Development Log - 27 June 2019

I was honestly about to make a TwitLonger or tweet chain on this matter, but here, I know, is a better place. Today's log will be my thoughts on actual mapmaking in TRON 2.0, and how I will hopefully move forward with it from here on out.

For a while, I was hesitating to create anything beyond what I already had. A few weeks ago, it dawned on me that I had absolutely no idea how to make a map effective for good gameplay, especially for a singleplayer campaign where environment is most important. I slept on it for the time being, and scrounged up a few ideas - but nothing really struck me as a good way to learn how to make good maps. That is, until today.

I have ArraySeven, a Team Fortress 2 YouTuber and fellow Colorado Springs resident, to thank for his advice on map building. Yes, it did cover the Source engine and not Lithtech, but when it comes to mapmaking in particular, there is plenty of common ground. In ArraySeven's latest video called "Learn to Build Team Fortress 2 Maps! - Tutorial", he made a point which had not yet occurred to me; in order to break the rules, I need to know the rules. The best way to do this?

Recreate an existing map, but put my own spin on it.

Boo-yah. It's perfect. Recreating a map the developers made not only lets me put my own two cents into the final product, but it also lets me get a better insight on why Monolith did what they did to create the map the first time around. Of course, this does present an issue in itself - because Monolith created the maps for TRON 2.0 in third party software - at this time, I believe they used Autodesk Maya Version 6 and/or Autodesk 3ds Max Version 5 - I'll be left in a pretty complicated situation. At present, I will only have two options to proceed.

The first option is to attempt to recreate a map of theirs in DEdit directly. It would be a very perilous task, but it would give me valuable DEdit experience I could utilize in creating my own maps going forward. This would seem like the most obvious course of action; however, there is another way.

Enclosed in the TRON 2.0 Editing Tools is a plugin for Blender, another program to build environments, models, etc., to export projects made in Blender to .LTA format: a prefab in DEdit. The latest version it supports is, as far as I know, Blender v2.48 - I have yet to test this plugin as I am unsure how to add plugins to Blender at this point - and I could use the plugin to export worlds I make in Blender to prefabs, which I can then import into DEdit world files, add all the objects and such, and compile the end result into a completed world. This would be my second option.

At the moment, I'm leaning towards the first option, and may save Blender for pieces of geometry that would take an exorbitant amount of time in DEdit (such as a ring, although I now have one of those). If anyone would like to chip in their two cents, please feel free to do so in the comments here.

So what does that mean for active mod development? Well, all of this just serves to show how long this mod will actually take to complete. And I'm okay with that. I fully expect this mod to be a rather long and tricky endeavor, and it may be years until I can release the final result. Which makes me hope all the more that you, the reader of this post, will join me on that journey. With your help, the end result will look all the better.

However, I will still work on certain aspects of the mod - particularly, HUD and Menu elements. Now that I have a firm idea on how to replace textures, I plan to colorize the game to carry the ICP's trademark red color scheme as opposed to the current blue. It may have to go through a few iterations before it's final, but it's always good to have a place to start. Expect development logs in the future to have progress updates on this.

That's all from me for today, everyone. Have a good one.

/-/END OF LINE/-/

Development Log - 26 June 2019

It's that time again! Not much to show today, aside from a first-person look into the Kernel's Control Room. I expect this to play a part in the final release - then, maybe you'll get to walk around in it too! As an added benefit, it also lets me extract assets to use in my own levels. So guaranteed quality! Yay! I think.

/-/END OF LINE/-/

Development Log - 23 June 2019

Today is not so much of a typed log as it is a video I recorded of my raw, unedited ramblings on how to make a ring in DEdit. Why not? I don't see anyone else making tutorials on this anymore.



/-/END OF LINE/-/

Development Log - 22 June 2019

This will be the first of plenty of development logs documenting what the development process will be like so I don't end up spewing all of my ramblings on Twitter. As much as I hate to be starting this log now instead of at the very beginning of my development journey, it's better late than never. (It also serves as the site's first post so I can tweak anything else I missed in design.)

Today I spent more time snooping around the Transport Station level, mainly for design inspiration. Plenty of questions came to mind, but I was able to learn more about KeyFramers from that Finder in the center of the level. Knowledge I plan to use for creating the introduction cutscene - which has finally settled on a foundation I think I can work with. The general idea is this: the camera moves along different environments, with credits text appearing similar to the way text pops up in a Borderlands intro (Borderlands 1, mind you; I really don't want to make 3D letters for everything. Nuh-uh. Nope). It'll go through some iterations, but I think it'll look real cool and unique when it's done.

Really, all that's left is to learn about occluders and how to make an O shape. Not a circle, but a ring, something that's much harder to do in DEdit than you might expect (and I hate that). But when you're pretty much stuck using just DEdit and unable to use the tools Monolith had, it's gonna seem pretty insurmountable. I can't make maps the same way Monolith did because they decided, instead of making their software competent enough to create anything quality, they just used an early version of Autodesk Maya and just imported the geometry. Screwing over modmakers before the game even released. Brilliant.

Not much else to say for today - a majority of this was just iterating things I've said in the past anyways. As I go along with these logs, they should be more coherent and structured. I'll be making posts of other varieties, including changelogs and any major development updates, separate from these logs. I won't have a set schedule to post these, as I personally don't see a point in doing that when this project will be very long-term, but suffering to the point of mental breakdown is all part of the journey when it comes to game development, so who knows?

/-/END OF LINE/-/