razorace Posted December 28, 2002 Share Posted December 28, 2002 It seems to me that most mod teams are coming up with approximately the same designs and maintaining "secrecy" to prevent others from "stealling" their ideas/work. For the love of god, do we really need that many slightly different projects all doing the same thing?! Can't we at least collaborate on SOMETHING?! I'm sure everyone could benifit from a new animation, Saga, saber, etc. system? Me and the MotF Team are willing to open up our design if it could help prevent duplicate work being done within the community. I suggest others consider the same. I'd hate to have to do work that someone else has already done WELL. For example, it sounds like The Eternal has a GOOD grapple hook code almost finished and ready to go. What are your thoughts on the subject? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
razorace Posted December 28, 2002 Author Share Posted December 28, 2002 For anyone interested in collaborating on a group Saga improvement mod/standard to make Saga something truely useful to the community, please contact me or Artifex. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commodus Posted December 29, 2002 Share Posted December 29, 2002 I am for this... the design doc for my mod will be finished soon. BTW, if anybody wants to know how to get a class-based system working (i.e. changing classes through the console), please ask me and I will get you a document thingy.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wudan Posted December 29, 2002 Share Posted December 29, 2002 Most mods want to stay inside the SW Universe and add things that along the same lines because of it. That's probably the reason that mods don't share info - competition. I'm tired of allegations of people hiding information. No one's really hiding anything, unless they just aren't sure of what they are doing and want to get it right before unleashing it on the general public. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
razorace Posted December 29, 2002 Author Share Posted December 29, 2002 Originally posted by Commodus I am for this... the design doc for my mod will be finished soon. BTW, if anybody wants to know how to get a class-based system working (i.e. changing classes through the console), please ask me and I will get you a document thingy.... I'm working towards a more skill-based system but post away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
razorace Posted December 29, 2002 Author Share Posted December 29, 2002 Originally posted by wudan Most mods want to stay inside the SW Universe and add things that along the same lines because of it. That's probably the reason that mods don't share info - competition. I'm tired of allegations of people hiding information. No one's really hiding anything, unless they just aren't sure of what they are doing and want to get it right before unleashing it on the general public. Can't argue with that. But it IS a waste of time to have 3 different "Jedi" Fortress projects when coders and players are becoming a rare commodity. In reality, there only really needs to be half a dozen or so mods that all do distinct things instead of 50 that all do the same thing with one unique feature. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wudan Posted December 29, 2002 Share Posted December 29, 2002 Everybody wants to rule the world. Even the rule to joining your MOTF project was that you had complete say in everything. There's nothing wrong with being egotistical about it - this is art. I am open for more collaboration, myself, but what I can offer is severely limited - it probably won't be made available until after the last version of Attack of the Clones TC, maybe not even then, because it's shaping up to be quite the excellent mod. What I do think we need is an "Editor's Bible" with samples of source, skins, models, sounds - how to change everything in JK2, not just mapping. It'd be easy to crawl through these forums and find out what kinds of questions get asked most and start to answer them, not just in posts, but in the Bible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commodus Posted December 29, 2002 Share Posted December 29, 2002 Yea, that could be interesting... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Covax Posted December 29, 2002 Share Posted December 29, 2002 Meh... the only thing secret in the Blade mod is a few key plot points. All the code, models, skins and stuff like that is free for public use. Of course, conversly I snag some sufff from other folks but I track down who did what so credit, even to the point of casual advice, is duly noted. This IS supposed to be a community after all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
razorace Posted December 29, 2002 Author Share Posted December 29, 2002 Originally posted by wudan Everybody wants to rule the world. Even the rule to joining your MOTF project was that you had complete say in everything. There's nothing wrong with being egotistical about it - this is art. hehe. Well, SOMEONE has to have the final say. I've had to overrule some of the other MotF team members on several things that eventually turned out great for all involved. Otherwise, there's chaos whenever a team gets stuck on a design issue. Modding isn't exactly a democracy, but it isn't a dictatorship ether. Leadership should be based on involvement with the project; I put the most time in, so I get the biggest vote for MotF. I am open for more collaboration, myself, but what I can offer is severely limited - it probably won't be made available until after the last version of Attack of the Clones TC, maybe not even then, because it's shaping up to be quite the excellent mod. AotC TC is a good example. I'm sure there's plenty of code/knowledge inside the TC that could be put to good use in other mods and vis versa. I've already gotten the new hitzone system code from Herr. Obviously I'll have to adapt it to the MotF code but it'll save a lot of time. Now, we can't just open source material anymore due to the cut-and-paste/copycat syndrome that affected JediMod. Heck, MotF could be considered the fusioning of the original visions of Jedi Style (creator disappeared suddenly) and Jedi of the Old Republic (creators broke up due to a lack of time). Of course it's much more than that, but it's still "in the same vein". I've already attempted to absorb/fusion with all the other modders with the same outlook so this whole thread really doesn't apply to MotF. All JK2 mods seem to fall into 5 catagories: 1. "Jedi" Fortress - Team Assualt, Galactic War 2. Glossy Mods - Jedi Mod, OmniMod 3. Movie Realism Mods - MotF, Jedi Style, JotOR 4. Tourniment Mods - Promod, Duel SE 5. Non-Star Wars If everyone at least truely attempted to collaborate on some of this stuff, we'd have superior mods, a tighter community, and a cooler JK2. If I can get along with Ytmh on my team, everyone else can work together too. Hell, Ytmh and me come up with ourbest ideas by just debating design. What I do think we need is an "Editor's Bible" with samples of source, skins, models, sounds - how to change everything in JK2, not just mapping. It'd be easy to crawl through these forums and find out what kinds of questions get asked most and start to answer them, not just in posts, but in the Bible. I agree on that point, I try to document everything that I mess with/explore. I'm just too busy/lazy to write it up into a formal tutorial. I do have the Valley's FAQ set up for this purpose, but it hasn't been updated in a while, and it doesn't include any modding stuff at this point. (It's very hard to write up modding information.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
razorace Posted December 29, 2002 Author Share Posted December 29, 2002 Say, Covax, I'm curious. Most of your previous work involved interesting merges of mods, models, maps, etc. How much work did that stuff require to blend together? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wudan Posted December 30, 2002 Share Posted December 30, 2002 Let's start an Editor's Bible then. I think everyone would agree that it would be a good idea. We might argue, but that can be a productive experience, if done right. And I really do like your FAQ, by the way. It's extremely comprehensive, methinks. So, first part of the Editor's Bible should be a Table of Contents 1. A word about formatting, structure, and various nomenclature 2. What you can edit 3. Forging your ideas in to a plan of attack 4. How to make a new map 5. How to make a new model 6. How to make a new skin 7. How to make a new effect 8. Animations: Wasssupwitdat 9. Coding: From .c to .qvm, and what the hell that means. Yeah, it's a very incomplete list, you can change it, start an index page for it, or whatever. Then we can start troll the forums for questions that get asked too much and answer those first. If somebody doesn't like the Editor's Bible, I'm open to changing the name to "The Editor Sutra", or I'd even stretch so far as "The Tao of Editing JK2" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
razorace Posted December 30, 2002 Author Share Posted December 30, 2002 Woah, you probably just pissed off 2/3 of the world's religions in one statement. I vote for "The Jedi Knight 2 Editors' Bible". So what level of person should we write this thing for? I'd suggest we assume some level of C++ and Q3 knowledge to limit everything to JK2 specific stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wudan Posted December 31, 2002 Share Posted December 31, 2002 Well, since we're not here to have a debate about religion, I'll let it slide Yes, we should assume the reader is not an idiot, but at the same time, we want to be comprehensive. There are ways to learn to do any of these things, but there isn't one single guide that gets you at least started on doing them all. Ok, so let's start with a table of contents and a list of links under the different categories. Instead of bantering about the why and how of making a FAQ, we should just do it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
razorace Posted December 31, 2002 Author Share Posted December 31, 2002 A key part of good writting is knowing and writting to your audience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wudan Posted January 1, 2003 Share Posted January 1, 2003 Oh okay. Good idea. Yeh. I guess I better keep my brains to myself then, huh? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
razorace Posted January 1, 2003 Author Share Posted January 1, 2003 Yes, please. Grey matter is a bitch to get out of clothing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Covax Posted January 1, 2003 Share Posted January 1, 2003 Say, Covax, I'm curious. Most of your previous work involved interesting merges of mods, models, maps, etc. How much work did that stuff require to blend together? I do not consider myself to be a Real Modder. No matter how may files you find with the name 'Covax' on them the pure creative work was always done my someone else, although everything you'll see would have had some tweek or pinch by myself. For exmple, my 'Remix Blood Mod' is superiror to the existing Blood Mods, but it would have never existed if the original one was never made. I'll never release it seperatly (when folks ask I mail it to them) but it goes on to futre mods until it's mutated into something new. There's too many of these 'little mods' that get forgotten, lost then eventually duplicated. In terms of the pure work I put in, that's hard to say, since I was (always am) learing the basics about modding in the process. Everytime I finished or gave up there was always SOMETHING else that could be hammered in. Other times it was frustating, like asking myself why no one else bothered to make a sword mod that works with multiplayer. A Real Moder should have been able to do that in a weekend. Then realizing that rather than bitch about it I could try myself, three weeks later everyone can have dual katanas. Who Hoo. Why did no one else do it? I dunno, mabe the fear of being labeled 'unoriginal'. I didn't care so I didn't have that limitation (lord knows I had enough). Most of my stuff was created for pure fun or to inspire better mods from the community. As a Samurai mod Dragon Remix sucks BUT it shows that one CAN BE DONE. Myself, I would only benefit from an Editors Bible as a game fan, which is a good enough reason for me to speek up after a 2 month hiatus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
razorace Posted January 1, 2003 Author Share Posted January 1, 2003 2 month hiatus? I thought you were working on the Blade TC.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Covax Posted January 2, 2003 Share Posted January 2, 2003 I mean a Hiatus from hangin' out at the forums. I was.. uhm... *cough* discovered using the 'net at work for 'non-City business' so they kinda killed my net connection there. I don't really have the time to check out the Lucasarts and JK2 forums for more than once a week maybe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
razorace Posted January 2, 2003 Author Share Posted January 2, 2003 ouch, that sucks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
recombinant Posted January 2, 2003 Share Posted January 2, 2003 I am all for this! This reference is exactly what the community needs, really. It sounds like a pretty hefty project, however. But it would be awesome to have a place for one-stop shopping for JKII MODding, editing, mapping, modeling, etc. Love the idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wudan Posted January 4, 2003 Share Posted January 4, 2003 I love the idea as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
razorace Posted January 26, 2003 Author Share Posted January 26, 2003 Anyway, I've got a lot of data that could go into the idea if someone is willing to organize it all for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
razorace Posted April 11, 2003 Author Share Posted April 11, 2003 *Bump* You will know that I've started a couple of threads to share technical data about JK2. Known Code Bugs and Solutions Ghoul2 API Commands/Information Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.