Alien Arena 2009 Released, Brings Improved Graphics

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Alien Arena 2009 Released, Brings Improved Graphics

Alien Arena 2009, which is the successor to Alien Arena 2008, has been released. We previously talked about the graphics improvements that were coming and now they have arrived. The key features in Alien Arena 2009 include GLSL per-pixel lighting on all surfaces, OpenAL 1.1 support, Ogg Vorbis support, GLSL post-process frame-buffer effects, new scoreboards, a new HUD, stereo music files, light volumes, a voice taunt system, and doppler sound effects...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=NzMzOA

[Melcar]

I'm still trying to get it. All my downloads (incredibly slow by the way) turn up corrupted. Bah.
Game really looks nice. It supposedly has massive performance boosts as well.

[hax0r]

I've been using svn for months now, I think it's the most advanced open source game atm, you won't find some features that alien arena has in other games, some of them are pretty advance. This game could be made better if they fixed little things such as prettier fonts on screen, sane makefile with sane cflags, nice clean main menu with simple soft colors, higher quality audio for in-game effects, and few other small glitches. This game really has some potential, I personally like the sounds these little aliens make, I would be happy if they converted to git so I could branch out and hack/fix few things.

[Melcar]

Nice

http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/1741/alienarena000.th.jpg (http://img35.imageshack.us/i/alienarena000.jpg/)

http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/6509/alienarena002.th.jpg (http://img151.imageshack.us/i/alienarena002.jpg/)

[Pfanne]

i don't want to belittle the effort they make, but the game doesnt really look good.
the graphics effects are cool and stuff, but what really makes a game attractive is the artstyle.
on top of that opensource games have the habit of growing featurewise, but lacking the material to support those features.
the graphics engine keeps getting new features, but the models and textures dont seem to use them...
it kinda looks like they imported a few half-life 1 maps and added some bumpmaps.
please dont misunderstand me. i dont want to say these games are doing a bad job, but they seem to lack some proper designers. i know those are hard to come by and you cant really blame the people working on these games.
but maybe it doesnt matter very much in a shooter since they are mostly about gameplay ;)
still i want to thank the people who worked on this game to provide people with a free shooter!

[MaestroMaus]

Your late at the party:
http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16662

[unimatrix]

I completely agree with Pfanne.

I just wanna add one point: Why aren't there any screenshots where Anti-Aliasing is enabled? Sorry but if it's not used the game still reminds me of Doom 2

[Melcar]

I don't think AA works. At least I can't tell the difference. Give me a second and I'll upload a few using 8xAA.

[Melcar]

8xAA/16xAF @ 1680x1050

http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/1407/alienarena014.th.jpg (http://img229.imageshack.us/i/alienarena014.jpg/)

http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/8411/alienarena017.th.jpg (http://img171.imageshack.us/i/alienarena017.jpg/)

http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/373/alienarena019.th.jpg (http://img30.imageshack.us/i/alienarena019.jpg/)

http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/6885/alienarena018.th.jpg (http://img171.imageshack.us/i/alienarena018.jpg/)


0xAA/0xAF @ 1680x1050

http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/8104/alienarena003.th.jpg (http://img411.imageshack.us/i/alienarena003.jpg/)

http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/3483/alienarena004.th.jpg (http://img411.imageshack.us/i/alienarena004.jpg/)

http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/5259/alienarena009.th.jpg (http://img194.imageshack.us/i/alienarena009.jpg/)

http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/8098/alienarena010.th.jpg (http://img411.imageshack.us/i/alienarena010.jpg/)

Maybe I'm blind, maybe it's the res. I'm playing at, or maybe fglrx has messed up AA controls, but I can't really tell a difference, except that when I use AA the menu screen starts "dancing" (it becomes blurry and jumpy).

[unimatrix]

That's more like it!

You really don't see the sharp edges when AA is off?
It's so much nicer when it's on.

[Melcar]

Nope. I mean, I notice it a little, but I have to really look at the still image. Doesn't kill performance, but I usually have AA off in the driver because of the glitches some games exhibit. Most of the time I use in-game controls (works best in both Linux and Windows games), which makes me ask, why no AA controls in the game?

[Irritant]

which makes me ask, why no AA controls in the game?

Just never really thought to add it, guess I'll put it on the list :)

[Irritant]

Here are some of the "official" screenies...

http://icculus.org/alienarena/rpa/mediathumbs/aa2k9_15_s.jpg (http://icculus.org/alienarena/rpa/mediathumbs/aa2k9_15.jpg) http://icculus.org/alienarena/rpa/mediathumbs/aa2k9_1_s.jpg (http://icculus.org/alienarena/rpa/mediathumbs/aa2k9_1.jpg) http://icculus.org/alienarena/rpa/mediathumbs/aa2k9_9_s.jpg (http://icculus.org/alienarena/rpa/mediathumbs/aa2k9_9.jpg) http://icculus.org/alienarena/rpa/mediathumbs/aa2k9_4_s.jpg (http://icculus.org/alienarena/rpa/mediathumbs/aa2k9_4.jpg)

[hax0r]

..snip...Can we expect higher detailed textures? :D. Maybe we could grab some deviantart junkies together, the quality of sound improved, nice :). What about nicer fonts and clean main menu?