Capabilities of Cube

by TheProducer on 11/01/2004 05:24, 37 messages, last message: 11/12/2004 18:25, 15988 views, last view: 05/04/2024 15:08

Hello!

This engine in the best FPS engine i've came across in a good while! But there are some things I what to know about it's capabilities.

1.) Can Cube do cutscenes?

2.) Can the damage model be changed? (etc, headshots, chest shots, arm shots, etc, etc)

3.) Is it possible to have objective based missions?

Thanks

   Board Index   

#18: Re: pfftt

by sinsky on 11/11/2004 01:13, refers to #15

C++ is a language, if you're good with languages you'll be good with C++. But there is a difference that makes it unattractive to mainstream people - it's about talking to a processor, not a human, although it's designed to be as 'human' as possible. Well that's how I see the problem anyway.

reply to this message

#19: Re: pfftt

by J-C-D-P-C on 11/11/2004 01:27, refers to #18

hmmm... I tool spanish in school. I barely passed. During that same time, i learned javascript and html. I think that the language is kinda different. You are leraning a new grammer for your current language, sort of. It is a logic excersize rather than a memorization of new words.

reply to this message

#20: Re: pfftt

by sinsky on 11/11/2004 01:43, refers to #19

Spoken language differs a lot because it has a certain feel, you kinda feel the logic and in javascript you just know it. That is very subjective of course.

reply to this message

#21: Re: pfftt

by J-C-D-P-C on 11/11/2004 02:30, refers to #20

excatly. anyway... you people were talking about something important before i came in... I like the way that cube currently handles mods. The stuff that should be easy is easy, and the stuff that is too easily abused in most mods is more difficult. I dont like these mods with 5000 different weapons that are really very similar.

reply to this message

#22: Re: pfftt

by sinsky on 11/11/2004 03:11, refers to #21

No, weapons should be easy to replace. I think Cube also needs a more flexible console language, for egg you type "cool new map" and bang! the engine builds it. Then you type "light" and whoom! fullbright goes away, lights are placed where they look best, etc. Now I'm not asking for too much am I? =)

reply to this message

#23: Re: pfftt

by Aardappel_ on 11/11/2004 06:20, refers to #18

well, to create stuff of a certain complexity on a computer, you will need a programming language, there's no way around that, no editor or human language is going to fill that gap.

(and having done years of research on both visual programming languages and "computational linguistics" that is actually quite an informed opinion :)

reply to this message

#24: Re: pfftt

by Pxtl on 11/11/2004 14:11, refers to #23

Yes, the simple fact that people need to understand is that creative power and ease-of-use are directly opposed attributes. C++ is the digital equivalent to omnipotence, but its also one of the most complicated mid-level programming languages. Meanwhile, you have super-simple systems like the Triggers in StarCraft or the Individual Mutators for Unreal Tournament (a little known mod that I find incredibly inspiring) and you get some very limited power in exchange for an easy-to-use scripting system.

reply to this message

#25: Re: pfftt

by sinsky on 11/11/2004 15:24, refers to #24

Well actually when I was a kid (not very long ago:) I played a lot with StarCraft triggers and felt very happy with it. I also had other people laugh their asses off with the results - so it's quite powerful, in a way :)

Nonetheless like all the stuff I make it's a one-day experience and generally there was a very limited company of people who saw it, and potentially about a thousand others judging from the hits on my site, from which, say 100 may have played it. So I erased the stuff, it was getting old anyway. I still keep it though, if anyone here is interested I'll upload a map or two for them.

reply to this message

#26: Re: pfftt

by Pxtl on 11/11/2004 16:16, refers to #25

I'm curious (but lazy) what were your SC maps? Mine was a port of Bitmap Bros "Z". Z was the fastest RTS ever - there was no resources, you just conquered the neutral construction buildings and expanded as fast as you could. Worked very well in SC with the trigger script system.

Anyhow, SC is actually a good model for what could be tried in an FPS - fun, one-off maps with interesting scripting and neat new content, and filesizes are small enough that you can just "hop in and play" with new content. UT was nearly the same, but the scripting system was much more powerful (and thus much harder to use) and the file sizes were too large for the small chunk of bandwidth it allotted each user (1.2kb/s for models with 8 megs of texture data is teh suck). This is why I love how cube/sauer is based on jpegs and lightweight maps - it woudln't be unreasonable to fit a total conversion map into a meg or two, if not for the music (and if an S3M or similar tracked-audio music system was used, then it would be dead easy).

reply to this message

#27: Re: pfftt

by sinsky on 11/11/2004 17:52, refers to #26

My best shot is a singleplayer rpg called Highlander. You need Brood War if you want to play this and you need to have seen the first Highlander movie.

I haven't really thought why StarCraft scripting is so interesting. Well to be honest I was more happy with WarCraft 2 maps which did not have any scripting in them, but things change :) What I liked about it was basically, you have a trigger area with some bad guys hidden somewhere, and when the player steps on the wrong place someone tells the bad guys - "go get 'em".. it's fun.

reply to this message

#28: Sinsky...

by Pxtl on 11/11/2004 18:48

You obviously didn't play the webmaps. The power of the StarCraft scripting was insane, given how incredibly easy it was. No, you couldn't make a TC or change one unit into another, but you could design exciting new gametypes and playstyles in it, and no coding-brain was needed. Didn't you see the RPGs? The Madness Maps? The Commando Wars? The webmaps? Starcraft Fortress pwnd!

reply to this message

#29: Re: Sinsky...

by sinsky on 11/11/2004 18:57, refers to #28

No, not really :) I aim at singleplayer because my connection is slow, leaves me no other choice.. Multiplayer is better, there's hardly anyone to argue this but I stick with singleplayer people :)

reply to this message

#30: Re: Sinsky...

by J-C-D-P-C on 11/12/2004 01:27, refers to #29

he's refering to maps that are downloadable. AS for changing one unit to antoher, it was possible to kill a unit and create another one, making it look like the one had infected the other like in scary alien movies. I made an ultima clone RPG for Emipre Earth when i was like 14, but i cant find it anywhere, otherwise i would upload it.

reply to this message

#31: Re: Sinsky...

by sinsky on 11/12/2004 03:09, refers to #30

Oh sorry then, yes I've played downloadable SC RPGs and other trigger-intense maps. There's some chance I might have played those, but obviously don't remember enough to talk about it into some nice 'good old days' discussion.

I remember being quite impressed when I got my hands on the Emerald placer patch =) It's a patch for staredit that enables placement of units and structures not accessible in normal mode, and also some stuff that wasn't used at all throughout the whole game. I really liked it, had more fun playing with it than with any maps since I remember it and almost not anything else.

reply to this message

#32: Re: ..

by D.plomat on 11/12/2004 11:12, refers to #13

I'm not saying it should be harder to mod, but that if it was even easier (i once thought of adding some more-OO stuff to make adding a weapon, from entities ammobox to the weapon itself even more strightforward, like only one file to modify), this would make a true modder save some 1-2% of time, but wouldn't allow someone without coding skills to make an interesting weapon (if it was only for taking existing ones and modifying damage/velocity/model/sound, and add dozens weapons this way that doesn't adds a lot to gameplay, except useless complexity...)

About modding, i agree that is similar to gaming itself, it's fun. But you have to understand some parts of the code, and if it was only some skeleton functions with
// Add your weapon properties here
// Add your weapon fire code here
// Add your weapon projectile code here
// Add your weapon hit code here
that wouldn't be fun.

I was once a "make everything the most modular possible" coder, but Cube made me think twice about modularity VS simplicity in modding efficiency.

About external-mod loaders, i don't see the point in them for Cube, as Cube is both free, open source, and small-exe size there's no problem in each mod having its own full EXE.

reply to this message

#33: Re: ..

by sinsky on 11/12/2004 13:53, refers to #32

Maybe it's a bad habit but although I'm able to modify the source I still prefer to use external .cfgs whenever possible. Well if it really worked I could use binaries already compiled for various operating systems, now if I want to compile a game for Linux for example I have to install Linux, possibly destroy my disk, etc., which is not acceptable. On the other hand, if linux people really want to try my game that much they they can compile and distribute binaries separately.. I guess.

reply to this message

#34: Re: ..

by D.plomat on 11/12/2004 15:46, refers to #33

In fact what you'd like is the script language being more an interpreted programming language, with access to more internal properties of the engine, and the gameplay code in this language, instead of compiled into the binary?

Considering the number of languages Aard has created, i suppose he already has existing code that can do it, but including a complete programming language wouldn't fit in Cube minimalist design. (but still an interesting idea... maybe for Sauer?)

BTW that solves only the binary/source problem, as mod-makers with no coding skills will still complain that they have to learn this language to make something. A thread was "how to make a game without coding and scripting skills", it's like asking "how to make something i don't want to learn how to" or "I want to pilot a fast jet but i don't want to learn the controls and instruments because they're too complex"

This said, Cube already gives *a lot* of instant creative power to non-coders with it's map editor.

reply to this message

#35: My point...

by Pxtl on 11/12/2004 15:53

Well, my idea is to simply expand the concept of the map editor - add a playerclass editor, a pickup editor, a weapon editor, cube-class editor (for lava/water/etc cube classes) which work by simply adjusting numerical properties, file names, event handler pointers, etc. Not very powerful, but better than nothing. Bundle it all in with the map.

reply to this message

#36: Re: ..

by sinsky on 11/12/2004 18:03, refers to #34

The easier Cube/Sauer is to mod, the more people will do it - I don't know if that's good or bad, maybe both.

reply to this message

#37: Re: ..

by Pxtl on 11/12/2004 18:25, refers to #36

Well, if mods are just a quick fun thing you can vote in and out like maps, I don't see how its a problem if there are bad ones - just vote in a new one. StarCraft scums were like that - quick, practically anonymous things. The only real problem was that map listing sites for SC were very, very crowded, and when there's that much volume its hard to let the good stuff bubble to the top in the ratings.

The only real trick is designing a system wherein people don't autodownload a "new" version of a map that includes some really stupid design changes that overwrites an old version, or otherwise makes it more difficult to run the old (preferred) version.

reply to this message

   Board Index