Some questions about the .w3d assets in this game.

[caseychaos1212]

Hello! I'm staff from W3Dhub which is a community based on W3D engine games based on Command And Conquer Renegade.

I've recently began writing a program for reading and editing .w3d files directly. I have a function that allows me to run a report on an entire folder of .W3D files.

I downloaded the EnB demo from the net7 site but I wanted to make sure there aren't other .w3d files that I may have missed.

 

Thank you!

[Spa[IS]]

I will be the first to ask,

 

Why?

 

EnB Emu is not Command And Conquer Renegade. What are you trying to achieve?

[Kyp [LDEV]]

and I'll be the second to say once you get everything installed, you'll have all the w3ds, these are deployed local to the game client and are patched if/when we make changes that require it. I will say that C&C ties into assets for this game, but I'm not 100% it's Renegade, It could be Tiberium Sun as well.

At any rate, I'd be interested to know more, as we've always been limited for what we could do with graphics as a result of not having original tools or original server source code (all that stuff is self-created and/or reverse engineered to the best of our abilities)

[Codemonkeyx]

EA recently released the C&C: Renegade source code and it contains references to EnB. EnB is the game released by Westwood immediately prior to C&C: Renegade. Unfortunately the C&C: Renegade source does not contain all of the EnB client code. It would be nice if EA would release all the EnB client and server code since it's even older than other code they've already released.

[Overtkill]

Something else to be aware of is the .w3d file formatting. Some make the mistake thinking its Web 3D format, which it is not. Its actually Westwood 3D. When they were living, Westwood, like many indie companies back when, made their own format to fit their engines. We did the same thing for our companies games back then as well. You'll have to get/round up the tools to work on/import/edit them. Probably need to find someone who knows 3DS Max script to get the converters working in the newer versions of Max.

 

[Codemonkeyx]

Well if you read his initial post, he's staff from W3D Hub, and he's working on writing a modern program to read and write .w3d's, so he's obviously well aware it's Westwood 3D and he doesn't need to find tools, he's making one. Having something that works with Blender would be vastly superior to an aging proprietary tool like 3DS Max.

 

 

[Codemonkeyx]

@caseychaos1212 if there were any other .w3d assets created for this project you should be able to get them by also downloading the Net-7 Installer and running the update, however I'm skeptical that there will be much if anything in the way of 3D assets changed/added, probably limited to 2D .dds files.

[Kyp [LDEV]]

Yeah I would agree with that, anything open source supported and free is best if we can get something to edit those of that sort. We were considering trying to do something with the renegade code a little while back but hadn't actually cracked into it yet but we knew EA had released. We wanted to see if we could get it to work to let us update this stuff more natively, anyway.

[Overtkill]

Code, many people over the years have mistook the w3d format for web 3D, hence my post. BTW, Max or Maya are still THE tools in Commercial games development today, as they have been for decades. We've only used the 2 for 3D object production for a reason. Don't equate free for industry standards. This game's assets were also developed in these tools as well. I managed content development crews for quite a while.  If they are planning something new these days, they'd be better off picking one of many available good engines, and rolling forward from there. (I am surprised the Emulator Crew here hasn't done this). However, I'd advise staying away from Unity Engine for many glaring reasons.   Even though I like the C# side of it.

[Codemonkeyx]

4 hours ago, Overtkill said:

Code, many people over the years have mistook the w3d format for web 3D, hence my post.

 

I'm sure lots of stupid people have done lots of stupid things, but in this case OP was not one of them, hence my post.

 

4 hours ago, Overtkill said:

BTW, Max or Maya are still THE tools in Commercial games development today, as they have been for decades.

 

Cool, does this project look like a commercial game development to you? Indie projects and mods, especially free ones like this, use free tools for a reason. That reason is money, or the lack thereof.

 

4 hours ago, Overtkill said:

If they are planning something new these days, they'd be better off picking one of many available good engines, and rolling forward from there. (I am surprised the Emulator Crew here hasn't done this).

 

I'm not surprised at all. I'm not sure you understand what the emulator team actually did here? The full client source is not available (and wasn't available in any form when the emulator was developed) and the emulator uses the Westwood/EA demo client. That's where the bulk of the "game engine" stuff is located (graphics, sound). About the only piece of the server that would typically be part of a game engine is the networking code, but since they were only reverse-engineering and implementing one half of that (the server side) and they didn't have any source for the Westwood/EA engine (until recently) they had to create something from scratch that would interoperate with the existing client. So unless by "something new" you mean, "an entirely new game, client and server" I'm not sure why the emulator team would have any use for a game engine.

[Overtkill]

Code brother, I won't go further into a games development knowledge contest Code. Lets just say I have been at this (games development) for over 30 years (1994), so yes, I do understand completely how this game works, and what amazing work was done here. Keep in mind that games studios recycle workers, so we had a few people from there (Westwood) come and go over the years, and had friends working at Petroglyph Games, a while after. We are only 1 major city away from Vegas (Salt Lake City). Especially after EA got involved. We (our company) had also been sold to another company at that point (bought/sold to _THE_ evil empire where Uncle Bill worked). I was aware and interested in this emulator in its earliest days (2007ish). Popped into TS Back then with David and the older group. I rejoined the game as a player in 2010, around ST2/Hulk Fest. lol

 

Back when, I remember hacking CnC and CnC:Red Alert in the late 90's for games at work. We mainly played the Quake series over the years. And it was a pleasure hosting Q2/Q3 public arenas back then as well. EnB for me, was a much needed chill out from those games and work back then. Funny how you go from making one game, to playing another, then yet another to mellow out from those games.

 

My comment was targeted at the "what's next" phase, and where we go from here. We haven't seen much for last 10 years in the way of game progression. A game/emulator like this could be developed into a newer/upgraded game, in a secondary/parallel manner to this one. Many games have been brought back under a different, close, but not exact title name, and by calling it a "spiritual successor" to the original. Imagine, no more launcher and proxy, gate crashes (improved networking), a contiguous universe not only with the current sectors included, but the vastness of space around them. Warp that is actual warp speed. Many ideas abound with a newer version in a current engine. Design would be critical in maintaining the feel of the newer game, but it could be done. They've certainly had enough talent over the years to make an attempt. There are community created games out there, so it certainly is possible. And I know this all has said before, but the will to carry it out here is another thing. Apathy and such as I have stated before. Its frustrating at times. I'm also doing my best to stay positive here after reciting all that history, so bare with me.

[Kyp [LDEV]]

All sounds great, as it is, there aren't enough developers to truly support that kind of effort, whether we wanted to or not.

Just as an aside, I only come under this forum category once in a great while; had it not been for the fact that I'd replied here, I probably wouldn't have seen it for a while. Throwing it into a new engine and all that would likely put us within the legal scope of EA until or unless they decide to release the code for this game. Who knows, maybe I'll try writing a letter and see if I get anywhere. I know the last time we tried seriously reaching out, it was rebuffed.

As far as content goes, you haven't seen a lot in the last few years, but 10 is a bit of a stretch. That is assuming you are saying what I think you are. There's a patch note with content that got released in '22. For the last several years, we (read: probably mostly me) have had some things going on that rose far above the level of volunteering to advance the game. Early '22, my mom passed, I had to deal with her life and wrap up carrying into '23, and since then, I've been in an ever-present struggle to fix my own health and try to get my house in shape, but that's been hard, especially lately, now that everybody thinks the office is where everyone wants to be.

If you were only referring to the technology and the client, then yeah most of that hasn't needed to have changes in quite some time because most of what we're missing is content in terms of 'patches'.

[Sioux]

@Kyp sorry to hear about your mom.  I've been dealing with this with Dad for the last few months.  It's tough.  

 

Honestly, I think most of us are just happy we have the game to play. I actually enjoy the fact it doesn't "change" in some regards.  I'm turned off by most new games I try to play with the constant "new content" that quickly just gets nerfed.  And don't get me started on "pay to play".  I take solace in the fact of when I always return to the Emu... it's still "just" EnB. 

 

We will welcome new content when and if it comes, and I bet when it does... it brings back a lot of people! 

 

Wish I could be helpful, but the world y'all live in of coding is 100% foreign to me.  But, I do suspect, when and if you have the time to solicit help, there are probably a couple of qualified folks in our community that would be more than glad to invest their time. 

 

Until then, thank you for keeping it running for us to all enjoy.  All I can really contribute is feedback and donation dollars... do keep us posted if this need arises.  

 

[Kyp [LDEV]]

Every dollar counts to keep the infrastructure going. I spend what spare time I can keeping it all up to date. Content sometimes takes a while to plan out. We do have some of the source materials that were planned for the game, but the best way to describe it, if you've never looked at it, is a ton of disconnected ideas. It is something like a haystack of different periods of time and NPC/faction progressions.

I'd like to see that, as we also have some tech things we'd like to improve, but I think programming a whole new client is something that would take time and energy I don't know that the existing staff has. We'd need a lot more hands in the technical department.

[Overtkill]

Thanks for a reply Kyp. Of course you guys don't have the resources now. My comments regarding new engine development was targeted toward the years past, when there were more developers around.

 

There are still some things that could be fixed, or refined better than its current state. And some nerfs IMO that should be revisited/undone, that have led to a lot of players to sour and leave the game altogether. I'm just not sure that further comment would lead to anything positive, developmentally speaking. So I'll bow out of this topic for now.