Netstorm brought from 2D to 3D

[barnEbiss]

First off this is not meant as an advertisement I just wanted to share what I have been working on with some fellow old time Netstorm players, we have been working as just fans of the old game bringing from 2D to 3D for the past 3 years now and I just wanted to share some pics of what we have gotten done.









And a short youtube video from latest internal build showing some of the basic workshop upgrading without the sparkle effects added in yet.

http://www.youtube.com/v/vMqvpkeH_9U&feature

Me and the rest of the guys working on the project are doing this strictly as a humble fan tribute of the old time NS and I just thought you guys would find what we have done interesting.

[Ravenlock]

Oh wow. There aren't a lot of people who remember Netstorm, but I sure do. That game was great. I was terrible at it, but it was great.

I support this 500%, and those screenshots look impressive. Will definitely look into this more. Thanks for sharing!

[barnEbiss]

This was a screenshot from the netgame I played on my computer vs one of the guys on the project last week.



As you can see we have managed to keep the fast action of the original NS combat I finally managed to break through the lines of his defense and take his island!

reason the FPS counter in lower corner was running low was I was running fraps to also grab video at same time also several other applications in background.

Oh and we will be replacing the flat ugly island edge meshes with these new organic island edge deco meshes in the upcoming alpha 3 release.

[Spigot]

I also wholeheartedly support this. I wrote a TTS a few years back about Netstorm. Man, that game was (and hopefully will be), great.

[Ravenlock]

This is the site for the in-progress reboot, for anyone who's interested in looking into this more.

[barnEbiss]

Thanks Raven also to give people a perspective on how far along we have come on the project since we first started here is a screenshot showing what the project looked like three years ago when we started and how it looked when we released the first public test build in December.



As you can see things have greatly improved since we first started working on our humble tribute

[Hawkzombie]

I have no clue what this game is, but I am very interested now.

[barnEbiss]

We have a new sound effect guy that has been working slaving away on doing a sound pack for the project and he has been busy replicating all the original sound effects from netstorm for use in Rising Storm and has recently completed a whole set of sound effects for a number of units we already have finished that replicate the original effects perfectly, these new sound effects should be in-game soon with coming Alpha releases.

[barnEbiss]

Here is something I think you guys will like it was sent in this morning by the texture artist showing a nice render of the new unit platform base to go with the new island edges and also shows the rain gen glow effect

[Spigot]

That is very pretty. Drool.

[fitbabits]

Originally Posted by barnEbiss

Here is something I think you guys will like it was sent in this morning by the texture artist showing a nice render of the new unit platform base to go with the new island edges and also shows the rain gen glow effect

Say hello to my new desktop!

[barnEbiss]

Just wait until we get the edge farms added in with the vines for islands! Feng_Long has those just about finished but those will likely make it into Alpha 4 or 5.

[MagGnome]

Looks slick! Keep up the great work and keep us posted on the progress.

[barnEbiss]

Here are two pics showing some of the planned features for MP lobby system that will be implemented in near future to make making guilds and managing friends in the lobby easy! also to give more clan and player development!

[barnEbiss]

Big update today guys Feng_Long has posted two new renders showing off the new texture work done on the outpost building and sun stone tower warning images may cause drooling



If you click on image it will take you to Feng_Longs Dev account where a much larger version for wall papers can be downloaded

And here is a promo render showing some of the detailing work on the outpost! still some tweaks to be done on the roof still but pretty much the outpost now looks way better then before when it had a temp texture slapped on it



Enjoy Guys

[SilentScreams]

Me and my brother played the hell out of Netstorm back in the day. This looks really great.

[Spigot]

* drool *

[barnEbiss]

Glad you like it Spigot


Was just doing testing on the new build of RS! We have fully replaced the old skeleton based bridges that were animated meshes. When we first started this was the best way to do the crumble effect at the time having the bridge be an animated mesh and crumble and fall away as part of an erode anim. Only problem was in a game of netstorm with so many bridges in play at once that takes up a lot of processing power having so many animated actors in constant play.

Also if a bridge only half eroded that left the parts of the mesh that had dropped down to the bottom of the world still visible hanging in the air so it had dropped down but was also still being called this bug has now been fixed with the new system!



We are now using standard meshes with special break up packs that uses the unity physics engine and gravity to drop the segments allowing for much faster game-play and still have the classic netstorm bridge eroding over time and when damaged.



To give perspective on how much of a speed increase this new setup gives!
on my one computer on the old bridge system my FPS would go from 80 FPS to around 33 to 22 FPS when a lot of bridges where on screen and when bridges started to erode. With the new bridges even with many on screen my FPS remains around 80 fps A++.


Also now every-time a bridge erodes its not using a standard erode anim so falling bridge segment parts rotate and fall in unique ways making their fall into the void of the skies of nimbus even more realistic.

[MagGnome]

That texture work is nice, and I love the vibrant colors.

[barnEbiss]

Ladies and gentlemen and fellow Coggers I just wanted to let everyone know that we are getting things ready for a possible Alpha 3 release today or tomorrow! I will be posting a list of what has been fixed and known current bugs!!