Vietnam mods fo HL2?

[Monk_3D]

are there any vietnam mods in production for hl2? if not i'd be interesting in starting one up, of course it would be pretty original, not just your generic 'yet another vietnam war mod/bfv rip off'. if anyone has any good ideas for a hl2 vietnam war mod post them here!

 

[crackhead]

what modding skills do you have? id be interested in working on the story for this. only thing about this is it meens lots of jungle foliage which just seems liek a headache to me. maybe setting it in world war 2. say in ardennes in the snow etc. but not a shoot em up as such.

 

[Crispy]

Some middleware came out this year that creates foliage, trees and grass but I can't remember what it's called (it has 'tree' in the title). It might not even be worth looking as, as it wouldn't be free software and it might not even be that easy to use it with the Source engine (or possible?) but maybe it's worth a look.

There's also a feature in the latest issue of Game Developer entitled 'Making the Grass: Vertex Buffer-Based Geometry Textures' that could help, but the techical lingo scares me :S

Barycentric coordinates, anyone?

 

[RabidJester]

I believe you are referring to SpeedTree.

http://www.speedtree.com/

SpeedTreeCAD ― A versatile, completely user-configurable procedural tree modeling package that differs from all others by focusing on efficient offline and real-time rendering, SpeedTreeCAD allows modelers to edit and preview wind physics, and it automatically computes seamless LOD models all the way down to a billboard, as well as creating composite maps that include 360 ° billboard images. SpeedTreeCAD is not currently offered as a standalone product but is an integral part of SpeedTreeMAX and SpeedTreeRT.

SpeedTreeMAX ― A 3ds max plug-in, SpeedTreeMAX delivers unprecedented realism and outstanding animation and efficiency to architects, animators and others who require the highest standards in offline foliage. More info.

SpeedTreeRT ― Emerging since its debut in 2003 as the gold standard in real-time foliage, this C++ class reads tree models, handles all wind computations, manages all LOD transitions (including LOD cross fades without needing to sort!), and provides all rendering data to your engine in the format of vertex buffers. Full licensees get source code and SpeedTreeRT’s outstanding support. A free, fully-functional evaluation version is available, and a variety of downloadable real-time demos have been created to show off the SDK’s incredible power.

Some things created with it:
Elder Scrolls: Oblivion
http://www.speedtree.com/images/in_games/Oblivion_04.jpg

Project Gotham Racing 3:
http://www.speedtree.com/images/in_games/PGR3_01.jpg

And I know WWIIOnline uses an older version.

They actually have a demo called Trees of Pangaea
http://www.speedtree.com/html/pangaea_main.htm
which has a Vietnamese Jungle set.

http://www.speedtree.com/images/pangaea/screenshots/vietnam12.jpg

Anyways, SpeedTreeRT is just a numerical engine that handles all of the processing of the information for LOD, windsway, etc, and then you use a provided wrapper or write your own to make the calls to the engine to render. I don't have a ton of information on how the code breaks down, but I'm not sure you can actually integrate it with the provided source code.

 

[crackhead]

i wish theyd make a plugin for xsi. id buy that.

 

[Crispy]

Yeah that's the one, RJ.

 

[Monk_3D]

i myself haven't got many modding skills, but i know a very experienced guy who is interested in working on submitted ideas. so submit ideas people!

 

[crackhead]

this very experienced guy. who is he and what does he do.

 

[Ome_Vince]

Vietnam mods would be great. Only if the gameplay had something different than the allready existing vietnam games, or at least slightly different
Perhaps somthing like the Vietcong team hide in the bushes and trees, and have crummy weapons but good stealthy abilities -> team defender.
USA have choppers and tanks but need to conquer the hill within 5 mins or something-> team attacker.
Ah, maybe thats to straight forward to, well anyways some kind of diversity in the gameplay would be great.
O, and music! Vietnam music thats the main thing i loved from Bf:vietnam

 

[RabidJester]

i wish theyd make a plugin for xsi. id buy that.

If you throw some of that disposable income my way, I'll write them a very polite letter requesting xsi support.

 

[Monk_3D]

he maps and makes textures, never done a mod though

any ideas are welcomed

 

[crackhead]

If you throw some of that disposable income my way, I'll write them a very polite letter requesting xsi support.

heh what disposable income?

 

[JNightshade]

Income that you can dispose- loose spending money.

 

[crackhead]

Income that you can dispose- loose spending money.

yes sherlock i did understand it. i wasnt aware that i had any money never mind disposable income.

 

[el Chi]

'Nam computer games: Only slightly less inventive than WW2 games. And that's only because they haven't been whored to death yet. Yet.

Won't someone please think of originality?

 

[crackhead]

you can make a vietnam or ww2 game that is original though - if you have a good writer.

 

[Sulkdodds]

The problem is not one of setting but one of execution. The executions are not bloody enough.

 

[el Chi]

you can make a vietnam or ww2 game that is original though - if you have a good writer.

My point is that, before even doing the slightest piece of work on a WW2/'Nam mod/game. you have:
Weapons: Done.
Equipment: Done.
Vehicles: Done.
Characters: (At least 80%)Done.
Enemies Done.
Setting(s): Done.
Plot: (At least 75%) Done.

Pessimists say that there's nothing original anymore, but that's just freakin' ridiculous. WW2/'Name games take the absolute minimum of creativity, especially seeing as there've been a thousand other games have done the exact same thing a thousand other times.

Perhaps you could apply similar criticisms to CS or whatever, but that at least allows scope for different scenarios, enemies and team-mates (within a framework, natch), etc.
All I'm saying is that mods could be so much better by showing more imagination than the gaming industry or too many other mods from the past. Otherwise, what's to separate one from the other. Very little, that's what.

 

[Sulkdodds]

I agree with you that WW2 has mostly been overdone (I don't think Vietnam has been fully milked yet - not least because there's been no definitive Vietnam shooter). But I think that in both settings there's still a whole load of opportunity for innovation. Imagine a WW2 game where you were a member of the French Resistance, underground, making use of what you can get, conducting guerilla warfare against a massive and bastard army. Hide in abandoned buildings and in tunnels and shit, stuff rats with TNT and leave them in the furnaces of concentration camps, blow up railway lines. Sleep all day, party all night. Or imagine an Operation Flashpoint style expansive campaign or some sort of squad-based freeformish RTFPSS where you must push the nazis down from the Scottish highlands and back out of occupied England. Vietnam: a decent flight sim focusing on helicopter extractions, attacks, medivacs, troop and supply runs...or imagine an Apocalypse-now style tale of special operations troopers sneaking into Cambodia, an individual crusade in a greater war after a rogue general or some crazy with a base full of scuds or something. Or imagine Hamburger Hill, faithfully recreated - the whole area around it, 20 miles or so - and imagine you kick off the events that led to the original 2-week battle and let emergent AI do the rest.

But yeah, you're right. There are like 300 settings - just settings and not concepts - that haven't been used in FPS games yet. WHERE IS THE HUNGARIAN UPRISING? Iain M Banks? World War 3 in Neuromancer? Where is the outbreak of a feral-person memetic virus in the Australian outback, civil war and riots in Washington DC, wars between gigantic post-apocalyptic cities that drive around on tank tracks, humanity vs robots done properly with completely weird almost alien machines and having to find ways to foil their robot scanners like blanking yourself to thermal scanners? And those are just random derivatives from already-existing intellectual properties.

edit: Whoops, I've been talking about games in general and not mods.

 

[crackhead]

i think games with giant dildo monsters hasnt been done enough prehaps you could consider this for you vietnam mod?

 

[Sulkdodds]

Psychonauts style. 'Inside the mind of a Freudian psychologist.'

 

[crackhead]

hahahahahah. its my mums fault.