X-Wings anyone? ...finished and textured

Good work! I'm glad to see things are moving along nicely.

I'm a little worried about Lucas or whoever claiming copyright infringements if we use copies of original sounds?

Don't worry, copyright infringment doesn't really apply when there's no money involved. As long as we declare that LucasArts isn't responsible for the content and don't try to promote it as "official" or "authentic" this shouldn't even be an issue. There's more infringement on Particle Systems copyright than LucasArts anyway, since they own the entire rest of the game.

Sites like this may also help to put you at your ease: www.galactic-conquest.net
It's a BattleField 1942 MP mod based on Star Wars. Not really any different in spirit than what we're doing. And these guys get game magazine coverage! If LucasArts were going to be on anybody about copyrights these would be the guys.

So anything that can be snared or salvaged from existing sources would save us a lot of time. Which remainds me, Sivadrake said he has some actual SW weapon sounds. Maybe you could ask him to share. I get the feeling he would.

btw - For what it's worth, I think the wings should start off closed. As long as we tell them how to do it, I think most people know that the wings should be open for combat. Just my two cents.

mailto:second_chance@cox.net
The Ultimate Guide To Modding: I-War 2 - Edge Of Chaos (on hold during SW MP mod)
cartoons.sev.com.au/index.php?catid=4
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There are lots of sounds I could snatch off the XWA CD and they are even compatible to EOC sfx.

I don't think Particle/Sheffield will mind. The Mod requires the EOC exe, so it should even increase sales or at least increase game popularity/ usage. If someone does complain we'll finally know who currently has teh rights, won't we [?]

Ok, we can leave the wings closed on spawn. The script can flash the player a short message on the hud like "open S-Foils to activate weapons" whenever he spawns. If the player dies we'll reset the S-Foils position status to closed in the players deathscript and he'll be reminded again when he re-spawns.

While you're working on the x-Wing animation/avatars I'll be thinking about how to set up coop play missions in this game.
We need a couple of mission ideas for around 4 to 6 players too.



Iwar2 Multiplayer Fan Site

Great! Here's the games I have, let me know if you want me to look for a particular sound you don't find.

• X-Wing
• Tie Fighter
• X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter: Balance of Power
• X-Wing Alliance
• Force Commander
• Rebellion

I may have some good news too. I think I've deciphered the animation channel naming conventions. Let's look at a typical animation channel null name:

<anim channel="LZ?+s(0.5)">

Ok, the first thing to note is the use of the brackets, or < >, to surround the null name. Since these are almost always used for nulls that communicate with flux I believe that these are the indicators that tell flux "Hey, we're supposed to do something in the game!"

Next we have the phrase anim channel=. This tells flux exactly what the null does and how it should be used in the game. It also assigns the channel name to the channel. Some examples are:

• anim channel - for animated movement
• glow channel - for glowing and pulsing textures
• node template - for adding sound effects

After that we have "LZ?+s(0.5)". This is the actual name assigned to the channel, as represented in Pog. Although it has more resemblance to a function name. The quotes "" are used to differentiate the channel name from the null name. Then there's the LZ. This combined with the + symbol after the ? means forward lateral movement (or Z+), as explained in the Avatar Creation document. I'm not sure what the ? or the s indicate though, but they are in every animation channel name. And finally we come to the (0.5). Here, apparently, is where we get our animation timing and interpolation control. From the creation docs glow channel section: "The number (0.5) refers to the ramp-up/fade-out time of the glow effect. As a rule, 1.0 = one second, 0.5 = two seconds etc." Since these numbers are included in every animation channel name I can only assume the same applies to other animation channel effects.

So incremental control is not needed in the way I originally thought (nor is it even possible). Essentially all you have to do is create a null, name it (using either an existing type or a custom name) as an animation channel, set the timing in the name and parent it to the object(s) you want to animate. Then whatever animation you do to the null will be translated to the object(s) in the game.

Armed with this info I think we now stand a very good chance of getting the X-Wing's wings to work well, WOW! (Whew, say that five times fast. )

mailto:second_chance@cox.net
The Ultimate Guide To Modding: I-War 2 - Edge Of Chaos (on hold during SW MP mod)
cartoons.sev.com.au/index.php?catid=4
.

Armed with this info I think we now stand a very good chance of getting the X-Wing's wings to work well, WOW!

Great!
On a side thought: If you can use a custom name for the animation channel then we might still be able to turn it on and off with pog via Sim.AvatarSetChannel ??

On sounds, I'll let you know what else I may need as the case arises.




Iwar2 Multiplayer Fan Site

Yes, that's the idea. We can name the channel whatever we want, and all you'll have to do to access it is add the channel to the sim. Then you can set the value in the normal way. This is going to be very cool if it works. I'm already picturing a squadron of fighters opening their wings as they fly into battle.

mailto:second_chance@cox.net
The Ultimate Guide To Modding: I-War 2 - Edge Of Chaos (on hold during SW MP mod)
cartoons.sev.com.au/index.php?catid=4
.

That X-Wing looks great!

As I'm not familiar with EOC scripting, I can't help with the Wing animation thingy... the question I have is why it has to be done at all... never really got the point why those wings are movable. Probably just for landing, as the wing tips would scratch over the hangar floor when in X position. As X-Wings wouldn't land in this mod, I guess there's no real reason in changing the wings' position... surely it would look cool, though.

About the copyright thing you mentioned...

Don't worry, copyright infringment doesn't really apply when there's no money involved. As long as we declare that LucasArts isn't responsible for the content and don't try to promote it as "official" or "authentic" this shouldn't even be an issue. There's more infringement on Particle Systems copyright than LucasArts anyway, since they own the entire rest of the game.

Sites like this may also help to put you at your ease: www.galactic-conquest.net
It's a BattleField 1942 MP mod based on Star Wars. Not really any different in spirit than what we're doing. And these guys get game magazine coverage! If LucasArts were going to be on anybody about copyrights these would be the guys.

Better don't believe that! Copyright infringement *always* applies, be there money involved or not. This goes especially for Lucasarts. Smaller companies encourage modding, it makes their games live longer and build a fan base for their games. Unfortunately, LA is far beyond that point. Ironically, their fans have made them so powerful that they don't need their fans anymore. That's why they've been selling painfully uncreative games so successfully for years now, and they are suing everybody who tries to go back and do something innovative with Lucas-licensed material. As one example out of many, look at this: www.stud.tu-ilmenau.de/~anho-in/monkey.htm .
These projects were non-commercial. LA didn't produce a Monkey Island game since 2000 (and no decent one since 1991), so it wasn't really competition either.
LA didn't produce an (old trilogy) SW space sim since 1999 (and no good one since 1994), will that stop them to send their lawyers? Not likely.
That they didn't stop Galactic Conquest yet means nothing. Perhaps they'll do it later, perhaps they won't. Who knows? That doesn't make *you* safe.

Of course, I don't know what they will do (I actually stopped even trying to understand the decisions of that company a long time ago), but I think it would be best to stay safe from those sharks... which means to tell nobody what your real name and where your computer is.