(1) Project Y4: A Total Conversion

[indomitable1319]

I lol'd at 'Please Die'.

 

[Deolrin]

tleno, also note that RDZ is not known as an expert texture artist. Perhaps this IS the best he can do. I am sure he has his own refined style however, and if you ask me, the textures look great. It makes the game seem different compared to Warcraft 3, which is surely a minor goal of his.

 

[Tleno]

Well as I already said, I do prefer this style to more detalised one. Oh, I finally found the word I meant o say instead of cartoonish. Digital.
So I kinda like this digital style a lot...

 

[Rao Dao Zao]

I love the artstyle must say I wasn't sure the engine was capable of that!

I'm actually doing everything very much with what the engine can and can't do in mind. There is a balance to be struck between making it do good things while not pushing too hard and ending up with the unnatural or ridiculous.

How long did you take to make the models?

Hrmm. Today, I drew a small HoverCon "Hunter-Killer" drone on the bus on the way in to work (~15 minutes), modelled and UV-mapped it in about 50 minutes over lunch hour... Okay, it's only 172 triangles and has very few moving parts, and the texture is obviously pre-made (and I still need to export and finalise; Magos' and YobGul's refuse to operate on my work laptop), but I can go fast when I know what I want.

Remember that a lot of the artwork has been in place a long time. Project Y4 comes from Series Y4 -- most of which was built over the last couple of years. The work is often just re-conditioning older models so that they match up to today's standards, and after a certain age that isn't a lot of work (though prepping the really old stuff can be hilarious/soul destroying).

That's why I love low-poly modelling -- there's no fucking around, just batter batter batter at the vertices and the triangles and you have something. Instant gratification.

So anyway hope the current syle will stay, I just love it.

So you prefer cartoonish but like what I've done? Make your mind up, man!

I am completely satisfied with what I have so far in terms of artwork. Yes, the textures are not perfect, but they are perfectly consistent. Even Olof Moleman conceded that it all actually looks pretty cool when everything is consistent, and he's a hard man to please.

Perhaps this IS the best he can do. I am sure he has his own refined style however, and if you ask me, the textures look great. It makes the game seem different compared to Warcraft 3, which is surely a minor goal of his.

I know my limits, and these all feed back into the whole. I know I'm not perfect at texturing, I know I'm not perfect at modelling, but I have adopted a style that plays to this (along with technical constraints, efficiency concerns and a liberal helping of modernism). I'm not going to strive to go over-the-top and fail horribly, or end up with some clusterfuck -- I'm going to make something simple, effective, but above all achievable.

If that means sitting at this level, so be it. I have no need nor desire to go any further at this stage.

That is what Project Y4 is about. It's about achieving something. Not once have I set my sights on a feature I could not implement, nor a model I could not make. I've worked with this game for more than seven years; I know a fair bit (though, as the WC3C IRC crew will no doubt delight in tellng, still not quite enough).

And this is why I won't burn out and give up. This is not some over-blown sixty-man project with a billion campaigns and the Best Jass Evar. This is me.

[/rant]

 

[Miss_Foxy]

Haha, awesome.

 

[Tleno]

I think you didn't understood me, I meant to say your style is bit cartoonish (Don't want to make you beg me to die or something, but it kinda does remind of Team Fortress 2), though that wasn't the word that I really meant, I was more thinking about word digital.

So anyway, I think your current style is great, it fits the industrial sci-fi with mechs theme a lot.

 

[Gausslander]

Might I suggest some edited blizzard cliffs to help with the flow? It looks like a map that could use some definite man-made elevation if you ask me. Especially in a "maze"-type scenario. Without any, it'd seem a little odd as a defensive stronghold.

 

[Rao Dao Zao]

Might I suggest some edited blizzard cliffs to help with the flow? It looks like a map that could use some definite man-made elevation if you ask me. Especially in a "maze"-type scenario. Without any, it'd seem a little odd as a defensive stronghold.

To be honest, I did try to replace the blizz cliffs -- I wanted to adjust the natural cliffs to match all the columnar basalt thing I've got going, and there are (as you are surely aware) glaring graphical anomalies with the city cliffs I was intent on bypassing.

Unfortunately, there isn't a single thing I can do about the disgusting lighting artefacts -- even welded vertices are powerless against whatever bizarre bullshit WC3 pulls on the terrain. I decided that it wasn't worth the effort to replace every cliff variation when the worst problems (the lighting/shadow madness) simply could not be solved.

There is actually quite a lot of elevation in the map, more than is perhaps immediately visible in all the screenshots. I'm at cliff level 6 in some of the pits and go up to 14 for some of the outer areas. The main facility is mostly at 8, but there are plaps at 9 and the Hill in the centre tops 11; you do get to go on top of a number of "buildings". Obviously the natural outer areas are a little bit lumpier, but the facility itself isn't as perfectly uniform as it looks.

I have looked into using the raise/lower for natural areas, but I'm not sure it works with other graphical elements like the fact mechs don't tilt on slopes (I'd rather their feet sink into the ground a bit than they pitch and yaw like mad things, it's a deliberate choice).

So rather than making the terrain physically lumpy, I am using rocky walkable destructibles (as illustrated in the attached screenshot) to break up the flat terrain segments a bit. I feel that the angular crazy-paving style of these rocks fits the rest of the art style much better than smoothly sloping terrain. It also has the advantage of adding "tile variation" without actually adding it at all (since WC3's tiles are pretty big for just adding little dirt splodges).

You're right about the maze levels, they are very flat and rigid right now. I'm considering switching the maze algorithm to a wall-based instead of tile-based so I can maybe play with variations of tiles (like different kinds of corners that achieve the same thing pathing-wise but are visually different). Maybe I can I adapt what I've got, we'll need to see. Certainly not very sure about adding height to the generated mazes, though I would really like to do so.

In terms of a defensive stronghold, I've actually done it completely wrong -- the facility is in a large crater, and has a defensive wall inside the base of the crater. But it's way too late to fix that, so I'm just going to roll with it and hope nobody notices.

[/Collossal wall of text], I hope you're happy.

 

[Miss_Foxy]

The pic looks nice, like a meteor just landed.

 

[Rao Dao Zao]

I want to introduce to you the ability to... make choices.
I have been fleshing out the "HoverCon" side-quest (line).

For those that don't know, HoverCon is the name of a Lego model I made a long long time ago. It was a hover car, but it was a con -- there were hidden wheels underneath (I have a remake in LDD if you want). Fast forward... ten? More?... years, and HoverCon are a rival corporation to RDZ Industries that specialise in hover-tanks and the like.

So HoverCon hear that EY43 has gone kaput; naturally, they're interested in a bit of corporate espionage, wanting to take a little nosy around the base.

The first part of the quest will be pretty straight forward: battle through the HCHK drones and destroy the HCPT that's producing them. Repel the invasion, a simple offense segment against hasty emplacements and attacking drones.

When the porta-factory is destroyed, HoverCon will call a cease fire, allowing you to interrogate their leader (who drives the saw-wielding HoverCon D).

Once you've done the standard data-mining, you get to make a choice: ask them quietly but firmly to leave, or tear them a new one and make sure they never tell anyone anything.

Of course, choosing to attack leads on to a "boss" fight. Asking them to leave results in nothing (immediate); naturally, management will like you more because this is what they told you to do.

Later on, there will be a second HoverCon quest -- a scout who was captured and was being held in the facility before the current events... Depending on your earlier choice, you will have to retrieve and either save or kill this scout (with all the problems each eventuality might entail).

I also have a similar choice for the "criminals" sub-quest: you can choose to drop the smuggled bounty and wander off (with a large sum of money) or you can kill the criminal scum (and get later rewards from management for being a good boy).

I will not implement choices for the main quest line; only sidies. I've got to maintain core canon for potential sequels/spin-offs/related merchandise.

 

[Miss_Foxy]

I don't quite get what you mean though, but it sounds good

 

[Tleno]

Yes, it means we'll be able to choose from two possibilityies in some missions, leading to different objectives and rewards.

 

[Miss_Foxy]

Oh, that's interesting

 

[Tleno]

Yea, that's actually just like with Starcraft 2 multiple choose missions... erm not sure how you'll react on mentioning SC2, RDZ, but I just couldn't stand without saying that.

Wait, and wil there be parts where we'll just have to choose the reward and nothing more? Like a gun A or gun B, or just cash.

 

[Rao Dao Zao]

Yea, that's actually just like with Starcraft 2 multiple choose missions... erm not sure how you'll react on mentioning SC2, RDZ, but I just couldn't stand without saying that.

Wait, and wil there be parts where we'll just have to choose the reward and nothing more? Like a gun A or gun B, or just cash.

SC2 wasn't the first to allow you to make choices and it won't be the last.

Yes, there is the obligatory collect-the-ore-and-then-choose-a-sword-or-shield quest. A tarochite meteor broke up in EY's meagre atmosphere

The rewards from the real choice quests will be more... nebulous. If you attack the HoverCon people, you will obviously (on winning the fight) get to salvage the bodies -- meaning you can pick up the saw-blades off the HoverCon D. But then the second quest might come up and if you let the HoverCon people go, they might come back to help you later; whereas, for killing them and the scout, you get nothing but management goodwill.

Nothing is particularly final just yet, but that's where I intend to go. Unlike SC2, I'm not going to go "baww pick Nova or pick Tosh baww" with obvious outcomes. If I hadn't told you about the choices here, then you wouldn't even have known they were coming.

 

[Miss_Foxy]

This map seems so awesome already, and it'll greatly contribute to the Warcraft III community, good job

 

[Tleno]

I know it's not the first one, but that's the first to come in my mind...
And wouldn't it be better to give the HoverCon D blades to your boss, gaining some reward instead? Like if you're not exactly the swa-blade kind of a person, wouldn't it be nice if your generous boss would give you something you'd prefer more than this big heavy blade?

 

[Deolrin]

Why WOULDN'T you want to use giant saw blades?

 

[Rao Dao Zao]

And wouldn't it be better to give the HoverCon D blades to your boss, gaining some reward instead? Like if you're not exactly the swa-blade kind of a person, wouldn't it be nice if your generous boss would give you something you'd prefer more than this big heavy blade?

Why WOULDN'T you want to use giant saw blades?

This.

Okay, after a certain point, they're going to be obsolete in favour of saw waves or tarobium blades and such-like. And then they're roughly equivalent to the projector blades, which do less damage but allow faster attacks; so yes, the saws may not fit your play style.

But hey, HoverCon are a rival corporation, you can't expect them to do everything the way you want it. They're here for a quick smash-'n'-grab, not to make your every dream come true. If the kit's not up to snuff, well, you'll just have to make that call for yourself.

You can also sell old equipment for scrap at repair stations if you really want to. But items like the HoverCon saws will be unique, so if you sell them, they're gone for good.

 

[Miss_Foxy]

What's HoverCon?

 

[Deolrin]

Miss_Foxy, where were you when he wrote this?

For those that don't know, HoverCon is the name of a Lego model I made a long long time ago. It was a hover car, but it was a con -- there were hidden wheels underneath (I have a remake in LDD if you want). Fast forward... ten? More?... years, and HoverCon are a rival corporation to RDZ Industries that specialise in hover-tanks and the like.

 

[Tleno]

Hope she just got short memory...

 

[Rao Dao Zao]

When one makes a giant wall of text, all paragraphs tend to blur together. I should know, if I take my glasses off I can't even tell there's text on the screen, let alone a wall of it.

I have been working on upgrading the maze system. The maze is now composed of 12x12 cells instead of 4x4 cells; while this does reduce the overall maziness of the maze, it means I can add in variations of each maze tile to add a bit of visual interest. Much as I love the blocks, they don't leave a lot of room for other elements.

I have also touched up the computer interface a bit with a line-break. Adds a bit of colour to the general whiteness. I might try to add in some more interface elements, but I'm not sure if I can be bothered, since every time I add some new control character I have to re-format and regenerate every single computer screen (it's not pleasant).

BONUS: Paintwork based on the artwork of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark's latest album History of Modern.

 

[Miss_Foxy]

Wow! Those are really good looking stuff, it looks so real, I'm really amused by this project, bless it!

 

[Rao Dao Zao]

I have finally bought Fraps and recorded a small teaser trailer.

I will make more videos as the fancy takes me.

 

[Vengeancekael]

Tehehhehe. NOT HD? NO!

 

[Tleno]

One word: Yes. Or no. it's probably the best total conversion in Warcraft 3 I've ever seen!

 

[Miss_Foxy]

Sorry... I won't say that again...

 

[Rao Dao Zao]

I have written a blog that may be of some interest to anyone that bawws about art style. You don't have to agree with all of my reasoning, but at least understand that this is why RDZ Industries looks the way it does, and why I'm not going to change for anyone: Blog 439: Form Defined By Function Y4

Sorry... I won't say that again...

Say what?

 

[Miss_Foxy]

Lol. Say things that were posted

 

[indomitable1319]

Miss_Foxy, wrong thread.
I think that was supposed to be on the Paranoia thread.

 

[Rao Dao Zao]

Sometimes, (especially with Lego) the most fun thing about making a model is tearing it to pieces afterwards.

 

[Gausslander]

That's a cool decay. Do all robots just fade away after death or do they explode/fall into little pieces too?

 

[WherewolfTherewolf]

I spy rep gems!

 

[Tleno]

Sometimes, (especially with Lego) the most fun thing about making a model is tearing it to pieces afterwards.

I like building sophisticated structures and removing the most immportant parts...

Wherewolf, where you got that from? Wait, did you resized the original pic?

 

[Rao Dao Zao]

That's a cool decay. Do all robots just fade away after death or do they explode/fall into little pieces too?

I really really want to make them all explode into little pieces, but I'm not sure I have the energy to go through with it -- it would take time and effort (and god damn particleemitter1s are collossal shitpiles to work with/using the Milkshape Explode plugin is a bit inconvenient) that I'm not sure that I have.

Only special units leave behind wreckage; your AP-AM (whose wreckage will contain everything that was in your cargo hold ) and this special opponent "Countermeasure". I might leave some wreckage for a couple of the earlier boss units too, not sure yet.

Wreckages are independent neutral passive units that remain until destroyed.

Of course the dream would be for everything to leave wreckage, but that would quickly become a pathing nightmare -- I don't want to make the wreckage instantly attackable, so it hangs around, but I've got no known/convenient way of making enemies explicitly clear paths through wreckage that blocks them from the next waypoint. And making wreckage have no pathing is just cheap (looking at you, Supreme Commander).

I spy rep gems!

Hidden tags, Whenwolf, hidden tags.

The generic gemstone design existed long before reputation.

 

[Gausslander]

I understand the frustration behind the concept, really.
And fading death animations have been used in countless professional games and modifications, so it's fine.

I do agree that Supreme Commander's debris are somewhat retarded, and that they can be mined pointlessly for mass (which, no one does, because it's a waste of time). But adding wreckage to certain enemies does create mementos for the player, allowing them to remember the scale of the battles that ignited between them and other players/computers. Personally, when I kill countless enemies in a FPS, RTS, or RPG, I love it when the creators make the bodies stay--it makes it so much more real and grotesque.

 

[Rao Dao Zao]

I do agree that Supreme Commander's debris are somewhat retarded, and that they can be mined pointlessly for mass (which, no one does, because it's a waste of time). But adding wreckage to certain enemies does create mementos for the player, allowing them to remember the scale of the battles that ignited between them and other players/computers. Personally, when I kill countless enemies in a FPS, RTS, or RPG, I love it when the creators make the bodies stay--it makes it so much more real and grotesque.

I think the counter here is that SupCom battles occur over a very wide area, whereas the paths of Facility EY43 are relatively cramped, and frequently traversed by you and the drones. While the first battle or two might be okay, perma-wreckage will soon build up to obscene levels.

I could probably quite easily use WC3's normal corpse system, but as noted before, pathingless wreckage is really cheap (unless it's a particularly small unit that just died). If I could make some kind of generic "machine giblets" to scatter around (with variations, so the same units didn't always leave identical corpses), so that there was at least some evidence of the dead unit that remained for a while... Hmmm...

 

[Callahan]

You can activate group separation on the corpse unit.They will repulse each other like flying units.

 

[Miss_Foxy]

I like the idea of mining on remains, however, it's quite unique and actually gives a lot more realism to it too, so I support your idea

 

[Tleno]

Hmmm, scavanging. I like that.
You know, making scrap very vulnerable and easily destroyable may make it pretty intresting, I mean imagine a player beeing forced not to attack enemies near to the scrap and avoiding those when fighting splashy enemies himself just to get a bigger reward from salvaging more scrap... that would be cool... not to mention sending some of scrap to your company's researchers might lead to them discovereing a crucial weakness of some model you can exploit, or just beeing able to rebuild the scrap into something functional...

 

[Deolrin]

Wait, I don't get it, when did he mention you could SALVAGE the scraps? I thought that he meant small 'machine giblets' as in the remains of a mech, like when Starcraft 2 units die. So instead of a huge and mostly complete wreckage, you'll have tiny bits of metal all over the ground.

 

[Tleno]

Well I'm sure collecting small pieces from dead enemies would be Salvaging too.

 

[Rao Dao Zao]

There will not be salvaging. We were just discussing SupCom because it's the most obvious example of perma-wreckage in a real game. The only method of getting money is by completing objectives (i.e. main plot quests, escorting civilians out of the base, etc).

The wreckage of the AP-AM contains everything that was in your cargo hold, so there is an incentive to track down your old dead bodies and destroy them to unlock those items. The wreckage of Countermeasure may hold some kind of bonus, but I'm not sure what yet.

The only thing I want to add to generic drones is some visual trace that dead units leave behind so their existences are a little less fleeting. This comes with the aforementioned clutter/pathing/decay time issues mentioned above.

 

[Gausslander]

How about havving corpses leave behind a wrecked cockpit or lifepod facing a random angle? That way you could use the same model for all destroyed vehicles by merely changing the size of the wrecked lifepod?

 

[Rao Dao Zao]

I have remade the teaser trailer longer and better (i.e. I took more than five minutes to make it this time).

Lots of new footage, dramatic intro stuff... Hopefully you will enjoy.

 

[Vengeancekael]

Son of a-
Thank god I stopped modding the game, you're just smacking everyone in the face.

 

[Deolrin]

The drones exploding...
Win.

 

[Linaze]

Thank you RDZ's mother for your son.

 

[AntoMarc]

A RDZ project! Now that's something to get excited about. Looks great so far. =)