Author Topic: Frankenstein (sort of) lives: AI War Unity porting work  (Read 21286 times)

Offline x4000

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Re: Frankenstein (sort of) lives: AI War Unity porting work
« Reply #60 on: September 25, 2010, 02:55:54 am »
Original post: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2010/09/dev-log-ai-war-midnight-starfields.html

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Exclusive first peek at a new music track coming in AI War 4.0!  Check out how the tempo shifts around 1:40 or so in the video -- Pablo's outdid himself, as usual.  The entire AI War (and The Zenith Remnant) soundtrack is fully remastered for the upcoming AI War 4.0, but there are also some new tracks (even outside of the new Children of Neinzul expansion), and this is one of them.

This music track is set to a visual display of the new starfields and nebulae in the AI War 4.0.  The quality and variety here is incredibly better than in the older 3.x versions, and really gives each planet a unique feel.  Some of the ones right at the very end of the video happened to be particularly awesome -- they were generating at random as I clicked through them, so I never knew what I'd get (there are two billion possible starfield/nebula patterns, this shows only a couple of dozen).

Note that this is from within the Unity 3D editor, in sort of a programmer test mode, so the bar along the top of the screen, plus the little graphics status window at the top right, are both part of the Unity 3D Editor and not part of AI War itself.  Programmers in the crowd might note how little graphics memory and how few draw calls are actually needed here, though -- pretty cool, it's far less overhead than what the uglier 3.x stars/nebulae needed!  The fact of fraps recording was dragging down the framerate into the 30-60fps range, but without fraps on this same scene was rendering at about 600fps on my machine.

Just a little status update from our progress with AI War 4.0!  A public beta is coming within the next week.
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Offline superking

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Re: Frankenstein (sort of) lives: AI War Unity porting work
« Reply #61 on: September 25, 2010, 07:21:12 am »
really nice  :), although the tambourine beat that comes in after the first minute brings it down a bit

Offline vonduus

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Re: Frankenstein (sort of) lives: AI War Unity porting work
« Reply #62 on: September 25, 2010, 07:46:21 am »
Great work Pablo, I normally turn off music when I play (any game, not just aiwar), because very melodic stuff tends to become very repetitive when repeated a lot (sic!) - but this stuff is quite neutral, melody wise, and I believe it can take a lot of repeating. Did I ever mention that my favourite is your minimalist work 'invasion'?

And for the star fields: wow, they are beautiful.

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Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Frankenstein (sort of) lives: AI War Unity porting work
« Reply #63 on: September 25, 2010, 08:39:25 am »
That is quite an improvement! Both music and graphic wise. Good job guys!
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Offline colonyan

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Re: Frankenstein (sort of) lives: AI War Unity porting work
« Reply #64 on: September 25, 2010, 10:33:43 am »
You know what, I almost feel sorry about the price of the game from what I will be getting.
Those new back ground images and new tracks. They do add AI Wars universe more
characteristic, more immersion. Really really happy about this. Thumbs up.

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Re: Frankenstein (sort of) lives: AI War Unity porting work
« Reply #65 on: September 25, 2010, 11:36:53 am »
Pablo is amazing.

Can't wait for 4.0!

Offline wyvern83

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Re: Frankenstein (sort of) lives: AI War Unity porting work
« Reply #66 on: September 25, 2010, 12:04:27 pm »
You guys are doing a fantastic job on the visuals and music, 4.0 is going to be awesome.

Offline RCIX

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Re: Frankenstein (sort of) lives: AI War Unity porting work
« Reply #67 on: September 26, 2010, 06:20:16 am »
Awesome music and great news on the progress :)
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Offline colonyan

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Re: Frankenstein (sort of) lives: AI War Unity porting work
« Reply #68 on: September 26, 2010, 11:29:55 am »
I downloaded the movie file and played on my video file player.
I found that stars are twinkling when size of video display is reduced.
It was kind of pretty those white stars twinkle here and there.
Maybe you could make them change luminosity for some of them?
(EDIT:Twinkle very slightly)
I don't know if stars does that when you see it from space but
I thought it could add accent on aesthetic.

(EDIT: I'm listening this track like few dozen times non stop)
« Last Edit: September 26, 2010, 11:34:53 am by colonyan »

Offline Fleet

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Re: Frankenstein (sort of) lives: AI War Unity porting work
« Reply #69 on: September 26, 2010, 04:24:36 pm »
That would be the "quote" feature  ;D

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Frankenstein (sort of) lives: AI War Unity porting work
« Reply #70 on: September 26, 2010, 09:38:19 pm »
That would be the "quote" feature  ;D
Better to do that than the slip I occasionally make: posting my reply to someone by the "modify" button rather than the "quote" button ;)
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Offline colonyan

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Re: Frankenstein (sort of) lives: AI War Unity porting work
« Reply #71 on: September 26, 2010, 09:56:05 pm »
Oops. I posted my quote.
I removed it :-[.

Offline Lancefighter

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Re: Frankenstein (sort of) lives: AI War Unity porting work
« Reply #72 on: September 27, 2010, 12:04:22 am »
twinkling of stars is a purely atmospheric problem - its the reason telescopes are places on mountains (where air is thinner) or in space (no air)



However, i do try to avoid physics getting in the way of shiny graphics or gameplay  :D
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Offline RooksBailey

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Re: Frankenstein (sort of) lives: AI War Unity porting work
« Reply #73 on: September 27, 2010, 01:05:37 am »
That would be the "quote" feature  ;D
Better to do that than the slip I occasionally make: posting my reply to someone by the "modify" button rather than the "quote" button ;)

OMG! I've done that so many times (obviously not here but on another forum where I have admin privileges).  :-[ Thank God for the "back" button!   ;D 

Offline PVega8

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Re: Frankenstein (sort of) lives: AI War Unity porting work
« Reply #74 on: September 27, 2010, 11:24:28 am »
I appreciate all the compliments! This new track was a work in progress for a solid 2 weeks, and I tried to incorporate a lot of the musical suggestions given to me on the music forum. It's melody driven, but has some cool ambiance as well. I'm glad to hear that you guys like it! Stay tuned for more previews on the music forum page.
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