"CP Requests All Units Report In" news

Hey guys (and gals),

As you may have surmised from the update summary, the time has come for us to ask you once again for help in continuing to make this mod possible. A few people contacted us after the last update and we've added another member onto the team, who should be up and working with us shortly. We've also got a few others doing work outside of the team for us, to which they have our sincere gratitude.

So, the jobs that we need help with are pretty widespread, to say the least. We have many positions on the team that are manned, but the majority of those large (sometimes huge) jobs are leveled on only a few shoulders, and so it takes us much longer to put out content than if we had multiple people working in some positions. So without further ado, the jobs we need your assistance with:

Mapper

We already have a few dedicated mappers on the team, but the sheer number of maps that we will have overall means we need even more help. Having a working knowledge of Hammer and being able to make maps that have a variety of gameplay and visual styles is essential for what we are doing. Currently, we are still using quite a lot of leak and retail material as placeholder content, but as time goes on we will be replacing at least the majority of it with our own material.

Texture Artist

The texture situation is a bit more strained than mapping at the moment for us, to be honest. We only have one dedicated texture artist working with us, and understandably he cannot devote all of his waking hours to making new materials for us to use on maps and models. We are not afraid of outsourcing in order to get work done, but having a consistent method of contact and critique is always preferable. So, if any of you out there know (or know someone who knows) how to make high quality textures (anywhere from 1K to 4K), and are willing to put effort into making texture sets with variations, then please do speak up. We'll be making all sorts of textures for this mod, ranging from everyday materials like brick and stone to more imaginary ones, such as alien metals and sci-fi weaponry, so being able to make them well is extremely important.

Modeler

Similar to textures, we have a lot of models to make for this mod. A bit of bad news about this first. Many of the models that we previously posted on this website simply do not work in Source, or have so many technical issues that they require complete reconstruction. Don't worry, the crowbar is safe. Because of this, we've been actively working on remaking as many of our older models as possible, in higher overall detail at that. Due to unforeseen issues, one of our three modelers has taken a leave of absence and has left us with two working modelers, both working on very little spare time. While they are more than capable, we do need more hands if we wish to get the models done in a timely fashion. Being able to create many kinds of detailed objects is highly preferable, but not required. If you can create one type/class of object extremely well, go for it!

Concept Artist

We haven't asked for this one before, but it is nevertheless a position that has been neglected a fair bit. Up until now, we've been mostly using the artistic equivalent of napkin drawings rough sketches (specifically talking about my own 'art') for the most part, and having something legible a step up from that would be helpful not only for the mappers, but also for the modelers, texture artists, and well, everyone really. Being able to create original artwork in a timely manner is crucial here, because the longer we have to wait on the art side of things, the longer it takes to get content ready and shown off to you all. Don't get the impression that it will be a 'next day' setup though, as we all have gaming personal lives to work our mod time around.

Coder

Currently we have one coder who is working with us, and so far things have been going well, however we still have many, many more npc's, weapons, and other various parts of the mod that need to be built. Even though we are working in Source's architecture, we are trying to build as much as we can in as practical and streamlined a way as possible. All of our custom code is being made from scratch, so being able to work well within Source is critical. This position isn't of the highest importance on this list, but it would most certainly be helpful to get fresh ideas on board, as well as the probably faster turnaround time for bug reports and fixes. Anyone who applies for this job must know the "in's and out's" of Source, or at least what it is capable of and how to push it there. Also, a coder who know his way around High Level Shader or OpenGL Shading language would be extremely appreciated. Although our mod is based off of old content, we are trying to push Source to get the results we desire.

If any of you want to work with us or if you know someone who might, feel free to send AmbientNoise or Megamawman a personal message or leave one on this article.

Most other positions are either satisfactory or not required at the present time. Now, on to something a little different.

We've had an idea floating around the mod team about possibly including fragments of lore or "news clippings" of sorts every now and then alongside the normal updates. Since our story is mostly fleshed out at this point, writing off of it would be a viable option for us without consuming much time on our end. They wouldn't be extremely frequent, so one wouldn't need to worry about us turning into a group of lore-mongers, of course. What do you guys think? Yea or neigh?

As always, thanks for staying with us this far; we hope the new format of news updates is working well for you all!

-The RTB Dev Team