Dev Diary: Clockwork 11/16/2021 news

Hello again, it is me... Clockwork. I have been great, how have you been. It has been too long since we last talked so I thought I would talk the entire time, you listen. That is not how a conversation goes, sorry to say. I want to: hear your comments, suggestions, why you hate me, what do you want from me, release my family... I love them. Regardless the last dev diary got a few comments, but I wonder how many people see this and think... "o cool" and move on not realizing this has a good chance of me commenting back on what you say. Of course you could probably try to message me on discord but that isn't really an official communication and less fun than here. Isn't moddb supposed to be superior than discord or is it the other way around? no idea. I am going to find out though. Enough about me... I should talk about more about me:

UPDATED WORKSTATION:

Sorry I cannot show a before and after, but I do now have a drawing tablet to help the 2d artists and be able to transfer my realism skills better into the digital environment. My wallet is now crying out in pain. Who said modding was cheap? was it you!? maybe... you can definitely mod this game with a screen/computer, keyboard, mouse and be just fine. However for me to be more productive I thought it prudent to expand my arsenal a bit to really put forth some updates at a better pace than what I can normally do.

The other part of the workstation is that I developed a trello infrastructure to help streamline development between devs and cogs (helpers) so that for sure is helping:

I love that krieg artwork, artist: waruhameru40kart :: Thought I would at least credit the person since it is in the dev diary. Go check that person out.. has quite a few cool images that help me get a feel with the lore I have been reading.

But as you can see the workstation and workflow are becoming more streamlined. Hopefully increasing efficiency.

SUGGESTION FORMS:

This has been around for actually awhile. But if you are in the discord you would know under #what-do-you-want-to-see in the pins section there is a link to a google forms where you can submit ideas with supporting documentation. You want to see it in game? Argue to me in those forms the reasoning behind it and if it is lore-friendly, feasible, and would be interesting to see in-game.

forms: UA Proposal - Form 2001

ART TEAM:

So the UA-Team posted an advert not that long ago, wanting new 2d artists to help out the mod if they can. We got quite a few people that said they would like to participate. However to this date I have not officially accepted any because I do warrant at least having a decent portfolio of previous work so I can gauge what assignments I can divvy out.

A couple said they will get back to me but I may never see them again. Or they will churn out something amazing, no idea.

HELPING NEW DEVS:

Well, its official... I help new devs more than I work on UA. It is a weird turn of events for me. But I like to see those messages on discord of people that ran into the same problems that I ran into, but I can answer those questions for them. Whereas, when I first did it I got nobody to help me :( . I do hope that new devs will be able to eventually make their own version of dow1. Or in the best scenario take some of the workload off of me. One can dream :) .

Anyway the thing that I was working on has some teeth to it but by no means is it finished. I think it may be in a state that may help someone as is, but just know... I will keep working on it... so if you do download it, make sure to check for updates as I release them.

download: Clockwork Codex 0.1

MODDB:

I am posting A dev diary earlier than I wanted to... YAY!

I mean I am proud to present everything I have worked on, not giving any pressure for me to push out content faster. I mean... O look! squirrel!

UNITS:

Yay, Units! As far as units, there are no new units really, more bug fixes and learning new concepts. This is what happens In about a week sometimes. Especially since this is not a full-time job, its a hobby more or less. Don't look at me like I am lazy! let me tell you how lazy I am not!:

Nurgling:

No update on this guy, but he sure is happy to see you. Put a comment down below if you want to give him a name.

Krieg:

So! the immediate project that I am currently working on has brought the attention of quite a few. Some were wondering why, how, and really.. honestly... why do it?

Ya... I do read the comments. Two things that I should point out. One and foremost this person is 100% correct about the models that I am working on at the time of posting. Two, I do not know what they are talking about in regards to the mod as there are absolutely no krieg models in the mod currently. Everything and anything I post in the dev updates or anywhere that is not the actual mod is up to change and not reflective of the final product. Sorry for the disappointment if you are not going to get the exact models from dow2 for a couple reasons:

• The animations are too fluid compared to the rest of the units (making the poor guardsmen look bad)
• The models are too skinny compared to the rest of the models in game, and has to be a bit redone
• Generally un-cohesive

So in retrospect I am changing gears in development of the krieg, so instead I am going to change the proportions and spend more time on them, rigging them to the guard skeleton. I can always go back and update the animations and just transfer them to all other models that use the same rig. HOWEVER!!! I did learn a lot by coding my own .whe files from scratch which I can use for the 'Clockwork Codex' and for other models that probably might need their original skeletons... hence Tyranids, or maybe vehicles... we will see...

Tyranids:

Tyranids(DOW2):

More images for the Tyranids. To be honest these guys are on hold until I get other pertinent work done. But did you know there are different textures; ones with 'glow' versions, modified models, other team colorings based on rarity. I might play with these ideas in the future like maybe a ten percent chance of spawning a rare version of a tyranid. I will only know once I get to this part of my work pipeline.

IMPERATOR:

Got some more texturing done, so that is nice. This project hits especially home since I am texturing 10k faces with only a 512x512 image. I think it is coming along nicely. Since the last post I just finished the head. You cannot tell just yet, but if you squint really hard... you can see that the back of the head is completely textured. I have been working on some other projects (i.e. Codex) than this big guy lately.

SPACE MARINE FIX:

Yay! got my first bug-fix all done up. I have more of a story than actual content to tell about this one.

Problem: After a certain upgrade a golden skull should pop up on the shoulder of the space marine, however on a few of the models the skull is not there; but on the ground or in other locations.

Alright, so the story. First and foremost I had to identify how the skull was being presented and used. After some digging around because asking anyone else would result in "I don't know"... I found out that the skulls were not actually in the model file of each of the space marines but placed on them with the help of a 'helper'. Which is a marker that tells the engine "HEY PUT THAT THING RIGHT WHERE THIS BIG CROSS IS!". After Identifying that I just need to move the marker in the ref.max file to the shoulder instead of the foot. I said job done and sent the file to the rest of the team.

The next day I get a message that the skulls are in the right position but now the models are now always holding a really big rando weapon(s) that no one can make out of what it could possibly be. Well... shit. So I delve back into the files to see what was going wrong and how to proceed.

Turns out the cluster franken weapons on the models were in fact the graviton guns, I'll tell you the answer right now. Somehow on importing the .whm files the graviton guns were not imported correctly resulting them to not have their textures and the vis coding data that determines if they are showing or not was also missing... I spend this day going through and fixing one of the models by hand one .max file at a time (a few animations). For context because of the software I am running the tool that sets the vis data is broken because I am running Windows 10 and the references that that tool uses are outdated and broken. So file by file I set the vis coding data setting those graviton guns not to show up in every animation.

On the ref.max file I also fix the textures that are missing for the graviton guns but that was easier than the vis fixes. After all that I send the file back to the team. They respond... that the skulls was in the wrong place again. Fuck... when I fixed up the vis data and the textures I replaced the skull fix with the original bugged ref.max file. Sent that file over. They responded that they are now showing up as pink boxes. Making sure that my other devs are not joking or just generally messing up on my behalf. Turns out that you need to include the .whe associated with the .whm every time. My bad. I sent only the .whm files the third time I sent them. Later I make sure I send both files in the future...

On day three, I finish the graviton gun vis data fix, graviton texture fix, and the skull position fix. Resulting in finally working space marines that do not have skulls at their feet. What I thought was going to be an hour fix and move on turned into a three day incursion to make sure those models were working up to my expectations (and hopefully your expectations).

So... what happened? Well my speculation is that however the space marines were originally modded, that information did not transfer correctly into my tools. Maybe it was made with older tools? I will never know. But I do know I have the skills to fix them.

CONCLUSION:

Most of my work lately is learning, bug-fixing, changing-gears, upgrading utilities, finding new devs, and working on the Clockwork Codex. Mostly the Codex as there is a lot to talk about and it takes time to record that information to where it can be helpful. If anyone can think of a good cover art for the Clockwork Codex by all means go ahead and make it. If the image is good enough I will add it and credit it, hurry before I start using my new kamvas 13 to make it (if I ever have time). If you figured something out or want to help add to the codex by all means message me or comment here. I hope you enjoyed our second meeting, I'll make sure to bring coffee next time.

-Clockwork