Poll

Which of these strikecraft would you most like to see make a cameo as a prototype in Frontlines?

GTF Valkyrie
16 (57.1%)
GTF Hercules
9 (32.1%)
GTB Medusa
2 (7.1%)
GTB Zeus
1 (3.6%)

Total Members Voted: 28

Voting closed: February 07, 2014, 12:08:57 pm

Author Topic: Frontlines 2334 progress (formerly "Request - Single in-game cutscene mission)  (Read 25104 times)

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Offline Black Wolf

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Frontlines 2334 progress (formerly "Request - Single in-game cutscene mission)
Right, so I've recently re-started on my Frontlines project (A series of TV-War minicampaigns - there's info on the wiki, although most of that is for the very early minicampaign - the one I'm working on now is the very latest, in 2334) as I'm up at site, and I can FRED but not do much else. Personally, I think it's turning out pretty cool - old-school, FS1 style action without shields - it's very different to a post Capella type campaign. Cruisers are a threat (Hell, freighters are a threat) and mistakes are punished, even by retail AI. Also, since it's a minicampaign (6 playable missions), and is set a few months before FS1 (so is pretty low on mods), it's progressing at a decent pace (I'm hoping to have the bulk of the FREDding done before I go home in a week or so, although there'll probably be some bugfixing and beta testing and whatnot to do afterwards).

I do, however, have a problem. One pivotal moment in the campaign is intended to take place in an in-game cutscene (showing events happening while the player is elsewhere). Without giving away any details, it'll show a major battle between Terran and Vasudan forces will tip the balance one way or the other (no Spoilers!). Unfortunately, while I am technically capable of making ingame cutscenes, artistically mine leave a lot to be desired. I feel like the scene will have a lot more impact if it's done well, and I don't think I'm capable of creating it to the standard that I want it to be at.

So, what I'm asking for is someone who knows what they're doing with cutscenes to take a crack at this one. It wont require any special mods - I'm basically just using the Port, plus a few public mods - in terms of this cutscene, all that would be needed would be a few custom weapons, one of Axem's skyboxes and my GVGs Hemsut gunship (cunningly disguised as the PVGs Hemsut). It also doesn't have any kind of script that I want slavishly followed - I have only the roughest idea of what I want to see, and essentially it boils down to "Show the two sides fighting, show a specific event, show the result, fin" so there's lots room for interpretation in terms of how you might want to present it, what music to use etc. etc. I'm anticipating the whole thing being two to three minutes long, but that too is flexible.

In return, I can offer my undying gratitude. :nod: I'm conceptually open to a trade - I think my skillset is pretty well known, but I can kinda model, kinda texture, make head anis and kinda FRED - but I freely admit that I am horrendously unreliable (ask Goober - sorry Goob! It's coming!), so depending on what you want, it may take awhile. :nervous: I'm good at stations! :p

If nobody's interested, well, it'll still get done, never fear. It'll just take longer, and probably not be as good. So, with that exciting preamble out of the way, is anyone interested?
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Offline mjn.mixael

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Re: Request - Single in-game cutscene mission
Dibs
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Between the Ashes is looking for committed testers, PM me for details.
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Offline Black Wolf

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Re: Request - Single in-game cutscene mission
Well, that was easy! Although I may regret it, depending in how much rigging I have to do... ;)

Anyway, since that went so well, I might as well turn this into a progress thread! :D

Frontlines 2334 is a TV War era minicampaign, the first in what I hope to develop into a series of similar campaigns in the future. Set a few months prior to the events of Freespace 1, you play the classic Freesoace role of (who else?) Alpha 1, and join the GTD Minnow and the GTAs expeditionary force in their attack on the Vasudan colony system of Deneb.

Frontlines 2334 is very much inspired by the clean, simple design ethos of FS1, and will provide a similar atmosphere, but the game play mechanics associated with shieldless combat and late TV War equipment mean that the experience will be a novel one, especially for those used to post-Capella campaigns.

Current progress is one fully-complete mission, one gameplay-complete mission (I.e. Needs a few messages and a debrief, but is fully balanced and ready to go), one approx. 60% complete mission (this mission will very likely be the most complex in the campaign, FREDwise). Two other missions have been started, and two are yet to be begun (No feature creep, I misremembered in the first post :P). In terms of pace, pretty much the entirety of the FREDding has been done in the past week. I have another six evenings to work on it, so I anticipate a reasonably similar amount of progress to take place, probably 5 missions done by then. Following that, who knows. ;) But I suspect I can throw it together quickly if release proximity gets my motivation going. The only non-public mods I'm planning are table tweaks and a few custom weapon effects/missile models - these I can put together fairly quickly, but if for whatever reason I struggle, they're purely aesthetic, so release could easily go ahead without them (can't see this happening though)

Beyond that, there's not much to say. I'd show off some screenshots except A) My graphics are buggy and B) It kind of just looks like regular Port gameplay at present. So, for now, unless I've forgotten something, or there's anything you really want to know, I guess wish me luck, and watch this space! :)
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Offline Lorric

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Re: Frontlines 2334 progress (formerly "Request - Single in-game cutscene mission)
And now I know why you liked my campaign idea!  :)

Good luck with this. I will play it if you release it, it appeals to me for the same reasons my own idea appealed to me.

 

Offline Black Wolf

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Re: Frontlines 2334 progress (formerly "Request - Single in-game cutscene mission)
All three of the above mentioned partially complete missions are now fully complete, although one is pretty complicated, and may yet have some hidden bugs, so it'll need a bit more playtesting yet. The other two are still only really in the "started" category, but they will move fairly quickly in the next few days, I'm expecting. Still hoping to have all five (or ideally even more) done by Friday, leaving me two to do when I get back home.

In other words, [Emperor]Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen it.[/Emperor] :D

I'm almost tempted to declare a release date sometime next month, but I know the folly of that all too well. :|
TWISTED INFINITIES · SECTORGAME· FRONTLINES
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Burn the heretic who killed F2S! Burn him, burn him!!- GalEmp

 

Offline Goober5000

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Re: Frontlines 2334 progress (formerly "Request - Single in-game cutscene mission)
Looking forward to this. :)

 

Offline fightermedic

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Re: Frontlines 2334 progress (formerly "Request - Single in-game cutscene mission)
you are not by any chance freding Operation Thresher are you? becaue i've had a feeling of doing that one myself some time in the future
no need doing it twice ;)
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Campaigns revised/voice-acted by me:
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Offline Black Wolf

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Re: Frontlines 2334 progress (formerly "Request - Single in-game cutscene mission)
Nope, not Thresher, this is (non specifically) sometime between 12 and 6 months before the start of FS1.
TWISTED INFINITIES · SECTORGAME· FRONTLINES
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Offline fightermedic

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Re: Frontlines 2334 progress (formerly "Request - Single in-game cutscene mission)
just after i wrote that i realized that this information is in your OP
+100 fail points at reading skill

i''m looking forward to your campaign, there is not nearly enough TV-war stuff out there
let me know if you want me to playtest and/or TTS voice act your campaign
>>Fully functional cockpits for Freespace<<
>>Ships created by me<<
Campaigns revised/voice-acted by me:
Lightning Marshal 1-4, The Regulus Campaign, Operation: Savior, Operation: Crucible, Titan Rebellion, Fall of Epsilon Pegasi 1.1Aftermath 2.1,
Pandora's Box 2.2, Deep Blood

Other Campaigns I have participated in:
The Antagonist, Warzone, Phantoms & Echo-Gate

All the stuff I release is free to use or change in any way for everybody who likes to do so; take whatever you need

 
Re: Frontlines 2334 progress (formerly "Request - Single in-game cutscene mission)
Can´t wait to play this mod.

 

Offline Rodo

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Re: Frontlines 2334 progress (formerly "Request - Single in-game cutscene mission)
old-school, FS1 style action without shields - it's very different to a post Capella type campaign. Cruisers are a threat (Hell, freighters are a threat) and mistakes are punished, even by retail AI.

I love these kind of campaigns, cause they make me  :mad:
Will be watching for future updates.
el hombre vicio...

 

Offline Black Wolf

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Re: Frontlines 2334 progress (formerly "Request - Single in-game cutscene mission)
I'm glad people are excited for this! So am I. :)

Anyway, a bit of an update. I recently got some rather good news regarding my main project, TI, which has seen this get back-seated a little bit, but I'm heading back up to work on Thursday, and plan at this point is to focus on Frontlines while I'm up there. Given the amount of work I was able to get done on my last swing, I think I can safely anticipate a comparable rate of development this time around, so (and it's with great trepidation that I make this statement) I'm anticipating my part of the FREDding to be completed by some time around the 23rd of September, at which point I'll probably need to do quite a bit of my own testing before sending it out for public beta-ing. So the date for that isn't really finalized. Also, given that the campaign is very contained and has a limited number of missions/roles, I'm considering shooting for voice acting on first release, but that is very much up in the air at present. My main hindrance is the very real potential for a 1.1 release that might require new lines under certain circumstances. Which would be a pain in the neck. It's under consideration, anyway.

So, yeah, things stalled for a little while but are about to pick back up again. Release should easily be before the end of the year. I think. Hope. Maybe.
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Offline Black Wolf

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Re: Frontlines 2334 progress (formerly "Request - Single in-game cutscene mission)
Another mission officially into the "Completed" pile. I don't think I'm going to have the FREDding done by September 23rd, partially because I haven't been as productive as I hoped while I've been up here, and partly because I think I need an asset that doesn't yet exist after all. It's nothing outside my capabilities, so I'll be able to do it myself, it's just a question of what level of priority I put on it, given how much other FS stuff I want to get done. The degree to which the FREDding gets done over the next several days will be a factor there.
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Offline Black Wolf

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Re: Frontlines 2334 progress (formerly "Request - Single in-game cutscene mission)
This is an early look at the PVCa Ramses - the above mentioned asset - in a very, very WiP form:



The model itself I am... unhappy with, but multiple attempts to change it (both when I was building it and recently in response to IRC discussions) have consistently made it worse. I am terrible at smooth or organic modelling - the acceptance of this shape is more or less me admitting that. :p

WRT the textures, most of the grey will need to be redone (more properly just "done" - what you're seeing here on most of the trim was just thrown on there so it wouldn't have Lith's auto-generated black and white lines), and the smoothing is obviously borked (this smoothing was auto-generated by Deep Exploration rather than done by hand, as the final model's will be). The grey and black stripy bit at the back is also only just started, and I'm probably going to replace the reddish Typhon texture on the side, though I'm not sure with what yet. It's also not yet AO baked.

I'll also be adding a few turrets - for the record, those pods on the sides aren't turrets or associated mounts. Ingame, they will be destroyable submodels, probably comms, sensors or navigation. I may yet go through and change some to different looking structures so they can be all three.

I need this to finish the campaign, so I'm doing it at a decent clip. I have a standing policy to release all Frontlines assets as they're completed, so it shouldn't be too long before I can release this thing - andf hopefully, not long after that, the campaign itself.
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Offline Lorric

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Re: Frontlines 2334 progress (formerly "Request - Single in-game cutscene mission)
I like it.

 

Offline shiv

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Re: Frontlines 2334 progress (formerly "Request - Single in-game cutscene mission)
The model itself I am... unhappy with, but multiple attempts to change it (both when I was building it and recently in response to IRC discussions) have consistently made it worse. I am terrible at smooth or organic modelling - the acceptance of this shape is more or less me admitting that. :p
There is no need to worry, Black Wolf. This thing is perfectly fitted for FS1-era if you ask me.
And btw, this render is pretty :D
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Offline Nyctaeus

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Re: Frontlines 2334 progress (formerly "Request - Single in-game cutscene mission)
The model itself I am... unhappy with, but multiple attempts to change it (both when I was building it and recently in response to IRC discussions) have consistently made it worse. I am terrible at smooth or organic modelling - the acceptance of this shape is more or less me admitting that. :p
There is no need to worry, Black Wolf. This thing is perfectly fitted for FS1-era if you ask me.
And btw, this render is pretty :D
I second that. I really like classic look of that ship :yes:
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Offline Black Wolf

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Re: Frontlines 2334 progress (formerly "Request - Single in-game cutscene mission)
Textures are done. But there's still debris (including all the submodels), poffing, maybe LoDding - that will be a bit time consuming if I end up doing LoDs, so it may or may not happen - shine, normals, tabling and testing. Ideal world, it's finished in the next two days (without LoDs). Real world... end of the week maybe. But when it is out, back to FREDding :D
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Offline Black Wolf

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Re: Frontlines 2334 progress (formerly "Request - Single in-game cutscene mission)

The end of the beta has meant I can no longer upload full res PNGs - so apologies for the crappy low res JPEG texture. But this is pretty close to the final look of the ship now.
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Offline Luis Dias

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Re: Frontlines 2334 progress (formerly "Request - Single in-game cutscene mission)
Looks like a sad dog smiling.