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1

Game announcements / Re: Night Train

« on: July 07, 2010, 04:49:48 PM »

Wow, what a difference shadows make in creating an atmosphere.  Love steam trains and like the title of your game.  How are you coming along with it? 

2

Game announcements / Re: two school projects: Blind Eye and Nine Lives

« on: July 07, 2010, 04:46:30 PM »

Blind Eye <www.alecthomson.com#blindeye> was designed as a simple minute mystery with the added twist that your main character can't see and must identify his surroundings. You'll have to forgive the art (it's not exactly my strong point).

I hope the poor guy gets to find his glasses...   

I saved your site under favourites, with my eye on the Rosemary game...thx for sharing 

3

Game announcements / Re: Europa

« on: July 07, 2010, 04:42:10 PM »

Yeah, the release has been pushed back;  the poster that reads "spring" should now read "fall"...   

I found that pushing to meet a predetermined deadline has killed some fine games. We'd like the details to shine so we're pushing back the clock...  (The ability to do so being the major reason make your own game! )

Thanks Onehundredmillionthousand times for showing interest in Europa-  This forum will be the first notified of release.

Me too, love sci fi and looking much forward to playing your game 

4

Technical forum / Re: Is Carrara 8 compatible?

« on: July 07, 2010, 04:32:47 PM »

The non-pro version of Unity is free (although it's a little limited compared to the pro version).
But you are mixing things a little. Blender, 3DS Max, Maya etc. are 3D modelling applications, while Unity is a game engine. Game engines, such as Unity or WME are designed for bulding the game logic. But you still need some 3D modelling application to create the game assets.

Whoops...I did notice the word engine and wondered if that was the same thing as WM.  I've a rather steep learning curve ahead of me just being an artist and writer with a passionate desire to learn how to create games. 

Been investigating iClone today.  T'is within my budget (just about).  They seem to offer a lot for the money, looks good value...feel rather excited by this one 

Thank you for your post (and patience) Mnemonic 



 

5

Technical forum / Re: 3DS Max + Panda export plug-in

« on: July 06, 2010, 09:29:21 PM »

http://res.dead-code.org/doku.php/kbase:exporting_models_from_3ds_max

Is it just me who is unable to view this page...?   

 

6

Technical forum / Re: Is Carrara 8 compatible?

« on: July 06, 2010, 09:21:59 PM »

Free. but just for several days: Full Version and 30 day Unity Pro trial.
To buy, exceeds my budget... $1200.00 (special offer).

Is there only Blender? 

7

Technical forum / Re: Is Carrara 8 compatible?

« on: July 06, 2010, 08:20:09 PM »

Unity3D is a very good engine that is real-time 3D and it has nothing to do with wme workflow.

http://unity3d.com/gallery/

Now having a look at their site..... 

8

Technical forum / Re: Is Carrara 8 compatible?

« on: July 06, 2010, 08:12:16 PM »

WME is not a full real-time 3D engine. It just supports 3D characters over prerendered backgrounds (known as 2.5D). For this limited 3D part (characters) wme supports .x for the models & .3ds for the hidden geometry. For the 2D part of wme you need png/jpg/tga so all 3D apps are compatible since they can all render to at least one of those formats.

Unity3D is a very good engine that is real-time 3D and it has nothing to do with wme workflow.

Thanks Odnorf...I'll look into Unity3D.

Apologies for late replies everyone, my laptop was suffering from heatstroke.  Now I've a normal pc tower to work from 

9

Technical forum / Re: Is Carrara 8 compatible?

« on: July 06, 2010, 08:06:55 PM »

I don't know about the current versions of Carrara, but I used it until v 6.0, and neither 3ds nor .x exporters were usable for WME then. 3ds didn't export cameras and lights, and .x lacked bone names and other things. So if you are going for 2.5d better get a demo version of Carrara before you buy the whole package.

Thanks Nihil for your reply.  What do you use for creating animation etc? 

10

Technical forum / Re: Is Carrara 8 compatible?

« on: July 06, 2010, 08:02:28 PM »

Well, after doing a lot more homework in the last few hours, it appears that Nihil is correct - getting an animation out of Carrara is a virtual non-starter.

Static 3d models will export, and obviously any render is still usable. But as for making a Wintermute actor, it's as useful as a plastic haddock. Sorry if I've been misleading you, Sommnia. Lesson for self - stop believing hype!!!!!!!!

Looks like I'll need Blender after all - unless someone tells me that it also won't do the job it's supposed to do.

Oh dear!! 

11

Technical forum / Re: Is Carrara 8 compatible?

« on: June 29, 2010, 10:04:37 PM »

Today I received an email back from the support at http://www.daz3d.com about the compatibility of Carrara with WM.  I almost thought they weren't going to reply since this email came 12 days later!

Carrara itself doesn't have direct compability with gaming engines.  It does support exporting in Collada (.dae) format which is compatible with Unity3D.  You should check to see whether Collada is compatible with the Wintermute Engine.

Well, I've never heard of .dae or Collada files - is this compatible with the WME?  And - if so - I wonder if they're really saying whether you need to buy BOTH Carrara AND this Unity3D software (yeah, I know, another question for daz3D!).  Anyone with any experience using Carrara for making games with the WME?

Your replies much appreciated 


   

12

General Discussion / Re: Most ridiculous inventory puzzles EVER!!!!

« on: June 29, 2010, 12:09:50 AM »

In my opinion, inventory puzzles are a massive plague on the commercial adventure industry....They are annoying.....One example is in the game "Secret Files: Tunguska" You are trying to eavesdrop on a guy in his house. To do this, you must put an old slice of pizza in a cat's food bowl on the porch so the cat comes to eat. Then, you must tape your cellphone to the cat's back and put it on record mode. Then add salt to the cat's food so he goes inside for a drink, and records the man's conversation. But when the cat back out, he climbs a tree. To get him down, you have to go to a payphone and call your cellphone, and the ringing startles the cat and he jumps down from the tree. You take your cellphone back and your done! (except for the fact that the rest of the game is formed of puzzles like this. God help you.) 

So, the pussycat likes pizza, what's wrong with that? 

13

Help wanted and offered / Re: Garden of Doom - help wanted

« on: June 28, 2010, 10:49:20 PM »

Sorry - forgot you had to register for that.

I should just point out that the graphical style looks really messy, most of them are basically placeholder graphics that need a good revamp. But you can get an idea of the overall feel and UI.

Here they are:

I love the "bones" of this game, looks a lot of fun.  But if *I would take part, what guarantee would I have that my hard work wouldn't go to waste? - and, what guarantee to receive some of the profits (if any)?  Kindest regards 
* that's if you liked what *I* had to offer towards your project! 

14

Technical forum / Re: Is Carrara 8 compatible?

« on: June 25, 2010, 09:09:22 PM »

Happy with Carrara or WM? WM is a work of genius as far as I'm concerned. Carrara? It's OK - although I haven't seen 8 yet. To be frank, I've never managed to push Carrara into doing anything I couldn't do with the usual modeller/terrain generator/scene editor/renderer pipeline, but it is handy, I suppose, to have most of those things in the one place. It certainly cures a lot of import/export woes. To be even more frank, the only reason I ever considered it was that I could never get my head around Blender (but, once again, I haven't tried the latest version in which the interface has been redesigned).

In a perfect world (coming soon, folks  ) I'd have an understandable Blender, a completed Makehuman, the open-source version of Zbrush (fat chance!) and WM - oh, and the GIMP, although it doesn't quite reach Photoshop standards yet. You may detect a preference for FREE there! In a slightly less than perfect world, Poser or Daz will finally get their dynamic cloth to work.

In the meantime, I have to use things that allow me to do what I want in a way I can understand. WM hits that nail right on the head and Carrara does too to be fair.

Carrara sounds like a good little package (multi-tasking) and simpler to use than Blender - which I agree, seems rather daunting.  As I find Blender rather complicated (at present anyway) I'm looking for something - like you say - that is relatively easy to operate...for creating rooms, basic animation, rendering.  So far for my game, I've been creating my own '3d models' (dolls and various objects so far) in Photoshop.

I hope you're enjoying making your game.   

15

Technical forum / Re: Is Carrara 8 compatible?

« on: June 25, 2010, 05:25:53 PM »

Ah - and I thought I was inexperienced 

No - a rendered scene is a virtual photograph of the 3D scene you set up in Carrara (or Daz Studio, or Poser, or any other such thing) - and it obviously is then a 2D scene. As such, it can be used in Wintermute. In front of that, you can place true 3D characters and animate them. If it's done well, it's difficult to tell that you're not looking at a full 3D environment (just don't expect to see anyone actually walking through a door - but a scene transition as the door is approached is just as effective).

Take a look at the Art of Murder demo to see just how effective the illusion can be.

Oh - I forgot to mention that what you're thinking of doing is precisely what I do - set up a scene in Carrara, render it, and import the render to WM.

Ooh thanks for explaining about the rendered scene.

Art of Murder, I might have played that one, but I'll take another look.  I've been inspired by the games from Jonathan Boakes (my fave is Dark Fall: Lights Out), also Return to Ravenhearst, and The Painted Tower.  Beautiful graphics, a great story, imagination and fun puzzles are a must! 

So as a current user of Carrara, would you say you are happy with this particular software?