.chr. So there are a lot of small steps on the path to mech enlightenment.

So how many parts does a mech come in? A lot:



And with another 4 models set to be released in 17 days, I'm going to be extremely busy just extracting and prepping models from the game - let alone making unique assets for the rest of the mech bay.


Can I advertise my merc/faction/clan/guild/party/unit?

Yes. I'm looking at donation based advertising in a few ways.

• Recruitment posters tacked around the public mech bays. This space will be limited and offered on a first come, first served basis. The unit will be responsible for providing the recruiting poster, but I'll outline the dimensions a quality requirements. They're pretty easy to make.
  
• Radio ads played over the comm system as part of the ambient noise. I will look into streaming HPR into the mech bay, so that will kill two birds with one stone. The idea is to create an immersive environment similar to the radio station.
  
• Custom mech labs for units. This would involve getting custom decals and unit insignia around the mech bay. However, this hinges entirely on a multiplayer component, so is on the wish list, not necessarily the to-do list.

This is basically to cover the costs of running the server and potentially adding more features. For example, I could use Miximo to very quickly animate models to walk around and create more ambiance than a deserted office building. This would take a lot of time for me to do manually, but $30 at Miximo would have it done in about 5 minutes.



As for bandwidth costs, Smurfy is putting his daily traffic at 12 gigs. That's for an entirely text based site. That means this could easily run over a hundred gigs per day in traffic. Yikes. If this gets out of control and would require fully monetizing the mech bay, I'll switch it over to be completely offline (just download the executable and go).

[Strayed]

In regards to donation based adverts how much are you looking for? And what support could the community give you?

[S3dition]

Strayed, on 29 September 2013 - 10:05 AM, said:

In regards to donation based adverts how much are you looking for? And what support could the community give you?

I'm not entirely certain on a target donation amount yet. I want to see my web host's reaction first. I have some other venues, such as cloud based hosting as well. I'm just worried about receiving a massive bill

As far as community involvement, I'll need to survey my work load first. I don't need an enormous amount of content, so I don't need a lot of objects. Though, as the development progresses, anything that can be crowed sourced will become apparent.

I think the biggest help right now would be sketches or design layouts that you know of. Things that reflect how an office, or a machine shop should look in 3050. Right now I'm leaning towards a mix of flat screen and old CRT type monitors. Flat screens are easier to texture though, for some of the live update stuff I'd like to do with them. Reference material would be nice for modeling those things.

Edited by S3dition, 29 September 2013 - 01:42 PM.

[Strayed]

People would love you for a mw2 style mechbay lol but is rather dark and dreary.



Office

[S3dition]

Strayed, on 30 September 2013 - 10:40 AM, said:

People would love you for a mw2 style mechbay lol but is rather dark and dreary.

*pictures*

Ah, Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries. I loved that game .

It is extremely dark, but I was intending to have it pretty dark anyway. It's inside a hangar, so there is no natural light, and the universe is supposed to be pretty run down and falling apart. It will definitely get tacked on the reference wall though

[S3dition]

While you are waiting for the patch... you can wait for my latest youtube update

Alright, we've had some pretty bad weather here and the power was going full emo for a couple of days. This means not as much progress as I would have liked. Also, I've come down with the traditional early fall cold/flu/cough/sickness/plague. Finally, the mechanics keep slacking off. They just never want to work:



That's right, rigging and animation test! Still a long way from complete, but amusing nonetheless. I'll prepare a more proper update tomorrow, as per usual.

[ZonbiBadger]

This looks pretty sweet! Keep it up!

[Lokisonn]

Excellent job, very impressed. This makes for an immersive experience even with the current game modes.
If this makes it into the game I wonder how it will deal with people that have 30, 40 or more mechs. It'd be painful to walk in a hanger that large.

How about mech bays that rotate with 3 mechs in each bay.

[S3dition]

Friday Update

Well, we had a tornado, massive winds, sideways rain and I came down with a strange bug. My goal for next Friday is to have the interior walls for the mech lab completed, along with the devices used for manipulating the mechs in real time.

Also, if anyone has models that can be used for mechwarriors and wants to donate them, let me know and I'll happily include them. I prefer .obj files with seperate diffiuse, specular, and normal map files. Pre-rigged is much preferred. Animations are also welcome as long as they are compatible with human armatures. I can work with .fbx .3ds .dae, and .blend files as well though.

These need to be game ready though. Nothing with 100,000 polys please... Around 8,000 - 15,000 is fine.

[S3dition]

Here is a brief update with some UI elements I've been playing with. I'm working on a system to allow interactive screens on control panels and monitors. Adds a bit of flavor to the mech bay:



Art is pretty rough, as I'm figuring out how I want everything to work before adding the polish.

[zagibu]

Have you considered WebGL? Something like this could work great in the browser, I think.