Vehicle Conversions to UE5
From our President XOOM:
Since we announced our intention to move WWII Online over to the Unreal Engine (aka: WWII Online 2.0) in the "Future of WWII Online" article, CRS has been working behind the scenes to address our initial milestones to help make that possible. Today we wanted to focus on Vehicle Conversions, which is one of our first major objectives to accomplish. Continue reading for a work in progress screenshot and some additional commentary.
One of our primary goals is to bring over existing assets that we currently have into the Unreal Engine and include all of the fidelity that comes with it - you know, those deeply detailed things that make WWII Online's physics and damage models so compelling, not to mention all of that historical data associated with them. Thousands of man hours over the course of 20 years have gone into developing all of these data points and the path of least resistance for getting into Unreal is to bring them over. Once we've brough them into the engine, that is the point we can then start to improve the assets themselves over time and leverage the engines amazing graphics capabilities.
But even then, as you saw in our brief demo what our existing assets look like by comparison is quite an improvement with a 1:1 conversion alone (lighting engine, shadows, etc). So again once we get the assets ported in, updating them is much more tangible. However unlike our demo (which used static objects alone), now we're talking about vehicle assets which of course having moving components and a whole lot more under the hood going on with them.
We knew that this was going to be a difficult task in general, because no conversion kit is on the market (not even from Presagis - the company that owns Creator and the FLT file format). So we've had to build one in-house and work through the difficulties of just getting to the point we're sharing today. The thing is, WWII Online's vehicle files contain lots of proprietary comments and DOF (degrees of freedom) data. All of which have to be categorized, accounted for, and ported over. Then we have to get Unreal's engine to work with our code.
But for now, just getting the assets into the Unreal Engine and retaining that data is our current focus.
We're pleased to let you know that tremendous progress is being made here. The screen shot below is evidence of the "Opel Blitz - SPAA" within the Unreal Engine with its materials attached to it (LOD1) and several data points retained (as seen on the hierarchy to the right side of the shot). This task is no doubt a heavy work in progress and will take some time to complete.
We said we would keep you in the loop as progress comes along, and we know it's been a little bit since we've reported much on WWII Online 2.0 progress. We'd like to kindly remind you that this is going to take a long time to achieve, and the above screenshot does not mean that this task is complete or will be done very shortly. What we're doing has never been done before (we seem to have a knack for doing things like that), and we'll need your ongoing support to get the job done.
Everything that you see happening with WWII Online: Chokepoint is a supplement to WWII Online 2.0 as we have announced several times - and will continue to so that it sticks. All assets being created there will be transferrable and we are unlocking new knowledge and opportunities with our all-new "Wing 2" section of CRS. Emphasis there is intentional because Chokepoint is not taking away from WWII Online 1.0 or 2.0's conversion in any way.
SUPPORT FOR DEVELOPMENT
On that note we should identify that WWII Online's premium subscription price was reduced to $9.99/mo. This was done to encourage all of those folks who were concerned about the price point to step up and become part of our community once again (or for the first time) and back the RATS to fulfill "The Future of WWII Online."
To help make these things possible now and ongoing, we need everyone to subscribe.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/667291/World_War_II_Online__PREMIUM/
S!
Since we announced our intention to move WWII Online over to the Unreal Engine (aka: WWII Online 2.0) in the "Future of WWII Online" article, CRS has been working behind the scenes to address our initial milestones to help make that possible. Today we wanted to focus on Vehicle Conversions, which is one of our first major objectives to accomplish. Continue reading for a work in progress screenshot and some additional commentary.
OVERVIEW: VEHICLE CONVERSIONS
One of our primary goals is to bring over existing assets that we currently have into the Unreal Engine and include all of the fidelity that comes with it - you know, those deeply detailed things that make WWII Online's physics and damage models so compelling, not to mention all of that historical data associated with them. Thousands of man hours over the course of 20 years have gone into developing all of these data points and the path of least resistance for getting into Unreal is to bring them over. Once we've brough them into the engine, that is the point we can then start to improve the assets themselves over time and leverage the engines amazing graphics capabilities.
But even then, as you saw in our brief demo what our existing assets look like by comparison is quite an improvement with a 1:1 conversion alone (lighting engine, shadows, etc). So again once we get the assets ported in, updating them is much more tangible. However unlike our demo (which used static objects alone), now we're talking about vehicle assets which of course having moving components and a whole lot more under the hood going on with them.
DIFFICULTY IN THIS TASK
We knew that this was going to be a difficult task in general, because no conversion kit is on the market (not even from Presagis - the company that owns Creator and the FLT file format). So we've had to build one in-house and work through the difficulties of just getting to the point we're sharing today. The thing is, WWII Online's vehicle files contain lots of proprietary comments and DOF (degrees of freedom) data. All of which have to be categorized, accounted for, and ported over. Then we have to get Unreal's engine to work with our code.
But for now, just getting the assets into the Unreal Engine and retaining that data is our current focus.
PROGRESS TO REPORT
We're pleased to let you know that tremendous progress is being made here. The screen shot below is evidence of the "Opel Blitz - SPAA" within the Unreal Engine with its materials attached to it (LOD1) and several data points retained (as seen on the hierarchy to the right side of the shot). This task is no doubt a heavy work in progress and will take some time to complete.
SETTING EXPECTATIONS
We said we would keep you in the loop as progress comes along, and we know it's been a little bit since we've reported much on WWII Online 2.0 progress. We'd like to kindly remind you that this is going to take a long time to achieve, and the above screenshot does not mean that this task is complete or will be done very shortly. What we're doing has never been done before (we seem to have a knack for doing things like that), and we'll need your ongoing support to get the job done.
Everything that you see happening with WWII Online: Chokepoint is a supplement to WWII Online 2.0 as we have announced several times - and will continue to so that it sticks. All assets being created there will be transferrable and we are unlocking new knowledge and opportunities with our all-new "Wing 2" section of CRS. Emphasis there is intentional because Chokepoint is not taking away from WWII Online 1.0 or 2.0's conversion in any way.
SUPPORT FOR DEVELOPMENT
On that note we should identify that WWII Online's premium subscription price was reduced to $9.99/mo. This was done to encourage all of those folks who were concerned about the price point to step up and become part of our community once again (or for the first time) and back the RATS to fulfill "The Future of WWII Online."
To help make these things possible now and ongoing, we need everyone to subscribe.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/667291/World_War_II_Online__PREMIUM/
S!