Fonline engine
I would like to tell dear habravchanam about such a wonderful project like Fonline. Implying that the IT community is here, and many have a lot of experience both in development and in games, I won’t explain what Fallout is, which formed the basis of this project, the benefit of the years since its launch, This word was one of those that almost every adult and even a child knows.
Despite the latest trend with the publication of the source code of various old games, the original one, not afraid of this word - the legendary Fallout and its continuation did not become one of such good examples. And it seems that this is not to be. Instead, the sources of the legendary project remain in the bins of Bethesda Softworks / Zenimax Entertainment, which are currently the full owners of everything that somehow relates to Fallout IP (Intellectual Property), except for the rights to publish the original Fallout 1 / Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics by the notorious publisher Interplay, which is allowed to sell the above games until December 31, 2013, after which the last IP rights will be transferred to Bethesda Softworks.
However, despite the friction regarding the rights to this project, fans of the original games did not want to stay with what is in their hands, and for many years that have passed since the release of the games have created a huge amount of content. It’s worthwhile to stop separately, and notice that the specifics of many fans of old games, such as the original Fallout, are such that they do not accept what contradicts the so-called canon — information given by developers (in this case, it’s mostly Black Isle Studios, less often - Obsidian Entertainment; Bethesda Softworks - almost never), and considered unshakable truth, from which you can not deviate in the development of any content and additions to the original story. A vivid example of canonical information is the experiment “ Vault of the Future ” (Vault of the Future), and in contrast to it - any special meetings (Special Encounter), such as a meeting with Doctor Who’s TARDIS in the second part of the game.
')
TARDIS and the Chosen One.
Thus, the fans were between two boundaries. On the one hand, there are technical restrictions prohibiting any deviations from the standard, which are rigidly inscribed in the engine (hardcoded). On the other hand, the added content is limited by the canon. As a result, we have a community of hardcore fans who were not stopped by these two restrictions. However, even in this case, completely new content is extremely difficult to create. For example, to create one complete set of animation for a new character in Fallout 1 or 2, you need to manually draw about sixty thousand frames, which of course is an overwork for any person, if only because if you set such a goal, then it will go to an average of 12-15 years, subject to work 12 hours a day.
With such a balance in hand, the community was divided into two parts. The former used what they have, mainly creating hybrid models using parts of the original models, repainting them in every way and adding new animations to the new sets. Others began to look for a more radical way to solve the problem, and probably one of the things that pushed them was the public release of the pre-demo version of Fallout 3 from Black Isle (better known as the code codename Project Van Buren), which completely abandoned the use of sprites in favor of 3D models. The subsequent closure of the studio, further stimulated fans to start exploring the resources of the game in their hands. Let me remind you that at that time Fallout 3 from Bethesda Softworks was not only not announced, but also still belonged to Interplay, which at that time was experiencing certain financial difficulties, which in subsequent years only worsened until today, which eventually led to the sale of significant Interplay-owned intellectual property, such as Sacrifice, Messiah and Fallout Game Rights.
Meanwhile, the most advanced fans, realizing the futility of torment with the old engine, began to conduct their own developments in this direction. As a result, the two most prominent representatives were born:
The first was the FIFE Engine, the purpose of which was initially the possibility of using the resources of the original games in order to create a project focused on a single passage. Initial releases allowed to create something for which the engine was created, but in the end, the project remained out of work, was not accepted by the community and was almost forgotten. And although its development continues to this day - it was not used to create a complete game based on Fallout resources.
The second, and much more prominent representative was the engine, called Fonline Engine, first developed since 2004 mainly in the CIS countries, by a small team of enthusiasts and developing to this day. The key feature was the ability to create a dedicated server that allowed up to two or three thousand people to play at the same time (using a very powerful server machine) using original and added content, and the list of supported formats was constantly expanded and expanded. From the moment of the first testing, the team collapsed and reunited, many people left and came, but it’s worth staying at three milestones of the story:
Having become the first truly mass event, in which, according to various estimates, up to several thousand people received only on the first day, and how many people experienced the feeling of nostalgia implicated in crazy PvP - are incalculable. The community of users of modern console games and high-tech computer games that had already been formed by that time, for the most part not familiar with the founders of the series, was somewhat disappointed, so the test quickly lost popularity, and within a year, the total number of players was only a few hundred. It would seem that it was necessary to close the testing, and continue to conduct it for a limited group of people, but the development team decided otherwise - testing was carried out for just over 3 years. During this time, a huge number of changes and additions were made, but the interest gradually faded away.
A year after the launch of testing, a very controversial decision was made - to release the engine complete with the game server, which is a continuation of the idea of Fallout 2 in the entourage of the thought-out future, several years after the end of the main storyline of the original game. At the same time, although the developers were provided with a wide range of tools, such as a map editor, dialogs, and the ability to edit most of the scripts — future developers had some development difficulties associated with the Angel Script language, as well as the secrecy of the source code. The release caused a surge in popularity, and as soon as possible numerous clones were created, in many respects similar to Ultima Online “servers” that were popular in their time. There were also independent developments, such as the online reincarnation of the Arcanum game: of Steamworks and Magick Obscura (Arcanum Reborn: Riverrise project), the Desert Europe project telling about the confrontation of two parties in the vast post-nuclear Europe, and the What Remains project focused on the single passage and one of the few actively applying 3D models for the environment, as well as using multi-level buildings.
What remains
Arcanum reborn
Desert europe
But as mentioned above, developers have experienced certain problems, being limited in the possibility of introducing their own character models with the ease with which this is done in modern engines. And here we come to the third milestone of the project.
The project, which at its very beginning was conceived as a simple transfer of models from Project Van Buren and their adaptation to the needs of developers, became much larger and developed into a global task of recreating all models from original games in such a way that they and the associated animations had minimal the number of differences, while retaining such advantages of using volumetric models, such as ease of development and implementation in the project.
Over time, almost all of the original content was recreated, many original animations were recreated in such a quality that in practice it is very difficult to distinguish them from the original, as well as character models with different body types and a unified development for all models, in order to exclude the same texturing job. Undoubtedly, the project is not finished yet, and in the near future we intend to complete it in order to present the first public release. Stopping separately on this moment, I would like to note that any of the respected habrovans who wish to help the project have such an opportunity, and therefore I ask those interested to contact me personally through any means of communication specified in the profile, and I will gladly offer you a lesson in our cozy volunteer team. After all, as they say in one common English expression - every little bit helps.
I really hope that you liked my story and am waiting for comments.
PS Below are the progress trackers links and a 3D project development forum, as well as several videos demonstrating 3D models in action.
[1] [2] [3] [4]
Despite the latest trend with the publication of the source code of various old games, the original one, not afraid of this word - the legendary Fallout and its continuation did not become one of such good examples. And it seems that this is not to be. Instead, the sources of the legendary project remain in the bins of Bethesda Softworks / Zenimax Entertainment, which are currently the full owners of everything that somehow relates to Fallout IP (Intellectual Property), except for the rights to publish the original Fallout 1 / Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics by the notorious publisher Interplay, which is allowed to sell the above games until December 31, 2013, after which the last IP rights will be transferred to Bethesda Softworks.
However, despite the friction regarding the rights to this project, fans of the original games did not want to stay with what is in their hands, and for many years that have passed since the release of the games have created a huge amount of content. It’s worthwhile to stop separately, and notice that the specifics of many fans of old games, such as the original Fallout, are such that they do not accept what contradicts the so-called canon — information given by developers (in this case, it’s mostly Black Isle Studios, less often - Obsidian Entertainment; Bethesda Softworks - almost never), and considered unshakable truth, from which you can not deviate in the development of any content and additions to the original story. A vivid example of canonical information is the experiment “ Vault of the Future ” (Vault of the Future), and in contrast to it - any special meetings (Special Encounter), such as a meeting with Doctor Who’s TARDIS in the second part of the game.
')
TARDIS and the Chosen One.
Thus, the fans were between two boundaries. On the one hand, there are technical restrictions prohibiting any deviations from the standard, which are rigidly inscribed in the engine (hardcoded). On the other hand, the added content is limited by the canon. As a result, we have a community of hardcore fans who were not stopped by these two restrictions. However, even in this case, completely new content is extremely difficult to create. For example, to create one complete set of animation for a new character in Fallout 1 or 2, you need to manually draw about sixty thousand frames, which of course is an overwork for any person, if only because if you set such a goal, then it will go to an average of 12-15 years, subject to work 12 hours a day.
With such a balance in hand, the community was divided into two parts. The former used what they have, mainly creating hybrid models using parts of the original models, repainting them in every way and adding new animations to the new sets. Others began to look for a more radical way to solve the problem, and probably one of the things that pushed them was the public release of the pre-demo version of Fallout 3 from Black Isle (better known as the code codename Project Van Buren), which completely abandoned the use of sprites in favor of 3D models. The subsequent closure of the studio, further stimulated fans to start exploring the resources of the game in their hands. Let me remind you that at that time Fallout 3 from Bethesda Softworks was not only not announced, but also still belonged to Interplay, which at that time was experiencing certain financial difficulties, which in subsequent years only worsened until today, which eventually led to the sale of significant Interplay-owned intellectual property, such as Sacrifice, Messiah and Fallout Game Rights.
Meanwhile, the most advanced fans, realizing the futility of torment with the old engine, began to conduct their own developments in this direction. As a result, the two most prominent representatives were born:
The first was the FIFE Engine, the purpose of which was initially the possibility of using the resources of the original games in order to create a project focused on a single passage. Initial releases allowed to create something for which the engine was created, but in the end, the project remained out of work, was not accepted by the community and was almost forgotten. And although its development continues to this day - it was not used to create a complete game based on Fallout resources.
The second, and much more prominent representative was the engine, called Fonline Engine, first developed since 2004 mainly in the CIS countries, by a small team of enthusiasts and developing to this day. The key feature was the ability to create a dedicated server that allowed up to two or three thousand people to play at the same time (using a very powerful server machine) using original and added content, and the list of supported formats was constantly expanded and expanded. From the moment of the first testing, the team collapsed and reunited, many people left and came, but it’s worth staying at three milestones of the story:
Open Beta Test - 3 (2009 - 2012)
Having become the first truly mass event, in which, according to various estimates, up to several thousand people received only on the first day, and how many people experienced the feeling of nostalgia implicated in crazy PvP - are incalculable. The community of users of modern console games and high-tech computer games that had already been formed by that time, for the most part not familiar with the founders of the series, was somewhat disappointed, so the test quickly lost popularity, and within a year, the total number of players was only a few hundred. It would seem that it was necessary to close the testing, and continue to conduct it for a limited group of people, but the development team decided otherwise - testing was carried out for just over 3 years. During this time, a huge number of changes and additions were made, but the interest gradually faded away.
Release SDK (2010)
A year after the launch of testing, a very controversial decision was made - to release the engine complete with the game server, which is a continuation of the idea of Fallout 2 in the entourage of the thought-out future, several years after the end of the main storyline of the original game. At the same time, although the developers were provided with a wide range of tools, such as a map editor, dialogs, and the ability to edit most of the scripts — future developers had some development difficulties associated with the Angel Script language, as well as the secrecy of the source code. The release caused a surge in popularity, and as soon as possible numerous clones were created, in many respects similar to Ultima Online “servers” that were popular in their time. There were also independent developments, such as the online reincarnation of the Arcanum game: of Steamworks and Magick Obscura (Arcanum Reborn: Riverrise project), the Desert Europe project telling about the confrontation of two parties in the vast post-nuclear Europe, and the What Remains project focused on the single passage and one of the few actively applying 3D models for the environment, as well as using multi-level buildings.
What remains
Arcanum reborn
Desert europe
But as mentioned above, developers have experienced certain problems, being limited in the possibility of introducing their own character models with the ease with which this is done in modern engines. And here we come to the third milestone of the project.
Fonline 3D (2010 - ∞)
The project, which at its very beginning was conceived as a simple transfer of models from Project Van Buren and their adaptation to the needs of developers, became much larger and developed into a global task of recreating all models from original games in such a way that they and the associated animations had minimal the number of differences, while retaining such advantages of using volumetric models, such as ease of development and implementation in the project.
Over time, almost all of the original content was recreated, many original animations were recreated in such a quality that in practice it is very difficult to distinguish them from the original, as well as character models with different body types and a unified development for all models, in order to exclude the same texturing job. Undoubtedly, the project is not finished yet, and in the near future we intend to complete it in order to present the first public release. Stopping separately on this moment, I would like to note that any of the respected habrovans who wish to help the project have such an opportunity, and therefore I ask those interested to contact me personally through any means of communication specified in the profile, and I will gladly offer you a lesson in our cozy volunteer team. After all, as they say in one common English expression - every little bit helps.
I really hope that you liked my story and am waiting for comments.
PS Below are the progress trackers links and a 3D project development forum, as well as several videos demonstrating 3D models in action.
[1] [2] [3] [4]
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/161277/
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