Check it out at 2:20 –http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zK0IKeAoGDU
Written by MM. Posted at 1:40 am on June 23rd, 2011
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Is that the soldat textures with the LD person model? Has someone been working on Soldat 2 for 3 months?
I think they were just borrowed textures so he doesn’t have to learn to make his own just for experimenting… Clearly devout follower of Soldat and Link-Dead.
Say “it’s the Soldat 2″, please.
Ok, WTF? Any comment on this, Michal?
oh ?
“I havent textured them very well (…) ” Lol man
yeah looked exactly like a soldat map
I was wondering where I was getting these agressive comments on my YouTube account…
This project was simply a way to learn how to integrate off-the-shelf tools (i.e. Blender 3D, Box2D, etc..) with my own code. This project is by no means something I want to sell or even release as open source. I did this all so I could be a better programmer; I cared nothing about the art aspects, I just didn’t want it to look like shit, so I used places I like (i.e. soldat/link-dead) as temporary art resource placeholders.
Yep, Soldat was a huge inspiration for me. I’m a programmer, not an artist, and the point of this project was to learn and not release as some sort of buyable game / public redistribution. To speed things along, I made everything myself but based on screenshots from the popular game: I did not “steal” geometry, but Soldat sure as hell had a massive influence 😛 I don’t even know the soldat file format…
As for the textures, yes, I straight up took two from one of your posts a long while ago. My own excuses are they were posted publicly and I did redraw quite a bit to get the data I needed. For example:
Source image: http://imgur.com/2ASB5
Custom image: http://imgur.com/2nJsL
As you can tell, my own custom image I did looks like ultra-shit, so I dropped it and used MM’s image as placeholders during my programming experiments. Since I am by no means making my code and resource for sale or even made open source / publicly available, I didn’t think it mattered to attribute MM to this stuff.
Also, I originally submitted this video to Reddit and already have been treated like shit there: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/g3t5u/2d_physics_engine_experimentation/
Finally, when it comes to attribution related to Link-Dead, let’s not forget I gave a pretty lengthy explanation, resources, and a copy of my paper to MM about path planning algorithms for AI (I wrote about D*). I have no idea whether or not MM used it, but if he did, I would have to say he is at much more fault since he did profit commercially from Link-Dead. Though I don’t care, good for him, I wanted Link-Dead to come out so bad and am now sad he moved onto another game.
Hope this clears up the air, thanks for the publicity, and good luck on your next project!
Just ignore all the assholes that posted aggressive comments. Small minded idiots who know nothing of programming. Keep up the good work and learning. I’m in awe of work like this. I’m still years away from doing stuff like this. If you ever do decide to develop a 2d game ( that might be similar to soldat or link-dead), do it. Michal even said once he welcomes competition and so does the community that surrounds his games. We are gamers after all and enjoy good games. I look forward to seeing what you may develop in the future.
Snow – thank you very very much. I still feel kinda bad – I wonder what MM’s thoughts are on all of this?
perhaps flattered.
He was upset that Link-dead wasn’t openly pirated, so maybe stolen resources will cheer him up.
Haha people on reddit are jerks (even though they did help KAG growing). You do pat yourself in the back a bit, but it’s what tech demos are for. Gaming companies are a lot worse when showcasing a tech demos.
This seem like an impressive piece of coding. You could have mentionned your inspiration from MM’s games, but seriously who cares it’s not important for ragdoll placeholders on a coding youtube video.
But it kinda saddens me to see amazing coders like this build such impressive engines without much intend of making a game while I’m struggling so hard with my poor coding skills. XD
Seriously, people instantly think something is a Soldat/LD ripoff if you create a 2D side scrolling game that uses polygons? I think most programmers use some placeholder graphics/models when they start something new. Nothing wrong with that, as long you don’t redistribute or sell them.
nint22: that’s sad you get aggressive comments. I posted this because I thought it’s interesting. I don’t mind anyone borrowing my graphics for learning purposes. The game engine you are making is a wonderful piece of code. I particularly like how you make characters out of image. Might be something I will “steal” someday :).
Btw. don’t you find box2d slow for ragdolls? I used box2d for Link-Dead but eventually dropped it. The only reason was it isn’t very good for lots of ragdolls.
Thanks for the reply – I’m very glad you weren’t upset or offended. Playing Soldat was one of the biggest reasons why I ended up becoming a programmer, so I truly am happy you linked my video out of interest and not spite.
As for Box2D – no, I had no issues with performance. I did have to play with settings to get the right kind of “visual speed” (i.e. the right look and feel of ragdolls) but never had issues with that library taking up too much processing power. At around 200 to 300+ joint (roughly 11 joints per biped, so about 20-30 bipeds) is when my world would started lagging because of processing limitations.
A long time ago you explained how Soldat’s ragdolls were animated using a verlet-integration physics approach – I wrote something up using that method, but simply found that I’d rather use a feature-rich lib rather than spend days optimizing collision code. You win for committing to the hard-core hand-written approach
I think other site proprietors should take mm.soldat.pl as an model, very clean and excellent user friendly style and design, let alone the content. You are an expert in this topic!