After finishing the AC130k - Ruins demo i had a idea to extend to concept into a singleplayer map.
I was trying to find some good ideas when a user called TheKC PM'd me here on the forums.
He had seen my Ruins demo and wanted to know if i wanted to team up with him since he was doing something like the me. In the PM he included a link to a map he had made, I was not too happy with making teams at that time, but after seing that map... everything changed.
I was was stunned by this map, the way it changed the feeling of the "Starcraft" universe into this creepy space horror scenario.
So we teamed up and started the development of Project Vector.
Alot have changed through the 2 months we have spend on this project, the map originally started out as a stealth action game in the jungle, later in a lab and now in a cruiser.
We went through 3 total re-boots of the project (During the concept development state) and we are now in the 4th and final revision.
Here a some screenshots of some of the first 2 revisions
What we are going to show here is the 3rd revision that we recently scrapped. We have done things like changing the spectre texture to match the story line of our map, made a custom flashlight that cast shadows and reworked the whole movement and camera system etc but it is conceptual, and UI, sounds, music, models, effects and anything like that is missing so don't mind it not looking really "game" like.
But what we want to show is just the basic idea of how you can use the third person gameplay along with a bit creative use of the doodads included in the game to create something that is alot diffrent than what you come to expect from the RTS game.
Like always i recommend you watch this on youtube in full HD to get all the gritty details.
Hmmm ye, good question actually.
We plan to release it in sections as it might take a bit too long to make the whole story in 1 run.
But we are 2 bussy people and time off to work on this map come and go. But as soon as possible!
It might be a SC2mapster only release since (surprise) battle.net can't handle it =)
Here we got a bit more from the development progress.
The first part is the first door test we made, controlling all our doors in a single trigger to avoid spending too much region and trigger space.
The next part is the AI system i made for the stealth action part in revision 1 and 2. You can hide behind terrain and doodads to avoid being spotted. If they see you they will look towards you, when they have enough focus on you they will move towards your position. Once you have 100% focus they will alert nearby guard and run towards you and shoot at you.
The last part is some (early!) footage from rev 4.
And here we got the first real demo of the AI spotting sytem, again just basic hide/unhide stuff.
The map will be optimized, so it only shows objects etc if you are in a certain region. You might experience a small 'lag' when entering one of these regions (haven't myself, but who knows?) but thats much better than running around with 5fps all the time :).
---
As posted in malu's Ruins demo thread:
Those are a conceptional greenhouse and a more detailed corridor.
And believe me, it gets better and better every single day.
Currently I'm already working on 'part 2'. Designing the whole level layout, events etc and I've scrapped several iterations of it because it wouldn't feel engaging enough. But it will in the end and you better wish for a saving option :D.
Nova has one problem, she distracts guys from those creepy monsters all the time and that way makes the whole scenery less scary :).
As long has you are disturbed by the butt in front of you and scared by the noises behind you everything is okay :D
I agree, dont use female models, if you would use, I suggest making whole new models, that would look less scary. Not some tight pants and tits exposed... that just ruins games... as sex scenes in horror movies usually -.-' .
Very cool. The atmosphere you were able to create in that short video was palpable, great job... look forward to playing!
I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it reminds me almost entirely of Dead Space, and your stealth tech-demo looks obviously inspired by the Metal Gear series. Nevertheless, I'll play it, and I'm sure I'll enjoy it... I just hope it's not an SC2 version of Dead Space :(
A little advice, in my opinion, the last shot where the light was turning down was way too long, the dymanic was lost.
Exactly, that part was where the map ended and i didnt take my time to finish it up, the lights in the windows was also suppose to be affected etc but it was the last thing i managed to finish that weekend. It is btw a little act inspired by the first Unreal game where you are locked into this corridor with a skaarj.
I have a question. How do you guys deal with the skybox? Did you find a way to show it without abusing the far clip?
Its actually a interesting question. Generally we have a dynamic skybox that follow you around all the time, with a farclip of only 50 and the skybox that is just in the high end of 49.
When you move up to windows in the ship where you can see parts of the ships exterior we dynamically extend the viewdistance to 200 and reduce the depth of field (to 0) so you can see everything. With the skybox following you it makes the optical flow match so that it looks like the stars are far far away. But if it wasn't for the exterior parts we could easily keep the farclip at 50 all the time.
Voting to replace the Spectre with a female version! If I have to look at some ass all the time, it might as well be female :P
We would LOVE to have another main model, maybe even a female spectre or just a highres version, but the whole story is based around our hero being a spectre so there is not much choise there.
But there is a very specific reason why we choose his color palate
Hence for people who care about the Starcraft story/"lore":
Very cool. The atmosphere you were able to create in that short video was palpable, great job... look forward to playing!
I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it reminds me almost entirely of Dead Space, and your stealth tech-demo looks obviously inspired by the Metal Gear series. Nevertheless, I'll play it, and I'm sure I'll enjoy it... I just hope it's not an SC2 version of Dead Space :(
The game is inspired from many games, among them Dead Space, Doom 3, Fear, Gears of War etc.
But yes, we do love Dead Space (especially TheKC), and about the MGS part, yes i do love MGS but the whole (!) and (?) above the toons is just a debug indication to see how their reaction is, and would off-cause not be in a final game.
It looks a bit like Dead Space indeed, but that's just because DS is an inspiration for us. We don't want to recreate Dead Space in Starcraft, but we want to keep a bit of it's atmosphere. The story of our game is different and the gameplay too, but we'll copy some of those cool things they made in DS... i mean, who wants to reinvent the wheel? :)
Project VECTOR
by TheKC and Malu05
After finishing the AC130k - Ruins demo i had a idea to extend to concept into a singleplayer map.
I was trying to find some good ideas when a user called TheKC PM'd me here on the forums.
He had seen my Ruins demo and wanted to know if i wanted to team up with him since he was doing something like the me.
In the PM he included a link to a map he had made, I was not too happy with making teams at that time, but after seing that map... everything changed.
I was was stunned by this map, the way it changed the feeling of the "Starcraft" universe into this creepy space horror scenario.
So we teamed up and started the development of Project Vector.
Alot have changed through the 2 months we have spend on this project, the map originally started out as a stealth action game in the jungle, later in a lab and now in a cruiser.
We went through 3 total re-boots of the project (During the concept development state) and we are now in the 4th and final revision.
Here a some screenshots of some of the first 2 revisions
What we are going to show here is the 3rd revision that we recently scrapped. We have done things like changing the spectre texture to match the story line of our map, made a custom flashlight that cast shadows and reworked the whole movement and camera system etc but it is conceptual, and UI, sounds, music, models, effects and anything like that is missing so don't mind it not looking really "game" like.
But what we want to show is just the basic idea of how you can use the third person gameplay along with a bit creative use of the doodads included in the game to create something that is alot diffrent than what you come to expect from the RTS game.
Like always i recommend you watch this on youtube in full HD to get all the gritty details.
@malu05: Go
Amazing..
If something like this was sent to the Blizzard mapping contest, it`d probably would have had a huge chance of winning.
When do you expect a release or playable Beta?
Hmmm ye, good question actually.
We plan to release it in sections as it might take a bit too long to make the whole story in 1 run. But we are 2 bussy people and time off to work on this map come and go. But as soon as possible!
It might be a SC2mapster only release since (surprise) battle.net can't handle it =)
Here we got a bit more from the development progress.
The first part is the first door test we made, controlling all our doors in a single trigger to avoid spending too much region and trigger space.
The next part is the AI system i made for the stealth action part in revision 1 and 2. You can hide behind terrain and doodads to avoid being spotted. If they see you they will look towards you, when they have enough focus on you they will move towards your position. Once you have 100% focus they will alert nearby guard and run towards you and shoot at you.
The last part is some (early!) footage from rev 4.
And here we got the first real demo of the AI spotting sytem, again just basic hide/unhide stuff.
Looking really nice. Now we have to see if there will be lots of bugs and shuttering.
now, we can see what you can do with galaxy editor ... its just awesome, gl with that project !
Played it and its very cool. A little bit of Dead Space and Fear.
Call me up when you need me to test again and give Feedback, its fun ^^
Also, I'll call you up for TSOF (hopefully at the end of the month) to Alpha-Test a little bit :>
This. Is. Amazing.
The trailer is so damn good, I liked most of all that... thing that was standing infront of blue light and then disappeared.
A little advice, in my opinion, the last shot where the light was turning down was way too long, the dymanic was lost.
Anyways. Keep on working, looks like the map is gonna be one of the best things in SC2 modding so far :)
That trailer was so epic, how did you ever made that! and that window thingy was also so amazing! really cool!
In b4 questions regarding the performance.
The map will be optimized, so it only shows objects etc if you are in a certain region. You might experience a small 'lag' when entering one of these regions (haven't myself, but who knows?) but thats much better than running around with 5fps all the time :).
---As posted in malu's Ruins demo thread:
Those are a conceptional greenhouse and a more detailed corridor.
And believe me, it gets better and better every single day.
Currently I'm already working on 'part 2'. Designing the whole level layout, events etc and I've scrapped several iterations of it because it wouldn't feel engaging enough. But it will in the end and you better wish for a saving option :D.
Awesome work!
I have a question. How do you guys deal with the skybox? Did you find a way to show it without abusing the far clip?
Voting to replace the Spectre with a female version! If I have to look at some ass all the time, it might as well be female :P
Agree. Though not with the reason, stupid reason!
Nova > Spectre.
No, Not Nova again, She`s only been in every Rpg/Fps map Ive seen thus far...give her a break already..
Nova has one problem, she distracts guys from those creepy monsters all the time and that way makes the whole scenery less scary :).
As long has you are disturbed by the butt in front of you and scared by the noises behind you everything is okay :D
I agree, dont use female models, if you would use, I suggest making whole new models, that would look less scary. Not some tight pants and tits exposed... that just ruins games... as sex scenes in horror movies usually -.-' .
@malu05: Go
Very cool. The atmosphere you were able to create in that short video was palpable, great job... look forward to playing!
I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it reminds me almost entirely of Dead Space, and your stealth tech-demo looks obviously inspired by the Metal Gear series. Nevertheless, I'll play it, and I'm sure I'll enjoy it... I just hope it's not an SC2 version of Dead Space :(
Exactly, that part was where the map ended and i didnt take my time to finish it up, the lights in the windows was also suppose to be affected etc but it was the last thing i managed to finish that weekend. It is btw a little act inspired by the first Unreal game where you are locked into this corridor with a skaarj.
Its actually a interesting question. Generally we have a dynamic skybox that follow you around all the time, with a farclip of only 50 and the skybox that is just in the high end of 49. When you move up to windows in the ship where you can see parts of the ships exterior we dynamically extend the viewdistance to 200 and reduce the depth of field (to 0) so you can see everything. With the skybox following you it makes the optical flow match so that it looks like the stars are far far away. But if it wasn't for the exterior parts we could easily keep the farclip at 50 all the time.
We would LOVE to have another main model, maybe even a female spectre or just a highres version, but the whole story is based around our hero being a spectre so there is not much choise there. But there is a very specific reason why we choose his color palate Hence for people who care about the Starcraft story/"lore":
The game is inspired from many games, among them Dead Space, Doom 3, Fear, Gears of War etc. But yes, we do love Dead Space (especially TheKC), and about the MGS part, yes i do love MGS but the whole (!) and (?) above the toons is just a debug indication to see how their reaction is, and would off-cause not be in a final game.
@QMJ3: Go
It looks a bit like Dead Space indeed, but that's just because DS is an inspiration for us. We don't want to recreate Dead Space in Starcraft, but we want to keep a bit of it's atmosphere. The story of our game is different and the gameplay too, but we'll copy some of those cool things they made in DS... i mean, who wants to reinvent the wheel? :)
Edit: beaten by Malu ^^
I'm speechless. Keep up the great work guys. Will be keeping a watch at this project.