The Force Engine - New Dark Forces Sourceport

[HAL9000]

THE FORCE ENGINE



Well..this is a pleasant surprise ...
Someone made a new Dark Forces & Outlaws Sourceport with Asset and Level editor out of the box.
Take note that "The Force Engine" is still early in development and most features don't work yet, but this project looks very promising even in the current state!

Check it out here: https://theforceengine.github.io
Github: https://github.com/luciusDXL/TheForceEngine

Info From the Website:

The Force Engine is a project to reverse engineer and rebuild the Jedi Engine for modern systems and the games that used that engine - Dark Forces and Outlaws. The project includes modern, built-in tools, such as a level editor and makes it easy to play Dark Forces and Outlaws on modern systems as well as the many community mods designed to work with the original games.

Playing Dark Forces or Outlaws using the Force Engine adds ease of use and modern features such as higher resolutions and modern control schemes such as mouse-look. Using the built-in tools allows for easier modding with more modern UI, greater flexibility and the ability to use enhancements made to the Jedi Engine for Outlaws in custom Dark Forces levels - such as slopes, stacked sectors, per-sector color maps and more

Ingame Pics:

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Map Editor pics:

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Asset Editor Pics:

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[Kinsie]

Thread by the author on Doomworld

I will say that it's a good thing that it's completely open-sourced from the off instead of continuing the weird half-open half-shut stuff that killed DarkXL during Lucius's absense.

That editor looks hot as hell, too.

[BunnyWithBeans]

Really nice to see that people are putting lots of time into these projects for seemingly forgotten games.

[SamVision]

Wow it looks like we live in a good timeline after all.

[Kinsie]

Bumping because this has hit Version 1.0.

• Full Dark Forces support, including mods. Outlaws support is coming in version 2.0.
• Mod Loader - simply place your mods in the Mods/ directory as zip files or directories.
• High Resolution and Widescreen support - when using 320x200 you get the original software renderer. TFE also includes a floating-point software renderer which supports widescreen, including ultrawide, and much higher resolutions.
• GPU Renderer with perspective correct pitch - play at much higher resolutions with improved performance.
• Extended Limits - TFE, by default, will support much higher limits than the original game which removes most of the HOM (Hall of Mirrors) issues in advanced mods.
• Full input binding, mouse sensitivity adjustment, and controller support. Note, however, that menus currently require the mouse.
• Optional Quality of Life improvements, such as full mouselook, aiming reticle, improved Boba Fett AI, autorun, and more.
• A new save system that works seamlessly with the existing checkpoint and lives system. You can ignore it entirely, use it just as an exit save so you don’t have to play long user levels in one sitting, or full save and load with quicksaves like Doom or Duke Nukem 3D.
• Optional and quality of life features, even mouselook, can be disabled if you want the original experience. Play in 320x200, turn the mouse mode (Input menu) to Menus only or horizontal, and enable the Classic (software) renderer - and it will look and play just like DOS, but with a higher framerate and without needing to adjust cycles in DosBox.

[InsanityBringer]

Heck yeah. I was following this super closely at first, but I fell off in recent months. But it finally being functional is making me excited to play Dark Forces for the first time in ages.

[KynikossDragonn]

There's been some pull requests for a Linux version, but it's still got a ways to go so I guess I'm going to be waiting for that to go stable.

[luciusDXL]

Version 1.01 Release
This version improves on several deficiencies found in the initial release. This includes improved source data path robustness, crash fixes, deadzone options for controllers, and numerous bug fixes.

TheForceEngine-v1.01.001.zip : https://theforceengine.github.io/downloads.html

Changes
* Improved robustness against sound system setup errors.
* Added –nosound commandline to disable digital sound (music still plays).
* Draw “no data” message in large red letters so it is obvious.
* Changed the name of the file the the Browse dialog asks you to point to from DARK.EXE to DARK.GOB to reduce confusion.
* Steam path detection is now more robust and should handle libraries on different drives than the base Steam install.
* TFE will now find the game source data if it is in the same directory as TFE.
* TFE now supports putting the game data under the TFE directory, under Games/Dark Forces/* and that case will be autodetected.
* Source data path validation is now more robust.
* Fixed a bug where the ‘settings.ini’ failed to parse, messing up settings.
* Shows a configuation menu on the first run where you can set either Vanilla or Modern defaults.
* Fixed Escape Menu background stretching when using the GPU Renderer with widescreen disabled.
* Fixed divide by zero crashes in the projectile code.
* The GPU Renderer now honors fullbright and opaque/transparent flags for signs and sign textures.
* Fixed a flags issue in the explosion code, where explosions could effect some things they are not supposed to.
* Fixed the thermal detonator damage the player takes, they were taking too much.
* Added a custom deadzone setting and proper deadzone sensitivity scaling.
* Fixed a lighting bug with the muzzle flash being too dark.
* Fixed sprite culling using the GPU renderer close to the camera.

[luciusDXL]

There's been some pull requests for a Linux version, but it's still got a ways to go so I guess I'm going to be waiting for that to go stable.

There is a PR for Linux support, but I have been holding off on reviewing it until after version 1.0 is released. I plan on tackling native Linux and Mac support in early 2023.

[KynikossDragonn]

There is a PR for Linux support, but I have been holding off on reviewing it until after version 1.0 is released. I plan on tackling native Linux and Mac support in early 2023.

Oh perfectly understandable! I'm not in any real hurry!

It is quite nice seeing this and Outlaws getting such support, including that map editor. It's probably the first time I've ever seen a ability to make a custom map for the JEDI engine games in the first place.

[luciusDXL]

I have written a blog post about the 2022 TFE Retrospective and project plans for 2023. https://theforceengine.github.io/2022/1 ... 23Dev.html

[Nash]

Anyone got this to work as a drop-in replacement for the OG Steam game, so that we could get Steam to track play time?

This is possible with Daggerfall Unity on Steam - was wondering if anyone managed to figure out how to replicate that with this game.

[HorseJockey]

Anyone got this to work as a drop-in replacement for the OG Steam game, so that we could get Steam to track play time?

If you go to "Steam/SteamApps/Common/Dark Forces/Dosbox", rename Dosbox.exe to something else (I always default to dosbox.exe.old). Copy your Force Engine install to the dosbox folder and rename TheForceEngine.exe to Dosbox.exe. Should launch from steam, track your gametime and give you the overlay. Just tried it out myself and it's working great.

[Nash]

Yeah, that works, good stuff. Been playing it for about 2 hours. Seems like the frame rendering is still jittery at high frame rates, and doesn't look butter smooth at 144 hz. Some work is needed in that department.

Interesting thing I noticed about the hardware renderer in TFE is that it's doing software-style sprite depth clipping (like Strife: VE)

[Graf Zahl]

Yeah, indeed. It may be a hardware renderer but it surely isn't a polygonal renderer. Without any legacy baggage to support that's a lot easier to pull off.