New Mod Announcement: Brains!
DOOManiac
Worst. Critic. Ever. Join Date: 2002-04-17 Member: 462Members, NS1 Playtester
Worst. Critic. Ever. Join Date: 2002-04-17 Member: 462Members, NS1 Playtester
<div class="IPBDescription">Secret Project B revealed!</div>Quad and I have been working on a new HL1 project (really, more like a mini-mod) to keep us busy until HL2 comes out and we can work on Espionage again. So without further ado, we are proud to unveil to the public:
<a href='http://www.espionagemod.com/brains/index.php' target='_blank'>BRAINS!</a>
I’m handling the coding and Quad is doing the models, plus we have CampaignJunkie (from Nightwatch) who is going to do a few maps for us. And yes, we already have something done, so this isn’t just a “omg I gots an idea” mod. ;)
The style we’re aiming for with Brains! is that of the generic, campy, and generally more humorous than frightening 1950’s era horror movie. The entire mod will be in black and white (grayscale, really) to emulate this. Because the mod is set in Hill Valley, the generic rural small town in heartland America circa the 50’s, expect to come across various satirical references to the decade. This may include, but certainly isn’t limited to ‘Johnny Rocket’ style diners, ancient electronic appliances, and any sort of anti-communist propaganda.
Basic gameplay consists of 2 teams. One team is full of human players, the other team has 1 zombie player. Each time a human dies, he is switched to the zombie team. The winner of the round is the last human alive. Round restarts, everybody goes back to the human team except for the winner, who is now the zombie.
Maps will take place in areas such as a farmer’s land, an old church, and the commercial area of a town (filled with hardware stores and whatnot).
The good people of Hill Valley town were unsuspecting of such a zombie attack, so their weaponry will reflect this; a heavy focus is placed upon items one might find in a household and used as a bludgeoning or slicing weapon. Of course, there will be a few accessible projectile weapons, but this will be limited due to the fact that good natured citizens tend to avoid too much violence.
The majority of weapons are melee: An axe, a broken broom stick, a shovel, a 2x4, a sledgehammer, and everybody’s favorite: a chainsaw. Ranged weapons include a standard generic semi-auto pistol, a snub nosed revolver, a hunting rifle, and a shotgun. Also there’s sticks of dynamite, for blowing zombies to bits. There may be other basic types added later. There are no military grade weapons of any kind.
Being a game w/ survival kept in mind, weapons and ammo are very scarce. You can only carry 1 weapon at a time, so choose carefully what you want. Sure a shotgun is going to decimate any undead minion in your way, but once it runs out of shells it won’t do much good other than maybe knock a zombie off balance to run a few more feet before your untimely death. On the flip side, a shovel or axe will take a zombie’s head clean off, or in other ways immobilize them, allowing you to escape with no ammo to worry about. Of course you have to get close enough for that. And while a chainsaw makes it easy & fun to rip and tear, you’re S.O.L when it runs out of gas.
Something we’d like to point out is many of you know about another mod, <i>Zombie Panic</i>, which is also being developed by some NS people, and it seems to be coming along nicely. We’ve talked w/ Twilight, the project lead, and we’re all aware of each other and know that nobody is out to steal any ideas or step on any toes and the like. We may even end up collaborating on a few things. In the grand scheme of things, the Zombie Panic project is on a larger scale than Brains is, as we are more of a mini-mod. We wish Twilight and his team the best of luck w/ Zombie Panic. So for anyone wanting any Internet mod soap opera drama, I’m afraid you’ll be quite disappointed. :P
For those interested in helping out, we are in need of mappers and also UV Mappers/Skinners. Also we could use the occasional errand boy, to do some menial task for us so that we can do the hard stuff better, so if you have no talent but would like to help out then we may occasionally have the odd task for you. If you’re interested in helping out, just post here, catch either of us on IRC in #naturalselection or #espionagemod (which will be Brains’ official chatroom so we can pimp our main project easier and also we don’t have to join too many extra channels), or email me doomaniac@cox.net.
So what are you waiting on? Go check out our Pulitzer Prize winning <a href='http://www.espionagemod.com/brains/index.php' target='_blank'>website</a>. :P
<a href='http://www.espionagemod.com/brains/index.php' target='_blank'>BRAINS!</a>
I’m handling the coding and Quad is doing the models, plus we have CampaignJunkie (from Nightwatch) who is going to do a few maps for us. And yes, we already have something done, so this isn’t just a “omg I gots an idea” mod. ;)
The style we’re aiming for with Brains! is that of the generic, campy, and generally more humorous than frightening 1950’s era horror movie. The entire mod will be in black and white (grayscale, really) to emulate this. Because the mod is set in Hill Valley, the generic rural small town in heartland America circa the 50’s, expect to come across various satirical references to the decade. This may include, but certainly isn’t limited to ‘Johnny Rocket’ style diners, ancient electronic appliances, and any sort of anti-communist propaganda.
Basic gameplay consists of 2 teams. One team is full of human players, the other team has 1 zombie player. Each time a human dies, he is switched to the zombie team. The winner of the round is the last human alive. Round restarts, everybody goes back to the human team except for the winner, who is now the zombie.
Maps will take place in areas such as a farmer’s land, an old church, and the commercial area of a town (filled with hardware stores and whatnot).
The good people of Hill Valley town were unsuspecting of such a zombie attack, so their weaponry will reflect this; a heavy focus is placed upon items one might find in a household and used as a bludgeoning or slicing weapon. Of course, there will be a few accessible projectile weapons, but this will be limited due to the fact that good natured citizens tend to avoid too much violence.
The majority of weapons are melee: An axe, a broken broom stick, a shovel, a 2x4, a sledgehammer, and everybody’s favorite: a chainsaw. Ranged weapons include a standard generic semi-auto pistol, a snub nosed revolver, a hunting rifle, and a shotgun. Also there’s sticks of dynamite, for blowing zombies to bits. There may be other basic types added later. There are no military grade weapons of any kind.
Being a game w/ survival kept in mind, weapons and ammo are very scarce. You can only carry 1 weapon at a time, so choose carefully what you want. Sure a shotgun is going to decimate any undead minion in your way, but once it runs out of shells it won’t do much good other than maybe knock a zombie off balance to run a few more feet before your untimely death. On the flip side, a shovel or axe will take a zombie’s head clean off, or in other ways immobilize them, allowing you to escape with no ammo to worry about. Of course you have to get close enough for that. And while a chainsaw makes it easy & fun to rip and tear, you’re S.O.L when it runs out of gas.
Something we’d like to point out is many of you know about another mod, <i>Zombie Panic</i>, which is also being developed by some NS people, and it seems to be coming along nicely. We’ve talked w/ Twilight, the project lead, and we’re all aware of each other and know that nobody is out to steal any ideas or step on any toes and the like. We may even end up collaborating on a few things. In the grand scheme of things, the Zombie Panic project is on a larger scale than Brains is, as we are more of a mini-mod. We wish Twilight and his team the best of luck w/ Zombie Panic. So for anyone wanting any Internet mod soap opera drama, I’m afraid you’ll be quite disappointed. :P
For those interested in helping out, we are in need of mappers and also UV Mappers/Skinners. Also we could use the occasional errand boy, to do some menial task for us so that we can do the hard stuff better, so if you have no talent but would like to help out then we may occasionally have the odd task for you. If you’re interested in helping out, just post here, catch either of us on IRC in #naturalselection or #espionagemod (which will be Brains’ official chatroom so we can pimp our main project easier and also we don’t have to join too many extra channels), or email me doomaniac@cox.net.
So what are you waiting on? Go check out our Pulitzer Prize winning <a href='http://www.espionagemod.com/brains/index.php' target='_blank'>website</a>. :P
Comments
Also, it should be noted that we'd prefer just one guy that can UV map and skin, as to keep the team size small as possible. Feel free to e-mail either myself or DOOManiac with applications and work samples - use the e-mails on the website :).
I'm not good with the making textures part. Unfortunately I also lack the whole 'how about a demo of your mapping skills' part, because they're all on a computer that's unavailable now.
[edit]Despite not playing zombie panic, and the similarities to the two, I think a black and white mod would be a good idea (or maybe some fuzzed out colors too...but that might mean the weapons would need colored and uncolored texturs; so I guess you'd only have black and white).
[edit2]Probably should mention: so if you'd like me to map for the game just send me a PM or something.
(was just playing with off and matches)
bleh... sounds fun!! im goin to bed..
also, are you actually going to make HL render it in grayscale, or will you simply be using grayscale textures and just not add colored lighting?
:edit: can i put an add in your personals? ^_^
We NS'ers <i>really</i> like zombies don't we <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I think a good soundtrack could add a lot to this mini-mod, any plans for music?
<edit> PS. I really like the 'brains' site, very classy. Tho not as classy as your main site Doom <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo--> </edit>
If there is any point when a player would be spectating though, that'd be an ample time for a static-filled filter.
If there is any point when a player would be spectating though, that'd be an ample time for a static-filled filter. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
If your doing the gameplay in B movie black and white, I don't see how making it more realisticy B movie runs a huge rist of annoying the player. I'm talking about the white lines and the random noise you see so prominently in all those old pictures.
So if you wanted real 'static' you wouldn't get it to move, which would look kind of stupid. you might be able to get some thin lines, or maybe a very light 'static' filter over the view though, without it looking bad.
featuring the available .wad (textures)
available to use? What about an .fdg or .fgd or whatever the hell
it's called that contains the entity info?
PM Me with more info, like any WADs your distributing to mappers (if any) and other things a mapper needs to know.
This sounds fun!
~ DarkATi
maybe me and darkati should make one street full of houses, farms, cars, etc ^_^ OH and the brains, cant forget the brains <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I hope I'll enjoy this as much as I'm enjoying Zombie Panic!
there, i said it <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo--> i can do some skinning but nothing awsome since im still practicing ( sp ? ) and i can mesh either.. yet.. but if you got a model with a mesh im willing to give it a try, just use the fancy buttons under this post to contact me <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
It's hard to see from the render, but there already is one in the 2x4 :P.
As for WADs, that's up to the mapper to figure out. It's not too hard to just grayscale the vanilla HL textureset, though.
As far as the rendering in B&W goes, I experimented with the same <a href='http://collective.valve-erc.com/index.php?go=tron2' target='_blank'>Tron Glow</a> effect and made it render HL in complete black & white (except for sprites, but those are easy to change), but I decided not to use it ingame because:
1) It only works in OpenGL mode
2) Only works on NVidia cards
3) Only works w/ GF4,5,6 cards
4) Even then the framerate is unacceptably low
So that leaves about 10% of Steam users (according to the Valve survey).
So we just decided to make every texture/sprite B&W like Half-Quake did.
Thanks for the positive response guys. :)
Oh and there is no FGD just yet, but you don't really need one at this stage.
<!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif' /><!--endemo-->