How to put Transfusion on the map...

General discussion relating to the Transfusion project.

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redcrowdesign
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Post by redcrowdesign »

zZaRDoZz wrote: Transfusion uses the Darkplaces engine, which supports the MD4 model format and some Doom3 lighting effects that you mentioned. The FAQ page is your friend
Hmm, you are right dude, sorry, I haven't checked that one yet, will do when I got some spare time.

And yeah, I have seen before what you did and yes, it is extremely close to the real thing, and never said the graphics were bad or low quality, my whole point was that this engine of yours, dark places, is capable of much better graphics so my approach was to do something like what the guys at the domsday engine or duke nukem 3D did with the high resolution packs. Most of them did not 'desacrated' the original work of the games, but in my humble opinion boosted it. Yes, they are not professionals in the industry so their work is not like stuff I've seen in professional games but it is still acceptable.

Again, I was just suggesting what I'd like to see and what I think may bring new fans or whatever, so if ya don't like the idea it's perfectly fine, I'm with you on that one too. I really hope this project isn't 'dead' like the guy in the other thread says, I really would like to see this coming out to the light as a completed game.
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zZaRDoZz
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Post by zZaRDoZz »

redcrowdesign said:
Hmm, you are right dude, sorry, I haven't checked that one yet, will do when I got some spare time.
No need for apologies, many of your suggestions are laudable.

redcrowdesign said:
And yeah, I have seen before what you did and yes, it is extremely close to the real thing, and never said the graphics were bad or low quality, my whole point was that this engine of yours, dark places, is capable of much better graphics so my approach was to do something like what the guys at the domsday engine or duke nukem 3D did with the high resolution packs.
I'm not on the TFn team myself, I just play a member on tv. There were attempts to bring most of Darkplaces visuals into Transfusion a few years ago. There is some question among the existing team members whether or not Darkplaces can do that the most efficiently, now that incarnations of Idtech2 and Idtech3 can do much the same, with less stress on hardware/engine resources. It has left the project into somewhat of a hiatus, as you will notice in one of the latest Transfusion threads.

Also there is the issue of the quit/claim license TFn is under, as the license strictly forbids the alteration of original Blood content that transfusion uses. So they can use an 8bit texture from Blood, but they cannot alter/improve it without violating the license Atari gave TFn.


EDIT 1 They're were? There were.... :roll:
Last edited by zZaRDoZz on Fri Jul 03, 2009 02:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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I Live...AGAIN
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Post by I Live...AGAIN »

As a former member of Transfusion, please view my following comments as only my humble opinion as I have no say in the future direction of TF. That is up to the current team.


IMHO, with the emergence of DosBox and the improvements it has made. This I'm afraid has made Transfusion redundant. This project was originally started long ago when Dosbox did not exist when there was a real fear that Blood would no longer be able to function on future hardware. This is no longer the case.

I am not suggesting that development has stalled for this reason, I am just pointing out that IMO, the hard reality is that there is no longer a "need" for TF. With that said, I am the last person that would call for an end of this wonderful project. There have been countless hours of work, sweat and tears put into this by many dedicated people to make TF what it has become. It was no easy task.

What I am thinking is maybe the project needs to change it's focus in order to invigorate itself and continue. This could be done in 2 ways IMO. Creating an entirely new singleplayer campaign to expand upon the original Blood game. Or, continue on with what Transfusion already is which is a good Multiplayer version of Blood (something Dosbox is still lacking). This could be done by offering several innovative multiplayer modes of play including co-op using the Blood universe and characters. Or other modes of teamplay games and of course deathmatch. There are several new multiplay options that did not exist when Blood was released that could be done with a "Blood" feel, keeping in the spirit of the game.

Again let me state that these suggestions are my opinion only and do not reflect anything upon the current TF staff. I'm sure they have their own ideas of where to go from here. I am just throwing my two cents out there.
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zZaRDoZz
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Post by zZaRDoZz »

ILA said:
IMHO, with the emergence of DosBox and the improvements it has made. This I'm afraid has made Transfusion redundant. This project was originally started long ago when Dosbox did not exist when there was a real fear that Blood would no longer be able to function on future hardware. This is no longer the case.
True enough, although I for one still want a true winblood for purely selfish reasons of course. There are those of us who find Dos box impossible to use, although I think are numbers are shrinking by the day.


ILA:
What I am thinking is maybe the project needs to change it's focus in order to invigorate itself and continue. This could be done in 2 ways IMO. Creating an entirely new singleplayer campaign to expand upon the original Blood game. Or, continue on with what Transfusion already is which is a good Multiplayer version of Blood (something Dosbox is still lacking). This could be done by offering several innovative multiplayer modes of play including co-op using the Blood universe and characters. Or other modes of teamplay games and of course deathmatch. There are several new multiplay options that did not exist when Blood was released that could be done with a "Blood" feel, keeping in the spirit of the game.
Both of these are excellent ideas. Considering the limited number of people with time for a single player project we might have to break down and settle for multiplayer (a favorite of many out there). I still hope for a new single player mission which I feel was an excellent suggestion btw. That has many different options available, ranging from forcing some sort of quakec code to be compatible with transfusion to simply building on bot code from Nexiuz.
Still, the amount of time and work would far exceed the multiplayer option.

EDIT: Dox box?
Last edited by zZaRDoZz on Sat Jul 04, 2009 01:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by I Live...AGAIN »

I agree zZaRDoZz, DosBox is far from perfect but it is much closer to perfect than it was only a year ago. With it's constant development I am confident it's only going to get better.

To go the direction of multiplayer, I'm afraid the old debate of engine switching would have to come up again. Unless Darkplaces netcode is up to speed. Mathieu would be the best to answer this question I think.
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Slink

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Post by Slink »

I Live...AGAIN wrote:To go the direction of multiplayer, I'm afraid the old debate of engine switching would have to come up again. Unless Darkplaces netcode is up to speed. Mathieu would be the best to answer this question I think.
I recall there being issues with our game net code rather than DP's engine net code, in comparison to other DP games like Nexuiz. Am I mistaken?
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Post by zZaRDoZz »

Slink
Am I mistaken?
No sir.

What was the verdict on ..N, Na...Nexuiz?
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Post by Slink »

What verdict, zZaRDoZz?
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Post by Elric »

I Live...AGAIN wrote:As a former member of Transfusion, please view my following comments as only my humble opinion as I have no say in the future direction of TF. That is up to the current team.
No offense to anyone, but given the lack of development this project suffers since many months, if not years, I'm not sure we can still talk about a current team roster. Definitely not about an active team roster anyway. :P
I Live...AGAIN wrote:IMHO, with the emergence of DosBox and the improvements it has made. This I'm afraid has made Transfusion redundant. This project was originally started long ago when Dosbox did not exist when there was a real fear that Blood would no longer be able to function on future hardware. This is no longer the case.
Indeed. That's actually one of the very few statements regarding TFn development on which there seems to be a general consensus.
I Live...AGAIN wrote:What I am thinking is maybe the project needs to change it's focus in order to invigorate itself and continue. This could be done in 2 ways IMO. Creating an entirely new singleplayer campaign to expand upon the original Blood game. Or, continue on with what Transfusion already is which is a good Multiplayer version of Blood (something Dosbox is still lacking). This could be done by offering several innovative multiplayer modes of play including co-op using the Blood universe and characters. Or other modes of teamplay games and of course deathmatch. There are several new multiplay options that did not exist when Blood was released that could be done with a "Blood" feel, keeping in the spirit of the game.
I kind of view the attempt to develop a single player component for TFn as The Big Mistake we made. It required way too much work for the small team we were, not to mention the fact that several members (myself included) started to lose interest after a couple of years of work on this.

I think the mother of all problems with TFn now is the lack of momentum: the project doesn't move anymore. So team members are not motivated to work on it, nor are external people motived to join the project. It's partly due to unrealistic short-term goals (add SP support) I think, and also the game code written in the antic QuakeC language doesn't help recruting new developers, for sure. I like the DarkPlaces engine, but the fact its game code has to be QuakeC disqualifies it as a viable solution IMO.
Slink wrote:
I Live...AGAIN wrote:To go the direction of multiplayer, I'm afraid the old debate of engine switching would have to come up again. Unless Darkplaces netcode is up to speed. Mathieu would be the best to answer this question I think.
I recall there being issues with our game net code rather than DP's engine net code, in comparison to other DP games like Nexuiz. Am I mistaken?
I heard this argument before. It may be true, but I honestly don't know.
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Post by Slink »

I and a couple of the guys played several rounds of Nexuiz, and responsiveness certainly began to drop as the server became more populated and action got more intense, but that seemed like a server-side inadequacy issue.
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Post by DustyStyx »

- DOSBox killed Transfusion:
Not quite, Transfusion was in decline for a long time before DOSBox got it's act together in supporting Blood. But yeah, certainly a death nail.

- Singleplayer was a big mistake:
No, it was the logical next step. 1.0 was proof of concept stuff. Working in the SP side of things certainly could have been handle better, but we've had very little consensus about what needed to be done next, and it seemed that people were going off on their own tangents post 1.01.
zZaRDoZz wrote:Also there is the issue of the quit/claim license TFn is under, as the license strictly forbids the alteration of original Blood content that transfusion uses. So they can use an 8bit texture from Blood, but they cannot alter/improve it without violating the license Atari gave TFn.
I think you've misinterpreted something there zZaRDoZz, there is nothing in the license that says we can't alter/improve.
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Post by zZaRDoZz »

Slink:
What verdict, zZaRDoZz?
I think the subject of Nexuiz as discussed months ago involved exploring whether or not porting TFn multiplayer to Nexuiz might be feasible. It wasn't being talked about as a course of action, but merely a thought experiment I believe.

Your description of the results Slink, makes it sound like a pointless endeavor. If server issues became common then I imagine better net code would be useless.

^^DustyStyx^^^ I think it's the end user license that has that clause. Not the quit claim.
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Post by Slink »

z, I don't remember that. Porting? We use the same engine already. Nexuiz and TFn are both on DP.
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Post by DustyStyx »

The "porting" aspect to make things more like Nexuiz would come into play if we were to shift our QuakeC code over to ClientSide QuakeC (CSQC), or so I've been told.

zZaRDoZz, the quitclaim trumps the EULA, as we, the developers, are no longer classified as "end users" insofar as the Blood and Blood II game Materials being used in Transfusion; at least as far as Infogrames/Atari is concerned.
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Post by Slink »

DustyStyx wrote:The "porting" aspect to make things more like Nexuiz would come into play if we were to shift our QuakeC code over to ClientSide QuakeC (CSQC), or so I've been told.

zZaRDoZz, the quitclaim trumps the EULA, as we, the developers, are no longer classified as "end users" insofar as the Blood and Blood II game Materials being used in Transfusion; at least as far as Infogrames/Atari is concerned.
Ohh okay. Gotcha. Now I get it, Z.
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