Empires on UE4 (A collaborative project)

I added a simple main menu while fucking about with compiling the engine. It needs some serious work.

 

Just a small question: Who here is working on the project already so far apart from Kylegar?

 

The editor isn't just a map editor. It has a full visual scripting system, access to the C++ code, and all kinds of stuff.

 

It would still keep a lot of casual modders out with the subscription wall. Reading some responses from the devs I get the impression that they're going to look at modding support towards the end of the year. But there is always the option to create a custom map editor and release that for free (as long as it's not based on EPIC's editor).

 

Do you need money? I can spend some USD each month... Furthermore I can do some testing, if you need a tester...

 

Got our own VC fund, boys!

 

If this project would take money or donations of any form it would most likely be to get some more people the engine license. I am not really sure yet, if I will get myself a copy to be honest. I mean I am already at work for the largest part of the day and already working on the original Empires. I am not sure I want to spend $20 a month for something I am not really going to use.

 

I know some rusty c++, although need to refresh on how pointers and objects work aka the important parts of c++

 

Objects is easy as pie once you understand Object Oriented Programming. Pointers you don't really need much until you want to be a system programmer and beat most SQL implementations in speed.

Also concerning porting over the models: If you just want to retarget the animations to the current skeletons and meshes, you are going to get some ugly results. Most of the meshes are everything else than clean and we don't have the sources for them anymore either to change anything on them without completely rebuilding. I just want to tell you this, so you can account for that in your time planning.

 

I just requested a github Education thingie and looked at the code yesterday, i'll try to help a bit.
(Oh, and i'll use linux to dev, i want to be sure that if a new empires is developed, it'll work flawlessly on that one OS)

 

I had another thought: Do you know if you just want to stick with the current art style and assets? Because I could make you some dummy models for everything which I can work with more easily and which can be upgraded later on instead of just porting everything.

 

I want to port over the current assets first, since a vast majority of the work is done with those. After that we can discuss a new art style if we want to go that direction.

It also helps that any improvements made to the Srcpires assets can be transfered over to this project and vice versa.

 

I have some questions about this actually.

As an amateur I've stayed with source for the simple reason that I can't model and only old engines and editors allow you to make decent maps without having to model something (I strongly dislike just using heightmaps for vertical detail, like you get in slaughtered, cause as someone who loves cliffs and canyons I actually want a lot more vertical detail in maps than horizontal detail which requires meshes in all modern engines).

However even if I could make models, I get the feeling it wouldn't work nearly as good as I want it. If I imagine turning all vertical displacements in my maps into meshes, it feels like this would actually reduce the performance tremendously. On top of that the collision meshes would have to be the exact same shape as the model itself as I can't stand shooting next to something to see my bullet hit nothing but air and disappear for no reason. I actually have tried using models in source to replace displacements as well but with correct and therefor highly detailed collision meshes performance went berserk, and without a 100% correct collision mesh it's simply not good enough for me for an fps game.

My guess was that the very latest engines were designed to allow for all of this, however then I saw this in the topic of "Landscape Memory Usage" in the landscape link you provided:

In short what I'd like to know is, could I remake this https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/234836/mapping/emp_downfall/7.jpg in UE4 with nothing but meshes, but much bigger (this was a small map) and with all collision meshes actually matching the shape of the cliffs?

 

So, Valve threw out displacements and went 100% meshes in Source 2. Hammer is more of scene modelling too now, not really a map editor.

For your example, the short answer is 'No, you can't make landscape look like that'. The reason is as you said, it's just a heightmap, and heightmaps can't do that.

However, what you could do is create a simple mesh for those cliffs (export them from hammer maybe?) and place them in the map like regular static meshes. You can then approximate the cliff with landscape terrain inside the mesh (so you can't see it), and then set the LOD on the meshes so that they don't render at far distances. When you are close, the mesh would cover the landscape approximation, when you are far the landscape approximation would take over.

That way you get the best of both worlds... Detail up close, approximation and efficiency at large distances.

 

Player inventory is done. You can now select weapons (up to 4), scroll between them, etc.

EDIT: I'm working on Firemodes right now. Firemodes control how the gun fires... Stuff like Single Fire, Full Auto, Burst. I'm setting it up so that someone can go in with Blueprint and design their own firemode as well.

Anyway the way it works is as follows:

For any given gun, you must decide how it fires. For most of the guns, you probably want both Single Shot and Full Auto. So, that's two firemodes. 3-Round Burst could be another firemode.

Next, you must define Ammo Pools. Think of these like the type of bullets that are fired. For most weapons, you would have 1 ammo pool (Bullets), but you may want an Underbarrel Grenade launcher, so you would have a second Ammo Pool for that (as well as a Firemode that maps to that Ammo pool). Multiple Firemodes can map to the same Ammo Pool.

Finally, you decide how the gun behaves in each firemode. You need one of these for each Firemode. They contain information like AmmoConsumedPerShot, How much damage that bullet does, How fast that firemode can fire, What the first shot fire delay is (for things like sniper rifles), how many rounds per shot are fired (for shotguns).