Unreal: Little UT2004 progress this weekend

Hasn't been much progress in the UT2004 development (SeaPack, LawDogs, etc) this weekend because I was distracted with other things.  A friend of mine was in Target the other day and found two Wiis on the shelf, so knowing that I wanted one he picked it up and I paid him back.  I've got some other friends from whom I can borrow a couple of choice titles, and then there's the 1-per-month free coupon from Blockbuster that I can use for a game rental.  So, things are lined up for some Nintendo fun for a while here.

I actually want to use it to try out the Wii Workout concept.  I love the idea of exercising with game machines.  I'll start - tonight - posting results to the blog under the Wiicize: category.

Another thing that's distracting me is the Tactical Ops (Tacops) 2.20 map I'm working on. See, we play that version of TacOps while at work because it's the only game we have that both Macs and PCs can use (there's an additional limitation of some PCs not being good-enough quality to run more modern games).  This is just fine by me; I love the UT99 engine *and* I've got a few maps already created for it that never really got enough gameplay.  And, since we're playing it all together, the guys at the office have demanded someone - either Gigglepuss or myself - create our current office in-game for us to shoot up.  I've already got about 2/5 of the intended layout created, and about half of that is nicely decorated. It'll take me another week or so to finish it up, and I might try to convert some of my other maps to Tacops (since it's really so EASY), but after that the distraction will be gone and it's back to the SeaPack.

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Family: Putting the toddler to bed

Wow.  You miss their "window of tiredness" by even a few minutes and bedtime goes from minor complaints to screaming fits.  We put the daughter to bed at 9pm on Saturday night and 8pm on Sunday - Saturday she screamed the whole while I brushed her teeth, and on Sunday she complained for a moment but then was fully ready to jump in her PJ's and listen to the princess story about her.

She also insists on listening to her brother's heartbeat every night on the microphone-headset system that we have.  It's still pretty hard to hear the heartbeat because it IS just a public/commercial- quality headset (as opposed to medical-quality).  But it's nice to have.  She asks what her brother is doing almost every night when she goes to sleep and I tell her that he's probably brushing his teeth, too.  :)

On another topic, the daughter is in one of those stages where, if she gets her clothes even the slightest bit dirty or wet, she needs to make an entire wardrobe change. What's with that?  Her cousin does it, too.  Is this a characteristic of all toddlers?  A phase they all go through?  Strange.

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UT2004: New SeaPack Logo

Just something I whipped up... I like it much better than the half-job I did for SterlingSea

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UT2004: SeaPack .plan

These are some of the things I need to complete before I can release another SeaPack version:

• Slow down or stop the rising of the submarines upon exit
• SeaBass: finish "URCHiN" mines (like swimming, powerful spidermines)
• SeaBass: redo collision
• SeaBass: finish skin
• DeepSix: Find out why Xilver's torpedo turrets aren't working.
• SeaBass: create smokescreen alternate weapon
• DeepSix: Add decorations & emitters ( i.e. underwater volcano)
• DeepSix: Create/model pieces for main- and final- bases
• (attempt to) fix weapon sights for Shortfin, Kraken, etc.
• loosen up the Shortfin's vertical firing limits
• Add strafing to all vehicles.  It's not as realistic, but it'll be more fun - and necessary for tight maneuvers

Anyway, lots to do on it yet, but when it's done it'll be that much better!

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Family: Whaat?

Did I mention this, yet?  I love it when my daughter (apparently echoing me) replies to a question or statement with her little almost-screech-like "Whaaat?!"  And she does it about three times in a row.  It's more exaggerated than I ever did it, so it makes me laugh or smile every single time.

She is the most imaginative little girl, too - every single playground comes complete with some kind of vehicle - boat, car, whatever - with which we use to drive somewhere - usually to California.  Now she's telling us to "buckle up!" every time we get in the "car" and she turns on the "radio" as we're driving.  Oh, and there's also a fully-stocked kitchen in every playground, too, and our little girl is a master chef, cooking everything from spaghetti and hot dogs to borscht.

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UT2004: SeaBass Notes

Most of the work I put in last night on the SeaBass was to iron out the UV map on the main hull.  I didn't actually get around to painting much on it, except for some stripes and a couple of engine-type decals, but the main hull is nicely mapped out, now!  I'm experiencing some ISSUES with it actually in the game.  I took the previous photos while a bot was in the sub, and I thought it wasn't moving just because the bot wasn't moving it, but apparently it doesn't move AT ALL. 

Also, when I import the animations into UnrealEd, I'm finding a weird "won't save" bug that I think is caused by the fact that I have my UT2004 synched through FolderShare between a couple of computers.  Apparently, and I've found this happens with the user.ini file when change play preferences as well, the last-updated date doesn't change when UT2004 edits the INI file - or in the case of UnrealEd, the UKX file.  So, it saves an empty UKX file pretty much all the time.  I'm as of yet not phased by this because I really think it is just FolderShare screwing with me.  I'll just turn it off, next time.

Once I can actually import the skeleton properly - so that it matches the Shortfin, which I'm subclassing, then I think things'll start working correctly.

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Family: PROVE IT

Here's the cute saying of the moment.  My daughter has adopted a phrase from her book about Arthur teaching his sister, DW, to read (or, learning that she can already read).  Now, when you say most anything to her, she replies with, "Prove it!"  Even more endearingly, when I reply to her, "No, you prove it," she changes her instructive-tone into a nice, friendly response, "Okay, I'll prove it to you."  Books are good.

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UT2004: ONS-DeepSix screenshots

Here are some early screenshots of ONS-DeepSix (working title), including the first ridiculous in-game photos of the SeaBass (yes, it is ill-tempered ;)

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UT2004: SeaBass WIP photos

So, another one of the things I'm working on is expanding the UTNavy (aka UT2004Navy, UT2006Navy, wbNavy). I've got a map in progress that is really exciting; it's tenatively titled ONS-SEA-DeepSix and is an all-submarine Onslaught map that takes place in amongst giant underwater caverns. It's been built off of ONS-Ascendancy - I won't try to hide that and it will probably retain the same node layout, although perhaps with different linkups. However, it already looks significantly different. I've got permission to use resources from AS-Abyss-Lite and CTF-CBP2-Deep, which are excellent underwater maps by SpoonDog, so the theme should pull off quite easily.

Another way I'm looking to expand the SeaPack is by creating at least one all-new submarine! Check it out; here are some WIP photos for you. I haven't decided yet on its stats like health, speed, damage, etc. but I am sure of what I want it to do. It'll seat two and have a primary, forward facing turret for the passenger to shoot - probably some kind of charged harpoon-style weapon.

The driver will have control over the rear-launching URCHiN mine launcher (Underwater Robotic Complex-Homing Nuclear). I'm going to base these off of the spider mine and they'll hang in place like a web until an enemy approaches, whereupon they'll start homing in on them.

I seriously hope I'm building this one right... heh :P

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Family: weekend catch-up

Just a quick spot to recap the weekend, which turned out nicely pleasurable in that I got some good daughter-time in again.  Saturday night the lil' tyke went to sleep at 11:30 because she had been napping until 8:30... and she was a tiny grizzly about the whole thing, too.  I hate when her sleep schedule gets off...

Winkyboy 2.0 is kickin' his mama's tummy something fierce.  Must be practicing some stompin' for the upcoming LAN party. :)

We went to some Russian friends' house on Sunday; they had a small get-together because a couple of their family became US citizens just recently.  It was nice to see them, but like usual I can't follow along that long in an all-Russian environment.  I just get sleepy when trying to listen in for so long!  But instead I played with Winkygirl outside on the trampoline, and kicking the ball around the yard.  She just loves when her papa plays or reads with her :)  But oh, I shouldn't have shown her that "I've got your nose!" spiel... I think any parent might be able to relate.

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LawDogs: LCF-RattlesnakeBend

Rattlesnake Bend is a map that always seems to be lagging behind the mod's official release date, even though it's one of the more exceptional maps for its mod (in my humble opinion). It brings water into play in an essential manner; not only does your team have to cross the river, but the fighting takes place on, in, and above it. Both bases seem to have significant advantages over the other, creating a kind of uneven balance overall.

A new boat, the canoe, is introduced into the play with this map, essentially turning this into a VCTF board and are the tools for dominating the waterways. Each side has access to two canoes; the Outlaws have one equidistant to each "exit" of their base, and the Marshalls' canoes are off to one side so that one is close while the other is far. This slight speed advantage is because the Outlaws' base is really limited to two significant entrances.

The Outlaw base has direct and almost exclusive access to two and a half sniping positions on the "mountain" but these are balanced by the Marshall's quick-access or heavy-cover sniping spots that face these. Each side also has a semi-stationary Gatling gun on the upstream side of their flag run for increasing cover while your teammates return the flag. As of this writing there is no current in the water, but this is planned for a future release.

DOWNLOAD HERE

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UT2004: RattlesnakeBend for LawDogs and the wbCanoe - First Releases

Here's a little something that I've been working on for about two years now! Well, actually it's been sitting on my hard drive somewhere for about 23 months, and I've just recently picked them up again and dusted them off.

RattlesnakeBend is a remake of my final Badlands map (that missed the final cut for the last, complete upgrade for that mod, so I don't know if many people ever played it). The UT2004 version ups the scale of the map and tweaks a few points for style, the primary upgrade being the addition of my first-ever vehicle, the massively-impressive ;) canoe!

As it is, I know the map is very unbalanced and in my opinion the Outlaws side has a bit of an advantage... but then, they're also at a disadvantage if you look at it. I dunno - you tell me.

Naturally, like almost all of my releases I'm doing this when I should instead be fast, fast asleep, so please forgive me if I'm missing a file. I totally haven't tested this on a clean install, so I certainly could have missed something.

Download RattlesnakeBend for LawDogs
Download the wbCanoe

G'night!

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UT2004: The Canoe!

MAN OH MAN OH MAN

This is so cool. I've got a canoe IN GAME. It's probably one of the most basic vehicles you could imagine, and it's using a default texture while based completely on CMAN's Viper code, and it has no weapons(!), but it works. Well, it needs a little tweaking as you can tell from the pictures - I have no clue why the driver is floating three feet above, plus I need to export it as a staticmesh so I can see the factory in the editor, but other than that, it does what a canoe should. And for that, I am a Happy Winkyboy.

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