Powerslave EX (aka Exhumed)

[talisa]

the creator of the doom64EX engine has been busy recreating the little-known Powerslave (Exhumed in europe & UK) for the pc,
using his Kex engine as base.

https://powerslaveex.wordpress.com/about/





there is no official release yet of the engine, but the screenshots on the site look very promising!


for those who do not know what powerslave/exhumed is:
powerslave was a shooter from 1997 which featured a true 3D world like quake, with a setting in ancient Egypt.
enemies include anubis-like dogmen, bastet-like lionwomen, priests, mummies, scorpions and more egyptian enemies.
weapons include pistol, an M60 machine-gun, grenades, machete, flamethrowers, magical staffs and more.

its a great game which sadly fell into obscurity, being overshadowed by more popular games like quake and duke3D and such.

.

i am personally quite excited about hearing the maker of the doom64EX port is also busy recreating powerslave/exhumed,
as i always thought this game was awesome. i absolutely love egyptian stuff, so this game is right up my alley!

so im quite excited that we'll be getting a modern port of the game for the pc with support for high resolutions and modern control schemes,
and ill be able to enjoy this awesome game again on my pc

[golden_boy]

He uses Blender for mapping, yay.

[Shambler234]

Now all we need is an outlaws TC, heck maybe an entire remake of the engine.

[MadGypsy]

@gb - me too (now) . I use L3DT for terrain, but blender for everything else. I do wish blender had a brush mode though (ortho, click, hold, drag and adjust...no keyboard). I know I can export obj from radiant but that sort of defeats the purpose of wishing blender had a brush mode and doing everything in blender.

I also have a question for you. The answer I'm looking for is along the lines of "what would gb do?" (as opposed to some standard, unless they are one and the same).

Which of these would you use for skeletal animations that are dictated by code (ie rotate boneX amountY... no actual animations exist)

3ds, obj, md2, dae, md5(mesh/anim) or ase?

some of those maybe dont support bones I just wrote every model I can open.

My second question is why. Why that file type over the others?

[golden_boy]

Which of these would you use for skeletal animations that are dictated by code (ie rotate boneX amountY... no actual animations exist)

3ds, obj, md2, dae, md5(mesh/anim) or ase?

some of those maybe dont support bones I just wrote every model I can open.

My second question is why. Why that file type over the others?

Whichever format the engine I'm using supports. -> Whatever gets the job done. .obj and .ase are no skeletal formats, so forget them. .md5 is idtech4, so if you use that engine, that's what you'll use. .md2, again not a skeletal format. 3ds, I never use that and I'm not aware of an engine that uses that format for character models. Most people today use .fbx.

Why that file type? Well, use what the engine supports and what gets the job done. You didn't even say what the engine is.

And why would you want a brush mode in blender? I don't even... Blender is a 3D modelling suite. Its output is meshes, quite naturally. You don't need convex blocks to block out a level, you can use planes just fine.

[MadGypsy]

I just meant a mode that allows me to create and modify cubes in the same way as radiant.

@planes...hmmm, never really gave that much thought, I also haven't spent much time using blender for maps, yet. I'm sure I would have realized it soon enough.

I didn't say the engine because I doubt you are famiIiar with it (Away3D). I also was expecting more of a "preferred for x reason" type of answer but, I understand what you are saying. However, the answer is md5 by default. I didn't realize md2 or ase (never used either) didn't support bones so, md5 is the only one.

I'm sure I could find an .fbx parser. The model types I listed are stock with my engine, there are plenty of add-on types.

[ArrrCee]

This looks great! I can't wait to check it out if it comes to fruition.

[Adam]

I have Exhumed for the Sega Saturn, it is a great game.
Would really benefit from a visual and control update.

I wonder if he is building this game from scracth or if he is using assets from the Saturn or PC versions, similar to what he did with Doom64?

@GB, if you're making Quake maps using Blender, do you export as a .map and compile with a Quake map editor or is there a way to (compile &) output .bsp files with a Blender plugin?

I like the idea of using Blender to build maps but does it cause any problems when compiling them to .bsp? I'm refering to Quake and it's love of concave brushes...
If I'm talking rubbish, I apologie, it's cause I'm tired...
-.- zzzzzz

[golden_boy]

@MG: ah, a flash engine. Anyway, none of the formats you listed are known as awesome skeletal model formats. If you can use .fbx, that's what I'd use.

I'll take the Blender mapping stuff to a new thread. We have hijacked this one enough.

[talisa]

i assume he's going to make engine read the game-data from saturn rom,
just like he did with Doom64EX engine

and reverse-engineer anything that the game requires to be able to run


that's the approach he also took when making the doom64EX engine

[Adam]

He did a really good job with Doom64EX.
I really liked his control implementation, it was way easier to blast hells minions with m & kb. To the point that I was playing on the hardest setting, dodging (& jumping!) around them without getting hit.

I never finished Exhumed on the Saturn,
I liked it but 3d platform jumping on a digital pad... Nope, nope, nope!

[talisa]

yeah the doom64EX engine is great, i love playing it.

i remember i once for fun tried playing doom64 using projekt64 emu in combination with an N64 look-a-like gamepad....
trying to aim with a stick in doom64 was a nightmare, i barely managed to finish the first level

while in doom64EX i can rush with ease through most maps


i can only imagine how much of even more of a nightmare it must be to try and play an FPS with a D-pad

[Adam]

Hmm... I wonder if his engine could be used on a little known game called Goldeneye?
Maybe even Turok, Quake, Quake2, Hexen64, all developed from scratch for the N64.
I shall go comment on his blog!

[talisa]

@adam

the same guy is actually busy with recreating turok as well
https://doom64ex.wordpress.com/2013/...-related-news/
https://doom64ex.wordpress.com/2014/...rokex-updates/

its been nearly a year though since ive seen any news-posts about turok EX,
and he doesnt have a seperate blog for that project

[Adam]

I have been!
I have commented!

It would be nice if you could just pop in a rom and alter a txt file but I doubt it.

@tal
I did indeed spot Turok while I was over there, which I guess, makes it even less likely that you can use D64EX as an emu straight out of the box.

Oh well, I'll post back if he replies to my comment.