My Modern Battlezone Pet-Project...

[TheJamsh]

Been busy this year...

https://www.youtube.com/embed/NPbHapovuNg

Don't get too excited mind, unlikely I'll ever be able to release anything shippable thanks to copyrights...

[General BlackDragon]

awesome! I love the "humph" as you hop out

lets start pumping assets into this !!!

I dont think itd be an issue to release as long as its free and u credit acti with the IP

[MrTwosheds]

Be better to just tweak the tank shape, and not use any bz2 assets, it's not actually their model is it. Why give ip to company that isn't even interested in their own publications?

[General BlackDragon]

I ment general concept IP. Things like biometal and stuff...

That, or rename biometal to bionite.

[Zero Angel]

Or 'bio-mite' to avoid trademark infringements.

[TheJamsh]

Still a lot of work to do to get anything playable in there, but it's certainly a start on something I think. It's only a spare-time hobbyist project for now, and it'll probably stay that way for some time... Also I'd kind of like to steer clear of anything BIonite-orientated :p

That tank model started out as N0tr0m0's mesh, I tweaked it a it to make it game ready and get rid of any rendering-style modelling stuff, then Jayden whipped up a sweet-ass texture for it. UE4 uses PBR so it's not a perfect material, but IMO the sabre's shape and design is still so bad-ass even today that it covers up for now :p. Unfortunately I lost the other models N0str0m0 sent me due to a HDD failure, and I'm not sure what he's up to these days. There was a super-hi poly Thunderbolt he did that just looked incredible, but wasn't anywhere near game-ready.

Originally it was going to be the new style for one of my mods for BZII but you know how it is... sometimes it feels a bit fruitless. Wanted to improve my C++ skills so this is where I'm at now with it. I'd love to do a real 'AAA' successor to the games, but the biggest setback would be a) Money (naturally), and b) getting Activision/Atari/whoever to notice it. AFAIK, didn't Activision lease the 'Battlezone' name from Atari to make the two titles (but didn't lease it for a third due to the cost?).

I'm not sure whether copyright for BZ2/BZ1's content and storyline goes back to Activision or Atari in this case, I'm guessing there's a little bit of both. Whoever did a true follow-up would probably have to chunk a considerable amount of cash to both companies. Activision are HUGE these days, even getting a response from them on the matter would be a miracle (I'm sure a few people around here have queried about a BZ3 title already with no luck).

Such a shame though, I feel like there's a big-old gap in the market for a decent vehicle based RTS if you ask me. BZ came so uber cloes to nailing the FPS/RTS mash-up. FPS' are bringing more and more vehicles into the fold over the last few years but they always feel like an accessory rather than a necessary part of the game.

[SeanTheGreat]

This is pretty awesome.

[bigbadbogie]

Yeah!!!!!! Whoooo!!

This is the future.

Battlezone is finally moving house.

[DeusExCeteri]

Oh heck yes that is beautiful. That already looks far superior to any other Battlezone inspired project. Livin' the dream.

[TheJamsh]

Another busy week or two, got weapons and powerups in! Complete with Salvo support and a few extra features. I'd like to get the movement code sorted out really, still can't pitch or strafe/reverse properly yet. Just needed a break from Physics programming...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3jW-jzWIYE

[General BlackDragon]

nice. do a flamethrower next that sticks to things / lights things on fire

[TheJamsh]

One thing at a time :p

[DeusExCeteri]

Okay, for real now, where's the kickstarter, gimme the link, my money isn't going to spend itself.

[TheJamsh]

More stuff:
- Put in the concept of piloting craft. There's a bug in UE4 source at the moment (that's cheesing me off) with the order in which things get replicated on the network that stops it working in MP, but as soon as it's fixed I'll have pilots hopping in and out of craft. Still need to implement a system that stores a pilots status in a vehicle, so when he hops out he gets the same weapons / health etc. (configurable).

- Got 'Armour Classes' in. I can theoretically do as many different ones as I want, right now I've just got 'None', 'Light', 'Medium' and 'Heavy'. I've got something up my sleeve for handling shields at a much later date.

- Got Radial Damage / Damage in place. So Explosions and Ordnance can actually affect the environment and units around them now. All the damage checks against the Armour type like BZ does, but Radial Damage does a few extra cool things. You can for example, hide behind a wall and not take explosion damage, but it's Explosion-Dependant, so individual explosion classes can set what Collision Channel to check against when applying damage. Right now it only traces to the center of an object, so an enormous object not fully-covered by the wall will still receive no damage if the explosion can't hit the Center point, but I cba to do sphere traces for every object in an explosion radius. Oh yeah, radial forces are working too.

- Explosion / Impact FX are based on surface type. It'll generate a Decal, Particle & Sound based on the surface it hits or is 'on'. This is based on Physical Materials rather than classes, so where BZ has 'Vehicle', 'Building', 'Ground' etc, this has 'Metal', 'Wood', 'Dirt' or whatever. UE allows you to have 32 surfaces per-project I think. Mind you, I don't fancy doing 32 effects for each weapon ordnance. If I can even come up with 32 Materials.

- Got 'Shootable Ordnance' in, thought it'd be pretty cool if you could shoot enemy AT-Stab rounds out of the air :p (Probably wouldn't enable that, but it's possible).

Oh also got a basic HUD in place that reads weapon names / status etc. Just been programming small bits every evening, learning a sh*t-tonne of stuff from it. BZ is a complex, clever mistress. Physics of the hovercraft are still borked as hell but they're improving. Gravity actually works properly now for example, rather than letting you float off into space.


EDIT: I should also add, a couple of ppls have asked about being involved with this. My answer is: Not yet. If I get enough source code in place that it actually warrants some more people working on it (and they accept that it can never be a commercial project and they won't get paid), I'll open up a repository somewhere. Thing is, I'm really only doing this to benefit my own learning, and the best way to do that is going solo and figuring out every possible roadblock by yourself. At the same time though, something could potentially come of this, even if it's just the combat aspect for now... who knows?

[Ded10c]

There's a bug in UE4 source at the moment (that's cheesing me off) with the order in which things get replicated on the network that stops it working in MP

Could you be a bit more specific about that? Odds are pretty good one of us over my end will be able to figure it out. We've got about a dozen multiplayer UE4 projects going on at the moment and chances are high one of the hundred-odd other developers here has encountered it. Which version are you on?