Making the Google search : "Caesar77" "tango down" wasn't so difficult

I guestimate that a top 5 Google rating should be possible in 4-5 months when
searching for the words Tango Down alone. Until now there has been zero effort
to improve ratings but pretty sure xaxix will make up for that.

How to make a menu skin in Tango Down in 3 steps
1) create a scene or background
2) drag the menu blueprint in
3) enjoy

Below is an ingame screenshot from UE4.51, Despite some missing shadows it shows a
nice flare that isn't there on UE4.43 and reflections from the blue letters


UE4.43 Ingame screenshots, menu used with Kola's scene from the UE marktplace to
demonstrate the ease of integrating the menu. In this one I forgot to activate casting
shadow for one part of the gun. Don't look at the silencer, that was a quick import
where something went wrong on the smoothing. The neon globes are not suitable in any
scene you put them in so we made it easy to adjust all of them at once.




Clan patches will be applied between Alpha and Full version
ps yes the gun has more attachments and in more colors than black and gold,
it's just my favorite setup for that particular gun.

I would like to see ingame video footage(not menus please )

All in due time, first Xaxix.
Xaxix timer runs out on Saturday 15th november 12 noon CET.
AND OOOOW GOD STILL SO MANY THINGS TO DO
*Runs back to notepad++*

If Xaxix is done I can also spend some more time finishing some vid material of how the dynamic
interior feature works. Btw according to Naughty (who recoded gtkradiant) it's possible to do this
in TC to a certain degree. This is a feature you can implement without needing Coroner.

Tango Down has some very nice features coming up, one part will be shown on Xaxix.

PS. You all know how to do the Konami, don't you ?

Correction to one of the last posts :::

The edition we are launching is a beta version, not an Alpha version.
We kinda went beyond Alpha point by making a lot of features fully work, instead of leaving
them at Alpha/concept level. The only thing that I can come up with that would be at Alpha
level are the gamemodes 1 vs all and 3 vs all. Although fully playable, it's the points
system behind it that might change. The marketplace is also a feature that will not be in
the Beta version but only in the full version, we need to test this into oblivion in a test
environment first. On the other hand, the part of the marketplace that allows you to create
an account and put sellable content online will be launched at the same time of the beta
launch. The other feature that will only be in the full version is the statistics system,
keeps track of current server you're playing on, # maps played, hrs played, kills, death
s and perhaps some other things.

The stats system described above, aswell as showing on which server you are playing,
ingame private messaging and invite system are done on the backbone of Xaxix.
Yes, deadline is overshot. Seems not everybody works in the weekends. Made a last
minute move to a german data center which kinda killed the planning. In terms of
programming it's right on schedule, in terms of being online not so much. I think we'll
plan the master server for the TD beta a bit more ahead....

<Updating the list of maps with a few new ones this week>
<working on a scene with multiple cameras to test and record vids of anims on>

Although xaxix is not live at the moment of writing, there's still a little surprise for
old-school gamers who know how to dance the Konami. Have fun while it lasts, because
we can't keep it up there forever.

Ola, best wishes to all.

Tango Down Update :
42 spoken sentences used, spoken w/ female scottish voice.
Got the weirdest promo item EVER...... But is not for this post.
Online content store now has a 3D model viewer and boy oh boy did that project get out of hand.

/* Majestic Map Maker */ spent days on Project 7-8 , Renderer done in 1.5 days, editor expected to be done in next 7.


The material on the building is just a texture, added nothing to it (yet).
When the tool is done I'll show ya a vid how I add some planks to the windows with our dot
target function (checks orientation of object vs object you want to place on it). I'll also add
some rain pipes and other props and make normal, specular maps to complete the scene.
When Naughty's 3d building tool is done, we'll remodel this whole puppy from scratch to
compare techniques.

Skycube,Skysphere,HDR,Matcap,per pixel lighting, physically based shading, real-time shadow
& lights, AO,SSAO, lightmaps,rimlighting, specular,normal,bump,displacement, deferred
lighting, dynamic sun-moon cycle, particle systems + some other stuff.
Every engine needs an editor and this one certainly will be easy to operate.
It will also be able to export to multiple engines and to multiple 3d object formats like FBX and OBJ.

AKA Tango Down no longer needs the UE4 editor to make maps.

3d building maker
On top of this baby we will launch another editor that can be a real time saver if you need
to make 3D building models. Make buildings from 2d floorplans or generate them randomly.
Ever had the problem that you needed to move a window and needed to remodel stuff ?

Here's a concept for ya : DRAG DROP DONE

And on that note, we're 3D-ing our forum and will add Facebook and Twitter integration to
it, also xaxix is being converted to 3D. You know the beauty of it, everybody can use our
phpbb,twitter,facebook integration,make a 3d scene in the editor, fill in some variables on
a form and voila, it's 3D.

IDTECH engine news
We also managed some things with Q3 anim (mdm/mdx).Might be able to port between
mdx and bvh (back and forth) but is not conclusive 'till it runs properly.
Will the editor be able to read .map files ?
Yep, tho not from the start. Have a half finished script for .map files, but we found the bsp
file to be way more interesting (lightmap coords and vert coords).

No,nein,nee this is not an existing engine
plus
All our tools run in a browser

I could name a lot of features and technical dooda our toy now has and the ones we're
working on. In short : it has some very pretty features for a web engine.
As you have been able to see from the pic in the previous post, we can read objects,
give them a texture and there's bump on the floor (added by coding).
See, we have this strange principle for developing this tool : no changes to this scene
by coding the change to the objects/scene. Rather code the tool to make the change.

In this screenshot an environment map on very low settings has been added to the
material on the walls and a normal map, and values for the ambient and specular colors
applied. There is still something wrong the floors and ceiling (I suspect dof settings/ssao),
but will fix those things at a later time.


Two sorts of reflection : the green one reflects only the sky map, the bigger one reflects dynamically.


Click n place : (don't mind the snipers, was short of appropriate thumbs).
You click and drag and object in the Dropper, click where you want the model and tada !
It's also possible to enter random values for rotation to get a bit of variation in there.


Next up : Matcap materials, I put 320+ matcap materials in the library already
so never a dull moment. After matcap is in, adding the part to read custom shaders and
display variables in a form and submit changes to the material. After material is
completely concluded, just a few things remain that are pretty easy to finish.

Another tool coming up real soon is the building creator by NaughtyNights. This tool is very
exciting and will save modellers and mappers tons of time. It can be used as a standalone
tool, we use it as an API for our city generator. Literally, you can do a building in less
than 3-5 minutes from scratch, even if you never played around with a 3D modelling package.
It also has a random generation function in case you run out of inspiration.
With the tool you can recreate the building in the screens with about 20-25 clicks.
(7 for the outline, 8 for the windows, 2 doors, 4?-6? for the roof). Need to move a
window or door ? no remodelling needed, just click n drag.

Cutting down time with 6-9 months Per Map on complicated maps like our Favela map just
makes making these tools well worth it. Although these tools will save enormous amounts
of time, they take a bit of time to make.

Since we also have other projects besides Tango Down which need work on animation, we
are now in the process of hiring one or two freelancers to finish the stack of animations for
Tango Down and the other projects. Animation is a time consumer so it's better to do it with
more people. Anim on TD is also the most detailed of all projects and in relation to other
projects pretty much has the most animation sequences.

Did I mention that the 'mapping' tool can be used for more things besides maps and
games ? Will post an example by one of my teammates when he's done.

Matcap is in

What is matcap ?
Matcap textures are spherical images that can give the illusion that a material is reflective
or that is has a certain lightfall that accentuates it's details. Matcaps are not heavy on the
cpu/gpu and therefor an excellent addition to our toy. Zbrush and Modo use them a lot and
are also usable in Blender.

How does a Matcap texture look like?


Matcaps applied on our buddy Anubis :
I like the right most one most, looks a bit like a chess piece


Did I mention that the content library for our toy has over 300 matcap textures ?

bla bla bla....when this shit is going to be released??

Someone seems to have no idea how software development (even more so when applied to video games) works in the "true" indie scene.

Lol, specially considering updates are posted almost daily on our forum and total time
spend on this tool is only about 30 days.

I also have a real-life : recently graduated a new degree, started new one late nov 2014
and taking exams the 24th of this month. Plus <60 days and I'm 3 yrs in current rank
meaning time to rank up. Higher rank = Do even less = even more time for game
development.

There is also no I in team...
These people help me on projects, I help them on projects.


Ps since bla bla bla :
Tell me what happened after you danced the Konami....
Better yet, I'll make it easy for ya :
When you entered the Konami cheat code which game started running ?
Nevermind trying that now, has been disabled for a while.

Got terrain editing working

Don't mind the blue ball, it's a helper that pops up when selecting terrain.


Before :


After :


Shader for the terrain painting is not done yet at this point.
The shaders we will use to mix materials, like throw some plaster on a brick wall, are going in last.

Still a few little things to do on this editor but the hardest parts are done.

* Last 8 images posted at the moment broken, will fix asap*

Updates ::

The editor ::: Is now called the Crossbow Editor.
When our forum is finished I'll post a link, it's made with our editor.
Our editor now also can render with a Vray renderer, in your browser.
Making a more suitable scene to try our new renderer out.

Our webite ::: Being renewed, having just a forum with the amounts of projects
doesn't really cut it anymore. (I'll try to update pics posted here with same link).

Sponsorship ::: We received items we can give away to promote Tango Down.
In short : we're sending you back to school, to one that is recognized and licensed by the
minister of justice. There's a distant learning and an attendance program and giving away
seats for both and will be given away to people who subscribe to the upcoming Tango Down Membership.

Tango Down's funding model becomes a platform
Couple of week back I passed a plan for a new crowdfunding model for Tango Down to a
couple of devs. The result : We're building a new crowdfunding platform based on the
memberhip model meant for Tango Down. Not running it myself but helping it to setup and
also will code a part of it's website. Glad I shared this, I hope it will help many devs.

Tango Down update : Environment Adaptive Reactionary Procedural Animation
Probably going coop on this, all I know we're need at least 4 new animators to get this done
in a reasonable timeframe. Tango Down already has some pretty nice features, this one
just would crown the effort. Will this system make a lot of difference ? HELL YEAH.
Characters also getting a make-over, they look too clean and also tired of looking a the
same sleeves and gloves the whole time.


Meet Bridget, one of the characters meant for our adventure framework.
It's first draft material so some elements have not been detailed yet (like the sloppy
hair at the back, collision of hair-clothes etc).

Good news : https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/ue4-is-free

The Unreal Engine is now free of charge !

Also, here's a quick render of the new clothes for our characters for Tango Down on the
mercenary/terro team. Is being prepped for import as we speak. The gun's strap is still
in the way as we don't do any collision in this stage. Getting it prepped for import as
we speak. New clothes for SpecOps team also on their way, custom work just takes
longer.

When we're done linking the new anim planned for march we'll record some indoor
hallway pwnage.

Been looking into UE4 now that it's free, the update from UDK (last where I checked it out) to here is pretty impressive.

Too bad they don't allow releasing the tools along with the game but it looks like your editor covers that, certainly seems much more user friendly for mappers than UE's editor.