Want to make a PSO clone, need help with this and that.

[mjohansson]

Hey, I wanna make a Phantasy Star Online clone for the Pandora, I need help from someone who can compile GLES2 code for it, I can make my renderer for GLES2 code so it should be ready for compile with SDL and GLES2 libs only. I should make 3 seperate codes for testing how many polygons can be used with standard graphics, how many with stencil shadows from one light source, and hmm no thats that only 2 tests need to be done.


Also since it should be online I was thinking, EvilDragon do you have a server with enough bandwith to use? If there was a official server it could really be a nice experience were you just choose connect and gets out on the same place as everyone else. If people wanna join in and code stuff that would be great, I should fix the core game so something playable is up and running, then other people can add functions for chatting for ex or deeper menu functions whatever.


The complete game code should be open source so anyone can modify it for the future, for ex making an xbox live type os system and then that could be included here easily.


Lets not make stencil shadows actually, with only one lightsource it would look weird sometimes and not needed so much for a bright open world, and I process 8 polygons for every single shadowcasting polygon so it would draw down performance massivly. Static light, I dont have a system for baked shadows, if someone would wanna make that it would be great, I wont spend time on it myself, normal maps will have to be linked to a static vector per area, it wont look that bad I think. Water surfaces will have to be simple texture on translucent surface. Some areas can have reflective floors for the enviroment.


ALL RIGHT, LETS DO IT!


Anyone who have design ideas just throw it out there and we will see what the game becomes!


Anyone who can compile GLES2 and is willing to help pm me, I will make the renderer for Pandora now and then send it via pm, if its possible to send files there? Or mayby I should just write all text here, and anyone can start messing around with it?


Also I havent coded network before, if anyone is willing to add their online game code it would be great, then I dont have to spend time learning that right now.


EDIT: Actually lets not make normal maps, it would look weird with static light and only take long time to do. Without that I dont actually need GLES2 either... I make a GLES1 basic game and hmm, if people wanna help then lets email the code to eachother instead.


EDIT 2 : Actually lets make a GLES2 engine after all, then we can make baked shadows by drawing a black and white texture that decides luminance for pixel, and caracters walking around get lit by pixel its on. The collision detection system will work like this, a list of polygons gets cycled through, if caracter is inside one of them it becomes the interpolated height value, if the caracter isnt inside of any of them it gets transported back to previous position, so the collidable polygons forms the ground, thats real cheap and easy, and I think thats how original PSO works, it makes it easier to code AI for enemys also were they just walk towards target until they encountera stop, then mayby change direction, in PSO they kind of cirle out. That also means no bridges or multiple floors.


Light vectors can be used for diffuse lightning, then it wont look completly bad.

 

[Cloudef]

https://github.com/Cloudef/glhck


(I have EGL GLFW fork, which is pending to mainstream, so it compiles on pandora too.


Lots of stuff is a mess in the build system atm)


If you can invest time on improving this instead of reinventing the wheel, that would be neat.


Not that your idea isn't good, but usually these kind of things need


proof of concpect demo or something before people will give it a more attention.

 

[GiraffeeDreams]

I would marry you if you do this! having just heard about PSO2 stated for release I'm excited as hell, getting my DC back online to play the original again (


there are some servers still up).


I'm no programmer or coder, but I'd be willing to play test for any bugs and I could put together textures or a bit of art, I'd love to see an MMO* on the Pandora, play with other people from the community.


*I know PSO wasn't massively multiplayer, but it's still and MMO to me.

 

[mjohansson]

What am I looking at, a 3D engine? Im to bad at programming to use typical kind of code, thats why I made my own...

 

[Cloudef]

What am I looking at, a 3D engine? Im to bad at programming to use typical kind of code, thats why I made my own...

It's pretty much rendering engine, though more low level than most available (+ it's in C and has really few depencies).


You can mix vanilla openGL with it and other stuff.


It does quite lot of already, but it lacks a lot as well.

 

[mjohansson]

Yes, please make textures! Its an enourmous time consuming thing to do and thats were I need most help. All kinds of visual design schetching and stuff that I can use to model polygons after would be great.

 

[mjohansson]

Cloudef, I rather use my own code thats complete and I know inside out. This is just a hobby project for me and if I had to learn something new I would probably take me 10 years if I could ever figure it out at all.

 

[Cloudef]

Cloudef, I rather use my own code thats complete and I know inside out. This is just a hobby project for me and if I had to learn something new I would probably take me 10 years if I could ever figure it out at all.

I see, good luck for your project. I'm fan of PSO as well.

 

[GiraffeeDreams]

Do you have a design idea already? Like setting wise? I was going to do a bit of drawing later and use some inspiration from phantasy star and star ocean and the like.


Let me know what kind of objects you make so I know what kind of textures to create.

 

[mjohansson]

My favorite PSO level is Mines 2, so that would be something Id like to do, that and Forest 2, Forest 2 has this almost ruin like building that looks a lot like stone, I love that part, how about some desert like map with stone ruins? and underground space ship like enviroments. I would want something really soft looking surfaces with nice color theme.


Hmm, mayby you should try and not spend to much time on textures now in the beginning, it could take some time to design items and caracters and scenery if people wanna join in and all would have to agree on it, but a small texture set could help in concept design, like standard stuff, stone surface, metal of some sort, wood and grass and leaves perhaps, something to use for clothing.


We could make sections for enviroments were it would fit, so that different sections can be put together in different combinations, that would increase variety. Just like original PSO. MAGs are a necesity, and there needs to be a secret MAG in the form of a Pandora!


Making custom caracters is a bit hard I think, its easier to just puzzle together finished static parts like different hair in different color, different face texture and clothing, as long as the polygons dont need to deform Im open for ideas. I could need some help with making music and sound effects to.

 

[GiraffeeDreams]

For custom characters, make interchange parts, like head, body, legs and arms, I'll see if I can draw up a few different things, I'm better at cities, landscapes and structures like space stations or ships so I'll draw a few of these up first.


This could be a massive undertaking, especially with animations, you looked anywhere else for contributions? I'll just texture the drawings I'll do before I do actual texture.

 

[T.T.]

if you want, I could probably whip up some 3d models of some MAGs.

 

[mjohansson]

I need my own data formats, so it has to be modelled with my own editor. Well what can I say, I suck


Ill try to design some caracters and mayby draw some few concept enviroments.

 

[mjohansson]

hmm, well all I need is XYZ cordinates of the vertices, if you or someone else could extract that data into a .txt file were each value is on a seperate line I could feed my editor that data, scale I can adjust as needed.


so what it would look like is this:


0.45


347.0


23.9911123


654.321


were line 1 is Vertice 1 X and line 2 is Y and line 4 is Vertice 2 X and so on.

 

[mjohansson]

Making texture shadows wasnt as easy as I had first thaught, and I dont wanna spend time on it, I shouldnt even spend time on this game at all since it wont generate money, but I want a PSO game again, with the feeling and controls of the original, so I will make a ugly static lighting game, I can compile GLES 1 so atleast thats nothing to worry about, but I will have to learn network coding wich I have no idea if its easy or hard we will see.


So thats how it is, Ill cut away the shader stuff from the code I have prepared and then I should be ready to go, ready to start producing content and make the collision detection system also.

 

[GiraffeeDreams]

You can charge for it in the repo, so it could make money, otherwise you could make a PC (Linux/windows or whatever) with a Pandora port, that'd increase exposure and you could generate some money from it this way, you should create a new topic with a poll to see how much people would pay.


I'd pay for it, I've spent some time drawing sort of concept art for the project and I'm still really excited, I think that you should specify file types and people could produce their own content for you to place in game, giving you more time to get the game itself up and running.

 

[mjohansson]

It will be a clone of another game and if nothing else I would be ashamed to ask for money for such a thing. It was also my hope by making it open source to get some help, I tryed drawing some caracter designs but its really hard, Ill just start modelling things and then if anyone wanna join in and work on it then it can work like this: I can make a special version of my editor and release only the compiled program, then I shouldnt have to worry about some things I otherwise would worry about. With my editor anyone could model things, its a bit difficult to animate them, but for those who would want its possible, my editor is certanly easy enough for anyone to use without reading a 10000 page manual and train for 10 years, it can be used for testing textures also wich may ease the creation of them. And then I will collect all content and put it together to a game.


I was thinking about story content, in PSO there are missions to do seperatly that tell a story, how about this as a concept? Title "Beyond the stars", humanity are traveling space looking for a new home after an alien invasion or something, and then finding this ancient ruins on a planet and decides to investigate were the aliens come from and what their story is.


Well that sure is very PSO hmm, but its a clone anyway so there.


I took a look at SDL_net, it dosnt look so bad, does it work on Pandora?

 

[fusion_power]

Good luck with that project but is a PSO style game not a "little bit" to complex for one Person? There is a reason whythere are nearly no homebrew RPGs and MMOs, these kind of games are just insane complex and the graphics would be the smallest problems of the project I guess.


I've may just seen to many "hey, lets make a cool Zelda style Game" projects in the last years, it is not easy and in the Homebrew scene everything takes usualy 10x as long as in commercial games. Lets say, they made PSO and Co. with 100 people within 3 Years... now imagine how long it would take to do such a complex game alone or with just some community members.


Better use the time for more simple games that really can be done, I really don't want to sound negative but I just spent to much time in the last 10 years, following promising projects that turned out dead before they have really started, which always makes me sad.


If I learned one thing in the years then it is that a great Idea is not much worth if you can't put it from imagination in reality.


However, please feel free to prove me wrong, I really liked the Phantasy Star Games.

 

[GiraffeeDreams]

That's what worries me, is the scale of the task and the number of people taking it on, I'd love to see a clone of PSO but maybe that's asking a bit much? An original game with a PSO style, that being your own game you could charge for it, and with the money raised encourage continued development.


I did have an image in my head of like, one of the original PS games in an MMO style, the 16 bit graphics and world, I imagine it'd be a much much simpler task (animations and environments would take a fraction of the time to create).


Failing that, maybe a Kickstarter for a multiplatform MMO (I don't think a Pandora only game would get much funding), with the cash get some developers together and get this project really moving.


How long do you think it'll be before a playable alpha would be ready? just example gameplay in a small piece of world? getting that out might get more people interested.

 

[mjohansson]

But I DID choose something simple to do, what is it about PSO thats complex? The physics is easiest possible, it dosnt have much animations, it dosnt have a massive amount of story, barely any story at all, the networking is the only thing I dont have a clear understanding of, but I still have a general idea of how the code is supposed to work.


I was gonna give myself to christmas to finish it, but Im striving towards fall sometime, I guess I cant say a realistic estimation until I started working on content creation and can get an idea of how long it takes to do things, an alpha sounds very far ahead to me, but just something playable should be soon, Ill prepare the editor today and fix the engine and get it over to Pandora, then Ill make a first test this week with a place holder caracter just made of a few polys and very harshly animate it, mayby same for a place holder enemy, and a small test enviroment, and then from there its just content creation and adding it to game.


Well theres a lot of coding of this and that, but a couple of months dosnt sound unrealistic to me. I should begin learning network coding right away also.