Welll, now, the ascendant justice is 9,843 feet long.
MUST.... HAVE..... COVENANT..... WARSHIP....
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@shlimazel, on Oct 28 2007, 10:42 AM, said in A Halo TC may be in the works:
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Fine. Exactly what should I be doing, then? I'm gonna do it how I'm doing it, unless you or someone else can post a compelling reason not too. I'm enjoying myself working on my stuff, whether I'm rendering ships or not. I'm making a start on the coding today, since I'm done with the two ships I wanted done and I don't think I can get a whole UNSC frigate done in one day.
I could go and find compelling reasons numbers 2-4 million, but I don't have time to hunt down all the vaporware on this forum. Suffice to say, your "method" of TC making is wrong. If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times: Graphics do not make a TC. Everything else does. That means your outfits, descriptions, missions, and all the other crap that i have forgotten about.
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I'd appreciate it if you made remarks about the actual stuff that is being discussed here. I wouldn't mind hearing what you have to say about that.
I am talking about the actual stuff being discussed here.
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@lobf, on Oct 28 2007, 03:20 PM, said in A Halo TC may be in the works:
I could go and find compelling reasons numbers 2-4 million, but I don't have time to hunt down all the vaporware on this forum. Suffice to say, your "method" of TC making is wrong. If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times: Graphics do not make a TC. Everything else does. That means your outfits, descriptions, missions, and all the other crap that i have forgotten about.
Some people do graphics first, then missions and junk, others do it the other way around. Shlimazel is the project leader here, and he's doing the graphics first. In EVN:UGF, I'm doing the resources first, graphics last.
When was the last time you worked on a TC?
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Graphics do not make a TC. Everything else does. That means your outfits, descriptions, missions, and all the other crap that i have forgotten about.
True. But, have you ever attempted to make a TC?
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Suffice to say, your "method" of TC making is wrong.
See above. Minus the 'true'.
You have a point in that I need to work on the coding more than the graphics. But again, I'm gonna do how I'm gonna do it. And if I screw up, SO WHAT? I can fix mistakes, since I know what I'm doing this time. What, are you trying to tell me not to try and make this? Obviously not, but that's how you are coming across. This topic is primarily about discussing a Halo TC. Not arguing over which way of making tc's is best. And that's a good thing, because I'm not going to.
Anyway. Do you have anything to say about the Halo material being discussed here? THAT is what I meant when I said
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I'd appreciate it if you made remarks about the actual stuff that is being discussed here. I wouldn't mind hearing what you have to say about that.
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When was the last time you worked on a TC?
Exactly!
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Some people do graphics first, then missions and junk, others do it the other way around. Shlimazel is the project leader here, and he's doing the graphics first. In EVN:UGF, I'm doing the resources first, graphics last.
Again, exactly. Sometimes people do things differently.
This post has been edited by Shlimazel : 28 October 2007 - 02:33 PM
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Here's the first screenshot of the very VERY first iteration of the Halo TC. Only about 777777777 more resources to go!
I've also finally decided to commit myself fully to working on this. Still only on the weekends though.
Also I mainly wanted to do enough of the plug to have fights between my two ships at the moment.
Also also I decided to make all of the ships be interialess. When the ships are inertialess can a tractor beam still keep them from jumping into hyperspace?
This post has been edited by Shlimazel : 28 October 2007 - 03:08 PM
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That is awesome work. Way to go! I like the graphics.
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I'm not sure I like the idea of making all the ships inertialess. For me, that was the second most annoying thing about SFA's alpha (after the amount of space you had to cover to get anything done): Every ship, with the exception of the shuttles, was inertialess; it made it damned hard to fight. With all front-facing weapons, an inertialess ship has to get behind the guy to shoot him. That's fine for Ravens and Javelins; they can maneuver worth a crap, and the opposition generally isn't also inertialess. But when you're talking about dozens of ships with no inertia... it just doesn't work. Not for me.
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In all brutal honesty, lobf does know what he is talking about. Take a glance at his join date. I'm sure he's seen more failed TC's than any three people on the boards have come up with ideas for (combined). I've seen a large number flop too, many of them starting on graphics (not all, of course). If you look at all the finished or near finished projects (Polycon, ARPIA2, Colosseum, Ashen Galaxy, etc.), they started with other aspects and finished (or will finish) graphics towards the end of the development cycle, if not at the end. Additionally, they always worked on any resource creation that remained at the same time as working on graphics. Those who put too much emphasis on graphics too early don't seem to get very far. Not to say his is vaporware, but we haven't heard anything on ReinerK's project in quite awhile.
Doing graphics is fine, just set coding as your priority. After all, you can't put frosting on a cake that isn't there.
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In all brutal honesty, lobf does know what he is talking about.
He probably does. I accept that what he is saying about doing coding first to be good advice. I accept that what you say about doing coding first as being good advice and I accept your examples as good ones.
But he if he's claiming his primary experience with TC's as watching them fail, guess what? I can do that too. I have even failed at a TC project of my own , but now I know much more about the whole process than I did when I made my first attempt to make any kind of large plugin. I'm not going to accept that I'm doing it wrong when the person telling me has never tried to make a TC. Coming from you it would be one thing; you have made a TC. No matter how many TC's he's watched flounder, though, he's never made one, or (apparently) helped make one, though I don't know that last for certain.
It's true that I should do more background work, and that I can make graphics later. And maybe I will. But hearing someone say I'm absolutely positively doing it wrong when they have not actually done it themselves is bogus.
This post has been edited by Shlimazel : 28 October 2007 - 05:59 PM
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Here are my thoughts about the graphic thing :
If you're going to do new graphics, I don't think it matters much when you do them. And I know for having started a project with my poor graphical skills I did a lot of the other stuff first, and I must say, it feels so extremely weird to play with everything but the graphics changed.
You must also consider that nova being a spaceship game, ships are a defining aspect of any mod or TC. Missions, outfits, weapons, dudes, flets, and other resources all depend on ships. And the size of a ship has an impact on its strenght and capability. Bigger graphics are easier to hit. Sure, you could just stick black & white arrows with different sizes to ships instead of doing their graphic in the beginning, but you'll have to adjust later and make the graphics anyway.
What I think would be better advice would be not to worry too much about the graphics quality. Having nice high resolution 3D models may be cool looking, helpful to make spiffy landing pictures and the likes, but if you spend months and months just on that one thing, maybe you need to lower your standards...
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@shlimazel, on Oct 28 2007, 06:59 PM, said in A Halo TC may be in the works:
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Win. I completely agree.
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I'm going to give you anti-graphic-at-the-start people one concension. In my opinion, graphics are the hardest. If you start with the hardest thing, you will feel disheartened, and less likely to continue. You won't have as much obligation to it since you haven't put in an enourmous amount of time, so it has a slightly higher chance of becoming vapor-ware.
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@0101181920, on Oct 29 2007, 12:20 AM, said in A Halo TC may be in the works:
In my opinion, graphics are the hardest.
Maybe, maybe not. It depends on what you are good at. I'll tell you this, though: whatever aspects of plugmaking you least enjoy doing are very hard. Projects have died from lack of graphics, from obsessive over-emphasis on graphics, from lack of text, from obsessive over-emphasis on text, from lack of plug mechanics, from obsessive over-emphasis on plug mechanics.... I've got one little plug I've never finished because I've never felt motivated to write just a handful of descs. Another project I'm involved in has a fully-developed universe with tons of wonderful graphics and an elaborate and fleshed-out universe, but is currently (temporarily, I hope) stalled out for lack of enthusiasm for writing missions.
My point is that every project struggles with different hurdles. You won't know which is the hardest until you hit it. Energy wasted on defending yourself from imagined slights or bragging about your progress estimates is energy best put into the project itself. You don't know how far you have to run, so don't exhaust yourself unnecessarily.
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Send it to me, I'll finish it. For some strange reason, I have had an enourmous increase in the quality of my descs. It's wierd.
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@dr--trowel, on Oct 29 2007, 12:56 AM, said in A Halo TC may be in the works:
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My point is that every project struggles with different hurdles. You won't know which is the hardest until you hit it. Energy wasted on defending yourself from imagined slights or bragging about your progress estimates is energy best put into the project itself. You don't know how far you have to run, so don't exhaust yourself unnecessarily.Works for me.
I haven't even tried to do any graphics yet.
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Here is a link to my analysis of the UNSC Longsword, for people who missed it last time around. Please read and give me your opinion.
Starsword: Sorry for not replying to your remark about inertia yesterday. I chose at least for now to make the ships inertialess because that seems to be the best way to represent how those ships move in all cinematics with ships that I've seen (one good example is episode 7 of the Heretic series). I'm probably going to try and make it as manageable as possible, though, because I normally don't like inertialess ships either.
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My point is that every project struggles with different hurdles. You won't know which is the hardest until you hit it. Energy wasted on defending yourself from imagined slights or bragging about your progress estimates is energy best put into the project itself. You don't know how far you have to run, so don't exhaust yourself unnecessarily.
I don't intend to. I didn't bring this debate up, or even want to participate in it.
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Being the leader of a TC project, and having originally started with graphics, I don't entirely suggest doing graphics first. As you practice graphics you will improve, and then you will have to go back and replace graphics that you did previously. I ran into, and am still running into this problem. It is better to practice graphics whilst working on the TC, then begin to make graphics and add them in later. Best, though, in my experience, is to make the graphics and program everything related to each individual graphic into the game simultaneously. If you want to add a new planet, make the planet graphic and the landing graphic, stick it in the game, name the planet, make the system, make the government, decide on how economies and tech levels would best fit into the universe, write the descs so that they fit with the universe and, if needed, open up opportunities for story and mission ideas, new technology etcetera. Do this all at once, so that you have a completely working everything that you could practically release right then as unfinished but high quality work. The way that I prefer to work is as if I have a very, very small base game and I am constantly improving it with complete, plugin-like additions. I of course integrate all of this into the data files, not the plugin folder, but the concept is the same.
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I was working on the graphics first mainly because I wanted to make sure that I could actually MAKE the ships from Halo. That was obviously a pretty important thing, because if I can't do it then what's the point? I've discovered that I CAN make the ships from Halo, so I CAN move on to the other stuff next weekend.