foxbat Posted March 11, 2010 Share Posted March 11, 2010 (edited) If you're Fan of the games that defined the Tactical Realism genre -- a genre we feel has gone back in time and swapped bodies with Rambo in a freak electrical accident involving toothpaste -- we believe we are on track to offering what you've been waiting for. We've been at it (in our spare time) for over five years, have made impressive progress, but have a ways to go. This is a 'boot-strap' project where we're building it all ourselves from the ground up to offer an engine and platform dedicated to the genre's needs and future, so there's a lot of work involved not seen in the current ilk of games that essentially roll as mods of commercial engines. Our aims are ambitious but will within reach: a state-of-the-art engine and art pipeline dedicated to the genre, upgrade and expansion by design rather then self-obsolesce, a direct free-to-retail model where core content will be free that not will not only keep Developers in direct contact with Fans, but consign and pay prolific and talented Fan/Mod Developers for their contributions. Special Warfare Games is our trademark and title, 'built by Fans for Fans' our creed. We're working to bring Tactical Realism back, and invite you to join us. Presently we're looking for: a capable Web Developer; an Animator/Modeler (with emphasis on animation talent as we have a considerable stock of art assets); and a 2D/Texture Artist skilled at unwrapping and texturing models, creating texture maps, and 2D presentation art. If you are interested in working with us in any of these areas, you are invited and welcome contact us at: developers at scalerender dot com Edited March 11, 2010 by foxbat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
firefly2442 Posted March 12, 2010 Share Posted March 12, 2010 So you built the graphics engine from scratch? That must have taken considerable time. Why not go with something that is already available? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foxbat Posted March 12, 2010 Author Share Posted March 12, 2010 (edited) The game engine is made up of a collection of low level libraries for things like rendering, audio, networking and physics. Our philosophy is to avoid reinventing the wheel wherever possible, so we've taken existing libraries and then built our game engine on top of these. Our graphics is based on the Object-oriented Graphics Rendering Engine (OGRE), but with our own proprietary scene management and shader code. When I said we've built the engine from the ground up I was referring to the Game Engine layer, and didn't mean to imply that we've built all the underlying systems from scratch as well. Sorry for the ambiguity. The main reason why we decided to develop our own technology rather than licensing an existing game engine is that the tactical realism FPS genre has many inherent technical hurdles which would have been very difficult to overcome with commercial engines available to us at the time; at least without spending a fortune on licensing fees. While engine licensing has become more affordable over the years, we still feel that the flexibility of having our own engine and owning all of our IP makes it worth while. Edited March 12, 2010 by foxbat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bota:16 Posted March 12, 2010 Share Posted March 12, 2010 Just curious, why not Unreal 3 UDK. I know they you have to pay them royalties for a commercial product, but seems like there would be less reinventing the wheel for something like this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foxbat Posted March 12, 2010 Author Share Posted March 12, 2010 My understanding is that the Unreal 3 UDK only lets you code in Unreal Script, which is too limiting for the kind of features we want to have in the game. It's fine if you don't deviate too far from the feature set they give you, but we have the need to do custom things, particularly with AI, which really requires a true programming language. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
101459 Posted March 12, 2010 Share Posted March 12, 2010 (edited) While I don't think Unreal 3 is a BSP engine, it, and all the games that run on it sure look and feel like BSP engine games as far as scene complexity vs. draw distance. Every large U3 engine map (just like new id Software Tech engine games) is long and narrow, or in some kind of valley and/or has draw distance clipped by carefully placed near field objects. All great and fine for urban maps that have been the focus of games like R6, but Unreal 3 is not an true outdoor engine like the one under say Armed Assault I & II. So I definitely get the idea of a new engine for a game that might want to fill some of the void left by [GR] (which is what this sounds like). But what can this engine really do? And what kind of game features does it offer? Edited March 12, 2010 by 101459 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foxbat Posted March 12, 2010 Author Share Posted March 12, 2010 Here's a brief rundown on the current engine and game features: Game Features; - realistic player movement and weapons handling - Rainbow 6 style kit selection with custom weapon attachments - tactical squad AI - fluid system for issuing commands - support for 1st person, over the shoulder, and ghost perspective Graphics: - per-pixel lighting with normal and specular mapping - depth shadow mapping with soft shadows - efficient rendering of detailed terrain tens of kilometers across - efficient rendering of large amounts of vegetation - dynamic time of day lighting Animation: - combined 1st person / 3rd person skeleton - procedural control of bones for accurate weapon aim alignment - hardware skinning with up to 4 vertex weights per bone Physics: - 6 DOF rigid body dynamics - projectile dynamics - wheeled vehicle physics and accurate aircraft dynamics - boat and ship physics responsive to dynamic waves Network: - low bandwidth network physics - multiplayer and COOP support Asset Pipeline: - level editor - open support for a variety of 3D applications - open material and shader scripting system Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
firefly2442 Posted March 12, 2010 Share Posted March 12, 2010 Do you have a website with additional media and progress updates? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TRC Posted March 12, 2010 Share Posted March 12, 2010 Sounds interesting, keep us apprised of further development. If it impresses us you can be sure the membership here will get the word out to other forums. Ahhh, the thought of being able to pick one's own kit like R6 is delightful, as well as tactical ai. Any chance of the old style firefight/recon game modes for sp/coop types? Actually you could combine the 2 and just allow player(s) to kill all or sneak around to an extraction point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foxbat Posted March 12, 2010 Author Share Posted March 12, 2010 Do you have a website with additional media and progress updates? We are working on a website, however we are hoping to find a capable web developer to help us organize things before we start putting web content up. Being able to show images or videos of the game is contingent on us finding an artist or artists who can help us export animation and model content to the engine. We currently test the game with some placeholder assets which we would like to have upgraded/replaced. Any chance of the old style firefight/recon game modes for sp/coop types? Yes we will have several sp/mp/coop game modes including (but not limited to) types similar to firefight, recon and siege. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krise madsen Posted March 12, 2010 Share Posted March 12, 2010 Sounds interesting. Please keep us updated. Best of luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foxbat Posted September 18, 2010 Author Share Posted September 18, 2010 (edited) Update: Since my first post we've done a lot of work in sorting out bugs and polishing the code. The game is playable (MP including COOP, and SP) and most of the core mechanics for old-school Ghost Recon style gameplay are in there. It's just a two man show at the moment, and we really need art content to help us move forward. We're looking for help with: - design & integration of website and community portal (2D art skills helpful) - level creation - asset exporting - UV unwrapping and texturing Team members will gain access to game alpha builds and can participate in online MP testing. Additionally, we're aware that quite a lot of mod content has been created by this community and by the tactical realism community as a whole. We see Special Warfare as a platform on which people can develop their own content. As such, we'd like to allow mod teams or individual modders to contribute new or existing assets. We have a user-friendly art pipeline and can personally help with any technical aspects of content integration. Edited September 18, 2010 by foxbat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
101459 Posted March 13, 2011 Share Posted March 13, 2011 Looks like this is still a work in progress, found a leaked screenshot: And got permission... Also looks like thier studio site might go up here... From what I gathered from one of the fellers working on this is it's heavly inspired by Ghost Recon, but will feature more capablity: drivable vehicles, amazing AI system, sandbox editor and lots more. I think that's as much as I can safely say without getting in the dog house. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lightspeed Posted March 14, 2011 Share Posted March 14, 2011 We're working to bring Tactical Realism back, and invite you to join us. From what I gathered from one of the fellers working on this is it's heavly inspired by Ghost Recon, but will feature more capablity: drivable vehicles, amazing AI system, sandbox editor and lots more. have these guys tried Arma2/OA? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
101459 Posted April 30, 2011 Share Posted April 30, 2011 Yes, as one of Developers used to do contract work on VBS·2 related projects, I'd say it's a reasonable bet that they've tried Arma2/OA... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
101459 Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 Looks like they've given more attention to their web site, looks like something's going on... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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