1944 Indie Game (Major 56k Warning)

Yeah, I know what you mean, I have names in, each character has a name. But its open and doesnt follow one set character. I wanted to take a step away from Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers. Sure allow the player to play the events, but give them more scope, and make them know that Omaha beach wasnt the only area of conflict. After all when I designed and developed the core AI in college it was an Educational Tutoring System but I think games would put it to better use.

The demo is only a terrain test of the Pegasus bridge area, I wanted to bench mark terrain performance. I should be releasing a large demo within the next 2 – 3 weeks. Then a few more before I start doing everything closed door.

God no (Although at the moment I do have a test app that shows all movements of units on the map, but that will be removed)

Its FPS/3rd Person.

To sum it up.

The clock starts at midnight. X amount of units move into Normandy. The player can select a unit(which match their own training and experience). They control that unit, until they either die, or get bored and choose another. They can select other units at any given time. With the AI picking up from where they leave off.

As the clock goes forward, the player has more and more units become available. This will allow the player to play in all areas of the battles.

The more units the player can pick from in all areas of conflict. Im currently looking at making German, US, UK, Canadian soldiers playable from the start. With considerations towards French Resistance, Polish, Austrailian, Irish and other nations.

I am working on elements to get the player attached to the player, and their squads. But its not working to plan just yet. Mainly because as I said, the whole thing is dynamic and un-scripted, so conversations and interactions between units, other than the usual tactic and orders. Is to be honest a real nightmare, but thats the next big task.

I outsource the models, its the fastest and easiest way to do things. I have a few people who continually help out on the project as well. I have about 20+ people working on the content for the game

The file game will feature:

160×160 of accurate terrain
70+ Weapons including all variations and upgrades
50+ vehicles/planes and boats
400,000 possible units to choose from
WW2 based tactics
Realistic Physics (Novodex full integration)
Speedtree and SpeedGrass
Full Shader Effects
Full GUI Based designer
Max/Cinema4D/XSI/Maya/Milkshape/Anim8tor export scripts

Loads more I cant even remember

As for the poly count, those soldiers are less than 3000 tris with full gear. All gear is mountable meaning you can drop gear in game to give you extra speed or movement.

I’ve also managed to get about 500+ of those Panzer 3 tanks into the engine, and still maintain a 60+ FPS.

Well I dont want to give too much away on the AI, as I do hope to sell it on as a Library.

Put simply its a learning library. I determines how the player is playing and adapts to suit.

It started as an educational tutoring system. This means that it was a content delivery system, and based on results taken from the user, it would know what content to deliver. Now obviously since I was dealing with interactive media, it was developed in such a way that the user could interact with material, be asked a few questions. Based on stats a new list of content can be delivered.

Adapt this to games and things seem to change.

Pathfinding is done in a more human way. For the allies who have yet to land in the Normandy, a map is given. The AI knows this map and will take routes based on the map. Not based on calculations from the terrain its in. As it explores more of the terrain, it will make the calculations based on the terrain and not the actual map. I believe its a more human approach. Most path finding is done by finding the fastest route. This makes it seem like the AI is more human, by taking routes that the AI believes to be safest or best. While in the game it may not seem that way at all.

As for the core AI that determines everything. I have a 3 tier structure. Neural Nets, Genetic Algorithms and FSM.

Basically the Neural nets are there to pick up extra bits of info (Moving around the map, Ihad to make this very small and very fast, so dont expect glorious learning AI.) The Genetic Algorithms are the main influence on the AI controlling more how they move, act, shoot etc. Finally the FSM, works more like instinct. Because I didnt want the AI to be perfect or fearless, I added this guy. Depending on how urgent a decision is needed, the FSM will kick in forcing the AI to do some very instinctive actions (Retreat,Duck,Run,Fire,CoverFire etc) So what we have is after say 2 millieseconds if the AI still hasnt decided what to do, its forced into using a fsm. So if you are shooting at the AI, instead of using some learning algorithm to analyse the map to death, it will simply kick in the FSM and do what it feels is best.

I have programmed in emotional parameters that help with orders and decisions, i have about 15 of these. They cover things like trust, friend, foe, fear, love etc. Basically they work on 1- 10 scale. If a certain character gives you an order, and your squad members dont trust them, its unlikely that they will follow through on the order. Same goes with you, if you act crazy, the AI will be reluctant to follow you into battle. The flocking algorithm is integrated into this system. Obviously units on Omaha beach will try to run like hell, as fear is very high. While guys walking in the middle of Normandy, will be less frantic in their movements, and take things cauitiously.

This is all controled using XML and SQL. The full command structure for the armies, as well as the order hierarchy is in xml files. Making it very easy for me to alter the way things happen. For example, if I wanted to make a modern warfare game, with different army structures, and character traits. I simply change the XML files, and all works.

Hope all this made sense. If not, just ask me to clarify on particular areas.

The tanks are about 1500 -2500tris.

We expect to have at most about 20-35 tanks on screen at once and a max of 64 players on screen at once. These tests were done using the dynamic lod system I put into cipher. They were also untextured. So only the first few tanks were about 1500 tris, while the further away tanks were about 500. Average tri count per frame was around 500,000 polies (not tris) on screen during the 60fps.

System:

P4 3.2
4gig Ram
Radeon 9800XT

The main benefits I see with cipher:

1. Documentation, its goo and proper
2. The engine is ready
3. The engine is neat and tidy
4. C code (So it makes it really really easy for me)
5. Great Structure.

After 2 years of using torque, I found the community to be helpful at times, but mostly not. TSE is not ready, and wont be for some time, last I read they expect it not to be stable for about another year. Content development is a bitch. The standard workflow is usually

3ds Max
Quark
Torque Editor
Game

as opposed to Cipher:

3DS Max
.Pak
Game

Most of all, there are comments all over Cipher, at the start of every function, at every major variable or call. I dont know openGL as well as DirectX. With cipher I knew exactly where I stood the second I started programming.

As for the netcode, I havnt got around to that yet. I have 2 choices, really really really really powerfull servers and lots them. Or centralise all player spawns to the squad leader. Making all AI calculations centralised. This would work dreams with the AI system.

No didnt look into FUSM. I was under prressure last year to deliver a final year project, and it was a toss up between a good grade, and full copyright. Needless to say I went with full copyright, so I limited my project within college.

I’ll get in touch with you about your new algorithms, some of them sound very interesting. Im just wondering how time consuming everything will be. Especially with Shaders and the likes needing calculations, thats my greatest worry at the moment. Getting the AI working 100% without effecting the overall speed of the game.

This is a plugin I came across sometime ago for torque, it should be very very handy, and the price tag is great.

http://www.maple3d.com

Cuts the BS out of the Torque workflow, but you will still need to do some extra work with it to get it much simpler.