Babylon 5 project

Hi everyone. Im wanting to make a game based on the scifi series babylon 5, I will show my progress here. At the moment I'm making the characters and alien models before looking for more help. The game may be episodic taking place during the shadow war, details are still being developed and subject to change.
The game will play like a cross between metal gear solid 4 and mass effect, though obviously not to the equivalent standard but retaining the huge feel of the game with a strong story.

Here are some images of my models up to now. They arent completely finished, Im aiming for a character poly size of 3000 with 1024x1024 textures.

Base Female


Base Male


Female EA officer


Pak'ma'ra alien


Im aiming for ps2 quality graphics, with several shaders on top.
Obviously the main goal at the end of this project is hopefully to get the owners of babylon 5 to publish this game. Im completely dedicated to this project and wont settle for less than the best I can make it. I will be working on the models for some time for now and will post new ones here upon completion.
Later on in the project I will be scouting around for the best programmers, level designers, composers, storytellers etc. To really make this a professional and top quality game.

Cheers!, thanks for looking.

Ryan.

Good luck with it, i would advise not making to much of it without talking to the owners of the bablyon 5 copyright, so you don't make something you can never release.

Yeah good advice, Id like to make a playable demo for them to try, showcasing the game and its potential.

if i got a dollar, everytime somebody postet a similar post to this here, id be a millionaire by now.
at least your models look ok though...

"Later on in the project I will be scouting around for the best programmers, level designers, composers, storytellers etc. To really make this a professional and top quality game."


I think by scouting, you mean begging, because it won't be easy to find "top developers" to do free work for an unestablished/unapproved project. I'm assuming this is your first project, and that you've become good friends with the templates?

I'd love to see this project finish but so many people tried (dozens of fan-projects and even Sierra) but nobody really succeeded/finished. But none the less I'm looking forward to board my starfury as soon as possible and kick some raiders ass...
I wish you good luck.

*Sighs wishfully and gazes at his table*

Hey guys, I know this will be difficult and possibly destined to failure, but I really want to give it my best shot. I understand your concerns and share them myself, but I've always wanted to make a B5 game and even if it fails I'll have tried my best.
Thanks again, Ryan.

p.s - nice collection alex.

That's not correct - do you know about "I've found her"? It's a nice B5 game although that realistic physics of the Starfury imo is a bit hard to control...

http://ifh.firstones.com/

BTW:
When looking at that table you still seem to miss lots of things... :P

@Topic:
As huge B5 fan I'd really like to see something like this project turning out well. I might even concider contributing at some point (but don't ask me about that in the near future - I've got enough to do right now )...

Enjoy your meal
Toast

Thanks for the encouragement toast. That other b5 game is pretty good, Id like to implement space combat in this game but with an easier more arcady feel to it. Anybodys free to contribute at this stage.
cheers, Ryan.

P.S Does anyone know of any good sites for babylon 5 referances/screenshots etc.?

Judging from the models, you got a nice start qua organic modeling
But from my pov, all good projects start with proper documentation and reference to oneself's capacities thus my question is, did you already set up a document to have a proper view about the entire project. To put it simple, it all starts on paper
Once all ideas have been elaborated, the development stage can begin.

I'm not saying you're on the wrong way, I'm indicating that if you want to see your project grow big, you need to know first what you're capable of before starting the develoment stage.

Thanks in progress

Frazzle

Yeah I completely agree, I am still sorting everything out about how this will work and the steps I need to take, in the meantime I thought I might as well start the moddelling of things i know I will need. I will be producing more documentation as I figure things out.

Nothing as complete as memory alpha for the trekkies among us but it may help you every now and then:

• The Lurker's Guide to B5
• B5 Wiki at firstones.com
• B5 Wiki at Wikia
• some blueprints

I completely agree with frazzle, everything starts on a lot of paper.

I like the models..

p.s.
Try to make PS3 graphics,if you are planing to publish this on the market..

with A7? yeah, right. no matter how good sebcreas work is, he cant even touch a good looking PS3 game, so keep dreaming...

I agree, and also PS3 graphics are expensive to make

Well for publishing he lacks a valid licence in the first place...

Enjoy your meal
Toast

Thanks for the links alex. PS3 level graphics would be really difficult to create and maintain throughout the project, decreasing the chances of finishing this game. I dont think there is anything wrong with ps2 quality graphics and wont make that much of a difference to most gamers.
Cheers. Ryan.

@ ryangregory:
Good to hear you're working on it, a document where in the entire game concept is described is quite
priceless
Btw, even if you manage to obtain PS3 quality, the fps won't let you when you know that the PS3 has got 8 cores to run the graphics. Thus the more you're going to like the term PS2 (which was your initial idea)

@ AlexDeloy:
Paper is the way to go indeed ^^

Cheers

Frazzle

"Try to make PS3 graphics".."Try..." Use more shaders,and models with 4-5k faces..

p.s.
sPIKe you do not know what will be possible to create with 3DGS in a month,he will work on this at least one year..

no, i have no idea, i just happen to wirk with this engine for years, creating several completed games, a really okay looking graphics demo and knowing what the engine can do and what not, visually speaking, down to a T...

and PS3 graphics are NOT what the engine can do, at least not at a decent framerate. show me ONE picture fo a game in PS3 like graphics quality with more than 15 FPS and i call it a win for you-.-

Once again try..
p.s.
I started with 3DGS in 2004 ..

@spike:
http://www.coniserver.net/ubb7/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showimage&id=45&type=m


Ok - not just 3DGS alone but I don't think that scenery runs with just 15fps...
Although you of course are right in terms of performance - 3DGS isn't on par with AAA engines...

Enjoy your meal
Toast

Ok, so heres the first finished model of the project excluding the hair as I intend to make several different ones.



Im thinking of using this model with several different heads and hairs, creating lots of different characters.
Do you think this style of models/textures will be ok and work well?
more to come soon!

Cheers, Ryan.

you are all losers. literally.
i dont care about a ban, for as some of you already know i stopped posting here "real" posts a while ago, simply becaus people like you are just plain idiots.

i mean, you want to achieve PS3 graphcis with an engine that cant even do Wii graphics. its like fitting a truck into the backseat of my car. i dont even have a car.



you show me a lousy screenshot of blocky geometry and shadows that are common in PS2 games and expec tme to be impressed, when this screenshot of encharted isnt even the best thing the PS3 can do?

get real. grow up. learn your facts. you are taking the engine as holy grail. torque and irrlicht blow A7 out of the water easily. i just dont work with them because i see no need to, for i stopped pushing limitls long ago and i am now soley focusing on fun. A7 is easy to use, and thats why i use it. if you wake up one day, and realize how stupid you guys are for hailing the engine for what it simply cant do, call me back and we will laugh about the other suckers together. until then, continue to work on your triple AAA ego shooter MMO rpg super "teh grafix" template gamewhatsoever.
i started out exactly the same way like you, i was probably even the biggier idiot back then, but belive me, you will learn it too.
and if one of you has the balls to admit it then and say, man, you were right, you will see that you have grown up...

spike, you lose all credibility when you say:i've never seen great graphics on wii. i don't have one but i know people who do, and i did a search trying to find some nice wii graphics and these look pretty good:
http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=7651699&publicUserId=5537734
but that's all nice art-work. a7 can do that easily, on relatively old hardware.

on ps3-level hardware what's stopping people from getting ps3-grade graphics at a decent framerate with a7? it's just peoples' creative capabilities. the speed difference with other engines isn't that big.

what do you know, anyway? you still use a6, so i assume you still use c-script -- a scripting language. you can't expect speed from a scripting language. maybe you know a6 inside-out, but a7 is a huge step up.

you can't speak as the voice of experience if you're still using an old engine.

@ryan: sorry about that mate. you're a really good artist and you work well with "ps2 quality" graphics. i think they're a tad above ps2 quality, but it depends how many characters you have on-screen and what game you're comparing with. keep it up.

i've never had a taste of babylon 5, so i don't know how authentic these look, but hey they look good!

julz

you losse credibility when you say you enver palyed wii butdont know a game with godo graphics...

get yourself a "the Conduit" fix and then talk back okay?
and none of those screens cant be done with A7 not like this and not with a good performance. everbody that says somethign different is either lying or simply has no clue-.-

oh and by the way


this is god of war 2 for ps2. you can do that on A7 with more tricking than houdini though... do that first and then tell me how im wrong again...
and wii has much better graphisc than that, get yourself a good game-.-

Thanks alot Julz, Im not sure of the absolute limits of the a7 engine but I'm fairly sure it can handle the amount and level of work Im planning on making and am not interested in making ps3 super graphics. So the whole argument is unwanted in this thread. Graphics are never as important as fun gameplay and an engaging story, as long as they are good enough to carry these two things.
Cheers, Ryan.

spike, you and me need a chat in morbius.

sorry ryan.

julz

To me it looks very well made I like the old Elite Force 1 graphics.


Maybe you should head in this graphics direction ( it really depends on how quick you create your assets) the only thing Iam concerned about is the license issue, giving it your own twist and rename it would be better, so that no one can shutdown your project.

The problem even with old franchises is that someone still owns the license even without doing something with it (sometimes just to sell it), so make sure no one shuts down your project.

If you are planning on going for the PS3 approach , this may interest you
https://www.newdev.scee.net/AreaNewLicensee/MainSystem/CFModules/ScreenLayout/nl_master_template.cfm

It is an application form for Phyre Engine that is free, and designed by sony for the playstation , it can be use for PSP , PS2 and PS3 games.

this is off topic, but i wonder what resolution that gun is, because it looks like something low with tons of detail still packed in somehow.

yes..

Sabcrea - Yeah Ive always liked that game, I want the graphics to be better than that game and it will be in third person with an over the shoulder aiming mode instead of a FPS.

Blade - interesting link, I'll be concentrating more on asset creation at this time before thinking about publishers.

Cheers, Ryan.

ps. Id say that gun is about 400 - 600 polys

Cool, although the link was to apply for an engine license made by sony , not for a publishing deal(although they probably would offer one aswell)

i have some b5 ship meshs from a botf mod i made, they are low poly though if you need any i`ll mail em over to ya

"ps. Id say that gun is about 400 - 600 polys"
I was talking about the texture resolution, but do you really think the gun has that many? I'd guess maybe a couple hundred.

jigalypuff - Id aprreciate that alot, you could send them to ryangregory@hotmail.co.uk. They should come in handy, I'll probly be modifying them alot though, is that ok? and would you want credits etc.?

lostclimate- oh I didnt realise, well id say its about 128 - 256 texture size. It could have less polys maybe more, who knows

Cheers, Ryan.

Ok, heres the next one, a male EA officer. Again I will be using different heads and hairstyles to create lots of characters, this has no hair at the moment.



Cheers, Ryan.

While those two models already look very nice there is some room for improvement of the texture:

With that said the blue cloth doesn't look look like blue cloth but a bit like some sort of very tight latex. You especially see that on the back where you overdid things a bit by trying to shade those folds - might not look so bad with some decent lighting but still it's a bit too much exaggerated. So maybe reduce the contrast for that shading and add a bit more of a material "noise" for cloth as it looks a bit too uniform. Just the same you did for those very nicely done brown leather parts...

Next part is about the UV-Map / the texture. You sort of can see how you put the polies around on a small part of the model and that's where that EA logo and rank-badge thingie on the chest is. Because of the way you set up the UV-map you have this distortion there as there most certainly is a seam right through that badge and together with a "distortion" you didn't fix in the UV-map the texture you probably created the way the things look like get applied "wrong"...

I'd also invest some polies and make the communicator a real mesh and not just texture detail. As rather important thing you might even put quite some attention on whenever someone talks to it this should get more detail and it's not a very costly addition...

At the end another more technical question. Did you create the model with some speaking abilities i.e. you can do real talking animations by basically moving the lip meshes around and having some "mouth geometry" behind?

Enjoy your meal
Toast

I want to add some comments on the people, i think you could spare a few polys on them as they are fairly low poly. thats all my comments ,lolz

Thanks alot for taking the time to help me with my work Toast, I really appreciate it. I sometimes struggle with textures as I find moddeling much easier. I agree with you that the texture could look better and will try to correct it. Good idea with the communicator I may remodel that part. The face can be animated and there is a basic mouth with teeth inside the head. Both models are at 3000 polys, is that too little? I was planning on having quite a few characters visible at the same time.
Cheers, Ryan.

"I sometimes struggle with textures" everyone does, even top modelers because you there is so much that can be added, but its about the trade off, if I spend x amount of time adding this detail or that detail, how much will it really be noticed? or will someone not notice it there, but notice if its gone? some times its even hard to think of details to add that that becomes an issue as well.

as far as the polys, you dont necessarily need to add polys to do it (i will look better if you do tho) but the hair needs some geometry.either do some shifting, or add about 40-50 polys worth of hair to the characters and they will look fine from the point of geometry.

Wise words lost climate I agree with you, texturing is a really hard skill to master. I will be adding more polygons to the head for hair planes, this will hopefully make the models look much better.
In the meantime heres another model Ive been working on and isn't completely finished, the texture needs more work, Id really like to know what you think of it, as I dont know if it fits in style with the other models.



Cheers, Ryan.

Well I can't say much about the body because imo although you have their ships present like in every combat scene later on they themselves aren't really shown at all except for Season 1 and as such imo are a rather unimportant faction and I can't say if they appear even in the background as from Season 1 (not too bad anyway as especially their introduction during that trial was kinda stupid anyway)... ^^

Well but what I CAN say is that you really didn't get the face / headshape right. Here the comparison (both from that trial scene afaik):



So with considering that you especially didn't hit the shape of the eyes which are very oval and way more wide than high. The head also has pretty much one solid "forehead-plate" with kind of big bumps on the sides - you created something which looks a bit like that Drazi headplate and that is this thing centered above the nose and forming an oval shape...

It's not a bad model though but it has those issues if you want to mimic the characters from the series...

Enjoy your meal
Toast

lol, I modeled him from those exact pictures you've shown, there doesnt seem to be any others around. Like you said, in the series there ships are always around but you never actually see them, I always thought they played a bigger part in the events and wanted to have them in the game.
I agree with you about the head I'll modify that part, as for the rest I just have to make it up as i go.

Cheers, Ryan.

Well you probably want to give him a couple of suitcases so he can carry around lots of cards with big symbols printed on it for everything he might want to say during his daily routine...

Ah well - I guess you don't have to as it's another thing that went wrong in the first season like in that episode with Ironhard where Bester scans Talia and they do that embarassing "PSI-dance" around her. I think even Stracynski later on acknowledged that they immediately should have seen that this is totally silly...

Do you have any plans for the game itself yet? I always thought it would be cool to have a game where you play a security officer and have to solve a murder case or something. You know - going into quarters and through many sectors talking to people and even some gunfights. I also wouldn't include any of the main series characters and so concerning the time it probably should start after Londo died because then you don't have to deal with all those characters from the series - Lockley and Talon most certainly are going to be the only "problems" then. Vir is going to be emperor then, Zack is known to somewhen leave B5 and only returns shortly before Sheridan's death and the rest of the main staff isn't there anymore. Well to say the truth there still is Franklin's successor but not using her shouldn't be the problem...

Enjoy your meal
Toast

lol, good idea with the suitcases! Season 1 definatley had some problems, thank god they sorted most of them for later seasons. I was thinking in the game you play as a ranger in a special unit, sent on dangerous and secret missions during the shadow war. I want a new original ally of the shadows to be the main enemy of the game, as well as some old enemies, shadows, drakh etc. there will be sections where you can talk to npcs, accept side quests, buy stuff from shops etc, such as on b5 and other neutral areas. Still playing around with other ideas. I will be needing a strong and interesting story with deep characters, the game will revolve around this, and is needed before finer details can be added.
I agree that characters from the show should be avoided.

Cheers, ryan.

Well your idea sounds interesting too although most certainly it's also a bit more difficult to do as imo a Ranger is more of a covert ops / close combat fighter. Might be a bit difficult to create a combat system around that Minbari staff for example while at the same time make it believable against enemies with guns - this is something that's solved way more easily in the movies than in a game...

That's also why I still prefer the idea of a security officer because it's simpler gameplay wise (as you just use guns) and B5 should give you enough room to explore with a lot interesting stuff to see. Creating a serious story during the shadow war also should be a difficult task because imo there's not much room for what a single entity can do in that setting but well - perhaps you manage to come up with some good ideas...

Enjoy your meal
Toast

I am still playing around with ideas at this time so nothing is finalized. I think playing as a ranger, going to new worlds, focusing heavily on combat would make a fun game for everyone one, not just babylon 5 fans.

Does anyone have a well made third person camera/player movement script, preferably in lite-c, I could use to test my models out in game?

Cheers in advance, Ryan.

Even if it's not gonna be ps3 standard graphix, look luck anyway

you could use the template camera code for testing?

sorry i took so long with the ships i had to convert from .hob to .mdl as i said they are low poly with a single 512x512 texture. i think the earth alliance explorer is a decent model though. do as you want with them no credits needed

Thanks alot for the models jigalypuff, I really appreciate it.

Havent posted anything in a while, I've been working on a level and dont have anything worth showing yet. Heres another character model in the meantime, the texture is nowhere near finished. Just wanted to let you know Im still working hard on this project.



cheers, Ryan.

quick update, Ive been working on the main character of the game and wanted to show the face. Still got some work to do on the face and teeth, as well as the hair planes.



Cheers, Ryan.

holy shit he needs to stop with the shrooms... his eyes are crazy small pupils and huge everywere else. i'd make them overall smaller, and make the pupil a little larger.

Are you programmer at all?

lostclimate - lol, Yeah looking at it again the eyes do seem too big, When I started they were massively too big, I kept reducing them untill they got down to this size, must have affected my judgement with them.

cro_games - not at all, I just cant get the hang of programming things, thats why I'll be needing help later on in the project.

Cheers, Ryan.

ryan, just to ask, did you try the lite-c workshops. I found them really good, and then just practiced with it and experimented.

not yet, but I'll check them out. I havent really tried lite-c much, I've always used c-script in the past. Maybe I'll find lite-c proggramming easier, anyway thanks for the advice.

easier,certainly not..
But it is similar..;)

no problem, if not i can probably help out a bit.

Thanks alot, Id really appreciate it. At the moment I need to focus on the models, levels, panels, animations, textures before I need to worry about proggramming. As soon as I have the minimum amount of these I will need I can start coding properly.

Cheers, Ryan.

lite-c isn't hard. it's more consistent and smooth than c-script. c-script can look almost just like lite-c (the conversion is possibly very simple), except lite-c is slightly more strict than c-script about some things which will make the change harder if you've developed bad habits.

is that main character from babylon 5? (never seen babylon 5 myself) apart from the eye thing lc mentioned, he's well done but very generic, especially for a main character (brown average haircut, brown eyes, 5 o'clock shadow ...).

i hope these thoughts are useful.

jibb

Hi Julz, No hes not from the show just a character I made up. I was afraid of that. I didnt want him to look too generic, any ideas to make him stand out more?

any better?



I cant do too much with it as hes supposed to be in the military, any thoughts would be much appreciated.

i like the eyebrow scar, and the eyes look better. i'm no pro, but i guess one idea would be to describe him in words. you'll probably find a lot of "medium" and "average" in there. what if he has bags under his eyes? his nose looks like it has been broken before? a receding hairline? slightly over-the-top sideburns? of course he'll be a less attractive character, but perhaps more recognisable. the balance is up to you. i am by no means asking for him to look like i just described :P

as he is, he's well done. with the changes you've done he's also fairly recognisable. maybe a little generic is a good thing, if you want it to be easier for the player to associate themselves with the main character.

i like what you've done with so few polys and the texture-work is great.

julz

Thanks for the complimants Julz. Im fairly happy with him now, I'll probly just tweak some things give him a little extra character, I dont want to go too over the top with it. theres still quite a bit of work to do with the texture yet, then I can decide whether to keep it as the main character or not.

Hi, long time since I posted here, I havent had much time to spend on this project lately. I have been working on this level for a while now and its still a while away from being finished, I just wanted to know what you think.





Its a large main area of babylon 5 called the zocolo, kind of like a big marketplace with stalls/shops. Ive added some new stuff such as the fountain in the centre and the tunnels from the customs area to the zocolo. the large boxes are going to be a restaurant, the casino and a shop, with upper and lower sections. Its still pretty barren, I've just got the basic structure in place before I start adding more interesting things to the scene.
At the moment I've just added shadows straight to the textures, If anyone knows a better way to handle shadows on model based levels I'd really like to know.

Cheers, Ryan.

Well you've beaten Second Life already...
http://flickr.com/photos/bryanalexander/2187702528/

It's already looking good although it has a flaw imo. That "ring gate stuff" doesn't really blend into the scene yet and looks too much like a prop placed on the floor than being part of the room. I'm also not too sure about the frequence at which those gates show up in your first screenshot (I'm talking about those four rings right next to the fountain section). I'm not entirely sure but they imo are too close plus afaik they only were that close in the part where the doorway behaves like a "donut" and as such the entire "tube" you walk in goes up like on this foto:
http://www.trashotron.com/agony/images/2005/05-columns/04-18-05/louzocalo.jpg

When it comes to textures and shadows you don't need to bake the shadows into the textures as this is/will be possible for models (I'm not up-to-date with the current workflow for this but at some point the A7 lightmapper will work for you pretty much as you know it from blocks). So maybe put up the texture resolution a bit / add more textures or details and use shadows generated by a lightmapper. This also is going to add a lot of atmopshere to the scene...

Enjoy your meal
Toast

Thanks for the great reply Toast. I thought about having the level curve round, but decided it was a lot of work to make it look right and most people probably wouldnt even notice it.
Great to know that shadows can be made inside a7, this will save alot of time and definately make it look better.
that second life level looks ok, hopefully mine will look better though.

Cheers, Ryan.