WW-I Naval simulation

[tone]

Hello... my work is perhaps tangential to your site's mission, but it does draw upon ship modeling and a member of your board suggested I dangle a line on the off-chance that someone amongst you would like to assist in my project.

I have spent the past 2 years creating a realtime simulation of naval systems of the World War I era, focusing on achieving realistic function in the devices men used to communicate or aim and fire torpedoes and guns. My long-term goal would be to create a multiplayer online game, but for now the graphics are iffy and the function suited only to creating videos to illustrate the principles I bring to life.



Broadband is really required to see the videos, as most are over 20MB. In spite of the fluffy stand-off visual style you see, this represents significant study, as will be apparent if you watch the video on how to aim torpedoes or how long range gunnery was accomplished in 1916.

You can find my videos at my web site I'd appreciate feedback on what you see.

My modeling needs

Before I can switch gears from technical studies to game development, I need to move my work to a proper game engine platform... one with a robust art path (as you can see, my work so far is entirely untextured and the materials are smurfed). I would need to have a great many ships modeled at polycounts suitable for depicted dozens at once, with the one you are presently on being at a fairly high level of detail. I have never really done game object modeling (I use Rhino3D), and would appreciate insights and participation from people more experienced in work like this or eager to translate their love of ship modeling into the world of real time simulation with a dash of cordite.

If I were to meet my goal, I will need to create a strong model for virtual ship building: creating tools and procedures by which players and contributors can import standardized models for hullforms, armor designs, and weapon systems to create a large set of definitions of ships that could be fully interactive with the game... even down to voice-pipes appearing where they should and affording remote chat to people at the other end.

You can contact me by email at tone@dreadnoughtproject.org
Please watch for a challenge email auto-reply... you'll only see that once and I'll get your original email. Thanks for helping me keep spam at bay!

Tony "tone" Lovell
+1 617 995 8113

[tone]

As a postscript, anyone keen on ship design will find something of value at http://dreadnoughtproject.org/plans -- high resolution color scans of 172 sheets of ship plans for German warships dating from 1874 -> 1945

Enjoy!

tone

[yipster]

Tonytone, tried to download the movies but it took tooo long, even the drawings took minutes, ok i need a better broadband provider and pc but low poly, smart mapping and high speed engines is the name of the game!

maya and 3d studio may be better programs for a game as rhino. WWI more interesting as WW2? wouldnt mind sinking the bismark again and again, aint games (in 5 stars) like that allready around?

maybe i can mean something for you, have a look at this fluffy 1 minute download but i stopped working long nights on loose promises, its fun drawing in 3d and can do better, but man, its time consuming and the real thing is now also calling.

[tone]

Very neat film!
I'm sorry my videos are so long (and large).
Perhaps I should post a smaller excerpt for those unsure if the larger ones are worth their time.

tone

[WantBoat]

Hmm.. Well, I am still (very much) learning about boats, but I can offer up some thoughts and advice game wise - having been in the industry.

1) Congradulations on getting this far

2) Professionally, game modeling is done in Max and Maya, but you can also look at things like blender(free), wings3d(free) and neg3d(low cost) and Milkshape(low cost / low poly)

3) Unless you have cash, you are probably going to have to make some allowances as far as tool chain and artists are concerned. Getting artist to work for free or minimal rates means hodge podge - been there, done that. I get the feeling that is your situation, but I could be wrong.

Also, you will need to frequent artsy hangouts like cgtalk.com or what have you inorder to recruit (which I guess you are kind of doing in a way by coming here). You probably found the same thing we did, not that many artists stop by game development sites like gamedev.net

4) Engine wise. You have to deciede what your budget is.
If cash is tight, then try Ogre. It is open source graphics engine and has both nice OOP design and performance equal to all but the more expensive game engines IMHO.
As a note, Ogre supports attaching things to bones like hardpoints - think turrets to a hull (if so designed) and also supports auto tracking of object to object (i.e. turrets can track target)

Audio? Maybe FMOD(fairly priced) or OpenAL(free, but you will likely have to extend it for OGG and such)

Network? take a peak at Raknet(free to start, fairly priced at end)

But what if I want it an all in one engine you ask? Well, the secret is you typically lose some flexibility and peformance, but if that is okay...

Try a peak at Yake project (a free integration of OGRE and all sorts of stuff), Axiom (.Net game enignine version of OGRE) and Cipher ($100 for a clean Q3ish engine in C)

Anyway, if you have more questions feel free to email me. Oh, and good luck.

Dave