This week Morpher has been really busy so there's not much new to report in terms of logics or content implemented. I believe he has continued to explore the AI, and that's all trucking along pretty well. Right now I believe he has become really busy with something else entirely, and I know that nobody could possibly want to keep him from that.
I have continued to devote most of my modding time to the Nod campaign, the first act for which is starting to take shape. There are about 20 missions planned for this part, which allows for a bunch of branching and stuff to go on and should add some weight to player actions and a bit of replayability to proceedings. 20 missions is a lot though, so for the first pass I'm just building the 'default' path of 10 missions. Once that's done there shouldn't be too hard a cap on the number of forks in the path we can add, so it can grow organically from these 10.
This week I wrapped up the layout on the most recent 'large' mission I've been working on, and have nearly finished another one of the smaller ones. The small ones tend to revolve around a single, simple premise or mechanic - like commando missions or the like - while the larger missions are base buildy and need to cater for multiple play types. They also tend to be larger and more complex in their layout.
The large mission is titled "Lambs to the Slaughter". You discover the fate of the civilians which have been being herded into the wilderness: A radical Nod cult intends to reawaken CABAL, and are using the local civilian population as meat for a new Cyborg army.
Layout is done and lighting is slowly getting towards the mood I want (though it looks a bit vibrantly purple against this white background, and might need to be toned down even in-game), now all it really needs is all the scripting that makes it actually function as a mission.
The second mission I've been working on is a less involved one. You receive a mysterious directive, instructing you to go to the appointed place at the appointed time and destroy GDI's communications uplink in the area.
It takes place in a clean area, one which GDI has successfully cleared of Tiberium, which is a strong contrast to the Tiberium rich wastelands of the previous seven missions. The other thing that makes the mission a little interesting is that it falls early in the campaign but gives you some high tech units - electric artillery and stealth tanks, unlike the missions before and after which give access to buggies, bikes, and some of the splinter groups' tank and howitzer tech.
And that's what we did this week!
That purple terrain is..
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The purple area actually has its charm. Since it's a Red Tiberium zone, I'd take it that it's been so deeply contaminated, and for so long, that it already looks like a completely alien planet- so strange and hostile even the tiberium itself barely wants anything to do with it. The purpleness might have to be tweaked a bit but I think you shouldn't be rid of it entirely.
The "clean area" concept is strange and cool too in its own way. It would add a unique challenge to missions, not just commando missions but also base-building with very limited resources, in which you could perhaps add things like capturable caches/nodes that give you points, or protectable airfields where you get supplies or reinforcements.
What's the cryptographic sequence for decoding the link?
Actually, that purple lighting with the orange/red tib looks like what the Scrin worlds are probably like, an alien and strange land. It could pass as a nightime on on a Red Zone atmosphere. Its also awsome.
That's definitely the direction I'm going for. It's a case of tweaking and iterating until it's not only atmospherically interesting but also possible to stare at for tens of minutes at a time.
Nice, i hope you will finish this mod soon :D
I think the purple needs to be toned down just a tiny teeny bit but it's really looking fabulous, especially with that Tiberium. Are you going to add Tiberium light effects from TS (like actually have the fields be a source of light)? because that would be REALLY fabulous.
Looking forward for the release.
Just wanted to ask, but will the campaign have VA and cutscenes or will it be the standard words on screen? Those transmissions that come in campaigns where your map is also made me happy in the original game too.
Full scale TS style cutscenes are one of those really cool things that I'd love to do if I ever have the time or the energy, and have actually made a few props for (like this one: Dl.dropboxusercontent.com).
As it stands, it's likely that once we're settled on mission order we'll do some cutscenes like the ones Firestorm uses, since they're simpler to make (like this one: Youtube.com).
Cool, thank you for answering my question. Yeah those FMVs cutscenes would be the hardest thing to make since they are movie quality, I understand why going for the quick hologram ones would be easier and less time consuming.
What about those quick ones that come when completing a mission like Youtube.com I find them quite rewarding.
That'd be what the highpoly assets I've been making would be for ;)