Author Topic: Between the Ashes Development Blog  (Read 47759 times)

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Offline mjn.mixael

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Between the Ashes Development Blog
Well. It's 2016. That sure put's this topic in perspective! What began as an exercise in familiarizing myself with the basics of FRED has become a real labor of love and a project that is turning out to be far better than I ever hoped. Honestly, I don't know if the story is any good and I'm sure there are more than a few plotholes. However, it is something that we have spent a lot of time on! In fact, we spent most of our modding time on the story elements and the missions. It's the latter that is awaiting completion. We, officially, have a single mission left to get finished. Well... half finished. It's almost there! We just need to spend the effort to get it ready. So yeah, despite all the feature creep that BtA could probably be accused of... five years in and we are still trying to get the missions completed.

That brings me to this new thread that I expect few will notice! :)

I'm stuck on that last mission, but I'm trying to get it done anyway. So I'm going to start regularly posting about what I'm working on in an effort to keep motivation high! There may be spoilers, but they'll be marked. So read on with confidence either way!

Here's a screen from the last mission.


Yeah, you can really only see the sun and some debris, but there's more there than meets the eye. It actually has a lot in common with a tower defense game, which will make more sense when you play it. The difficult part of building the enemy events in such a way that doesn't feel either to much like wave after wave of stupid enemies or completely crushing the player realistically. The latter would be specifically mean because the player has to learn some new mechanics just for this mission. We'll see how it pans out, I guess, but I really like the framework of the mission and how it plays.

Also, our mod has at least 3 unlockable arcade missions. It's goofy, but given how much Axem has helped me... it should be unsurprising that some of his modding sensibilities have rubbed off on me.


When I finish the last mission (get it to a playable state from start to finish), I'll have a little more of an idea on when we'll release. It will be 2016. I'm guessing June or July... May if testing goes well. My checklist includes...

  • Finish the last mission
  • Bug test act 2 and 3 missions
  • Finish the ending cutscene
  • Finish the sekret ending for those who find all the snails like in the demo. (Ah, you didn't know about those, did you?)
  • Finish off in-game maps and fiction (tech room stuff)

So yeah, not a whole lot left!
Cutscene Upgrade Project - Mainhall Remakes - Between the Ashes
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Between the Ashes is looking for committed testers, PM me for details.
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Offline Axem

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Re: Between the Ashes Development Blog
Quote
It's goofy, but given how much Axem has helped me... it should be unsurprising that some of his modding sensibilities have rubbed off on me.

Disco singalong confirmed. You'll be hearing from my lawyer.

But the rest of that stuff sounds cool! Can't wait to see this release. :)

 

Offline Nyctaeus

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Re: Between the Ashes Development Blog
Me too. I'd really like to play something cool quality and in FS1 style. Go on guys :]
Exile | Shadow Genesis | Inferno | Series Resurrecta  | DA Profile | P3D Profile

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Offline niffiwan

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Re: Between the Ashes Development Blog
+1, I really liked the demo and I can't wait to see the full release (especially the carrots and BattleSnails! :))
Creating a fs2_open.log | Red Alert Bug = Hex Edit | MediaVPs 2014: Bigger HUD gauges | 32bit libs for 64bit Ubuntu
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m|m: I think I'm suffering from Stockholm syndrome. Bmpman is starting to make sense and it's actually written reasonably well...

 

Offline Rodo

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Re: Between the Ashes Development Blog
Ok. Now my interest is piqued.
el hombre vicio...

 

Offline mjn.mixael

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Re: Between the Ashes Development Blog
Here's a few new shots from this mission I'm working on. I've got a lot of work going on right now, so it's a little tough to carve out time to get this done.. but progress is being made!





Cutscene Upgrade Project - Mainhall Remakes - Between the Ashes
Youtube Channel - P3D Model Box
Between the Ashes is looking for committed testers, PM me for details.
Freespace Upgrade Project See what's happening.

 

Offline mjn.mixael

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Re: Between the Ashes Development Blog
I apparently just needed a little motivational push.

Last Mission: COMMIT
Balance and Testing: COMMENCE!

Cutscene Upgrade Project - Mainhall Remakes - Between the Ashes
Youtube Channel - P3D Model Box
Between the Ashes is looking for committed testers, PM me for details.
Freespace Upgrade Project See what's happening.

 

Offline niffiwan

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Re: Between the Ashes Development Blog
woohoo! :)
Creating a fs2_open.log | Red Alert Bug = Hex Edit | MediaVPs 2014: Bigger HUD gauges | 32bit libs for 64bit Ubuntu
----
Debian Packages (testing/unstable): Freespace2 | wxLauncher
----
m|m: I think I'm suffering from Stockholm syndrome. Bmpman is starting to make sense and it's actually written reasonably well...

 

Offline Rodo

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Re: Between the Ashes Development Blog
owww yisss!
el hombre vicio...

 

Offline DefCynodont119

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Re: Between the Ashes Development Blog
Awesome!  This Is my most looked-forward-to campaign.

Question: how many months/years after the events of Silent Threat does BTA occur? (sorry If this has been asked/answered before)
My gift from Freespace to Cities Skylines:  http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=639891299

 

Offline mjn.mixael

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Re: Between the Ashes Development Blog
About 1 year.
Cutscene Upgrade Project - Mainhall Remakes - Between the Ashes
Youtube Channel - P3D Model Box
Between the Ashes is looking for committed testers, PM me for details.
Freespace Upgrade Project See what's happening.

 

Offline Luis Dias

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Re: Between the Ashes Development Blog
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

 

Offline Mito [PL]

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Re: Between the Ashes Development Blog
YASSS

I've played the demo only recently, so I'm still hyped :P
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You starve it to death.

 

Offline mjn.mixael

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Re: Between the Ashes Development Blog
Those who enjoyed the demo will find it worth another playthrough when BtA makes final release because it will come with an updated version of the demo campaign with full voice acting.

« Last Edit: August 27, 2016, 06:34:00 pm by mjn.mixael »
Cutscene Upgrade Project - Mainhall Remakes - Between the Ashes
Youtube Channel - P3D Model Box
Between the Ashes is looking for committed testers, PM me for details.
Freespace Upgrade Project See what's happening.

 

Offline Mito [PL]

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Re: Between the Ashes Development Blog
HOLY...

Just now I have realised how much i liked the Mefistofele. This is definitely worth any time spent on waiting...
How do you kill a hydra?

You starve it to death.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: Between the Ashes Development Blog
Awesome awesome

 

Offline Oddgrim

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Re: Between the Ashes Development Blog
Looks pretty nifty mjn :)
[GhostOfMjn: I can provide hi res vasudan ass]
[Hades]: we have so much in common we should bang.
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Offline mjn.mixael

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Re: Between the Ashes Development Blog
Well.. with all features included, BtA is going to be a 4.5-5GB mod...

However, you can go without the excessive features (cutscenes, anims, advanced textures) and cut it down to about 2.5GB...

I've got 7 cbanims to finish, 1 cutscene, 8 voice parts, and testing (the true X factor).
Cutscene Upgrade Project - Mainhall Remakes - Between the Ashes
Youtube Channel - P3D Model Box
Between the Ashes is looking for committed testers, PM me for details.
Freespace Upgrade Project See what's happening.

 

Offline mjn.mixael

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Re: Between the Ashes Development Blog
Wow. It has been quite a while since I put in this many late nights in a row just to mod for Freespace.

Last night it was bug-fixing night. Slasher is our other FREDer and he's currently MIA. So bugfixing his missions are a long process that begins with trying to understand the mission logic and ends with just saying WTF.

Take, for example, last night's mission. I start playing it to confirm that checkpoints are still working (they weren't). So I begin to fix those, only to realize quickly that there is next to no collision detection going on in the mission at all. WTF? I'm trying all the things. I can't figure it out. I turn to Axem for help. HALP! "Oh.. it's every-time." He's using too many every-time SEXPs.

For those who don't know... in FRED, you can do a SEXP like.
Code: [Select]
When
     has-time-elapsed (10)
     set-object-position (Alpha 1, X, Y, Z)
Which would set Alpha 1's position when 10 seconds have elapsed in the mission. However, this mission had something like this little number (twice).
Code: [Select]
every-time
     has-time-elapsed (10)
     set-object-position (Alpha 1, X, Y, Z)
The difference is that every-time evaluates on every single frame. So here, once 10 seconds have elapsed, Alpha 1's position will be reset to X, Y, Z for the remainder of the mission on every frame.

In this particular mission, it wasn't Alpha 1 and it wasn't after 10 seconds. It was an invisible object marker and it was starting to evaluate at the start of the mission. And it did this with 2 different SEXPs on 2 different objects. And that apparently causes all collision detection to go caput mission wide.

Lesson learned.
Cutscene Upgrade Project - Mainhall Remakes - Between the Ashes
Youtube Channel - P3D Model Box
Between the Ashes is looking for committed testers, PM me for details.
Freespace Upgrade Project See what's happening.

 

Offline mjn.mixael

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Re: Between the Ashes Development Blog
CBAnims/IntelAnims all completed.

3/4 cutscnes completed.

2 parts left to get voiced.

Some fiction elements need to be finalized.

Lots of testing needs to happen.

My checklist is dwindling! :)
Cutscene Upgrade Project - Mainhall Remakes - Between the Ashes
Youtube Channel - P3D Model Box
Between the Ashes is looking for committed testers, PM me for details.
Freespace Upgrade Project See what's happening.