The TA3D Project
What is TA3D ?
TA3D is a free project whose aim is to remake the engine of Total Annihilation but in real 3D, with perspective, camera management, hardware acceleration ...! TA3D runs on Linux, windows and MacOS.
So TA3D is a remake of Total Annihilation engine under GPL(that means free...) which uses original game files (means it doesn't run without *.hpi or *.ufo files from the original game,the demo or a mod, or our free data set when it's finished :P). The goal? Make this great game run better on modern hardware, and bring new features(original AI is a bit classic(too easy), units models might be more detailed,...).
No I am not mad!! Total Annihilation was in 256 colors(don't lie, if I did not tell you you would never know!) with isometric 3D (means no perspective, no camera, prerendered terrain,...). Most of the game can be easily ported to real 3D: models of units are already in 3D just need to draw the models with perspective; terrain is prerendered but with height map we can make some corrections; sprites, huh, it's pure 2D...but we can extract 3D data from luminosity(yes it is possible and already done, look at rocks in TA3D: real 3D rocks!!) or just replace them. With accelerated rendering(OpenGl) you can get higher frame rate with more details!!
You can say there is an other project(more advanced...) with the same goal... Well actually they don't have exactly the same goal and I don't really like the modifications they made to the gameplay. Worse, they don't use files from TA like maps!! The TA community has done great work, we can't let this be lost!!
Now you should believe TA3D brings something...hum it's not finished yet...so I go back to the code!!
Starting Points about TA3D
- The forums : http://www.ta3d.org/forums
- IRC : irc.etigris.com, #ta3d
- List of file formats
- FAQ
- Game Guide
Tools
- 3DMEditor -- our unit maker :D
Documentation
- Command line options -- TA3D's little secrets
- Console commands -- "cheat codes" useful for developers
- Mods -- how to play mods :D
- Modding -- change everything :P
- Installing TA3D -- page with links to install/build instructions for various releases
Starting Points about Trac
- TracGuide -- Built-in Documentation
- The Trac project -- Trac Open Source Project
- Trac FAQ -- Frequently Asked Questions
- TracSupport -- Trac Support
For a complete list of local wiki pages, see TitleIndex.
