Hello to everyone... RambOrc pleased the members to come by at the forums and at least post a hello message - so I did it, and I started a new topic, for the 'art' side of development. This is the place where everybody can send requests and comments for Korax-Heritage Mod in visual things. (Especially 2D art, of course, because I'm the team's 2D artist dude...) Ah and yeah, first of all I must apologize for the bad correctness of speech, but I'm a hungarian guy, so my English is not perfect...

What I'd like to see is some windows and maybe doors on the houses of the town... check out the town screenshots, and tell me which texture you want to modify first, I'll send it over to you

Well, I've seen all of the town shots, and I think that most of the textures are ready for modify... [img]images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img] (They are too simple.) So send me all new doors and windows (and maybe others), and I'll see what can I do with it. Hmm... The Town Hall from outside is the ugliest. [img]images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img] But I think mostly it's time for brand new buildings with brand new textures. The 'trees' on the first 'Castle of Spices' shot are really trees? The 'Palace of the Bishop' looks good, but the building is too simple, I think.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Sylon: <STRONG>But I think mostly it's time for brand new buildings with brand new textures. The 'trees' on the first 'Castle of Spices' shot are really trees? The 'Palace of the Bishop' looks good, but the building is too simple, I think.</STRONG><HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Hey Levelkiller, do you hear this? I was thinking along the same lines... we need a talented level designer who'd build a new town that looks a lot better than the current one... but it's a big task that needs a lot of time besides the talent. What do you think?

Hmmm...I have never made a town level before...I made a city level for doom once, but everything happened inside of the buildings, you had to jump from roof to roff, or use the sewers to get acces to the other building...I never released the level because it was too ugly. I guess if you guys want me I can make a town level. And if I do get to make one, I'll try to make it similar to heretic's e1m4, which I think is a very awesome town like level, and e1m5 is not soo great, but is good too. Now...for the textures...I would like to see something like cups for the tavern (if there are some), or try to get a look at the strife town maps (the begening one), and get inside of the stores and look around you. Look and see if there's anything that makes a building look like is supose to be, and if it doesn't, then think and try to add something that will get to make the level more familiar w/ what it is. (is that too confusing?) Anyway...I guess that's all. LevelKiller Yep...the level died. = ( [ July 08, 2001: Message edited by: Levelkiller ]

Well the whole idea came when I saw one of your upcoming Heretic levels (for the others, see a screenshot from that level here). I know that the town I made has some BIG shortcomings, like that it's flat, ie. the floor of the whole town is on the same level... moreover, streets are all more or less straight and all buildings have 90? corners and all walls are parallel. More, I'm not sure it was a smart decision to build a town where from most places you can see very far. It makes the map extremely choppy. Also, this town is the town I designed with the Alha Demo in mind (a small town and 4-5 dungeon levels). The town I had in mind for the full game was a large town that's seemlessly connected to the surrounding areas, so that when the army camps on the steppe outside the city walls, you can go up onto the top of the wall from inside the city, see the army and shoot the ballistae on them. As for making it alone, I think you underestimate the task... if we're really going to make a new town, it should be 5-10x larger than the current one (did I send you the Alpha town map at all?). In retrospect, I already invested more time into the Alpha town map than in what time I could've created 3-4 finished normal maps, and the town is not even half finished... that means 2 people will NEVER be able to finish the town I have in mind, it'd need at least half a dozen level designer... [img]images/smiles/icon_sad.gif[/img] I say we skip the idea for now, and concentrate on the other maps. Better a not-that-good-looking town and dozens of dungeon levels than the most awesome fantasy town of all times and 5 low-quality dungeon maps... the first option gives a maybe-not-the-very-best RPG-FPS ever, but a good playable one. The second option is just an awesome project that's never been finished... As for cups, they'll be 3D objects and I think we already have something converted from Heretic II, I'll check it when I get some time to sort through the hundreds of 3D objects we converted. Oh yes Sylon, those trees are trees, straight from Heretic II and I find them hideous as well... I think the way out is to make the setting of the whole story happen in Autumn, and thus all trees can come w/o leaves... for a bare tree, you need a lot less polygons to look good.

Sylon. I may have a little job for you. If you've read the 'Greetings' thread you probably know a good deal about the possession feature, and for that one there's a need for a graphical improvement. When possessing a creature there should be a list up to the right of the screen (or something) listing all the weapons that creature can wield. So, there should be a rectangular button for each weapon with a tiny illustration of the weapon and a number which the weapon has. And each button need to have three states: -Weapon not selected -Weapon selected and ready to fire -Weapon selected but not ready to fire I'll just list all the weapons here (first the creature and then the weapons in the order they're selected): Ettin: Mace Afrit: Triple Fireball Centaur/Slaughtaur: Sword Shield Missile Wendigo: Ice Missile Serpent: Bite Fireball Brown Serpent: Bite Poison Missile Stalker: Claws Poison Missile Dark Bishop: Swirly Missiles Reiver: Fireball Whoa, that was a bit more than I thought. And I didn't include the weaponry of the bosses since I'm not sure of how many they have and what they all are. But it shouldn't take so much time to make these buttons, it should be only to make a button template and copy it a million times with a quick varation of the ingame weapon effect and add a little number. -Remi

I'm not sure I understand why this buttons are needed? I mean, when playing with the normal game characters, you don't have any buttons neither, you know from the manual only which weapon is at which number. Generally for buttons, I want an interface free of mouse clicks... one of the main points of Korax' Heritage is to have an RPG with the interface of an FPS, ie. mouse is only for mouse look.

You misunderstand what I mean here. I used the word button very loosely here, I did *not* mean buttons you click on. A better word would be perhaps "icon" or something. The only reason why the icons are there is so that they'll give the information a weapon sprite would normally give. And the possessed monsters won't have any weapon sprite (well, so I assume, unless someone is willing to draw a real professional looking weapon sprite for every possessed creature). So when possessing a creature and seeing no weapon sprite, you have no idea what weapon it is before you fire, you don't know whether or not it's ready to fire yet after you're fired, and you don't know how many weapons that creature can wield. In that regard, I think the icons would be extremely useful. Or what do you say? -Remi

I'd say that in the current development phase where we don't know what the final implementation of the feature will be, a text system would make more sense and would be a lot less effort. What about that when you possess a monster, you see his weapons listed at the bottom of the screen, like Sword (1) Missiles (2) and the active weapon's name is in yellow, the others in white. This way you also instantly know what key to press for which weapon. AFAIK it's very easy to implement this, if you've don't know how just ask Camper, he did these text thingies a lot for Korax already. BTW as for the Centaur's shield blocking, I think an extra key should be assigned to it... it's not a weapon and if you have to put away the sword every time you want to block and then change back to the sword, I don't think it'll be a handy feature any more. [img]images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img] Same applies to some other creatures like the Heresiarch, it's got some attack spells and some defensive spells, they shouldn't be binded to the same key system (I mean, your weapons and artifacts are activated in different ways as well). ...and hey, this Heresiarch thing just gave me a new idea for Korax Arena... I've seen an Elite Force mod on the web called Xenotag... the idea is that there is always one player who is this special extra-strong alien and the others are normal players... the alien is a lot stronger and faster, and he's the only one who can get points for frags... you become the alien if you kill him. (see here for more info) It'd be this time the Heresiarch... there is one Heresiarch and the players all attack him... once a player kills the Heresiarch, he becomes the new Heresiarch and has to kill the other players and stay alive. Of course we'll have to give such a Heresiarch some suitable stats, like a lot less HP than now and maybe an SP-like system so that he can't use spells all the time or so. Oh yes, I'm not sure you know, SP stands for Spiritual Power and it's our internal word for what we called in the KMOD Faith for the Cleric and Magic for the mage... both are the same SP system and now that we implement the Berserker mode for the fighter it'll use the exactly same SP system as well (and it'll have a 3rd name externally, [img]images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]).

O.k...this is about the town thing. 1. I never got any maps of Korax's Heritage. 2. Why do we need a huge town? I'd been thinking if we work on it together, we might be able to get it finished. I mean, we can all add details and stuff to it....right?

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote

I never got any maps of Korax' Heritage

OK, I think it's time to do some sharing with the rest of the team... I won't e-mail out stuff any more but upload it to my FTP server so all of us can get what you want. The address is going to be http://www.orcweb.ch/koraxdev/ but it's empty yet. I'll post here if I upload something. <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote

Why do we need a huge town?

Well, that was actually one of the main points of Korax... I've been playing so many fantasy shooters and RPGs where you always had small towns only, I always dreamed from a nearly life-size fantasy town where you can wander around for days (and I mean real time) just to explore all this stuff. I was thinking about making such a town for Hexen already some 3-4 years ago but the missing interaction did make it unappealing. I mean, what use is a large town where the only thing you can do is kill stupid monsters and throw switches? I always dreamed from a town where you can visit dozens of shops, inns, taverns, etc. and talk to dozens or better hundreds of persons. I once played a fantasy RPG that actually offered such a big town, it's "The Black Eye 3: Shadows over Riva". It was great fun to explore the town, took me weeks... even though it was only a collection of more-or-less same-looking houses none of you could really enter... if you clicked on a door with the mouse, a 2D dialogue screen came up and only in the case of some public buildings was there a 2D picture from the interior of the building on this dialogue screen. Now, imagine such a town like that in "Riva" with the over 100 houses, just that this time you can enter a lot of them... I was always dreaming about interiors like you have in "Betrayal in Antara", but whereas in "Antara" all those interiors are hand-painted 2D scenes, we'd build them in 3D in Korax (I'll upload some Antara screenshots into the above folder as well). <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote

I'd been thinking if we work on it together, we might be able to get it finished. I mean, we can all add details and stuff to it....right?

I think let's make a decision together (I mean the whole team). I'll upload the Alpha town to the server, everyone can take a look at it and then we'll decide whether we want to finish up that one or we want to start from scratch, or, as a 3rd option, we finish that town and make another one as well. [img]images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>I'd say that in the current development phase where we don't know what the final implementation of the feature will be, a text system would make more sense and would be a lot less effort. What about that when you possess a monster, you see his weapons listed at the bottom of the screen, like Sword (1) Missiles (2) and the active weapon's name is in yellow, the others in white. This way you also instantly know what key to press for which weapon. AFAIK it's very easy to implement this, if you've don't know how just ask Camper, he did these text thingies a lot for Korax already.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Weeeeeeeell... I'm reluctant to accept this, but okay. The text will probably look ugly, but I'll program it in. <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote

BTW as for the Centaur's shield blocking, I think an extra key should be assigned to it... it's not a weapon and if you have to put away the sword every time you want to block and then change back to the sword, I don't think it'll be a handy feature any more.

Er... well, I really disagree. Do you mean it should be a another button so you have the sword AND the shield up at one time? That will make the Centaur insanely powerful. And I think the weapon system would be good for it, you push the block weapon button, you instantly use the shield, and when you choose another weapon you go back to normal attack mode with that particular weapon. And I don't like the idea of adding another key just for the possessed Centaur, that would complicate things. And making it this way also makes it more like the original Centaur. And yeah, another good thing, making it this way makes it easier to program [img]images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img] <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote

Same applies to some other creatures like the Heresiarch, it's got some attack spells and some defensive spells, they shouldn't be binded to the same key system (I mean, your weapons and artifacts are activated in different ways as well).

Well, as far as I know only the Centaur and the Heresiarch are the monsters with defensive "weaponry". And personally I would do the same for the Heresiarch as I originally planned for the Centaur, actually I see more of a reason do it for the Heresiarch. Because when he casts it it stalls for a long time while he can't do anything else. So making it a "weapon" it makes sense with the stalling. But then again, you're the boss, boss. So it's your decision. <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>...and hey, this Heresiarch thing just gave me a new idea for Korax Arena... I've seen an Elite Force mod on the web called Xenotag... the idea is that there is always one player who is this special extra-strong alien and the others are normal players... the alien is a lot stronger and faster, and he's the only one who can get points for frags... you become the alien if you kill him. (see here for more info) It'd be this time the Heresiarch... there is one Heresiarch and the players all attack him... once a player kills the Heresiarch, he becomes the new Heresiarch and has to kill the other players and stay alive. Of course we'll have to give such a Heresiarch some suitable stats, like a lot less HP than now and maybe an SP-like system so that he can't use spells all the time or so.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Yeah, that's a good idea. We should write this all down in some kind of design doc so we won't forget it. <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote

Oh yes, I'm not sure you know, SP stands for Spiritual Power and it's our internal word for what we called in the KMOD Faith for the Cleric and Magic for the mage... both are the same SP system and now that we implement the Berserker mode for the fighter it'll use the exactly same SP system as well (and it'll have a 3rd name externally, ).

Yeah, I know that. Camper's written sp_power instead of faith everywhere in the code, although I first thought it was a short version of Spell Power. -Remi

Hey Remi concerning the Centaur you're right, I misunderstood what you meant before. I thought you wanted to put the blocking on key 3 in a way that you had to press 3, then CTRL. BTW how do you think the blocking should work? As long as you hold down the key or you just activate it and you have no influence about it any more (I think Centaurs block always for the same length)? In the latter case, you could just press 3, you'd instantly go into block mode, and you could press 1 or 2 to change to the other weapon in the meantime. As for the Heresiarch, you won't possess him in normal singe player mode anyway (at max maybe as a cheat). But in the multiplayer mode I suggested, he should be as similar to a player in controller setup as possible to make playing easier, that means we should distinguish between weapons and spells. But that's not a simple possession any more... let's say if you want to program in the possession of the Heresiarch for testing purposes and fun, why not, just do it the way you want (ie. all spells on numeric keys), the one I mean won't be actual for a month or 2 yet. [img]images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img] And no, I'm not the boss... I'm the project leader. [img]images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img] The main difference is that I listen to your arguments and don't just decide w/o considering your opinions... [img]images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img] (Because seriously, there HAS TO be someone who leads such a project, coordinates work and has the last word if there's a dispute --- or the project will be never completed. Dozens of dead Heretic/Hexen project on the web testify this.) As for the design doc, I plan to write one since Summer 2000, but, well... [img]images/smiles/icon_redface.gif[/img] BTW sp_power is a typical euphemism, it means "spiritual power power"... [img]images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

Hey, Point about having the Serpents' Bites/Gas Attacks as seperate selectable weapons. As I recall, the Serpent Staff uses a different attack when up close... could something similar be done for the bites/melee attacks of the creatures? The advantage would be that it would make shifting from long-range attacks to short-range attacks a tad easier for the player (insert hype about streamlined user-interfaces here). Just a thought. -V?ices.

about the town thing: this sounds a little too hard. Making a big town sounds good, but we might run out of ideas and, if we make the town to be one big grid, then the streets will be like walking down a big plain, straight line, and maybe the engine will get slower with all the detail, items and people. Of course, we can make the town to look different and stuff, but making something really big will get the engine to get slower with all the detail...but if it can handle all of that, then that will be o.k O.K, I just though of this....what if we make this town in separate sections. the north part will be one big level, the south part will be another big level, which will be connected by the hub system and separated by a big wall. and by doing that, we won't have to worry in making one big level that might crash if it is too detailed and stuff. I took the time to look for this heretic "town" like level, which, for me, is like a small perfect little town...well, not perfect though. ftp.cdrom.com/pub/idgames/levels/heretic/v-z/watrcity.zip

Yes, you're right... these were the same things I was pondering about. That's why I think it might be time for a new town with different floor heights and what's most important, with streets where you don't see as far as now (though OTOH if you go into the town hall and up to the top floor and look through the window out upon the many houses, it's got a certain feeling especially if you are able to imagine it with the not-yet-there roofs [img]images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]. Same applies to the inn's windows on the Eastern side). As for making the town in separate sections, if it'll be a large town then it'll be that way, that's clear. Even more, we were thinking about a more advanced system with Camper. I don't know if anybody played "Betrayal in Antara" except for me, but in that game you walk around in a 3D world of a DOOM-like engine, and get transferred from one map to the other by simply walking through invisible lines --- the real difference towards DOOM engine games is that when you walk over a long line anywhere, you arrive in the new map at the same coordinates. Something the Korax engine can't yet do but once it can, and once we can make monster AI capable of crossing from one map to the other, we're free to create pretty small maps, hundreds of them, and thus enhance rendering speed. Other things that are not yet clear whether the engine will support slopes, sectors above sectors, and curved surfaces. There are other DOOM-engine ports that support this. If we can implement these features into the Korax engine, all levels (and especially the town map) will have to be designed in a different way. That means we might have to throw away maps. Hmmm... that doesn't sound too good... [img]images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img] OK what about this... we fix up that goddamn Alpha town map, and finish the other maps we started, and we'll see how far the engine programmer department gets in the meantime. If there won't be such new engine features, than we'll just keep those maps forever... if the engine will be enhanced in a big way, we might want to release those maps along with the at that point programmed RPG features together as a pre-release or whatever (or not). Anyway, I forgot to tell that I meant with the big town that it can't be just done in one map and it'll be as it will be... it'd never work. IMHO the way to do this is to design always a building or 2 in a small separate map, and create the tiniest detail on it... then, when we already have dozens of those prefabs, we can start laying out the town layout and put those prefabs together. The major advantage of prefabs is that if you once built a tenemants or a shop, you can reuse the prefab to build a similar one in the other end of the town w/o the need to create the building from scratch. I checked out the WaterCity level, it's not bad but it's really far away from perfect... it's got similar probs as the Alpha Town and looks too uniform. OTOH in some ways it's still better than the Alpha Town and the way the shops are realized is really good, I didn't think of that. It just shows once again that every level designer works in a different way and the best-looking town can only be created through the work of several designers.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote

]Hey Remi concerning the Centaur you're right, I misunderstood what you meant before. I thought you wanted to put the blocking on key 3 in a way that you had to press 3, then CTRL. BTW how do you think the blocking should work? As long as you hold down the key or you just activate it and you have no influence about it any more (I think Centaurs block always for the same length)? In the latter case, you could just press 3, you'd instantly go into block mode, and you could press 1 or 2 to change to the other weapon in the meantime.

As I have already made it, it's simply to press the weapon button, and you start blocking until you select another weapon. And it's currently so that you can block for all eternity if you like (though the player needs to watch it, attacks from the back and sides aren't blocked), but the downside is that you can't move while blocking. Oh! I just remembered, I forgot to put in the code to prevent the player from moving while blocking, darn... <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote

As for the Heresiarch, you won't possess him in normal singe player mode anyway (at max maybe as a cheat). But in the multiplayer mode I suggested, he should be as similar to a player in controller setup as possible to make playing easier, that means we should distinguish between weapons and spells. But that's not a simple possession any more... let's say if you want to program in the possession of the Heresiarch for testing purposes and fun, why not, just do it the way you want (ie. all spells on numeric keys), the one I mean won't be actual for a month or 2 yet. [img]images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Okaydokey, just remember though, I'll be making the bosses last since they'll require a great deal of unique code for their special behaviour. Now I'll just run and fix the Centaur blocking before I forget it. -Remi

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Voices of Xenon: <STRONG>Hey, Point about having the Serpents' Bites/Gas Attacks as seperate selectable weapons. As I recall, the Serpent Staff uses a different attack when up close... could something similar be done for the bites/melee attacks of the creatures? The advantage would be that it would make shifting from long-range attacks to short-range attacks a tad easier for the player (insert hype about streamlined user-interfaces here). Just a thought. -V?ices.</STRONG><HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I haven't thought of it that way. Although I think doing it the original way would be better. For instance, the Serpent's attacks are extremely different, the bite attacks extremely fast but does little damage, the fireball shoots slow but does high damage. If you combine the two and make the range different them it'll only be hassle when you're just *not* in range and you do the wrong attack. -Remi

So, what should I do with the possession feature's icons...? [img]images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img] It's needed or not? About the town map: yeah, please, RambOrc, let it see for the rest of the team... I also think that we need a big town. The town in Hexen 2 is also good, but that's too cramped and confined, if you know what I mean. No big spaces, just buildings and narrow streess anywhere. Hm... I also made some Doom and Quake levels in the past, here they are: Doom: http://lava.kanizsa.dhs.org/~offgame/other/doom/doom.htm Quake: http://lava.kanizsa.dhs.org/~offgame/quake/levels.htm (Old-old links, but maybe they work yet...)

Sylon, nopienope, Rambo says no icons for now. -Remi