I was looking at some of the screenshots of terrains and to be honest I was a little disappointed it doesn't look as good as the equivalent you can do with Unity.



I want to add that I don't like using Unity and would much prefer FPS creator reloaded, but I think most important is looks.



Unfortunately you will not gain customers off Unity unless it can look as good.



If it helps I could do a image by image comparison pointing out the differences.



I think key areas are lighting, quality of models, and terrain features. The stretching you see on cliffs looks just awful. People in the Unity forums are using World Machine a lot to get more realistic terrains, have you considered building some samples in World Machine? http://www.world-machine.com/



World Machine is just one example there are other (even better) tools for building great terrains.



Now I know its important to keep things simple so I'd suggest having a auto terrain generate function, where you select style with some parameters and then you can tweak it with a brush after.



I think expectations are higher than ever now so its important to keep up or exceed competition.

I hate to have to point this out but FPSCR is only on the second beta release and Unity has been around since 2005. Unity has a much higher licence cost and therefore more money in their pockets, they also have a larger development team.



Give FPSCR some time and we will see things improve greatly

Reloaded is not Unity or another engine so you have to be realistic about what it will do. The bottom line is its not designed to compete on the same level. Engines like Unity can offer users much more than Reloaded is intended and will ever do at least in the short term - multi platform for example and many other things. Comparison is not even worth considering.



Its designed primarily for small indies and will meet with a certain range of indie developers needs very well when it done and dusted whenever that might be.



It will offer more to those who wish to take advantage of its ease of use, speed of development and for those who wish to go further they will be able to do so with hard work and effort same as any engine.



Skilled game level designers will certainly be able to produce some great stuff with Reloaded if as said they are prepared to put in some effort.



Whatever this comparison subject has been done to death.



One thing is for sure you are more likely to get a game made and deployed successfully using Reloaded than using any competitor engine and thats the bottom line for indie developers unless you just like playing with making levels for the sake of it.



Reloaded will do what it does and do it very well. Better that than dreaming about things that will never be. At the moment TGC have to stay focused and get Reloaded made into an actual working product that can deliver end games for developers and game players.



Everyone is aware of competitors and also of what is good and what is bad about Reloaded, what needs improving and where there is room for updating I am sure it will be done.



Unity users that wish to stay with Unity or other engines will do so and few will ever make a game with it. Unity have a large user base and true it is to say that Reloaded could do with more than a few more. Its early days yet and you have to wait and see. Currently you would not expect anyone to go mad over Reloaded as you cant make a game with it at all. Its in development, is Beta and will stay that way for quite some time.



There are a great deal more things yet to add to Reloaded as well as improving Terrain features where possible.



Its not had a particularly good start (stop) and everyone has to view it in the light of the realities.



Looks are not most important - making and deploying successfully a good playable game is. Everything else is and must be supportive of that as a first priority. Thus Reloaded will at least meet the end objective being completing and deploying an actual physical game if people want to use it. The quality of the game will be largely down to the developer and their own skills and effort which may vary and so will the games made with it.



If you want to do that I know which one I would use even though I personally like Unity - Reloaded will make my game whereas Unity will not as it Requires too much of what most indies don't have and that's a lot of resources, effort, knowledge, skills, time and money.

This.



TGC doesn't advertise FPS Creator as a big time developer engine. It's marketed as a low-cost, easy to use engine. Unity already exist. Why try and make it again?



Maybe someone is saying about Unity... "You'll never gain customers off FPSC unless it's just as easy to use."



Brian.

Not this.



My impression had nothing to do with copying Unity its about getting it to look on par. If FPSC specialises in making FPS's then it should be able to make an FPS on par with other indie engines.



I guess we will see where it goes. Hopefully the new store will offer better standard of models. As far as terrain goes, I can't see many indies using that. Hobbyists/non-coders etc maybe.

Then it has to work the other way as well. If FPSC has to be as good visually, then Unity has to be as easy to use. Otherwise, you can't compare them.



Brian.

I am very keen on learning feedback like this, as I am very much interested in converting some more Unity users over You mentioned the stretchy cliffs does not match a Unity cliff. Can you post a good Unity cliff, and your best guess what technique or tool they are using?



The current terrain is height map based, which means you cannot escape the XZ grid which provides the lattice of the whole system. I'm not too keen on adding a voxel approach at this time as it would be a time consuming replacement. You can of course supplement the slopes with static entities specifically designed to look like outcrops, but I suspect you just want to see a more believable texture on the sides of the cliff Sending me a shot from a good Unity terrain demo would give me a starting point for where we need to go.

To me there is very little stretching on terrain. You only get this when the depth is extreme and that's unavoidable when the brush strength is fixed as it is now. It can be fixed a liitle by using the level brush and incrementing height in stages. All the same it may be that the mapping is off some, it looks like planar mapping, and as I say only happens with really sheer and high levels.



If as you say it uses the x,z grid then I reckon it's missing a 'y' coordinate for texturing.

I'm pretty sure that's what Fallout and Skyrim does. They have a base terrain and most of the sharp mountain edges are actually static models.



CrazySi, keep in mind we are still in BETA; its almost too soon to criticize on this level with comparing the engine to an engine that has been complete for nearly a decade.

Lee



Have you considered using a version of tri-planar texturing in the present shader - that would eliminate the stretching problem?

I haven't looked at the terrain shader in a while, but that idea sounds interesting Green Gandalf. And the shader code for tri-planar mapping looks pretty simple, it seems like it would be a cinch to plug in the new texture UV lookups for both the normal and diffuse textures. I'm looking at this blog post here: http://electronicmeteor.wordpress.com/2013/03/07/triplanar-normal-mapping-for-terrain/



But it's also a good idea as other have mentioned, to supplement the base terrain with rock structure entity formations. Someone should make that as a model pack for Reloaded, it would probably be very popular.

In my humble opinion, i think that what trully makes a game engine have good visuals is indeed the art assets, i mean, models, textures and shaders.



I think if you are a skilled 3d artist, you can achieve almost the same visual results across several different engines.



I think everything has to do with the user skills in using the engine, be it FPS Creator, UDK, Unity, Cryengine, and any other.



I always visit the websites of Unity, Unreal Engine, Crytek engine, to see some users showcase. I can say that i have seem too much "crap" and junk made with those engines, i have even seen some FPS Creator Games looking and playing more beautifull and more better than some UDK and Unity Games.



Something that i may note here, i think that if you want to be a good indie game developer, especially if you are working alone, is very good that you have at least a middle knowledge on each area that makes a game. You don`t need to be an expert in 3D model, animation, textures, and so on, unless you are working in a specific job on the game industry. So this knowledge will be a very powerfull weapon at your hands, so that you spend sometime to learn a little about everything, be it 3d modelling, animation, sound design, video editting, scripting, read some books and articles on general game design and world level design, and so on.



If you dominate a little about everything that is involved in games creation, you will be able to create a very good game.



And other important thing is that the game most important factor is the fun factor, even if your game has the most realistic 3d visual, shaders and lightind environment, if the game itself is not fun, no one will like to play it.



I have seen some great industry dev spending too much in graphics and forgetting about the most important thing on a game, the fun factor. And a lot of great looking games made by pro devs, were a totally failure, just because they spent most of their time in just making it look beautifull!



So it always come down to the user skills, and not essencially the engine itself. However, the engine can make the user`s life a lot easier, with some good automation tools, like auto terrain generator, foliage, some good lighting tools, and so on...



And from what we are seeing, i think FPSC Reloaded will be some of the best game engines on the market.

I agree 100 %, I like fact you don't have be a big team of people to create games with fpscr, it also caters for all skill levels beginner to pro

So Take a look at this cube 2 sauerbraten engine Vs Reloaded 2.01.002 runing on my old XP . the old "cube 2" can run circles around it for speed & moving water FX. But its Not as easy to use.

Reloaded crashes my PC from time to time. but cube 2 engine is OK.



see Attachment:

The Cube2 engine is a great tool but people seem to forget the fact that FPSCR is in BETA and is nowhere near a finished V1 product. At the moment these beta releases are really just performance tests and one the speed of the engine is up to scratch all the bells & whistles (including moving water) will be added.

I now understand you. that FPSCR is in BETA. but its the way this other engine can run on the old hardware. good to know that Reloaded is Aiming for the same target on the older systems. hope to see sum hardware options & set-up's in the install menu in the final TGC Reloaded product.

To me, that's pretty much the make-or-break issue of Reloaded. How much Lee can optimize it and how much control we have over the graphics options in the end will determine what our target consumers will be. Obviously, we can't promote and advertise like the big boys and get users to upgrade their systems to play our games, so the more systems our end games will play on, the more popular the titles will be.



As for comparisons with other engines, I wish they would stop.



Brian.

Seconded.

I also completely agree.



What makes an indie game maker, an indie game maker. It is at the finish, he has a game he or she has created. Not to do with how much coding they have done. The important thing is the finished product.



I think a lot of people who have been making incredible total conversion modifications for games over the years, will jump at the chance at making their own stand-alone games with a tool such as FPSCR.



Sadly I felt FPSC was just too behind the times by the time I came to use it, it felt like I was playing Half Life, which was released in 1998. Whilst FPSCR already, with its limited beta capabilities has a upto date feeling. Okay graphics aren't the end all and be all of a good game, gameplay is very important, but graphics certainly helps!

I can agree on that it´s importat that the minimum hardware requirements to play a FPSCR is not set too high. But what makes or brake a gameengine to me is the opportunities it gives me as a gamecreator. Opportunities to create a great game. Hardware is always updated. As a gamer you often continually update your hardware.



There is also a risk that the chase for better performance on old low end systems could impact the quality of the engine itself. Then most users will abondon the engine pretty fast.



The best TGC could do is to establish a "good-enough" state so they can move on with all other things we are waiting for. As for now you can´t develop a game with it.

All good comments here! My aim is to continue my focus one each core element until I get the majority nod from this community. Performance has improved since I first started, and I have more ideas to bring after BETA 1.004. Currently the shaders, light ray and reflections do not use quad renders (due to the increased memory demand) which WOULD speed things up a lot more. The balancing act now is to find the fine line between performance and memory usage. I think once we have an engine that can be both fast on low end systems and gorgeous on high end systems, and can handle very large populated levels without fear of memory shortages then we can go full steam ahead on the next most important core features.