Apocalyptic Dawn (formerly known as Military)

[wyvern]

Like a set of scenarios? There is....

Change the scenarios catigory to "End of Morning".

There's also a catigory for expert scenarios, tutorials, and standard scenarios.

Ok cool

[-Archmage-]

I watched the video, here are the problems that I've spotted:

-Helicopter looks to fat in the back(maybe it's meant to be like this, like a different or made up heli model type)
-Planes look totally unrealistic.
-The animation for the guy dying looks like he's falling in slow motion.
-The trees don't look all that realistic.
-Shadows on the water.
-Waters way too bright.
-Buildings have too few faces.
-The sun doesn't look very round.
-The planes shadow seems to disappear between 00:02 and 00:03 seconds, when the planes fly onward off the screen via the top edge of the screen.
-The helpcopters blades are way way way way way too slow.
-This is more a recommendation then a problem, but you may want to add effects in the water when the helicopter goes over the river.

Other than those, I think it's pretty good.

I would gladly offer to assist in fixing some of these issues, but I know you're going to say no.

No offense, I just want to be thorough and help ensure that the final product is top quality.

[ultifd]

Perfect part? Do you mean high quality with sound, etc? I'm only putting in sound after I go all 3(?) parts.

I see. 

[Omega]

I watched the video, here are the problems that I've spotted:

-Helicopter looks to fat in the back(maybe it's meant to be like this, like a different or made up heli model type)
-Planes look totally unrealistic.
-The animation for the guy dying looks like he's falling in slow motion.
-The trees don't look all that realistic.
-Shadows on the water.
-Waters way too bright.
-Buildings have too few faces.
-The sun doesn't look very round.
-The planes shadow seems to disappear between 00:02 and 00:03 seconds, when the planes fly onward off the screen via the top edge of the screen.
-The helpcopters blades are way way way way way too slow.
-This is more a recommendation then a problem, but you may want to add effects in the water when the helicopter goes over the river.

Other than those, I think it's pretty good.

I would gladly offer to assist in fixing some of these issues, but I know you're going to say no.

No offense, I just want to be thorough and help ensure that the final product is top quality.

**** you! No!
The heli is the exact same as in the game, Water is supposed to have shadows, water does have transparency and mirror effects, Sun is a skybox and you are watching it in very low quality (super pixilated), Buildings are fine, Death animation is fine, trees are fine, heli blades are a bit slow, but so what.

Nah, you're being way to fussy. I do not expect a Civilization 4 opening video. I don't expect even close to that. But hey, at least wait till you see the water effects and rain particles in part 2!

[wyvern]

nice movie it could use effects on the water though and the airplanes could use improvement, heres something that would look nice I think, three bombers instead of two, you see a radar screen after the bombers close near the heli, the radar screen sees the helicopter coming but doesn't see the stealth bombers, a guy just standing around waiting for the heli, then he sees the bombers coming, he spins around, and a rocket launcher could fire at the airplanes one airplane crashes but the other two keep going and bomb the building.

I don't know if this is a good idea, or even possible but still and idea, other then that I linked the movie

[-Archmage-]

I'm not being fussy, I'm being thorough.

You can really improve that section of video, the fact that you refuse too, and get angry with me, is very lazy of you, and shows that it aggravates you, which means I'm probably right, and you are lazy.

**** you! No!

Why are you acting like such a bitch? John wants to be told about problems and issues with his Sun and Moon material, and he understands that I mean no offense, and that I post the stuff to make him aware of problems I see, that maybe he doesn't see, so that he can fix them.

[ElimiNator]

Wow! the vid looks cool! did you make it in glest? It looks that way other the the 2 bombers.

[ultifd]

Wow! the vid looks cool! did you make it in glest? It looks that way other the the 2 bombers.

I agree, and will be better, reminded me of the "background g3d" in Military...   

[Omega]

Ok, sorry arch, I think you misunderstood me, which is my fault. The internet really needs a sarcasm sign...

Basically, I don't agree with all your changes. I know of no way to make, say, ripples in the water from the heli that would look natural (and besides, then I'd have to use more complex fluids which would slow down the already 3 (THREE!!!) hour rendering time (stupid raytracing). The plane's shadows are supposed to disappear because the plane is really just outside of the view of the camera waiting for the scene where it bombs the buildings. Some of the other suggestions are really how it was meant to be or simply because of the low quality of the render (the high quality version is 100mb...).

I got nothing against you pointing out information, and thank you for that. I simply of course, do not wish for help because as I stated before, part of the reason I want to do this is to test my skills and learn more stuff. And I've never seen you use particles or physics anyway... 8)4

Sorry if I came across as rude. That was unintended.

[Omega]

Allright, take a look at the new particles for the Nuke!

(Quality is very bad at time of posting. Message at top says that it is "still be processed" and "may be better once finished")

I'm fixing up a lot of the animations, as well as adding some variations to the destination point (a very nice GAE only particle proj effect).

[ElimiNator]

To tell the truth, I think its a bit unfair...

[ultifd]

Cool, although...more like a rocket? I don't know we'll see...
of course, the impact is as much as it would be I guess...but you really want this in Military? Kinda unfair, and would ruin the game, I imagine...
Quality: not that bad but...maybe still processing? :-/

Yeah...still cool.

[Omega]

To tell the truth, I think its a bit unfair...

Nah, it's all balanced out by testing. Radiation poisoning is done over such slow time that it is easily remedied by a medic. The nuke isn't strong enough to kill any units at all, though if there are no medics, the private can be killed by the radiation poisoning. Interestingly, in an average game, it would take about 10 nukes launched at the same time to completely wipe out the headquarters, assuming the opponent does NOT have wartime negotations, which would nearly double its survival. And buildings aren't affect by the radiation, of course. Despite its large radius, it gets extremely weak further away, and the radiation poisoning gets weaker the further from the center the unit is.

However radiation poisoning reduces units speed and ability to harvest, making them ripe for attacking (but the attack takes over a minute to hit the foe on a 128x128 map, so timing needs to be careful not to hit your own units!).

[Omega]

By the way, from Ultifd's youtube video, I noticed that at least one person has tileset problems. The ground was pretty much one color!

Anyone else suffering from this?


On the darker side of the digital world, part 2 of the video is complete. Took 4 hours to render the 10 second clip, the largest I've ever seen, so I'll just post a still screen for now...

[ultifd]

Looks awesome, now  if I could just press "play"...  4 hours? hmm...

By the way, from Ultifd's youtube video, I noticed that at least one person has tileset problems. The ground was pretty much one color! 

Anyone else suffering from this?

No, I believe it was a old problem with GAE or so, anyways, I checked, the tileset is fine now...that was weird though, and I asked you before when I made the video...I guess you did not even see it...oh well, it is OK now...I think. (I checked...)
Do you want me to remove them or something?  (the vids with the blue tileset.)

[Omega]

No, I believe it was a old problem with GAE or so, anyways, I checked, the tileset is fine now...that was weird though, and I asked you before when I made the video...I guess you did not even see it...oh well, it is OK now...I think. (I checked...)
Do you want me to remove them or something?  (the vids with the blue tileset.)

Oh dear, I must have missed that sorry... Odd though, since this includes its own compatible version of GAE. Still, no need to remove the videos because it doesn't really affect the video content. All up to you of course!

Why rendering took 4 hours:
-Sub Surface Scattering
-Ray Tracing Shadows
-Ray Reflections
-Ray mirrors
-Particle effects
-Displacement effects
-Fog
-20,000 rain models
-8x Anti Aliasing
-720x480 resolution at 100% quality in JPG AVI (My prefered video format, since it gets the best quality, compatibility, and file size.

[ElimiNator]

How and in what did you make the sky and water? Will you post the vid?

[ultifd]

I see, I understand now... 
Hmm...hopefully when GAE 0.3 comes out you are going to update Military to it too right? 

[Omega]

I see, I understand now... 
Hmm...hopefully when GAE 0.3 comes out you are going to update Military to it too right? 

You betcha!

How and in what did you make the sky and water? Will you post the vid?

It's all blender. The water is made with a displacement method, which allows it to be animated by moving empties around. There is no sky, it is just mist. The water uses shaders for the most part for its texture, but uses the node window to combine all of these into a water texture.

I will probably not post the individual video for this one, but I hope to finish the third (and final) part soon, so I can upload the entire thing. Progress on part 3 is going good. I got the ground and its texture, the mist, and a snow particle system ready, plus got a tank in and got it all lightened up. I learned how to use lighting groups for the first time, which is very handy so I can carefully light one object without messing up the lighting of another!

Current screen:

[wyvern]

I can't wait for it to be done, it looks cool

[ElimiNator]

What do you mean by empties? and do the waves go through the boat?

[wyvern]

Omega this is a question I have about the future release, will the tank be able to use its turret mg against aircraft , cuz it should, after all thats what modern tanks have it for, second of all a suggestion for the stealth bomber, since it can't really hover in reality maybe while standing it could circle around just as a standing animation

[ElimiNator]

You could make the tank morph to make its barell pointing up and morph back again.

[wyvern]

Tanks don't really have the ability to use their main gun against aircraft, I made a decent antiaircraft tank model in mine, Gabbes and little helpers model dump

[Omega]

What do you mean by empties? and do the waves go through the boat?

Yes, it is just a mesh, NOT fluid simulation, which is too much of a pain for oceans, and takes too long to make.

Video's nearly done. Can expect me to upload soon... I'll also upload the blend files for you to see how it was done.

And no, don't expect to see the tank shooting aircraft from the sky, because that's not really how it was intended. The tank is a powerful behemoth on land, but is very vulnerable to aircraft.

Biggest problem with a moving plane is that the limitations of the glest engine would make it look horrid. When attacking, it wouldn't finish it's still/moving animation and would go straight to attacking animation, which looks very bad as a transition, not to mention another problem is the unit size. If we have it circle around, it would have to be a bigger unit size, or it would fly through all things around it. And a bigger size would make it harder to fit units on the screen, while it would also make selection harder... So for now, just remember it's the future, with its awesome hover abilities!