Project name: Underlight - Shades of Truth
Brief description: A community run and supported, licensed offshoot of an old game that debuted on MPlayer, Underlight is an enforced roleplaying game that focuses on community involvement and interaction over powergaming and 'bring me x items' mentality prevalent in nearly every alternative game available today. Supported entirely by volunteer GMs and a lone developer, the community is small but extremely tightknit, but open and welcoming to new players.
Target aim: Freeware, possibly pay-for-perks model like DDO or LOTOR.
Compensation: A shiny spot on the credits screen, possibly advertising space on the website targeted toward a demographic with not only a strong roleplay background, but a diverse and generally wide plethora of other interests, from guitars to needlepoint (yes, really). If profits or donations occur after the client is upgraded, a small payment of $50 to $100 is very likely, depending on how much effort is put into this request. Effort constitutes: Working basic rendering of wireframe or untextured level geometry, up to and including addition of floor and wall collision, texturing, and pseudo lighting via vertex color blending. Fixed Function Pipeline is fine, shaders are as well if you are interested in providing them. Ideally, code would be in C++, but .NET is fine, java code is okay to demonstrate working rendering but is not preferred.
Technology: C++, client is ancient beyond all reason. A 2.5d pseudo-FPS style game with hard coded UI sizes, screen resolutions that needs to be brought into the 21st century. Think original Doom but add sloped surfaces. Yeah, that old.
Talent needed: We are seeking a coder who would be interested in studying the very simple level file format and using DirectX9/Direct3D to load, interpret, and render the level file as close to the original client as possible. A few attempts have been made by the developer to do this, but there appears to be "something" missing, as the levels don't render quite perfectly, and a fresh set of eyes would be ideal. The volunteer would ideally review the level format, extrapolate 3D vertices from a list of 2D points coupled with two other pieces of information that separate a floor and ceiling, and optionally add in floor and ceiling tessellation in order to properly render sloped surfaces. 90% of the level is rendered as vertical or horizontal vertex quads, which is simple. The issue is our failure to properly calculate sloped surfaces. Any volunteer with experience with geometry and experience with vertex transformations is a plus.
Team structure: As far as development goes, just myself. I have actively maintained and upgraded the client for five or six years, but I have no formal education in programming, so it has been a learning process. I also have completely forgotten any math lessons I learned in high school.
Website: Shades of Truth
Contacts: Preferably email, which is: LycaonX@gmail.com but change the X to a J I carry a Xoom with me at all times, so if you do not get a reply email from me within 30 minutes, I am either asleep or you did not change the X to a J. If you fail to receive a response within 24 hours, please contact me via a PM here on the forums, as there is no way I'm going to ignore potential assistance.
Previous Work by Team: Our team has no previous experience with other projects, but the fact that we've successfully run Shades of Truth for six years is probably worth considering a decent accomplishment. This is not just a normal "host a server and forget it" game, but one that has constant GM support and a very loyal and active, albeit small, playerbase.
Additional Info: It is very much my personal desire, and that of our GM team as a whole, to bring this game into this century as far as capability is concerned. This game was written back in 1995 when Windows 95 was new, and video cards had 4MB of RAM. I believe I may be suffering from a "can't see the forest for the trees" problem, and that the solution is maybe as simple as "oh, you're missing a negative sign here" correction, but there is only so long you can sift through code looking for one problem before you are blinded to all of the others. The game engine is so old that even if we were to implement the most rudimentary features available in DirectX, it would be a monumental leap forward for the game, and the community as a whole. Many of the players had their teen years influenced positively by the roleplay aspects of this game, and I'd love to be able to extend the same outlet for creativity to today's roleplayers. (Yes, teens even today are guilty of roleplaying, I kid you not.)
Feedback: I'm completely open to any feedback anyone intends to give. I'm aware that true roleplaying is an extremely specific demographic and that many that do not roleplay don't see it as a worthy investment of time, but it's not for me to decide what other people spend their time doing
