Question, which I'm sure you've been asked before, after looking at the screenshots of characters on previous posts: Have you considered adding (optional) normal mapping to the characters? They look a little low-detail at the moment and normal maps would be a great way of improving that.

hmm, I must say, you need a better collection of music. Something with not as much suck in it ;)

I agree, But.. Ther are all ganster music ;).
But what about city-sounds.. every movie has no sound! I want to hear birds.. people and cars! Good job!

I'm also going to have to comment on your questionable choice of soundtrack selection.

Namely, why would you possibly have Eazy E's rendition of Boyz in the Hood?

Dynamite Hack's version is at least one order of magnitude better, and at least two orders of magnitude more gut-bustingly hilarious.

I think a 'randomize' feature in the player would be good, too.

Aside from that, not having commented here before, let me say your game looks great!

[grin]...I assure you these songs aren't the extent of my music collection, nore are they my favorites :-)

As MarjinStevens pointed out, they're all gangsterific songs. It's hard to ride around gunning down people listening to Pink Floyd...just trying to stick with the theme.

Of course once you guys pick up your copy of Gang War, you can put whatever music you want into the Music directory, right?. [grin]

Do you guys like the way the mp3 player looks? It's still a WIP [grin]. I was considering ditching the standard window frame for the MP3 player, and making it all round, and curvy/smooth. Thoguh I guess I'd rather just stick with the current GUI for everything....I cant get caught up on little stuff like that.

Jervin - By default the MP3 player will select a random song from the playlist if you hit the play button twice...like Winamp.

superpig - Hmmm I was contemplating normal maps...though I have no way of creating them, without contracting the original artist and having him create high resolution versions of the models so I can generate the normal maps. I've still got to get reflections/boom effect into the game...that'll be taking up all my "purdy grafics time". Still considering the game is a RTS, I think the level of detail is juuuust about right for the character models.

- Dan

I'm not a lawyer, but you might want to talk to one if you're going to include mp3 support. Found this at mp3licensing.com.

Quote: However, no license is needed for private, non-commercial activities (e.g., home-entertainment, receiving broadcasts and creating a personal music library), not generating revenue or other consideration of any kind or for entities with associated annual gross revenue less than US$ 100 000.00.

You should probably find out how they define entity. If it's just you, you're probably in clear - but if they also consider your publisher to be part of the "entity" there might be some concerns about being over the $100,000 amount.

It's a shame people don't just use Ogg Vorbis. But I guess that wouldn't really be an option for you - asking your users to convert their music between formats just so they can listen to it in-game is a bit much.

Otherwise looking great.

Yay Smashing Pumpkins!

Nicely done, mate.

Quote: You should probably find out how they define entity. If it's just you, you're probably in clear - but if they also consider your publisher to be part of the "entity" there might be some concerns about being over the $100,000 amount.

It's a shame people don't just use Ogg Vorbis. But I guess that wouldn't really be an option for you - asking your users to convert their music between formats just so they can listen to it in-game is a bit much.

Yeaaa....I sort of mentioned that in my post, though I could have done a better job describing the situation lol.

Quote: Yeaaa....though now If I sell more than 5000 units or make more than $100k I have to give the Mp3 people $2500 bucks...which I'm totally cool with :-)

We're definitely moving more than 5000 units, and I'm hopefully gonna fit the 2nd requirement as well....so once that happens, There is a licensing fee of $2,500 dollars per game, that needs to be payed to the guys that run the site you pointed out. That shouldn't be a problem, the .mp3 format is great, they deserve it.

Yea I was orinally planning to support Ogg files, but as you mentioned it would be a pain in the arse for everyone to have to convert their files just to play them in the game.

- Dan

Should have been more clear I just wanted to point out that they might consider Strategy First's overall revenue in calculating the $100,000 (those lawyers and their legalese can be tricky).

Considering that you should easily be able to distribute more than 5k copies I guess it's a moot point.