Author Topic: Journey To Hiigara needs YOU!  (Read 33880 times)

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Offline Kusanagi

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Journey To Hiigara needs YOU!
Welcome to the official Journey To Hiigara recruitment thread!

This mod will bring the Homeworld and Homeworld: Cataclysm universes to the Freespace Open engine! Since TAP is focusing on Homeworld 2, myself and others felt a mod for the original Homeworld we all know and love would be incredible and something of beauty.

The plan with this mod is to release a small campaign of about 10 missions taking place in the first part of Homeworld to generate interest and proof of concept. The mod initially will use retail HW models and textures, with a few additions along the way.

New to modding? This mod is perfect for you! While we've all played and loved such works of art as Wings of Dawn. Blue Planet, The Babylon Project, and amazing campaigns like Derelict, Sync, and Transcend, the quality of work that went into these projects can be intimidating to say the least! Fortunately, very little for this mod needs to be made from scratch, and it's a great way to cut teeth on modelling, scripting, FREDing, texturing, etc.

So without further ado, here's how you can help, and what we need!

Modelers: Right now, the plan would be to convert and get the retail HW1 models imported into the engine for at least the first campaign. Many people that I've spoken to on HLP would like to see a mod that focuses on gameplay and mechanics to make it seem like Homeworld, and HTL hi-poly models can be added later.

However, not all the models in game are optimized. A lot of the debris and some of the ships have single sided polygons that are overlaid with a texture with an alpha channel (the wreck of the Khar Salem, many objects in the Karos Graveyard, along with a few faces on some of the Kushan strike craft). These would need to be tweaked and optimized. The larger ships from Frigate class on up would also need to be turreted over their hulls.

There also exists the possibility to add a few new ship designs for each fleet for pilotable craft (Kushan, Taiidan, and the Turanic Raiders) and can even be done in the low-poly style until the time if/when HTL models are made.

Some invisible polygons also need to be put on some models (over hangar bays and inside derelict wrecks for example) and around models that have subobjects outside of their main bounding box. (Drone frigate, Turanic Ion Frigate)

Texturers: Homeworld and its models are extremely inefficient when it comes to texture usage, at least as far as FSO is concerned. Ships with similar textures or parts of similar design will share textures easily. The problem occurs because these are not tiles that scale over the surface of the ship.

Some ships in game use as many as 20 to 30 texture maps applied to various polygons on their hull, and this can double for Cataclysm ships.

Every model would need to have its maps combined, and be retextured to combine the maps together onto one or two larger scale maps for each ship, along with glow maps and if possible, normal maps. Normal maps would go a long way in making the geometry of the lower poly ships stand out, until they can be replaced with HTL models (if they ever get made and greebled.) Once again, a great way for people to practice and experiment for those that have never done it before.

The texture format native to HW1 is LIF. This is a layered image format that includes alpha channel support and can easily be converted to PSD format. In PSD format, there will usually be three layers. The base texture is the lowest layer. On top of it may be two other layers, labelled COL 1 and COL 2. COL 1 is an overlay layer that will color parts of the ship whatever color you set it to as part of the team color picker at the beginning of the game. COL 2 is the stripe color. It's easy to colorize these in Photoshop by using a Hue/Saturation command on the layer and colorizing. There are standard values to be applied to all of these values to make them the same across all ships.

It may be easier to take these already-colored maps and combine them to make one large map, or combine them with their layers in photoshop in order to allow players to pick their own colors if they have photoshop (in a much later project)

Story and Mission Designers: It takes a lot of creativity to turn a 16 missions covering 6 months in an RTS into a larger Space Sim game, but as long as the key events are the same, there exists the possibility for new mission types, new miniloops, and new direction in the Homeworld story so this mod is not just a clone of it.

Artists: Everything from interface art to ship icons needs to eventually be done. Some hi-res renders of the Kushan, Taiidan, and other factions' logos need to be produced for interface art and also the art used for communications chatter. There is no indication of what any of the characters look like throughout the game. Instead of talking heads, it may be a neat visual effect to have each faction have its own communication animation for when they come up on screen with something to say.

We would also need people who were familiar with Homeworld to recreate and visually enhance the look and feel of the backgrounds in Homeworld into skyboxes. We have the panoramas from the original game, but they need to be remade with proper resolution and smoothing.

Web person/people: I suck at HTML and website design. I just can't do it. If anyone can help set up and maintain a website with news updates and screenshots here on HLP, that would be fantastic. My HTML knowledge is limited to "Oooh, that looks nice in Frontpage!"

If you want to help out or have any questions, post away!
Cum historia
mutat valde Razgriz
revelat ipsum
primum daemon scelestus est.

 

Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: Journey To Hiigara needs YOU!
Story/fluff/writing etc. Hi.

Possibly FRED depending on when and how that starts.
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Offline Colonol Dekker

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Re: Journey To Hiigara needs YOU!
I'd like to contribute in a Fred, mission design, capacity if possible.
Campaigns I've added my distinctiveness to-
- Blue Planet: Battle Captains
-Battle of Neptune
-Between the Ashes 2
-Blue planet: Age of Aquarius
-FOTG?
-Inferno R1
-Ribos: The aftermath / -Retreat from Deneb
-Sol: A History
-TBP EACW teaser
-Earth Brakiri war
-TBP Fortune Hunters (I think?)
-TBP Relic
-Trancsend (Possibly?)
-Uncharted Territory
-Vassagos Dirge
-War Machine
(Others lost to the mists of time and no discernible audit trail)

Your friendly Orestes tactical controller.

Secret bomb God.
That one time I got permabanned and got to read who was being bitxhy about me :p....
GO GO DEKKER RANGERSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Offline Nuclear1

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Re: Journey To Hiigara needs YOU!
I'll sign up for story.

Considering I've been involved in the HW community before HLP even existed...it's the least I can do.
« Last Edit: September 11, 2010, 08:30:58 pm by Nuclear1 »
Spoon - I stand in awe by your flawless fredding. Truely, never before have I witnessed such magnificant display of beamz.
Axem -  I don't know what I'll do with my life now. Maybe I'll become a Nun, or take up Macrame. But where ever I go... I will remember you!
Axem - Sorry to post again when I said I was leaving for good, but something was nagging me. I don't want to say it in a way that shames the campaign but I think we can all agree it is actually.. incomplete. It is missing... Voice Acting.
Quanto - I for one would love to lend my beautiful singing voice into this wholesome project.
Nuclear1 - I want a duet.
AndrewofDoom - Make it a trio!

 

Offline Kusanagi

  • A man, a van, a plan, Vanama!
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Re: Journey To Hiigara needs YOU!
Requested you guys be added (a few days ago)  :P
Cum historia
mutat valde Razgriz
revelat ipsum
primum daemon scelestus est.

 
Re: Journey To Hiigara needs YOU!
I suppose I could toss in a model or two... or three... okay maybe four... I dunno my time is rather consumed and I am unsure of how exactly long I can work on things. I know how you'd want to only convert models, but I digress I could just remodel them to be efficient and give them a custom skin but I dunno. Honestly I'd prefer to just HTL them and get it over with. PM me if you want to discuss this I guess.
I have created a masterpiece.

 

Offline Kusanagi

  • A man, a van, a plan, Vanama!
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Re: Journey To Hiigara needs YOU!
Will do!
Cum historia
mutat valde Razgriz
revelat ipsum
primum daemon scelestus est.

 
Re: Journey To Hiigara needs YOU!
I can port the original models (already have quite a few) and have specific team color ones (ex: yellow-red variant for imperialist Taiidan and white-cyan for republican Taiidan) and make a .pof of it of course. Don't know how to do ships with parts though, doing turrets and stuff in hw2 modding is a lot easier it seems :| ...some ships don't seem to want to work (get a .pof but it crashes the game after like 30 seconds and has weird/tiny targeting square)

Don't know why pofcs2 won't import .cob? pofcs1 does. Doesn't seem to like ships with double-sided faces or whatever (like Kushan interceptor, can't get that ship in and I kinda want to -_-)

Also I am more interested in getting things the way they are in HW, no extra turrets or anything. I also rethought on ship scale, I actually would like things to be to scale compared to HW, but scaled down to fit FS better (ex: interceptor scaled by like 0.4 to be 23m, so also frigates and capitals scaled by 0.4 rather than staying at 1.0). Now the ships look more like they do in HW and aren't gigantic (ex: flying a interceptor the size of a freighter lol)

 

Offline Cornix

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Re: Journey To Hiigara needs YOU!
I love the whole HW series, good luck with this.

I'd help if I could, but all I can do is support!  :)

 
Re: Journey To Hiigara needs YOU!
I signed up just to post in this thread. I love Homeworld so much, and I've recently become a fan of Freespace.
As soon as I had started playing Freespace, I thought "this would be the perfect base for a Homeworld game, playing from the perspective of a pilot!"
This is a dream come true.

All the media released so far look fantastic!

I would so very much like to contribute, however the only skill I have to offer is in 2D artwork, which I would assume isn't top priority.
I do feel that I could also be of some help in the story/mission design aspect, having played many games and recognising the factors that make them good.

Keep up the excellent work!

 

Offline starlord

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Re: Journey To Hiigara needs YOU!
Simple question, but might either you or apocalypse consider bringing the T-mat back from the dead?

http://shipyards.relicnews.com/misc/megaship.htm

Would be an interesting way to add to homeworld lore...

 

Offline pecenipicek

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Re: Journey To Hiigara needs YOU!
as far as TAP is concerned not likely.


i'll let kusanagi speak for JtH tho.
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Rain may fall and wind may blow,
and many miles be still to go,
but under a tall tree I will lie!

The Apocalypse Project needs YOU! - recruiting info thread.

 

Offline Nuclear1

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Re: Journey To Hiigara needs YOU!
Simple question, but might either you or apocalypse consider bringing the T-mat back from the dead?

http://shipyards.relicnews.com/misc/megaship.htm

Would be an interesting way to add to homeworld lore...
The Giant Lava Rock™ or the Evil Starfish™?

Both are possible.
Spoon - I stand in awe by your flawless fredding. Truely, never before have I witnessed such magnificant display of beamz.
Axem -  I don't know what I'll do with my life now. Maybe I'll become a Nun, or take up Macrame. But where ever I go... I will remember you!
Axem - Sorry to post again when I said I was leaving for good, but something was nagging me. I don't want to say it in a way that shames the campaign but I think we can all agree it is actually.. incomplete. It is missing... Voice Acting.
Quanto - I for one would love to lend my beautiful singing voice into this wholesome project.
Nuclear1 - I want a duet.
AndrewofDoom - Make it a trio!

 

Offline starlord

  • 210
Re: Journey To Hiigara needs YOU!
Well actually I don't know! It might be interesting as perhaps a side campaign so who knows (provided you are interested...)

Also there is that pirate planetoid present I think in the demo disk...

 
Re: Journey To Hiigara needs YOU!
well that is also in the retail game (used on some custom MP levels of course) but the model would need to be fixed, it's not a whole sphere, like all the planet models in HW1/HWC.

 

Offline Dragon

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Re: Journey To Hiigara needs YOU!
The "Giant Starfish" design is actually used in HW2, the Planet Killers in the final mission look suspiciously like the first two concept drawings.

  

Offline Nuclear1

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Re: Journey To Hiigara needs YOU!
Also there is that pirate planetoid present I think in the demo disk...

Yep.  Once we get things really moving along here, I'm planning on FREDing a Raider's Retreat minicampaign.  But we're still quite a while away from actually starting FRED work.

Quote
The "Giant Starfish" design is actually used in HW2, the Planet Killers in the final mission look suspiciously like the first two concept drawings.

:nod:  T-MAT as a race was never implemented in the original games because of engine limitations, but the Starfish design did survive through the Planet Killers. 
Spoon - I stand in awe by your flawless fredding. Truely, never before have I witnessed such magnificant display of beamz.
Axem -  I don't know what I'll do with my life now. Maybe I'll become a Nun, or take up Macrame. But where ever I go... I will remember you!
Axem - Sorry to post again when I said I was leaving for good, but something was nagging me. I don't want to say it in a way that shames the campaign but I think we can all agree it is actually.. incomplete. It is missing... Voice Acting.
Quanto - I for one would love to lend my beautiful singing voice into this wholesome project.
Nuclear1 - I want a duet.
AndrewofDoom - Make it a trio!

 

Offline Hades

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Re: Journey To Hiigara needs YOU!
I signed up just to post in this thread. I love Homeworld so much, and I've recently become a fan of Freespace.
As soon as I had started playing Freespace, I thought "this would be the perfect base for a Homeworld game, playing from the perspective of a pilot!"
This is a dream come true.

All the media released so far look fantastic!

I would so very much like to contribute, however the only skill I have to offer is in 2D artwork, which I would assume isn't top priority.
I do feel that I could also be of some help in the story/mission design aspect, having played many games and recognising the factors that make them good.

Keep up the excellent work!
If you see this, could you please post some examples? Some high quality 2d artwork (such as textures, if you can do those) would be fantastic.
[22:29] <sigtau> Hello, #hard-light?  I'm trying to tell a girl she looks really good for someone who doesn't exercise.  How do I word that non-offensively?
[22:29] <RangerKarl|AtWork> "you look like a big tasty muffin"
----
<batwota> wouldn’t that mean that it’s prepared to kiss your ass if you flank it :p
<batwota> wow
<batwota> KILL

 

Offline starlord

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Re: Journey To Hiigara needs YOU!
the megaship lava rock mesh and an eventual destroyer, frigate and fighter design might be nice... as well as those barnacle ships if the feature could be implemented...

 

Offline AtomicClucker

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Re: Journey To Hiigara needs YOU!
Someone has to do the lavaship for the sheer lavaness.
Blame Blue Planet for my Freespace2 addiction.