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Forum » Typhoon City (DV Updated on 11/28/2009)
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    Typhoon City (DV Updated on 11/28/2009)

    KArthur90 16 years ago
    First of all, let me introduce ourselves:

    Lead - KArthur90
    Programming - KArthur90
    Story - victor, KArthur90
    Music - klausprell
    Sound FX - victor
    Graphics - Aegis, (Vacant. Wanna join?)

    We are gathering ppl to make a mod. Theme: zombies... Yeah, yeah... We know... that theme is already overused, but, hey... What if we make an excellent mod? After all, we can at least try!

    Anywho... What we really need is some programming help and someone good with graphics.

    Current Developer Version: Download here! 11/28/2009
    Alpha Release Version Ax.xx: <<UNAVAIABLE>>
    Beta Release Version Bx.xx: <<UNAVAIABLE>>
    RC Release Version Rx.xx <<UNAVAIABLE>>
    OF Release version 1.00: <<UNAVAILABLE>>

    >>>WARNING!<<< The Developer Version is not meant for enjoyment. It is only a way for the Notrium community to keep track of the developments and allow them to give their suggestions/critics on the mod. Think of it like a nightly-ish release.


    Progress Bar Until Next Alpha:
    |||||||||||||||||||||||||||_____________________27%__________________________________________________
    Progress Bar Until Next Beta:
    |________________________________________________1%__________________________________________________
    Progress Bar Until Next RC:
    ________________________________________________0%__________________________________________________
    Progress Bar Until Next OC:
    ________________________________________________0%__________________________________________________

    Graphics
    - Male player, including all 8 wep classes
    - Need top down crashed cars
    - Need top down crashed cop cars
    - Plain Zombie sprite
    -.45 Taurus Pistol
    -9mm Beretta
    We are using placeholders for now

    Sound
    - Recorded footsteps sounds.
    - Got some nice weapons sounds.
    - .45 Taurus Firing sound
    - 9mm Beretta Firing sound
    - Equip new weapon sound

    Texture
    -Road textures
    -Sidewalk

    Programming
    There's a single weapon that's being a pain back there... But it's a secret weapon
    - All weapons coded!
    - Spread, damage and reload are still in need of some tweaking
    All enemies set up, but they are only standard zombie dups
    Made items for each weapon, as well their ammunition. No textures nor anything else
    Clock is working, but the minutes are not showing up correctly
    - Player one starting area
    - The enemy fodder is already coded, but still in need of a sprite.
    - Player can start the game, pick up wep and ammo and shoot.
    - Player cannot exit start area.
    - Climate is not working
    - Day Night shift is not working
    - Player 2 starting area
    - City streets
    - Police Dept.
    #
    Aegis 16 years ago
    I'd be glad to help. I can do programming and a teensy bit of graphics, but not enough for anyone to consider me a graphics guy. Now on to your questions:
    1. Notrium can't use mpeg, avi, wmv, etc. You can trigger cartoon-like (Notrium calls it "animations") sequences through effect number 25.
    2. I think there's a bar which rises each second, and when this bar reaches 60 it resets and the minutes bar rises by one. I think.
    #
    KArthur90 16 years ago
    1. Not even a way to summon wmplayer or other players to play a file?

    2. I mean, I saw this at player_races.dat:

    Human;//name------------------------------
    0;//identifier
    ...
    0;//start animation number in animation.dat
    200;//day length
    100;//maximum carry weight
    ...


    These 200 are in what time-unit?
    Also, anyone willing to help with the story plot are welcome to suggest!
    So far what we have decided of the plot (not the in-game plot. that will be a secret!):
    You can play as either of the two chars: Donahue or Jeniffer. He's stronger, she has better aim.
    They both work at Typhoon City Police Force.
    As you may have noticed, the city where the game starts in Typhoon City. (sounds familiar, but I don't know where I saw sth alike... )
    And that's about it... We're waiting for the weekend when we can spend some time planning the plot. We haven't started editing the mod yet. So far I've been only messing with the dat files and finding out what each one do.
    #
    Aegis 16 years ago
    According to the FAQ the day length is how often you get a journal entry. It also changes how often the game shifts from day to night, even though there's a similar one in the climate_types file, which confuses me. I think you should just consider it as the journal entry frequency changer.
    I've noticed the pole. How about a win-win situation where there's both zombies and aliens
    #
    KArthur90 16 years ago
    ok... but what I mean is: are those 200, seconds minutes? like, does it means 200 seconds between each journal entrance, or 200 mins?
    #
    Amarth 16 years ago
    "KArthur90" said:
    ok... but what I mean is: are those 200, seconds minutes? like, does it means 200 seconds between each journal entrance, or 200 mins?
    The experimental method is the best teacher.

    Although common sense can be useful too.
    #
    KArthur90 16 years ago
    ops: I see..... secs....

    Anyway...
    What would be the best way to config a city with some "enterable" buildings? One block per "area"? And each building would have a trigger/door, that, when clicked, would bring the player inside the building?
    But then, how to make enemies invade the building you are on, making the barriers needed and useful? A trigger-spawner? Hmm... I like when I dissertate by myself and end up coming with the solution.... It's kinda weird... But hey... It worked. Didn't it?

    Aegis, since you're the only one that offered to help with in-game graphics (we kina found someone to draw the comix), we are going to need some textures right away, if possible.
    We need textures for
    [list]
    [*]Roads(done)[/*:m]
    [*]Sidewalk(done)[/*:m]
    [*]Crashed Police Car[/*:m]
    [*]Street Lamp[/*:m]
    [*]Supermarket Floor[/*:m]
    [*]Supermarket (damn it... i forgot the name of where you put products for sale on the supermarket )[/*:m]
    [*]First-aid room[/*:m][/list:u]

    But only if it doesn't gets in your way of making your mod .
    #
    Aegis 16 years ago
    I can't actually draw the stuff. I can only edit existing pictures. I can add blur, invisibility effects, change the basic shape, change the colour, reposition the objects, adjust the creature frames to add new actions, and make stuff look exploded through erasing and burning effects. I'm more of a programming guy.
    I do have some ideas for the buildings though. I think it'll be best to have them part of the block because:
    1. No need to worry about complicated zombie attack stuff
    2. We can make it destructible, and still keep it synced with the rest of the map
    3. We don't need to worry about linking up areas
    4. We can add a roof through textures which get transparent as you draw nearer
    5. You can make doors similar to the ones in default Notrium
    6. You can drive cars into the insides of buildings!
    #
    KArthur90 16 years ago
    And by that you mean, having a huge map with the streets AND the buildings?
    Hm.. interesting. And we'd still be able to have multiple floors on the buildings?
    Also, can you start working on a crashed police car?

    What would be best for the look of the game?
    Dialogs with voice-acting or plain texts?
    #
    KArthur90 16 years ago
    About that police car... Me thinks its kinda small, imagine four "player" creatures on it. It should be probably the size of a stone wall. Probably...
    I might have a go at GTASA Police Car, though. But I'm kinda lazy to reinstall the whole game just for a single car
    At last, we'd find wonderful if you make some frames of it smoking on the motor's side.
    #
    KArthur90 16 years ago
    I know I should be doing only one post until someone answers me, but I'll create this one to bump. As soon someone answers the last three posts I'll just merge them.

    Day and Night cycle are defined in climate_types.dat. And they are established by a var, in seconds.
    Now this is going to be complicated:
    Is there a way to "sleep"? Like, instead of waiting for the whole night to go on, the player could simply right click on the bed and sleep until dawn?
    Also, is there a way to crate a random script that, when the player sleeps, it might or might not have a small mob trying to invade his stronhold, waking him up in the middle of the night and thus, obligating him to defend the barriers?
    #
    themados 16 years ago
    "Aegis" said:
    How about a win-win situation where there's both zombies and aliens
    I prefer this to add it to the poll
    #
    Aegis 16 years ago
    "KArthur90" said:
    And by that you mean, having a huge map with the streets AND the buildings?
    Yes.
    "KArthur90" said:
    Hm.. interesting. And we'd still be able to have multiple floors on the buildings?
    Well, you could add a stair plot_object which teleports the player to the next floor. But that means you won't be able to benefit from destructibility or easy zombie moving. I think we should just start with no multi-floor building.
    "KArthur90" said:
    What would be best for the look of the game?
    Lots of fire. Lots of smoke. Lots of props. Lots of diversity. But no "brown = realism" stuff.
    "KArthur90" said:
    Dialogs with voice-acting or plain texts?
    It'll be hard to synchronise the dialogues with the speech, plus it might sound if we only have 5 voice actors, for the whole game cast.
    "KArthur90" said:
    I might have a go at GTASA Police Car, though. But I'm kinda lazy to reinstall the whole game just for a single car
    Yeah, the problem was that the original image size was waaay too small.
    "KArthur90" said:
    At last, we'd find wonderful if you make some frames of it smoking on the motor's side.
    Just use particle effects, because if we use only animation frames then there'll be no lighting, diversity or destructibility. We'll use destructibility code through a creature which drops plot objects which drop particles (as you can't choose where to drop particles)
    "KArthur90" said:
    Is there a way to "sleep"? Like, instead of waiting for the whole night to go on, the player could simply right click on the bed and sleep until dawn?
    This'll be tough. All I can think of is the game speed modifier, with hotkey which wakes the player. Or maybe an alarm clock function.
    "KArthur90" said:
    Also, is there a way to crate a random script that, when the player sleeps, it might or might not have a small mob trying to invade his stronhold, waking him up in the middle of the night and thus, obligating him to defend the barriers?
    There is a random number generating condition which we could use. But maybe the player will only wake when they are under attack, or if they set trip-wire alarms, which work similarly to the alarm clock.
    #
    KArthur90 16 years ago
    Voice acting would be no problem .
    I can find more than enough ppl to do the voice acting. But If you say it'd be easily out of synch, then forget about it... We'll just need some ppl groaning, screaming and mumbling

    About desctructability, that wouldn't be our primary objective. Maybe, some puzzles would require some destruction, but I find it hard for a simple cop to break his car in pieces

    About the "sleep" thing, I think you're right. Probably the "speed time" would be easier. But how about random spawning to see if the player manages to sleep the whole night without being disturbed? Like:
    Player sleeps. Time soeeds up. There's then, let's say, 30% of chance of a group of zombies entering the house the player managed to barricade.
    Also, we'd need two story building, for the player would have to break in a house, so the door would be useless, allowing zombies to break in, as well through the windows, forcing the player to actually barricade only the stairs, thus saving barriers-debris. Then we'd have to set the 30% probability of a zombie trying to break the barricade.
    I don't know if that would be possible, we still have to examine the code thoroughly. But it'd be great to have trip-wires. Imagine the situation:

    The player found a 2storey house with the following layout:

    ----------------------------|       |---------------------------
    |                    |                     |                   |
    |                    |                     |                   |
    |                    -                     -                   |
    |                    |                     |                   |
    |                    |                     |                   |
    |                    -                     -                   |
    |                    |                     |                   |
    |                    |                     |                   |
    |-----------------------------TTTTTT----------------------------
                         |                     |
                         |                     |
                         |     |--------|      |
                         |     |-STAIRS-|      |
                         |     |--------|      |
                         |                     |
                         |                     |
                         -----------------------


    He has two possibilities: Either he just barricades the top of the stairs, in which case he would only wake up (slow time back to normal) if zombies actually started to break through the barricade. Or he sets a tripwire with some soda cans where marked with T, so that he wakes up whenever a creature goes through the tripwire. Wooooot? Who's gonna program that all???? Of course.... Me.


    Also, it'd be great to have a shopping mall... We have a special plot for Typhoon City Shopping Mall

    If you are near finding a good police car, it'd be gr8. If not, then I'll just reinstall GTASA, and take a picture of the police car from above. Possibly, take pictures of all the cars, so we'd have a big population of cars to fill the roads of Typhoon City.

    At last, I've started some work on the player's creature, but I can't get it quite right though... Maybe you could fix it up? Or even make it better? We'd need him (and her) punching, knifing, shooting with a sidearm (one hand weapon), shooting with a shotgun (like the original animation maybe), shooting with a 2handed automatic (like the original, but with no animation), and throwing. I didn't even try editing the "throw" animation... When I tried to color it, it would lose the transparency. And don't worry about the ragdolls. We think we got someone to draw it as well. Just bear in mind. He's white, brown hair, she's white, gold hair. I don't know if it would be pratical to have two creature's sprites. One for when the player has the bulletproof vest on, and another for when it's off. And Typhoon City's police officer uniform is black, with short sleeves.
    #
    Quanrian 16 years ago
    I'm a huge zombie nut, so it's nice to see a zombie mod even in the conceptual phase. If you want my advice on the AI, don't go too nuts. For one the smarter the zombies, the more annoying it's going to be when you meet the engines limitations. You can do more zombies if they're not as smart. You're really better off just augmenting them little by little to give added challenge. I've always found the challenge with zombies comes in their numbers and not their intelligence. These are just random feedback and aren't directly regarding anything you've posted. Per usual, I always suggest shifting from concept to beta as fast as humanly possible, so people can actually try it, even if the graphics are complete garbage, you can always change them later.
    #
    Redemption 16 years ago
    If you want to have sleeping the best and only way to do this would be the time speeding effect. The problem lies in the fact that enemies can clip through walls at high speed and other stuff messes up. There are two ways that I see to solve the problem:

    A: The player cannot sleep on ground floor and must find a building with two stories to sleep. Most buildings will be a base for survivors, who have barricaded the stairways well enough to make them zombie proof. These survivors will either help the player by offering beds, or be so paranoid that they try to kill the player. If the survivors are hostile the player must eliminate them before the beds can be used. When the bed is used time is sped up until a bar synchronized to day cycle reaches morning.

    B: The player cannot sleep on ground floor and must find a building with two stories to sleep. With no survivors in the buildings, the player must eliminate any nearby zombies before climbing the stairs. If the player uses the stairs while zombies are nearby (cond 14, large area) an invisible item or bar notes this. Whenever the player is on the second story a script is constantly run with a condition to check the invisible item (or bar) and a random value. When the script activates it drops a couple of zombies near the stairs. If the player is sleeping at the time it restores the game to normal speed so they can fight them off.
    #
    KArthur90 16 years ago
    @ Quanrian

    We weren't planning on having a lot of zombie classes:
    1. Retarded Zombie (just your day-to-day zombie.)
    2. Fast zombie (runs and screams like hell (yes... I like HL² ))
    3. Shooting zombie (eventually they learn how to pull a trigger, but they shoot very slowly, though.)
    4. Zombie Animals
    5. Eventually, bosses

    Possibly, more can be added, but for now, we're writing the story with only these classes.

    @ Redemption
    B looks more like we had in mind, although the player will always have someone with him in the Stronghold. Its something like Alone in The Dark's double character system. If the player chooses the male character, the female will be an NPC. And Vice Versa. And we weren't thinking about crazy survivors trying to shoot the player, as he will have enough trouble with zombies. Although.... the idea looks interesting
    #
    Idiota 16 years ago
    Been looking this over for a while now. Just wanted to say that it's a sound idea, abd listen to Quanrian. Even if it's just 5 minutes with no sound effects or whatsoever, with no intro or story, people will still give you far more feedback than they would if you were still throwing in ideas.
    #
    KArthur90 16 years ago
    Aegis is doing most of the programming, and he's programming two mods at once...
    While I'm mapping, using only blue/pink checkerboard props.
    Honestly, it's is not even playable yet. Only a lot of squared props and empty maps.
    But if you think I should post it... I'll do it.
    #
    Idiota 16 years ago
    Well, no, not exactly. What Quanrian was saying, and I agree, is that you should focus on releasing 'something'. That should be your first and foremost goal. Even if it's just one map with a few trees and buildings, with only 1 weapon, and with only a few enemies. Just to poke people's interest. Then when you've done that, and you've absorbed all of their feedback, then you can start expanding it and adding more content and story. This is not how commercial developers work, because they have to focus on releasing a full package at once. You develop this mod for the community, and the more you involve the community in the making of the mod (by listening to their comments and suggestions), the more succesful your mod will be eventually.

    But ofcourse, you shouldn't just release stuff if it's clearly not playable yet. Playability in this case depents on a few things: The game has to start, there have to be a few enemies to blow to smithereens, at least one weapon, and some item combinations. Maybe a set goal as well, and people will probably give it a shot if they're still into notrium.
    #
    KArthur90 15 years ago
    To prove we're still working on this, the first post will now have progress bars!
    And another proof we're still working is:
    How does the "override footsteps sound" parameter in terrain_types work?
    For example, I'd like that when the player walks over concrete he hears "cimento.wav" and it's modulations and when he walks over wooden floor, he hears "madeira.wav" and it's modulations.
    #
    KArthur90 15 years ago
    Anyone out there plz?
    #
    Aegis 15 years ago
    Well I just think that you just replace "none" with the footstep sound that you want
    Eg.
    Grass;//name---------------------------------------
      2;//identifier
      0;//AI avoids this terrain
      0;//do not place on map edges on random selection
      0;//do not place random objects on this terrain
      0.000000;//base light r
      0.000000;//base light g
      0.000000;//base light b
      20000.000000;//footstep particle live time, -1=no footsteps
      -1;//override footstep particle
      GRASS_FOOTSTEP.wav;//override footstep sound                                           <--Over here
      begin_terrain_frames;
        grass.jpg;//terrain texture
        0.000000;//time to display frame
      end_terrain_frames;
      begin_effects_block;
      end_effects_block;

    While on a concrete ground you just need to change the sound file.
    #
    OthobRithol 15 years ago
    I spent the holidays playing 2 z games on an old labtop at my grandma's house (zangband and sc:z). The whole time I was thinking about how to redo it using notrium. I remembered a previous z mod attempt from when I was trying to bully my way into the werivar expansion update, but was thrilled so see a relatively recent new attempt.

    Notably what I was thinking about was the layout of the city itself.

    My take:
    Standardized map sizes, and randomized placement via areas.dat and map.dat
    Transitions handled by crossing the street
    Multiple varieties of buildings (police station, house, store etc) as well as multiple variations of the same type (5 iterations of varied convenience stores)
    Ground Level Maps sorted by which edges have roads on them (with each map having 1/2 of the street on its edge) Not sure just how many area classes you can assign in areas.dat
    Upper Levels and Basements handled via teleporters
    Fixed key sights like a large central park, government building, national guard armory, docks, the mall etc

    Grinding that many maps would take some time, but would really pay off for replayability.

    The basic road layout of the city would be fixed : mostly grid in the center (maps with roads on all 4 sides), with edges of maps with roads on the interior edge, and some side streets to serve as gauntlets to key locations (a victory "escape" at the docks, a heavily populated road heading to the NG armory or airport etc)

    just my 2 cents
    #
    KArthur90 15 years ago
    null
    #
    KArthur90 15 years ago
    Hi. We're back on the project, as promised
    I've been working on the player one starting area. Though I seem to be having some problem:
    Since terrain tiles can't be used to define a straight line (it's more of a gradient between two different tiles), I'm using prop objects to make the sidewalk. The problem is that when the player uses his/her flashlight or any light is shed upon the sidewalk props, the pieces of the sidewalk are apparent.
    I'm uploading a sample map for you to see what I'm talking about.
    #
    KArthur90 15 years ago
    We still are in desperate need of programmers. I can't code the whole game on my own. I need help ops:.

    Updated First post.
    Check new developments on the game.

    We now have a nightly-ish version on the front page.!!!!
    Feel free to download (read the warning first) and see what are we currently working on!

    Oh, and someone merge the last three post pl0x ops:
    #
    Idiota 15 years ago
    Done and done.
    #
    DrLector 15 years ago
    I noticed that you need someone to do graphics. I have gimp and in my opinion I am a very accomplished graphics artist. If the mod isn't dead, I would like to help
    #
    KArthur90 15 years ago
    Oh nice. I'd like that.
    Also, just a piece of news. Some good news and some bad news:
    Good news:
    We're still working on the mod. Worry not. A good game takes some time to get ready, specially when you haven't got much time to work on it

    Bad news:
    The harddrive containing part of the graphics I was (trying to) working on had some problems... I'm sending it to a data recovery company soon, but until there, no new graphics will be used. Which means: Lots of placeholders for a while.
    I'd also like to ask if anyone out there would like to help with the programming, as I'm the only one currently programming.
    #
    Zankman 15 years ago
    Yay! An mod that isn't dead! KEEP IT THAT WAY!
    Any possible date?
    #
    KArthur90 15 years ago
    Since the mod is really on its initial stages, I can't give you an exact date. Sorry.
    #
    seddo111 15 years ago
    keep up the good work, also if you need weapons or things like that, i could help, im not great, but i would love to help out on this
    #
    KArthur90 14 years ago
    > Argh...
    > I have good and bad news:
    > Good news is:
    > The project is "Still Alive".
    > Bad news is:
    > No more artists to work on the game anymore...
    > Soooo..... As of now, I'm making the game with placeholders, and I expect to release an alpha version soon. Of course, all you are going to see are blue/magenta blocks with stuff written on it saying what each thing is... But it's still going
    #
    Anonymous1157 14 years ago
    Anything with placeholder graphics is better than nothing at all. You should see how many people were surprised when that one guy released the OpenTTD boat add-on GRF where all the boats were striped rectangles!

    ... Mhrm, yes. Do release the alpha.
    #
    Forum » Typhoon City (DV Updated on 11/28/2009)
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