3D game development experience

[Saito-kun]

I am 99.72% sure nothing will come of this. But I want to bring it up anyway.

Is there ANYONE in the EXE fan community that has experience with 3D game development? Other fan communities do (Look at http://www.shadowsoflylat.net/ and http://www.tsl-game.com/), and I think it's high time we dragged the talents out of the woodwork and worked on an EXE project. Whether that's an MMNT2 or a small 3D game or a battle simulator or a pet simulator, I don't know.

It seems impossible, but it's been done before. And we've seen this: http://www.rockman-exe.com/online/viewtopic.php?t=8561 And MegaRock.exe is pretty leet with hacking and related things, so I bet he'd be on board.

Anyway, yea. I'm tired of the EXE fandom being dead, so it makes me hope crazy things.

[Tachyon360]

It's potentially doable, but it's a downright massive undertaking. It'll take a lot of people with myriad different specialties and require a large investment of time, effort, and emotion on everyone's part.

Then there's also the issue of getting Foxed; make no mistake, you'll be using Capcom's intellectual property without their consent, and they could shoot the project down at any moment. So, a decision would need to be made very early on about whether to keep a low profile or try drumming up fan support. The former route is safer legally, but you'd have a much harder time keeping the project moving. The latter, if successful, could win you a load of contributors and hype, but could also catch the attention of Capcom's legal team.

On top of a strong leadership that can organize the project and keep everyone on board and motivated for what'll probably be the next half decade, here's a rough breakdown of who you'll need to get the project moving:
Art & Media:
Creative director
Concept artists
Story writers / editors
Modelers
Animators
Character designers
Level designers
Texture designers
Audio designers
Soundtrack composer
Voice actors
UI designer
Technical:
Tech director
A barrel of code monkeys (who need to be on the same page as far as game engine, programming language, and platform are concerned)
Network specialists
Hordes of QA testers
Bug fixers
UI developer

So yeah, massive undertaking. Mind you, some roles will overlap, some roles may prove unnecessary, and some roles not listed here could make themselves apparent. Also, restricting it to people who have experience developing games excludes plenty of useful talent, so it might be better to look for anyone who has skills they could contribute.

Of course, all of that mostly applies if you're going for polish and scope. If you want a small, rough-looking indie game sort of deal, you'll likely need fewer people, though you'll probably still wind up investing a load of time and effort all the same.

Tell ya' what: you find enough people to get the project going, and I'll contribute some sketches and mockups to help things along.
_________________
*placeholder*

[Saito-kun]

I'm not a game development noob, so I know what's involved. But only practically in the 2D realm, heh.

I said someone with experience, but of course it wouldn't be exclusive. If nobody has any knowledge of 3D development though, the idea's 0.01% chance of action goes down by about... 4%. Like you said, a lot of those roles would likely be consolidated (modelers and texture designers are often one and the same on smaller teams, for example), and some aren't quite so ceremonial that they add much weight to the list, but yea. That's a rough list (Not sure we'd need VAs, and we could bootleg some music if nothing else. Stuff like that.). Quite a pile!

The trouble is finding people in this fan community. All that are left seem to be drifters.

Question: Who specifically would Capcom's lawyers target with cease and desists? That was always a little fuzzy to me.

[Poochy.EXE]

[Tachyon360]

[Saito-kun]

Thanks for the response, Poochy. I thought I was imagining that Capcom seemed a little less crotchety about fan games. Though I suppose I still could have been!

Tachyon, it seems like a good idea, but I don't know that I'd want to bother with a fan project if it didn't have at least the same main characters (Netto, Rockman, and pals). Because then I might as well focus on my original projects!

Unless of course, this hybrid project idea is so stunning that it blasts my socks off and we have to make it.

That's happened.

[Equilibrium]

hello, i got your pm but i guess i might as well respond here. i'm interested and have what is likely enough experience, but i'd like to see/read more about the actual game project before promising anything.

also don't listen to tachyon.
_________________
hi mom.

[marihikari]

That sounds like a cool idea
I'd be willing to help out with concept art or voice acting~
_________________

Banner by bunnyfan101 and myself. "I'm not suffering from insanity-i'm enjoying every moment of it" - A mug i saw while on vacation

[Nazne]

If you're going for the full 3-D "game", Tachyon's list is pretty much on the ball. And even if you're not, if you'd just rather have a nice 3-D engine to show off some characters and game mechanics, do you know how much work goes into just prototyping? One of my recent projects was a 2-D point-and-click demo; about five people working together for an entire semester - 2 artists, 2 programmers, and one stage designer each committed to 10 hours per week - only finished about two puzzles, the (extremely basic) game engine, and a fair amount of background and stage art. It was enough to demo, but it was pretty lame. Also, the artists were actual art students.

Now imagine doing that as an internet project and not even being paid for it, for the sake of a fanbase that basically doesn't exist any more in the US, without any future hope of recompensation except "this is kinda cool". You'll definitely have some trouble with finding actually skilled programmers and artists who'd be willing to work purely for the sake of fandom. That's not even getting into the whole communication issue; how well will you be able to work over the internet with one another, having to keep each other and yourselves working and motivated, and keeping the team together?

I don't see this happening with EXE any more. Maybe it could have, back in around 2004 when the fandom was still strong, but I'm not sure enough dedicated fans remain to be committed to a project like this.

HOWEVER - as to not be entirely pessimistic, I'd suggest a way less ambitious scope; try just making a few 3-D models of the characters with working joints and the like, and animating them. You could probably teach yourself how to do it, to boot. After you've done that, see how committed you still are to the idea of building a game engine around them.

[Blue]

^ this. You said that way better than I could, thanks.

Also, re: tired of EXE fandom being dead, if you want more activity you should try getting some serious discussion going. I know that 'what if there was more anime' thread went strong for a while. As a suggestion along those lines, bring back those episode watches/discussions we had a while back. People posted to those, and it would be on something they'd just watched instead of something they watched a few years ago and only vaguely recall, which is what I think stops some threads from getting far.

[Saito-kun]

Like I said, I have experience with game development and online collaboration. (In fact, I hired people from other countries for my last project.) I know it's never going to happen. Just wanted to say I liked the idea. "it makes me hope crazy things."

If you have an appropriate engine in hand, prototyping is easier. Unity could work, maybe. And I never said it had to be a big project. I bet we could pull off a PET simulator if we wanted to. Oh well, waste of time, I guess. EXE just doesn't have the oomph it used to.

Nazne, your idea of doing something small like rigging some models is a good one, and might sound fun if I hadn't already been trying on and off for a couple years to become at least an amateur at modeling and failed.

At least I got replies!

Equilibrium: Thanks for being interested! XD

[NetOperator Wibby]

Hmm . . . after reading all of the comments thus far, I was reminded of Azureus Rising / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agk2svo7svI / Now, this is a pretty fantastic video. Like, kick ass omfg this is so cool when is the full movie coming out?

It took a small team at least 2 years just to get to that point. However, starting small, creating assets and such [ maybe some high-quality Mettools and other viruses ] would be a great way to drum up interest. I could create and host the site as a subdomain on my site [ http://pw-software.com ].
_________________
Avatar by Tabby (of my NetNavi, GuincoolMind.EXE) : : :
HP / Twitter / hikari OS / SciLab

[Blue]

Making a short animation I'd be less averse to. A lot of my concern about this game idea is from a programming standpoint. If we did manage to get enough people, I've got some ideas for the scenarios/overarching story and designs, but I probably won't be much help on the programming front until next summer, when I've learned more about what goes into game programming and learned C++. (and if it's in 3D, then we're talking physics, which... I probably won't have taken by then. ^^; ) And we'd probably need a few people with that knowledge, like Tachyon said.

If I seemed overly negative, it's because I feel like you've just announced this out of the blue (no pun intended), and it seems a little odd to me. Not many people seem interested in even talking about EXE, not enough for many discussion threads to stay alive, so how are we going to get enough people from here to make a game? I'd be excited if you'd said "hey, me and my friends with programming knowledge have decided we want to make an EXE game, anybody want to help?" Maybe you should post to other Rockman/Mega Man boards, and see if you can find more interested people there for either the animation or the actual game.

[Saito-kun]

I didn't announce anything! I asked a question. XD And I never said it had to be a big project!

We could do something small, if anything at all. (My first thought was that making a good animation would be harder than a small game, but hey!)

[Tachyon360]

[Ozone]

In my humbling opinion, you shold use openGL, so that the game may be ported without problems, instead of MS DirectX.
That way you may even distribute your work with Steam
_________________
Sardinia is not Italy!
MMBN✕Android figures commissions are now CLOSED

[marihikari]

Animation would be hard to do ^^;
but i'm sure there are free flash-ish programs somewhere
like the how to make your own anime book i checked out at the library once. that might be helpful if i can find it again XD
_________________

Banner by bunnyfan101 and myself. "I'm not suffering from insanity-i'm enjoying every moment of it" - A mug i saw while on vacation

[Tachyon360]

Alright, so here's a story pitch. Very rough, very sloppy, incomplete, and poorly fleshed out. Essentially, a quick idea and some hastily jotted notes that would either sink or swim. Sources of inspiration include Deus Ex and Neuromancer.

My idea is that the story would be considerably edgier than the canon EXE series, and it would set the stage for the world Netto and Rockman are born into. Among other things, the story would provide the origins for Proto, the Navi-centered Internet and its 3D environments, IPC, and possibly Forte as well. Haven't quite figured out how to incorporate those elements, though.

So, enough blabbing - here's the story pitch:

[Saito-kun]

Whoo! I really like that explanation for the fauxberworld. Keeps people/brains/AI from going insane.

I enjoy the idea, and several twisting plot idea just kind of pop out of it, but I'm almost afraid cutting it down would effectively castrate it. And it also doesn't have Netto or Rockman, or really much beyond a hint of the canon, which makes it a perfect example of a good idea that might as well be put into production as a completely original idea rather than a fan project.

But! The elements are still very good. Maybe you ought to turn that into an EXE fic (I would totally be all over that), and we can take the key elements (big corporation doing experiments, buffer layer between interfaced minds and internet, experiments on transferring... brains) and move forward, if we should choose to do so.

Though I get the feeling that with our current potential pooled skills and interest, story is a bit beyond the current set of goals. XD

I might knock around some ideas using this as a kick-off point later this week if work lets up.

Side question: Where'd you get Geni? Reminds me of stargate.

[NetOperator Wibby]

@Tachyon360 :

. . . that is perhaps one of the most brilliant things I have heard lately. I also made some [slight] parallels with our own world. Geni Group = Google [idk if they're really evil though, but they sure have a good amount of power for a search engine company] for one. I also love the Deus Ex influence in here, the newest game looks to be quite good.

If anything, I think it would be a superb idea to have you be in charge of the overall story, while the community here pitches ideas for plot points and possible missions / side missions.

@Saito-kun : I am going to have to disagree with you on a few things. I don't think T360's story is beyond the scope of what we as a community is capable. The Blender Group, for example, has their Open Movie Project, which has released a couple of really really great [and good quality] 3D films. We just need enough interested / talented people.

I for one am even more excited for this. I'll see if I can't cook up a logo / web presence idea for this mysterious Geni Group. I just finished re-designing my music site so I'll be free to pursue other things [like my Hikari Project].
_________________
Avatar by Tabby (of my NetNavi, GuincoolMind.EXE) : : :
HP / Twitter / hikari OS / SciLab