DAWN OF THE DEAD mod for Max Payne

The reason why MP1 mods can lag so much is that the MP1 game engine is quite an old engine, ( although it's considerably more powerfull than the HL1 engine, & in fact it is closer to the HL2 engine then it is HL1 , although still some way off ), but it is still capable of doing some powerfull stuff which people don't seem to realise as they always seem to relate it as being only as capable as the HL1 engine as MP1 was only released 2 years after HL1. But believe me the diffrence in engines is massive, as Max Payne 1 was a ground breaking game engine when it came out, & it was the first game engine to throw slow motion gun play into the mix.

However, where this engine does fall down at times is when theres more then 8 characters on the screen at any one time as the engine is just not cut out to deal with this, but with a little trickery ( i.e spawning zombies & use of some dummy zombies in crowd scences ), & some very niffty camera work, I have made it seem like there is more animated zombies on show here then there realy is.

As, for large open maps, your right the MP1 gamming egine was also not designed to deal with this either, but that's where you have to be skilled in port holes & backface culling, so to take a much pressure off of the game engine, your graphics card & CPU as possible when dealing with these large maps.

But as I've already said before I will also not be recommending that this mod be played by gammers with lower end PC's.

Thanks for your comment....;)

when you create the characters/zombies, do you use multiple textures for different parts?

Yes, in Max Payne there are different textures for diffrent parts of the body, i.e head, torso, legs, & also any accessories like glasses & hats & so on.

Yes there are still pain killers in this mod for when you've been attacked by a zombie & survived ( which is not often ), but the painkillers in my mod are now in the form of Syringes & not pill bottles (see link).

Moddb.com

On another note, when the player gets killed by a zombie in this mod you will not in fact see the players character turn into a zombie, mainly because like in all games once you the players character is killed the game comes to a end. However, if any friendlys or N.C.P's get killed in this mod they will eventually rise from the dead with new zombie skins, & right in front of your very eyes if you stand around long enough.

As for the zombies speed, I did used to have my zombies walking a lot slower but they were just too dam easy to kill, but then I saw a poll on the web somewhere that was asking players of zombie games wiether they preffered their zombies to be slow walking zombies like in the original 1978 DOTD movie, or be fast moving, i.e running zombies, like in the 2004 remake, & 90% preffered the fast moving zombies because they found it a lot scarier to have a zombie running at you, which although that is not very realistic as these guys are meant to be stiffs, & shouldn't be walking at all let alone running, I can however still see their point.

Cont......

However, I have not gone the whole hog with my mod & made the zombies runners as I wanted to stick as closely I could to the original movie, so i've just made them slightly faster walkers.

They are still reasonably easy to kill though but its not how fast the zombies are moving that makes them easy or hard to kill in this mod, but its more to do with the situation that you find yourself in with them.

Example: If your in the middle of a field with some zombies comming at you from all angles, you can just run around & pick them off at your liesure, but if you in a small room with little space for manoover
( i.e run ), or if a zombie has just appeared from out of nowhere from arround a corner leaving you little time for reaction, well that's what makes things hard in this mod, so i've tried to put as many a situation like this into my mod in hope to keep the players on their toes, or just to make them jump....lol

Also, not all zombies are the same, as some do vary in difficulty, but this has nothing to do with their speed & is more to do with their VISUAL RADIUS, i.e harder zombies will spot you comming much further away so go into attack mode a lot faster, where as you might be able to get a lot closer to the easier zombies to get a shot in before they've seen you comming.

Thanks again for your interest again......;)

This mod dosen't lag on my PC & that's with all the game settings Maxed (forgive the pun), out, but then again my P.C has is pretty powerfull when it comes to system & graphics card memmory, & my PCU is pretty reasonable too.

Here's my system spec's:

Cpu: AMD Anthlon XP3000+ (2.17Ghz)
System Memory: 1500MB DDR PC2700
Graphics Card: XFX Geforce 6200 AGP8X TV/DVI,with 512MB DDR 400MHz

The again I was only going to recommend this mod to owners of higher end machines.

Also, take into account that I have not yet tested this mod out on a lower end PC with the game settings lowered.

Thanks again for your interest......;)

Yes there will be dismemberment in this mod as the Max Payne engine (MaxED) is capable of it.

However, the dismemberment in this mod will not be on a grand scale, i.e bits flying off of every zombie you shoot because this just didn't happen in the movie & as I've mentioned before i'm trying to stick as closely as I can to the original 1978 movie, as I think of this mod as more my tribute to that movie rather then a mod based on a movie. So i've kept most of my dismemberment's down to a handfull of boss zombies or major cut scenes like the famous hellicopter decapation scence that I've also manage to reproduced in this mod.

However there is masses of blood in the mod which sprays out every time you shoot a zombie in the head, just like in the movie, which is & very satisfying for the player as it's pretty kool to see.

Thanks again for your interest......;)