Command and Conquer is going open source

I thought this news was pretty cool, Command and Conquer and Red Alert are going to be open source on June 5th along side the release of the remaster.

https://www.neowin.net/news/tiberian-dawn-and-red-alert-will-be-partially-open-sourced-alongside-remaster-launch

It's a partial release but excellent news.  For those unaware, the classic games have been otherwise released totally free for years, and have been hacked extensively to make them higher res and run fine on modern computers with great online multiplayer, to the extent of being kinda like source ports though so far without actual source modification.  People are really going to have a field day with this. For years,  https://cncnet.org/ has been the best place to go where you can download the whole patched up games with their complete campaigns, or quick compact multiplayer/skirmish installs.   The Red Alert 1 installs are also further enhanced with an additional mix file of original C&C  (Tiberium Dawn) unit graphics that can be accessed with map-contained mods (modified rules).   Ever since Red Alert 1 you could do a lot of customization just by editing rules.ini and/or putting the changes into a map, kinda like Dehacked, except not being able to manipulate specific frames of animation (In setting a unit to use C&C1 unit gfx, you had to pick a unit with the same number of frames, though there has been a hack allowing units to be added).   Who knows what will be possible soon.

A while ago Nyerguds (the man behind the C&C patch 1.06) told me there was a reverse-engineering project for Red Alert called RedAlert++, but it seems to have been abandoned or frozen. Perhaps it will spark back to life with the open sourcing of parts f the code? (EA still has the original code for both games)

OpenRA is pretty popular it seems, but it was never based on reverse engineering AFAIK, it's an approximation of the original game mechanics.

21 hours ago, icecoldduke said:

I thought this news was pretty cool, Command and Conquer and Red Alert are going to be open source on June 5th along side the release of the remaster.

https://www.neowin.net/news/tiberian-dawn-and-red-alert-will-be-partially-open-sourced-alongside-remaster-launch

Considering how much Electronic Arts is rightly and justifiably bashed for its customer policies, I don't think anyone foresaw them releasing source code at all.

Maybe someone showed EA how amazing certain other games' (*cough* Doom *cough*) modding communities are when the game's sourcecode is open sourced....

Here's some stuff already possible with CNCNet's edition of RA1 and the stand alone game Red Dawn 2014 based on it (RA1 converted to original TD).  I made map mods for both where you can play as all four teams: GDI, Nod, Allies, Soviet.   Well I'm not sure if the hacked exe allowing building paradrops on purpose was ever incorporated into the regular install.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UKU3UhmwLo

I played a good amount of Warcraft II, but far more of the C&C series.   In the craft games I didn't like the limit on how many units you could select and the combat being pretty dice-rolled but in real time. Meanwhile ever since the original C&C in dos, you could select everything on screen and skillfully dodge fire with units to at least lessen its damage.   RA1 made it even better by holding down the Q key and clicking alternating on spots to move to and the enemy to attack.   Did you know a single allied light tank can beat a soviet heavy tank in one on one combat?   Well it can, using that strategy.  Plus in WC1&2 the sides were virtually identical in stats and function except for spells in WC2.   It took til WC3 to make competition asymetrical.  Meanwhile C&C had varied opposing teams from the beginning.   At least starting with WC3 they adopted more RPG elements to offer something else.

It is done:

https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Remastered_Collection

Apparently the code is rather complete as far as game logics and mechanics are concerned.

I hope this means that when TibSun and RA2 get a remake, they'll go opensource too... TibSun and RA2 desperately need their engines smashed into one - the terrain destruction from TibSun and (ultimately abandoned) prototype weather effects combined with RA2's more robust bridge handling and urban combat...

Holy balls, EA did something cool for once? Color me impressed. This is a good day for the public domain of the art of video games.

3 hours ago, FractalBeast said:

I hope this means that when TibSun and RA2 get a remake, they'll go opensource too... TibSun and RA2 desperately need their engines smashed into one - the terrain destruction from TibSun and (ultimately abandoned) prototype weather effects combined with RA2's more robust bridge handling and urban combat...

Garrisoning buildings in RA2 add a new level to the gameplay. 

20 hours ago, FractalBeast said:

I hope this means that when TibSun and RA2 get a remake, they'll go opensource too... TibSun and RA2 desperately need their engines smashed into one - the terrain destruction from TibSun and (ultimately abandoned) prototype weather effects combined with RA2's more robust bridge handling and urban combat...

Couldn't agree more, those need a remaster too! Oh, and don't forget Yuri's Revenge!

And who knows, if we get really, REALLY lucky, they might throw Mental Omega in there...

Great news!

2 hours ago, DSC said:

And who knows, if we get really, REALLY lucky, they might throw Mental Omega in there...

That's an unofficial mod, isn't it?

What would be interesting would be Dune 2000's game code. If it doesn't use the first generation C&C engine, then it's one that's really incredibly similar.

19 hours ago, Gez said:

That's an unofficial mod, isn't it?

Yeah, but its very popular in the community and its incredibly well done.

There's more to the source code release than people expected.   Apparently it's the whole games just needing a renderer and I think a sound library or something.   Someone already stuck in what was needed and compiled a game.

Currently the remaster TD is still 4 players while the CnCNet version was hacked to be up to 6.   Hopefully that will change in time, and source ports will surely expand it to 8, I'm predicting.

My map mods designed for the CnCNet version of RA malfunction in the remaster.   Still played them somewhat, but I only recommend them in CnCNet version as intended unless you delete a bunch of rules stuff from them.   There are changes to rules.ini and some stuff from aftermth.ini (such as making engineers able to capture buildings at full health) aren't working in the remasters.   I'm sure all and much more is possible with new modding capabilites.   But just keep in mind old map mods containing rule changes, also known as Nurples, may or may not work right in the remasters without being updating depending what they entail.   And they crashed immediately trying against 7 computers, but 5 computers was somewhat ok.  I'm sure we'll eventually see a truly merged TD + RA with everything mixed together, just like ZDoom ports let you easily mix Doom, Heretic, Hexen, and Strife stuff all together.   Hey, just wait til we see some kind of mixing of Doom and C&C source, probably called something like Command & Cluster****: Doom Alert Heretical Aftermath of Gonads and Strife.

Zero Hour needs a remaster more than the older games. The graphics aged like absolute shit in that game because of the art style. 

On 6/7/2020 at 12:48 AM, DSC said:

And who knows, if we get really, REALLY lucky, they might throw Mental Omega in there...

Or maybe even Twisted Insurrection.

33 minutes ago, Pegg said:

Zero Hour needs a remaster more than the older games. The graphics aged like absolute shit in that game because of the art style. 

Personally if you ask me, Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2 are the ones that really need a remaster. Not because of the graphics but because of that engine having issues with modern windows. And I would be unable to control my excitement if they released the source code of TS/RA2.

13 hours ago, Gokuma said:

There's more to the source code release than people expected.   Apparently it's the whole games just needing a renderer and I think a sound library or something.   Someone already stuck in what was needed and compiled a game.

That's even better news. Can you show me the link of this compiled build.

Dunno if there are available builds; but there are youtubes. Kinsie found one in the ZDoom forum thread.

Speaking of forums, it's weird that I didn't see threads about this on the CnCnet and OpenRA forums.

All the games are worthy of remasters for one reason or another. The 3D games, all running in the SAGE engine, are locked to 30 FPS. Changing that alone would have a huge impact on how the games feel. They don't need to do as much work with recreating assets from scratch either. Just throwing in some updated shaders, ambient occlusion etc would go a long way to improve them visually. C&C3 still looks pretty good today for a 2007 RTS, only held back by stuff like low resolution pixelated shadows. I could easily see the 3D era games being remastered in much the same way Dark Souls was.

I wouldn't hedge my bets on Tiberian Sun or Red Alert 2 getting open source, since thid party technology was getting increasingly common in game engines by that point. TS might still be completely in house technology, but I'm pretty sure RA2 at least uses some kind of middleware for the redone audio(which is like a quantum leap ahead of TS audio which is functionally the same as it was in 1995).

That is a good bit of discussion over at ZDoom.

Anyway most of what I know is from this topic on CnCNet.

https://forums.cncnet.org/topic/11052-source-code-finds/

I don't know who compiled it and it's probably not available yet.  The source code was just released so I bet someone wants to have more than just a compilation to put out.   Apparently sdl and openal were used.

3 hours ago, lazygecko said:

I wouldn't hedge my bets on Tiberian Sun or Red Alert 2 getting open source

Yeah, I am not putting huge bets on TS/RA2 source release (but I am more hopeful now more than ever).

3 hours ago, lazygecko said:

TS might still be completely in house technology, but I'm pretty sure RA2 at least uses some kind of middleware for the redone audio(which is like a quantum leap ahead of TS audio which is functionally the same as it was in 1995).

From what I understand, even the current source release of TD/RA1 source doesn't include the renderer/audio code and only contains the engine/game logic. Maybe they could release the source code of TS/RA2 in a similar manner and then some coders can implement the rendering/audio.

From what I heard, the fully functional source ports might be available sooner than one would expect, by combining the released source with certain engine recreation projects that already have the rendering and audio parts:

https://github.com/TheAssemblyArmada

2 minutes ago, MrFlibble said:

From what I heard, the fully functional source ports might be available sooner than one would expect, by combining the released source with certain engine recreation projects that already have the rendering and audio parts:

https://github.com/TheAssemblyArmada

The beauty of open source is that these things can happen relatively quickly.

On 6/7/2020 at 1:10 AM, Gez said:

What would be interesting would be Dune 2000's game code. If it doesn't use the first generation C&C engine, then it's one that's really incredibly similar.

I've always thought of Dune 2000 as of essentially a glorified RA1 mod. It stills sticks to the 640x400 screen resolution mode, although 16-bit colour is now supported. The differences are mostly cosmetic and amount to debris flying off from explosions. In every other aspects, Dune 2000 is even less original than  the first two C&C titles combined.

Also, from what I remember, Dune 2000 was essentially intended to fill the pipeline as the release of Tiberian Sun was pushed back (and still the game came out half-baked in some aspects). If this is correct, they pretty much had to use the existing C&C/RA1 codebase while TS was being written more or less from scratch.

Yeah, it was basically a Dune II remake in the C&C engine, but I liked that it did bring back some elements of Dune II that C&C had dropped, like infantry-only terrain (allowing to use the little guys for sneak attacks) or just the basic idea of having "islands" of constructible terrain in a nonconstructible sand ocean; which means you need to build MCVs if you want to basecrawl.

And if we're talking about

19 hours ago, Gokuma said:

I'm sure we'll eventually see a truly merged TD + RA with everything mixed together, just like ZDoom ports let you easily mix Doom, Heretic, Hexen, and Strife stuff all together.   Hey, just wait til we see some kind of mixing of Doom and C&C source, probably called something like Command & Cluster****: Doom Alert Heretical Aftermath of Gonads and Strife.

Then who can say they don't want to see what happens when you attack the Brotherhood of Nod with ornithopters or deviators?

1 hour ago, Master O said:

 

The beauty of open source is that these things can happen relatively quickly.

Cheers for more open source stuff!

1 minute ago, Gez said:

Yeah, it was basically a Dune II remake in the C&C engine

I've always had a bit of trouble of thinking this was, because it's more like a mod that uses some concepts and names from Dune II.

For example, the Siege Tank in Dune II is a heavy tank similar to either C&C Medium Tank or RA1 Heavy Tank; but in Dune 2000 it's essentially Mobile Artillery; the Missile Tank works completely unlike its Dune II counterpart, and so do most of the infantry guys anyway. A later patch even added grenadiers to House Atreides.

I understand that a carbon copy of Dune II units wouldn't have worked because the balance in Dune II is way more primitive compared to the armour types vs. weapon types/warheads system introduced by C&C. But they could have at least have taken a more original approach instead of just repainting the C&C ensemble cast of units into Dune II House colours :)

On 5/21/2020 at 3:08 PM, Master O said:

 

Considering how much Electronic Arts is rightly and justifiably bashed for its customer policies, I don't think anyone foresaw them releasing source code at all.

 

Maybe someone showed EA how amazing certain other games' (*cough* Doom *cough*) modding communities are when the game's sourcecode is open sourced....

And Duke Nukem! And Quake! And Quake 3! And all the other games that have some sort of variation with either the open- or io- or g[l]- affix in the name.

Digital Foundry took a magnifying glasses and reviewed the remaster. They came back impressed, to say the least:
 

1 hour ago, MrFlibble said:

(and still the game came out half-baked in some aspects)

Half-baked in a few area, yes. But TS was also a HUGE improvement in many other areas like:

• vastly improved pathfinding (TD, RA1 and even Starcraft had terrible pathfinding)
• rules.ini modding was improved (TD had hardcoded units while RA1 had limited rules.ini modding)
• much better balance (though still imperfect)
• awesome atmosphere
• UI/gameplay improvements (like rally points, unit queuing, veterancy, deployable units)

Basically, what I am saying is that TS was way too underrated back in the day ;)

And then Red Alert 2 took things to a whole new level.

29 minutes ago, ReaperAA said:

 

Half-baked in a few area, yes. But TS was also a HUGE improvement in many other areas like:

• vastly improved pathfinding (TD, RA1 and even Starcraft had terrible pathfinding)
• rules.ini modding was improved (TD had hardcoded units while RA1 had limited rules.ini modding)
• much better balance (though still imperfect)
• awesome atmosphere
• UI/gameplay improvements (like rally points, unit queuing, veterancy, deployable units)

Basically, what I am saying is that TS was way too underrated back in the day ;)

 

And then Red Alert 2 took things to a whole new level.

For Tiberian Sun they spent many years developing new technologies that were groundbreaking for RTS, but many of those were not necessarily things the average player would appreciate or care about, making it kind of a wasted effort in many ways. For instance there's a dynamic wind system which influences what direction fires and gas clouds spread in, but since this is purely a back end thing that you cannot gauge effectively it may as well be completely random to the end user with no tangible gameplay value. The environmental lighting was also initially slated to tie into a unit visibility/accuracy system based on brightness, but this was ultimately scrapped since they probably figured it wasn't much fun having your units miss half the time and also adding another annoying level of base management by making you build lamp posts everywhere.

There's lots of things like that throughout TS's development. But by far the worst has to be the Hunter Killer. I don't know how it was initially envisioned to work, but what you ended up with in the final game was a simple one click superweapon which automatically seeks out a random enemy unit in the map based on some convoluted, nonsensical threat assessment system and oneshots it. The only thing it really amounted to was having one of your units unexpectedly killed every now and then with no chance to predict or do anything about it which is extremely frustrating.