This Game Engine?

Get help with installing and running the Cafu Engine here. This forum is also for general questions and discussion of all aspects regarding the Cafu Engine.
Cereus Prods
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This Game Engine?

Post by Cereus Prods » 2006-02-20, 16:51

I've been looking for an easy to use, powerful game engine. I've used many others and I think that the Ca3d Engine looks promising, but the file size is very large. I'd like to know if this engine is worth downloading. Give me some honest feedback please!
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Thrawn
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Post by Thrawn » 2006-02-20, 18:31

I wound't have wasted hundrets of hours hanging around in these forums if I wasn't convinced that this engine is fantastic :D

To my mind, it is the best and easiest to use freeware engine available.
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  • If you want to edit or update the textures, you just have to browser for them and edit them (other engines make it harder to to that).
  • If you want to build maps, just start the mapping editor CaWE (which is just fantastic and very powerful) and create your map (that's also very easy, no other programs are needed - some engines need several external programs for map creation).
  • If you want to add/update models, just browse in the models directory (cant be easier either.)
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The whole system the engine is build is just fantastic and gives you many possibilitys to do things - and many features are up to date. If you have some time to wait for some important features that are currently missing for game design, then you will love this engine!

The community here might be small, but the support and the people are just great. If you are seriously trying to make a game/mods and have a little bit of experience then this engine will please you definitely!
Last edited by Thrawn on 2006-02-20, 18:35, edited 1 time in total.
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Cereus Prods
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OK!!!

Post by Cereus Prods » 2006-02-20, 18:35

Great thanks for the feedback!! I've looked at the models and stuffs for this engine and I am impressed!! I have not seen such smooth curves or nice polys in aany other freeware engine! I'm tickled to death over it!! :D
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Thrawn
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Post by Thrawn » 2006-02-20, 18:45

The engine even has much more potential than you might even guess! Most parts of the content (textures, maps, models) are YEARS old, up to 7 years if I guess right. Reason: The engine programmer Carsten is no artist and just ported content from other engines to use it for Ca3DE (of course with permission).

Right now, some "fans" of the engine develop a techdemo with content specially designed for this engine which is also up to date. Expect a visual quality being at least as good as Doom 3 etc...
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Cereus Prods
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Post by Cereus Prods » 2006-02-21, 18:10

I'm a texturer, so if you need any textures, I can do it!
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Thrawn
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Post by Thrawn » 2006-02-21, 18:50

Sure, do you have any reference work? Certain types of textures you prefer to do?
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Cereus Prods
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Post by Cereus Prods » 2006-02-22, 18:14

I prefer to do out door textures, like gravel, leaves, grass, walls, dirt, ect... but I can do indoor textures as well, I'm just not as good at it. I love to animate and if I could afford some better 3d software than milkshape (for animating that is) I would do more cutscenes, unfourtunately, it takes a long time, using milkshape that is, to animate. I want to get Poser 6, the best software out there for animating, but it is spendy. I can do music as well, though it's not my favorite thing to do. My most recent, but not my best work is in ZomboRama. I just ended the beta testing about 4 months ago, and released it. What size does Ca3d support? Does it support all texture sizes? And What file type does it support?
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Thrawn
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Post by Thrawn » 2006-02-22, 18:57

Cool stuff. I always wanted to have a cool dirt texture. I would be pleased if you could make one.

And if the result is decent, the Ca3DE techdemo development team might have a job for you :D.

Supported file formats: jpg, png, tga and bmp
Supported sizes: 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 768, 1024, 2048 for width and height.

These 2 Ca3DE wiki entries might interest you:
Filetypes
File Formats
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Cereus Prods
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Post by Cereus Prods » 2006-02-23, 18:07

Ok! Thanks, I'll have to resize many of my textures, but they still look OK, A decent dirt texture: What kind of dirt, there are so many kinds, rough dirt, smooth dirt, sand, mud, silt, gravel, grassy dirt, and dirt of all different shades of brown and tan, and even sometimes orange (more of an ochre). I also have been working on Sci-fi and indoor textures of late and they have been looking quite nice. I also have a file converter to make bump maps for the textures. My main area of expertise is taking textures from photos and enhancing them, making them run smoothly with the game and not be overly detailed. It looks really cheasy if you don't know what you're doing. I can also rip textures from games, if I can get the right angles and stuff. But I'm not sure if that is completly legal. :roll: As far as animating goes, I've been working on claymation and fire/explosions the explosions are decent but not the greatest ever. The fire needs some semi-transparentcy to look better. Thank God for PNG.
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Thrawn
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Post by Thrawn » 2006-02-23, 18:48

A rough soil-texture would be cool, I've seen some good in full price games, but never in freeware games or for free use available in the internet...
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Cereus Prods
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What?

Post by Cereus Prods » 2006-02-23, 20:05

What have you seen in some games? Animations or textures? It's rather an easy proccess to rip textures, they are, in fact merely an image, not the most secure, and the fact that they tile, I just find the seam (if there is not I just make one) and cut it out of the image. I've tryed it on a couple older mainstream games, but nont on any others. I enjoy looking at them, they teach you things about texturing.
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Post by Thrawn » 2006-02-23, 21:41

Ripping textures is illegal as they have copyrights, thats nothing we want to do here.

If you do a texture, please do it from scratch and on your own.

Again: I want you to do a soil texture.
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Cereus Prods
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Post by Cereus Prods » 2006-02-24, 18:44

I have many from scratch, and I do not use the textures I've "ripped" I just merely look at them to learn from them, not to use. I am currently working on some sand, dirt, brick, mud, gravel, and wood textures from scratch, they look promising, but the bump maps are fairly difficult.....
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Post by Thrawn » 2006-02-24, 19:24

OK then, keep us up to date :)
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Cereus Prods
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Post by Cereus Prods » 2006-02-24, 20:07

Yah! Yah! My dirt is looking good! I'm rather pleased with it, But it needs to be resized to 512x512 cause it's 640x480, I can clone it's edges, smooth it down and rill up the texture, set up some decals for the dirt that look somewhat acceptable, I might just go out into the desert and shoot up some dirt, then take some reference pictures. The bump map is mediocre, because I'm not very good at it....

Other wise, through this I've learned quite a bit about texturing for Ca3d. :nerd:

Thats about it for now.... I'm just making my wood look worse... My sand looks like my cat's litter box, but my dirt? IT's looking OK.
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