half life 2, unreal 2k4 mods?

Tom Hatfield · Post by **Tom Hatfield** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 5:34 pm

That sounds really fun. So you're full-bore teaching now? Awesome.

Well, okay. What you've mentioned involves zero scripting whatsoever, so you shouldn't have any problem learning and using the tools to build maps and import models. UnrealEd triggers are fairly powerful — everything is powerful, for that matter. (You would not believe how many options a particle emitter has.) You can also have 'use' triggers, where the player must press a key to activate it, as opposed to walking over it, pushing into it, etc.

Setting aside the interface for now, you would only need to script new pickups. Even without a full-blown inventory, you'd still need to script and model new actors so they could show up in the level and have rudimentary behavior (e.g., can be picked up). I believe you can make triggers dependent on the presence of an actor — a key, for example — but I'm not sure about this, and we may have to expand an existing trigger to add this functionality. Fortunately, inheritance is one of UnrealScript's easiest and strongest features.

That's another point I wanted to make: we wouldn't be replacing existing scripts; we would be adding more scripts. A general rule of modding is that you don't touch what's already there because it will break the existing game, so instead we expand that material and put our new stuff in its own package. It gets more complicated when you're adding new concepts, like melee weapons and shields, rune-driven magic, visible inventory, etc.

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 6:34 am

concept for screamer replacement

moo

Post by **Gambit37** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 10:47 am

Awesome, love that! Your art has improved so much in the last couple of years. I'd be pretty scared fighting that beastie...

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 1:34 am

got some dungeon elements to design now.. and build and animate this guy.. it's going fairly quickly concidering my schedule.

you know.. I happen to know this guy who did some really nice textures for a laura croft game that could be real handy about now

moo

Post by **Gambit37** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 1:53 am

What do you need? Maximum size i've got is only 256x256 though....

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 5:10 am

well, I need to work out some ideas for architecture.. some things that will allow me to be close to the old DM but new enough to not seem like just a basic update..

looking at pages like this for inspiration..

http://www.picture-newsletter.com/chillon/

Tom Hatfield · Post by **Tom Hatfield** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 3:31 pm

Hmm. It looks more like it should be a whole new monster. I kind of like the screamer's mushroom look, and it would be nice if you tried to stay as close as possible to the original designs so they're recognizable — as you said, but not so new that they look entirely different. That tentacle thingy could be a shocking new surprise, something that whips at you from a distance, or maybe shoots thorns, so you have to take it out with ranged attacks/spells. Maybe it could also have a crushing grasp . . . food for scripting. Looks good though.

Time for real work. Bleh.

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 3:51 pm

well, just as the pirate is my replacement for the mummy, this is my replacement for the screamer. neither is like the orriginal.. in fact the mummy replacement is more like the skeletons.. but I've and idea for those guys already..

moo

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 8:38 am

did annother one.. rock golum replacement..

weirdest thing.. lots of this new stuff I've been doinglately is on the bus in my sketchbook. Something I hardly ever touch these days.. and now suddenly I've gotten some really nice stuff out of it.. weird, and here I was claiming the other day that I only work directly on the computer.. that using paper is a waste of my time

mooo

zoom · Post by **zoom** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 1:20 pm

Hey, looks really good

! !

Yeah, paper is different from computer painting .. keep going to paper occasionallly, it is no waste of time, a waste of choice/fun more.

I saw once on tv, that writing emails leaves your brain cool(not much active zones) whereas writing a real letter on paper would activate many regions/zones in your brain!) Maybe some of that is true for computer drawing and "real" paper drawings..

Tom Hatfield · Post by **Tom Hatfield** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 9:21 pm

Could be. I used to doodle all the time by hand, and I seemed more motivated back then. Maybe it's because writing demands finer motor skills, whereas typing is just a lot of clickity-clack and sharp movements. Not sure what to make of the paper/wacom disparity. I have been doing more notebook/whiteboard design these days. Maybe that will improve my general attitude and stir the creative juices.

I had to remove UT2004 because I'm running out of drive space. Hopefully I'll be able to order a new hard-drive this weekend, and that should alleviate storage problems for at least a couple more years. (I'd also like to get more RAM and a faster CPU, but I'll have to look at my budget first. The RAM I can afford; the CPU is pricy.)