Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - FS2 Required => Blue Planet => Topic started by: General Battuta on May 08, 2010, 04:45:17 pm
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The short version: this is the one-year mark, and our first release is basically done! We're just going to hold on to it for a bit more polish.
The long version:
This weekend marks the one-year anniversary of War in Heaven development, and development on Release 1 is essentially complete.
We've done a lot of pretty cool things in this one-year span. None of it would have been possible without the assistance of the SCP coders, who solved bugs, implented new features, and generally behaved like saints. We also owe a lot to the work of other mod teams, especially Diaspora, who implemented awesome new features.
As a sampler of what we've accomplished, some of our features include
- New, voice-acted pilot personas for the UEF
- The latest version of the Fury AI
- New explosion and shockwave effects by Nighteyes
- Overhauled Steve-O weapon effects by Nighteyes
- A new set of briefing icons for the UEF
- Optimized versions of some of Steve-O's ships (including some not yet released to the public) including pilots, LODs, reduced texture count, and hilariously, little people in ejection seats in the debris
- Tweaked piercing effects for many weapons, including warship railguns
- Tons of new music, including original tracks by Daddy_Warhol in the works
- Completely overhauled tables for all the UEF ships and their tactical paradigm, as well as new GTVA vessels
- Subspace missile strikes
- SECRET BUSINESS
Obviously you'll also get your hands on a large number of brand new ships and weapons for both the GTVA and UEF, some of which are quite tactically different from normal FreeSpace.
And of course there's the meat of the mod: a complete campaign, about as long as Age of Aquarius in terms of gameplay, covering the first half of our story arc (consider it Episode 1 of War in Heaven). This campaign was FREDded from the ground up to use all of BP's new features like the Fury AI.
The campaign has been beta tested and is effectively complete. We are nearly ready to release, but we are going to perform some polish, optimization, and writing tune-ups for an undisclosed period of time. Expect to wait a few months or more while we get everything shipshape. But rest assured, we're in the home stretch.
Tester reaction has been very positive so far. With a couple other awesome campaigns in the beta phase (Vassago's Dirge, I'm looking at you), there are good things on the horizon.
I might update this one-year anniversary thread with some behind the scenes stuff if people are interested. Any questions?
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- Optimized versions of some of Steve-O's ships (including some not yet released to the public) including pilots, LODs, reduced texture count, and hilariously, little people in ejection seats in the debris
Heh, awesome.
And of course there's the meat of the mod: a complete campaign, about as long as Age of Aquarius in terms of gameplay, covering the first half of our story arc (consider it Episode 1 of War in Heaven). This campaign was FREDded from the ground up to use all of BP's new features like the Fury AI.
Episode 1? So will episode 2 be covered in BP3, or in a second chapter to WiH?
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So you're ready to release, but you're not ready because you want to add more polish?
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So you're ready to release, but you're not ready because you want to add more polish?
We could roll it out right now and it'd be cool; it's already polished like heck yeah. But we want MOAR POLISH.
We will continue to construct creep colonies in order to EXPAND THE CREEP
Episode 1? So will episode 2 be covered in BP3, or in a second chapter to WiH?
We will be releasing War in Heaven in two episodes via Steam as part of an exclusive deal using our new DRM-enabled FS2Open builds.
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Wait what you're splitting WiH into two parts?
Steam?
DRM-enabled?
What?!
I hope you're joking cause otherwise, **** that ****.
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We will be releasing War in Heaven in two episodes via Steam as part of an exclusive deal using our new DRM-enabled FS2Open builds.
Don't even joke about that.
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Wait what you're splitting WiH into two parts?
Steam?
DRM-enabled?
What?!
I hope you're joking cause otherwise, **** that ****.
Totally, 100% serious. This is not a joking matter.
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Oh yes it is. For the record: We are NOT doing that. Any further discussion about this in this thread will be dealt with.
With Swords.
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You forgot to mention that we'll be charging $1.99 too.
but srsly folks
It's going to be delivered in two episodes, as things look right now. That's been the plan since Day 1, before it was anyone but Darius on board.
And I think the beta testers can attest it's a pretty good call. :cool:
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Is this two episodes in addition to episode 3, or do you just mean parts 2 and 3?
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Is this two episodes in addition to episode 3, or do you just mean parts 2 and 3?
War in Heaven will come in an Episode 1 (the done one) and an Episode 2.
Each one will be about as long as AoA in terms of play length, maybe a bit longer.
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War in Heaven (AKA Blue Planet 2) will be released in two episodes. Then we'll get to work on Blue Planet 3.
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- New explosion and shockwave effects by Nighteyes
:yes:
- Optimized versions of some of Steve-O's ships (including some not yet released to the public) including pilots, LODs, reduced texture count, and hilariously, little people in ejection seats in the debris
:yes:
- Tons of new music, including original tracks by Daddy_Warhol in the works
YES!
really?
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BP may be the first mod that reintroduced SSMs and is certainly the largest one to do so.
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We're not the first. Flaming_Sword used tactical SSMs in Shivans.
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I might update this one-year anniversary thread with some behind the scenes stuff if people are interested.
Absolutely! Interested doesn't even start to cover it! :D
And happy birthday :nod:
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HUZZAH! :D
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War in Heaven (AKA Blue Planet 2) will be released in two episodes. Then we'll get to work on Blue Planet 3.
*COUGH*STARCRAFT2*COUGH*
Also- holy dev schedule, Battman! You guys are more dedicated than most full-time game studios. And you produce about as much for it :D
As a FREDder, I'm very much looking forward to some awesome optimized ships as well. :D
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Great news General Battuta!
Thanks for the appreciation, and I'm really looking forward to seeing how you've used all these features we've added lately. :) I'm kinda happy I haven't had a sneak peek at WiH until it'll be polished and fully finalised.
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*snip*
- New, voice-acted pilot personas for the UEF
*snip*
Really? Awesome :D (Now we just need the campaign voice acted in it's entirety - start hiring, I may actually lend a hand, if you could use a scottish-neutral accent in there [discovered my mic is actually quite good])
And, in general, bloomin' awesome, I can't wait - you guys rock!
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As we've said before, we probably won't spend the effort necessary to get it voice acted. That said, if someone wants to volunteer for it, we're certainly going to help them as best we can.
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As we've said before, we probably won't spend the effort necessary to get it voice acted. That said, if someone wants to volunteer for it, we're certainly going to help them as best we can.
Utter blasphemy. AoA got VAed eventually. I DEMAND the same of WiH :D
(else, it's counterintuitive to the "let's make this mod perfect" mindset that makes BP so awesome)
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As we've said before, we probably won't spend the effort necessary to get it voice acted. That said, if someone wants to volunteer for it, we're certainly going to help them as best we can.
Utter blasphemy. AoA got VAed eventually. I DEMAND the same of WiH :D
(else, it's counterintuitive to the "let's make this mod perfect" mindset that makes BP so awesome)
Yeah, but AoA got voice-acted well after its initial release. And only because it was popular enough that the fans came together and voice acted it themselves.
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Kolgena: Getting WiH VAed before release would delay said release by a year, if not more. You wouldn't want that, would you?
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I think he wants BP to be fully VA'd, it's not important if it's done before or after the first release, and
As we've said before, we probably won't spend the effort necessary to get it voice acted.
that line makes me a sad panda, as I tend to think you guys are not even considering the posibility to VA this after it's released...
I don't know, that's what I understand by reading that.
Please say I'm completely wrong :(
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Right. Let me clear this up.
We would like nothing more than to get WiH voice acted. But given our experiences in getting AoA done, we fear that it would suck up far too much time that could be better spent working on the missions and the rest of the mod to make it practical.
As with AoA, however, if some of you guys want to give it a shot, we'll support you to the best of our abilities. At the moment, we feel that getting the story out there in a playable form is better than stringing you along until it has voice acting as well.
To give you an idea of the workload involved, WiH Episode 1 is about as long as AoA in terms of gameplay (fewer missions, but the missions we do have are much longer than the AoA ones, on average), but has (and this is a somewhat conservative guesstimate) about 1.5 to 2 times the amount of dialogue and other pieces of in-mission text. It took us about 8 months to get all roles filled and all voice files integrated in AoA.
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Not to mention that War in Heaven would be significantly more demanding on the actors.
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Not to mention that War in Heaven would be significantly more demanding on the actors.
I'm not sure it could be much more demanding than something like Transcend, considering that's a horror set in Freespace where everyone is possibly insane.
In terms of the sheer lines, very possibly, but I think you'd be understanding the capacity of some of your fans/voice actors.
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Oh, of course. But if you play it, you'll see that the dialogue in WiH isn't well suited to the "distribute scripts, get lines read, put lines in-game" approach we could do on AoA. There is a whole lot of implied things that, we feel, needs to come from direct interaction between the actors, something that takes a whole new level of organization.
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We're not the first. Flaming_Sword used tactical SSMs in Shivans.
He used tactical or "local" SSMs which were added by SCP some time ago.
These are the ones which you fire at distance and they warp to target.
What we are using is a mechanic which has been around since retail, but didn't got used.
It's the "real" SSM, which isn't launched in mission, but just summoned there.
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i am of the opinion that bad voice acting is better than no voice acting. the single most distracting thing for a campaign is having to stop to read text in the middle of a firefight. it's even worse when the text comes at you so fast you actually have to pause the game or go to the log to read it. (i'm sure the BP staff is capable of avoiding that, but i've seen that as a problem in many campaigns)
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i am of the opinion that bad voice acting is better than no voice acting. the single most distracting thing for a campaign is having to stop to read text in the middle of a firefight. it's even worse when the text comes at you so fast you actually have to pause the game or go to the log to read it. (i'm sure the BP staff is capable of avoiding that, but i've seen that as a problem in many campaigns)
I'm not sure. There's quite a bit of text, and while it's paced such that a fast reader can catch it, it's inevitably going to distract from the missions.
I'm afraid there's nothing we can do about it. Beta tester reaction seemed to suggest it wasn't an overwhelming problem - I don't remember any specific complaints about it.
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right. good fredding can mitigate, but not eliminate the problem. my point is that a post-release, quick and dirty VA job by anyone who wants to contribute wouldn't be such a bad idea. we need not spend 8 months on it, and it can help out gameplay. and it would be optional for those who don't mind reading/don't want to hear crap acting :P and of course it could be done properly later.
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I would caution you though, crappy VA could ruin everything. Especially in a campaign like WiH...
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Guess I'll finally be forced into flying with Fury's AI, then. :p
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They did play-testing with Very Easy so I'm sure everyone will be fine :lol:
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i am of the opinion that bad voice acting is better than no voice acting. the single most distracting thing for a campaign is having to stop to read text in the middle of a firefight. it's even worse when the text comes at you so fast you actually have to pause the game or go to the log to read it. (i'm sure the BP staff is capable of avoiding that, but i've seen that as a problem in many campaigns)
If you like bad VA more than no VA, you can use MS Sam (or Samantha). It was restored in 3.6.12 right?
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i am of the opinion that bad voice acting is better than no voice acting. the single most distracting thing for a campaign is having to stop to read text in the middle of a firefight. it's even worse when the text comes at you so fast you actually have to pause the game or go to the log to read it. (i'm sure the BP staff is capable of avoiding that, but i've seen that as a problem in many campaigns)
If you like bad VA more than no VA, you can use MS Sam (or Samantha). It was restored in 3.6.12 right?
never realised it was dissabled, I'm sure I've been using it in the nightlys
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I applaud the effort made by you guys.
Regarding the WIH VA, i'd happily contribute (already mentioned elsewhere) but i'm curious as to how many different roles there are to be filled. AoA was around the fifteen-twenty mark and it took a fair while to even reach that amount of interested application let alone the successful application.
I get the feeling WIH may need far far more.
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I would caution you though, crappy VA could ruin everything. Especially in a campaign like WiH...
Believe me when I say this, for I have flown with the UEF and lived. Crappy voice-acting will completely, and utterly, destroy the hard work of our two FREDers, Battuta and Darius. You wouldn't believe the lengths which with they've gone to in putting the missions together, and getting the atmosphere and dialogue 'just right'. As The E said, there are just some things in WiH you need actors with a greater bond and level of interaction than 'internet buddies' to effectively portray with voice.
I applaud the effort made by you guys.
Regarding the WIH VA, i'd happily contribute (already mentioned elsewhere) but i'm curious as to how many different roles there are to be filled. AoA was around the fifteen-twenty mark and it took a fair while to even reach that amount of interested application let alone the successful application.
I get the feeling WIH may need far far more.
WiH in total? Definitely.
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I'm waiting to hear back from Darius, but it seems that I managed to volunteer myself (Well, I acquiesced to The_E's challenge along the lines of "You want to do it?") to attempt to co-ordinate a VA-ing effort for War in Heaven. Obviously, this is dependent on what Darius says, but I'd be willing and able to give it a go (when my exams and field trip are done by mid-june, and patchily until Star Ruler beta-testing finishes in August).
This does mean, eventually, that I will be recruiting.
I have ideas on how to tackle the characters who are supposed to have specific chemistry between them, but it would seem like breaking experimental ground for remote co-ordination and cooperation of voice actors, so could well be the make or break of the effort.
The_E has promised me the support of the team if I get the go-ahead, and I'd like to entreat the regular actors of the Hard Light community to lend me their support as well, as they've more experience in this field than I.
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You can sign me up for any minor role that needs filling. And should the Labouchere make an appearance, reserve that role for me please (since I was her voice in AoA).
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Ravenholme, not that your offer is not appreciated by BP staff, but you really have no idea what you're getting into.
By very, very rough assumption I would stay that the first part of WiH has about four times as much lines as AoA had. Add second part on top of that, and you have at least eight times as much lines as AoA had. AoA voice-acting took 8 months to complete. So realistically you'd look at a project that would be many times longer.
Due to the nature of written dialogue in this campaign, voice actors and actresses need certain dynamic to get their respective lines right, which is extremely hard to do over internet. It's just not worth the time and effort to get decent voice-acting done. For poor voice acting there is always synthetic.
Wait until you've played both first and second part of the campaign. Then decide what you really want to get into. Until then, you'd best not to make any promises or plans regarding the matter. If you're still out to do this, we can only question your sanity as well as applaud you for it.
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I have done my best to get this point across on IRC. That said, I am all for giving him a chance to do this.
Also, it makes sense to start with VAing Release 1 before R2 is out, just to get a head start on it.
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Yeah, I wouldn't say it's not worth the time, but I think you'd better play Act 1 first before you start volunteering yourself, buddy. :D
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Yeah, I wouldn't say it's not worth the time, but I think you'd better play Act 1 first before you start volunteering yourself, buddy. :D
Yeah, I can imagine the scale of the task, but it is subject to seeing just how much dialogue I have to co-ordinate (I can imagine, though, from the videos I saw you've made this one much more chatty than AoA - Bad radio discipline on the pilot's part :P )
(Sorry for the delay in replying, had a cell biology lecture over the last hour)
Hmm, I could've furthered my Pro-GTVA agenda by turning that comment on bad radio discipline into a disparaging remark about the UEF military as a whole.... oh well, missed opportunity :P
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However this pans out i'm all for getting onboard too.
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Awesome, sounds like you guys have made incredible progress. About the voice acting, have you guys considered recording the complicated scenes live and then sort of "overdubbing" with the final voice actors? Here's how I would envision it working:
1) The team member in charge of the VA, having identified the missions that require special effort, meets up with one or two enthusiastic prospective voice actors who have also read through the scripts beforehand. They discuss each exchange to get on the same page and then perform the missions, recording the important interactions as big single chunks of audio on a laptop or something.
2) The audio is packaged along with the scripts and uploaded to mediafire or whatever, and the list of parts that need to be filled is posted on the forum along with links.
3) The folks who wanna try their hand at VA can now download and mimic an actual performance that makes sense, has all the right little nuances, and isn't just them reading random sentences totally out of context. Even people who have never played the campaign will be able to turn in appropriately inflected lines with the correct pacing, tone, pronunciation of proper names, etc. They can then chop up and label their pristine, high-quality dubs and send them back in.
4) Profit
Clearly the major drawback is that you are adding in another step to the process, but the tiny performance group's efforts over the course of a couple afternoons would be magnified many times over by the individual actors, possibly yielding much more consistent and convincing final product. Plus they can go out for a beer or four afterward. Anyway, just a thought. I'm really looking forward to this campaign. :yes:
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Regarding the WIH VA, i'd happily contribute (already mentioned elsewhere) but i'm curious as to how many different roles there are to be filled. AoA was around the fifteen-twenty mark and it took a fair while to even reach that amount of interested application let alone the successful application.
I get the feeling WIH may need far far more.
I'm up for reviving the Mongoose Squadron o' Doom myself, if it will help eat up a few bit roles. :p
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On the music front, you guys thought about using some of the Conquest: Frontier Wars soundtrack?
The Terran Theme 1 might suit as some form of pyrrhic victory or a very hard won one. (Though it does sound very Starship Troopers)
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We have a pretty complete soundtrack already. And hopefully, we'll get a few custom tracks at some point.
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TerranTheme1 is very SST-ish, however that probably won't be an issue as the UEF is the United Earth Federation, just like the Terran Federation in SST, and of course the UEF has a big honkin' Terran eagle as their symbol.
That reminds me. I need to play more C:FW. TrashMan made a mod for it and I can basically spam Battleships and Fleet Carriers in it since Battleships have PDL's to deal with Mantis fighters and Fleet Carriers have these ridiculously long-ranged bombardment cannons.
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Well, if an effort is made to VA the campaign, I'm totally in. Don't delay the mod for it, but I think we could pull together and get it acted post-release, even if it takes time. Dibs on the Duke and Fortune if they're in WiH.
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Well, if an effort is made to VA the campaign, I'm totally in. Don't delay the mod for it, but I think we could pull together and get it acted post-release, even if it takes time. Dibs on the Duke and Fortune if they're in WiH.
Okay. As long as VA happens to it eventually, I will be placated :) I got the impression earlier that nobody was going to bother organizing something to get VActing done, so... yeah. My bad.
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Well, if an effort is made to VA the campaign, I'm totally in. Don't delay the mod for it, but I think we could pull together and get it acted post-release, even if it takes time. Dibs on the Duke and Fortune if they're in WiH.
Okay. As long as VA happens to it eventually, I will be placated :) I got the impression earlier that nobody was going to bother organizing something to get VActing done, so... yeah. My bad.
Nobody on the team will be, at least as things stand. But a fan effort (as happened with AoA, namely by myself) that occurs after release won't be out of the question.
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Well, if an effort is made to VA the campaign, I'm totally in. Don't delay the mod for it, but I think we could pull together and get it acted post-release, even if it takes time. Dibs on the Duke and Fortune if they're in WiH.
Okay. As long as VA happens to it eventually, I will be placated :) I got the impression earlier that nobody was going to bother organizing something to get VActing done, so... yeah. My bad.
The team isn't. I've however, foolishly, volunteered to take a bash at organising an effort to get it VA'd
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I was wondering, have just played some more BP : Directors Cut. How did you guys organize the dialog in missions like First Contact(the one when they make the ceremony with the Sanctuary) or that other mission when Bei flies off to see the Vishnans.
The chat Bei has with his wingmates is pretty emotional. I wonder how the VA team managed that properly with the actors just recording disjointed lines. I assume that in WiH we will have more such dialog and thats what makes VAing it so daunting.
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One advantage of making the VA after the release is, that the actors can just play the mission right before (or even during) recording the lines. That makes it easier to "get the mood right". At least it helped me.
On top of that the actors of the major roles are simply amazing!
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The chat Bei has with his wingmates is pretty emotional. I wonder how the VA team managed that properly with the actors just recording disjointed lines. I assume that in WiH we will have more such dialog and thats what makes VAing it so daunting.
The main thing is that the VAs for Bei, Corey and Taylor are just that good. Also, giving them proper directions helps immensely.
One advantage of making the VA after the release is, that the actors can just play the mission right before (or even during) recording the lines. That makes it easier to "get the mood right". At least it helped me.
On top of that the actors of the major roles are simply amazing!
Just a guess here, but a significant portion of the people we cast were from outside sources with no connection to FS whatsoever. It comes down to providing them with a proper script; just giving them the blank lines without stage directions would result in awfulness.
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The chat Bei has with his wingmates is pretty emotional. I wonder how the VA team managed that properly with the actors just recording disjointed lines. I assume that in WiH we will have more such dialog and thats what makes VAing it so daunting.
The main thing is that the VAs for Bei, Corey and Taylor are just that good. Also, giving them proper directions helps immensely.
One advantage of making the VA after the release is, that the actors can just play the mission right before (or even during) recording the lines. That makes it easier to "get the mood right". At least it helped me.
On top of that the actors of the major roles are simply amazing!
Just a guess here, but a significant portion of the people we cast were from outside sources with no connection to FS whatsoever. It comes down to providing them with a proper script; just giving them the blank lines without stage directions would result in awfulness.
Yep, I discovered the usefulness of providing stage directions when I used my little sister to voice a couple of lines in my first FRED mission. She performed admirably (For a 16 year old scottish girl), and the only limitation to the quality was my somewhat crappy mic.
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I just got to see another lovely little aesthetic touch involving scripteage and what I believe is a new SCP feature by the mighty Wanderer. It's nothing huge, but it is pretty.
The_E also did something very cool with model animations.
Progress on the key stuff before release continues apace.
/me bounces
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The_E also did something very cool with model animations.
Is it ... TRANSFORMATION?
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No. That would be silly.
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Most likely things like weapon ports opening and closing and flaps changing position when using the afterburner, like it's already the case with the Jackal/Kentauroi as it's used in Dawn of Sol.
But what the SCP feature could be, I have no idea.
Edit: Could it be this? http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=69696.0
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Most likely things like weapon ports opening and closing and flaps changing position when using the afterburner, like it's already the case with the Jackal/Kentauroi as it's used in Dawn of Sol.
But what the SCP feature could be, I have no idea.
No, not at all. Those features come built in with the Federal Fighters Pack. The Dawn of Sol team had nothing to do with adding those.
Dawn of Sol used those fighters essentially as they were presented. We've done a bit more customization.
And the external weapons thing is already in place.
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I know that the ships were made by someone else, but if someone want's to see firsthand how that looks, they can do so by playing DoS, that's all I meant to say.
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Indeed. It's also a good place to see that the fighters are poorly optimized and don't have any people in the cockpits. ;7
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So you finally optimized them?
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No
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Some have been optimized, some have not (the most common ones took priority.)
We'll get as much done as is practical before release, but release will probably not be held up for the remaining non-optimized ships to get optimized.
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One finished and one half-finished doesn't really count as plural if we're talking about "done".
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One finished and one half-finished doesn't really count as plural if we're talking about "done".
Yeah but it doesn't qualify as a flat 'no' either.