what about Mechcommander 2 models?

Development of artwork, requests, suggestions, samples, or if you have artwork to offer. Primarily for the artists.
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strooka
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what about Mechcommander 2 models?

#1 Post by strooka »

Ok, Ok this shouldn't be mentioned yet....

But Yes there is already much work done, the meshes are in an obvious .fit and .csv format. i've heared, they were done with 3dsmax.

Does anyone know theese formats?

what do you think about using mechs or buildings or tanks from mc2?

the license is like that in short "MS says, that the code can freely be contributed, but you may not make money with it."

the project is very out of date now, meaning i've seen no one who uses it furthermore.

i'm just asking wether you take it in decission to use mechs in the program - i would be very happy :)

lets do a mc revival :mrgreen:

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pd
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Re: what about Mechcommander 2 models?

#2 Post by pd »

The license is not compatible, plus, we are only going to use original content.

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strooka
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Re: what about Mechcommander 2 models?

#3 Post by strooka »

oh, what a pitty, does anyone by the way have information how to load those meshes in?
i didn't take a look at 3dsmax yet.

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pd
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Re: what about Mechcommander 2 models?

#4 Post by pd »

I'm pretty sure 3ds won't open them and I haven't seen those file types before. My guess is, it's something native to mech commander. If this game has been modded in the past, there are probably tools available to import/convert those files.

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strooka
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Re: what about Mechcommander 2 models?

#5 Post by strooka »

Pd, i don't agree with you.
Can you imangine how much stuff we Need?
Till now we have only 2-3 meshes and we cant compare us to those firms that have hundreds of People Working on One project.
The Net is Full of stuff we Need only to Download and modify.
There are Brunches of libs the only Thing you Need to do is add à subparagraph for every Lib we Reuse Look, would you rewrite boost, bullet or opensteer again by yourself?
Only Why you don't want to make Things simpler?

Tell me what is easier, Write à Paragraph in the License or create hundreds of meshes by yourself?

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pd
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Re: what about Mechcommander 2 models?

#6 Post by pd »

There are license issues with most of the stuff you can find on the web. The license we are using allows others to use our content, even for commercial purposes, as long as they use a compatible license. Many people seem to have a problem with that.

There are quality issues with most of the stuff you can find on the web. I don't want to fix other people's work, if i can create original content at the same time. Most of the models online do not come with the texture types we need, especially normal maps. It's also very unlikely to find complete lines of ships.

We don't need to have everything finished right now. 1.0 is still far ahead of us. For 0.4 I intend to have 6-12 meshes, that's good enough. At this point we can advertise on art forums and we might find some talented people willing to help.

The reason there are just few meshes at this point is not because it took extremely long to create them. It's because there hasn't been a demand for it(no progress in techdemo coding) and because there were other priorities. The concept art foundation for the Trith line of ships is done. Modeling will start as soon I finish my current freelance job.


Other projects might take everything they can find(in terms of art), put it in a mixer and be done with it. That's not going to happen here. That's not how the visual side of a game should be developed.


It's also important to note that while we aim to provide a complete game by itself, it's completely open and can serve as a foundation for custom versions. Everyone can take content of their own or from web and put it into freeorion. If you want to put Mechcommander(for example) models in freeOrion, you will be able to do this. Will it be part of the official release? Unlikely.

The beautiful thing about bullet, boost etc. is - they come in a compatible lisence and professional quality.

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MikkoM
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Re: what about Mechcommander 2 models?

#7 Post by MikkoM »

pd wrote: Other projects might take everything they can find(in terms of art), put it in a mixer and be done with it. That's not going to happen here. That's not how the visual side of a game should be developed.
And this makes a lot of sense. I can only imagine how bad the game would look like, if it just glued together material from various sources. :(

Someone once said: "What is worth doing is worth doing well." And so far this has been the case with FreeOrion.

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strooka
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Re: what about Mechcommander 2 models?

#8 Post by strooka »

When it is the Case that i whish to make à Mod, will you give me webspace for the Mod, maybe à Part of the Forum and Support for the Parts of the project that don't differ?

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eleazar
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Re: what about Mechcommander 2 models?

#9 Post by eleazar »

strooka wrote:When it is the Case that i whish to make à Mod, will you give me webspace for the Mod, maybe à Part of the Forum and Support for the Parts of the project that don't differ?
Are you talking about a mod or a fork? I can't tell if there's a language barrier here, or if you aren't very familiar with open source projects.

Freeorion is hosted on sourceforge. There's no reason sourceforge (or another such host) wouldn't host a mod or fork of FreeOrion too. FO's webspace is just for the forum and the wiki.

It's probably premature to make promises about how exactly we will support mods or forks. But it isn't in anyone's interest to go out of our way to make life hard for modders. For a game, mods are the sign of a healthy project.

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strooka
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Re: what about Mechcommander 2 models?

#10 Post by strooka »

What is à fork?
Do you mean i want to Call mc2 As subprocess?

no

i want to use only the mc2 artwork and create the Code myself.

I'm pretty Not shure wether i may Set my Mod on souceforge, cause the License is slightly different to that to those who ( may?) Be Set on souceforge.
On sourgeforge you Must Set the GNU license i suppose.
The License of the Mc2 artwork is As pd says Not compatible with it, cause you may Not make Money with it.

The Code could Be published with GNU, our License cause it comes from me.
Could there Be à extern Link like it is with GiGi in my svn and could the Code i Write Be added to the freeorion project, Even if parts wont Be used in fo?

I'm still looking forward to get Access to the Fo svn under theese circumstances.

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eleazar
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Re: what about Mechcommander 2 models?

#11 Post by eleazar »

Fork:
"In software engineering, a project fork happens when developers take a copy of source code from one software package and start independent development on it, creating a distinct piece of software."

This would be what you would have if you included all the different rules and game mechanics you've mentioned in other threads, since a significant amount of code would need to be changed.

Mod:
A mod generally just changes content files.

I.E. it would be a mod if you took mc2 art and included it by altering or adding new unit descriptions, and maybe changing the tech tree to include them.

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strooka
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Re: what about Mechcommander 2 models?

#12 Post by strooka »

I think i could live with modding it if you agree that the Command Interface will Be Not directly but to give Orders As i mentioned it in another thread.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=695

We could make the Ground Combat directly like it is in similar other strategy Games.

The reason of doing the Command Interface like this is that you want large numbers of ships in Fight and à propper ai implementation wouldn't work with it, too.
This is already partly Done in Code with opensteer.
And there would Be more possibilities to make à combat.

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