Nexuiz a freaking wonderfully advanced game, especially the parallax mapping. it's a true representation of what free software is capable of in the right hands. however, it's strong in places and weak in places at the same time, it can sort of ruin the experience. this is a list of things that i think would make nexuiz an even more graphically advanced game than it is now, as well as attract more artists to work on the game. i realize that what i'm suggesting is no easy task, but maybe a good goal for nexuiz 2.5?

1.reflection and refraction. for a game so technically advanced, it's a little sad to see such disappointing water effects. and i'm sure many of the weapons would look much better if they had some ability to reflect their surroundings.

2. animated textures. not just for the water effects, they'd make for some great explosion and smoke trail effects as well. because you would no longer have to rotate particles to make the smoke seem dynamic, you can make the bottom of particle texture darker than the top, to give a a great illusion of thickness. as shown below in an image i created using anim8or (free 3d animation program).

. that is made of one rocket object, and a particle trail of flat transparency maps.

3. radiosity. this is something extremely expensive to compute. however, i thought of a great method to fake it quickly and inexpensively. i'm surprised it's never been used before.. if you can incorporate reflections, you can blur the reflection a huge amount, and get a radiosity effect. for those who don't know, radiosity simulates light bouncing off of surfaces and onto other surfaces, thus if you put a whit ball ear a green wall, the white part facing the wall takes on a greenish color.

obviously this isn't top priority, but it would look pretty freakingsweet, you'll be hearing alot about it in other games soon enough.

4. Relative physics (inertia). this shouldn't be too hard to incorporate at all. i can see how the development team might be iffy about this one, so many people are used to playing nexuiz without it, you cant just change the behavior of the game. well, i think it would be fair to allow the user to choose if they prefer to play with or without inertia, it's not like one player will have the edge over another for having inertia, it just lets people be more comfortable with the game environment.

5. dynamic bloom (aka fake hdrl). this shouldn't be too difficult, have the bloom intensity adjust according to how bright the overall environment is, cheap inexpensive way to simulate hdrl.

6. more widely used model format. i'd love to help devlop for this game (i'm an artist as well as a 3D animator), but i the very thought of having to install and learn 9 different programs to create and animate a character model terrifies me, and god knows this game needs new character models. maybe make it more compatible with blender. my dream would be to make it more compatible with anim8or, but you dont have too large a userbase there. haha.

7. motion blur. alright not at all important, but still cool .

8. fullbright off! for gods sake, let it be up to the player if they want to turn full bright off on a server that has fullbright on by default. fullbright looks unbelievably ugly, especially with bloom enabled, it's really inconsiderate to mandate fullbright to those of us who are graphics junkies.

9. support for voice chat?

10. a better way to zoom, the current way seems to keep the mouse at the same sensitivity as if it weren't zoomed. this turns a mouse acceleration of 2 pixels into a mouse accelertion of 10 pixels when zoomed, absolutely terrible for using the nex unless you have an uber dpi mouse (i do, but not everyone else does).

rufsketch1 wrote:10. a better way to zoom, the current way seems to keep the mouse at the same sensitivity as if it weren't zoomed. this turns a mouse acceleration of 2 pixels into a mouse accelertion of 10 pixels when zoomed, absolutely terrible for using the nex unless you have an uber dpi mouse (i do, but not everyone else does).

Here's a script that Morfar wrote:

Code: Select all

// zoom script
set fov_orginal $fov
set fov_zoomvalue 50
set fov_sensorginal $sensitivity
set fov_sens 1.2
alias "+fov_zoom" "fov $fov_zoomvalue ; sensitivity $fov_sens"
alias "-fov_zoom" "fov $fov_orginal ; sensitivity $fov_sensorginal"

alias zoom_toggle "zoom_on"
alias zoom_on "fov $fov_zoomvalue ; sensitivity $fov_sens ; alias zoom_toggle zoom_off"
alias zoom_off "fov $fov_orginal ; sensitivity $fov_sensorginal ; alias zoom_toggle zoom_on"

bind mouse3 "+fov_zoom" // zoom while pressing
bind x "zoom_toggle" // zoom toggle

That zooms and changes the sensitivity. But yeah, I agree that it should be customizable from the meny, or already implemented somehow. Though this zoom script does not apply to the secondary fire, it's a seperate zoom thingie. Put it in autoexec.cfg.

And now I'm not a game developer so I cannot say what you're suggesting is good or not But nice to see someone taking interest in this.

rufsketch1 wrote:
1.reflection and refraction. for a game so technically advanced, it's a little sad to see such disappointing water effects. and i'm sure many of the weapons would look much better if they had some ability to reflect their surroundings.

What would be the point? I think there might be a single level with water, thats it. Maybe better slime/lava effects would be good, but even then it's so rare ingame it doesn't make sense to focus on it.

rufsketch1 wrote:4. Relative physics (inertia). this shouldn't be too hard to incorporate at all. i can see how the development team might be iffy about this one, so many people are used to playing nexuiz without it, you cant just change the behavior of the game. well, i think it would be fair to allow the user to choose if they prefer to play with or without inertia, it's not like one player will have the edge over another for having inertia, it just lets people be more comfortable with the game environment.

It's actually not easy to do. IF you mean ragdoll and IK and such, it requires client side gamecode done, and we can't use any of the librarys out there

rufsketch1 wrote:5. dynamic bloom (aka fake hdrl). this shouldn't be too difficult, have the bloom intensity adjust according to how bright the overall environment is, cheap inexpensive way to simulate hdrl.

Don't we already have that?

rufsketch1 wrote:6. more widely used model format. i'd love to help devlop for this game (i'm an artist as well as a 3D animator), but i the very thought of having to install and learn 9 different programs to create and animate a character model terrifies me, and god knows this game needs new character models. maybe make it more compatible with blender. my dream would be to make it more compatible with anim8or, but you dont have too large a userbase there. haha.

Yeah this a major problem, it uses way too many different model formats (zym, md3, mdl).
Zym, the main format, has a horrible compiling process and uses SMD files, most artists hate dealing with it. For Zymotic uses md3, or we might switch to md5

rufsketch1 wrote:9. support for voice chat?

We wouldn't be able to use any librarys or anything like that, because it needs to be GPL. So I don't think we could ever get voice chat working

rufsketch1 wrote:4. Relative physics (inertia). this shouldn't be too hard to incorporate at all. i can see how the development team might be iffy about this one, so many people are used to playing nexuiz without it, you cant just change the behavior of the game. well, i think it would be fair to allow the user to choose if they prefer to play with or without inertia, it's not like one player will have the edge over another for having inertia, it just lets people be more comfortable with the game environment.

If you are thinking about newtonian behavior.. I've also thought about this. It would be awesome if i.e the rocket speed was calculated from the player speed, not relative to the ground. But it would change the gameplay a lot Especially on like greatwall, but i think it would be for the better. should be tested.

Vermeulen wrote:

rufsketch1 wrote:
1.reflection and refraction. for a game so technically advanced, it's a little sad to see such disappointing water effects. and i'm sure many of the weapons would look much better if they had some ability to reflect their surroundings.

What would be the point? I think there might be a single level with water, thats it. Maybe better slime/lava effects would be good, but even then it's so rare ingame it doesn't make sense to focus on it.

i think you're looking at it backwards. if water effects were more advanced, then there would be more levels created that wouldn't be afraid of using it (no one wants to bring their level down a notch because something looks lame). and lets face it, water can create for some pretty interesting game strategies.

Vermeulen wrote:

rufsketch1 wrote:4. Relative physics (inertia). this shouldn't be too hard to incorporate at all. i can see how the development team might be iffy about this one, so many people are used to playing nexuiz without it, you cant just change the behavior of the game. well, i think it would be fair to allow the user to choose if they prefer to play with or without inertia, it's not like one player will have the edge over another for having inertia, it just lets people be more comfortable with the game environment.

It's actually not easy to do. IF you mean ragdoll and IK and such, it requires client side gamecode done, and we can't use any of the librarys out there

no no. first of all i don't see how IK would ever be useful in a first person shooter, and ragdoll would look cool, but that isn't what i mean. the guy below you understood what i meant, sorry if i wasn't being clear. but basically, imagine you're launched off of a speed thingy, and you shoot a rocket at an enemy in the meantime. currently, nexuiz is set so that you actually outrun your rocket, and this isn't physically accurate. it's a simple featur to incorporate because you simply take the force in each direction of the rocket, and add the forces in each direction of the player to it, and you have relative physics.

Vermeulen wrote:

rufsketch1 wrote:5. dynamic bloom (aka fake hdrl). this shouldn't be too difficult, have the bloom intensity adjust according to how bright the overall environment is, cheap inexpensive way to simulate hdrl.

Don't we already have that?

no, all you have is bloom i think. i haven't been able to find a dynamic bloom option anywhere, one that simulates how the eye adjusts to light.

Vermeulen wrote:

rufsketch1 wrote:6. more widely used model format. i'd love to help devlop for this game (i'm an artist as well as a 3D animator), but i the very thought of having to install and learn 9 different programs to create and animate a character model terrifies me, and god knows this game needs new character models. maybe make it more compatible with blender. my dream would be to make it more compatible with anim8or, but you dont have too large a userbase there. haha.

Yeah this a major problem, it uses way too many different model formats (zym, md3, mdl).
Zym, the main format, has a horrible compiling process and uses SMD files, most artists hate dealing with it. For Zymotic uses md3, or we might switch to md5

well, something certainly needs to be done about the nexuiz format. a comprehensive howto would certainly be nice. it's a shame to see a program with such graphical potential and nowhere near enough artists to make use of it.

Vermeulen wrote:

rufsketch1 wrote:9. support for voice chat?

We wouldn't be able to use any librarys or anything like that, because it needs to be GPL. So I don't think we could ever get voice chat working

ummm, you can't make your own code?? i'm a very novice programmer, but shouldn't it be as simple as using some sound libraries to save the sound in RAM, transfer the sound file and play it on someone else's machine? obviously there would be faster ways for streaming the sound, but that might be more difficult to incorporate, where as with this method you could treat the sound in the same manner you would treat the sound of a weapon firing.

rufsketch1 wrote:ummm, you can't make your own code?? i'm a very novice programmer, but shouldn't it be as simple as using some sound libraries to save the sound in RAM, transfer the sound file and play it on someone else's machine? obviously there would be faster ways for streaming the sound, but that might be more difficult to incorporate, where as with this method you could treat the sound in the same manner you would treat the sound of a weapon firing.

Most of that kind of handling is done server side, forone, and secondly.. your idea, although.. interesitng would be waaaaaay laggy. Easier to use third-part voice chat systems Introducing a way for the game to transfer data directly from one client to another also has security issues.

rufsketch1 wrote:

Vermeulen wrote:

rufsketch1 wrote:9. support for voice chat?

We wouldn't be able to use any librarys or anything like that, because it needs to be GPL. So I don't think we could ever get voice chat working

ummm, you can't make your own code?? i'm a very novice programmer, but shouldn't it be as simple as using some sound libraries to save the sound in RAM, transfer the sound file and play it on someone else's machine? obviously there would be faster ways for streaming the sound, but that might be more difficult to incorporate, where as with this method you could treat the sound in the same manner you would treat the sound of a weapon firing.

I'm sure there's an open source push to chat program somewhere out there that we can use. Not that hard (by voice chat I'm thinking like the voice chat in quake 4)

well, vocie chat is 3rd lowest priority (next to radiosity and motion blur). top of the list is animated textures, reflection/refraction, and Newtonian physics. and of course a definitive change for the easier to the model format, and a definite documented how to. with plenty of pictures and diagrams, artists <3 those .

I'm against true Newtonian physics for weapons because it's just too hard to control. A major element is shooting while strafing - which would get pratically lost then.

However, jumping should use inertia (does it already? Need to try that on space-fun).

As for weapons, I had the idea of making weapon speed relative to the player, but adding an "auto adjustment" that makes the rocket still fly to the crosshair (so basically the speed is relative to the player, but the direction is absolute). However, that's not always possible to do, so in extreme cases, I'd give priority to the direction and use a wrong speed then. But it would certainly fix shooting rockets downwards while on the bluesky jump pad, or shooting rockets while running around fast on greatwall.

If you want to try "more realistic" projectile inertial, try playing Tribes 2. It's a bit less severe there because Tribes 2 has much slower players relative to the projectiles.

divVerent wrote:I'm against true Newtonian physics for weapons because it's just too hard to control. A major element is shooting while strafing - which would get pratically lost then.

However, jumping should use inertia (does it already? Need to try that on space-fun).

As for weapons, I had the idea of making weapon speed relative to the player, but adding an "auto adjustment" that makes the rocket still fly to the crosshair (so basically the speed is relative to the player, but the direction is absolute). However, that's not always possible to do, so in extreme cases, I'd give priority to the direction and use a wrong speed then. But it would certainly fix shooting rockets downwards while on the bluesky jump pad, or shooting rockets while running around fast on greatwall.

If you want to try "more realistic" projectile inertial, try playing Tribes 2. It's a bit less severe there because Tribes 2 has much slower players relative to the projectiles.

well, my whole idea about this was to let the player choose which they're more comfortable with. i personally dont like the fact that i can't shoot someone in midair while we're both faling without having to point downwards, it's just unrealistic.

But... If the projectile movement was relative to the player, then what would happen if someone shot a rocket while flying off a jumppad like in greatwall. The rocket's speed would be added to the players speed, and you would get a VERY fast rocket. I still like the idea though.

This is what I think could help nexuiz. They probably arent feasible, but in case they are:

1. Reticle change based on weapon. for example, a shotgun would have a very simple retical, while the nex would have a sniper-esque one.

2. Some kind of superweapon. Like the redeemer in UT 2k4, there wouldnt need to be alot of them, and they could respawn slowly/ with very little ammo, but they would add a really cool element to gameplay.

3. Weapon sounds and animations. In my opinion, the weapons in Nexuiz look really cool, but the animations are a bit poor, except for the animations of the hagar and the mortar, which rock. for alot of the energy weapons some kind of "charging" animation would be awsome, especially for the nex which has a long recharge time between shots. I was thinking like the minigun "spin up" animiation in UT 2k4 and Doom 3.

Same goes for the sounds. The hagar, the mortar, and the nex all have really cool sounds, but the other weapons' sounds are a bit tinny and weak. When you use the hagar, it sounds and feels like you are blowing the opponent into oblivion, but the machine gun (which is one of the best weapons in the game) sounds really weak.

4.I think that nexuiz needs an aspect of its gameplay that is really unique, and sets it apart from all the other quake based fps. For example, the upcoming half life 2 release, episode 2, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal_(computer_game) , is something that really sets half life apart from other fps, along with the gravity gun. And im without a doubt going to buy that game. Nexuiz doesnt have to be changed so drastically as to make it slow, but right now, in the words of my friend chris when I told him about nexuiz,

"just sounds like another first person shooter"

In some ways, the hook accomplishes this, but many people dispise the hook (although i think its great fun).

5. Accurate gravity. Right now, the source of gravity is always "down," but not in relation to the map- in relation to an arbitrary set of coordinates. For example, in facing worlds, a player can "fall off" the map. With accurate gravity, a player could walk on the underside of the map, because the source of gravity is the mass of the map. While this may not work with the current version of facing, if accurate newtonian gravity were accomplished (or even to have gravity coming from source points placed by the map maker), some really cool things could be done- like maps in a battle school type area (from the book ender's game). Of course, im sure implimenting this would be a herculean feat.

6. A standard model format, like said above.

7. Many of the things rufsketch1 pointed out about gameplay, although aside from character models I dont think that Nexuiz looks bad at all, especially with a skilled map maker.

I think that if ANY of these could be added, nexuiz would be improved immensely, and even be able to compete with commercial games. Nexuiz should be unique in some way- otherwise (aside from a great helpful community, cost, and overall funness of fps like these), there is not much that would attract new players- especially over games like F.E.A.R., which are also free.

5. Accurate gravity. Right now, the source of gravity is always "down," but not in relation to the map- in relation to an arbitrary set of coordinates. For example, in facing worlds, a player can "fall off" the map. With accurate gravity, a player could walk on the underside of the map, because the source of gravity is the mass of the map. While this may not work with the current version of facing, if accurate newtonian gravity were accomplished (or even to have gravity coming from source points placed by the map maker), some really cool things could be done- like maps in a battle school type area (from the book ender's game). Of course, im sure implimenting this would be a herculean feat.

that's a GREAT idea! should make for some EXTREMELY fun gameplay. it acutally shouldn't be that difficult to accomplish if you just have it attracted to a plane. for example a code that would check if an object is above a certain point, it should have a tendency to accelerate downwards. if it's below a certain point, upward, if to the left, then right, and if to the right, then left. this would of course leave a distance for the sake of not having theing get completely shaky when it hits that point. so if it's 2 units near the point in any direction, no change in motion until it gets past that space.



as for the rocket idea, yes, it would make for some extremely fast rockets, but thats how it would be in real life too. also, i think the rocket should have a definite push on the character when fired in midair. say i'm launched off a jump pad skywayrd, if i shoot a rocket upward, it should slow me down a bit, because the mass of the rocket pushes against my character, and i have no ground on which friction would help me counteract this force.



and i think the grappling hook is a pretty diverse idea. i think a cool weapon would be an electro orb type weapon that when you fired the orbs, and alternate fire would make them freeze in midair can you say great wall of doom? for an even cooler strategy. these orbs could be shot at by other people, and they wouldn't explode, they'd go and bounce off in the direction that the other person shot them, can you say backfire?

I think the gravity thing would be interesting, though a much simpler way to implement it would just be custom gravity zones. Like a definable brush that can override the standard gravity.

The idea of being able to walk upside-down due to a mass's center of gravity is a neat concept but it'd be hard to execute, since DP has trouble shifting the player view like that (I read this a long time ago, but it may still apply). Custom gravity zones, though, would be a good feature.

rufsketch1 wrote:i personally dont like the fact that i can't shoot someone in midair while we're both faling without having to point downwards, it's just unrealistic.

That's a good point, but I'd ALSO not like that rockets don't end up where the crosshair points to while I walk.

Maybe an option would be newtonian physics + toggleable aiming correction. You'd then enable aiming correction most of the times, but if you shoot at someone who's moving the same way as you are, you'd disable it (actually, you might want to have multiple fire buttons for that then).

Another fun idea on that would be an aiming help for slow weapons - a second recticle would then appear where you WOULD have to shoot to hit the player given the current player's movement speed and the characteristics of the weapon you are holding. However, that would only work with client-side code.

Another fun idea on that would be an aiming help for slow weapons - a second recticle would then appear where you WOULD have to shoot to hit the player given the current player's movement speed and the characteristics of the weapon you are holding.

That would also make it waaay to easy to hit someone. Part of the challenge of the RL is to have to judge the person's trajectory in relationship to teh rocket. hmmm. Could be interesting though.

I AGREE ON EVERYTHING.

glad im not alone, nexuiz really needs some changes to be " The game "

Don't get mad esteel, even though i know u will

nexuiz has a ton of unrealized ability. i think, if we were to get the water working, we'd have some pretty screens to tote. and not only would that attract more players to make the game more fun, but it would attract more attention from programmers .

oh, and the grappling hook, seriously needs to not be fully bright, it looks awful. but plays amazingly .

oh btw, does the engine nexuiz is based on take advantage of nvidia true shadow technology? i notic that nexuiz fps are noticably lower in similar environments as doom 3. environments with the same number of lights.


and of course, nexuiz could certainly use some press...

A "puppy gun" would make Nexuiz complete. It is a gun that turns your insides into puppies and then the puppies eat their way out of you. After that they run around and infect people with AIDS because they are so huggable.

Ivan wrote:A "puppy gun" would make Nexuiz complete. It is a gun that turns your insides into puppies and then the puppies eat their way out of you. After that they run around and infect people with AIDS because they are so huggable.

YES!!! that's it, that's what this game needs. Once it has that, close the SVN, we're done here.

For the last 2 days I've been playing in 3rd person mode, and I cant get over how awsome it is! Not very effective for close range fighting, but I managed to win a few games with the rocket launcher. Imo it would be awsome if 3rd person mode could be toggled on and off in a menu option, and let people choose how they want it. Right now, camera control is pretty good in 3rd person, even compared to xbox games (cough *ninja gaiden* cough). Of course, if such a thing were implimented the offset reticle would need to be adjusted in 3rd person mode. I cant imagine it would be too hard, considering the game already has the functionality of 3rd person view from its quake roots. What do you think ?

just a note, right now I think that the lurk, armored and reg carni, marine, and xolar look the best in 3rd person.

I just do:

Code: Select all

alias +3rdperson "set chase_active 1"
alias -3rdperson "set chase_active 0"
bind q +3rdperson


That wasnt my point. Its possible to bind to a key or enter it into the console— but: 1. many people dont know what a console is, and fewer take the time to bind keys. 2. Many dont know the various commands (I thought it was cg_thirdperson 1, like it is in many other games) 3. It would be more accessible for people in teh menu. 4. the offset reticle would need to be adjusted in 3rd person mode.

Maybe Im the only person who thinks that a third person option would be cool or uses it, but the option cant hurt imo. Alot of new fps have a built in option for third person view, or even over the shoulder, as an alternative. Ghost Recon comes to mind.

[TSA] Psychiccyberfreak wrote:I just do:

Code: Select all

alias +3rdperson "set chase_active 1"
alias -3rdperson "set chase_active 0"
bind q +3rdperson


bind q "toggle chase_active" is shorter.

I was thinking the same thing, actually. My thoughts were more of how it'd be neat to have a single-player adventure using the Nex assets that would rely in certain spots on toggling to third person mode.

Shoe wrote:My thoughts were more of how it'd be neat to have a single-player adventure using the Nex assets that would rely in certain spots on toggling to third person mode.

errr isn't that what zymotic is supposed to be?

[TSA] Psychiccyberfreak wrote:

Shoe wrote:My thoughts were more of how it'd be neat to have a single-player adventure using the Nex assets that would rely in certain spots on toggling to third person mode.

errr isn't that what zymotic is supposed to be?

I thought it was going to have all new assets, different from those in Nex. I haven't seen anything about reliance on a third-person camera mode, either.

I like the ideas with the physics of projectiles launched at high speed (this may need testing and careful balancing to get done just right and not kill the fun) and the dynamic bloom thing. Also, the water (I think that's an engine issue though, so you might need to talk to LordHavoc about it) and weapon animations would be nice, but I don't care all that much for graphics anyway, so I'd go for gameplay-oriented improvements first.

Crosshairs... Well you can also bind a different crosshair to each of the weapon-selection keys, but that wouldn't make them change when the weapon is automatically changed and stuff. AFAIK some HUD improvements (see the 'Engine' section here) are planned and this sounds rather easy to code, so we may see this in a future version.

The big bad weapon... I don't know. A good friend of mine also pointed that we don't have something like that in Nexuiz, but I for one never felt the need for such a thing here. It could be added as a mutator and switched on or off or something.

As for the gravity, it would be a nice idea, but:

1. maps are usually not very nice looking from underneath (missing polygons and such, as you usually don't see that part) so they would need to be worked on as well;

2. may not work out just as planned (just like anything in this world that not all people agree on);

3. some of the maps should be left as they are, it's fun throwing people off floating platforms into the void ;

4. I'm not 100% sure it's even possible; you see, afaik Quake was designed to have a well defined notion of 'up' and 'down', and DarkPlaces (the engine Nexuiz uses) is based on Quake.

So I wouldn't make very wild changes to the gravity just yet.

I still think the crosshair thing would be nice though .

Yea, something like that would really have to be thought out, and new maps probably made. But- I was thinking about space maps, and how cool a space map could be with different gravity and more possible axises of rotation.

Vermeulen wrote:

rufsketch1 wrote:

rufsketch1 wrote:9. support for voice chat?

We wouldn't be able to use any librarys or anything like that, because it needs to be GPL. So I don't think we could ever get voice chat working

what about the aix-protocoll, for example?
or the GPL Voicechat (http://users.tkk.fi/~rsaikkon/software/voicechat.html)?
openwengo.org also has some sort of voip-libraries build in.

right ... some work needs still be done - neither is a full featured in-game-chat-system ... but there are ways to choose from.


EDIT:
or perhaps you could find something in here:
Search at sf.net

More expansive weapons system (IE: many more slots, should be quite a few).
"Novelty" weapons such as crossbow, long bow, sword, maybe a (medeval) shield (only stops long bow, sword, etc). Maybe a colt .45 and a revolver (and a peper box revolver aswell).

Weapons that you can place on your map if, say, it's a castle map.
They should be differentiated in the editor (radiant) from the standard ones, maybe call them:
nonstd_weaponname

http://darsana-game.com/
Those are nice examples, though not opensource.

Maybe a toutorial on how to create new weapons for nexuiz.
(I'd like to pull my own weight rather then just asking for things)