Brotherhood of the Kestrel. Graphic designer wanted!

Hello everyone,

You may remember me as the creator of the Unity plugins and the Realm of Prey for Nova conversion. I recently graduated from college and have two months of spare time before I start my new job. I have decided to undertake one more project for Nova before real life takes over all my time again (probably permanently).

As the title suggests, I have undertaken a conversion of the EV classic plugin Brotherhood of the Kestrel by the famous Tim Isles to EV Nova. However, the plugin is more than that. I will also incorporate Tim's Empire of Crime plugin, which is set in the same universe, in the conversion. The result will be a TC with 6 mission strings , each composed of around 65 missions. Progress is moving along well. I have already converted the entire BOTK plugin and have added some "Novarized" elements, such as weapon particle trails, ship variants, and hypergates. In the next few weeks, I will add additional Nova specific outfits and features. This will be followed by the incorporation of the EoC missions and ships to complete the plugin. I hope to have a beta completed by the first week of July.

The reason I am announcing this plugin now, is because I would like to be able to release the plugin with updated ship and weapons graphics. One of the main criticisms of my Realm of Prey conversion has been that the ship graphics are woefully outdated (they are). I would like to have ships in this plugin that are rendered in thousands of colors and have at least engine glows (weapon and shield animations would be nice too). However, I have neither the software nor the expertise to re-render all the ships in this plugin. So, if you have the ability to help with this, please respond to this thread to PM me to let me know. I will be happy to send you my work thus far to help. Also, if anyone would like to re-render the ships in my Realm of Prey conversion, that would be great as well.

I would like to stress that the plugin will be released with or without new ship graphics. However, new graphics will really make this feel like a much more modern plugin. Thanks.

Wow, good for you! Graphics are not my forte, but I wish you luck! I just got around to playing Unity; good stuff, that. I look forward to seeing the final product.

If it's not too late to suggest how that Mafia hypergate should be handled:

This is a trick that someone came up with at least a year before I joined, but I feel it was not clearly described or explained. And I believe it would be most effective in simulating the old one-way hyperlinks of the original EOC.

You will need two syst's and one spob for each system you are linking to. (This assumes you already have the system with the hypergate in it). A visbit that will never be used is helpful as well.

Put the spob in one system, and then make sure its visibility is off. Make sure the other system is on the same spot, and is visible. Then put a link to the spob on your hypergate. If done right, this translates to popping out of thin air when traveling via hypergate to this system.

This technique is useful if you want a one-way hypergate, but do not want to have an obvious "exit point". A side effect I've noted is the mouse must be used to select the target system from the hypergate, because it cannot be selected cycling with the keyboard.

I hope this helped. And if you've already thought of something else that works as well (or even the same thing), I will feel very silly for having brought it up.

Good luck!

This post has been edited by ScratSkinner : 24 May 2009 - 01:46 PM

Well first off I want to say good luck to your plug making. I'd love to give the graphics a shot, I'll get the original plug downloaded and get a few pictures up here as soon as I can.

Happy Huntin' :hector_bird:

This post has been edited by IT 000 : 25 May 2009 - 07:38 PM

QUOTE (ScratSkinner @ May 24 2009, 01:38 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

snip

I ended up using just a hypergate connected to a wormhole for the time being. The wormholes are located way off center of the systems so their existences are not immediately obvious to those who haven't played the plugin before. I might change it to something more of a "pop out of thin air" system, but for right now I think this works. Thanks for the suggestion though!

QUOTE (IT 000 @ May 25 2009, 07:31 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well first off I want to say good luck to your plug making. I'd love to give the graphics a shot, I'll get the original plug downloaded and get a few pictures up here as soon as I can.

Happy Huntin' :hector_bird:

That would be fantastic! I would love it if you would take a crack at the graphics and look forward to seeing what you come up with.

Managed to find my old Argosy. Added a texture and fixed it up.

My Javelin Launcher graphic.

I dug up this old fiend.

I also have:

Torpedo Graphic
Working on an intro screen
Escape Pod Graphic
Several Kestrels

I'll get back to you when my internet's less garbled.

This post has been edited by IT 000 : 31 May 2009 - 04:55 PM

These are very nice! Do you have some rleDs of the Argosy I could take a look at?

Right Here

I have engine Glows, and it can easily be converted into a Weave Destroyer or a Pirate Raider

And a Few More

Clippers anyone?

A new Super Destroyer

It's big, it's dark, it's back. With one cool Engine Glow.

I don't know what a PPG is, but this graphic looks awesome!

Here's that Logo...

If it shows up to dark on your computer I can make it brighter.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

A quick question, do you want the outfits/shipyard graphics to stay in a 100x100 px format? Or do you want to have them 200x200 like Nova.

This post has been edited by IT 000 : 02 June 2009 - 06:36 PM

QUOTE (IT 000 @ Jun 2 2009, 06:35 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

snip

These look fantastic! Check your PMs. I've sent you more detailed comments there.

For the record, I sure hope you're going to include the original graphics.

QUOTE (EVWeb @ Jun 5 2009, 04:04 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

For the record, I sure hope you're going to include the original graphics.

I suppose I could include the updated graphics as a separate addon plugin. Can I ask why you would prefer the original graphics over ones that are higher resolution?

QUOTE (MacDevil @ Jun 5 2009, 01:10 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I suppose I could include the updated graphics as a separate addon plugin. Can I ask why you would prefer the original graphics over ones that are higher resolution?

I personally think they look just as good as the new ones, and they have nostalgia going for them.

QUOTE (EVWeb @ Jun 5 2009, 04:15 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I personally think they look just as good as the new ones, and they have nostalgia going for them.

Well if that's the way you feel, I don't see why I can't just release the new ones in a separate file. I may have to do that anyway, since I'm sure they will take up a fair amount of space.

MacDevil, I sent you a PM telling you my e-mail and a few questions enclosed.

Here's a few more, and don't worry, I have a lot more done.

Removed color to make it more 'pirate-like', if you don't like it, I can change it with no trouble.

:takes hood off:

Hello Mac! Just typing this from my new mid 09 Macbook Pro! Remember to send it to me so I can test it.

QUOTE (kauthor @ Jul 11 2009, 11:37 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

:takes hood off:

Hello Mac! Just typing this from my new mid 09 Macbook Pro! Remember to send it to me so I can test it.

Hey everyone. I know it seems like I've forgotten about this project and disappeared (again). Truth is, my life kinda fell apart around mid-June and it has taken me a while to put everything back together again. I haven't forgotten about this project though!

IT 000: You'll be getting a PM from me later today to take stock of where we are.