Chapter One: Overlord

Traction Wars is a Tactical Teamwork WWII Realism Game. We aim to create a realistic and historically accurate environment for players to immerse themselves. In this the first release we will be featuring the Normandy Campaign between the British and German Armies between D-Day on June 6th and the capture of Caen on August 22nd 1944. Chapter One will be infantry only with vehicle combat being added in a future chapter.

The game will be released in a series of chapters which will add new features and maps at each stage. Chapter One is currently planned to be infantry only but tanks and other vehicles will be added in a later chapter.

Announced Features:

  • 2 New Teams
  • Brand New Gamemode
  • 20+ New Weapons
  • Squad & Command System
  • Balanced Class System
  • Custom HUD
  • Original Soundtrack
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Non-Enterable building - Pre-Alpha Enterable Building - Pre-Alpha Non-Enterable Building - Pre Alpha
Blog RSS Feed Report abuse Latest News: Dev Blog #2: Inside Out

7 comments by [TWDEV]_General_Naga on Feb 17th, 2012

"Imagery and information to get inspired"

Hello my name is [TWDEV] Brrr and I am a modeller and texture artist on the Traction Wars Team. My work ranges from weapons and vehicles to buildings and other map related assets. Today I will be discussing the non-unique buildings as well as their potential to be used on multiple maps and multiple locations.

On a standard map, numerous buildings are required to bring a location to life, both visually and also in the sense of game-play. If all the buildings in a map were enterable by a player, the result would be extremely chaotic – a way around this issue is the creation of non-enterables buildings. Limiting the amount of enterables results in more focused game-play, but also saves time in the creation of buildings for villages and towns on the map.

Enterable Buildings

I lightly based the design of the building in the reference shown on the left - including particular noticeable features into the final model. The enterable house required in-depth modelling of individual rooms and corridors - paying special attention to maintaining enough space for players to flow throughout the building.

An enterable building such as this would require several tileable textures, as mentioned in the last blog by Sir Apple, the Traction Wars team already has a growing library of its own custom textures, ranging from concrete, to wallpapers and roof tiles. Each texture is made to "tile" so we can re-use our high-quality textures across multiple buildings whilst saving memory by repeating the image in a grid pattern.

Tileable textures have some disadvantages. As the image is used on multiple objects they can't be customised to the individual item, so for example you can't add those natural colour variations which you don't notice until they're missing.

So when placed on an object and seen in-game they can appear to lack depth and can look one-dimensional. A way around this lack of specific detail is the use of vertex colouring. Vertex colouring allows us to add shades of colour to our models that are used in combination with our shared textures in-game rather than having a special texture for every building.

The (nearly) finished building with some finishing touchs added


Non-Enterable Buildings
Not every building should be entered by the player as mentioned earlier. Non-enterable buildings will make up the bulk of houses in most dense groups of properties. A village like Lebisey for example might contain 1/3rd enterable scattered strategically throughout with the remainder non-enterable. Modelling and texturing processes for non-enterable are the same but without the need for much interior modelling.

For this next building I decided to source references using street view and looked through the roads and streets of Rue de Epron - the modern day location where Lebisey was situated. I settled on this particular unique looking building as the basis of the final model.


"Creating the illusion of an interior"

The main difficulty that needs be overcome with non enterable buildings is the task of creating the illusion of an interior but ensuring player readability i.e. the player must be able to identify a structure as enterable or non enterable without being too intrusive. Some games have fully reflective surfaces on windows that do not allow any hint at what is inside the non-enterable, however with our current set we decided to experiment with an alternative method. Using vertex colours and models, I made a very basic interior and artificially darkened it with vertex colours. I then added curtains to the windows edges to obscure a little of the view. Finally, the glass material was made and the glass was given a dark diffuse and a very subtle transparency. The result is subtle, but is instantly recognizable as a non enterable building instead of an enterable one.

The finished non-enterable building


That it for this time but if you have liked what you have seen and would like to share your thoughts about the game or just get involved in the community you can visit our forums. You can also keep up-to-date with current development and news via the social networking links below.

Don't forget that we are still looking for talented individuals to join us on the team, so if you think you might have what it takes or if you are just curious then you can check out our recruitment page for full details.

 

 
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Comments  (0 - 10 of 219)
Montalbano
Montalbano Feb 20 2012, 1:26pm says:

Wait, I missed this; is this a mod or an indie game?

+2 votes     reply to comment
hannibaldinski
hannibaldinski Feb 20 2012, 3:20pm replied:

This is a indie ;) And it will be totally free ;)

+2 votes     reply to comment
JMJorge
JMJorge Feb 20 2012, 9:55pm replied:

if this finished, you guys will be the amazing-bestest people ever

+2 votes     reply to comment
kommissar
kommissar Dec 25 2011, 8:31am says:

looks epic!
but WWII without the soviets isnt WWII..
without any discussion.

anyway, good work!

0 votes     reply to comment
[TWDEV]Brrr
[TWDEV]Brrr Feb 7 2012, 5:49am replied:

I tend not to agree Kommisar, by that logic WW2 didn't start until the point in which Hitler invaded Russia in 1941. And as Volcol said the Brits often do get unfairly overlooked, which is one of the many reasons we chose to concentrate on the common-wealth forces.

Other factions are a possibility in the future, but its too far off to tell. At the moment were placing all our efforts in bringing the common wealth faction to fruition.

+3 votes     reply to comment
Maniche
Maniche Dec 25 2011, 9:30am replied:

We'll be adding other factions later on, and yes, a WWII game isn't anything without them, hehe.

I reckon you can expect them on a later stage I think.

Maniche

+2 votes     reply to comment
volcol
volcol Feb 6 2012, 6:26pm replied:

For a WW2 game to be WW2, on your logic, it'd have to have every country as a playable faction in all manner of play. It simply isn't possible. Anyway, I'm really happy to see a WW2 game with German vs British forces, it makes a nice change as the Brits can so easily get over looked.

+3 votes     reply to comment
kiarr
kiarr Dec 16 2011, 11:31am says:

it would be cool if you were a team leader controling a few bots agenst other players doing the same like brothers in arms

+1 vote     reply to comment
SirApple
SirApple Dec 11 2011, 12:20pm says:

Thanks everyone for helping us get into the top 100. We certainty did not expect it!

Keep us going by voting for us in the top 100 :)

+3 votes     reply to comment
agrenas
agrenas Dec 11 2011, 6:23am says:

man this is epic

+3 votes     reply to comment
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Traction Wars
Platform
Windows
Developer & Publisher
Traction Wars Team
Engine
CryENGINE 3
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Official Page
Tractionwars.com
Release Date
TBD
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First Person Shooter
Theme
Realism
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Multiplayer
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