Long time no see. As is often the case, real life, game releases, and general apathy have gotten in the way of development. But as always, we've been working away in a big way on a lot of things. Most substantially is the campaign - with maps, map scripting, and mission-specific art all having a lot of time and effort put into them. We've also gone back over some of the partially complete assets and pushed them up to a final and finished status.
Years ago, a set of civilian structures were released to the public by Vef, based on his work for various iterations of his own TS and RA2 projects. They were a good addition to Tiberian Odyssey and so were quickly incorporated, and were similarly snapped up quick by numerous other mods. They had one major problem though: The artwork for the structures was incomplete, and totally lacked damage frames. This is a big issue because with more than 30 buildings in this set these civilian assets make up a large chunk of our set as a whole. Over the past couple of weeks I have made damage states for almost all of Vef's buildings. Without having the source 3D models this was a big challenge, but now that it has been overcome the set will be a lot more useful.
Mapping continues on both the GDI and Nod campaigns. My intention for a first release is to have the opening act for both sides fairly complete, which probably only clocks in at about 20 missions total, including the odd branch and divergence from the main thread of the narrative.
We recently filled an important hole in the Nod campaign, having finally worked out how to tie Nod's epilogue with the end of the Firestorm Crisis to the main thrust of their act I. Treatments for these early missions have been written and maps are early work in progress. With these two beginning missions readied, we will have an unbroken chain of finished (though not all scripted) maps from mission 1 to mission 9 with at least one of diverging path.
GDI's act I is a lot less full of choice since GDI is a reactive force in the C&C canon so choice only builds up as things to react to do, and that relies on Nod doing interesting things. Nonetheless, missions continue to be written, mapped, and scripted occasionally which is nice.
Forgotten forces bunker down in the captured ruins of an old GDI base
The rail lines leading into Algiers
A GDI Cruiser and escort anchored in the harbour, ready to help coordinate the evacuation
It is my opinion that a good campaign should also present something unexpected to the player. To follow through on this belief I have been making special assets for use in the campaign. Some of these provide the focal point of a specific mission, some are simply valuable assets to sprinkle throughout as a set-dressing and lore building exercise. There are a few things I intend not to spoil right now, but it's worth letting a little bit of it slip for interest's sake:
Here we see various units intended as command vehicles, heavy enemies, or powerful allies (among other things). Some are work-in-progress, like the Nod Command Ship on the middle right of the second image.
This is one of a number of assets designed to reflect GDI's wasteland research facilities.
That's all I can think of right now. Hopefully we'll take a little less time to get around to a news update next time, but hey - life is a complex thing. Until next time!
Your updates may be few and far between, but it's probably a good thing, cuz every time a new one shows up, I'm stoked as hell. I'm patiently awaiting the eventual release of this mod, and I firmly believe that this will be the Mental Omega of the Tiberium Universe, if not even better.
Also, with the unknown vehicles, I'm guessing the left three in the first pic are Civilian GDI assets. Looks like some kind of zeppelin aircraft, and then two drones of some kind(repair and possible bomb disposal?), and the truck looks like a Forgotten unit. For the bottom pic, I'd guess the two GDI-colored vehicles are an Orca-based gunship platform(looks like a machine gun under the cockpit), and a railgun tank. The two gray vehicles I have no idea, aside from one being a tank and the other aircraft. The OD-green on the bottom is almost definitely an LCAC, and then the ship in the middle is a tanker or cargo ship, I'm guessing for an escort mission for Nod, or a disruption mission for GDI.
Close on a lot of that. In the first pic that's a Nod Mobile Stealth Generator, because the Firestorm unit was rolled into the Nod Stealth Tank here. Without it, doing some early campaign stuff under cover of stealth is a bit inconvenient.
Ahh. I thought it might be some kind of Forgotten battle bus-type thing, or a transport for some kind of volatile tech.
Nod MSG, GDI Urban Pacification Drone, GDI Surveillance Airship, and Forgotten War Convoy.
I seem to have gotten very confused there. I thought you were talking about the rig both times. But I get it now. Rig is Forgotten, than the little black crawler is the MSG.
Looking forward to seeing you guys work!
this looks so ******* epic :) god I love it !
Question, will the idea of helping the forgotten be a thing?
Yep, lots. Though sometimes the Forgotten do not want or need your help.
I was just wondering since we had a big discussion in the comments about it a while back.
The building in the middle of the first screenshot looks a little weird. The angle just looks off compared to everything else.
I know! It's been driving me mad, but you can see the grid under it and the base is straight as an arrow (on the forward facing long side). The building is triangular, so it looks slightly odd against the norm of TS's rectangular structures.
I just want to say that I love the GDI platform in the last picture. I'm a sucker for industrial structures, so I hope we'll get to see more of the like!
Love the update my good man:)
When is the expected release data?
Looking good guys. Keep up the good work.