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Re: Bionite: Origins needs Support!

Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2014 2:13 pm
by blue banana
While I'm at it, watch this and tell me if there are going to be 13+ worlds to play on:
Image
(He even spelled Ganymede and Deimos wrong. Don't get me wrong, this is pretty pathetic for a corporate release.)

Now compare it to this image, from their Kickstarter:
Image

Too much bluffing LTFeed. You're going to end up worse than Spore (which is a good game): over-anticipated due to over-presentation, resulting in dissatisfaction and a total failure.

Re: Bionite: Origins needs Support!

Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2014 2:55 pm
by Nielk1
1080 DPI? What on earth does that mean? The game has to be played on a 1 inch screen?

It looks like they took the Wikipedia article on major bodies in the solar system and just crapped them onto the video.

Re: Bionite: Origins needs Support!

Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2014 5:04 pm
by Psyringe
Nielk1 wrote:Really step 1 should be the concept and step 2 a bunch of prototypes of different ideas and elements and game modes and systems without any work done on art or style. Bionite literally did *everything* backwards.
Sort of. Although... I wont build on that. I wrote a 10 step, but realized the list was valuable in the Unreal Development Kit sense and added it to the team notes instead. Maybe next time.

As for the video(s) that have been published - not "real" gameplay, not in the sense that you would think. Sure, it's rendered in the games engine, but the vehicles aren't player controlled, and it wasn't emulated at that frames per second. UDK comes with a few things built in, including various forms of AI. Since all "pawns" or "actors" in the engine are spawned with a 1st and 3rd person camera attached to them (in Bionite's case, not by default, easy to add though), you can use what's called KISMET and MATINEE to create a video.

So the workflow breakdown;
- Place Pathnodes on Map (For AI Movement/Spawn)
- OPEN KISMET - Use Actor Factory/Actor Factory EX to Spawn it's weapons, AI Type, Location, how many, etc.
- WHILE IN KISMET - Create new MATINEE. Create new Director. Switch between cameras if you choose.
- IN KISMET - Use the proper Events, Actions, and Conditions to insure the sequence goes off without a hitch. You can dictate who kills what and where units move, should you choose.

Watch that video BB posted. The cockpit DOES NOT look like that. Why? Because Platoon could never get a steady FPS out of it. That's an actual Unreal Glass Texture -- Distorting every other material on the map (a call for each) - those distance materials are also running numerous Texture and Draw calls - there's a flare, that's heavy. Platoon very clearly never got that running at a solid rate - more false advertising.

But using KISMET and MATINEE -- not a problem. Export a 24FPS-30FPS-60FPS video of a camera following AI, and you have yourself a convincing game play scenario. It will look like actual gameplay because the engine is writing each frame out to tga/png/etc. and you just make a video image sequence. Same goes for units that look like they are moving in groups (original teaser), or the new video that makes it look like there are tons of players (just AI doing what it's told, or "puppets on strings"). Not to mention I saw the original version of the new video and there are new bugs they covered up with a green "overlay" of some kind in post. Go back and try to spot them.

One fallacy after another when it comes to any form of promotion. But nobody is watching the less appealing "actual gameplay" videos - they are boring, bland, empty, colorless, buggy, lifeless representations of what the game actually is.

Re: Bionite: Origins needs Support!

Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2014 9:40 pm
by blue banana
Psyringe wrote:One fallacy after another when it comes to any form of promotion. But nobody is watching the less appealing "actual gameplay" videos - they are boring, bland, empty, colorless, buggy, lifeless representations of what the game actually is.
Sorry to rain on the parade, but... All of the videos containing Bionite qualify for that description. If a company is going to post a video about gameplay and/or story and/or anything about their product, it better be the best and most accurate representation they can make. It is, after all, probably the biggest insider players can get their hands on, aside from playing the game itself.

Re: Bionite: Origins needs Support!

Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2014 10:09 pm
by General BlackDragon
The cake is a lie.

Re: Bionite: Origins needs Support!

Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2014 12:38 am
by Psyringe
Entertaining videos for Bionite have been designed in 2012, when clearly they had a competent video specialist.

'All of the videos containing Bionite qualify for that description'... well that's counter productive. Although, I'm open to you supplementing your point of view against their Alpha Teaser (in the image shared) and their 2012 Teaser Trailer and explain how, in comparison to literally thousands of other indie videos, it sucks. I mean seriously - get skills or get back under the bridge, troll.

I'm open to good work. But most of Bionites videos are based on fallacy supplemented by the engine they are designing the game in - which has nothing to do with whether the video sucks or not. The game is supposed to function how advertised - that's all.

Re: Bionite: Origins needs Support!

Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2014 12:47 am
by Psyringe
Furthermore - the map list could easily be filled if they competently structure their framework. UDK maps can be downloaded and put into a cooked folder for play - like all other UDK games. Whether the maps exist at launch or not makes no difference. So the argument is moot if they took the time to design a handful of maps. *shrug*

Re: Bionite: Origins needs Support!

Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2014 1:49 am
by LtFEED
Heres a screen of Mars in construction:

Image

The Game will be available on Desura on August 26th

That Trailer was my very first attempt at making somthing that complicated, and I had only 2 weeks to make it, so i got it done.

Re: Bionite: Origins needs Support!

Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2014 8:38 pm
by Psyringe
Just speculation, but a move to Desura suggests a handful of things;
1. Steam Greenlight is failing.
2. The prior distribution method via SendOwl is failing.
3. Considering the first two points, promotion efforts are failing, thus demanding Desura.

The image suggests no efforts into strategy are in motion. I figure until First-Person Strategy is actually in working play, promotion should take place on other forums. Maybe "World of Tanks" forums, maybe the "Twisted Metal" forums, or forums based around vehicle-based combat. Just a thought. Besides -- stacking maps instead of finishing the framework... not the best long term... especially if any kismet is needed to be added to maps for the framework. Lots of messy copy-paste-update-maps-redownload-the-entire-client-etc time wasting for both development and client. If the framework were done it would be smaller patches of just maps, scripts, etc.

Simply put -- the image dictates there is no strategy still. Wrong forums.

Re: Bionite: Origins needs Support!

Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2014 3:28 pm
by LtFEED
Here is an exculsive preview of the new Mars Map:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4knU4 ... sp=sharing

Its only working as a singleplayer map and is currently in the test phase.

It is currently available only to the members of this forum and to our utube affiliates.

~LtF

Re: Bionite: Origins needs Support!

Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2014 3:46 pm
by Ded10c
This forum is public, so anyone who happens to read this thread can get it.

Re: Bionite: Origins needs Support!

Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2014 3:51 pm
by LtFEED
thats OK, it will only be on my Gdrive for a few days (maybe a week)

Once the full version of Rev 4 is released, 4A will be obsolete.

THe majority of members on this forum have been very supportive to the Project, so I want to make exculsive material only available on this forum.

~LtF

PS: this is our way of supporting the BZ2 community!

Re: Bionite: Origins needs Support!

Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2014 9:33 pm
by LtFEED

Re: Bionite: Origins needs Support!

Posted: Sun Sep 21, 2014 1:57 am
by LtFEED
Here is the flash stage of the new HUD for strat:

Image

All the code is working and were adapting all the maps for Strat this week. We will be in alpha for about a month testing the code, and in the meantime working on all the new assets.

The crew is working out the details for the tech tree. Any reccomendations for the HUD design or tech tree is welcome. Also were looking for names to replace the names for the BZ assets (eg recycler, factory, scavenger, scrap, etc.). If anyone has reccomendations for new names, they will be much appreciated. :) ~LtF

Re: Bionite: Origins needs Support!

Posted: Sun Sep 21, 2014 6:13 am
by Nielk1
Doesn't that seem a bit big? HUDs generally should be minimalistic. The best situation to be in would be one where you could edit the locations of widgets, but if you make the entire UI one giant widget you don't have that option.