Redemption Source Team

[Javokis]

I feel the need to verify my stance on this project before I end up putting myself in a crazy situation. This may be a good time to double check where we stand as a whole on this project. From the looks of things, the team seems to be down to Az and I. If we don't rally up some troops soon, this mod may not see the light of day.

I've already made a choice on where I stand. My position seems to be more of a Tinkerer than I am a Lead Programmer. I think it was Ori that said that we really need to assign specific tasks. Develop a goal list and see how serious people are about helping or at least see how capable they are.

We need a no BS assessment of what has been contributed to this project so far, what we need, and who we need to get things done. The Contributions I can confirm are:

Javokis - Designed Gameplay concepts, established rough draft of plot up to the point of Christof's embrace.
Azreal - 55% completion of high-definition Christof model with screen shots.

Things we need:

• Programmers willing to assist and train in developing GUIs, gameplay systems, and a basic backbone for the mod.
• Mappers familiar with the Source's hammer tool to assist in building the following locations:

• Open Battlefield similar in design to the intro cut scene of VTMR
• New two story convent design that is semi-historically accurate to 12th century Prague.
• 12th century old town of Prague with a more historically accurate town clock.
• Jewish Quarter - the new plot needs this early.
• Terrain passage to the mountains heading to the Silver Mines
• 2 levels of the Silver Mines design similar in concept to the mines in HL2 Episode 2 + a 3rd level with an Aliens theme.

The above list can be cut down into more maps of interior buildings, assuming a hub script is ever implemented.

• Modelers with knowledge of the XSI tool set who can make animations and facial expressions with lip sync work in HL2. Models must be in high-definition quality matching HL2 model details. The following models are needed:

• Christof in brethren uniform and wounded jammies - currently being done by Az
• Anezka - maybe we should just use Alex as a base.
• Arch Bishop Geza
• Juri the Smithy
• Unorna the Gypsy
• Christof's brethren partner(s)
• Ahzra - that new design concept that is written about
• Wilhem
• Ecaterina
• Generic Nuns
• Generic Priests
• Generic crusaders equipped with proper satire.
• Pagan barbarians
• Szlachta - preferably some new designs that are wicked and alien
• Inquisition officers
• Knights of St. John
• Peasants with a mixed flavor of diseased, dying, and dead variations.
• Vozhd

Basically, we need models and maps as priority. A new gameplay modification can wait. Thoughts?

[Azraelthe7th]

Fantastic layout.  I have a friend who could help out for the programming, but he'd need to know what he'd have to do.

I agree that we mostly need models first, at least to have something concrete going on.  That way, we can easily build more interest in the project and find more help for this thing to progress.

[Javokis]

I just contacted Xaltar to see if he's interested in our project. He's been rather inactive here, but at least we can check on him from time to time and see if he's still alive.

[Xaltar]

HAHAAAAAA

Alive and sleepy as fuck with my 11 month old daughter teething hehe.

I have never used XSI but I am pretty proficient in 3ds max and can save to OBJ format if someone else can rig and port my work into the engine. Only issue there is that the engines perspective render is never the same as the modeling app. Quite annoying. I guess I could do high poly sculpts and models still though. I could take on Anezka to start off with, I have a few female bases already modeled so it shouldn't be too hard. Just time consuming doing both a low poly and a high poly sculpt + textures and normals baking.

Anyways, let me know if you are interested.

This should be fun

[Azraelthe7th]

Hey Xaltar! Long time no see!

For exporting stuff into Softimage, there's a program that's bundled that allows easy transfer of all data from one program to another.  I think it's called crossover, but I can't remember for sure.

Also, there's a number of plugins that allow exportation from 3DS Max into Source, so there's not an obligation to work with Softimage per-se.

[Xaltar]

Ah, but my problem lies in rigging

I can model and texture almost anything but I have yet to get into rigging/animation. I have been focusing on my skills in asset creation rather than prepping stuff for ingame use....

[Javokis]

That's great. I'm hoping you can make Anezka look a lot like Alex from HL2 as kind of an Easter egg, That way I can continue to worship her in another game. lol

[Azraelthe7th]

We could just export the model and stick it in a nun suit. 

[ORI]

Im good with rigging and animation I use Maya or Blender though and im mostly engaged in making animated and not so animated films nowdays.(I study CG & Animation)

 I found I dont like the Avid style interface much(and XSI is made by the same company that made Avid apperantly), so Premier , Maya and After Effects FTW..

I admit though that I dont care that much for HL2(since its harder to mod game engines that are rigged to be shooters to act like RPG).
So I wonder what you guys think of rendering the pseudo 3d animation into Flash CS3/CS4(like rendering footage of a character walkcycle from 4-6 angels so you can have it move in isometric space in flash) and making a WoD turn based game with Flash ActionScript?(Fairly easy to write in and there are no engine limitation there either)..?

Since flash can recieve any footage and convert it to frames, so you can incorporate frame by frame animation into the visual style where is needed and create extesive GUI very easily.

Some semi-relevant examples:

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/84042 = here is one example (that might look better if the actors and enviroment were made with quality 3d animation).

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/439824 = 3d shooter game made in Flash.

Notes:
*I bring these examples more as tech examples so dont mind the (cheap) visual style.
*I think that if you go this way you can make the project with a team of 4 people and it wont take ages to make or modify after+ the team is not limited on what program they make their graphics in.

[Javokis]

The plans were already written for HL2 so flash is out. Though I wouldn't mind that flash program you were talking about making for Wodal.

We got a C/C++ programmer interested in joining us. He left contact info here:

http://forumplanet.gamespy.com/redemption_general_discussion/b50394/10187500/p8/?181

Az7th: You might want to look into this guy.

[ORI]

If you mean the character generator for WoDal I started a while back  I still have it somewhere,  the GUI elements are pretty much ready but I learned some more actionscript since and I want to use the AS3 Object Oriented Programming to make it less cluncky and easier to extend.

Unfortuntaly right now at semester end I have more pressing tasks for studies that include:

* 1 storyboard
* 2 animated classic short movies + 1 flash character walkcycle and lipsync
* 1 non animated cinematic short movie(that includes finalizing an accurate storyboard, finding actors,deciding on location, the actual shoot and the editing and post work)
* 1 After Effects movie intro
* 3d animated short movie

So thats tons of work and all sorts of wild actionscript experiments pretty much take the last priority 

[Javokis]

Your homework sounds a lot more fun than mine.

[Azraelthe7th]

We now have SirLucan on board for the programming aspect of the mod.  I'm almost done with the high-res Szlacta model, after which I'll export the normal map to the lower-res model, after which I'll finish up the textures on it and Christof, then proceed to rigging.

If we could have some sort of test room to try things out in the engine, that'd be nice.

[Javokis]

Ok I just changed Sir Lucan's group settings so he should be able see this section now.

[Azraelthe7th]

Looks like he's not interested in working on this anymore.

I'm thinking we could use an already existing mod that uses Lua scripting, or maybe even change engines.