Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: Tempest on August 22, 2006, 01:13:57 pm
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Hey everybody!
I've enjoyed SCP and played through the campaigns again when I rediscovered freespace. Now, however, I want to produce something new. So, after downloading a descent 3 ship pack, I decided "What the heck, why can't we have a descent mod, not only with all the ships, and quite a few robots, but also with totally new material and storylines. So, i've spent the last few days editing tables, finding models, and have realized there is absolutley no way I can do this myself, with limited knowledge of Freespace modding. Therefore, I would like to ask anyone interested for help. To get the project off the ground, I'll need the talents of the community in several areas:
1. Conceptual Storyline designer: The mod doesnt have a storyline yet. It doesnt even have a name. I plan to have it span the events of all three games, experienced from mutliple sides.
2. Moddeler/Texturer: I have 4 ships working. These are all the default ships that came with the download. The modeller would need to be able to create descent-style ships. We need a texturer as well. Preferably this person could come up with interface art as well.
3. Table editor/Tester: While I can use the tables (I've gotten about 10 descent weapons ingame and working, the fusion looks magnificent), we need someone who can make models into working ships and those who are good at editing talbes and finding bugs.
I am really exited at being able to put descent into Freespace. So far the plan is to focus on the "space" part of it, rather then sending the player into the mines. If possible, I'd like to have battles on the ground with enviornments as well, but thats just something to hope for. At this point I pretty much have all the sound and music I want for the mod but if anyone wants to submit more music or help design how it would play, that help is welcome.
Let's get a descent mod up and running!
P.S. I searched for any descent topics, and there did not appear to be any at the time of this post.
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Venom/Nico made a descent mod - or rather, every art asset for one - years back, but it got dumped because no-one would make missions.
to be frank, I'm afraid you have about sod-all chance of starting a major mod justnow. Almost everyone with an ounce of talent is busy.
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Please tell me there is a place to download the mod...the art component is what is slowing me down the most. If I could find that stuff...oh man.
I'm really surprised there isnt a big descent mod going on- after all, FS1 was titled DESCENT:Freespace (or at least here in the states...).
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:welcome:
Welcome to HLP! Exits are located in the airlocks.... ahem, broken airlocks so don't go anywhere near them. Flamethrowers are located under all seats for emergencies, but napalm is kinda rare out here, so they've been filled with holy water. Plasma weapons and shotguns are stored in the secure lockers, however only an admin, :v:, or hyperintelligent shade of blue may open them. Be on the look out, if you get chosen for ventilation maintenence, for Carl, HLP's resident Shivan. He enjoys lunch, so if you throw yours at him, he might let you live. Thank you and enjoy your stay!
It was called Descent: Freespace for purely copyright reasons, although :v:, who made Freespace, came from Parallax. That being said, the only Descent model I've ever found is the Mercury missile that Nuke made. Although, Inferno uses Descent's sound effects for weapons.....
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Thanks for that...welcome...happy to be here.
There were 4 descent 3 ships I found, the Pyro GL, Black pyro GX, Phoenix, and Magnum. I've also got the one you flew in descent 1 and 2 in OOF, but I cant get it to be a .pof without losing all the textures. I shall now activley look for that descent mod aldo_14 told me about...must...get...hands...on...it.
Mercury missile...that reminds me that I need to get that one in there. I dont know how the heck to code in the spreadfire and helix cannons...they shoot at an angle from the main gun (and multiple shots at a time...from each hardpoint...) The EMD also doesnt work. I gave it a homing ability, and the shot doesnt change direction, only the way the bitmap is facing does...making a very odd effect. I'm tired of changing those nasty tables for today though, I'll start up again when I get those models to work with. I think Descent has a lot of potential as a Freespace mod, seeing as the games were similar in many ways.
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Thanks for that...welcome...happy to be here.
Everyone gets it, it's the traditional HLP welcome Beam! :yes:
You ever find all those models, put up a thread about it. There oughtta be plenty of Descent fans on these forums.
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I didn't get the welcome beam :(
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Welcome, BS403!
:welcome:
I didn't get it either actually...... :doubt:
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Please tell me there is a place to download the mod...the art component is what is slowing me down the most. If I could find that stuff...oh man.
I'm really surprised there isnt a big descent mod going on- after all, FS1 was titled DESCENT:Freespace (or at least here in the states...).
Not as far as I know; Nico/Venom made it, then handed it over to - IIRC - Raven to make the missions, and it died with him.
EDIT; the 'Descent' bit was just a marketing ploy made because 'Freespace' was already trademarked, AFAIK.
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Correct, over here in Europe it was called Conflict: Freespace. I did ask Volition about this during one of the IRC chats they held back when it was being written, but I got a cryptic response regarding copyrights and that it was Interplay's call. ::)
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Sarafan gave me mine, then he proceeded to burn me. :(
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Correct, over here in Europe it was called Conflict: Freespace. I did ask Volition about this during one of the IRC chats they held back when it was being written, but I got a cryptic response regarding copyrights and that it was Interplay's call. ::)
IIRC "Freespace" was the name of a drive cleaner at the time, and to avoid copywrite infrignment they changed the name.
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Yea, so they called Descent: Freespace in the US. I was never really sure why they called it Conflict: Freespace over here though. I think it had something to do with the German market, vaguely
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In German Descent = The cent..........(mad but true.....)
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Not as far as I know; Nico/Venom made it, then handed it over to - IIRC - Raven to make the missions, and it died with him.
EDIT; the 'Descent' bit was just a marketing ploy made because 'Freespace' was already trademarked, AFAIK.
You remember right, Venom made all the art assets for that mod, and was working on the storyline\mission outline of the campaign itself, and handed it over to me...
Now, that project died with me, because when Venom sent me the files, there were some (few tough) mods missing, as well as most of the mission outlines werent done. He said he would send them to me soon by then... im still waiting for those :\
Thats why the project died... a shame realy, cos at that time I had plenty of free time to work on it (and several other projects too, like OTT)
And YES im still alive and well, I pop in here atleast once a week, and im still waiting for a day when I can dedicate myself to Freespace again... for those that were wondering about me :P
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Not as far as I know; Nico/Venom made it, then handed it over to - IIRC - Raven to make the missions, and it died with him.
EDIT; the 'Descent' bit was just a marketing ploy made because 'Freespace' was already trademarked, AFAIK.
Well, pop what you've got up online, then.......
You remember right, Venom made all the art assets for that mod, and was working on the storyline\mission outline of the campaign itself, and handed it over to me...
Now, that project died with me, because when Venom sent me the files, there were some (few tough) mods missing, as well as most of the mission outlines werent done. He said he would send them to me soon by then... im still waiting for those :\
Thats why the project died... a shame realy, cos at that time I had plenty of free time to work on it (and several other projects too, like OTT)
And YES im still alive and well, I pop in here atleast once a week, and im still waiting for a day when I can dedicate myself to Freespace again... for those that were wondering about me :P
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Dont have any of those files anymore, for a long time... they died in a pc crash ages ago :sigh:
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That's a shame. I'm also surprised no one wants to help me...ack. I know everyone's busy, I guess.
Well, I'm having a problem with the ship tables. Basically, the ships start out being able to fly past their max speed (as defined in the tables). When I allocate engine power either to or away from the engines, afterburner recharge rate is effected normally, but speed ALWAYS decreases, IE. the pheonix starts out flying 120 m/s, then allocating energy to the engines reduces it to about 100, then 90, then 80, etc. What is wrong with these ships that make them do that? All four ships exibit this behavior.
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Bad table data.. I would guess those ships have higher max velocity value than the $Max Oclk Speed: that defines the speed with all power diverted to the engines.
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There's the table. I checked the Max Oclk speed, it's 80, while the max velocity is defined as 60. That isn't the problem, is it? The last entry in the attached table is a placeholder until I can get an actual working textured .pof in there...work is going slowly because I can't get any new models...
I also want to change the engine glow color. After searching for data about this, I discovered there was a table with engine glow data in it (something with species in name). I checked my species file, and there was no engine glow data that I could see. Perhaps someone could enlighten me as to where exactly it is?
[attachment deleted by admin]
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It's not anything you're doing 'wrong'... sort of. It's kind of an unexpected bug. See this post (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,41803.msg853559.html#msg853559) for details.
The engine glow color is an image, or set of images, usually found in data\effects or inside the mv_effects.vp (in that case, with names starting with 'thruster'). The table specifying this is species_defs.tbl (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Species_defs.tbl) for entire species of ships, and ships.tbl (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Ships.tbl#Customized_Thruster_Effects) for specific ships.
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That's a shame. I'm also surprised no one wants to help me...ack. I know everyone's busy, I guess.
Well, I'm having a problem with the ship tables. Basically, the ships start out being able to fly past their max speed (as defined in the tables). When I allocate engine power either to or away from the engines, afterburner recharge rate is effected normally, but speed ALWAYS decreases, IE. the pheonix starts out flying 120 m/s, then allocating energy to the engines reduces it to about 100, then 90, then 80, etc. What is wrong with these ships that make them do that? All four ships exibit this behavior.
I have noticed the speed increase with shivan fighters before. Glide screws with the displayed speed in game. I think it has to do with triangles.
Since your moving in to different directions at the same time it probably uses pathagoreon therom to caculate the speed. This is just my thoughts, though, I'm not sure.
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I can help a (little) for conversions, but only if files are NOT in .max format as I can't work with that format. (use .cob, .3ds, .lwo, .obj, or .dfx even) Post model with textures that are giving you problems and I'll see if I can make the .pofs for you.
other than that I suggest you get resigned to doing 99% of the work yourself with occasioal periods of set piece help from outsiders. Most people have ideas for mods, but never get started cause they tell themselves they "can't" do it...
If I had that attitude (even though I can't model more than a cube :lol:), I wouldn't have the progress I have now with my mods(multiple) over the last 3 years... So hang in there, if it's something you REALLY want bad enough, you'll put the time in for it.
People wait for Mods to get created, Mods don't get made spontaneously on their own...
And if you DO make the decision to commit to such a project, don't let others push you around with how you are going to proceed (like contents), or time table "Is it done yet?". Mods usually come about cause of a burning desire to create it and is a labour of love.