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The Meskian Zen of Modding - Part 1 - Page 3

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remag Germany354 Posts June 05 2010 18:11 GMT #41 Holy shit?

HalfAmazing Netherlands402 Posts June 05 2010 19:35 GMT #42 Put a little more effort into your posts man. We have a standard of quality to maintain here. In all seriousness, I've never had any interest in modding, but your post was well worth the read.

IskatuMesk Canada969 Posts June 06 2010 00:13 GMT #43 Grend> Heya! I have a deep respect for people who make sprites sheets like that. I've seen (and used) many of them when I was working on various RPGMaker projects. The way I make sprites is very different. First, the model is either created or, in the case of World of Warcraft models and the like, imported into 3ds max. Then, one generally sets up an arrangement of cameras for every angle the game needs. Since the games are isometric, you also make absolutely sure that perspective (depth of field) is OFF on every camera, otherwise this distorts the image. Many amateur modelers and sprite artists forget this when they made graphics for Starcraft and otherwise decent sprites end up looking awful because of it. It's very easy to forget but very noticeable when you've rendered. After that, you render a sequence of frames per angle. Then, depending on the game, you've gotta rename all the bastards into a proper format. This is how I explained how the renaming process must be done to a friend of mine in the hopes he writes a python script to automate it, it is REALLY tedious to do by hand, even with irfanview to batch rename. All games like infinity engine games, diablo 2, starcraft, ect. had their graphics initially created in 3d programs and then rendered on an isometric plane for ingame use. It's far easier to control the graphic this way than drawing it by hand, but it also requires experience with the 3d app in question. After you've got them renamed you also gotta batch convert their index and palette usually. For games like Age of Wonders 2 this is easy because you can render with a pink background and set the converter to use that for the transparent background, but with Starcraft it is ALWAYS 0,0,0, and Starcraft has a preset 256color palette that doesn't even use 1/3 of its indexes. Colors are EXTREMELY limited and it's very hard to make good looking sprites under those restrictions. Especially explosions. For Armageddon Onslaught, I used a plugin for 3ds max to make big, lengthy explosions for The Great Destroyer. They look awesome when rendered but when converted to the palette they are reduced to 2-3 shades of color. Still, they looked good enough to encourage modders, especially modders from a Korean site, to blatantly steal them without permission and, despite having told me they had removed the graphics from their mod, continue to use my stolen graphics to this day. Because of this refusal to respect my wishes, much less even asking me in the first place (I am generally not a dick if someone is polite and up front about this kind of thing), but actually LYING to me... that is one of the big reasons I am NEVER releasing another public project ever again. I am tired of people stealing my shit. I always, always ask for permission if I want to use something from another modder or artist. It's the right thing to do. Even in a private project. My current project is a revival of my Age of Wonders 2 total conversion, a tremendously-scaled project.

IskatuMesk Canada969 Posts June 07 2010 03:47 GMT #44 Heya guys, a little update on some future stuff. - I'm going to be writing the next segment of this article soon, explaining my thought processes and design behind Armageddon Onslaught. - I am now starting production on a very large series of videos I am calling the GEC Primary Documentary. I call my overarching game design processes as Game Elements Concepts, a methodology not only to modding or making campaigns but also how I approach games as a whole. This will go deep into all subjects I feel are important to this practice, including those displayed in this article, using visual and audio cues to help convey my words. It will be fully narrated by yours truly and probably take several months at the very least to complete. Thus, it is my plan to release it in chapters. Currently my chapter plans are as follows - Chapter 1 - Introductions and First Words "Hello! Have a seat over there." "Beholding the prospect of modding as a quest of mind." "Establishing the Four Elements of the GEC - Graphics, Gameplay, Sound, AI" Chapter 2 - Graphics Chapter 3 - Sound Chapter 4 - Gameplay Chapter 5 - Artificial Intelligence Chapter 6 - Last Words Chapter 7 - Conclusion This will be one of the largest, most difficult things I have ever attempted to do next to writing my novel, due to the amount of assets and content I'll be formulating for this documentary. I plan to include Day[9]-style "Face time" and demonstrations of many of my mods, the tools I use, and I plan to visualize music and sounds in a manner in which I see inside my mind, as an attempt to explain the concepts of Centralization and Sound Is Power. Just as a small set of examples of what I'll be doing. Everything I do is a challenge, and everything involved in what I do is problem solving. This production will be no different, and I plan to communicate to TL as much as I can during its production. To that end, give me any questions or whatnot you'd like me to answer or any subjects you'd like me to talk about either in this article or the documentary. This is my life, this is as much a documentary on myself as it is what I do.

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