Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - FS2 Required => Between the Ashes => Topic started by: mjn.mixael on February 13, 2016, 07:12:08 pm
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Well. It's 2016. That sure put's this topic (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=74785.0) 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.
(http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk264/mjnmixael/Private/screen0003_zpsvfbtvby8.png~original)
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.
(http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk264/mjnmixael/Private/screen0004_zpsfwqd1rkr.png~original)
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!
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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. :)
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Me too. I'd really like to play something cool quality and in FS1 style. Go on guys :]
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+1, I really liked the demo and I can't wait to see the full release (especially the carrots and BattleSnails! :))
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Ok. Now my interest is piqued.
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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!
(http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk264/mjnmixael/Private/screen0008_zps8yijtbwr.png~original)
(http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk264/mjnmixael/Private/screen0006_zpsabml1zvm.png~original)
(http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk264/mjnmixael/Private/screen0007_zpszpo7xr62.png~original)
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I apparently just needed a little motivational push.
Last Mission: COMMIT
Balance and Testing: COMMENCE!
(http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk264/mjnmixael/Private/imagebin_zpsieyhvvlz.jpg~original)
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woohoo! :)
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owww yisss!
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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)
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About 1 year.
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oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
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YASSS
I've played the demo only recently, so I'm still hyped :P
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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.
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HOLY...
Just now I have realised how much i liked the Mefistofele. This is definitely worth any time spent on waiting...
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Awesome awesome
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Looks pretty nifty mjn :)
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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).
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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.
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).
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.
(https://media4.giphy.com/media/Y2nbrJyAR6RiM/200_s.gif)
Lesson learned.
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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! :)
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What exactly was that mechanism meant to do? Using set-object-position evaluating at the start of the mission for invisible objects. I'm curious! Assuming it's not a spoiler and you can talk about it, at least ;)
Was it creating a reference point for a ship to turn and face after X Y Z conditions occur or something like that? I'm also guessing the invisible object was moving somehow or else there would be no need to reset its position. Right?
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Good guesses, but no. Here's what's going on there.
You can instruct ships or wings to warp-in near any other ship in the mission. That's the core mechanic being abused here. In this mission, Slasher (our other FREDer), wanted to have a little variance in how the mission played if replayed multiple times. He setup the scene so that hostile wings could attack from two different directions. There are a few ways to do this. You could use a whole host of events to check for a randomly set variable and then use set-arrival-cue to change wing/ship arrival locations.
That works, but it can be a bear to setup that many set-arrival-cue events if you have a lot of affected wings/ships. So Slasher went a more efficient route. At the start of the mission, an attack direction is randomly chosen and stored in a variable. Then based on that variable, an invisible, no-collide, "ship" is placed at that particular location. Wings/ships that are affected simply are set to arrive near that object. If it's on Side A, they will arrive over there. If it's on Side B, they arrive there. We could move it wherever we want in the mission, whenever we want to. The ships will arrive near it wherever it goes! So it only ever needed to move once, at the beginning of the mission. It's an efficient method. The only oversight was using an Every-Time event instead of a When event which caused the bug I found.
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Oooooh, nice, definitely makes sense to do something like that. Since if you just do Arrive Near some central point with a giant radius, you sacrifice finer control of the arrival locations.
For instance, if you look at The Sixth Wonder, enemy bomber wings appear pretty much randomly at some designated distance from Enif Station. If you wanted them to always approach from one of three directions, but still with some randomness, you'd probably do something like the above: set a ship reference to use, then randomly position that ship as needed to give you unpredictable arrival locations without making them spawn absolutely anywhere in a giant spherical radius around the installation. 'Bout right? Sounds pretty useful!
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Every mod should have an invisible no-collide 'point' ship.
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Every mod should have an invisible no-collide 'point' ship.
:nod:
And a screenshot because why not?
(http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk264/mjnmixael/imagebin_zpsjzcnwpya.jpg~original)
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That shot just yells RUN AWAAAAAYYYYY!!!
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That shot just yells RUN AWAAAAAYYYYY!!!
Or maybe... I WISH I'D PICKED A FASTER SHIP!!!! :p
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With release coming soon.. I just wanted to post a quick note about some of the incredible voice work that has gone into the campaign. There's a good number of small and moderate roles, but I really wanted to pick out those that took on large multi-mission roles all for free. Go check out their work, they are incredible. Seriously. At least click on the links to their website.
Wingmen of note:
Caitlin Buckley http://caitlinva.wordpress.com/ (http://caitlinva.wordpress.com/) (Also performed a second semi-large role in a few missions.)
Cygnus https://www.youtube.com/user/ShadowOfCygnus (https://www.youtube.com/user/ShadowOfCygnus)
There are other wingmen, but they didn't give me website URLs so there's little point in listing them here.
Intepid Commander - Warren Blackie http://www.warrenblackievo.com (http://www.warrenblackievo.com)
Command - James L. Collymore http://www.voiceoverprime.com/ (http://www.voiceoverprime.com/) (who you may recognize from Silent Thread:Reborn and I think Blue Planet as well!)
Arris Gavel - Josh Griffiths http://chapter11studios.webs.com/ (http://chapter11studios.webs.com/) (This is a large role in the demo campaign and has a fantastic cameo in the main campaign. I truly cannot wait until you all see it!)
Briefing Commander - Holly Lindin http://hollylindinspire.net (http://hollylindinspire.net) (She put up with me and my rewrites for nearly 2 years!)
And a special shout-out to Cliff Thompson http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4309529/ (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4309529/)
He performed 6 different roles! Some of them minor, one being the Mako in the demo campaign, another being a character that gives Command Briefings. But on top of all of that.. he also performed the single largest role by far... Vasudan Translator. A role that spans multiple characters, factions, missions, etc. This dude nailed it. And he seems just as excited to play the game as he was to voice it!
These guys and 37 others really brought the whole mod to life and I'm super thankful for them. :)
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And our very own... Will "MageKing17" Howard!
this sounds like a very handsome man
You should link some voice samples; the voice samples were the best part of the War in Heaven voice acting death march (well, besides the actual release, of course).
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My to-finish list before release is getting much smaller!
Check into some mission related bugs.
Finish some fiction.
Make our system map viewer is complete.
Finalize the voice acting.
Check for easy to miss bugs with debug builds.
Testing!
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Testing usually opens a whole new can of worms. Still I have faith, cause being diligent as you have always been then I dare to say the can will be pretty small.
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Indeed, testing usually does. I do know the campaign is winnable.. I just finished a playthrough myself. I also know the modpack is very stable on 3.7.4, so we're in a good spot.
The only thing I can't test is "can players break the missions if they aren't familiar with them?" But even then... I designed the modpack so that if post-release patches need to happen, they'll be small in download size.
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I'm deliberately holding off starting Freespace 2 again so I can play this....!
Tick tick tick.
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:D
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It's a date.
:drevil:
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Yes... It is a date... I wouldn't have set a date unless I was sure I would make it, either. :)
At this point, worst case scenario is that the first players find crazy ways to break a mission and I release a quick patch! I've played through the whole campaign about 8 time this month now, so I know for sure the missions can be completed! (And failed... I've done that a few times, too.)
So there's not much to post here at the moment because mostly in just making small tweaks to mission balance or fixing minor bugs and spelling errors.
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It's release month!
And the testers are busy breaking things. But that's good! That's a few less things for you guys to break! :yes:
23 days.
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Really looking forward to playing this! :-)
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Looking forward to play BtA, early congrats for making it to release! Keep up the good work overall, devs and testers.
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(http://i.giphy.com/l0HlBfsi2Om2WD5Kw.gif)
Start packing, pilots. We ship out in 9 days.
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WANT.
do WANT.
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Between the Ashes, is an amazingly polished, fully voice acted, super campaign. The missions are incredibly varied, the enemy you fight is intelligent, there's a star system map that you can check at any point in the campaign, which gets updated as the campaign progresses. It's overall an amazing campaign that will comfortably take its place amongst the greatest mods for Freespace out there.
Ya'll should get excited for this.
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Between the Ashes, is an amazingly polished, fully voice acted, super campaign. The missions are incredibly varied, the enemy you fight is intelligent, there's a star system map that you can check at any point in the campaign, which gets updated as the campaign progresses. It's overall an amazing campaign that will comfortably take its place amongst the greatest mods for Freespace out there.
Ya'll should get excited for this.
Thanks for making the next 8 days that little bit harder...
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Ya'll should get excited for this.
No ...
Nice to hear that you are so close to release. I wish you all the best for it!
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(http://i.giphy.com/l0HlyH5tA4oR5n6F2.gif)
Release is still on track! If it weren't for testers, this campaign would have been completely broken on release day. Spoon deserves your gratitude! (And mine!)
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All Hail Spoon!
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Damn stop hyping me all around.
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[10/24/2016] <Patiently stands on international dateline with laptop>
Jokes aside, I'm looking forward to this!
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I started packing up the rest of the files this morning, except for Core (in case there are needed fixes to the missions tonight).
I'm glad many of your are looking forward to it! I hope you all find it enjoyable. I had to learn a lot of FREDing and FSO modding to pull this off (and had a crap-ton of help!).. so if it does suck, at least I learned a lot! :)
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Just in case: you did fix the HUD issue right? and did you add the new Apollo model?
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Buuuuh, found a last minute mission breaking bug that requires another BtA1_Root update! :(
I was really hoping to avoid unnecessary downloads... but I guess since you already have Maps, Anims, Music, etc.. it's not so bad.
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Files are going up, standby!
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There was a BtA update on Knossos. I have to download the whole mod again, even there do not seem a difference in VP size.
So any new changes or was that a simple fake download of the same version with a different version number?
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I have to download the whole mod again, even there do not seem a difference in VP size.
That should be corrected in the next version of Knossos, but yes, it was a real update.
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I have to download the whole mod again, even there do not seem a difference in VP size.
That should be corrected in the next version of Knossos, but yes, it was a real update.
And what is part of this update exactly? If there were some file changes it would be good to know, because some of them could affect my translation, so that i have to update that also :).
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It's just an update to one or two mission files. I did request some new translation features that should make so your translation can be added to BtA properly based on our PMs about it a while back.
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The modding bug bit me again...
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The modding bug bit me again...
YAY
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Putting the finishing touches on Antwerp. Still on track to release in a couple weeks, I think.
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(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/223521053517938688/905894412641533982/unknown.png?width=673&height=512)
Halfway done with the missions for BtA2. The team has put together some really cool missions so far. We're at that point where the world we've been imagining for so long is coming alive. I love this part of development. Believe me when I tell you that DefCynodont and Naomimyselfandi are the real heroes here.
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I shared this on Discord quite a while ago, but we're far enough in development of BtA2 that I want to start posting screenshots on a semi regular basis, starting with this one.
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/223521053517938688/907867701765107752/screen0261.png)
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I shared this on Discord quite a while ago, but we're far enough in development of BtA2 that I want to start posting screenshots on a semi regular basis, starting with this one.
You framed this like that on purpose didn't you
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It's V'Ger
Run for your lives!
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Time for another screenshot. This one comes from mission 11 in chapter 2.
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/223521053517938688/938566724998029363/screen0316.png)
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Oooo shiny
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When you model a ship that's supposed to be peacefully docking with things, quietly transferring cargo and people, and overally share love, tolerance and mutual understanding...
Mjn: Docks? What docks, you fool?! Those are freaking beams!
Looks cool :yes: . I'm excited to play this and dive into all the plot you guys prepared for Laramis and stuff.
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DO WANT
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I apologize. I meant to post another screenshot earlier in March but I forgot and then I was travelling for a month. Anyway! Enjoy this reveal of a brand new mainhall to be released with BtA2.
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/788960001846673428/958416631602761758/screen0350.png)
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Ohh really fantastic mainhall!
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For April, here's a look at mission 7 with a nice view of Luyten I.
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/223521053517938688/963102318453215342/screen0010.png)
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For May we're going to share two screenshots instead of one. They are presented sequentially. Taken from mission 5 of BtA2.
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/223521053517938688/973251912453472266/screen0003.png)
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/223521053517938688/973251994137526282/screen0002.png)
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Visual style is rocking.
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For June we're showing off a system we're developing that uses custom UIs and will affect how you choose to play the campaign.
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/223521053517938688/982339333199646750/screen0382.png)
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Oh dang, that's really cool.
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Requisitioning stuff? Neat
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Interesting.
I take it the Requisition System is meant to tackle both Build Diversity and Ability Progression (considering canonically you have little room to actually introduce new technologies)?
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This month's dev screenshot comes from a later mission in the campaign. You may recognize another model taken from Solaris. Many thanks again to Darius for those... and also a shoutout to Lafiel for the new animation system. Those arms are fully animated in-mission!
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/223521053517938688/996105351902527538/screen0010.png)
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Is that bright orange stripe on the planet’s night side naturally occurring, or did someone do something “bad?” If the latter, is it connected to the debris field in orbit?
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I take it the Requisition System is meant to tackle both Build Diversity and Ability Progression (considering canonically you have little room to actually introduce new technologies)?
Canonically, we have all the room we need. :) I'm not going to spoil anything, but we're continuing the tradition Slaves of Chaos started with the Siren and Ballista, and our cast just might improvise a new weapon to solve a specific problem they're facing~
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For August we're sharing an image of Amanu Station. It becomes a pretty important location by the end of the campaign, but it has no armaments. Instead it is protected by large flak platforms. Here you can also see a
banana Poseidon for scale.
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/223521053517938688/1004788990215475240/screen0432.png)
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In the penultimate mission the HoL finds itself skirmishing with a hostile warship and, at least for the moment, wins the upper hand.
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/223521053517938688/1017121773772353676/screen0047.png)
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I know what I see and at some point I want to repurpose the same asset as well. I see the sequel is gonna rock as the same way as first chapter does. Hopefully the wait is not gonna take long :].
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Time for October's screenshot preview. Here we have Thyatira Outpost which is clearly in danger. Thyatira sits near the furthest reaches of Luyten.
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/223521053517938688/1029590128420737075/screen0494.png)
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I see a trio of warships around the Schroedinger, firing somekind of cyan INFA-styled weapons. I can't recognize them. Are they custom-made assets or more kitbashed Solaris stuff?
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Those weapons are custom made by Kestrellius.
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I see a trio of warships around the Schroedinger, firing somekind of cyan INFA-styled weapons.
I can't tell you what those weapons are, but I can tell you that the color choice is purposeful and that it means something.
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I was asking about models :P
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We've shown Amanu Station before, but what good is a setting in Freespace if it isn't home to a battle? This comes from one of my favorite missions in BtA2, titled "Vi Et Animo".
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/223521053517938688/1039744399527137350/screen0515.png)
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Here's a little teaser for December. What do you think is down the spooky tunnel?
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/223521053517938688/1048732237425819698/screen0532.png)
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PREPARE FOR DESCENT…
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I'm very glad to see new BtA content and wow, it seems that you have a Descent style mission planned. Tell us more. :D
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First full trailer!
https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=82271.msg1640576#msg1640576
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Get hype!
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New trailer is available here! (https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=82271.msg1640576#msg1640576)
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We have officially entered the Beta Testing stage of BtA2. We still have a few spots open for testers, so shoot me a DM if you're interested.
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In case you missed it, our final trailer was posted here (https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=82271.0). BtA2 will release on May 24, 2024!