Skip to content

Questions about merging editor with engine

brusbrus Member Posts: 944
in General Modding
About the future of Infinity engine

I was thinking about possiblity merging DLTCEP with for example Unreal engine?
So, 2D backgrounds would be in one render layer, 3D characters in second, particle system in another and animations in last render layer.
UE could call IE when needed for the UI.
Is it possible to translate all IE scripts which handle gameplay into C++ scripts of UE?

Is this reasoning possible to merge DLTCEP with UE4?

Comments

  • Troodon80Troodon80 Member, Developer Posts: 4,110
    I was actually looking into that. Either using Unity or Unreal Engine. Unreal supports C++, so that would be a logical choice. I thought about doing either DLTCEP or EE Keeper, but just never got around to it. I'm not sure either would be feasible, though it's certainly something to think about as a long term goal.

    Only problem is that DLTCEP, like the original Shadow Keeper (MFC/Visual C++ was popular back then), is so in-grained with MFC that porting it would take a while. The code isn't exactly nice to deal with either. Compared to the actual Infinity Engine code, the DLTCEP code is a frustrating maze.
  • brusbrus Member Posts: 944
    edited November 2016
    There is ongoing reimplementation of Aurora engine https://github.com/xoreos/xoreos ( https://xoreos.org/index.html ).
    I had in mind similar with IE and UE but with isometric prerendered backgrounds and not full 3D.
  • Troodon80Troodon80 Member, Developer Posts: 4,110
    Well, to answer the question: it's definitely possible. How feasible it is would be a different question.
  • inethineth Member Posts: 746
    Am I the only one who's at a complete loss to what this thread is about?

    DLTCEP is a game file editor/browser.
    UE4 is a game engine.

    What would "merging" them even mean? What would be the end result?
  • brusbrus Member Posts: 944
    edited November 2016
    ineth said:

    Am I the only one who's at a complete loss to what this thread is about?

    DLTCEP is a game file editor/browser.
    UE4 is a game engine.

    What would "merging" them even mean? What would be the end result?

    DLTCEP would be used to create bakgrounds http://www.simpilot.net/~sc/dltcep/index.htm and UE will render characters, particles and aniamations of motion assets.
    UE would need to be merged with editor to update UI character elements, A.I. ...

    It theory...
  • inethineth Member Posts: 746
    You mean a full re-implementation of the Infinity Engine, that is built on top of the Unreal Engine and uses 3D models for characters?

    The scope of such a project would be huge - it's not just the programming work, but also the thousands of 3D models/animations that would need to be created. One might as well create a new game then.

    Also, DLTCEP wouldn't help a lot with that, since parsing the data files is only a small portion of what the Infinity Engine does. If anything, GemRB could be used as a starting point.
Sign In or Register to comment.

2024 Overhaul Games, a division of Beamdog. © 2024 Hasbro, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Baldur's Gate, Dungeons & Dragons, D&D, Forgotten Realms, Baldur's Gate, Wizards of the Coast and their logos are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC in the U.S.A. and other countries, and are used with permission. Hasbro and its logo are trademarks of Hasbro, Inc. and are used with permission. © 1998 BioWare Corp. All Rights Reserved. BioWare, the BioWare Infinity Engine and the BioWare logo are trademarks of Bioware Corp. Black Isle Studios and the Black Isle Studios logo are trademarks of Interplay Entertainment Corp. Atari and the Atari logo are trademarks owned by Atari Interactive, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.