Porting Ns

kll_I_wll · July 2003

Although this has probably been thought of, and I may be beating a dead horse, I was wondering what peoples thoughts may be on bringing a similar mod like NS to a different engine. I was thinking of the battlefield engine, which would be great to work with because of the vehicular combat. So you could build new buildings, and create vehicles out of those and upgrade them. This is what I want to do after I finish up my ties to SoF2, and I just wanted to have input, or any support whatsoever. Commander mode would probably be the hardest to implement because it is the backbone of the marines. If we did do it the Halflife way, it would probably be a menace to fps.

FireStorm · July 2003

no

(use search if u want to know why)

Comprox · July 2003

Expanding on what fire said:
If it does get ported, it would be to the HL2 engine when it comes out. No decisions have been made as they haven't even seen how porting to that engine would work yet.

As for totally different engines. Too much time, too much work to redo it all for the dev team. It's not written in the same code, maps would all have to be redone, etc. This NS dev team will likely never do it.

kll_I_wll · July 2003

Oh, I didnt mean this mod team. Id make a new one. I thought it would be a good Idea, considering how battlefield could make even a bigger swipe at RTS/FPS. Not to mention, adding to the difficulty of remakeing this mod, or creating a new chapter for a different engine. Is that battlefield uses a way different mapping method, which is mainly terrain, any building or structure has to be modelled and imported.

meatball · July 2003

I belive that the mod wouldn't have the same feeling and probably it wouldn't deserve to be called Natural Selection if it will be devoleped by an other team...

Comprox · July 2003

And that's why I said the NS Dev team wouldn't do it <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'> If some other group of people want to, they would have to get in contact with Flayra (usually easier via email) and talk with him. Or hope he notices this thread.

kll_I_wll · July 2003

/me starts hoping.

My whole theory that if I were to go into this project, I'd basically have to recreate everything. And no doubt it would have the same feel, being the fact that battlefield maps are more based on terrain. Our main goal, would be to keep that certain authenticity, but also expanding apon it.

Incitatus · July 2003

Do you guys have any idea of the work involved to move to another engine.
I can only answer from an artwork/model/animation point of view, so forget about the coding part.
You would have to remodel all models from the ground up, all levels weapons characters everything.
You would have to repaint all textures again at higher resolutions. You would practically have to remake the entire game from scratch. The amount of polies in the models would be triple if not more not to talk about the maps, the textures would have to be 2 maybe 3 times as big.
oh my god man you would have to rig the characters all over and do the animations!

And then there's the coding of which I have absolutely no idea, I can only imagine the work involved in recoding to a different engine.

esuna · July 2003

Also bear in mind that "Natural Selection" is a trademark of Flayra's. The name can't be used for another project. So forget about ideas of Natural Selection as we know it being developed by another team.

<span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>EDIT: Itchy posting finger</span>

kll_I_wll · July 2003

Oh I have an idea. I know. But nothing can come from nothing. I know everything would have to be redone, and reanimated. Thats what I do. I run another mod for sof2, it alone has its share of problems with ghoul 2. What I really want, is input, on like vehicles, building ideas ect. And also, importantly, input from the dev team themselves. Esuna, I know, It wouldnt be a direct port anyways. Alot of stuff would have to be reworked for design, not to mention I wouldnt mind moving on, or going back with regards to storyline and time placement.

Kenichi · July 2003

considering ns isnt even at its peak of completness on the hl1 engine i wouldnt ever think it should be moved elsewhere.

I would personally not play it if it wasnt made by the original team.

KaiserRoll · July 2003

It would probably just be wierd with vehicles, and huge outdoor maps. I don't think the battlefield engine lends itself to something like this.

kll_I_wll · July 2003

Its possible, but I will think about it more when I am done with a current mod.

Droggog · July 2003

Hi.

Gabe (valve) said himself there will be a lot of tools to convert HL1 stuff to HL2. I think its better to start from scratch anyway to take full advantage of the new engine but maybe its just me (im a noob mapper, not a modeler or coder) Maybe for the code some cut'n'paste will do the job, cause there is a lot of similarity with the two engines, and its all in c++.

Now about battlefield: i think its a really bad choice cause there is no official SDK. In fact i think BF1942 will just die when HL2 is out, heh. They promised a SDK with the release of the game, no SDK ... then they said it will come with a patch.. still no SDK. Then they said "the SDK will ship with road to rome"... Still no SDK on road to rome CD. There IS a SDK for BF, but its unofficial. Its a compilation of tools people made themselves cause they got bored to have no SDK at all. Another thing is there is no c++ code in battlefield, all is in some weird scripting files that are somewhat limited. You cant really make a total conversion with BF, you can only add small features, models, maps, and the like (just look at desert combat, nothing really new). Not to mention the infantery code in BF totally suxx in my opinion (even with a ping of 50ms, you dont have to fire ON your target but 2 meters away if its moving to actually hit it). In terms of gameplay, foot movement is bad at BF too, its somewhat hard to jump over some sandbags, you cant really crouch-jump and stay on it, etc. Vehicles are OK and very fun to drive tho.

I have no idea for SoF2, i never played it/got interested, its just another fps that i dont need (i play both BF and HL). I dunno if it have a good player base, community etc.

Good luck with whatever you want to do, bye.

RPGreg2600 · July 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Droggog @ Jul 1 2003, 12:27 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Hi.

Gabe (valve) said himself there will be a lot of tools to convert HL1 stuff to HL2. I think its better to start from scratch anyway to take full advantage of the new engine but maybe its just me (im a noob mapper, not a modeler or coder) Maybe for the code some cut'n'paste will do the job, cause there is a lot of similarity with the two engines, and its all in c++.

Now about battlefield: i think its a really bad choice cause there is no official SDK. In fact i think BF1942 will just die when HL2 is out, heh. They promised a SDK with the release of the game, no SDK ... then they said it will come with a patch.. still no SDK. Then they said "the SDK will ship with road to rome"... Still no SDK on road to rome CD. There IS a SDK for BF, but its unofficial. Its a compilation of tools people made themselves cause they got bored to have no SDK at all. Another thing is there is no c++ code in battlefield, all is in some weird scripting files that are somewhat limited. You cant really make a total conversion with BF, you can only add small features, models, maps, and the like (just look at desert combat, nothing really new). Not to mention the infantery code in BF totally suxx in my opinion (even with a ping of 50ms, you dont have to fire ON your target but 2 meters away if its moving to actually hit it). In terms of gameplay, foot movement is bad at BF too, its somewhat hard to jump over some sandbags, you cant really crouch-jump and stay on it, etc. Vehicles are OK and very fun to drive tho.

I have no idea for SoF2, i never played it/got interested, its just another fps that i dont need (i play both BF and HL). I dunno if it have a good player base, community etc.

Good luck with whatever you want to do, bye.  </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> 
Actually, they've never said anything about releasing an SDK, I believe you're thinking of the map editor.

TommyVercetti · July 2003

Though I doubt this will come to fruitition (is that even a word?), I would sure as hell like it to. I've had BF1942 pretty much since it came out but haven't played it much, mainly because I like infantry combat and BF's is pretty weak and the (IMHO) terrible physics system. This would probably change all that, especially because I like my games on an epic scale (sometimes) and NS is already a great base full of possibiliies. I can imagine alien vehicles "growing" in fields at the Hive waiting for an alien to transfer its mind/essence to it. Nanoproduced gunships, hovertanks, super heavy machine guns, jetpacks that sprout gliding wings... Well, none of these ideas are serious, but I would like it <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'>... Of course, you could always make your own RTS/FPS mod, simply having it in the BF engine would make it dissimilar enough that it wouldn't be a NS clone.

obuh · July 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (TommyVercetti @ Jul 1 2003, 12:56 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> hovertanks  </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> 
without flapping

Iced_Eagle · July 2003

well think about it.... HL2 graphics pwn all those other engines so why would you want to do it on a lesser engine??? hmmm i remember gabe saying that there apparently is no more 32 player limit somwhere or that it was a technical issue or sumthin.... does that mean we can have huge-@$$ NS games??? that would be kinda wierd..... massive pwnage

Edit: do you guys like my new avatar?<img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'> especially the people who idle on IRC do <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'>

Young_Trotsky · July 2003

OMG PUT NS ON HL2 ENGINE!!!11122one!!2one!!1

Porting Ns

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