Korax Arena trailer
Sunday, November 27th, 2005 by RambOrc
Just finished and uploaded the 2nd Korax Arena trailer. I like to think that its showing definite progress, not only the game but also the movie. This time Ive had about 30 minutes of raw material recorded before I started editing, and since we agreed with 4th Class (our musician) on which song should be played during the trailer, I went a different way than last time and cut the clips and titles to match the music. I rather like the results, feel free to leave your comments on what you think.
For those who are interested in techie info, I recorded the game with Fraps and encoded it with DivX so that it can be read on other computers. Then I transferred the resulting about 1 GB of files to my Mac where I imported the clips into iMovie HD, this took forever (more than an hour). The resulting project was about 7 GB. Editing and previewing was all real-time, I did the whole cutting and editing in maybe 1-2 hours. Encoding took pretty long, about 20-30 minutes for the highres and 5-10 minutes for the lowres version. This is mostly due to the relatively slow CPU (1.25 GHz G4), but since the parts of the project with my interaction (cutting/arranging/editing) always worked with little to no delays, I dont complain. Especially if you look at the older Korax Heritage trailers from 2001-2003 and see the immense differences in quality and possibilities, thats what a PC is good for no matter how fast the CPU unless you buy a $5000+ video editing application and a similarly priced high-end PC of course
this in extreme contrast to the Mac mini which costs $499 retail and includes iMovie HD which while a consumer app beats the hell out of most so-called pro applications on Windows.
Korax Arena Codebase almost done
Tuesday, November 22nd, 2005 by Firebrand
Im happy with the results of the source code for version 1.0 of Korax Arena, everything seems to be working as expected, we already have a beta tester for it now, I have fixed almost all the problems it had and there are a few additions to be done, like a scoreboard and other small things that need to be completed to start revamping the maps for the official release, Im already working on a new map for DM and another new map for Castle Sweep, they are coming along nicely so far, I hope my next post in this blog to be the announce of the final release, lets hope it is, heh!
Thats it for now.
Korax Arena Updates
Wednesday, October 19th, 2005 by ?
I have been working a lot on adding more stuff for the Korax Arena code, I have managed to make scores for Team DM and Castle Sweep modes, which work just fine, also, I added invulnerability when respawning in DM modes, the bots have a really fair behaviour against monsters and players now too, there are some other things I would like to add before releasing the next internal beta test, like a score board for every gameplay mode, thats all for now.
Austin Bender Says:
November 8th, 2005 at 10:17 pm
Keep up the good work, Korax mod is awesome, especially to those few people who still remember exactly how enjoyable Hexen was back in the day
I dont know how many people thank you, but Id like to, thanks to everyone who has had any part in this. I remember when after being an avid doom player and editor, I was amazed at the ways the sectors in hexen could move. It was pretty damn sweet then, and what you are doing for yourselves, and everyone in regards to all the projects on korax-heritage.com is admirable. I know you guys have lives (to some degree more or less) and that can make these things difficult, especially when each project is more or less worked on by one person, or a skeleton crew. Try not to get burned out and add a donation banner on your site. Im not saying everyone and their grandmother is going to click that link, but on the off chance that traffic gets flowing after one of your releases, and perhaps some small appeal for such, Im sure the occasional gamer will pitch in. It isnt a thankless job, but it is pretty close. Good luck and dont get burned out!! <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/orc2.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) -->
(Sorry if that was a little verbose, Ive been watching this project for a number of years
)
3 years at Korax Heritage
Sunday, October 2nd, 2005 by Firebrand
Today its another anniversary from my entrance to the Korax Heritage team, these 3 years have been full of work and cool things and surprises, when I started at the team, the only thing I worked was 2d art, but then at some point I realized that I wanted to help with something else, like mapping, then I decided to start making some map conversions where the base engine was changed from Doomsday to Vavoom, then I started learning programming and decided to code for Korax Arena, which has really been the only work I have made during this last year (with some more mapping here and there), and I think that KA its one of the most ambitious projects I have seen around for Hexen or Heretic, it really takes the engine to more than its limits and brings a lot of cool features to play with, Im really anxious to work on it to make our first official release and we are testing all the problems that it might have to give you a flawless version of it <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/orc2.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) --> , once I finish doing this fixings to the code, I might get to work on another Castle Sweep map, thats it for now, see ya soon!! <!-- s;) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/orc9.gif" alt=";)" title="Wink" /><!-- s;) --> .
Castle Sweep
Friday, September 30th, 2005 by RambOrc
I just started the internal testing on Korax Arena version 0.6 (yes, this is the 4th release since the last public beta test) and the new game mode called Castle Sweep, its a bit like a classic cooperative game in Heretic or Hexen, in that you have a big map chock full of monsters and you have to kill them all, but you dont have to do it alone, because it supports the full number of players other game modes (like deathmatch) do, i.e. you can play it with a couple of friends over LAN or spawn a bunch of bots to help you out. Its quite a fun thing, wading into the horde of gargoyles, centaurs and chaos serpents with a machine gun, with a sword-swinging fighter on your left and a crossbow-shooting elf on your right. <!-- s;) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/orc9.gif" alt=";)" title="Wink" /><!-- s;) -->
Music support in Vavoom.
Tuesday, September 13th, 2005 by ?
Last few days Ive been working on music support in Vavoom. I created proper MIDI and CD audio driver classes. This should allow having music when using OpenAL sound driver. In Windows version Im going to change DirectMusic (which usually uses software synthesiser) to mmsystem (which uses MIDI support of sound card). The next step should be implementing support for streaming music. This will mean support for MP3, OGG and some other formats (and that ugly hack with fmod will go away). For a little laygh, while going through code if DOS CD driver I came across of one of the ossible errors a CD drive can give: Printer out of paper: world coming to an end,/* I mean really, on a CD? */
My Vacations Ending <!-- s:( --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/orc10.gif" alt=":(" title="Sad" /><!-- s:( -->
Sunday, September 11th, 2005 by ?
Unfortunately, today its my last vacations day <!-- s:( --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/orc10.gif" alt=":(" title="Sad" /><!-- s:( --> , I have been working hard with Korax Arena during the vacations, hoping to make a release, but well, there are some other things that need to be completed before a complete release, I have been working in a good way to make the bots spawn automatically in the maps, also, I have been fixing a lot of stuff regarding the bots aiming code (it was a bit messy and some of the weapons werent being covered), lets hope things can be completed in short time to make a complete release ASAP, thats it for now, see ya soon! <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/orc2.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) --> .
More Korax Arena development
Tuesday, September 6th, 2005 by ?
Hi there! I have been tweaking the leveling up system, and updating the team mates code for the bots, I might also set up a map for testing a new gameplay mode, Ill give more details of this later, thats it for now! See ya! <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/orc2.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) -->
Korax Arena development
Sunday, September 4th, 2005 by ?
Hi there! I have been coding the bots to chase for monsters and follow path nodes, it has been coming out really well, there are some remaining modifications for the leveling system and other small problems to fix, but this is going to be the best KA release so far! Stay tuned for more updates. I still have a last vacations week to keep working full time on it, lets hope I can fix it all before it ends <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/orc2.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) --> .
KA bots testing
Saturday, September 3rd, 2005 by ?
Right now Im testing the latest bot code in KA, its coming along nicely.