Development Blog for Project Vega

Now I realize this isn’t news about Project Vega/Last Bastion, but I think that given the magnitude of this announcement… maybe you’ll let this slide

After years of standing in the way of this, I have finally decided to allow for the release of the Skulltag source code. After all, let’s be honest: No longer running Skulltag has given me a different perspective on this issue.

The release of the source code is something that Torr has wanted to do for awhile now. For security reasons, we’re releasing the source to the older 97c2 first. I have given him permission to release any subsequent versions that he desires. After all, who am I now to stand in his way?

Some benefits to this are:

• Being open-source will eventually allow Skulltag to update the GZDoom renderer (provided Graf doesn’t modify the license again)
• Someone might fix Botscript
• Someone might implement a more centralized handling of the client/server code

It will be interesting to see what happens with this. Will a community of people all pitch it and help make Skulltag a better product? Or will other ports use this to bolster their products and erode Skulltag’s multiplayer Doom success? Time will tell!

Anyway, that’s enough from me. Here it is! Enjoy!

http://www.skulltag.com/download/97c2source.zip

Things have been pretty quiet from us since QuakeCon. What’s the deal with that? Were we all wiped out in a cataclysmic rain of fire? Were we enslaved and working in the coal mines? Are we all too busy playing Halo 3: ODST (hint: no)? Actually, the answer is none of the above! We’ve been hard at work on the next phase of Project Vega (it’s still a codename, remember?)!

While the first phase primarily had to do with getting the basic technology off the ground (building the editor, getting the scripting system working, getting map basics working, etc.), and the next phase further developed that into a playable demo (lightmapping, basic working monsters, basic working weapons. etc.), this third phase is geared towards developing a small slice of what the game will actually be like. This means we’re finialing the overall look of the game (more on that in a minute), determining what visual technology we’ll need to do this (and implementing this), and developing a few maps that fully reflect the final look of the game, as well as the final gameplay of the game.

Concerning the look of the game, we’ve chosen to take it in the direction of cel-shading. This means that the game will be bright and colorful, looking something like an anime. Meshes will have banded lighting (while still allowing the full spectrum of color), and be outlined. Overall, it looks very cool so far! We’re moving away from a more realistic look to something more interesting, I think. Currently, Mechadon and Esselfortium are working on figuring out how the maps should look under this new rendering system. Once we’ve got it all ironed out, I’ll be sure to post share some screenshots of it!

I’ve also been working extensively on the gameplay side of things. After fixing several bugs/issues noticed at QuakeCon, I’ve added several new elements including powerups and an extensive customizeable skill setting system similar to what’s found in ZDoom. This allows you to define your own skill levels and properties, such as speeds for objects (in some skills you may want missiles to travel faster), player damage factor (so the player can take more/less damage under certain skill levels), and whether or not the monsters should attack more frequently. I’ve been updating the monster scripts to reflect these new properties, and so far I’m very pleased with the results.

We’re well on our way to completing this next phase – a small slice of what the real game will be like, in terms of visuals and gameplay. When this phase is complete, we’ll finally be ready to find ourselves a publisher, and get this game finished!

So I’ve been working on the first map of Vega’s QuakeCon demo, and have finally gotten to use one of the features implemented some time ago: shadows! Why am I bothering to write an entire new blog on shadows? Well, clearly it’s because I want to show off this new map lighting is tremendously important, and can make a huge difference in a game.

For instance, take a look at this shot without shadows:

And then look at this shot with shadows:

Makes a big difference, doesn’t it? Anyone who’s played Doom 3 can understand just how important lighting is. Without lighting, most Doom 3 maps would appear to have simple architecture and simple texturing. However, the lighting brings the rooms to life, making them look very 3D, and is almost solely responsible for setting the map’s overall mood.

It’s amazing how much of a difference one little checkbox can make.

So yeah, I haven’t posted any updates in awhile. I know I know… what a jerk I am! I’ll sit here and wait while you all throw bricks at me… OUCH! Alright now that that’s over with, let’s get on with showing you all what’s been going on with Project Vega.

Just because there haven’t been updates in awhile doesn’t at all mean that progress has been slow – in fact, things have been going extremely smoothly! About a month ago, I scheduled a list of features that I wanted to have implemented for a… “certain event in August” (hint hint). It was supposed to take over two months. I was done within two weeks.

First, a lot of rather simple features have been implemented which have dramatically increased the quality of how things look: filtering, mipmapping, and anti-aliasing. Some of you might have noticed how blocky and pixely the old screenshots of Vega (remember, it’s a codename!) looked. However, these new features have greatly improved how things look. Here’s a little before/after look:

Before:

After:

We’ve also made a lot of progress on the maps and other content. Recently, I took one of the older maps that WastedYouth made, and retextured it using high-res textures. After doing that, doing some minor restructuring and lighting, it looks a hell of a lot better! Again, here’s a before/after of the map:

Before:

After:

So as you can see, things are progressing nicely! A lot of other things have been done, but none of them are quite ready to show… yet! We’ll have an announcement or two in the next few days – after all, I don’t want to cram too much into one post!

Anyway, one small bit of bad news I’d like to pass on – Agent Spork will unfortunately be too busy to be part of the project We’d love to have him aboard, but he’s just too busy with real life issues right now. Despite his absence, we’ll be just fine in the mapping department!

That’s all for now!

After more than a year, we’ve finally finished the first phase of our development. This first development phase has been dedicated to getting our basic technology up and running: having a fully functional map editor, being able to run around in maps, getting all of the scripting systems into place, and getting skyboxes, lightmaps, and other visual technology elements implemented and working properly. It’s been a lot of work just to get the very basics in, but we’re very pleased with the results so far!

So now we move into the next phase of development: application. To use a housing metaphor, if the first phase was laying the foundation, this phase is about putting up walls, and flushing out the overall design of the house. In short, we’re starting to make use of everything the foundation has provided us to make something we can live in… or in our case, play.

Each phase of development is also broken into two phases: a gameplay phase, and a visual phase. So, once the gameplay elements are all set for a phase, we work on making them all look pretty. For instance, with the maps, in the gameplay phase we focused on getting them up and running so that there was actual geometry you could run around on, and in the visual phase we focused on making them look nice with cool lighting, textures, etc.

So now that we’ve completed the first visual phase, it’s time to get back to focusing on gameplay. It should be a lot of fun to start utilizing everything that we put into place before.

I’ll leave you all with this: a lightmap texture generated for one of the new maps Todd’s working on. Each region represents the lighting for a face, so if you stretch that region out of the face, and combine it with the texture, you end up with the face’s lighting. Enjoy!

A lightmap generated from a new map.