As mentioned in the summary, the FW:ToW development team has had their work cut out for them in terms of improving Freelancer (FL) to a quality of "today's games". It's hard to imagine that this game is now over 6 years old. Fortunately, even without the Source Code *shakes fist at Microsoft*, FL modders have found ways around the limitations of the engine.
One of the biggest issues the FW:ToW faced was improving every single model and texture we put into the game. We wanted to get the best models we possibly could. Fortunately, we had some help from the First Strike Mod - www.fsmod.com - and the X-Wing Alliance Upgrade Project - Xwaupgrade.com - in terms of getting amazing new fighter model/textures. Our mod team was elated to see them work so well within the Freelancer engine. We were even able to get all the guns/turrets movable, which is quite a sight to behold, and further adds to the realism of this mod. However, even though we had great success in some areas, there were many other ships/base models that we couldn't go to other modders for, so we had to come up with some ingenious ways of improving game and, subsequently, the Star Wars Experience.
The mastermind behind this upgrade project was Sovereign. He's been working painstakingly day-in-day-out on this project and he's done some incredible things. One of the more astonishing imports had to be the Imperial Star Destroyer. Using a method that Devast8tor pioneered, Sovereign was able to get a 130,000 polygon model in a game that has a limit of approximately 36,000 polygons. What's even better was that this method doesn't even slow up the game one iota.
Anyways, here's some of the amazing work done by Sovereign over at FW:ToW. As you can see with some of these models, we've greatly improved upon the Freeworlds mod.
Base Imports:
Space Outpost
Research Facility
Pirate Wreck Outpost
And because I could not leave you guys in suspense, this is our new Imperial Star Destroyer.
As you can see the quality of the model and texture is pretty surreal. Sovereign put a lot of work making this model work with assistance from me to get it coded into game.
And, our new Gallofree model for those of you that love the transport business!
Well, I hope you like this latest update on the FW:ToW project. Thanks to the great work of Developers like Sovereign, this will surely be a mod that will bring the Star Wars Universe to life.
If you like what you see, don't forget to give us a vote under the Freelancer section:
And don't forget to give the Crossfire Mod a vote, too :)
Good on ya. Making old tech look respectable is a worthy endeavour , and you guys seem to be pulling it off
I think the textures and models look great... but, I would turn off the smoothing groups on the large starship, it is all over the pace and is cause some bad shading... other than that, looks great...
Love the Imperial Star Destroyer and Rebel Transport, keep it up.
as a member of the FWs community i cant express how great the mod is, over at our forums they have the Developers blogs where the individual developers on the 2.0 project showcase their amazing work. If you want some more screens jump on over to our forums liste don our Moddb page and check out the Dev blogs, truly a sight to behold.
And for the devs runing the Moddb page this is Grimjaw, just want to let you know you guys rule the modding galaxy.
Thanks for the vote of confidence, Grim, it's appreciated :)