X-Shift: MMOVIE

[khanstruct]

Hey everyone, thought I'd put a bit of our showcase up here. Much as I'd like to take credit for this, I was just lucky enough to land the greatest team of developers I've ever known. The concept is mine, as are the 2d graphics, but the rest is all the hard work of a very talented team.

We are still in our pre-production phase, so these images are primarily renders (not from the game engine itself). Either way, I hope it gives you an idea of what to expect in X-Shift.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v706/sgtkoolaid/lobby_textured8.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v706/sgtkoolaid/plaza_blg_corpbuildings.jpg
http://jimbo3d.com/leximodel3.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v706/sgtkoolaid/centralplaza_level.jpg

[Juuso Hietalahti]

I wonder what scale you are using. The character model looks very detailed (quite many polys there) while the buildings are simpler... will the game cameraview be like FPS, or perhaps something else?

[khanstruct]

Actually, that particular character model is only being used in a video trailer, hence the high poly count. Our actual in-game models average about 2500 polys. The camera view will be 3rd person, over the shoulder (with a movable camera using the character as an axis), but also offers the option of switching to 1st person view.

[Juuso Hietalahti]

Okay... that's clears a lot :) Looks like you are going to have huge areas to explore :)

What tools are you using, and have you checked out MMO engines such as www.multiverse.net ?

[khanstruct]

We're using JMonkey for the core engine and Project Darkstar for our server-side architecture. Also, FengGUI for the interface.

As for software, we use mainly use Maya and Photoshop. There are a few touches of Mudbox and ZBrush here and there, but not in any of those renders.

Yes, our goal is to create a world just as large as your average MMO; the only difference is that ours takes place in a single city. Currently, we're planning to design things so that it will take a player about 45 minutes to cross the city from one edge to another. I believe I nearly gave the world designers a heart attack when I said that I wanted to keep cloning to an absolute minimum. So nearly every building will be unique and every room on every floor will be accessible.

Granted, we'll also have a modest wilderness area to explore, as well as our "abandoned freeway", but those take a fraction of the time to build.

[Chris Pelling]

That is pretty a huge game world! It looks very ambitious.

How long are you expecting this project to take?

[khanstruct]

After funding we're actually aiming for 2.5 years, though we are also anticipating some delays. My "anti-instancing" stance and distaste for cloning has kinda upped the standard for the art team, but considering most of the city you see there has been built and textured by one guy in a couple months, it's definitely do-able.

Our main world designer also has a background in architectural design and we also have an actual architect working with us just designing buildings. Lots of fun! :)

[Talon]

It sounds like an ambitious project :)

I'm curious as to how you're going to approach the issue of texture sizes?

Having little to no cloning and/or instancing is surely going to end up with literally tens of gigabytes of textures? Unless you start doing some iD Tech5 style texture methods. I'd imagine could also end up being extremely demanding on ram space, too.

[khanstruct]

Well, not cloning models is different than not reusing textures. Granted, some textures are specific to models (water stains on walls around signs and such), but some of the basic concrete and brick textures will be reused. Either way, yes, the game will end up being somewhat intensive on the vram. Fortunately, JMonkey does do a pretty good job as far as memory management, culling, zbuffers, LOD, etc. Also, as all rendering takes place on the client, and many features will be customizable to the player, we're hoping to still leave room for a wide audience.

One thing to keep in mind though, is that we're actually building a game to fully utilize the power of computers two and a half years from now. This takes a bit of research and a dash of intuition to plan for, but we should be fairly close to the mark.

[khanstruct]

Adding a quick amendment to my response on texture sizes. One method we're using (recently) is using smaller, tiled textures for the base textures then applying an alpha layer to add the interesting visual effects. (dirt along the bottom of walls, water stains under pipes, etc.) The alpha layer will then be able to be toggled on and off by the player during runtime.

We've recently signed on some incredibly talented programmers, so we're now progressing much more quickly (and efficiently).

[Talon]

Cool. There's always the process of "thirding (http://www.poopinmymouth.com/process/tips/thirding.jpg)". Gives you a similar effect but without the need for alpha mapped stuff (at least for the top/bottom unique elements of the walls).

[khanstruct]

Right... talkin to the wrong guy in that department. :)

Granted, I know more about modeling, mapping and texturing now than I ever expected know (or even knew there was to know), but it's not really my speciality. If you wanna talk design or graphic arts, I'm your guy ;)