[mormon_boy]

so do you you have a model of a space station or the money to buy one within arms reach? other wise that sounds i little ambitious for a time filler project.

as for surviving rentry this http://members.tip.net.au/~davidjw/pictures/content/ar-kit.gif should be helpful (did i mention how much i love being traveller nerd )

[sigtau]

I think you guys must've missed the post when I said I could model things myself if they aren't organic.

Seriously, the biggest hurdles are:

1. Character art
2. About 50% of the texturing jobs, and
3. Writing the storyline

That's really about it.  If anything, I'll get a nifty small-novel sized story out of just trying to create a plot, which is what I suppose I can work on now.  I've got friends who can draw concept art awesomely (for example, Red Arm's main character went from this to this, which takes enormous skill), perhaps they can help with the art direction so I'm not tempted to model a cluster**** of things that just say "science fiction" instead of "[insert game title here]."

EDIT: I should clarify that what killed Red Arm was having THREE different animators shirk out on their responsibilities: 1. got hired to a big DC-based studio and had to sever ties with me because he couldn't handle both jobs, 2. made a dick of himself and charged me hundreds (equating to even thousands during his employment) of dollars for what a responsible animator would've charged $80 for, and 3. this guy being the most responsible by far... until he just stopped replying to e-mails for no ****ing reason.

It should be mentioned that every assigment given to these guys was done on-the-fly and the gameplay wasn't even 100% concrete... so perhaps if I plan this a bit better, I can just hand one guy a list of everything he needs to do, give him a due date and a fixed salary, and call it a day.

[Thaeris]

This is a tad off-topic, but having good-quality, free tools is a real Godsend for any artist.

I've tried recommending a program called Sculptris to many people who might have some organic models to work on, or otherwise edit. Given the kind of work you're doing, this might be a really nice tool to have:

http://www.pixologic.com/sculptris/

[mormon_boy]

so anything artificial is in arms reach? here is an idea lets say that the protagonist is a master programmer and has designed a hacking "interface" that takes all of the complexities of hacking and translates it into a video game (lets say its a hack and slash game) where the users actions in the game translate in to real hacking actions (for example a shield bash launches a DDOS to stun a target while a sword thrust attempts to break in and execute malicious code) the story would then switch back and forth between the fast paced gameplay of the protagonist using the interface to do odd jobs and the slower paced stealth gameplay of the protagonist ditching feds an sneaking away from thugs in real life.

the interface side of the game can look like 1990's quality to convey that its a game while the real life side can strive for more realism.

[Scourge of Ages]

so anything artificial is in arms reach? here is an idea lets say that the protagonist is a master programmer and has designed a hacking "interface" that takes all of the complexities of hacking and translates it into a video game (lets say its a hack and slash game) where the users actions in the game translate in to real hacking actions (for example a shield bash launches a DDOS to stun a target while a sword thrust attempts to break in and execute malicious code) the story would then switch back and forth between the fast paced gameplay of the protagonist using the interface to do odd jobs and the slower paced stealth gameplay of the protagonist ditching feds an sneaking away from thugs in real life.

the interface side of the game can look like 1990's quality to convey that its a game while the real life side can strive for more realism.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WbqshTREcpA

[mormon_boy]

yeah not surprised

[sigtau]

Okay, so I've made some decisions.

1. Sci-Fi obviously won the polls on both web sites (Hard-Light was the first, and another forum dedicated to Zelda with many diehard fans of other such RPGs and adventure games was the second--everyone wanted sci-fi opera)... so it's obvious what I'm working on now.

2. Aside from game-exclusive assets such as models, textures, music, sounds, source code, etc., I'd like to make the game's development process completely transparent--that is, I'm going to make a publicly-viewable wiki-style database of information regarding the game's content.  Those who are developers and high-level contributors to the game will receive an account allowing them to edit pages on the wiki.  Registrations to the public will be disabled and editing anonymously (that is, without an account) will be disabled. 

The wiki will harbor things such as storyline outlines, voice acting scripts, progress indicators on the game's completion of development, screenshots, videos of gameplay prototypes, links to prototype versions of the game demoing certain concepts, tons of concept art--that sort of thing.

It might sound stupid, but this addresses yet another issue that contributed to the untimely shelving of Red Arm: the game was very, very poorly planned.  Because I had attempted to commit all the information about the game I knew to memory, inconsistencies on ideas and what I wanted existed.  As a result of this lack of a concrete plan for designing anything--be it levels, gameplay elements, you name it--I need a place that I will be able to write down ideas, say "this is how it's going to be done," and when people ask questions, I can point them to a page and be certain that I'm not accidentally lying to them.  Even more prominently, while developing the game, if I ever accidentally forget something, I have a written, far-more-concrete-than-memory plan that I can look at to maintain direction during development.

Additionally, this kind of approach is great for press and development interaction, because it allows me to get a preemptive look at people's opinions of certain aspects of the game.  I might even start a temporary discussion forum to allow anyone and everyone a quick way to voice their opinion on such things.

[sigtau]

Sorry for the doublepost, but I've started something.

http://memphis.sigmatauproductions.com/Main_Page
http://odi.sigmatauproductions.com/

Project: Memphis is what I'm naming this (after the location in the game universe).  The game takes place in the near future (early 22nd century), centered around a terrorist-like attack on a low-earth-orbit space station designed to replace the ISS.

The wiki exists so you guys can read up on things and give feedback on the forums, and also so that there's a concrete game plan for me as a developer to follow.

Now that all this is taken care of, I can start fleshing out the story and universe a bit more--I'd like things to be as thorough as they are on the HLP wiki, if not more.

[LordMelvin]

This is interesting to my interests, and I am interested.