Full single player system

[Sepelio]

UFO:AI has indeed added cutscene support I heard about this a month or two ago.

My idea for cutscenes was simply to have short machinima style videos.

[MC SE7EN]

why not do both? use pre-rendered for major, between-level cutscenes where a lot of unique animations are needed and use in-engine cutscenes for in-level cutscenes..

[PinkRobot]

Would cutscenes not involve an incredible amount of modeling and animation to make it look right? We don't have too many modelers afaik.

I'm very much willing to work on maps for this SP mode, it sounds like a lot of fun.

[Flying Steel]

why not do both? use pre-rendered for major, between-level cutscenes where a lot of unique animations are needed and use in-engine cutscenes for in-level cutscenes..

We could, there have been games that did it that way.

It would just mean that two separate features would have to be built and debugged. That will take more time and support. So initially we'd have one at best, which brings us to the question of which is the priority.

Would cutscenes not involve an incredible amount of modeling and animation to make it look right? We don't have too many modelers afaik.

It would be work, but on the other hand we don't know how much coder support we'd get either.

A simple realtime cutscene method like MirceaKitsune suggested or like that the two Battlezone PC games primarily used is probably what would be used here as well, at least at first. In short, static cams and chase cams for visuals, with the voice dialogue going back and forth delivery most of the story.

I'm very much willing to work on maps for this SP mode, it sounds like a lot of fun.

Cool.

[mand1nga]

In my opinion bot ai is not the biggest issue here, all these changes can be added somewhat easily. This is all about having a good story and good maps and make the whole experience consistent.
Aside of bots there are some greats units made by tZork, and some (probably unused) monsters code, I think it would be great to have these to fight with.

[Flying Steel]

In my opinion bot ai is not the biggest issue here, all these changes can be added somewhat easily.

Some more advanced ally bot code could help though, like code that makes them always try to stay within a certain distance from the player (or do that when the player tells them to follow him) or be able to play the Assault and Race gametypes.

This is all about having a good story and good maps and make the whole experience consistent.

Agreed, those are major elements.

Aside of bots there are some greats units made by tZork, and some (probably unused) monsters code, I think it would be great to have these to fight with.

Agreed, we should definitely use the hell out of tZork's vehicle code and Psychcf's character class code.

[MirceaKitsune]

The way I see it, there are 3 independent parts for a SP system. 1: The entities which can spawn special bots on a map, 2: The trigger which can load another map while keeping each player's health and weapons through, 3: The Singleplayer gametype together with a checkpoint / savegame system.

Imo each part could be done individually, since a monster spawner, map navigation and new gametype are not constrained to one another. No one says a mapper can't use monsters in CTF if they really want to, or make an Assault level where everyone is taken to another map at the press of a button.

Sadly I'm leaving for the rest of summer and will be away for two months, and since I don't have a fast connection on my laptop I can't use SVN and code there I'll see if I can edit a few player models and make some monsters however.

[Flying Steel]

2: The trigger which can load another map while keeping each player's health and weapons through

I disagree with this one, not only is that not a requirement, but I think the campaign would be alot more fun and alot easier to balance without it.

More fun because the player doesn't have to worry about running out of ammo for the next level or hoarding it.

More easily balanced because then we don't have adjust difficulty for both the player having no ammo and the player having almost all the ammo he could have saved up from all the previous levels up to that point.

So I think we're actually better off without a carry over system.

No one says a mapper can't use monsters in CTF if they really want to

That's actually an extremely cool idea in its own right.

[MC SE7EN]

2: The trigger which can load another map while keeping each player's health and weapons through

I disagree with this one, not only is that not a requirement, but I think the campaign would be alot more fun and alot easier to balance without it.

More fun because the player doesn't have to worry about running out of ammo for the next level or hoarding it.

More easily balanced because then we don't have adjust difficulty for both the player having no ammo and the player having almost all the ammo he could have saved up from all the previous levels up to that point.

So I think we're actually better off without a carry over system.

No one says a mapper can't use monsters in CTF if they really want to

That's actually an extremely cool idea in its own right.

for the carry-over system, heres what i say (ive seen this done in a lot of other games)


*If you go from one level to the next with no break (your character moves from one area to another without returning to any kind of base to restock), you carry over your ammo/weapons.

*If you go back to your base/headquarters/whatever between missions, you restock and start with your default weapon with the default ammo.


Make sense? Im kinda tired right now, so idk if i made that clear.. imo that way is more realistic..

[MC SE7EN]

i think we need a whole separate board to discuss this whole project..