GE - help wanted

Team Name
Digital Brilliance Software

Project name
Galaxy Empire III

Brief description
Galaxy Empire is a futuristic game based on a continuation of the story from the previous two games by the same name. It is a mix of FPS and space based arcade simulation. The single player side will be an open-ended and story based missions to discover what happened to a previous set of colonist who left many years before. It will also deal with current colonies that are disappearing as well. The MP side will be mostly open-ended with the option of player’s to complete missions similar to the SP mode.

Target aim
The single player software will be free. The server software will not. It will also consist of a global server which will not be sold, this is to keep out illigitimate servers since there is no direct connect option.

Compensation
None for the time being, that will change later if the server starts selling.

Technology
DirectX 9 is the base renderer using HLSL 3. This is so the game can be played on Windows XP and later versions of Windows. The game is being built from the ground up, it does not use anyone else’s game engine. Content within the game is based on freely available tools such as XnView or wordpad. All content is scripted in through plain text INI files. Models are currently based on the .x format with a custom format later on.

Talent needed
Intermediate to advanced content developers
Beginners can help but if your work is sub-par it won’t be included

• Voice acting - adult only, there are no children in the game
• UV mappers - many of the stations have not been mapped
• Texturers - ranging from sky boxes to model texturing, no pixilated art will be needed
• Writers - storylines, NPC interactions, cut-scenes etc.
• Modellers - many areas of the game will need models, already have a few good ship models
• Testers - for giving feedback only, anyone is welcome here
• Tool makers - for making various editing utilities or viewers

Website
Galaxy Empire

Contact
gaming -at- digitalbrilliance -dot- com or use PM by clicking on my name

Additional info
This game is still in the initial development stage. Due to the massive nature of the project it will take some time to develop everything. It is based far into the future and the in-game design will reflect this. It is part mystery, sci-fi and story telling. Additional areas will be added such as full modding support and automatic updating of said mods. The main part of the game will be from the player’s POV but there will be additional support for empire building. Procedural generation may be used for making non-scripted areas of the galaxy.

Feedback
Constructive criticism is welcome, feedback just saying the game sucks will be ignored. That type of feedback does not help any project and I consider it trolling.

Yes, check out the video

[wmp=640,480]http://www.galaxyempire.com/DemoVids/GE_Demo001.wmv[/wmp]

Thanks alot! Due to this advert on GameDev.net I have 3 new team members, a music writer, a voice actor and a modeller/story writer. If all goes well it should end up being a enjoyable game to play, now i have to get off my arse and finish the hardpoint coding

[wmp=640,480]http://www.galaxyempire.com/DemoVids/GE_Demo002.wmv[/wmp]

Some of the new planets added into the game, click the image for a larger view…

Yes, that is a human, I exported it from Poser and textured it.

Here is a couple of new screenshots showing the new atmosphere shader, click on image for full size…

Atmosphere/ring test

Test surface mesh from Stalker (Agroprom) ~90k polys (holes are missing mesh parts)

Alpha-discard shader test

Head over to the website and register. I will most likely be releasing a new update within a few days for testing…

Yes, it’s been out for over 2 months but it isn’t a full game yet. As you can read in the help post that there are many areas needing work. I am currently handling pretty much every part of it with a couple of notable exceptions (music and models).

Atm I have been heavily working on the shaders, with the atmosphere shader working great, I only have skinning and shadowing left to add shader-wise.

A demonstration of the atmosphere and crespular ray shader.

[wmp=640,480]http://www.galaxyempire.com/DemoVids/CrespularRays.wmv[/wmp]

Here is some additional model tests used for walking which is something that has been heavily worked on lately. This entire building can be climbed around in. It’s also approx 81,000 polys and renders at the full 60 fps of the game. Does not contain any normal mapping, just has the basic texturing applied.

Click on the image for a larger view. More screenshots can be found HERE.