-= Gametoast.com =-

Looks like creating new maps with assets stuff comes slowly to the end if there wasn´t one guy who is our last hope... SaturnV the only modder with a working XSI version.
Well i don´t expect much more from new maps made out of the assets files because i´ve seen all objects in different maps to death but i guess that Sat and Eddie will keep BF modding alive with realy new maps.
So for the poor rest of us modders we have to sit down and watch what they will create.
Oh yes i´m envious of Sat but i hope that we get at least a XSI modtool addon when BF2 is released...wich make me thinking about my worst nightmare: A XSI modtool addon for BF2 but no BF2 modtools from Pandemic,lol

You don't have to have XSI to make good mods, just reninvent the old stuff... like make a spawn point that shoots at the enemy. Personally i think its much more fun recreating than starting from scratch.

Rends maybe we will have to sign a sheet saying we promise if devs give us mod tools we will still buy the swbf 2,3 hehe.

no funding from lucasarts for low ranked tools = no devs put torward that project

All the fun we have modding aside, you have to think of it as a business venture, lucasarts looks at a game devs in most respects just like someone becoming a model , they are told what to do with very little leeway, how to be, and only given the funds to get "mostly, exactly what they are told" .

So in retrospect if the publishers/lucasarts dont see income and arent interested in the modding side of the game they wont put money into that aspect and although we see a few devs taking THIER OWN time to make these extras for us , if its not funded or even wanted by the people paying for the games creation its just a low ranked item.

Im hoping for official mod tools as well for swbf2 , but say I could put $90,000 dollars into the entire game adding more features and man hours to make it THE BEST. Or $75,000 and put man hours into tools, addons, thing that arent top of the list... I would probably put the game out for 90k and try to make an addon later of an editor. Thats just my thought , im all about modding...but when it gets down to money it speak loudly..

I look at people like my brother all the time, they are just like fred said, the largest consumer of the game market, buying games as they come out, not modding them, not posting views and complaints on it, finishing the game up to its hardest level and selling/trading it for the newest games that come out. Not everyone is looking to "get more from their games" and its sad.......

>Rends... join us, it is your destiny. I could really use your help with the next GT1 map.

You don't have to have XSI to make good mods, just reninvent the old stuff... like make a spawn point that shoots at the enemy. Personally i think its much more fun recreating than starting from scratch.

Heh, I don't know what to say to that... ATATs, maybe? Walk it like you talk it. Let's see your shooting CP. Make it and post it. (try CommandArmedAnimatedBuilding ?)

Personally, the joy of making a Death Star Turbolaser Turret, seeing it for the first time working in the game, and seeing those barrels recoil as the lasers pound at enemy X-Wings... or a TIE Interceptor, twisting over the battlefield unleashing it's quad-laser death... or the cheap laughs of a Melon Gun, exploding barrels, flying furniture... a DH17 or an Imperial Stormtrooper driving a '55 Porsche... even just a whole bunch of new 'lego' type walls that'll help other modders make their new, exciting levels... you just keep recycling the existing maps, because I want more fom my game.

>Guru - yup. Like psych0 posted a while back: 'no studio makes a Star Wars game to push the envelope'. It's a $$$ issue that keeps the studio in business so they can push the envelope in future (non SW) games.

LucasArts doesn't owe us a Diet Dr. Pepper thing. But we do this anyway, these endless cycles of munge/test/crash/rethink/repair... because Star Wars touches something in each and evey one of us, it burns brightly in our imaginations, and it binds us together in a community of like-minded people. This board is the best SW community on the web, simple as that.

Actually, the shooting cp is an example, its not really suppose to mean anything. My point is that even though XSI is a good modeling tool, its not required, So recycling old stuff isn't as bad as rends makes it sound.

true, but we want more from our game.

i think all the mod maps that are recylcling stuff are getting predictable and boring.

Off the top of my head I can only think of 1 mpa that has recycled shipped worlds objects effectively and thats Rip's Ord Mantell.

I look forward to Rends' Coruscant map ,L5r's Mon Calamari and GT's star wars map . The reason being - all new models/objects.

As for my previous 2 maps (imperial ground assault and phnatom menace ) i would like to distance myself from them in a way as they arnt really mine . However MY 1st real map will be mustafar , due to me making 95 percent of the objects from scratch.

It may take abit longer but .......good things come to those who wait

I propose we clone saturnV! Then we can sell his duplicates to raise cash so we can buy full xsi versions! (joke) rends is right - most maps r just regurgitated and often missing quality (tho sum r gd like that hoth l'assault map - so many soldiers, so movie like but still full of mistakes)... I hope to do some new well made maps but they will still just b like playing with a rubix cube unless i learn to make models. This is y my Starfox mod idea is just an idea and not a mod in the workings - Arwings r fairly simple meshes but I cant use xsi and I get the Impression that even if I learn there will be more problems aside from converting it into a usable format for bf.

Why is there this heavy emphasis on XSI ? there are loads of other formats that can converted (eventually) to MSH etc.. I'm currently getting to grips with 3DS Max and hope to eventually get some of those into the game, or is there something special about XSI that I don't know?

Randompost

yeah, i get what you mean by recycling objects, but when it comes down to it, no matter how many objects recycled or not, its how they're used that has an overall effect on the map.

I tried to make gameplay -- by way of map design -- the main focus of my map (Ord Mantell), and I like to think I at least came close to that goal. I said on this forum some time before release of Ord Mantell that I was going for that "classic" feel, like it could have been shipped with the game. That decision was partly because I hadn't learned modeling yet, partly because the shipped maps (well, most of them) were so well-designed and fun in the beginning, and partly because -- and this is my main point -- new stuff doesn't necessarily make the map a good one.

Sure its nice to see new units, vehicles, and buildings for example, but that's only interesting for like 2 minutes if the gameplay isn't very good, which is the case with a lot of maps that have this new stuff. Frankly I always called these types of maps "gimmick" maps, which substituted "gimmicks" like this in place of engaging gameplay. So there's some new colors on a clone trooper, or a new type of tank....so what? Give me a fun game to play!

I agree with Astute, "recycling" old stuff (a derogatory reference in itself) isn't as bad as it's being made to sound. I'll take a fun map with recycled old stuff over a boring map with new stuff ANY DAY.


Rip

well obvioously a fun maps better lol. What im sayin is that theres need for some new material.

No one can make realistic new worlds without makin new specific models.

Take Dagobah for example ,you couldnt make that map without makin new trees ....otherwise those yav trees would be used and it wouldnt be Dagobah.

Utapeu(sp.) ...cant be done .

Mustafar.

Any fight on a capital ship.

Coruscant ...

the list goes on...


Lots of maps just feel like a cross between shipped maps (which obviously they are lol )


Im not havin a go at anyone I just hear lots of people sayin that they cant model etc . but its not as hard as what i thought it would be. My main stumbling block is the computer lingo lol

Also theres now an xsi forum on GT

Maybe I'll get into XSI after I can mod independently without help. Probably not...I have other stuff to do besides modding...

Lord-Bandu wrote:well obvioously a fun maps better lol. What im sayin is that theres need for some new material.

No one can make realistic new worlds without makin new specific models.

Take Dagobah for example ,you couldnt make that map without makin new trees ....otherwise those yav trees would be used and it wouldnt be Dagobah.

Utapeu(sp.) ...cant be done .

Mustafar.

Any fight on a capital ship.

Coruscant ...

the list goes on...


Lots of maps just feel like a cross between shipped maps (which obviously they are lol )


Im not havin a go at anyone I just hear lots of people sayin that they cant model etc . but its not as hard as what i thought it would be. My main stumbling block is the computer lingo lol

Also theres now an xsi forum on GT

Just because you said this I am going to focus on my Cruiser map and my Utopia map... they can be done, you just have to attack the idea from a new or creative angle...

Also I feel I did well in the recreation of Jabiim, even if I used hoth and tatooine objects... the weather, lighting, and other additions help create the feel of the planet, not JUST the model MSHs...

You folks are looking so shallowly at the map making.

I agree new material is needed for help spice things up, but the real maps I have enjoyed so far have had 'recycled' objects with different colors, skins, gameplay, lighting.... everything that actually matters.

~ 00M-9

Well, there are some people who have the full XSI, but still learning to use it. My team has the opportunity to learn general modeling from me, but when it comes to modeling for the game, there is very little info. Have to say Sat has the monopoly on that one. So proposition to get everyone off your back Sat. Publish a detailed tutorial on making fresh models for the game with everything from basic modeling, to hardpoints, to first person, to vehicle/buliding animation. That would greatly benifit both you and the gametoast community. (ok ,actually me, but we should have seen this one coming. Come on, I've been wanting to know the secrets for a long time and to be honest, Sat, I think you are getting very annoyed by my asking. I am begging you, please. See me groveling? I'm down one my wounded knees [yes, they actually are]. I never grovel, you brought out the worst in me. See I'm soooo humiliated by my actions...... Not working is it. ) But sense we got on the subject of modeling, there is a forum open just for that. (thought I should re-iterate that point. Might get lost somewhere.)

yes 00m-9 your map is well crafted also. The thing is there has been no maps thus far that have had any new models . So theres no room for comparison as yet.

Yes maps have used lego but detail is lost.


Maps, with new specifically made objects for that world, that are fun = better than recycled fun maps

Publish a detailed tutorial on making fresh models for the game with everything from basic modeling, to hardpoints, to first person, to vehicle/buliding animation. That would greatly benifit both you and...

There's one of those already, nzy3vc made one.

I already made major learning contributions to this community when the tools were first released, first with the add-a-vehicle tutorial at Lucasarts and then with the mapping tutorial on saturnlabs.net and along the way answered a couple of hundred questions posted here and at LA.

When I released an objects pack from JaiNollan, only 2 people wrote me to say thanks (from which I inferred there is no interest in further releases)

I have access to the same information as everyone else, ie the BFBuilder documentation and the patient help of psych0fred.

I'm the XSI-guy here only because I've paid for Foundation (I pwned it before BF was released) and paid for XSI training materials and put lots time into trial-and-error experimenting with how the objects go into the game, the same as everyone else can do if they want to. XSI is a professional tool that hobbyists can learn to use, and Foundation is being sold at a ridiculously low price for what it can do. If anyone doesn't want to pay, they can use the free XSI ModTool with Bconstructor to get stuff in the game, but it's a harder route and you're gonna have to put in more effort to learn it if you won't pay for training. Unlimited modding power... it's in your hands

yea Saturn has done more than enough . I am very gratefull for his help (cheers m8 ) He set me on the road and many oithers .


I havent Dled the JaiNollan objects YET , otherwise I would have thanked you

To this day JaiNollan remains the ONLY map to date that starts with Jai. SaturnV thanks just for being you and allowing this topic to flow so fluffy in posting land.