Tahi - The Arocean War (9-9-09)

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TheCoolinator
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Re: Tahi - The Arocean War (9-9-09)

Post#201 » Fri Jan 07, 2011 12:43 pm

mazonemayu wrote:from the pics I've seen on his facebook lately, he seems to be wasting his time building an arcade cabinet ;)


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RETICON
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Re: Tahi - The Arocean War (9-9-09)

Post#202 » Sun Jan 30, 2011 4:00 am

mazonemayu wrote:from the pics I've seen on his facebook lately, he seems to be wasting his time building an arcade cabinet ;)


Hello fellow Knights of the Dreamcast Realm.

Yes, that would be correct.
I am working on an cabinet rather feverishly for the past two months now with my free time. The creation of the arcade machine, dubbed 'RUBICON' was not made just as a spur-of-the-moment project. This machine was specifically designed for an event called 'Engineer's Week'. It is basically a week of events and project debuts in California State University campuses, state-wide.

The machine is being created for the ACM (The Association for Computing Machinery), I am a national member of this organization (and active locally as well). The arcade machine will be used during 'e-Week', during ACM's events. The machine was designed to be completely open source. It will run on a stripped down distribution of Linux and its gaming libraries will be able to be navigated simply by joystick controls.

That project at this point is about 80% complete, and will need to be completed by Feburary 23rd for its launch. I'll also be interviewed by a radio station tomorrow regarding the arcade machine's mechanics.

So this would be the reason why Tahi has not seen any updates for quite some time. I am only one person and I can only do so much. I'm working very hard on the game with my team when I can, but at the moment the ACM Arcade Machine must take precedence since it will be debuted soon and be played by hundreds of people.

Once the ACM Arcade Machine project is complete, I will return 100% of my focus back onto the Tahi project once again with my two programmers (Roscoe and Amanda) and my writer and artists. So don't fret my friends, just because I don't respond often does not mean that I have 'given up'. I don't believe in such ideas and never will. The project continues on as it always will.

Also you may have noticed on our website forums, we have been bombarded with spammers. Apparently (from word of mouth), our website was posted in an 'anonymous' forum (some of you may know what I am talking about) as well as to spam sites. Within a few hours of word getting out, our website was attacked from head to toe and our forums were spammed until the server crashed. As of now I froze any new account creation with the forums, so if anyone is interested in signing up to the forums, they must email me at [email protected] with specifics and I will manually create the account.

Also, it does get a little difficult for one person to keep track of all of our online sources (twitter/facebook/Reticon Forums/Blogger), so may need YOUR help folks, for positions as moderators for forums and folks to update the blogger/facebook and twitter accounts so that I can focus more on the programming and team management logistics.

So as for tonight, this night goes out to you my Knights of the Dreamcast Realm. I'll be working on the game tonight and tomorrow night as well! but be expecting more updates following Feburary 23rd.

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Re: Tahi - The Arocean War (9-9-09)

Post#203 » Sun Jan 30, 2011 8:39 am

yes, I follow you on facebook indeed, now if you only were to add me there LOL
We are SEGA generation.

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Re: Tahi - The Arocean War (9-9-09)

Post#204 » Sun Jan 30, 2011 2:17 pm

Thanks for the update, good luck with the ACM. We will all be pulling for you.
Regards,
Radkin


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Anthony817
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Re: Tahi - The Arocean War (9-9-09)

Post#205 » Sun Jan 30, 2011 6:38 pm

That sounds like an awesome project! I always wanted a MAME cabinet with a front end GUI to navigate all the games in a streamlined look.
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Radkin
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Re: Tahi - The Arocean War (9-9-09)

Post#206 » Sun Jan 30, 2011 7:22 pm

I was doing some research not so long ago and came across an interesting article on a Facebook group dedicated to Dreamcast News.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dreamcast ... 1909710228

DCN:

Hello there, I love the professional website layout :) I run a small Facebook group called Dreamcast News, and would love to know any news on your upcoming DC project, the last I saw was it was due to be ready 8-2011, is this still on course? I would love the chance to cover the game on the Dreamcast News page so any news would be great - even if it's just to say you guys are still busy on it :)


Reticon:

Thank you very much for your kind comments.
We are still busy, toiling away with the game. We've divided our team efforts into research and execution. We're making some great headway on programming the game together. We're currently in the modeling stage for the most part. I as well as Roscoe are programming the game together (I animate and model as well). Though the Dreamcast has posed a GREAT challenge for us, we're enjoying the challenges it presents to us every step of the way. We have utilized some labs at a California State University for our research endeavors, coding it specifically in the C programming language.
Our website will have some great updates here really soon (no definite date, since I'll be working on it with my free time) but it will include a ton of press pictures as well as newly rendered models for the game.
Our story structure is complete for the game, it has been for quite some time now, however it does go through some changes if we run into any logistical problems.


DCN:

It's fantastic that your team are hard at work on what seems to be, a very grand scale project, there are a couple of questions I would love to ask if I may?
Firstly, what urged you guys to start working with the Sega Dreamcast? Have you any experiences personal to you about the machine or was it more a left field decision to work with it?
Secondly, I'm sure many would love to know the answer to this one... What's it like working with, I can only assume the comparable low amount of processing power of the Dreamcast? As I noticed that you guys enjoy working with the challenges the machine faces... Have you had to cut a lot of the graphically trickery to fit smoother into the Sega machine?
I must admit, I love the thought of being able to play something a little different for the Dreamcast and equally can't wait to see some early screens on this exciting title!
One last question... Have you and your team thought of getting RedSpotGames or Goat Publishing to handle disc printing (when the time comes of course :)? I only mention this as I reported recently on RedSpotGames looking for new software to publish specifically for DC.
Thanks for the first reply, it's nice to see a developer with such good customer relations :)

Reticon:

Sure thing Forbes,
The original inception of the Tahi game actually started in 2003 after the short film. At that time I did not have enough technical knowledge in programming to complete such a task. It was not until recently (over a year ago) I found my old files and attempts at programming the first Tahi game in a folder, locked away in a cabinet and thought to myself, 'It was time'. Previously to the game and short film in 2003, Tahi was a subsequent set of short stories mended together by a massive time line and lore (which I still write and add on to this day). I chose the Dreamcast over the PC, XBOX 360 or any other platform for many reasons.
I chose the Dreamcast because in my personal opinion (which, of course, may be biased) gaming died with the Dreamcast. You may be probably wondering why I say this. Well, let us look at the facts here, SEGA left the console market with the Dreamcast, so the competition between SEGA and Nintendo ended after that. Also the definition of what we knew as a 'console' would soon be warped into something entirely different. The Dreamcast was possibly the last console to ever implement a true console interface; it was MADE to just play games. Maybe an audio CD here and there, but its main functionality was a gaming machine, not a photo viewer, not a movie player, not a downloader. It basically was not a personal computer. It was made basically to do a few tasks and that was it. All consoles today act like personal computers. They do not have a define line for gaming, gaming is now considered a 'gray area' intermingled with the architecture of the consoles. Returning back to 'gaming dying' with the Dreamcast, if you still do not believe me that gaming is dying off, look at the sales (http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Midmarket/Vide ... er-276968/). It has continuously been dropping bit by bit (no pun intended).
Another reason why I chose the Dreamcast was because of its interesting history and great library of games. Even though it was not on the market for long, the games that did release for it were great! Take for example, Phantasy Star Online, Crazy Taxi, Space Channel 5, Sonic Adventure, Marvel vs. Capcom; I mean the list goes on and on. Also subtended by its history and library of games, was how the games played on that console. They did not have the best graphics in the world or the most power but, I stress this, THEY WORKED WITH WHAT THEY HAD (very important!), they stretched their limits as far as they could with what they had and I have a very important motto that goes with that:
'Creativity is spawned by the limitations that are imposed onto you.'
Meaning, the less you have to work with, the more amazing the finish product is, because you have to use all of your mind and skills to find work-arounds and use those limitations to your benefit. With technology today, most of the hardware is so powerful, you could basically do just about anything you wanted to graphically (again, for the most part, there still are limitations) and technology today has gotten to the point where it all has begun to look the same visually (the human eye, even with a 720p+ HD TV will not be able to tell). Also the MOST notorious problem with modern technology and programming games on modern consoles is that there is a MASSIVE amount of code sharing, which at first may seem like a great idea, right? I mean, why program a graphics display if other companies have already created engines to do just that, like the Unreal engine. Well that actually is a massive problem, it homogenizes the gaming industry! If everyone is using the same code to do the same thing, the games are going to start looking, feeling and playing the same! And why play the same, old thing over and over again? It's simply pointless and boring. Also, on the programmer's end if people start to use more code sharing (basically building off of the wheel), programmers will have a more difficult time understanding the importance of building classes and programs from scratch; thus their problem solving skills will drop, and their understanding of abstraction will change.
And lastly, the reason why I chose the Dreamcast over other consoles is why would I release software to a system that already has tons of competitors all doing the same thing. If I decided to release it as an XBOX 360 game through XNA Game Studio and XBOX Live, I would be basically competing with hundreds, if not, thousands of others, all doing the same thing. I chose the Dreamcast because it does not release home brew games very often, so there is a considerable time put into the games and more focus can be put towards the game on both the programmer/studio aspect as well as the people who want to play the game, thus making the game much more significant. 'Obsolescence', as people know it, is a term coined by the industries in order to pump out new hardware and thus increasing their profits and putting them on the 'edge'. Software and Hardware does not truly go obsolete, it just ages. People still use machines and programs compiled in COBOL which is one of THE first programming languages ever created (created in 1959) and there are still programmers out there who program on those languages and on old machines and these machines are owned by BIG industries.
So is it really obsolescence as we know it? Possibly not. That is the MAIN reason why I chose to program on the Dreamcast, to prove to the industries and studios across the gaming world that there is no such thing as 'Obsolete', and they can do the same. Obsolescence is just a term used for industries to force out a new product; there is no need to fix what isn't broken. Just because a console or system is old, does NOT make it useless. So this game (TAHI) is to PROVE to the other industries and studios that it is possible to create something out of the ordinary, out of the 'flock' and stand out from the rest. This is a gaming revolution.
Answering your second question, It is interesting to work on the Dreamcast compared to other systems because not all libraries exist on the Dreamcast to be programmed on, so we must do research and code new libraries to give us added functionality. Granted, KOS does give us a lot of the basic necessities to get the job done, such as programming interrupts and allowing us to display via the audio/video ports, it still misses on complex 3D objects (other than boxes and spheres) and also does not do collision detection or bounding boxes. So it's not necessarily the processing power that may be the issue, it's the holes in our libraries that we must research ourselves and code in ASSEMBLY to function properly. Albeit there are processing limitations of the Dreamcast, the largest of which is actually the memory. We can only swap so much memory back and forth with the Dreamcast so we use techniques like decreasing our drawing distance for our 3D objects and in place, using an emulated fog to cover up what isn't drawn yet, which also helps out the processor. We also must limit our polygon counts on our models and terrain in order for everything to display properly, which IS easy to do by optimizing our models poly counts before taking their raw data and feeding it into our experimental ION display engine. You also have to take into consideration that a processor can only take in one process or thread at a time and process it, so audio is a big hit as well to the processing power of the Dreamcast. So basically we take it with a grain of salt and experiment to see what our limitations are. Basically we try to overload the Dreamcast before we bring down the requirements.
As for your third question, we have not come to that point yet in our development but we are avidly looking for publishers to get the game ready to print and distribute! So as of now, we're looking but have not come to a defined conclusion yet as to who.


DCN:


Frank Lima is one of THE nicest people in the business I have had the pleasure of talking with, I hope this interview will give Dreamcast fans an insight into the independent Dreamcast scene. I would love to take the time to thank Reticon and Frank for taking the time to share with us all the ups and downs of our favorite 128Bit wonder.

(Here is the link to the article: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=1 ... opic=14829)
Regards,
Radkin


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RETICON
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Re: Tahi - The Arocean War (9-9-09)

Post#207 » Mon Feb 28, 2011 3:19 pm

Hello folks!
Just recently I did a presentation regarding Tahi and its progress for the computer science department of Long Beach for eWeek. It was regarding 'Project Shock' which is the concept that when a project is started, its scope is not fully understood, and thus the requirements for the project cannot be met.

Here is an image of my presentation demonstrating to the audience of 'how long do you think this took to make?' which shows the screen shot of the original engine in play.

There was quite the turn out for this presentation and many were very enthusiastic about the project and its direction.

Image

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Re: Tahi - The Arocean War (9-9-09)

Post#208 » Mon Feb 28, 2011 3:56 pm

RETICON wrote:Hello folks!
Just recently I did a presentation regarding Tahi and its progress for the computer science department of Long Beach for eWeek. It was regarding 'Project Shock' which is the concept that when a project is started, its scope is not fully understood, and thus the requirements for the project cannot be met.

Here is an image of my presentation demonstrating to the audience of 'how long do you think this took to make?' which shows the screen shot of the original engine in play.

There was quite the turn out for this presentation and many were very enthusiastic about the project and its direction.

Image



Awesome!

Thank you for the update!

The site is also looking great!

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Anthony817
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Re: Tahi - The Arocean War (9-9-09)

Post#209 » Wed Mar 02, 2011 8:54 am

Thanks for the info Radkin and Reticon, we all look forward to hearing more about the game as it gets closer to release.
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Bob Dobbs
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Re: Tahi - The Arocean War (9-9-09)

Post#210 » Fri Mar 11, 2011 6:12 pm

The following is the latest update from Reticon Entertainment:

Hello,

The Arcade Project has been going rather well. It did not get completed by our proposed deadline of February 23rd, but it is about 98% complete, all that we still need to do is put in the joystick controls on our playing board. During that same week I gave a presentation about the progress of Tahi and its relation to project shock / effort shock and how to avoid such situations. The presentation was fantastic and there was a large turn out.

However after the 23rd, I returned my focus back to Tahi and everything related to it. Currently we're in the process of understanding the sound system that runs on it. The music and sound run off of an ARM7 processor and Yamaha chip.

I told my composer to switch gears from using .AIF/.MP3/.WAV extensions to create his music and move onto sequenced based music. The standard we will be using is module format (.MOD) because of its low overhead and file size. Since we only have about 700-900MB to use, a single MP3 file can consume upwards to 3MB of space, while a .MOD file can consume just a few kilobytes (10 <= size <= 500 kb roughly). Going back to overhead, the less it takes to compute on a processor, the better. The MP3 file format may have a large overhead to decompress and decode, while something like .MOD may not, since the module format was introduced to AMIGA machines back in the early 90's and their processors were around 20mhz or less. We can probably take the same tracked music (not the instruments and waveforms) and convert it to the Yamaha chip, once we fully understands WHAT it does (For example, does it contain a library of digital instruments ready to use?). Again, we're still researching this, we've just started to get into sound, so if anyone knows of any information regarding the Yamaha chip, please let us know.

As for the engine, Roscoe and I are VERY hard at work creating basic shader libraries to use for the game so we can give it the best feel we can with only 200 mhz and 7 million polygons a second at peak. Shaders are very complex and require a firm understanding of linear algebra and trigonometry as well as calculus, so they're not exactly easy to implement, especially on a system without a GPU. We're currently going to use gouraud shading which is a simple form of shading that the Dreamcast DOES implement.

I've been holding meetings every week (or biweekly) with all of my team members and distributing the load as follows:

Programmers: We're working on the render engine, and trying to see if we can implement complex shaders into our engine without taking a huge hit on our processor, we may just need to figure out work-arounds to make it seem like it IS functioning as a normal shader. We've been hard at work understanding how they function and how they can be implemented. We have been applying and testing code to see how well our rigged shaders work. Our third programmer is researching the SH-4 processor and all its referential paperwork (and other research regarding it) to see what are capabilities are to communicate directly to it and what we're physically completely limited to, because we want to push this hardware to its limit. We may be able to only get a high as 24 frames per second due to how complex our engine functions, hence the reason for a lighter load on the sound and music processing.

Writer: I have been talking to my writer in an almost daily basis, fleshing out the entire story piece by piece. We are in the process of arranging the story in a script-like format so that the game functions like an interrupt in a controller, its sequentially arranged with a common exploration field in different sections, much like 'Zelda: Ocarina of Time'. The story is very heart lifting and positive, despite it being a war. We may even change the title of the game from 'Tahi: The Arocean War' to another more more befitting name, just because the story does focus on the war, but not in 'war' as we may know it, It's more fantasy based.

Artists: The artists are continuing to draw creatures for the game, the main characters are seen over by me. I do the original sketches and the artists look them over and flesh them out. At this point there isn't a lot that the artists are doing at this time, however our team has acquired a GREAT animator (I've personally known him for years) and he is also a wonderful illustrator. Him and I have worked together on many projects and see eye-to-eye perfectly. We both have the same taste in artistic direction.

Composer/Musician: I have notified my musician about the change from the compressed musical formats to a sequenced track format, like .MOD to help us out in making it easier for the processor to take in data and process it. It will also make it easier for the team as a whole since there would be no reason to ever convert musical files since the .mod file can be both listened to in progams like winamp and edited again and again in the same file. This will make the work flow much easier on all of us. Once we have some modular music files from our composer and we've taken a look at them, I will share them with all of you!

That is what I have thus far for the project. Our next administrative team meeting will take place next Sunday at 8:00pm and we will continue working hard! The team is completely organized like a well-oiled machine, we're in it for the long run, for Tahi and all of you! We want this project to be complete and when it is, our engine will be available to the public, this will change how folks create homebrew games for the Dreamcast, forever.

Reticon Entertainment
Regards,
Bob Dobbs

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