Progress Report: August 2021

[Linken]

Thank you all for looking at this progress report, this has been a productive month for the mod! We hope to have more exciting things for our next report!

MISSION UPDATES

- DEATH STAR RESCUE:
During most of the month of August, Linken's computer has been undergoing repairs and he has made no progress on the mod. What little progress that has been made was focused on the first cutscene of our upcoming Deathstar Rescue mission, which he hopes you enjoy. Please keep in mind a number of errors you'll see in this cutscene have already been addressed:

 

- OPERATION KNIGHTFALL: REMASTERED:
As you all know, Operation: Knightfall is being remade. The current version you all have experienced was my first mission to produce for the Galactic Legacy mod, and I am super proud with how it turned out. However, I was not satisfied with it. I felt that it could be much more….deserved to be much more. I discussed with Linken and the team about redoing it altogether, and after several months of development, I can surely say that you all are in for a treat. As of right now the mission itself has reached 75% completion. There are going to be 7 Stages of the mission, 3 of them being cutscene related (with cutscene related animations), and 4 being the mission itself. Our mapper Lwkill has worked incredibly hard to help me realize our dream of a proper Operation: Knightfall. The maps are completely new, retaining some of the old rooms all while adding new ones, but the layout is MUCH different. The story and elements of the mission are going to be DARK, and bitter sweet. You will truly feel the somber, and ruthlessness, that Knightfall was. The intro cutscene map of the Chancellor’s Office with Anakin and Palpatine has also been changed to the Fate of the Republic map for continuity. We also, as a surprise, have a talented voice cast to help bring this mission to life. Plumb will once again be voicing Matt Lanter’s Anakin from Star Wars: The Clone Wars. RedSun has agreed to voice the Clone Wars variation of the Clone Troopers. And Sonam has once again agreed to lend us his voice to do Sam Witwer’s version of the Senate himself. It truly feels like a lost episode of the Clone Wars, and I hope you all enjoy the experience that they have worked hard to provide you. As a treat, here are several screenshots of what is to come:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- CONFRONTING THE COUNT:

Before deciding to redo Operation: Knightfall, there were 4 missions that I also have cooking in the development oven.The first of which is Confronting the Count from Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. The mission is 85% done and is close to being ready for release. There will be 2 POV’s for this mission. The first will be Obi-Wan, Anakin, and then Yoda. The second will of course be Dooku. Both are 80% done, the final cutscenes for both are still being worked on, as well as finishing touches on cutscene work to ensure that the experience is an authentic experience from Attack of the Clones. As a treat, here is a clip from the mission itself, keep in mind it is still being developed so there will be a number of fixes to make it look better:

 

- THE LAST JEDI:
This is the second mission that I have in development. It is the final battle between Luke Skywalker and Kylo Ren from Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. There will be only 1 POV, which will be Kylo Ren. This mission itself is 95% complete except for the last half of the final cutscene. Once that is complete we will release the mission with the Operation: Knightfall Remaster. Here is a clip of the mission itself:

 

- AMBUSH ON TATOOINE:
The third mission that I have in development is Ambush on Tatooine from Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. It will have 2 POV’s, one for Qui-Gon and one for Darth Maul. It was 50% complete, however after deliberation with Linken, we are going to rework this mission as well as hold off until we develop a better map to ensure that it is more accurate to the movie. However here is a clip from the original mission:

 

- A QUEEN IN PERIL:
This is the 4th mission I have in development. It is also from Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. It will have one POV where you play as Obi-Wan Kenobi. The mission is 20% complete. It will have 3 stages. The first draws inspiration from the original Phantom Menace PC game mission: The Gardens of Theed, the stage is named as The Gates of Theed. The 2nd stage, Rescuing the Queen, will be based off of the mission from the XBOX original game Star Wars: Obi-Wan titled: A Queen in Peril. The third and final stage will be based on the mission from TPM PC game once more, Escape of Theed. The stage is titled the same. This mission will be completed last, as it is on a similar level of time needing to complete it that Knightfall needs.

ANIMATIONS

A few of our team members, including myself, have taken up learning how to animate character stances, and cutscene animations.
Here is the 90% complete first stance for Anakin’s Lord Vader model:

 

Thank you all for following the development of Star Wars: Galactic Legacy, and may the Force be with you.

[Circa]

Love seeing progress reports for this! I’m super excited for Operation Knightfall especially. 

Just a little piece of advice for y’all. Always look at these missions from a player’s point of view when constructing them. Seeing the dialogue scenes in Jedi Academy cutscene form is cool but I don’t think will ever truly be worth the effort and time unless they are all animated specifically for the scene. I feel like watching the heavy dialogue scenes like the Death Star Ambush in cutscene form will wear off its charm in practice. I feel like it’s probably more work than is truly worth it overall when your overall goal is to be creating missions inspired by the movies rather than recreating the entire film itself.

I always thought the ROTS game did a cool method of this by just playing clips from the film itself to fill in gaps you may need in between missions, or otherwise assume you saw the movie and just have some additional parts scripted in cutscenes that are new.

Not saying all that to diminish the work everyone has done, just my thoughts on it. It’s all great work.

[Linken]

14 hours ago, Circa said:

Love seeing progress reports for this! I’m super excited for Operation Knightfall especially. 

Just a little piece of advice for y’all. Always look at these missions from a player’s point of view when constructing them. Seeing the dialogue scenes in Jedi Academy cutscene form is cool but I don’t think will ever truly be worth the effort and time unless they are all animated specifically for the scene. I feel like watching the heavy dialogue scenes like the Death Star Ambush in cutscene form will wear off its charm in practice. I feel like it’s probably more work than is truly worth it overall when your overall goal is to be creating missions inspired by the movies rather than recreating the entire film itself.

I always thought the ROTS game did a cool method of this by just playing clips from the film itself to fill in gaps you may need in between missions, or otherwise assume you saw the movie and just have some additional parts scripted in cutscenes that are new.

Not saying all that to diminish the work everyone has done, just my thoughts on it. It’s all great work.

I understand where you're coming from, but recreating the dialogue scenes in JKA I felt was necessary. I didn't want to take the risk of getting sued by having clips of the movie.

[Lancelot]

31 minutes ago, Linken said:

I understand where you're coming from, but recreating the dialogue scenes in JKA I felt was necessary. I didn't want to take the risk of getting sued by having clips of the movie.

That's completely understandable. But on the other hand, it doesn't need to be 100% accurate. Less is often more.

As you've already put a lot of effort into the cutscenes, I suggest you leave them that way. But for future missions, you should consider reducing the running time of cutscenes to about 20-30 seconds. That's enough time to put all the necessary information based on a familiar scene into one cutscene. Sometimes, you don't even need dialogue at all. Maybe you should take the cutscenes from the Revenge of the Sith game as an example.

[Linken]

2 hours ago, Lancelot said:

That's completely understandable. But on the other hand, it doesn't need to be 100% accurate. Less is often more.

As you've already put a lot of effort into the cutscenes, I suggest you leave them that way. But for future missions, you should consider reducing the running time of cutscenes to about 20-30 seconds. That's enough time to put all the necessary information based on a familiar scene into one cutscene. Sometimes, you don't even need dialogue at all. Maybe you should take the cutscenes from the Revenge of the Sith game as an example.

If it works, then sure. You might notice the deathstar rescue cutscene has a lot of the falcon scene shaved off.

[Circa]

18 hours ago, Linken said:

I understand where you're coming from, but recreating the dialogue scenes in JKA I felt was necessary. I didn't want to take the risk of getting sued by having clips of the movie.

That’s understandable but I honestly don’t think it would be an issue. You’d probably be just as liable for including the audio, character names, weapons, etc. as you would be video. As long as your intention is not to redistribute the movie as a whole and to profit on it then you’d basically be clear to use them under fair use.

But if cutscene recreations are the vision you have for the mod then that’s great. Maybe I just misunderstood what the mod’s goal was. Playing the movie through from top to bottom would still be cool in it’s own way.

You mentioned reworking the Ambush on Tatooine mission, I’m curious if you have anything planned to diverge from what we see on screen? There was mention of taking parts from the TPM game for the Theed palace mission, I’m wondering if something could also be done with that one, as I believe there was a lot more of an elaborate chase in that mission with parts taking place in the town, IIRC. Been awhile since I played it. Could make it a lot more interesting that way, but just a thought.

Looking forward to seeing more!

[Linken]

4 hours ago, Circa said:

That’s understandable but I honestly don’t think it would be an issue. You’d probably be just as liable for including the audio, character names, weapons, etc. as you would be video. As long as your intention is not to redistribute the movie as a whole and to profit on it then you’d basically be clear to use them under fair use.

But if cutscene recreations are the vision you have for the mod then that’s great. Maybe I just misunderstood what the mod’s goal was. Playing the movie through from top to bottom would still be cool in it’s own way.

You mentioned reworking the Ambush on Tatooine mission, I’m curious if you have anything planned to diverge from what we see on screen? There was mention of taking parts from the TPM game for the Theed palace mission, I’m wondering if something could also be done with that one, as I believe there was a lot more of an elaborate chase in that mission with parts taking place in the town, IIRC. Been awhile since I played it. Could make it a lot more interesting that way, but just a thought.

Looking forward to seeing more!

It is the vision, I love making cutscenes and even if people only watched it once, it's worth it to me. 

I can't really answer your question about ambush on Tatooine, I'm not developing that one. I think the author is wanting to change the map but that's about it. 

Playing through the movie from beginning to end would be too ambitious, all Star Wars movies are mostly talking, not too interesting from the player's point of view. 

[Circa]

9 hours ago, Linken said:

Playing through the movie from beginning to end would be too ambitious, all Star Wars movies are mostly talking, not too interesting from the player's point of view. 

Which was kind of my initial point with the Death Star scene. I'm curious what the criteria for what you include and don't include are.

[Futuza]

Hey, just wanted to mention that if you need to record stuff you can use OBS for free and it won't add a text logo overlay and will probably result in higher quality recordings than bandicam will.

[Linken]

20 hours ago, Circa said:

Which was kind of my initial point with the Death Star scene. I'm curious what the criteria for what you include and don't include are.

The criteria is basically this: 

1. Does it fit in well with the story?

2. Is it necessary in order to tell a cohesive story? 

3. Do I feel like making it? 

In terms of the deathstar cutscene, it fit with all of the above. Other cutscenes like the intro to "You have become a Rival" and the Palpatine cutscenes after the Obi-wan and Qui-Gon are more under the case of point 3.

What can I say? I like making cutscenes. 

11 hours ago, Futuza said:

Hey, just wanted to mention that if you need to record stuff you can use OBS for free and it won't add a text logo overlay and will probably result in higher quality recordings than bandicam will.

Those videos were recorded by Darth Voiid, my (for lack of a better term) protégé. He recorded them strictly for the team before making them public.

I'll mention OBS, but I'm not going to force him to use it. Thank you though.