Hard Light Productions Forums

Hosted Projects - Standalone => Fate of the Galaxy => Topic started by: CountBuggula on April 07, 2014, 06:27:13 pm

Title: State of the Galaxy
Post by: CountBuggula on April 07, 2014, 06:27:13 pm: As there hasn't been a ton of activity here lately, I just wanted to quell any fears that the project is dead, and put together an updated list of what remaining assets are needed and available for release. There's remarkably few assets still needed, but there's still plenty of work to be done.

Ships:

Unfinished and Required for release:
Correllian Corvette - complete, awaiting in-game conversion
ISD-II - Model by Brand-X complete, texturing completion in process by Zookeeper
E-Wing - complete, awaiting in-game conversion

Unfinished OST ships not required for initial release
Mon Cals - Bobbtman completed Home One, plenty other varieties available
ISD-I - Enough differences between this and deuce that a complete remake is required.
Executor - Don't think anyone's even attempted this one
Nebulon B - PHRiSCo has a model near-completion, no texture yet. edit: PHRiSCo reported in, still working on it.
Gallofree Transport - Several partially completed models exist, currently abandoned.

EU Ships
Any EU ship can potentially be accepted for the project, given it matches the level of quality required and fits thematically. Chief1983 ultimately has the final say as to what will be accepted. It's much more important that the model is high-quality and fits well with the OT movies than matching any existing images/models/data from non-movie sources (including previous X-Wing games).

Be sure to search and read through all existing forum threads regarding any EU ship you're considering to avoid repeating mistakes or pitfalls from previous attempts. ESPECIALLY true for the Assault Gunboat.

Cockpit Models:
No work has yet been done here. It's something that many have asked for and would be a nice addition to the mod, but not currently a priority, and not required for initial release. Quality submissions would be welcome.

So What Else?
Beyond graphical assets, the main work that's left is in mission fredding, tweaking gameplay, testing, and multiplayer balance. And while I've been assured much is being accomplished in those areas behind the scenes, it's not nearly as exciting as model work so there's rarely screenshots to be shared.

There are several positions open on the team if you'd like to lend a hand. See the stickied thread for what's currently available.
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: On_Your_Six on April 08, 2014, 11:16:25 am: Thanks for the update, it's nice to have a grasp on how far along you guys have gotten.

Some questions though.

Approximately where in the timeline are you guys looking to have the campaign start from? It's pretty clear that it will be well after the PT, but will it be before the events of ANH?

If so are there any intentions to follow what was established in the EU, such as the Rebellion using more antiquated fighters (Z-95's, Y-Wings) until the defection of the Incom team that designed the X-Wings? Or deviating from the X-Wing series and not introducing the A-Wing and B-Wing until sometime after the events ANH or ESB? Or are you going to follow in the footsteps of X-Wing for the sake of variety?

I only ask since if you're planning on starting with events prior to ANH (early Rebellion) it would be interesting to see the evolution of both the Rebel and Imperial Navy's (ie, the Empire using VSD's, Neb's, etc until shortly before ANH).

Basically I'm just curious as to the design choices the team wants to make in regards to the part of the Star Wars history they intend to start from and if there's any desire to have events in their campaign reflect the events of the history presented in the EU as opposed to a completely original interpretation of events.

Keeping the scope of the initial (I suppose if I should have asked if you guys are intending to do episodic releases) campaign smaller might help those of us who have some ideas when fredding missions stay in line with what the core team wants to achieve with this mod. I might be asking all this and you folks already have a campaign outlined or even written.

Keep up the great work, everything looks fantastic so far.
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: swashmebuckle on April 08, 2014, 03:18:38 pm: The single player campaigns for our first release take place before ANH during the time when the X-wing is being phased into the Alliance military. We aren't using the A-wing or B-wing for these campaigns, though they do appear in standalone missions set later. We will be using an episodic release format, and future installments will be set later in the Galactic Civil War, though we might also go back in time a bit further if we get appropriate ships.

Thanks for making this post CountBuggula! The project has come a long way :)
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: Aardwolf on April 08, 2014, 06:38:27 pm: CountBuggula is on the FotG team? But he doesn't have a FotG badge? Huh.
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: swashmebuckle on April 08, 2014, 06:42:09 pm: Buggula is looking at taking the webmaster job that has been open for like six years :D
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: CountBuggula on April 10, 2014, 12:01:19 pm: Woohoo! Got my badge, I'm all official. I look forward to showing everyone the new site when it's ready.
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: bobbtmann on April 10, 2014, 08:30:53 pm: That's a fine looking badge CountBuggula. Welcome to the club!
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: Hobbie on April 10, 2014, 10:36:29 pm: Join ussssssss. :P
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: MetalDestroyer on April 11, 2014, 06:50:21 pm: What ? Cockpit is not a priority !! xD
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: CountBuggula on April 11, 2014, 07:05:56 pm: I would LOVE to see cockpits. One of the things they'd REALLY impact is when using with a headtracker. Trying to know what direction you're looking in and what direction you're going is really difficult and disorienting when you don't have anything but the HUD for a frame of reference.

Unfortunately, a good cockpit model is terribly difficult to come by. Just from my opinion I'd think it takes a lot more talent to create a convincing cockpit (especially when there's live-action footage to compare it to) than the external of a ship. It's close up, it's high definition, and flaws show up too easily. If I recall, I believe Brand-X was planning on tackling them after the ships were finished, but with him currently unavailable we just don't have anyone with the skill and the free time to do it. Our few talented modelers are busy enough as is trying to finish the last few ships that we need for a release.

Hopefully with a quality initial release we might gather more community interest and more talent might show up to lend a hand. Until then we'll do the best we can with what we have.
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: SypheDMar on April 11, 2014, 09:20:21 pm: Oh! Thought we were talking about cockpits on models for a moment, which isn't important. But yeah, hud cockpit would be awesome to have.
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: zack-stefy on April 13, 2014, 08:53:52 am: For the other ships, why don't you guys import some models from Star Wars: Empire at War mods and Freeworlds Tides of War ? Some of them are very well made and it will make your work much easier:D
ex: http://www.moddb.com/mods/yuuzhan-vong-at-war
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: TopAce on April 13, 2014, 09:54:28 am: Dev policy is to use own assets only.
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: Dragon on April 13, 2014, 04:38:01 pm: Besides, the models made for other games are usually more trouble than they're worth. Different requirements, different rigging... Sometimes it's easier to make a new model than to adapt an existing one that isn't made for FS.
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: headdie on April 13, 2014, 07:20:33 pm: Quote from: Dragon on April 13, 2014, 04:38:01 pm
Besides, the models made for other games are usually more trouble than they're worth. Different requirements, different rigging... Sometimes it's easier to make a new model than to adapt an existing one that isn't made for FS.

this and potential legal/licencing/permissions/general Internet BS means it is usually better to develop in community where possible
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: Molaris on April 15, 2014, 07:47:09 pm: does anyone plan to finish the SSD with weapons and the like?
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: zookeeper on April 16, 2014, 01:25:43 am: There is no SSD to finish, and frankly, I doubt we'll ever have one comparable in detail and function to the ISD or our other ships. We might still feature it in a background role using a simpler model at some point, just not as a fully-featured centerpiece you're supposed to get up close and personal with.
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: Dragon on April 16, 2014, 02:31:11 am: I think when discussing it, we've agreed that the SSD would be around 12km in size. Colly is 8km in size, and has been HTLed with great detail. Same with Sathanas, and we've got two of those already. All we need is a sufficiently dedicated, sufficiently good modeler. Maybe see if some of the MVP or Diaspora modelers are SW fans... Even with an upper-limit estimate (around 17km), I believe it could be done. It'd be a massive project, of course, so FoTG would need to gain some serious momentum for that, but I believe that it might happen after the first release. Diaspora didn't start from obscurity, it's released "demo" was BtRL. FoTG's got nothing so far, once that changes, I can see the interest growing quickly.
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: CountBuggula on April 16, 2014, 01:42:01 pm: Quote from: Dragon on April 16, 2014, 02:31:11 am
All we need is a sufficiently dedicated, sufficiently good modeler.

Yep. And we're at least one super talented modeler down right now. I agree though, I'm hoping we'll get some more interest in this whole project after our first release. Having played some of the non-released content now, I can safely say that it's incredibly fun and fans are going to love it. And while there's still a bit of work to be done, I'm confident that the end is in sight. I obviously can't comment on how soon exactly that means, but it'll be worth the wait.

As far as my end goes, by well before the official launch I should have a brand new shiny website released and will do my best to provide content updates, screenshots, etc. to generate excitement. Stay tuned!
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: TopAce on April 24, 2014, 04:49:26 am: (http://i1082.photobucket.com/albums/j367/TopAceHLP/FotGcampaign.jpg)
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: PHRiSCo on May 01, 2014, 02:27:30 am: I'm absolutley ashamed that I don't have this comeplete yet, it's been almost 5 years. Honestly, I apologize, life gets crazy.

I was the Lead Technical Artist on Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition last year, and once again, got laid off after doing a disgusting amount of overtime. That's my final lesson in that school, the juice was definitely not worth the squeeze, although I am immensely proud of that project.

My daughter is now 14 months old, so those paycheques(Canadian spelling) need to keep coming. I'm currently under a short contract with EA working on NHL. It's a really fun job actually; they are letting me be creative, I have no lead responsibilities like I mostly have for the past decade of my career, and I'm getting really positive feedback. That'll be over soon, and then I'm taking my family into a new chapter which I can talk more about later if anyone's interested.

Once we're settled I'll need to reacquaint myself in Max since I've been using Maya the past 2 years on TR and NHL, and the Nebulon is the perfect project to brush up on. I would love to have this complete asap.

Thanks for your patience.
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: swashmebuckle on May 01, 2014, 02:50:41 am: Woo, PHRiSCo! So glad you're still with us!
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: Deathsnake on May 23, 2014, 05:16:06 am: Nebulon B2 would be awesome. I like it in TIE Fighter :)
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: chief1983 on May 23, 2014, 07:56:54 am: Also, we'd love to keep more in touch with you PHRiSCo, feel free to drop by IRC to chat if you ever have the time.
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: Knarfe1000 on December 27, 2014, 04:49:12 am: I was hoping for a XMas release this year...I´m really sad. Maybe next year then.
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: coffeesoft on December 27, 2014, 06:42:29 pm: You can kill a few Ties while waiting for the release :)

http://www.moddb.com/mods/star-wars-the-original-trilogy-mod (http://www.moddb.com/mods/star-wars-the-original-trilogy-mod)
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: TaShadan on February 22, 2015, 09:59:58 am: I am still looking foward to this! Will there be something playable soon? I just installed XvT again to play on Gameranger and it is huge fun!
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: CountBuggula on February 23, 2015, 09:08:51 pm: Quote from: TaShadan on February 22, 2015, 09:59:58 am
I am still looking foward to this! Will there be something playable soon? I just installed XvT again to play on Gameranger and it is huge fun!

We haven't really talked about a preview release but the mod is very playable in its current form and most of what we have left is finishing up the campaigns. Maybe we can talk about the possibility of a limited release soon.
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: Vector Leader on February 24, 2015, 12:53:38 pm: Quote from: CountBuggula on February 23, 2015, 09:08:51 pm
Quote from: TaShadan on February 22, 2015, 09:59:58 am
I am still looking foward to this! Will there be something playable soon? I just installed XvT again to play on Gameranger and it is huge fun!

We haven't really talked about a preview release but the mod is very playable in its current form and most of what we have left is finishing up the campaigns. Maybe we can talk about the possibility of a limited release soon.
Sweet Lord in heaven, YES PLEASE! ;7
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: LaineyBugsDaddy on February 25, 2015, 09:55:08 am: I would be very much in favor of a demo release. I haven't been able to get my Star Wars fighter combat fix in a long time, because the last OS I could get Rogue Squadron 3D to work on was XP, and even that was kind of a pain in the butt. And of course they never ported the other Rogue Squadron games to PC. IIRC, RS2 was Gamecube only. *grumble* And the more recent Star Wars games have pretty much been RPGs. I want to fly fighters, dagnabbit!
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: Dain on February 25, 2015, 10:04:10 am: Even a video would be great. It'd be nice to know what gameplay will look like. I'm hoping for something that fits somewhere in between Freespace and the X-wing games.. with a dash of how fighter combat looks in the movies..

Alternatively one day it'll be a lovely surprise like Diaspora.. :)
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: CountBuggula on February 25, 2015, 11:51:37 am: Quote from: Dain on February 25, 2015, 10:04:10 am
Even a video would be great. It'd be nice to know what gameplay will look like. I'm hoping for something that fits somewhere in between Freespace and the X-wing games.. with a dash of how fighter combat looks in the movies..

Alternatively one day it'll be a lovely surprise like Diaspora.. :)

I think what you'll find is how fighter combat looks in the movies...with a dash of something between Freespace and the X-Wing games. :D

We haven't posted a video in a really long time - I'll see if we can whip something up. I'd really like to have an actual full-fledged trailer, but unfortunately FSO doesn't have a flight recorder I can use to go back and get shots from other angles, so my attempts so far have been limited.

We may also have some other news for you shortly...stay tuned.
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: chief1983 on February 25, 2015, 12:49:52 pm: We need to use the SEXP or Lua support for camera positioning and record scripted scenes for making a trailer. I want to find time soon to direct some missions to create some teaser shots, if no one else beats me to it.
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: Vector Leader on February 25, 2015, 01:14:01 pm: Quote from: CountBuggula on February 25, 2015, 11:51:37 am
Quote from: Dain on February 25, 2015, 10:04:10 am
Even a video would be great. It'd be nice to know what gameplay will look like. I'm hoping for something that fits somewhere in between Freespace and the X-wing games.. with a dash of how fighter combat looks in the movies..

Alternatively one day it'll be a lovely surprise like Diaspora.. :)

I think what you'll find is how fighter combat looks in the movies...with a dash of something between Freespace and the X-Wing games. :D
This is one of the most unique and exciting things about FotG, IMHO. No other Star Wars flight combat game (official or fan-made) has aspired to be this authentic. :yes:

Quote from: CountBuggula on February 25, 2015, 11:51:37 am
We haven't posted a video in a really long time - I'll see if we can whip something up. I'd really like to have an actual full-fledged trailer, but unfortunately FSO doesn't have a flight recorder I can use to go back and get shots from other angles, so my attempts so far have been limited.

We may also have some other news for you shortly...stay tuned.
Even some gameplay footage would be absolutely epic. :cool:
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: Gray on February 25, 2015, 01:37:26 pm: As much as i loved to have a Demo, i'd be against it - in this case and would prefer a short gameplay video.
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: Dain on February 26, 2015, 10:26:38 am: Quote from: CountBuggula on February 25, 2015, 11:51:37 am
Quote from: Dain on February 25, 2015, 10:04:10 am
Even a video would be great. It'd be nice to know what gameplay will look like. I'm hoping for something that fits somewhere in between Freespace and the X-wing games.. with a dash of how fighter combat looks in the movies..

Alternatively one day it'll be a lovely surprise like Diaspora.. :)

I think what you'll find is how fighter combat looks in the movies...with a dash of something between Freespace and the X-Wing games. :D

We haven't posted a video in a really long time - I'll see if we can whip something up. I'd really like to have an actual full-fledged trailer, but unfortunately FSO doesn't have a flight recorder I can use to go back and get shots from other angles, so my attempts so far have been limited.

We may also have some other news for you shortly...stay tuned.

Hey, I get excited at just screenshots, everything looks so lovely ingame.
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: Nightstorm on March 16, 2015, 11:17:24 pm: I think a demo release would be awesome. As I mentioned in another post, I think this mod is shaping up to be the best Star Wars sim since X-Wing Alliance :D
Title: Re: State of the Galaxy
Post by: coffeesoft on March 17, 2015, 03:13:02 am: Yes, yes, yes, with a good video trailer we get poop in our pants :D

I think it will be the best game in many years :cool: