Duck and Cover

Although I've never been all that interested in creating graphics for FOT, I know some of you fellas are working very hard in this area (and have made some very nice things), and I just thought I'd mention that there seems to be some potential for making new tiles and sprites out of materials from the Jagged Alliance 2 and Jagged Alliance 2: Unfinished Business games. I recently replayed those two games and after I was finished I was briefly looking at some of the modding developments for them (wow, one really gains a new appreciation of the versatility of the old FOT Level Editor after looking at all the hoops the JA modders have to jump through to get things done). There's a user-made program called "STI Viewer v0.3" (available from JA 2 modding sites) that I used to take a look at the JA 2 image libraries, particularly one called "Bigitems.slf" (an archive of tiles), and I was pleasantly surprised to see that most of the JA 2 tiles and sprites could probably be pretty easily procured for use in FOT. There are lots of nice cabinets, desks, furniture, etc. in there, and they're all rendered from multiple views at what seems to be a similar camera angle as is used in FOT. I don't know how whomever owns the copyrights to JA 2 would feel about the tiles being appropriated for FOT, but since the JA 2 modders seem to have all sorts of worked-over core files available for download, perhaps it wouldn't be a problem.

If everybody else already knew about this stuff, well, er, just trying to be helpful.

P.S. I look forward to playing some of the new SP maps that have become available over the last six weeks or so (unfortunately I'm tied up for about 65 hours a week with my job now and don't have much free time). Keep up the great work fellas.


Endocore

speaking of libraries..... i guess we never got that clips library off the ground... too bad

oh, and hey there fellow map rat. nice seeing you again endocore.

Hey endocore, good to see you still stop by on occasion! Do the JA2 tiles and items have the same size and isometric orientation? I know there is a slight difference between Fallout and FOT tiles.

Are you going to come back and make any more maps? Please?

Great to see you here again Endocore!
The Map Rats team is not the same without you!

Hey! It's our self-styled Thomas Magnum/Map Rat!

Good to see you're still alive, Endocore. I know what you mean about being tied up at work w/the holidays here and all.

Hopefully someone will be able to do something w/your suggestion.

Cheers,

OTB

Hi there

On a similar vein, has anyone thought about using some of the graphics from Arcanum? I don't know if the tiles would be easily converted but some of the inventory graphics, such as 'S_rusted_generic_pistol_0_[None]_0' would surely make good gui sprites. Especially if someone was making a low tech mod and ie wanted some bandages for an alternate healing item.

Likewise there are plenty of game demo's about that have a nice lot of .wav files that could be used, though I'm not sure about the legality of doing so.

For Arcanum, my viewer happens to support it So yo can convert to Fallout.

Sadly though you have to go through the TGA process (export to TGA -> convert to ZAR -> Make Sprite in SPRAY)...

Oops, actually the file with tiles is called "tilesets.slf" ("bigitems.slf" is the archive of JA 2 weapons).

Jimmyjay86 wrote:

"Do the JA2 tiles and items have the same size and isometric orientation?"

In a casual comparison of an FOT screenshot and some of the images in from the JA 2 tilesets, the orientation appears to be the same. The size of the items is a little smaller, though (but resizing in any image editor is a simple task).


Endocore

So where did the "size doesn't matter" quote go?
To tell the truth I've never played JA2, or 1 for that matter. From some screen shots though, I think the graphics would need a lot of reworking for FoT. Maybe my memory fails me?

Cheers,

Flamescreen

Hey, Endocore! Nice to see you didn't drop off the Earth!

I, too, haven't played JA or JA2, so I can't comment on the tiles in those games. However, I will say that, technically, as long as they have the same iso. orientation, it should be a slice of cake to take 'em into FOT.

I've also yet to check out Arcanum... damnit...

I just bought JA2 this weekend at COMPUSA and had to start playing it. Not bad although I end up being pretty hard on my mercs. I had video card problems with only about 3/4 of the interface showing up on my screen but I managed to fix it after spending a full day dloading the right driver and getting the damn thing to behave with my network card. Grrr. I didn't check the orientation of the tiles though, maybe I'll do a screenshot and compare it with FoT in Photoshop.

GRV supports JA2 image viewing so you might as well download that. You can fin it somehwere at www.freelancer.ag.ru (there's an "english" button at the top )

It's in the FO:T BOS file section.

Here's a link to the correct page anyway http://www.freelancer.ag.ru/fallout/dow ... _eng.shtml

Good, you're adding the link for others Red.

I think from a discussion in old DAC JJ86 either has that or he erased it and I've send it to him.

GRV is nothing compared to your editor btw.

Well it support more formats... I'd like to do JA support but I don't have any file information about it and a quick search on the net revealed mostly nothing... Since I don't own the game either (though I'm sure I could "find" it), I'm not very inclined to search for info either...

Furthermore it's already been done. At least with FO:T, the image format wasn't discovered yet. Feels good to be the first. I added FO support because I still hadn't seen a viewer which supported all animations in all directions and wanted to figure that out, which I did.

It's also the only Arcanum viewer left, since MatuX's converter is now lost along with The Mod Squad...

Jimmyjay86 wrote:I just bought JA2 this weekend at COMPUSA and had to start playing it. Not bad although I end up being pretty hard on my mercs.

It's a decent game, and although it has a lot of interesting aspects (building defensive militias, controlling mines for income, etc) I think the combat elements leave something to be desired. The first time I played JA 2 a while back I found that for much of the game an extremely effective tactic is to group your soldiers into a sort of phalanx or matrix formation, thereby allowing for an extreme concentration of your firepower (I don't play that way anymore since it seems so ridiculous and constantly reminds that I'm merely playing a game rather than engaging in fantasy combat).

If I might offer you a tip, hire plenty of mercs with high repair skills. One feature of the game is that equipment (particularly weapons) is constantly suffering from performance degradation and needs to be continuously cared for to avoid failure.


Endocore


P.S. I just noticed that OTB isn't moderating the forum anymore. What's happening? Not that Max-Violence and Flamescreen won't do a sterling job, I was just curious.

endocore wrote:P.S. I just noticed that OTB isn't moderating the forum anymore. What's happening?...I was just curious.

In a nutshell, I just don't have the energy to devote to being a good mod anymore. (It's one of the drawbacks to having a, "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right," attitude.) I'm not abandoning DaC, nor am I quitting FoT mapping.

OTB

The funny thing is, I noticed just yesterday!
and I was wondering lately, why when I visited certain forums I've been seeing those strange symbols. Am, must be a DAC upgrade, I thought!

OnTheBounce wrote: I'm not abandoning DaC, nor am I quitting FoT mapping.

OTB

Whew, I was concerned for a moment there, but given the enormous investement of time required for mapping it's quite understandable that you can't be all things to all people. You've done an outstanding job as moderator all this time, but I'm happy to hear that you'll now be focused on cranking out some new maps.


Endocore

endocore wrote:Whew, I was concerned for a moment there, but given the enormous investement of time required for mapping it's quite understandable that you can't be all things to all people.

Yep, you hit the nail on the head there.

Watch Lawrence of Arabia sometime and pay attention to the themes of hubris and desire in it. Then you'll understand why it's my favorite film of all time.

endocore wrote:You've done an outstanding job as moderator all this time, but I'm happy to hear that you'll now be focused on cranking out some new maps.

Thanks, Endocore. I really appreciate that.

Yes, I am refocusing sharply. I've temporarily suspended my work on Phase 2 of the demo in order to:

1. Finally nail down the entire weapons and armor catalogue. What I had on my hands had degenerated into a heaping mess of outdated records and rapidly diverging demo and actual campaign. I also took the time to remodel the armor catalogue. I feel that it's far more balanced now. For instance, Environmental Armor is now very much useful against environmental hazards such as Gas damage, Radiation, etc., and moderately useful against Energy Weapons, but leaves something to be desired (to put it mildly) when you have bullets flying around your ears. IMHO a much better solution than having it basically be another form of Combat Armor.
2. Revamping some of my earlier maps. I was a bit too timid in scale on some of them and others were something of a mess regarding tile work. (I have officially conquered my fear of mountain tiles. ) Also, I'm changing focus on some of them. For instance, one mission has the players trying to gain access into an industrial complex. In the original version the complex itself was huge and there were only roughly 1.5 blocks of terrain around the place. This made maneuvering around the place a bit difficult and the focus was on what happened once the PCs entered the complex. The revamped version makes the problem getting into the complex w/about 6 blocks around the complex. Plenty of room to maneuver your squad as you dodge snipers and mines and crack fortified buildings. The overly large original complex meant that I had to fill the place w/enemies, or else there would be gaping holes in the defences. Much "tighter" execution of the original idea this time around. I'm much more satisfied w/the revamped versions of all of them.

BTW, when are we going to see another effort from you, Endocore?

OTB

OnTheBounce wrote:
Watch Lawrence of Arabia sometime

Oddly enough (the war film genre is one of my favorites), I've never seen Lawrence of Arabia, but I'll definitely check it out. Is it just me or is the young Peter O'Toole an extremely creepy looking guy?

I'll be very interested in seeing what you finally come up with in regard to weapons and armor, since I too (like everyone else, apparently) find the FOT materiel stocks to be highly inadequate as originally presented. My solution was to make the weapons much more punishing and fiddle with some usage cost values, but it will be interesting to see what someone like yourself with a more extensive knowledge of military equipment will conclude.

OnTheBounce wrote: BTW, when are we going to see another effort from you, Endocore?

No time soon, unfortunately, due to my job and the long hours I work. I have about fifteen hours in on an urban combat scenario I'd love to see, but in all honesty I don't see any way I can flesh it out in the foreseeable future (if anybody can use a very large (9 by 9 squares, 430 kb without any buildings yet) city street grid map, let me know). I think I'm just going to try for now to play some of the new SP maps a couple of other folks have made, especially since there's nothing coming down the "professionally made" gaming pike that interests me for at least the next six months.


Endocore