Recruiting help: SCOURGE

[Corbin]

Hey everyone, I've had good results last time I posted for help here, so I hope this isn't imposing or agains the rules.

Just a heads up that we're recruiting help for our DC game, SCOURGE. If you don't already know, Scourge was pretty much born from the falling out we had with Hypertension. So - if you know/knew/recognize Hypertension, that's us (TDGMods).

A little description, it's a mixed-genre (FPS/TPS) psychological horror game being built with a modified Quake 2 Engine. We've been working through pre-production the last few months and are almost finished with the important engine functions (camera support, etc).

So, with that in mind, we are looking for the following:

* C Programmer - experience working with client/server, rendering...but most importantly, game code. This is extremely important that we get another, because we are overworked with engine maintanence. Without another one of these, it's going to be a long ride home.

* Set Designer - able to draft out (by pencil or otherwise) set pieces from detailed descriptions, for the level designers to reference from.

* Level Designers - this is a big one, as our one designer is overworked. We use a multitude of programs (QERadiant, Qoole, QuARK, etc) that support Quake 2 Maps. Can also support scripts (Lazarus DLL), etc.

*3D Modeler - we have one modeler, but he is overworked and needs help. Experience in this field is a must, especially working with lower poly models. We support the Quake 3 model format as well as the skeletal-based DOOM3 format but we do not support skeletal animation of any kind (as MD3 is vertex-based). Character or Environment is a must.


Anyways, that's all for now. I usually post elsewhere but we haven't had much luck lately, and without more help it's going to be extremely tough. We overestimated the ease of development, because Quake 2 is full 3D and therefore MUCH different than Hypertension was.

If you are interested, please send me a PM here.

Thank you!

[PH3NOM]

I am just now starting to get my feet wet with 3D programming.

I was going to write my own code for parsing the MD2 format, but didnt need to waste time with that since its already available
http://tfc.duke.free.fr/coding/md2-specs-en.html

All I had to do was come up with some code to handle texture mapping, and I decided to use DC's native PVR VQ compression.

This is a demo using kGl, loading / rendering an MD2 file with PVR VQ texture compression:

dc-kgl-md2.rar

Dreamcast Demo
Load MD2 model using PVR VQ texture
Render using kGl

(2.87 MiB) Downloaded 236 times

[PH3NOM]

Another demo, using KGL.

Load / Render MD5 ( Doom III ) Model. Very Primitive; no animation or texture map.

dc-kgl-md5.rar

DC Demo
Load / Render MD5 File using KGL
No Texture Map or Animation

(2.53 MiB) Downloaded 243 times

[Corbin]

VERY interesting stuff...would you know how to work within the contraints of an existing 3D engine?

[Anthony817]

Wow glad to see you still at it Corbin! I truly hope you get some coders and you REALLY need to look me up at tIZ and post help there as well.

[Quzar]

Though I wouldn't be able to take on a full-time role of any sort, I'd be glad to make myself available for questions or problems regarding DC integration/optimization.

[PH3NOM]

VERY interesting stuff...would you know how to work within the contraints of an existing 3D engine?

PM sent...

[Corbin]

VERY interesting stuff...would you know how to work within the contraints of an existing 3D engine?

PM sent...

Yikes, I don't think I received it :/

[PH3NOM]

VERY interesting stuff...would you know how to work within the contraints of an existing 3D engine?

PM sent...

Yikes, I don't think I received it :/

Strange.
PM Re-sent

[drawking]

tried sending a pm in regards to the set designer position but it kept timing out.
emailed you instead

[Corbin]

I just wanted to shout out to everyone here at DCEmulation for being kind to me. We raised the support and help we needed (we're really just waiting on another level designer) and it was largely due to you guys putting us up at front page again.

As a token, I'll release something to you guys soon, sort of like an exclusive screenshot. We're moving along pretty well now.

[Corbin]

Just letting everyone know that we're looking for ONE more programmer, efficient in "C". We are coding some other things now (inventory, game code, etc) but we would like another to speed that part up. Engine-side is pretty much finished so we're moving into game code territory. Just throwing this out there that we're using a modified Q2 engine.

I know school is starting and stuff, but we're pretty flexible in our work schedules and can work around pretty much anything. If there's any interest, please send me a PM.

[Corbin]

Hey DCEmu, thanks for the original postings - we finally got those positions filled (though, another coder is always welcome, of course)!

Now we're on the lookout for two more positions fo SCOURGE:

Model Animator, who can bring to life our MD3 models. Rig/etc, and the originals can be adjusted for you to animate them. Simple stuff like character walking/running frames, or picking stuff up/shooting a weapon/opening doors/etc. Also some prop animation, like swaying foilage/grass/etc.

Static 3D Modeler, but for objects/props, like vases, skulls, tombstones, pots/pans, trees, things like that. These can generally be modeled in MD2 rather than MD3, and don't have to be animated. A really low triangle count for most of these objects is desired. Skins are a bonus but aren't required here.

[Basil]

You'd better ask at some freelancer sites.

[Corbin]

Hey guys, here again:

A serious status update on Scourge - we've lost one vital Dreamcast porter (personal stuff as usual), and the other is overloaded at the moment (not much time for Scourge), so we're back at a standstill. The engine we've been using for the last two years is experiencing some problems porting over, but we're in the middle of a small rendering rewrite that uses routines from Q3 that the DC port used (backporting to pre-1.1 GL). While the game's progress went unaffected, the port is causing multiple problems with my development team. We can't switch to any other Quake2-type of engine so late in development - if we do we're in serious trouble. Rather than use DCQ2 (terrible port by the way), we're hacking away at our engine in hopes of making the port easier.

It's just that we need the tech finished up. For the last year we made progress on getting it to the system, but the OGL stuff was getting in the way - now that the original programmer came up with some good solutions around it, we need the port to resume progress, otherwise the game's development can't proceed.

I'm usually not this desperate, but we're offering cold cash to get the port finished for the target platform (Dreamcast). It's a bit more complicated since our port has features most Quake 2-type engines do not (not neccesarily rendering fuctions, but /game related and backend optimization). It will be a waste to start from Vanilla Q2's source (serious hacks and rendering issues exist and even more was added to DCQ2).

So, if you guys can, spread the word. We've solved memory problems that plagued us in the past (MD3 routines and other junk), but my team doesn't know enough about the target system to finish the port, so we're asking some serious veterans here. We don't want to continue the game design if we can't approach it from the intended platform first. We can't port our work to Quake 1 either - there's too much of a difference with both engines to warrant that.

Thanks guys.