Greetings, everyone.
Wow... it's been years since I last said something here, but that was another time, and I went by another "callsign" then. Times have changed, and I imagine, so have (most of?) the rest of us, but I'm glad that which keeps this community together and going has remained... more or less... constant. I'd give a toast to many more years of prosperity and such, but since I don't do alcoholic beverages, I'll just settle for a much tardy Happy New Year, as well as a similarly belated Gong Xi Fa Cai for any oriental folks who also dwell here. :-)
More impressive is the level of creativity and heart being poured into the many released and ongoing mods. It also must not be an easy task for the few original developers who must balance their schedule between work, free time, and other commitments, including their contributions to the 1.3 patch. Kudos. As a former modder for both Battlezone games, the details outlined in the changelogs have certainly grabbed my attention, and even though I mostly did ODFing and XSI kit-bashing back then, it seems I have a lot to catch up with if I want to get back into the 'Zone... which brings me to the next topic.
Before your ideas are finalized ingame, do you sometimes go through a stage involving concept-art? I ask because I had come across a few, and I do mean a few, interesting BZ-related images and artwork through Google and on DeviantArt, and thought of the folks behind Forgotten Enemies, Fleshstorm, and EPIC... or even the smaller, lesser-known mods.
So... In other words, how did your ideas look on paper? How much resemblence was there to the end-product? How much practice did you get tossing scrapped ideas into that basket hanging over your recycler\recycling bin? If you're like me, you'd probably be erasing over the same sheet of paper a dozen times or more before you sit back and say, "I think that's cool enough to work with." That, IMO, is one of the most interesting parts of modding, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one interested in seeing it.
By the way, I understand EPIC is a work-in-progress, but I do have a question: Is it an acronym? i.e.: Extremely Personally Involved Command\Combat\Conquest... Expel Persistently Infuriating Capitalists\Communists... Extra-Planetary Introspection Corps... Excessively Pwning Inexperienced Commanders...
... Perhaps there's room for an acronym contest... with apologies to Slaor and the EPIC team. :-D
Related links...
http://www.deviantart.com/#order=9&q=battlezone (http://www.deviantart.com/#order=9&q=battlezone)
A note to the Moderators: By the way, I wasn't certain which board was most appropriate for this topic. If you feel the need to, go ahead and relocate it to whichever area you see fit.
You did well with those anagrams :P but i dont think they are the final names...
welcome back, even though i probably havent been here nearly as long as you were.
As for Concept art. i cant draw properly to save my life. my strengths only come out when i have a ruler and a pencil to hand, i cant draw freely at all. Ive got a huge mod project underway and any 'concept art' i have is taken from elsewhere. Even so, i look very hard to find what i want, ive been fortunate enough to find loads of it.
I keep seeing concept art popping up all over the place over the last couple of weeks... especially FE based stuff.
Greetings and Welcome back :-).
Moderator note:
This topic might have been best suited for Maps and Mods, considering the number of mod-related questions, but that's a bit nit-picky given the situation of your returning to the Battlezone 2 community. In which case, there is no board specifically for introductions and smalltalk (other than the Overdrive Terminal, but I believe the rules of that board possibly wouldn't support this topic, so that board wouldn't be an option, either). The Battlezone 2 forum is suitable, though, because topics are made here which deal or talk about people who play Battlezone 2.
So the topic may stay here unless another mod/admin sees otherwise, or I someone convinces me that this topic is actually far better suited for another board.
So, do we have another modder now? (well an old one returning) Someone else for me to get my talons into?
HELLO!
BTW, check out my site if you want, specifically the gallery and the wiki.
Welcome back, way to jump right in again. It's nice to see people with that kind of "fire".
Welcome. Art is indeed a very important aspect of many completed mods. FE is an example of this and so is Fleshstorm. Lizard is an artist in addition to being a modder, and thusly has often created consistent work which not only expands upon previous designs, but has created new ones (Planet Miasma and its props in FE is Lizard's work). SLAOR is also a prolific designer who has contributed to both FE and EPIC. The designs for EPIC are an expansion of the ISDF's design, and there are a lot of MODs where design plays an important role (like SPACE's mod).
I'd like to know the types of processes they use to develop concepts for these. I'm just an ODF monkey, and I work on proof-of-concepts (unit and weapon designs, I still rely on other peoples models and textures) that you can use right away. But design must be a lot more involving and not as instant grat as doing weapons.
Quote from: TheJamsh on January 30, 2009, 12:33:17 AM
You did well with those anagrams
PECI? What's that an anagram for? :P
I think you meant acronym, mate :D
Its an anagram for EPIC... genius. :-P
Taken from
http://www.acronymfinder.com/PECI.html
Portland Energy Conservation, Inc. (Portland, Oregon)
Platform Environment Control Interface
Productivity Enhancing Capital Investment
Productivity Enhancement Capital Investment
Product Exceeds Customer's Intelligence
Preliminary Equipment/Electronic Component Index
Perry Correctional Institution (South Carolina Department of Corrections)
ah yeh... woopsie.
Tires don exits! :lol:
The NSDF razor is definately a unit I miss from Bz1 and one I would love to see a high polygon version of.
Not going too off topic considering his site has a concept picture of the razor on it :).
There is spAce's Razor Mark II, but no one can use it unless they seek him out and ask him specifically.
Are there any screenshots of it out anywhere?
(http://www.bzcomplex.com/gallery/albums/batchadds/bz2md_old/2d2f33971769c3079e786b18551f8748.jpg)
(http://www.bzcomplex.com/gallery/albums/batchadds/bz2md_old/e6d1b69e646021f4a058fab92a47c698.jpg)
Those turbine looking things on it always reminded me of speakers. BTW was that SS taken on an EPIC style map?
No, thats ZEmod.
Wow... Saying hi and disappearing for half a month... I'll try to make sure that happens less often. :-P
Anyhoo...
A sketch, good or bad, does tend to open interesting possibilities, and watching where it goes is a little like the proverbial box of chocolates, from a Forrest Gump-ish point of view. While it's good to end up with a cool idea you were going for, it's sometimes even better to end up with a great idea you weren't going for. It's amazing how much concept sketches can differ from their (finalized?) ingame counterparts.
I recently saw the intro movies for Battlezone and The Red Odyssey again on YouTube and the BZ Wiki site. It has been a while since I last saw them, and they made me wonder... Were any of those super-cool hi-poly models of the Grizzly, Razor, or that alternate Black Dog Grizzly ever shared or reproduced? After all, as cool as the cutscenes were, it was kind of difficult to make out the details most of the time, as the clips themselves were more than slightly blurry. Wouldn't it be cool to see them with greater clarity?
If not to port into some other more modern game engines to drive around in and blow stuff up, maybe someone could make scaled replicas to park on their desks just for bragging rights. In fact, many years ago, I thought I saw a blurry pic of an office with what looks suspiciously like an ISDF walker on the table, but I'm not sure if that was ever confirmed or cleared up.
While we're on the topic, the Razor is most likely the first BZ unit every BZ fan ever piloted, that is if you started with the training course. As such, it probably holds some special significance, sort of like your first car. Besides, Razors are probably one of the coolest-looking ships in the game. Speaking of those turbine-things, I always figured they were some sort of heat sink system, and not jet intakes. After all, most of the time, they're in space.
I had an interesting thought way back some time before the first Transformers movie hit theaters, and most have probably already seen the teaser for the upcoming sequel. I had mixed feelings about the first one, as the film itself was not nearly as good as the CGI work that clothed it. Similarly, with the same director at the helm, I'm less than optimistic about the quality of Revenge of the Fallen. That aside, has anyone considered the possibilities of everyones favorite hovertanks being transformers? While it may not be possible to fully achieve ingame, a hovertank transformer would still be a very novel concept. A quick search on various search engines and art sites turned up nothing so far, but that doesn't mean the it wouldn't be an idea that could take off. :wink:
So... Thoughts?
The TRO into was outsourced and hence the models look... different.
It is on my list to get some BZ1/2 units into the source engine with more realistic hover physics.
I heard Warfreak already did that N1.
WF converted some models and they crash a lot when used as anything other than props. I am the one who is supposed to find a way to make them move as hovercraft and perform like BZ2.
I'd finish the job and make them work correctly as vehicles, however the Source SDK hates me and will only run for me once every 10,000 Years. :x
I don't like it at all, it bluescreens :x