MATT VEENSTRA, owner of Tribal Media and Developer of Darkstar final product.

[J. Allen Williams]

Matt is here somewhere, so I'm creating this post for him to field questions about the technical issues of Darkstar.
J. Allen

[matt_veenstra]

Jeff finally let us out of our cave. I am happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thanks,
Matt

[Anka DS]

a cave, dark with a little star at the end of the tunnel right?

[J. Allen Williams]

Matt, this might be a good opportunity to talk a bit about iShell, and how you are modifying it at the code level to acommodate the unique needs that Darkstar requires in order to perform.

[matt_veenstra]

absolutely correct...we even have the occasional space cruiser passing by

[Anka DS]

You sure can talk about that Matt cause what Jeff just said sounds like blablabla but that's just me of course.

[matt_veenstra]

So, how are we making DarkStar and who are these tribalmedia guys.

iShell handles DarkStar's movies and VR's really well so it provides us a great foundation. We are then writing some additional modules as well as enhancing the underlying framework to accommodate DarkStars play back.

With iShell lets us quickly develop the interactive aspects of the game. Freeing up our resources to develop new features and enhancements.

[Anka DS]

sounds great, and new and more is always better :)

[Noone]

Can you tell in brief, why iShell is beter then, for example, Macromedia Director (Adobe Director now? I know it hadn't been updated long, but heard they are planning)

[J. Allen Williams]

This is a great question that I'll let Matt field.

We actually spent over a year programming in Director, then Quicktime killed that idea.

[Anka DS]

awtch

[matt_veenstra]

There are a few points here...

- First off Adobe has no real interest in Director. They are a Flash company. Sure they might make an update, but it is so out of date it is sad.
- We write iShell so have a very intimate knowledge of all the source code. This allows us to make changes to the architecture to support DarkStar as needed. With Director you are stuck with what Adobe chooses to fix or not.
- The QuickTime support in iShell is much better than Director's and this is a requirement for DarkStar

Those are the basic points in a nutshell.

Thanks,
Matt

[J. Allen Williams]

More game developers should give iShell a serious look for these reasons and more.

[Noone]

Is it possible to have some animated objects in panoramas? Any lighting and or particle effects?

[J. Allen Williams]

I'll let Matt augment, but I don't think so...a limitation of Quicktime. I was hoping they'd allow for animated loops at some point, so there could be (for example) some blinking lights on a control panel, or a flame on a candle or something...

Not yet...right Matt?

[matt_veenstra]

You can't easily do particle effects in panorama's.

Basically Apple does not have support for VR in an OpenGL context. So at this point we are using a classic graphics path when we display VR's.

Since we don't have OpenGL/DirectX for VR's particle effects and lighting are not feasible.

Cheers,
Matt

[J. Allen Williams]

Yeah. What HE said.

[Noone]

What about subtitles? Will they be in the game? Will it be easy to implement translations?

[Anka DS]

Hope translations won't be necessary that's another year to the project. Of course u could always dub the entire thing for the french... ::)

[J. Allen Williams]

Now, now, be nice to our French brethren little Ms A! lol

One of the publishers we're talking to (the Canadians) brought up subtitles and/or dubbing. It's very possible we may have to imbed some of that, but I can't even think about that until we get the primary English spoken version done.

Which do you prefer? Dubbed or Subtitled?

[Anka DS]

pleasssee subtitles!!! I don't need any but have u ever seen a dubbed series? okay it's funny to hear other people's voices. What's even funnier is that some people whose country I won't mention don't even know how eg Anthony Hopkins sounds like. Give them the opportunity to hear the real thing I'd say :)

[Noone]

Subtitled only. An better - not translated! :-) Or at least having an option to switch between translation and original text.

[J. Allen Williams]

I couldn't agree more.

I think the WORST example is the dubbing of Mel Gibson's voice in Mad Max, where they took out his minimal Austrailian brogue and replaced it with an American idiot who sounded like a game-show host.

[Anka DS]

They did? Damn, I need to see that! Think we just had the subtitled version :)

[J. Allen Williams]

Hey Matt,
I'm getting ready to sign off...the thing was really only to go until 1am (their time), and we've gone a half hour over. I'm going to be sure there are no more unanswered topics then log out.

Still want me to call? E-mail me which number you're at.

[shae]

Why QuickTime, for some sort of multi-platformness? What are the video specs? (codec, resolution, framerate, bitrate, etc.)