Hero Engine Q's

[teufelich]

With FOA moving to Hero Engine I thought it would be nice to start a thread for forum lurkers to have a chance to ask direct questions about FOA + HE

I know that WDS has already built a lot of stuff for FOA, but my first question is... How hard is it going to be to implement previous work into HE?

Moving from a Ogre platform (Multiverse) to an Unreal platform (Hero Engine) can we anticipate higher resolution models?
How does moving to HE change the previous time line as far as development?
Has Hami and the other dev's blown gaskets yet testing all these different platforms?
HE boasts that with their current cloud setup a demo can be released in a month using the standard human avatar with health bar and maybe magic bar, is there rough guesstimate as to how long a demo might be ready?  (All reading do remember that the Facebook app was noted in previous anoucement as taking higher priority for marketing reasons.)
HE has many wonderful features for environment (trees, grass, water etc) and of course can get several others for it, does this have any bearing as to the planet starting out as desert or will pre-terra forming be taken into consideration?

HE can do capes, are the dev's looking at adding capes into FOA, let the players decide, or forgo capes as they have nothing to do with mechs?  (im for the latter of course, but thought i'd ask for the readers.)

im going to leave my q's there but hope that other lurkers chime in with their interests.

[Herb]

 Is this game even continuing to be developed? Havent seen many if any posts referencing new developemnt past 2010, and the last I saw was an app for facebook or iphones or something.

[teufelich]

http://www.forceofarms.com/msgbbs/index.php?topic=425.0

there is much they have to do for the conversion.   I have faith in them

[Herb]

yes, I did miss that posting, thanks for link.

OK, guess I should ask a real question then       What software is used to make the mech models for this new engine, and will we still be able to design our own mechs...like different chassis...torso...arms ....legs/tracks....

[teufelich]

That one i can answer (as not being dev)

I know that the devs use 3DS to model their... models.

Hero engine behaves like UDK where this is concerned.
So the standard export, scripting etc will behave the same for modeling animations and exports.
Hero Engine provides scripting for 3DS and several other modeling apps for easier transfers.

I am more familiar with Hexagon than 3DS, but thanks to standard Export design I transfer anything I build into 3DS, and export to game desired platform.


I hope this answer your questions.

To add: time wise it does mean that they have to re-export everything into Hero Engines desired format as previously all work had been done for Multiverse (ogre)... time consuming

[Herb]

 Thanks, yes that answered perfectly

[Agamemnon]

Yuppers, I believe the import format for the modelling pipeline has now changed to FBX which as you said we were using 3ds so it is a challenge but i've just gotten my hands into the cloud a few weeks ago so its a matter of reading and reading and still more reading to get up to speed on this new engine, its capabilities and the little tweaks that need to be made.

[teufelich]

yeah Hero engine has a LOT to do with it.
im still hashing out deving in UDK which hero is built off of/similar to.

Was wondering, did not chek yet maybe you have agi, does hero have vegitation controls?

[Agamemnon]

are you referring to the number of vegitation types spawned or region controls or ??

There's are so many controls for adding, resizing and manipulating data I have not gone through everything yet just trying to get a base world build out for an " area" done as of late...

[teufelich]

i remembered from Multiverse that the vegetation was an extra you had to pay for.
wasnt sure if it was bundled in Hero.  I thought it was but again hadnt read everything

but thought of Q, if vegetation is included in Hero, what/how does this effect the world for release.... will it all be desert, will there be small vegetation areas etc?

[Agamemnon]

ah ok i gotcha, i do not no all the nuisances of the license agreement we have but I do know that it is the same product as multiverse and that's speedtree but a newer implementation of course as its a newer engine. It is included in the basic toolset but i'm not sure if there is some specific's around licensing when it comes to hosting a commercial game that's where they start looking for there $10 grand and pound of flesh.

Aggy

[teufelich]

$10 grand pound of flesh... sorry m8 aint got no weight to loose

sounds like its all inclusive, and the bill rolls in on mainstream... sounds like.
this is a good thing.

give room to add effects etc without worrying about paying another 5g just to develop trees (or burnt smoldering craters)