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We Have the Storm Engine!

For my sixpenny worth..

I think that feed back will be a while in coming.
It is still Christmas and people are still busy with, or enjoying that.

My view is, that it won't be until the new year before a lot of the members will have sufficient free time to return to the forum and then realise and digest the potential significance of the event.

Not that discussion couldn't or shouldn't start now, but discouragement should not be allowed to set in, with the apparent "disinterest" that might be assumed from a "quiet" topic with few responses.

This time of the year is busy for almost everyone, with commitments to family and friends to fulfill.

For the moment I would advise that patience be the watchword.
 
Legally the problem will come when we use their assets, as Pieter said above if we use a concept or idea, as long as we are not doing it for profit I would be amazed if they went to shut us down (we don't demand the audience that would concern them too much) If we used their actual assts however that's when they get narky.

With the conversion, we actually don't really need the source code, it was our intention initially to attempt to get the srouce code for POTC not COAS (getting it was just a bonus) so really it's a mod port using the same information we had with POTC. Having the source allows for long term security & distribution after everyone else has abandoned COAS.

With the artworks and such looking different, they can all be changed (not necessarily immediately, but as a lower priority job).

After I get my hands on the code (finalising it now) I suggest we start a new forum so we can get the COAS modders and POTC modder together in one place to organise who's working on what without crossing over. From there work out the best course of action, personally I'm all for switchng over straight away finalising the code would be handy but to take advantage of an audience base we would need to port over quite promptly.

Also, I agree with Short Jack, nice time for presents but a crap time to get sense out of anyone ;)

Just remember people, bite size problems ;)
 
Thagarr, I don't think they were trying to hide anything with the fog mate. In fact I think the COAS graphics look much cleaner and more realistic. I think they were just trying to put in some additional realism that just ended up annoying everyone. We already have a mini-mod that fixes the fog that I believe got bundled in the new combined COAS mod.

The lighting effects, changes in color and sky, and reflections in water during sunrise, sunset and twilight are stunning. This is all very exciting because we will end up with the much better more diverse backgrounds, ports, buildings, etc from POTC in a DirectX 9 world!

I also maintain the hand to hand fighting is much better in COAS than POTC. I think we will end up with an excellent fusion.

Standing by to take little bites! :will

MK
 
Thagarr said:
For some reason they decided to make COAS look foggy almost all the time, I haven't sailed in the Caribbean for real, but I do know fog really isn't all that prevalent. I don't think it's the actual engine doing it, but maybe they were trying to mask some of the flaws of the engine. :shrug
Click to expand...

I found out when I was redoing the weather effects that fog hides a variety of game flaws. :) I worked hard to find a good balance. It only needs to be that foggy if the rendering distance is really short though.

Hook
 
Mk, I agree about the graphics being much better overall, I haven't had a chance to install any of the new mods for CoAS yet, but I will definitely check them out when I get the chance. :onya

Interesting Hook, I wondered if it may be something like that, thanks for the info mate! :dance
 
Thanks a lot for those screenshots, Thagarr! That allows us a much better comparison. :onya

On the whole, CoAS does have the prettier effects, but I'm not convinced the end result is the best.
The sky certainly is too dark blue and foggy;
I can confirm it is NOT like that in the actual Caribbean and neither is it in PotC.

I'm not convinced on the sea water colour either. It seems rather greeny in CoAS, which it isn't in real life.
It really is more blue or maybe dark blue to gray when in stormy weather and overcast skies.
Also, the 'bump map distortion' in CoAS looks less like waves and more like, well, "pretty distortion".
In PotC, while admitted not truly realistic either, the distortion does give more of a "waves" impression to me.

One of the coolest "making it more Caribbean" things we did in PotC
is to make the sea colour go to light blue when close to beaches:
after.jpg


The ship reflection in the water looks a lot more overdone when compared to real life.
There IS some reflection in PotC, but it is very subtle. And it IS indeed very subtle in real life also.
Especially if you look at the non-player ship, you can tell clearly that the reflection effect is excessive.

The wake is more defined in CoAS, which is good as far as I'm concerned,
as long as the size of the wake depends on the speed.

When comparing ship models, the CoAS one does look better,
but it seems all ships look like they were built and painted yesterday.
And the sails really are very white; I prefer the PotC PotBS style yellow ones.

The flags clearly are inferior to PotC, though it isn't clear on these screenshots.
The Different Flags mod, introducing seperate pennants AND period-correct nation flags
that even distinguish between navy and merchant ships,
has to be one of the coolest things we have managed to do in the Build Mod.
lacroix_sailing.jpg


I am not AT ALL convinced on the look of the CoAS on-sea battle interface, but then the PotC look isn't the best either.
It would be cool if the interface could be more subtle and more period-looking (brass/wood style maybe?).
As far as I'm concerned, the battle interface should take up as little screen space as possible,
so that more space is left for the actual look of the game.

The icons above the ships are HORRIBLY out of place; can these be turned off in CoAS?
Nothing else makes the game look SO arcadey as that does! And it defeats the purpose of pretty graphics also,
because it completely yanks you out of that world and put you on your chair in front of the computer.

I think the CoAS island models look pretty good; definitly more detailed than in PotC.
Especially the trees are cool, though I would expect more PALM trees and less ordinary ones.
In fact, all island models in both games do NOT give a Caribbean impression! AT ALL!
The Caribbean really DOES have lots of sandy beaches, palm trees and even the islands that DO have cliffy sides
(not that many of them), have got plants and trees covering the sides completely.
 
If we recoloured the water in NH (and its REALLY pretty!) we could do the same for COAS , eventually. As for the non Caribbean looking environment in COAS well, we'll consider your suggestion to expand the theatre of operations in game to encompass global locations!

I for one would love a North Africa terrain. Easy to model, it's all desert!
 
I'm just passing trough quickly, between christmas, new years eve, and my studies restarting, but, i'm really stunned by this information, that could be the opening of a very nice era, and that would give us the possibility to achieve long wanted things, if we can get to know how to use this powerful tool. Really, I didn't think it would be possible and this a really nice christmas surprise!

Now, as far as i'm concerned, my studies are taking me a lot of time, i'm still working, but very slowly, I'm still on the ships remaster project, and I sometimes port my attention to other small things. (like the ENB series, or like achieving some skinning job ideas i'll release later ; for example I started collecting some model photos on the National Maritime Museum site to stick the details on our olders textures, I made some really successfull tries on the battleships, they now have skinned decorations and stern galleries, all is very well integrated.)

In any cases, my work will made no problem to be integrated in COAS and the remastering of the POTC models will help them to fit into the COAS universe by making them more details, so we will have a larger choice of ships.

Whatever you choose to do, the time I can offer is yours! :) To New horizons and Beyond!
 
Yes that would indeed be nice to see some screens of the new textures. :will

Here are some random ship pictures, not sure if they will help in anyway but anyway just in case.

Lugger




Sloop




Colonial Schooner




Caravel


 
And some more. :onya

Fluyt




Brig




Heavy Galleon




Battleship




Man O War




BTW, the health metres above the ships can be turned off in options. I know they make the game feel arcady and don't use them myself they take away the idea of the spy glass since you can see, crew, sail hp and hull hp on those meteres, right from the start when the spy glass you have doesn't tell you very much.
 
They still look a bit boxy to me, far from reality, one tought by the way, we will finally be able to have some extra lowmens, what would you think to make a mod to replace the lowmens characters by the more detailed game character models, to have something like in POTBS?!

@thomas and luke159, i'm not at home actually but screenshots will come soon!
 
Indeed messing around with the lowmens would be cool.
We could make them nation-specific and put cursed green skeletons on the Flying Dutchman too.
Definitly one of the things I'd like to see being done eventually. :yes
 
Okay, brace yerselves... No, your eyes do not deceive you. I got a note from Pieter about this topic and I've had hosting problems with my own websites (and email from those domains) that I've only now finally begun to resolve - so I finally got the message!

SO I AM HERE! :j3 :razz

Not sure many will remember me as I've been gone for so long. Long story, long stupid story... However I am hoping to be around here more often.

This news is QUITE interesting... I'll be on a learning curve to get up to speed, so I'm going to have to rely upon your help so I can get back into this. :modding

Don't have a lot more to say at the moment, :eek:ops2 except maybe I am looking forward to getting to know you "new" folks, and hoping to see some more of the "old timers" around here as this spectacular news is received...

Gratz to you, Keith :bow and to you too Pieter! :warr

OH! Maybe one more thing:

arrremem.jpg
laughks2.gif
 
Catalina! How VERY WELCOME YOU ARE! Of course we'd never forget you. Never in a million years!
If you want to get back into things, of course the Build 14 Alpha 10 thread is the first one I recommend you have a look at.
And of course there's a lot of articles, movies and screenshots on our ModDB Profile.

For everyone who wasn't here to remember the famous Catalina the Pirate, let me provide an introduction for her.
Catalina was a moderator on this forum before I ever joined the community, back in the days when Nathan Kell was the Big Bad Build Boss.
She always made sure there was a pleasant, fun and happy atmosphere here on this forums.
She also made the first ever totally new sidequests in the Build Mod, being the "Fred Bob/Help the Lady" one.

So let me once again give you a hearty welcome here and let me conclude with the smiley that was rightly named after you: :cheers
 
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