Images from NS2 On Source circa 2007

Comprox

First off, I checked with Charlie if it was ok that I released these images. So, while I was doing some forum work I started digging through some old archives and found a screenshot thread from the early days of NS2 back when it was planned to be on the Source engine. Some mappers and other smart people were given the tools to start playing around with. These were insanely early in development and are from late 2007. I have listed the mapper with each set of pictures that still existed. Many of the pictures were now gone so not every mapper is represented here. Finally, many of these shots are literally the first attempts by these people and they continued to refine and make them better, but I wanted to show off the absolute earliest work.

PogoP



Kouji_San



Olmy


Huh, a Tram station...

Rendy_Czech


DrunkenMonkey


Reeke


nosebleed

Zavaro

That's pretty cool! Thanks for sharing! I still wish there were higher resolution source files for some of those NS1 textures, this certainly isn't helping.

Nordic

Spark looks better.
Pretty cool.

IronHorse

Seb

Looks very 00's
It's interesting to see where it was going, and if spark was developed close to that date, how amazing spark looks in comparison to source at that time.

AurOn2

The drunkenmonkey map looks pre'e cool. Or at least the picture,
*runs off to plagiarise*

Yojimbo

Wonder how the source engine would stand up now if UWE went down that road? Would be heavily modified I reckon, like the unreal engine! Shame we didn't try the unreal engine out

CarNagE1

That screens only shows that decision UWE made to go for spark was a good one. Screens are nice but still thay lack details that ns2 has...

Archie

Here's a link from my last night screwing around, trying to get NS2 Assets into Hl2.

Problem with the game-code, since we have ns1 mod source code, i don't know how different it is with the hl2 mod source code, i wonder if anyone could implement basic features, someone has them ,i know that there's a video somewhere on youtube showing basic skulk leaping, commandermode and something else (i forgot)

I can do some model importing/exporting if anyone needs help with any projects, besides due to support i'd rather work on source engine.

[AwE]Sentinel

I value more features over textures with higher resolution. I don't care about better looks if I have to screw 99% off all my map ideas because sparks can't render 20m etc. This is only making me sad And watch this video and tell me it didn't look good at that time and maybe still even now:

joshhh

Mmmmm I can smell the massive fps coming from each screenshot. Makes me sad

Kouji_San

yay for proper texture alignment tools in Hammer :P

[AwE]Sentinel

worldcraft/hammer was awesome, so many options...

IronHorse

Yojimbo wrote: »

Shame we didn't try the unreal engine out

That was not an option at the time, as it required a very expensive license in the neighborhood of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Also, I have yet to see a UE3 multiplayer game that doesn't suffer from warping / jerky player movement... even recent ones like Nosgoth can't deal with fast paced melee properly. Same with Primal Carnage and Chivalry etc..

Source can handle fast movement smoothly... but it's also much more limited in what it can accomplish. You couldn't port NS2 features over, for instance.
You'd have to make an incredibly stripped down version of it.

I am hopeful that newer engines like that proprietary one being used for Reflex, can offer better player movement and maybe could be Modded for NS purposes. (They also sample input 1,000 times a second)

xDragon

If they were able to successfully make NS in gldsrc, NS2 could have been made in Source. Now maybe some features like DI (but really, its not 'dynamic' atm) and the lighting system wouldn't have been easy/feasibly the same, but it could have been done for sure. Now whether they could have completed NS2 on Source is a completely different story, as the gameplay coding would have taken much longer I suspect. Source is also not perfect when it comes to high movement speed lag compensation, it has known accuracy limitations.

UE3 suffers from having too much flexibility when it comes to that maybe, its up to the game devs to implement multiplayer as they see fit. Many UE3 games are actually P2P games, however I am not sure how its implemented in Nosgoth. Archeblade was a third person fighting game on UE3 which probably had the best netcode I've seen to date in that engine, but it had no form of lag compensation. Sadly that game is mostly dead and there probably isn't any decent servers left to get examples from.

Nordic

Nosgoth has some hitreg issues specific to certain attacks from my experience and word of mouth.

deathshroud

i must be one of only a few who is glad uwe never went with source, all the mods that relaunched in source never felt the same as their hl1 counterparts

IronHorse

I didn't think there existed a UE3 multiplayer game that utilizes lag compensation, because it's not implemented by default?
I've heard rumors about UE4 doing something different though

Yojimbo

Hey iron horse how about the unity engine? I'm no game developer but always hear people rave how good it is and it is free right?

Comprox

Yojimbo wrote: »

Hey iron horse how about the unity engine? I'm no game developer but always hear people rave how good it is and it is free right?

It's not free, but is is somewhat affordable. The UWE team is using it to make Subnautica right now actually. It was not an option back when NS2 was being made.

xDragon

Tribes Ascend had lag compensation on hitscan weapons, but most of them have since been removed IIRC.

Yojimbo

Oh OK thanks comprox, on the basis of what you know now would you of stuck with spark? Gone back to source or tried ns2 on unity?

Comprox

Yojimbo wrote: »

Oh OK thanks comprox, on the basis of what you know now would you of stuck with spark? Gone back to source or tried ns2 on unity?

I do 0 work on the game so I have no thoughts, sadly. I just handle forum and other community stuff

Yojimbo

OK well it would be interesting to know what uwe and even cdt would think about it now!

Cannon_FodderAUS

@Yojimbo Have you had a look at @CarNage1 's video? There is no doubt in my mind after seeing how beautiful NS2 looks that UWE made the right choice. As a disclaimer, I run my NS2 on an ancient E8400 (dual core 3.0Gz) with a GTX650, with everything on low and at a non-native res (1377x684 or something). I hope to upgrade this Christmas and be able to play with some shiny new graphics on NS2. Look here:
forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/135695/natural-selection-2-trailer-fan-made

Zavaro

Yojimbo wrote: »

OK well it would be interesting to know what uwe and even cdt would think about it now!

From hearing comments behind closed doors, I'm almost absolutely positive that they would have still gone with Spark over Unity for NS2. Unity is a great engine for a wide variety of game applications, it's extremely scalable and flexible, has a ton of tools and great support, but the proprietary engine did and still makes the most sense for a project like Natural Selection due to its complicated structure and coding depth. This is the same reason why they've continued to develop Spark for Future Perfect.

And don't think that I'm belittling Unity or Subnautica, which has to be one of the most ambitious and wonderful Unity games made thus far. SN has been getting really good content and gameplay updates essentially every week, and I'm sure that Unity's tools and support at least play a role in that. But it might just be Charlie being that super inspiring dude still, magically motivating people to go above and beyond. It's great to be able to boot up a game and see cool new changes nearly every time.

NotPaLaGi

Did the CDT guy just spend two paragraphs on a hypothetical "NS2 on Unity" question when Comprox said it wasn't even an option at the time?

Anyways, the more intelligent question revolves around the Source/Spark debate. If you look at NS2 today, I would argue it was not necessary to create a custom engine for what this game is now. Obviously UWE had bigger ambitions with this engine and the ability to license it out later from a business side made sense. But purely from a gameplay side, NS2 could have been made sooner with comparable (and perhaps even better) gameplay than what we received with Spark. The whole performance debacle may have never happened and you are probably looking at a better, more popular and polished game. So from a pure consumer side, yes I am disappointed in their choice. From a developer side, they still made alot of money and got so much experience in developing their own engine, I think Spark still remains the better choice for them, even looking back now.

IronHorse wrote: »

Source can handle fast movement smoothly... but it's also much more limited in what it can accomplish. You couldn't port NS2 features over, for instance.

I disagree with this sentiment. There is no feature in its current iteration exclusive to Spark that is worth all the negatives that came with it. Even the whole dynamic infestation idea (which was supposed to be a hallmark feature of Spark and lead to cysting/powernodes being forced into NS2 gameplay) ended up negatively impacting the game we have today.

Edit: Btw, I don't want to sound too negative on UWE's decision to develop their own engine for NS2. At the time, the positives did seem to outweight the negatives, and I was just excited as anyone to see what NS2 would become with the freedom of a custom designed engine.

Archie

Didn't hugh say the UWE team made 10million gross revenue from NS2? Unless they spent millions of dollars since 2012 (i assume hughs marketing costs are highly inflated, but only because i want them to be)

Would be nice to see a conversion mod, surely someone has it on there hardrive, or atleast basic framework. I can't get around head to toes the HL2 modding, or even start converting it.

http://unknownworlds.com/ns2/natural-selection-source-code-released/
https://github.com/unknownworlds/NS/

Comprox

A few things:

- The reason the Spark engine even started was due to limitations of the Source engine. They were having problems with some stuff and waiting on Valve to fix/add/whatever was just not going to work.
- Even then, the original plan was just to make the engine display BSP levels and to continue to use tools like the Hammer editor to make the maps. They understood quite clearly how much work making all the tools would be. Sadly Valve did not allow this. If you use Hammer, you have to use Source, or somesuch.
- Something like the Unity engine had 1 game released on it at this point. Better to use your own, barely used, engine which you can fix on the fly versus a 3rd party, barely used, engine which you must wait on them to fix.
- Original NS2 cost multiple millions to make. Something like the Reinforced patch cost around $550 000 to make. Hence why the reinforcement program had a goal of $550 000.

IronHorse

NotPaLaGi wrote: »

But purely from a gameplay side, NS2 could have been made sooner with comparable (and perhaps even better) gameplay than what we received with Spark.

Not necessarily "sooner".
While LUA came with performance issues, it definitely allowed them to develop and iterate wayyy faster.

NotPaLaGi wrote: »

There is no feature in its current iteration exclusive to Spark that is worth all the negatives that came with it.

Idk why you disagree with what I said since I was just stating facts.
I just stated that Source was technically unable to accomplish the features they wanted at the time.

Whether or not they are worth it or the inherent value they provide is entirely subjective. I personally think spark looks better *shrug*

Namm

Nice maps. They have a bit dated yet sturdy look to them.

Comprox wrote: »

These were insanely early in development and are from late 2007.

Seeing as Source was released in 2004, insanely early development would ideally have begun years before 2007.