Caltrops - MMORPG Level Treadmill - Jhoh begins the journey. (log)

Forum Overview :: MMORPG Level Treadmill

by Fussbett 03/03/2006, 5:10am PST

[05:10] Jhoh Cable: So I was thinking of trying to learn some kind of mod skill for HL2. :(
[05:11] Sanitario666: Go for it
[05:12] Jhoh Cable: Horay.
[05:12] Jhoh Cable: Unfortunately it wouldn't be coding. :(
[05:12] Sanitario666: Maybe you're a good programmer.
[05:12] Sanitario666: Have you tried?
[05:12] Jhoh Cable: Yes.
[05:12] Jhoh Cable: I was horrible.
[05:12] Sanitario666: Ok then.
[05:12] Sanitario666: What are your skillz exactly?
[05:12] Jhoh Cable: I was sending my work to girls 5 years younger than me to fix my problems.
[05:12] Jhoh Cable: I was thinking I could learn to animate models. :(
[05:13] Jhoh Cable: Making models, much like coding, is probably beyond me. :(
[05:13] Sanitario666: I think "rigging" and animating is not easy and you'd be a valuable asset to a mod team if you could do that
[05:13] Jhoh Cable: I remember I tried mapping before, and that wasn't too bad.
[05:14] Jhoh Cable: Yeah it would probably require a lot of precise tiny movements frame by frame or however it works.
[05:14] Sanitario666: Yeah you should do mapping too. It's labour intensive but pretty easy to pick up.
[05:14] Jhoh Cable: Hopefully a tutorial would be somewhere to get me started. ~_~
[05:15] Jhoh Cable: I released 1 map for SvenCoop a few years back. :(
[05:15] Sanitario666: Then when you animate the reloading process of the M4 rifle, everyone will scream at you.
[05:15] Sanitario666: Because you did it wrong.
[05:15] Jhoh Cable: When I tried updating it I created some kind of mysterious flaw in the code though.
[05:15] Jhoh Cable: And it would always crash on compiling.
[05:15] Sanitario666: Yeah, troubleshooting is rough.
[05:16] Jhoh Cable: Well yeah you can't pull back on the forward assist, it's not supposed to pull out. ~_~
[05:16] Jhoh Cable: Well there was no troubleshooting in that case, my work was basically destroyed by my attempts to improve it, so I deleted it all. :(
[05:16] Sanitario666: Always save out different filenames.
[05:16] Sanitario666: So you can rollback to pre-crash.
[05:17] Jhoh Cable: I think I should stick to animating. ~_~
[05:17] Jhoh Cable: Hey I hear the SvenCoop team is looking for model animators.
[05:17] Jhoh Cable: But professional ones. :(
[05:17] Jhoh Cable: But if I did a good enough job maybe I could pass myself off as being talented. ~_~
[05:18] Jhoh Cable: When the truth is it would take me like a month to do something that an experienced person could make in a week.
[05:18] Sanitario666: BUT
[05:18] Sanitario666: You have time on your side.
[05:18] Jhoh Cable: Yes.
[05:18] Jhoh Cable: Lots of time. :(
[05:18] Jhoh Cable: SvenCoop 2 probably won't even be released until like next year.
[05:18] Sanitario666: Other people have jobs and things. You'd be animating away while they're filling out TPS reports.
[05:18] Jhoh Cable: Not even a first beta version. ~_~
[05:19] Jhoh Cable: Some people even have girlfriends or friends. :(
[05:19] Sanitario666: So get started tonight.
[05:19] Jhoh Cable: Yeah I'm downloading the SDK. :(
[05:19] Sanitario666: Isn't there a "softimage lite" sorta modeling program too?
[05:19] Sanitario666: Is that in the SDK?
[05:21] Jhoh Cable: Yes, XSI Softimage for Source.
[05:21] Sanitario666: Nice
[05:22] Sanitario666: Here's my animating advice: slow-ins and slow-outs.
[05:22] Jhoh Cable: Okay. :(
[05:22] Sanitario666: Also: never a linear move -- always put a little curve in there.
[05:27] Jhoh Cable: Yeah I know.
[05:27] Sanitario666: OH SORRY
[05:27] Jhoh Cable: Any minute amount of movements to add more detail adds up to PROFESSIONAL o_o
[05:28] Jhoh Cable: As opposed to say the model animations in FEAR.
[05:28] Jhoh Cable: It makes it look like one of the magic powers your dude has is the power to remove a clip from your gun by just waving your hand near it.

...

[05:42] Jhoh Cable: Game industry. ~_~
[05:42] Jhoh Cable: I wonder if it would even be possible for me to one day become a game concept idea designer person guy. :(
[05:42] Jhoh Cable: Maybe if I started getting into this whole making stuff in mods and shit and tried to get into the INDUSTRY. ~_~
[05:42] Sanitario666: No.
[05:42] Jhoh Cable: And then by the time I'm 40 I can finally make the games I want. O_O
[05:42] Jhoh Cable: :(
[05:43] Sanitario666: You need to have meetings and confront people and placate people and charm people.
[05:43] Sanitario666: It's all people work.
[05:43] Sanitario666: Standing up there writing ideas on the whiteboard.
[05:43] Jhoh Cable: I could do that.
[05:43] Sanitario666: BUT!!!!!!!!
[05:43] Sanitario666: You could be a great animator.
[05:43] Sanitario666: Or even texture artist.
[05:43] Sanitario666: Or level designer.
[05:43] Jhoh Cable: All I'd need is to know what I'm doing.
[05:43] Jhoh Cable: And then I would be able to tell other people what to do.
[05:44] Sanitario666: I'll believe it when I see it, PAL.
[05:44] Jhoh Cable: Didn't I just do it? :(
[05:44] Sanitario666: Do what?
[05:44] Jhoh Cable: That.
[05:45] Sanitario666: What's that? I'm lost.
[05:45] Jhoh Cable: It.
[05:45] Jhoh Cable: Telling people the ideas and what to do.
[05:45] Jhoh Cable: How to do them.
[05:45] Sanitario666: Right, but then they have to get inspired and run over to their desks and execute that idea.
[05:45] Jhoh Cable: Not only did I think about what the game would be about, I also spent some time thinking about how I would try presenting it to people. :(
[05:46] Sanitario666: Ideas are a dime a dozen. Execution is the hard part.
[05:46] Jhoh Cable: I don't know if people would be comforted by the idea that I could throw some work in myself after I've told everyone to get to work with their coding and mapping.
[05:46] Jhoh Cable: Yeah well most people's ideas suck ass. :(
[05:47] Sanitario666: You'd be surprised. Many games are awesome during the first meeting.
[05:47] Jhoh Cable: Counter-Strike, CS clone #1, CS clone #2, CS clone #3, CS clone with capture the flag elements.
[05:47] Sanitario666: And then you try to make it, and two years later it sucks.
[05:48] Sanitario666: Here's the story of Sonic X-treme being cancelled:
[05:48] Sanitario666: http://www.lostlevels.org/200403/200403-xtreme.shtml
[05:48] Sanitario666: Oops, this one is better:
[05:48] Sanitario666: http://www.lostlevels.org/200403/timeline.shtml
[05:49] Jhoh Cable: Sonic. :(
[05:51] Sanitario666: Anyway, imagine yourself dealing with those politics as the lead designer.
[05:52] Sanitario666: MY CREATIVE VISION NO!!!!!!!!!!!
[05:52] Jhoh Cable: Wow that shit looks gay. :(
[05:52] Jhoh Cable: So I'd have to be a dictator too then.
[05:52] Sanitario666: People complain, you're fired.
[05:52] Jhoh Cable: I might be able to handle that, I already have lots of experience telling people that their ideas or contributions to my ideas suck ass and are worthless.
[05:53] Sanitario666: Well, you might be on to something. Forget practicing a skill and instead just practice coming up with ideas.
[05:53] Jhoh Cable: And if anyone tries to change my ideas I just tell them to shut the fuck up.
[05:53] Jhoh Cable: I'M THE GENIUS HERE
[05:53] Sanitario666: Practice that too.
[05:53] Jhoh Cable: IF I WANT MAYONNAISE, I GET MAYONNAISE
[05:54] Sanitario666: Speaking of mayonnaise, practice ordering a sandwich.
[05:54] Sanitario666: You're going to get hungry, coming up with all those ideas.
[05:54] Jhoh Cable: And drinks.
[05:56] Jhoh Cable: It would probably be easier trying to start a small RPG version of HL2 as a mod with a few other dudes. :(
[05:56] Jhoh Cable: And if it worked then we'd think about taking it up a notch and maybe going online with it.
[05:56] Jhoh Cable: Like a Diablo 2 version of the game where you'd just have a few dudes run around and get XP and shit.
[05:57] Sanitario666: Psh, you can whip that off in a weekend.