idtech COOP Medieval/Fantasy/Stealth Universe projects

[oneofthe8devilz]

Original idtechforums thread

 

Being a big fan of medieval/fantasy/steampunk stealth games, I always regret that up to this point no major AAA studio bothered enough to release a cooperative version of the genre...

 

And so due to the lack of coop content in that genre, I decided to try and get existing builds to work in COOP, that would allow players to enjoy that type of gameplay with friends across the internet...

 

Now of course, given the fact that I am an individual with a fairly limited amount of resources and capabilities, I have to maximize code and asset acquisition, in case I ever expect to complete any project within a reasonable amount of time and release it to the community...

 

Luckily for me the idtech community is an amazing place with extraordinary talented people, that are kind enough allowing me to use their top quality art and code for my community targeted coop projects...

 

In The Shadows, Quake 1 Mod by Simon 'Sock' O'Callaghan

=================================================

 

"In The Shadows" is a Quake 1 conversion that adds a stealth system and whole new campaign to Quake. Sneak past the enemies and/or try kill them safely from within the shadows while playing through the custom campaign avoiding detection...

 

Simon was kind enough to provide his project's source code for internal testing and so with a few quite rudimentary changes to the code, I was able to enable coop-capability for the campaign...

 

... the Coop test session was recorded

 

(click on the image to playback the youtube video)

 

Then of course I got my own idtech4 based projects (FMJ,MCS,Venture) cooking and in the past I mentioned several times that I am a huge Thief:Deadly Shadows fan and the idea of being able to play it in COOP with a friend across the internet was intriguing enough to me to actually start and rebuilding the game within idtech4...

 

Thief: Deadly Shadows @ idtech4 by Oneofthe8devilz

============================================

 

Now porting a game to a complete different engine/codebase is of course a gigantic task (especially for a "one man" team) so when you watch the early WIP footage below please bear that in mind, with me still figuring out how to rebuild game assets, shaders and code the most efficient way. But the general idea is to slowly port the game mission by mission, asset by asset to idtech4...

 

(click on the image to playback the youtube video)

 

Garrett@NightmareBurrows@Venture

 

(click the image to watch the youtube video)

 

I am looking for fellow modders to join this project to speed up the development...

 

For the other COOP fanatics here, I will keep this thread updated with the progress I make over time...

 

 

IdTech Hybrid Engine and Netcode Showcase

=======================================

 

(click the animated image to watch the youtube video)

 

I remember lately the community having debates about whether to stick with the original Doom3 codebase or to migrate to Doom3 BFG...

 

And while arguments were made for and against from both sides (Sikkmod vs RBDOOM-3-BFG for example) I always wondered why not creating a hybrid approach that takes the advantages of each codebase utilizing the best of both worlds...

 

This showcase consists of a code and assets merge of multiple previous prototype projects incorporating trebor's shadowmapping, sikkpin's hdr lighting, zombie's dungeon map and MCS's game & netcode...

 

It still runs on Doom3's original framework allowing easy modding (with a custom gamex86.dll) and dedicated server hosting and browsing...

 

Aside from the specifically showcased unified soft-shadow-mapping and high-dynamic-range-lighting, it was also as usual important for me to demonstrate that those features flawlessly work together with MCS's network synced AI over a high latency low bandwidth Server <-> Client connection (simulating a server/client distance of about 10000 kilometers).

 

Venture Online PlayTest 2019 [idtech]

=======================================

 

(click the image to watch the youtube video)

 

ClientSide Online Playtest connected to a Dedicated Server testing fully operational FirstPerson and ThirdPerson Views and Animations replicated across the Network/Internet with the new hybrid idtech4 engine.

 

***Update***

 

For the people that find the lighting intensity in the video too strong I made this little comparison GIF animation which shows a few of many possible examples of how differently the game can be setup to look on the Client:

 

So if you don't like the Bloom... just change or disable it,

If you don't like the Depth of Field... just change or disable it,

If you don't like the HDR Rendering... just change or disable it,

If you don't like the SoftShadows... just change or disabled them,

If you'd like a different ColorGrading ... just set it ... etc etc etc

 

Example GIF showcase (click to open it)

 

http://www.scared-pixel-studios.com/public/images/venture/Venture.ClientSide.Visual.Settings.gif

 

As showcased in its current state, it is a proof of concept build and I don't feel at liberty to predict when and if at all it will make it into a final, releasable project, since there are currently too many factors but as you'll notice, it runs remarkably stable and performant.

Edited April 29, 2019 by oneofthe8devilz

[nbohr1more]

Welcome to the forums!

 

(I though you were already a member )

 

Good luck with your projects!

[Diego]

You're Thievious' developer? I love this project

[RPGista]

Haha, thats quite cool, that little lantern eye might not be great for hiding in the shadows, but its unmistakeable. Great project by the way.

[oneofthe8devilz]

Master-Thief Garrett decided to visit the Venture universe for some quick R&R...

 

High-Res Screenshot Link

Edited October 1, 2014 by oneofthe8devilz

[New Horizon]

Why has the original post been completely reposted?

[oneofthe8devilz]

Why has the original post been completely reposted?

 

Oops my bad .. let me correct it

[Springheel]

I am a huge Thief:Deadly Shadows fan and the idea of being able to play it in COOP with a friend across the internet was intriguing enough to me to actually start and rebuilding the game within idtech4...Now porting a game to a complete different engine/codebase is of course a gigantic task (especially for a "one man" team)

 

I don't get it...you're recreating TDS in idTech4? Why on earth would you do that instead of building on TDM, which already uses idTech4?

[oneofthe8devilz]

I don't get it...you're recreating TDS in idTech4? Why on earth would you do that instead of building on TDM, which already uses idTech4?

 

The main reason I do this is because my codebase already supports cooperative multiplayer and while TDM has many very cool features, most of them have not been developed with multiplayer in mind, so getting those to run in a multiplayer environment across the internet might turn out a task, pretty tough pull off...

[STiFU]

Getting AI to react believably to the player will be, too... But I guess you could still get that portion of code from our codebase.

 

However, you know that you'll never be able to release your project to the public due to copyright issues, right?

[demagogue]

I think adding coop to TDM rather than TDM to coop would be the greatest thing a person could do, because then it could apply to all FMs and not just the handful you're working on ... on top of the fact, as mentioned, you can't legally recreate TDS for copyright reasons.

[oneofthe8devilz]

Getting AI to react believably to the player will be, too... But I guess you could still get that portion of code from our codebase.

 

However, you know that you'll never be able to release your project to the public due to copyright issues, right?

 

Theoretically, Yes...

 

But, there would be the option to release an installer that checks whether the user has "Thief: Deadly Shadows" installed on his PC. Providing an installer that can extract and copy assets from the "Thief: Deadly Shadows" game folder and place them in the according Doom3 mod folder on the fly... That is certainly technically achievable and should not violate any Copyright as the installer itself only ships with the mentioned instructions (without any of the copyright protected material included).

 

Legal owners of "Thief: Deadly Shadows" and "Doom3" would be able to install and play it.

 

Alternatively, once all major mechanics have been ported and are operational the copyright protected material could be replaced...

 

That would be the beauty of having it running on code and assets that we have complete source access to.

 

I already have created custom main character replacement for testing purposes:

 

Sigh, youtube 3d playback stopped working for me a couple of days ago...

 

So if this happened to you aswell you can still download the youtube 3d video and watch it locally on the sterescopic player of your choice (3D TV owners can also manually switch their TV to SBS stereo input (you might have to swap the left/right input) to watch the footage directly in 3D on youtube).

 

(click the image to playback the youtube video)

 

I haven't fully decided yet what way I will pursue, but I really think that is more a technicality rather than a true insurmountable obstacle.

 

What do you guys think ?

Edited October 2, 2014 by oneofthe8devilz

[demagogue]

Making a different character and having only "inspired by TDS" maps I think is preferable for 2 reasons, 1 because it avoids cooyright issues altogether without scary sounding technical stuff the player has to do, and 2 because then they are new maps, so people will be curious to see them and won't think they've already seen it before playing TDS the first time. So that's my bias.

[oneofthe8devilz]

Interesting bias.

 

Being the only person currently working on this project, would you agree that the workload for an individual to create content from scratch is exorbitantly higher, compared to rather recreating the already available story and assets from an existing game ?

 

Second, since the main motivation for this project was to be able to play the game "Thief: Deadly Shadows" in a cooperative multiplayer environment enjoying the assets, the story and the general atmosphere of the original game, wouldn't it actually defy the initial purpose of experiencing that very same story, assets and atmosphere in coop in case I started to create content that deviates from the original game ?

Edited October 2, 2014 by oneofthe8devilz

[HMart]

Theoretically, Yes...

 

But, there would be the option to release an installer that checks whether the user has "Thief: Deadly Shadows" installed on his PC. Providing an installer that can extract and copy assets from the "Thief: Deadly Shadows" game folder and place them in the according Doom3 mod folder on the fly... That is certainly technically achievable and should not violate any Copyright as the installer itself only ships with the mentioned instructions (without any of the copyright protected material included).

 

Legal owners of "Thief: Deadly Shadows" and "Doom3" would be able to install and play it.

 

Alternatively, once all major mechanics have been ported and are operational the copyright protected material could be replaced...

 

That would be the beauty of having it running on code and assets that we have complete source access to.

 

I already have created custom main character replacement for testing purposes:

 

Sigh, youtube 3d playback stopped working for me a couple of days ago...

 

So if this happened to you aswell you can still download the youtube 3d video and watch it locally on the sterescopic player of your choice (3D TV owners can also manually switch their TV to SBS stereo input (you might have to swap the left/right input) to watch the footage directly in 3D on youtube).

 

(click the image to playback the youtube video)

 

I haven't fully decided yet what way I will pursue, but I really think that is more a technicality rather than a true insurmountable obstacle.

 

What do you guys think ?

 

I can see your 3D video using the crosseye trick and the scene plus the character look very good.

 

About the copyright i find your idea of using the original TDS assets (in their original file format) like the OpenMW guys are doing the best, do you have the knowhow to modify idtech 4 to do that?

Edited October 2, 2014 by HMart

[Tels]

Theoretically, Yes...

 

But, there would be the option to release an installer that checks whether the user has "Thief: Deadly Shadows" installed on his PC. Providing an installer that can extract and copy assets from the "Thief: Deadly Shadows" game folder and place them in the according Doom3 mod folder on the fly... That is certainly technically achievable and should not violate any Copyright as the installer itself only ships with the mentioned instructions (without any of the copyright protected material included).

 

Legal owners of "Thief: Deadly Shadows" and "Doom3" would be able to install and play it.

 

TDM no longer needs Doom3, so technically, people would only need to own TDS. But your solution is also at the same time "windows-only". Which is bad for Linux people like me.

 

So, wouldn't it make much more sense to add COOP abilities to TDM? If you need help with that, I'm pretty sure TDM developers can lend a hand. It would be a great thing for TDM, and you can re-create the TDS story in TDM later (if you really want this and legally can).

 

For me, recreating TDM and enabling COOP in TDM are two different, independent issues.

[oneofthe8devilz]

Hey guys,

 

first of all let me say how glad I am that there seems to be interest within this community to bring coop gameplay to the medieval stealth genre...

 

About the TDS vs TDM discussion and which path I should pursue with this project, I would like to mention that neither option actually excludes the other. I am pretty sure that at a certain point (once we get to AI behavior) having a look at the TDM source code will be very beneficial to progress in that regard.

 

But that door swings both ways because in order to implement a coop mode for TDM, one crucial aspect of that undertaking will be to add proper 3rd person movement animations to the character (until now only basic 3rd person animations have been implemented for TDM, due to design reasons (most TDM players want to play the game in first person only anyways) and due to technical reasons (the effort of getting these animations right, which is a very expensive and time consuming process were left out by the developers of TDM to be able to concentrate on other areas of the single player focused TDM gameplay).

 

So instead of evaluating whether a port of TDS to idtech4 or a coop implementation to TDM would be the right way to go, I am convinced that both things can happen simultaneously.

 

Some people might wonder why it actually takes so long to realize these concepts and while being a single person having to overcome technical and design based challenges on multiple layers of game development, that would be just part of the reason for the slow progress. The second even more important one is the state of the original codebase that we were provided with ( D3 1.3.1 ).

 

In fact the original codebase is "sub-optimal" to provide smooth, lag-less multiplayer gameplay across the internet which would be crucial in order to achieve the atmosphere I am trying to target with this project.

 

So the last one and a half years I spent a significant amount of time and financial resources trying to resolve the shortcomings of the idtech4 codebase, regarding the poorly performing netcode at high latency and low/unstable bandwidth conditions. For the ones of you interested in the details of the problem feel free to visit this d3 1.3.1 netcode thread, which describes the problem in detail.

 

I currently have a AAA-Industry programmer working on the case but still cannot predict when and if at all a rewrite of the netcode will be successful.

 

Once this rewrite is complete though, MCS will be able to roll out as a public beta and I can fully focus on my medieval/fantasy stealth projects here.

 

If you guys have ideas on how we could accelerate this process I will be more than glad to hear about your suggestions.

 

Certainly a reinforcement of capable netcode programmers OR a fund-raise of some sort could significantly speed up this process and free up resources for me so that I can start working faster and more efficient on the stealth projects...

Edited October 3, 2014 by oneofthe8devilz

[oneofthe8devilz]

TDM no longer needs Doom3, so technically, people would only need to own TDS. But your solution is also at the same time "windows-only". Which is bad for Linux people like me.

 

All my idtech4 projects are being released supporting windows, macOS and linux.

 

Take a look at FMJ which has been released to all 3 OSs

Edited October 3, 2014 by oneofthe8devilz

[oneofthe8devilz]

Garrett@NightmareBurrows@Venture

 

(click the image to watch the youtube video)

 

I am looking for fellow modders to join this project to speed up the development...

[Bikerdude]

That looks awesome, it would be interesting to see what that map would look like in TDM.

[HMart]

Garrett@NightmareBurrows@Venture

 

(click the image to watch the youtube video)

 

I am looking for fellow modders to join this project to speed up the development...

 

 

That looks fantastic congrats, i hope you find the help you are looking for because i can see potential on that.

 

One thing that i still don't understand are you modifying the original TDS assets to work on idtech 4 or are you modifying idtech 4 to read the original TDS formats?

[oneofthe8devilz]

Thanks for the nice feedback guys...

 

It indeed is a lot of work and I could use any helping hand...

 

One thing that i still don't understand are you modifying the original TDS assets to work on idtech 4 or are you modifying idtech 4 to read the original TDS formats?

 

The first one... "modifying the original TDS assets to work on idtech 4"

Edited October 15, 2014 by oneofthe8devilz

[oneofthe8devilz]

IdTech Hybrid Engine and Netcode Showcase

=======================================

(click the animated image to watch the youtube video)

I remember lately the community having debates about whether to stick with the original Doom3 codebase or to migrate to Doom3 BFG...

And while arguments were made for and against from both sides (Sikkmod vs RBDOOM-3-BFG for example) I always wondered why not creating a hybrid approach that takes the advantages of each codebase utilizing the best of both worlds...

This showcase consists of a code and assets merge of multiple previous prototype projects incorporating trebor's shadowmapping, sikkpin's hdr lighting, zombie's dungeon map and MCS's game & netcode...

It still runs on Doom3's original framework allowing easy modding (with a custom gamex86.dll) and dedicated server hosting and browsing...

Aside from the specifically showcased unified soft-shadow-mapping and high-dynamic-range-lighting, it was also as usual important for me to demonstrate that those features flawlessly work together with MCS's network synced AI over a high latency low bandwidth Server <-> Client connection (simulating a server/client distance of about 10000 kilometers).

As showcased in its current state, it is a proof of concept build and I don't feel at liberty to predict when and if at all it will make it into a final, releasable project, since there are currently too many factors but as you'll notice, it runs remarkably stable and performant.

[nbohr1more]

Looks cool!

 

 

I see from the YouTube video that your current shadow-map implementation doesn't have a blur stage. This is still WIP I take it?

[oneofthe8devilz]

Yes, enhanced shadow jittering/filtering is on the to-do list...

Edited September 24, 2015 by oneofthe8devilz