It's time i tell a bit about the game so here we go: Poisonville is a massive multiplayer game using JME 2.0 and JBullet for physics. The game will be free to play (no subscription) and (of course) runs directly from a browser (Windows, Linux, Mac). I'll disclose more about the game's setting and story this week when we launch our developer blog but feel free to ask questions - gives me a good impression of what to cover on the devblog.
The following mini-screenshot is a little foretaste of what's coming. It's that small because the first official fullsize material is reserved for a german game magazine (Gamestar, Printed Issue) but i thought you might be interested in a "first look".
*Target Render for high settings, meshes and textures are lowpoly ingame material
Some features:
- Customizable Characters
- Artificial Intelligence
- Motion Captured Animations
- Vehicle Physics
- Ragdoll Physics
- SSDO (Experimental)
- Normal Maps
- Particle Effects
- Depth of Field
- Bloom
- Dynamic Softshadows
- Alternation of Day and Night
- Material Sound Effects
- Atmospheric Weather Effects
- much more..
As mentioned before, the project is in development since 2007 (Pre-Production) respectively 2008 (Production) by a team of up to 15 professional game developers and trainees. A first playable "Techdemo/Public Benchmark" will be shown at the GamesConvention Online in Leipzig end of July - we're planning to release the demo online shortly after.
I hope you'll like what we're doing with JME - i think we can show that it's a serious game engine, capable of more then meets the eye on first sight.
This is the kind of game I was going to do with JME. But with 3 months of making my first game and with a help of my friend who made the models and animations, I only managed to make a simple third person shooter. So I am not surprised that a team of 15 managed to make such features in 2.5 years. Now that it has been done by somebody else, I think I'll find another objective
But yeah anyways, great work, I'm truly looking forward playing this game. I think I remember looking some of your earlier flyby video of the city. It had great graphics.
I don't know how often i will check for questions but i try to answer more or less frequently Thanks for the first "feedback", looks like we cook something that smells good
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Looks still like GTA5. ;)
I hope this project will be a huge success. :)
hehe i take that as a compliment and thanks, we hope so too :D
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Q. when you say game runs directly from web browser do you mean java web start or an applet?
We haven't decited yet - we will see what suits best for our needs.
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So I am not surprised that a team of 15 managed to make such features in 2.5 years.
I started writing the concept end of 2007 (based on a concept i started in 2005 but had to put on hold in favor of another project) and production started in summer 2008 with 10 people, so it's "only" just over a year.
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Q. When can I play it?
You'll be able to play the techdemo (very limited area but with a lot of stuff to do) online shortly after the GC Online Exhibition end of July - so most likely in August.
Looks like i have to put the thread updates and answers on hold for a while or i get in trouble with our pr manager and i don't want her angry So i'll answer the last questions and see what and how much i can tell, without spilling something
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Congratulations on your work, that looks excellent..
An afro for you: :D
Thanks mon :mrgreen:
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Q Will the entire game and its related tool-sets be under the one and same license? Proprietary?
Right now that's the case.
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Q Any chance some of your technology might be commited back to the jME base?
It is a good piece of news both for the credibility of Java game programming and for JMonkeyEngine. I hope some of your new features will be integrated into JMonkeyEngine 2.
It would be interesting what pipeline (importer/exporter) you used for your models. You did all the models in Cinema4d?
The importer/exporter are inhouse solutions made from scratch for our world editor (also inhouse). We use OBJ for most of the models except vehicles, those are exported/imported as COLLADA. I use Cinema4D only for texturebaking and target renderings - ingame models are made with 3dsMax or Maya.
On the technology side, can you disclose (perhaps just verbal describing) how you do the following (if at all):
scene mangement
streaming (are there levels loaded do you use portals, tile based streaming)
asset management in game (load/unload handling)
navigation/pathfinding
Which isue of gamestar will you be in?
Good luck with the project, the screenshot look beautiful and as others said, can not only show you skill, but also the strength of java and 3d (and of course jme…). chapeau…
streaming (are there levels loaded do you use portals, tile based streaming)
I see some people are interested in portals. If the authors of Poisonville implemented this feature, it would be nice to allow us to benefit of it too ;) please.
Is this publication available in the USA and/or English? The website seems to be written in English, don't know about the magazine though :?
It's a german magazine but there will be articles later in other mags and in english as well.
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I see some people are interested in portals. If the authors of Poisonville implemented this feature, it would be nice to allow us to benefit of it too ;) please.
I see some people are interested in portals. If the authors of Poisonville implemented this feature, it would be nice to allow us to benefit of it too ;) please.
I can't make any promises but i'll bring it up :)
I have already implemented something about portals but it covers only very simple cases. If you cannot bring it up, please give us as much algorithmic details as possible to allow us (at least me) to implement it completely in JMonkeyEngine 2. Someone else tried to implement this feature in 2004 but he gave up. This feature is performance-critical for First Person Shooters especially on machines that have an "old" graphics card.
I can not believe all this should fit in a browser-window. ^^