War Games: Trinity 1 & 2 - Maps + MO

[Rman Virgil]

Ok I'm working on it.

* Rock-in music to my ears.... and, I have no doubt, anyone who has seen your art, plays WZ & loves the game's ever formard march on the road of resurrection.

- Cheers, /R\m/a\n/ \V/i\r/g\i/l\ 

[Rman Virgil]

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* Working on the "Trinity" machinima I've looked hither and yon for inspiration.... to keep my juices flowing and my perspective revitalized.

* I've played WZ a lot over the years (more than I care to calculate) and I still do.... esp because I'm working on this project (though I dare say I've not played Lan MP since I hit the road last year with my job and left my Lan party buds back in Den., CO.).

* In truth there is only one other game I've played with equal fervor over these years and that's Bungies "Halo" series.

* So recently I turned to "Halo 3" in-game movies for a boost: ... this was just released ... an 11 min movie.... WOW !

* From there I went to the latest in-game movie for "Halo Wars"... the RTS being built by Ensemble Studios (who are also one of favorite game devs along with Bungie) in the "Halo" game-world pre Halo1: ... this 10 min in-game "Halo Wars" RTS movie was released the end of last month.... ....... HOLY CHIT !!!!!

* Needless to say I got I nice dose of inspiration. 


- Cheers, /R\m/a\n/ \V/i\r/g\i/l\  ;D

[Serman]

So when is this mod gonna be ready?  ;D

[Rman Virgil]

So when is this mod gonna be ready?  ;D

* A date I cannot give.

* What I can say for sure is that I carry on steadily because it makes me happy to work on it, I 'm commited to its completion and when it's done I will set it free from my laptop.

* For a few weeks I'll be scarce. Work is taking me from Salt Lake, Utah to Seattle, Wash. I leave in a matter of hours as part of caravan of 4-trucks full of equipment. At the end of 830 + miles I have to set-up ops and settle myself into a home away from home - where ?, I don't even know yet !  (my Home Base is Denver, CO & I've been there only 3 weeks in the last 12 months.)

* Such as it is my extracurricular activites suffer a little bit with these transitions. But, I get back to it. It's fun, afterall.

- L8rs, RV

[Rman Virgil]

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* K.... here's the deal...

* After reading Watermelon's siggy for weeks I finally got around to investigating its meaning for myself.... Also that bit I encountered back in Feb' 07 while play-testing  working versions of "Trinity 1 & 2" that could cause CTDs on que I've recently learned by accident has been officially acknowledged and is still an outstanding issue that is being worked-on code-wise.

* (Btw for those of you working on new wz toys aka content, these forums in no way address in a readily coherent fashion what is going on right now that might adversely affect the Map/Mods your presently laboring over. Indeed, to the point of making them obsolete & unsupportable before your done or after your done - is there any diff your gonna have to ask yourself.)

* Be advised - redos from the ground-up look to be inevitable. As long as your aware of that going into it and can still enjoy the process - all to the good. But if you expect what your working on now to be playable  6 months from now, 8 months, a year and so on - I don't think so.

* If I'm mistaken, please, anybody who is in the WZ code playground correct me.

* That said, for me personally I'm only gonna work on the "Trinity Machinima" for release - the assets I've already completed & am currently working on will only be good to that end, which is fine by me as that is satisfying a sandbox to play-in & cannot be broken or rendered obsolete by what is going on with the code base.

* As far as "Trinity" assets for others to game SP & MP, I'll re-examine how to proceed in '08 or after the WZ SP game (CAM) is broken - whichever comes first.

* At this point I'm working on re-constituteing the "Rocky Mountain" tertiles so I can start re-shooting (as well writing "Triggers" for the new shoot & voice-over narration.)

* Looks like I'll be in Seattle for only this week getting my SLC Team properly situated & fielded & then re-deploy by myself back to Den, CO to finish up the project in Grand Junction & the Springs. Sweet, as Den is my HQ

RV

[Rman Virgil]

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* Everybody has their own tastes but even as .pcx I liked bricks.

* As far as their rationale in a war-torn future world like WZ 2120..... that was real easy to come up with & convincing too.  ::)

* I'll give it up if you ask.

* Here's an in-game shot running the 1.10 .exe (.pcx tertiles / rj set) on an unreleased CAM map. I actually built a "Mangodai City / Coloseum" useing tertiles for structs - something I learned from HB..... in other words, these "bricks" were pure textures and NOT Feature Models. I've not converted anything to the new .png format - I take it as an artifact of history, and frankly, going back doesn't exactly thrill me. 

- RV 

[Rman Virgil]

The funny thing is I remember seeing this a long time ago, so thank you for bringing back fond memories. 

* Fond memories indeed - so many related to WZ, the peeps who have loved the game thru the years, wore the heart on their sleave & did so much to keep the spirit alive with their creativity & ingenuity thru the lean times.

* Yep... I used the image once before some years back (suprised anybody would remember - net time being what it is) to illustrate some simple technisques that could be used to fill the void between FMV briefs & the Prima game walk-thru. After a while I stopped because I couldn't get answers to key implementation questions.

* In any case, when I shoot screens I do it the way I used to with 35mm film & a  motor-driven camera (yep, I'm pre-digital, but I do now have a 10 mega Pixel) - literally hundreds of images resulting that I weed thru ruthlessly, discarding all but a handful that I then preserve & look at once in awhile like you would an album of family snaps.

* Now that I'm more focused on Machinima I storyboard my FM shoots with more planning than I did my stills. I'll still do a bunch of screen-stills to get my Machinima angles, panning, swipes, cuts & close-ups down which I then assemble as part of my storyboarding.

* It's all rewarding, fun, even the stuff that gets tossed or will never see the light of day. Running the gauntlet is always an enabler on the other side - raising the stakes & revealing the new set of challenges that await those who are insatiably curious.

- RV

[Rman Virgil]

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* For the sake of comparison...


* This 1st gfx cap was done in v.1.10 on a Mongodai Cam Map (I used transparencies in "struct" tertiles... like the "jungle" one on the left):






* The next 4 caps were done in WRP build on "Trinity 2" before I started changing out key tertiles & rolling the extreme terrain / elevation vertices (I did this with an elevation of 3 - the "Cliff-Face" tertile stretching I can't do a dang thing about):
















* NOW go straight to Grim's thread "New HQ and other PIEs" to see far superior tertiles, models & gfx......


- RV



EDIT:..... On the Trinity Machinima front - next weekend I'll post a snippet of the sound track I'm working on. It's all original music & SFX that I'm creating on my Parker custom NightFly Delux (reversed-out sunburst body), running through a BOSS foot-pedal effects bay and a Fender Chorus Amp... some other stuff I've made on my Roland PMA-5.... the voices are moi too.)

[Rman Virgil]

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* Obviously this project is close to my heart, entwined would be no exaggeration.

* However, there is a far more significant WZ project i'd like very much to contribute to that will positively impact WZ's evolving future ("Trinity" will be influenced as well by it, down the road).

* So.... i'm suspending all "Trinity" work till '08 (inc the Machinima) to focus all my attention on this other WZ Project (doing both is not possible with what spare time I have, it's all good though).

* "Trinity" will still be relevant (for me, anyway) in '08 - even more so, actually, with what i'll have to work with (way beyond anything generally available right now).

* There's such fabulous stuff to look foward to in WZ's immediate future that you probably won't even miss my putting "Trinity" on the back-burner. Heck, as I'm getting into this other WZ Project I'm not missing it much myself, to be honest. The new canvas is vast, unconstrained by tunnel-vision, stageringly gorgeous & utterly inspiring. We'll CYA all there, I imagine.

- RV

[Rman Virgil]

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* Wouldn't it be sweet if the WZ Rocky Mountain .tertiles bared a resemblance to these shots I took in Grand Junction, Colorado, last weekend ?

* Sure would. 








Cheers, RV  ::)

[Rman Virgil]

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* Something I forgot to mention that I thought was interesting related to the landscapes in the pix above..

* My job took me to Grand Junction to work on a project for the Qwest Telco so in addtion to coordinating a sub-contractor team , i also had an assistent from my company.

* To make a longer story short, the landscape really made an impression and I talked about it quite a bit to the fellas I was working with - how I'd like to see some of these textures & features in WZ and so forth.

* But here is the interesting twist..

* A couple of the guys, independent of each other, said this:

* "Ya know those mountains & cliff faces remind of some other worldly  landscapes I've seen in Sci Fi movies..."

* By gosh, no chit, they did indeed...

* Which got me to wondering:

* "What would Lav think... vis-a-vis his Mars Maps.....?"

- Cheers, RV

[Rman Virgil]

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* Many components of this "Trinity" Project are being transfered / subsumed / rolled into a far more ambitious project presently code-named: Warzone 2200.

* I'm making an assumption that I'd like some feedback on from afficionados of WZ 2100 & it concerns what i'm dubbing informed story-telling.

* This is specifically to distinguish the Fantasy, Soft & Hard  Sci Fi.

* As far as WZ 2200 I'm taking more of a Asimov / Heinlein / Varley / Jame P. Hogan / Larry Niven approach than say an Orson Scott Card / George R.R. Martin / Theodore Sturgeon / Philip Jose Farmer approach because I think (& THIS is the assumption) those into WZ 2100 are of that bent / school of narrative under-pinning from what I can tell over the years - that is what is called  a "Harder" Sci Fi.

* Which is to say that the extrapolations into the future are more strictly based in current knowledge / hard science than a speculative, fantastic, style of yarn-weaving.

* So the question now becomes -  is that a fair assumption ?

* Do WZ fans favor that approach over the more Tolkienesque story-telling ?

* Feel free to express your favortism.

- Thanx, RV

[medavox]

I love Heinlein and Asimov, have heard of larry niven, but the rest are complete strangers to me.
Does that confirm your point?

(incidentally, I'm currently trying to read LOTR after enjoying the films, but it's like climbing a mountain.....so many words!)

medavox

[Rman Virgil]

I love Heinlein and Asimov, have heard of larry niven, but the rest are complete strangers to me.

* Heinlein I love too as a reader. As a wordsmith he is one of my principle masters in crafting Sci Fi.

* There are many who are claimed to be his successor (like Charles Sheffield, Ben Bova, & so on, who are quite good) but for me the one author whose work created a very similar magic was James P. Hogan in his "Gentle Giants of Ganymeade" Trilogy - I think you'd like it too.

* Another author to look into would be John Varley - his "Gaia" Trilogy & his short story collections. His concepts & entwined story crafting are absolutely "mind-blowing" & unforgetable (I read his novella "The Persistence of Vision" over 15 years ago & thinking about it now can still bring tears to my eyes).

Does that confirm your point?

* Hehe.... yup it does.

* What is likely gonna happen is that I'm gonna have to trust my instincts (as well as those of my able collaborators). We use to have great discussions along these lines with Pumpkin Heads back in the day. WZ itself was inspired & informed by literary & philosophical works which I got to know during those discussions.

(incidentally, I'm currently try
ing to read LOTR after enjoying the films, but it's like climbing a mountain.....so many words!)

* Had a similar experience w / LOTR.

* I came outta of the school of "Swash Buckling Heroic Fantasy" with authors like Robert E. Howard (Conan), Fritz Lieber (Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser), Michael Moorcock (Elric of Melnibone) & so on..way, way different than LOTR.

* I think I had the trilogy in HC for 5 years before I read thru it in one weekend. I mean I tried many times over those 5 years and just couldn't get into it. Then for some reason, that particular weekend, it resonated with me & I devored it like a triple cheese burger with the works. Had a similar experience with Melvile's "Moby Dick"

- RV