so i see alot of ideas in this forum espacially in the request thread but almost nobody of the good modders and mappers go for them.
i think because the most ideas are "stupid" and/or you just cant do what they want because the game doesnt allow it.
i thought about that a little bit and well:
-we have the possibility to make maps as good as the shipped ones
-we can change the shipped maps and units(and vehicles and fighters and...)
-we can make completely new models
-we can make new animations for models

so with that in mind iam asking myself where the borders of our potential are
ok the models have to have a special amount of polygons and mapping and modding is quite difficult with balancing and stuff and you have to have a lot of patience but this isnt that bad
so: what is impossible?

(i heard that grappling hooks and soldiers wielding to pistols is impossible but i dont know why^^)

The limits of this engine is a real big restraining order upon us modders.

It just can't support grappling hooks a lot of other stuff.

what i actually thought about was that in fact it is possible to make every unit we want...for example obiwan with clone trooper armor...thats not a big problem or even modelling a Bwing or a juggernaut isnt that hard and with all these possibilities i asked myself why ever to buy another starwars game because in this one we got jedis (if we want every jedi...ok except the odd ones^^) we got spaceships and spacemaps and there are groundbattles and if we want we can have all interesting forces ever appeared in the starwars saga

Two pistols won't work, simply because there is no animation that supports it, the second gun would just float.
Sad, they did it in RS but not in BF.

Basically, when we say something is impossible, it's because there's usually a technical issue keeping the idea from being implemented properly. It is also due to lack of interested parties that have the knowledge to build on the game. It's a bit more complicated than that, but that's basically it.

With disinterest in the mod requests, yeah, sometimes we may refuse a mod by choice, but we also have a lot of time invested in our other projects. The best thing is to learn how to do what you want to do. We try to help where we can, but the essence of modding is experimentation. If nobody tries to break new ground, we're left with what we have.

Dual weilding wasn't set up in the engine as far as I know, so we have to make it all from scratch. It'd need new models, animations, and a weapon odf, primarily. I wouldn't expect Halo2/3 dual wielding right away.

Come to think of it, very few of us deal with animations, so I'd say you're not exactly right in how you took stock of our abilities as a community. By my own guess, I'd say the vast majority are mappers, and/or side modders. A few of us can model, and less can work with scripts. I think maybe one or two of us could do animations, but I'm very doubtful on that. Anyway, as you get into the smaller groups, the more rare new work is going to be.

I wouldn't say modding SWBF2 is that difficult, though. I've seen at least one far more difficult game to mod than this. Really, most of it is straightforward. It's making a good mod, and the actual process involved that makes it so troublesome and time consuming, usually.

Really, asking what the limits are is a bit of a broad question. It may be easier to browse threads with technical discussion to see where the limits are, because I'm pretty sure not one of us could name every limitation the engine places on us. Some things can't be done, and some just have yet to be figured out.

Mostly, the problem is one of interest, not one of feasibility (because a lot of things are feasible). There are a lot of problems I "figure out" how to do in my mind, but honestly won't invest the time to do it because I just don't have the interest. Take dual-weilding for example - I'm pretty sure I know how to set it up (without creating new animations), but it honestly doesn't interest me, simply because it doesn't add anything to the game for me. And any number of other suggestions - yes, they're theoretically possible, but only insomuch as a modder is willing to invest the time.

The ceiling for this game is very high, but the realistic "limit" is the convergence of ability and interest.

It is really all a question of feasibility. Those select few who can due the specialized tasks only have so much time, and they want that to go as far as possible. They choose not to due something because there is either a way to cut the corner, or the cost just outways the gain, in their opinion.

@mercury noodles: i agree with the fact that its the best to do everything on your own and i once had XSI but its just too time consuming for me to ask a special person everytime i want to export something and i bet that these persons dont have always time for us newbiemodders to export our stuff and animating and modding is a high art for me and i dont know if iam capable of learning it so fast so it attempts to be easier to ask the pros;)

@maveritchell: i know the interest thing is very important but i think that all the small uninteresting things together make the game much better. imagine there were different units on almost everymap with different features strengthes and weaknesses or different vehicles or anything...than you would play all maps more often instead of one map you like best and the same troops as allways are there anyway...thats what i dont like on battlefront 2: the fact that everything is everywhere (ok and that its not 100% canon of cause)

if i could mod as good as some of you pros i think i would make me a lot of mods and maps i think...maybe you wouldnt like them but i would and thats enough^^

by the way....it really would be possible (with a bunch of patience and skill and...) to make a dualwielding clone trooper?...cool^^

Yeah its mostly a lack of interest in something that would be tim-consuming and difficult.

I just wanted to point out that most of our maps are of higher quality than Pandemic's. The quality of our maps is actually restrained by the Zero Engine made by Pandemic.

And dual pistols will be made soon enough for BF2, but its going to require some fancy trickery.

20grad wrote:by the way....it really would be possible (with a bunch of patience and skill and...) to make a dualwielding clone trooper?...cool^^

OffTopic: Yeah, it's possible. There are a couple of ways to do it, but the easiest way is this: Turn a pistol into an addonmesh (AnimatedAddon = ). Then you'd change the animationset for that trooper so that his firepose was Aayla's "block pose." You'd then offset a firepoint in the pistol .odf (pretty sure this can be done) and set up the .odf to alternate fire between the pistol's firepoint and the addon pistol's firepoint. End result? One weapon, two firepoints, but the addonmesh and the changed firepose makes it look like two pistols are being fired.

So like I said, lot of work, little return.

Back on-topic: Of course the "little interest things" can make the game better. I try and add those things into my mods whenever I can, but honestly, I personally like to focus more times on larger, more noticeable things that I find challenging (race mode, sidequests, etc.) If the things of little interest are what's important to you, then you'll probably have to be the one making it. The fact of the matter is, like I stated above, that the modder doing the work has to have the interest.

For dual weilding animation, couldn't you just use the one that dual shooting turrents use when they shoot? :duel:

we could use that method of fire, back and forth, but thats not an animation.

another thing that confuses me is what all the pros are doing they all say that theyre working on bigger things and e.g. dragonums spaceships are finished yet but i havent seen a map with them...there are many things that people want to have in the game and then a month later or two it is there because one of the pros worked on it and actually made it but we never know whats in progress...last time i was at modding there was just a preview of dragonums ships and now we have almost everything the community once dreamed of tahts pretty cool but just waiting and hoping that youre wish gets fulfilled is very hard tho..

Dude, you have no diea how much work actually goes into a map, do you? If the models are finished that essentially means nothing. Plus, if we released a map with just the models in it everyone would be like "this sucks, this is nothing like the movies... Put More ships in, Maek it zo you kan fly the cap ships, Make the cap ships blow up!." The only thing I can say is be happy with what you have. We don't get paid and in reality I guarantee most of us spend too much time modding video games instead of doing worthwhile stuff anyways.

20grad wrote:so: what is impossible?

A lot more can be done with the game then is currently being done. It all comes down to time. I've never heard of a map with pickupable weapons or with a 'master' unit spawning troops, yet both are possible. The people who want to do such things don't know how, and most people who know don't want to or don't have time to make more documentation.

Teancum wrote:Dude, you have no diea how much work actually goes into a map, do you? If the models are finished that essentially means nothing. Plus, if we released a map with just the models in it everyone would be like "this sucks, this is nothing like the movies... Put More ships in, Maek it zo you kan fly the cap ships, Make the cap ships blow up!." The only thing I can say is be happy with what you have. We don't get paid and in reality I guarantee most of us spend too much time modding video games instead of doing worthwhile stuff anyways.

^^cool down i sure know how much work goes in there and i never meant to make you angry...sorry if i did so
but to be honest: every custom map i played yet didnt kick me out of the shoes...mostly just the new modles but the whole maps dont make it for me they all seemed to empty or too "loveless" but i know they arent (cause i know how much time and work goes into that right ) in my oppinion they dont come even close to the shipped ones...those are just rounder
but i dont know what i actually wanted with this thread so...maybe just show that iam alive and in the forums now^^

I'm not sure exactly what you're looking for in custom maps, then. There are maps out there that are simply beautiful (Astute's Manaan map, Squipple's maps), maps out there that have huge amounts of weapon choices (D_Boeing's maps, numerous side mods), and maps out there that are far more innovative than the stock maps (archer's OFM - which is a masterpiece, btw).

And I'm not sure how the maps can even seem loveless - each kind of map reflects not only the author's abilities, but the author's personality and what he finds interesting. You can see this in things like the Con Pack, where Tean shows the organizational aptitude he has by bringing all those restorations to a convergence, or Space Kal-Terra, where Hebes shows his push for realism, or Verena, where Penguin shows her ability and proclivity towards scenery, or even, I'd like to think, in my maps, where things like sidequests and new modes show my penchant for innovation.

Maps like these may not seem as "rounded" as the stock levels. If that is at all so, it's because at each of their cores, they are at least equal to the stock levels, but one or two facets (which represent the author's area of interest) are polished to such a high degree that the rest of that map's features seem average by comparison.

But here's the hard truth of it - no matter how good a map is, no matter how much better they get than the stock maps, not everyone is going to see that in them. Why? Because we all have something(s) different we want in a map to make a map stand out. The only way, and I mean only way you're going to find a map that "kicks you out of your shoes" is by making it. And that's going to be true for 90% of the maps out there.

With the exception of one or two, I like all my maps better than the other mods that are put out. I'm willing to bet most other modders feel the same way. It's not a quality judgement, it's just a natural consequence of making a map that intersects with what we like.

And that brings it back to the whole "what is possible" issue. The answer, as stated many times above, is almost anything - so long as it reflects the desires of the creator. This is why we say to so many people - and it's not to harp on them, it's simply because we know it's going to be true - don't ask someone else to make the map you want. Make it yourself, because only you can do that.

Maveritchell wrote:OffTopic: Yeah, it's possible. There are a couple of ways to do it, but the easiest way is this: Turn a pistol into an addonmesh (AnimatedAddon = ). Then you'd change the animationset for that trooper so that his firepose was Aayla's "block pose." You'd then offset a firepoint in the pistol .odf (pretty sure this can be done) and set up the .odf to alternate fire between the pistol's firepoint and the addon pistol's firepoint. End result? One weapon, two firepoints, but the addonmesh and the changed firepose makes it look like two pistols are being fired.

Whoa. Guess what I'm trying this weekend.

Maveritchell wrote:I'm not sure exactly what you're looking for in custom maps, then. There are maps out there that are simply beautiful (Astute's Manaan map, Squipple's maps), maps out there that have huge amounts of weapon choices (D_Boeing's maps, numerous side mods), and maps out there that are far more innovative than the stock maps (archer's OFM - which is a masterpiece, btw).

And I'm not sure how the maps can even seem loveless - each kind of map reflects not only the author's abilities, but the author's personality and what he finds interesting. You can see this in things like the Con Pack, where Tean shows the organizational aptitude he has by bringing all those restorations to a convergence, or Space Kal-Terra, where Hebes shows his push for realism, or Verena, where Penguin shows her ability and proclivity towards scenery, or even, I'd like to think, in my maps, where things like sidequests and new modes show my penchant for innovation.

Maps like these may not seem as "rounded" as the stock levels. If that is at all so, it's because at each of their cores, they are at least equal to the stock levels, but one or two facets (which represent the author's area of interest) are polished to such a high degree that the rest of that map's features seem average by comparison.

But here's the hard truth of it - no matter how good a map is, no matter how much better they get than the stock maps, not everyone is going to see that in them. Why? Because we all have something(s) different we want in a map to make a map stand out. The only way, and I mean only way you're going to find a map that "kicks you out of your shoes" is by making it. And that's going to be true for 90% of the maps out there.

With the exception of one or two, I like all my maps better than the other mods that are put out. I'm willing to bet most other modders feel the same way. It's not a quality judgement, it's just a natural consequence of making a map that intersects with what we like.

And that brings it back to the whole "what is possible" issue. The answer, as stated many times above, is almost anything - so long as it reflects the desires of the creator. This is why we say to so many people - and it's not to harp on them, it's simply because we know it's going to be true - don't ask someone else to make the map you want. Make it yourself, because only you can do that.

Very nice.
Agreed.


EDIT at ARC_Commander: Yes, that'd in essence work, but, there'd be no recoil/throwback for the second pistol

OffTopic: Yeah, it's possible. There are a couple of ways to do it, but the easiest way is this: Turn a pistol into an addonmesh (AnimatedAddon = ). Then you'd change the animationset for that trooper so that his firepose was Aayla's "block pose." You'd then offset a firepoint in the pistol .odf (pretty sure this can be done) and set up the .odf to alternate fire between the pistol's firepoint and the addon pistol's firepoint. End result? One weapon, two firepoints, but the addonmesh and the changed firepose makes it look like two pistols are being fired.

Well, you can't off set it with the line from the tri-shot, that line actually angles the shots (thats how I made Jango's jetpack missile ). Theres another offset line in the award rocket launcher ODF, but i dont think you can make that one alternate to simulate 2 weapons.

Another possibility is someone taking a unit in XSI, somehow mirroring the pistol animation(or just making a new one) for the left hand, then saving the new animation (I don't know how the XSI animation system works).
Then, make a new animation set (ANIMS, ZAABIN, ZAFBIN) that replaces one of the unneeded anims for this left-pistol one (Like how boba's wrist rocket animation replaces the grenade throwing animation).
Lastly, theres a number of ways to do this, but get a pistol in the left hand. Like mav said is probably best.
Lastly edit the pistol ODF to use the use the animation, that now uses the left hand animation (yes a bit hard to follow)

But even this way isnt with out flaw, the second pistol only shows up when its fired sense it would have to be a secondary weapon. But if the second pistol is an addon like mav suggested then it will always show up. huuuuuuuu.......