Alcom Isst Posted November 1, 2012 Share Posted November 1, 2012 On a beautiful August afternoon in 2010 I stumbled across a modding community known as Hard-Light Productions, a modding community that focuses on modding the FreeSpace Engine under the Source Code Project. On that day I vowed never to take drugs, because I'm pretty sure that no chemical substance could give me the high I felt over the next month after that, and I'm not going to test that theory. I played a ton of FreeSpace as a child and was lucky enough to have my childhood focused around a game that became the center of a massive modding community. Since then I have had hours of fun playing the various upgraded campaigns and fan campaigns produced under the project. Hard-Lights community is not much different from RRU's. It is a hub of genius paired with insanity and the occasional troll who doesn't seem to exist for any other reason than to cause rage and discomfort. In fact, it is exactly like RRU but with a different focus on games and about 4(?) times bigger. The FreeSpace Open Engine is a grand upgrade of the original Decent: FreeSpace 2 with enhancements in just about every direction. It is an engine designed for amazing flight simulation and little else. While this flight simulation is traditionally first person fighter flying, modding projects of varying depths have been testing concepts of capital ship control, side scrolling, rail, and RTS gameplay. Beyond this I have no idea how to describe the engine as there are many aspects to pick and talk about, so I will say this: It is a really cool thing. Oh, and also I have been experimenting with the engine and early-mid 90's LEGO themes. I have been messing with this project for quite a while now, leaving and coming back to it every 1-5 days over the past few months so I don't think I can give up on it easily. It is remarkably tedious and slow moving but so were these. I have reached the point though that I have no idea what to do with it now, so I am dragging it here and point at it where everyone can see in hopes that something might happen. I also plan to drag it to Hard-Light, but first, I wanted to show it to the modding community with the LEGO fans. As you can see, the models are all mini-models with no minifigures involved. I have been focusing on mini models only for several reasons. They are a staple of space creations, and also allow you to focus on more important things than removing the legoy appearance of your models so the poly count doesn't break the game. Also, I like mini models. I have also been mix scaling my models just as LEGO Racers, LEGO Racers 2, and LEGO Star Wars did (though they did it a bit more inconspicuously.), and I feel better about this if all the models are mini models. Also, the engine doesn't leave much for minifigs outside of .ani or .avi files. My complete intent is to make a full LEGO Space Campaign based on early and mid 90's LEGO. The plot I have been fleshing out involves a complicated conflict between Zotax/ UFO/ Spyrius and Holox/ Explorien/ Unitron. Gameplay is the standard fighter piloting though a side-scroll mix would be an interesting addition. I don't want to complete the entire plot by myself, as a single LEGO fan trying brainstorm up canon hole fillings by himself seems like a bad idea to me. My knowledge of Hard-Light comes from past interactions where I signed up to help with someone else's project, but got distracted by suddenly having friends and by LEGO Universe being released, which was quite a while ago. I have since not had contact with the community and plan to have fun returning with a few ships in my pack. Also, it would be interesting to see RRU interacting with Hard-Light if this project goes anywhere with anyone. Current Ships: Ships: Holoxian: INC War Beetle (fighter) (Working) INC Bumble Wasp (fighter) (Working) INC Termite (Support Ship) (Complete) Explorien: EXP Maven (Fighter) (Complete... ish.) EXP Glossator (Science Ship) (Needs subsystem work) EXP Ameliorator (I have no idea what this is for or what scale it should be at) (Needs subsystem work) Zotaxian: Z Faith (Fighter) (Working) Z Razer (Cruiser) (Needs subsystem work and possibly lods) Weapons: Actually the weapons I have developed are just a small haphazard collection. So here's a picture. Still-frame isn't doing it justice and I am now wishing I had the forethought to buy Fraps. lol username 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iheb96 Posted November 1, 2012 Share Posted November 1, 2012 WOW Nice work.I like freespace and also lego games .Is it possible a download link ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alcom Isst Posted November 2, 2012 Author Share Posted November 2, 2012 Is it possible a download link ? Yes, but you need FSO first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lol username Posted November 2, 2012 Share Posted November 2, 2012 Holy moly. This is incredible. Alcom Isst 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cirevam Posted November 2, 2012 Share Posted November 2, 2012 All hail Galactallica: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mkn3KwOxy8 Once I discovered the FSO project I never played Freespace without mods again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lol username Posted November 2, 2012 Share Posted November 2, 2012 One thing though Alcom... Seems you're hosting your pics in this topic (and the welcome back pic from that one other topic) on the LU wiki. I don't mind, but be aware that we typically delete unused images there eventually if they aren't somehow used on a page or userpage or blog post, so those links might go dead whenever me or one of the other admins goes cleaning up the unused file uploads - we're a wiki for LEGO Universe, not a photo hosting service. (Despite that, people sure love uploading Minecraft screenshots for no reason...) If you don't want to re-upload the pics somewhere else, then just stick them on your userpage or something so they don't wind up in the unused files list and end up being deleted. Anyway, on the subject of the mod itself... There isn't any life native to Holox aside from the giant bugs and lizards and stuff. No intelligent life with spacecraft, at least, the only minifigure species there are Zotaxians (from Zotax, obviously, piloting Insectoids based off of Holox's native life), and Exploriens, also with small appearances of UFO, Spyrius, and Aquasharks vehicles. Why not replace the Holox faction/species with a faction/species actually from LEGO Space, like Roboforce (who actually did fight the UFO faction in the official story)? In fact, since you've got six factions here, and five are from the last two waves of three factions in LEGO Space, if you replaced Holox with Roboforce you'd have the final two waves of factions in there completely, and it'd just line up all nice like that. Really looking forward to playing this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alcom Isst Posted November 2, 2012 Author Share Posted November 2, 2012 Actually Jamesster I'm a few steps ahead of you in terms of not breaking canon, though I don't know what you would think about the direction I'm walking in. The Holoxians were originally Zotaxians, but their grand exodus to a new pretty layered rogue planet prompted a name change. Also I noticed Roboforce's conflict with UFO, but I don't see how I could fit it as the FreeSpace engine is ineffective with anything that is not a spaceship. The best thing I could come up with was a footnote in the plot (UFO crushes Roboforce?) Edit: On a related note, I taught the Razer to feel hate now. Weapons are stock retail but I will change that easily. Actually the beam is completely stock but I doubled the speed of the blob cannons so they are actually something to dodge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McJobless Posted November 2, 2012 Share Posted November 2, 2012 Oh, Freespace Open, how many hours I spent downloading you and playing with the SDK. Music was terrible to setup. Unlike you LEGO purists, I put a vote of non-confidence in any canon. I think we should instead group together a bunch of LEGO themes and pitch them at war together. It would be much more fun to see Bioncle space ships take down one massive LEGO friends juggernaut than it would to see those two races I've never heard of before and don't care about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alcom Isst Posted November 2, 2012 Author Share Posted November 2, 2012 I put a vote of non-confidence in any canon. Well LEGO has such a lack of canon (so we can make our own imaginative stories) that 87% of the plot is fanon anyways. I also decided to stick with the themes that had a larger history of interaction and that also took place mainly in space. However, including bonuses that reference other themes is not beyond me. Such bonuses though are special and I prefer to keep them to myself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alcom Isst Posted November 2, 2012 Author Share Posted November 2, 2012 It would be much more fun to see Bioncle space ships take down one massive LEGO friends juggernaut than it would to see those two races I've never heard of before and don't care about. Such a thing would certainly be better placed in a fighting or arena game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lair Posted November 3, 2012 Share Posted November 3, 2012 Bioncle space ships take down one massive LEGO friends juggernaut This must happen noghiri, McJobless and lol username 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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