WC4 Mod For Homeworld 2 In The Works (June 5, 2006)

[L.I.F.]

I'm known for my nitpicking, just ask @kyrgiannis. Also wnated to make sure I didn't give you hinky mesh.

No prob'. However, for some reason, I can't get to import your .obj properly and I always have to convert one from the .dae via Blender. Just sayin'. Otherwise, I did the same treatment to the texture, getting 70 in darkness through GIMP from your original one. I guess this does the trick for implementation in the game. Now to get these turrets working...

 

[DefianceIndustries]

Hrrmmm, not sure why - I exported it like every other one. Oh well, that's why I include the .DAE

 

[phoenix_aod]

much awesome sauce here

 

[L.I.F.]

Oi! A small supplement I've been working on for some time: a unit guide to the mod, with stats, comments and available upgrades. This version has the Confed combat units:

https://www.pdf-archive.com/2016/10/16/a-player-guide-1/a-player-guide.pdf

 

[Whistler]

Oi! A small supplement I've been working on for some time: a unit guide to the mod, with stats, comments and available upgrades. This version has the Confed combat units:

https://www.pdf-archive.com/2016/10/16/a-player-guide-1/a-player-guide.pdf

A, "small supplement," he says.

This guide is a Godsend. The mod doesn't feel so overwhelming to understand with this data. Thank you for this! Now if only I was a better player...

I seriously want to learn this engine scripting; find a way to create a fun campaign.

 

[L.I.F.]

Looks like somebody would like me to do it for the rest of the units, then. Heh heh. It will take some time, however, as I'm texturing stuff (currently, applying some Saga-level textures to some of czacen models like the Border Worlds' starbase so we can reuse the assets without having DefianceIndustries spending all of his nights working on stuff we already have).

Question for you? Does the informal style suits you for the manual? Also, would a graphical tech tree be useful?

 

[Whistler]

Question for you? Does the informal style suits you for the manual? Also, would a graphical tech tree be useful?

I preferred the more gamer's perspective. The part about Tolwyn going to sleep at night with a limited edition Concordia plushy left me in stitches.

A graphical tree might help some I suppose. The guide was informal enough to say about how much research was needed without outright giving it away. Your guide, your call.

 

[L.I.F.]

I preferred the more gamer's perspective. The part about Tolwyn going to sleep at night with a limited edition Concordia plushy left me in stitches.

You know it's true. The plushie's loss with the Vesuvius was what made him lose his touch, allowing his slip-up in front of the Senate.

A graphical tree might help some I suppose. The guide was informal enough to say about how much research was needed with outright giving it away. Your guide, your call.

Heh, I'll think about it. ^^

 

[Whistler]

Edited my last post mildly. Meant, "without outright."

Insomnia messing me up.

 

[L.I.F.]

Edited my last post mildly. Meant, "without outright."

Insomnia messing me up.

No problem, I got what you meant.

BTW, for campaign design, a lot of stuff can be done without knowing much about the engine. What is critical is to write down properly how the map is supposed to be arranged, what assets each faction will have and the entire list of events you want to happen. In short, a large part of the campaign missions can be done with an architecture using IF, THEN, ELSE, WHILE, FOR, AND, OR.

IF [the Kilrathi fighters are seen] THEN [get message]
IF [the Confed capital ships are seen] THEN [order the Kilrathi capital ships to attack then]

And so on.

 

[Whistler]

I've done similar scripting in the fan-made AlliED for Xwing Alliance so that's nothing new. Hoping the editor is user-friendly.

So storyboarding in a nutshell with outlines for different criteria. Project time! Time for research... after I force myself to catch some Zs.

 

[L.I.F.]

I've done similar scripting in the fan-made AlliED for Xwing Alliance so that's nothing new. Hoping the editor is user-friendly.

So storyboarding in a nutshell with outlines for different criteria. Project time! Time for research... after I force myself to catch some Zs.

Pretty much. I found out that it's much simpler to do the actual programmation if the mission is already programmed in a readable but methodical way. First of all, I define all objects present in the mission. They might be navigational points, volumes, objects, spaceships, anything that will interact of be interacted on during the mission. Then their status at the beginning of the mission. For example, I could want a Kilrathi Dreadnought to jump in during the mission. In that case, the ship will exist from the beginning of the mission, but will be "hidden" in hyperspace, jumping whenever I want to trigger a specific event. Finally, the events themselves, with their triggers and their consequences.

When this is organized, it becomes relatively easy to write down a mission (get the event modules copy-pasted and link them together). Hell, if I get some time, I could try to give some templates for the events, though the trigger conditions require a lot of various instructions that would be too long to list (there's a website listing most of these).

 

[DefianceIndustries]

I smell a tutorial...

 

[L.I.F.]

I smell a tutorial...

... yep, I'll probably have to do that.

 

[DefianceIndustries]

Did you want me to still write up that Jane's supplement for the UBW/BL stuff?

 

[L.I.F.]

Did you want me to still write up that Jane's supplement for the UBW/BL stuff?

Deal!

 

[DefianceIndustries]

Deal!

...And I walked right into that one.

 

[L.I.F.]

...And I walked right into that one.

Yes, you did.

 

[L.I.F.]

OK, you remember when, last Thursday, I said I was going to take a look into texturing? Well, it seems that using czacen's old models and adding them a dozen or more hours of work recombining his textures and the Saga team's with 3DS Max can give interesting results. Right now, I'm having a bit of trouble getting the ship file to work in game (though I do get the final file, so it's just coding, thus not a big deal), but, well, I will let you people judge by yourself.

Here is the Border Worlds' HQ in the initial version of the mod:

Here is my Work In Progress (80 to 90 % done on the texturing front) version for the same HQ:

No change whatsoever to the 3D file, just some rough and pretty inefficient texturing work. Enjoy! Particularly you, @DefianceIndustries, since it means I will most likely do the texturing job myself for things like the Black Lance HQ.

 

[DefianceIndustries]

Looking good. one thing to be careful of is the scale on the windows on the pylons, Ella is quite a bit larger than the capital ships those textures come from so you'll need to resize those appropriately.