STAR WARS: Movie Duels (Remaster of Movie Duels II)

[AshuraDX]

@@Tompa9 @

 

Do you remember when Movie Duels 2 was released back in 2009?

 

It was this magnificent culmination of community effort to bring new life in the form of a new campaign to an aging game.
What this small team of Modders managed to do back then just seems incredible nowadays – they have not only assembled and extended a fantastic collection of the best assets the community has made up to that point in time but also made a whole campaign worth of new single player missions, including all the layouting work and other gameplay related aspects when it comes to leveldesign.

 

And while I may be wearing nostalgia tinted glasses here – I remember that as being fairly solid, especially for a small team of passionate modders without any professional level of education on this matter.

These guys have really done an amazing job, even more so if you consider the fate of many other SP Total Conversion mod projects that we have seen come and go over the years. And now, allmost a decade after this mod has been released you guys decided to dig up Movie duels 2 and fuck around with it.

 

Considering how much I liked the originalI have been watching this thread with interest for a while and have made my thoughts about this.  Now I feel that the time has come where I really need to speak out about my honest opinion on this project.

So, let’s shed some light on what you have been doing over the past year:
 

You have replaced a few level textures from what I have seen and some of them are actually quite an improvement, mainly talking the Mural in Palpatines office here, the others don’t stand out as much to me, which might be because you did not provide comparison shots to what has been there previously – which would greatly increase the quality of your progress presentations on here. The way you present your work here could actually be improved a lot but I’ll get to that later.

 

You have made a few code edits and while I am not sure about the full extent of what you have done: I really dig that saberblade blob fix!

You have replaced a lot of originally included character skins and models with newer, „enhanced“ versions as you may call them. Let’s recap what you have done here….
You replaced parts of models with pieces that have been shamefully ripped from other games, mixed in a few parts from models created by other Modders and passed the textures through a bunch of image adjustments in Gimp, Photoshop or whatever else you may be using.

 

Now tell me: Which pieces on these have you actually created and not just taken and remixed? Which part of that process qualifies those frankenstein monsters as creative, original work? I don’t see any of that. And yet you cheekily dare to call them "your" models.

 

To me this seems straight up disrespectful to what the original creators of these models did or more precisely: I think it's major kick in the nuts to what MD2 stood for – even while you are providing credits to the original authors most of the time, you still refer to them as "your" models which is a habit that is bothering me all over this community.

I’m fine with you calling them your kitbashes or your frankensteins but please stay away from referring to them as "your" models. And just to make this perfectly clear: allthough I think it's wasted potential I really don't give a shit about your choice to use ported models, I'm just annoyed by your attitude in presenting them.

 

Which leads us onto the topic of presentation:

 

Just take a look at this post for example.

 

This post seems very sloppy and rushed – which in turn makes your work appear sloppy and rushed, something that is not helped by things like that broken skybox in the video. You could have greatly improved the appeareance iof that post and thereby the quality of your presentation by simply adding one more linebreak after the first sentence. And onto what @@SomaZ said about fixing that faulty skybox prior to releasing the Video:

I would never release a video presentation that clearly shows such a fault. To me the only valid options would be to fix that immediatly and rerecord the scene, or cut the scene from the Teaser.

 Or as a third option you could have rerecorded that sequence and just turned the camera away but I suppose that may not be the best approach to a video that is supposed to show gameplay sequences from a mission.  

So in short: think about the way you present yourselves and what you are doing here and work on that. You have put things like "Lead Designer“ and "Mod Developer“ for Movie Duels 2 remastered in your signatures, I’ll let the mod developer pass but I really don’t think that anyone of you is justified to call yourself "Lead Designer“ of this! Keep in mind that most of what you have here is recycled designwork from other authors.

 

As it stands now I would greatly prefer not to see any traces of my models as a part of the beta release.

I am not going to explicitely forbid you to use them but if you have any respect for this community and me personally, I trust that you will decide to leave them out.

If you actually stop and think about the way you present this whole deal on here, change something about that and thereby gain my respect, I will gladly let you include my work in a later release.

 

 

[Tompa9]

No comment on this Ahsura. No wonder Punisher stopped releasing his works ... and yes Im counting kitbashing, texturing and porting as his or my work because we have spent dozens of hours on it. Everything in our free time. Yet it is still not good enough for people like you...

[Jaws123DRevenge]

Not this again....

[AshuraDX]

@@Tompa9 If I may suggest something:

Take a step back.

Breathe in.

hold.

Now slowly exhale and relax.

 

I have a feeling that you take critique very personally, I don't know if this is soemthing that generally applies to you or if it's just on here but let me tell that learning not to let critiques get to oneself on a personal level is a major milestone in one's way to maturity. From what I know, you are a teenager - and I absolutely don't expect you to allways be overly mature, heck I wouldn't even consider myself amture at all times. Just know that learning to handle critique is important and will help you progress in life.

 

Instead of seeing critique as a personal attack or straight up as an insult of your work, take a step back, relax and have a look at what you created and inspect it under the critique that was brought up. Try to see how and where that critique applies to your work and grow from the experience. Inspect your own work critically, take notes on what you could possibly improve - even if it's something that you currently do not know how to do.

I was not born knowing all of this fancy modeling and texturing stuff. I learned it all either from critiques and comments other users left on my work or my own research on these things.

 

Break out of your comfortzone, push for new horizons and you will find yourself surprised about what you can do. Open your mind to new things, that is the only way to learn and achieve greatness.

It is a long and rocky road, and you will fall a few times but I promise you will get there if you stick with it.

 

Just take a look at some of my very old work and have a good laugh at that stuff.

https://jkhub.org/files/file/699-%7B%3F%7D/

https://jkhub.org/files/file/698-%7B%3F%7D/

https://jkhub.org/files/file/696-%7B%3F%7D/

 

In fact, let's go even further back in time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZMFFSS6eQ

 

That is where I started. Simple MS Paint repaints of textures in an old Sonic game and a bunch of ripped textures I ported over from a different sonic game.

 

You can learn if you dare to take the first, and really most difficult step.

[TheWhitePhoenix]

I've seen egos before, but nothing like that....

[Jaws123DRevenge]

@@Tompa9 @

 

Do you remember when Movie Duels 2 was released back in 2009?

 

It was this magnificent culmination of community effort to bring new life in the form of a new campaign to an aging game.

What this small team of Modders managed to do back then just seems incredible nowadays – they have not only assembled and extended a fantastic collection of the best assets the community has made up to that point in time but also made a whole campaign worth of new single player missions, including all the layouting work and other gameplay related aspects when it comes to leveldesign.

 

And while I may be wearing nostalgia tinted glasses here – I remember that as being fairly solid, especially for a small team of passionate modders without any professional level of education on this matter.

These guys have really done an amazing job, even more so if you consider the fate of many other SP Total Conversion mod projects that we have seen come and go over the years. And now, allmost a decade after this mod has been released you guys decided to dig up Movie duels 2 and fuck around with it.

 

Considering how much I liked the originalI have been watching this thread with interest for a while and have made my thoughts about this.  Now I feel that the time has come where I really need to speak out about my honest opinion on this project.

 

So, let’s shed some light on what you have been doing over the past year:

 

You have replaced a few level textures from what I have seen and some of them are actually quite an improvement, mainly talking the Mural in Palpatines office here, the others don’t stand out as much to me, which might be because you did not provide comparison shots to what has been there previously – which would greatly increase the quality of your progress presentations on here. The way you present your work here could actually be improved a lot but I’ll get to that later.

 

You have made a few code edits and while I am not sure about the full extent of what you have done: I really dig that saberblade blob fix!

You have replaced a lot of originally included character skins and models with newer, „enhanced“ versions as you may call them. Let’s recap what you have done here….

You replaced parts of models with pieces that have been shamefully ripped from other games, mixed in a few parts from models created by other Modders and passed the textures through a bunch of image adjustments in Gimp, Photoshop or whatever else you may be using.

 

Now tell me: Which pieces on these have you actually created and not just taken and remixed? Which part of that process qualifies those frankenstein monsters as creative, original work? I don’t see any of that. And yet you cheekily dare to call them "your" models.

 

To me this seems straight up disrespectful to what the original creators of these models did or more precisely: I think it's major kick in the nuts to what MD2 stood for – even while you are providing credits to the original authors most of the time, you still refer to them as "your" models which is a habit that is bothering me all over this community.

I’m fine with you calling them your kitbashes or your frankensteins but please stay away from referring to them as "your" models. And just to make this perfectly clear: allthough I think it's wasted potential I really don't give a shit about your choice to use ported models, I'm just annoyed by your attitude in presenting them.

 

Which leads us onto the topic of presentation:

 

Just take a look at this post for example.

 

This post seems very sloppy and rushed – which in turn makes your work appear sloppy and rushed, something that is not helped by things like that broken skybox in the video. You could have greatly improved the appeareance iof that post and thereby the quality of your presentation by simply adding one more linebreak after the first sentence. And onto what @@SomaZ said about fixing that faulty skybox prior to releasing the Video:

I would never release a video presentation that clearly shows such a fault. To me the only valid options would be to fix that immediatly and rerecord the scene, or cut the scene from the Teaser.

 Or as a third option you could have rerecorded that sequence and just turned the camera away but I suppose that may not be the best approach to a video that is supposed to show gameplay sequences from a mission.  

So in short: think about the way you present yourselves and what you are doing here and work on that. You have put things like "Lead Designer“ and "Mod Developer“ for Movie Duels 2 remastered in your signatures, I’ll let the mod developer pass but I really don’t think that anyone of you is justified to call yourself "Lead Designer“ of this! Keep in mind that most of what you have here is recycled designwork from other authors.

 

As it stands now I would greatly prefer not to see any traces of my models as a part of the beta release.

I am not going to explicitely forbid you to use them but if you have any respect for this community and me personally, I trust that you will decide to leave them out.

If you actually stop and think about the way you present this whole deal on here, change something about that and thereby gain my respect, I will gladly let you include my work in a later release.

OK, lets take a look at this....

 

These guys have done a lot to improve this mod, depending on who you ask apparently. And a lot of the stuff they have done wasn't specifically mentioned in your post. It's a hell of a lot more than just texture replacements. They've improved the cutscenes by having the the audio from the movies play throughout the whole thing instead of cutting in and out so the whole scene will flow better, and gives the overall feel of the mod a one more accurate to the movies, and part of that is.... yes, replacing models. I don't think anyone wants to get into the whole ported, kitbashing models debate again, but come on, it's inevitable, so I'll just say this...... If the model these guys kitbash, regardless of where it came from, looks more accurate to it's real life counterpart, then why shouldn't they use it? In your post, you said "I think it's major kick in the nuts to what MD2 stood for," What exactly did MD2 stand for? MD2 is a mod that recreates the Star Wars prequel trilogy, so why wouldn't you want the most accurate models in your mod? Because it's disrespectful to the original creators? Half of them, hell, most of them aren't even around anymore. So, personally, I dont think it's a good idea to discourage new members to the community  who arent as experienced from doing stuff like this. Now, referring to them are YOUR models, maybe I wouldn't say "models," I would probably say "kitbashes" instead. And back to what else they have added to the mod, the new saber system! It'll definitely make the saber duel missions a hell of a lot more fun than they originally were. Now, presenting work, yes, 100% agree with everything you said. Originally, this mod was supposed to be released, like, May 4th of last year, then it was Christmas of 2017, now it's May 4th of this year. And ya, showing us a video of an ugly Tatooine skybox maybe wasn't the best course of action. Needless to say, there is room for improvement in that regard. But to conclude, it's not 2009 anymore. This mod will not only improve upon the original, but get more people into the community as well.

[SomaZ]

Ok, let's see this from a neutral point of view. I said I don't want to be picky about this skybox thing and I stand by my word.

 

First of all, everyone knows that all this modding stuff is very time consuming and noone said it's not appreciated. Ashura also said that he likes parts of this MD2 rework, even very much (like the mural or the saberblade blob fix). Also, noone will be modding besides in his free time, so think about this pls. Were all putting alot of effort into this modding thing and all of this in our free time without getting paid. This applies to Ashura, to you Tompa, me and every other modder on this planet.

 

Making a model from scratch is a very time consuming thing. Modelling alone can take up weeks to finally get a model that pleases the creator and I'm really talking about the modelling part alone. Retopolgy of the model, Unwrapping, baking, texturing, weighting the model, and bringing it into the game can take the same amount of time easily. We are talking about 50+ hours to get a AAA model game ready. I'm pretty sure that we can say that Ashura can create AAA content. These are 50+ hours of work for a model he can claim his own creation. I'm not entirely sure how much time you invest for a single kitbash, so please forgive me if I assume you will need a maximum of 10 hours to make a proper kitbash. Thats like a fifth of time you invest in creating a model. I can understand that Ashura is a little upset about the fact that you claim this "your model". This is why he referes to this as disrespectful, and I kind of agree with him. We all know that you put alot of work into it, there is no question about it and everyone is willing to give you credit for the work you have done.

 

I think alot of this fuzz can be avoided with proper wording. Swapping "your model" with "your kitbash" or "your port" would be respectful to the original creators of the content you are using. Thats basicly the only thing ashura wanted to say I guess.

[General Howard]

@@AshuraDX

Ok, first off.. I’m sorry that you feel that way. I knew it would come at some point though, where someone would come on here and couldn’t fully understand or appreciate our “vision”.. And do nothing but criticise it.
Now, I don’t know if you’re coming on here, just to look for confrontation or what.. But if you feel that what we’re doing here with this mod, desecrates this community and JKHub, then you’re clearly mistaking your own thinking for what we are “actually” doing. It has UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCE, EVER been our plan or our intention to disrespect the original mod that Wector and his team (to my knowledge, worked on the mod, by himself) released, back in 2009.. And what was it you said? “Dig up and fuck around with it.” Quite the opposite, in fact. Showing that sort of attitude is a big slap to the face of our willingness and hard work of actually trying to bring this mod into the 21st century.
The fact that this mod is even being remastered, is simply put.. Because it deserves it! It’s too good of a mod, to be left behind and forgotten about, while other mods like Movie Battles 2, flourishes.

Personally, and this is from my own stand-point.. I’ve never been a fan of the whole “Movie Battles 2” mod being Multiplayer ONLY. Christ! It’s bad enough now, that we live in a gaming world consumed by multiplayer trash.. EA’s STAR WARS franchise is clear enough proof of that. And let’s not even get into how lacklustre and predictable Battlefront II’s campaign was.
Not to mention, there’s also no plan for the MB2 team to even do a Single Player variant of their mod.. And that’s fine. But this is where we step in.. And if things aren’t gonna be done by other people, who already have the assets there to begin with, then you have to take it by the scruff of the neck.. And that’s exactly what we’ve done.
Now, seeing as how Wector had left the community (likely because he couldn’t devote any more time to modding or because he “burned himself out” by this mod), I personally, went out of my way to try and contact him, on a number of outlets (e-mails, his website. etc.). He was my first port of call and the first person I tried to go to, simply out of respect for his mod. All routes came to a dead end, so it’s not for want of trying.. And I didn’t even have to do that, honestly. But because it was his work that came before, I went to him first, to see if he was interested in remastering it, himself. After so long of no contact or ANY response from him, this is where I had to take the initiative and decide the only way it was gonna move forward was to start up a team, myself.

We’ve been working hard on this mod, for little over a year.. Trying to get the NEW assets together and bring together a group of people willing to invest their own free time in developing and improving this mod.. To which you’re basically shitting on, by saying that all their work is inconsequential to this remaster..
There are people out there like ourselves, who thoroughly enjoyed the 2009 version and also feel exactly the same way we do, about the mod needing a remaster.. And I’m sure the community will back me up with this statement.. You say you also have a problem with the “role tags” in our signatures; “Mod Developer” and “Lead Design Creator”.. I see no problem here, other than you just trying to nitpick little details. I am the “Lead Design Creator” of this version/remaster of the mod and that is what you need to understand and get clear. I decided to put this team together, because I couldn’t do it on my own (so, credit to Wector again, for his dedication to the original mod).
As far as the videos posted by JaceSolarisVII goes, those videos were originally created before our last few updates were made and has since been rectified. He has even returned to this thread, to acknowledge his own fault at not stating that, prior. But again, this is just a small detail that holds no real significance. He maybe posted it because he wanted to keep the thread alive and advertise some of the earlier work he’d done for the mod, so don’t shoot him down in flames for that.
And as I’ve stated, skyboxes are still an ongoing issue. Their current standing, is by no means final. All the content that we’ve added, especially as far as maps and other content goes, have been added and improved by ourselves, with credit to other community members who’ve obliged with their content and given their permission for us to use it.. And some who have even expressed that they “would love” to see their content in this mod. But the one, clear thing you need to understand here, is that we ARE NOT disrespecting Wector’s original work. Plus, a lot of the original content is still there, anyhow..

I don’t think I can make my point any clearer.. If you can’t accept what we’re doing, out of respect for the original mod, then that’s your problem. We are trying to improve all the time, yes. But to criticise and shit on other people’s work and the time and effort they’ve put into it.. Whether it be a kit-bash, a port or otherwise.. THAT is disrespectful. Just because you’re a creator/modeller who can make models from scratch and maybe someone like Tompa isn’t at that level yet, doesn’t give you the right to bash what he’s done. He’s contributed a great deal to this mod and improved a LOT of old models, along with help from other team members.

[Tompa9]

@@AshuraDX:

 

1. My real age is 26 so my "immaturity" just showed how I am angry about your essay.

 

2. Critics is really good way how to improve ourselves but you just slated us without knowning how big amount and timeconsuming work we have done behind the courtain.

 

3. I understand overall feeling about ported material but it is less than 10% of models there and we arent just capable yet to make some parts from scratch. But we are trying our best.

 

4. We are quite confortable what has community produced over years so why making things from scratch and release this mod in year 2134 when we can use already created material with agreement from original authors? That is our tribute to authors that we want their models in this mod. There was never mention about claiming their models as "ours". I am maybe using sentence "my work" "or maybe my model" sometimes but I also post description how it was done with all neccesary credits.

 

5. I have planned small presentation few days before beta comes out what was changed but you really spoiled my willigness right now.

 

6. This project started as big tribute to Wector. If he was still around he would have been in our team. I am pretty sure he would have agreed with that because he was planned further updates. But it all stopped and he left. Thats why we started updating and bring this mod into year 2018. And this step really need to be done from beggining. We are planning to continue this mod and add OT and sequel content too if we see this mod is appre ciated ... and u really havent helped that. But still I can see positive feedback and lot of people who are glad even for few textures. I think people should be glad that we are making something like this. With this attitude JK modding community would have been already dead.

[JaceSolarisVIII]

@@Tompa9 @

 

Do you remember when Movie Duels 2 was released back in 2009?

 

It was this magnificent culmination of community effort to bring new life in the form of a new campaign to an aging game.

What this small team of Modders managed to do back then just seems incredible nowadays – they have not only assembled and extended a fantastic collection of the best assets the community has made up to that point in time but also made a whole campaign worth of new single player missions, including all the layouting work and other gameplay related aspects when it comes to leveldesign.

 

And while I may be wearing nostalgia tinted glasses here – I remember that as being fairly solid, especially for a small team of passionate modders without any professional level of education on this matter.

These guys have really done an amazing job, even more so if you consider the fate of many other SP Total Conversion mod projects that we have seen come and go over the years. And now, allmost a decade after this mod has been released you guys decided to dig up Movie duels 2 and fuck around with it.

 

Considering how much I liked the originalI have been watching this thread with interest for a while and have made my thoughts about this.  Now I feel that the time has come where I really need to speak out about my honest opinion on this project.

 

So, let’s shed some light on what you have been doing over the past year:

 

You have replaced a few level textures from what I have seen and some of them are actually quite an improvement, mainly talking the Mural in Palpatines office here, the others don’t stand out as much to me, which might be because you did not provide comparison shots to what has been there previously – which would greatly increase the quality of your progress presentations on here. The way you present your work here could actually be improved a lot but I’ll get to that later.

 

You have made a few code edits and while I am not sure about the full extent of what you have done: I really dig that saberblade blob fix!

You have replaced a lot of originally included character skins and models with newer, „enhanced“ versions as you may call them. Let’s recap what you have done here….

You replaced parts of models with pieces that have been shamefully ripped from other games, mixed in a few parts from models created by other Modders and passed the textures through a bunch of image adjustments in Gimp, Photoshop or whatever else you may be using.

 

Now tell me: Which pieces on these have you actually created and not just taken and remixed? Which part of that process qualifies those frankenstein monsters as creative, original work? I don’t see any of that. And yet you cheekily dare to call them "your" models.

 

To me this seems straight up disrespectful to what the original creators of these models did or more precisely: I think it's major kick in the nuts to what MD2 stood for – even while you are providing credits to the original authors most of the time, you still refer to them as "your" models which is a habit that is bothering me all over this community.

I’m fine with you calling them your kitbashes or your frankensteins but please stay away from referring to them as "your" models. And just to make this perfectly clear: allthough I think it's wasted potential I really don't give a shit about your choice to use ported models, I'm just annoyed by your attitude in presenting them.

 

Which leads us onto the topic of presentation:

 

Just take a look at this post for example.

 

This post seems very sloppy and rushed – which in turn makes your work appear sloppy and rushed, something that is not helped by things like that broken skybox in the video. You could have greatly improved the appeareance iof that post and thereby the quality of your presentation by simply adding one more linebreak after the first sentence. And onto what @@SomaZ said about fixing that faulty skybox prior to releasing the Video:

I would never release a video presentation that clearly shows such a fault. To me the only valid options would be to fix that immediatly and rerecord the scene, or cut the scene from the Teaser.

 Or as a third option you could have rerecorded that sequence and just turned the camera away but I suppose that may not be the best approach to a video that is supposed to show gameplay sequences from a mission.  

So in short: think about the way you present yourselves and what you are doing here and work on that. You have put things like "Lead Designer“ and "Mod Developer“ for Movie Duels 2 remastered in your signatures, I’ll let the mod developer pass but I really don’t think that anyone of you is justified to call yourself "Lead Designer“ of this! Keep in mind that most of what you have here is recycled designwork from other authors.

 

As it stands now I would greatly prefer not to see any traces of my models as a part of the beta release.

I am not going to explicitely forbid you to use them but if you have any respect for this community and me personally, I trust that you will decide to leave them out.

If you actually stop and think about the way you present this whole deal on here, change something about that and thereby gain my respect, I will gladly let you include my work in a later release.

 

Well it would seem I have to apologize for letting the skybox error slip through the net. It seems to have upset you. And for that I can only say I'm very sorry. I'm also sorry that I don't have the ability to make a video to the standards of others who have come before me. I'm often short on time and don't have the resources that others have. I don't claim to have standards of the likes of you or Lucas arts or Disney, but I do try my best.

 

Its very sad to me to read this, because I think in many cases your missing the point of what the team is doing. In an age of "movie remakes" and "game remakes" it doesn't seem too much of a stretch to simply "update" a very popular but ageing mod.

 

As for the use of models that come from other sources, I cant comment on that because it is a subject I have no credible knowledge about and I can only say this. I have seen your work here on the downloads page and can confirm you seem to have a real talent that is unchallenged and for that I respect what you have done and take very seriously what you have said.Tompa9 is very talented and has shown his worth many times over, Irrelevant of his age and I respect him also.

 

So how can I respond to your post? I mean "me" personally. How should I respond to your post?

 

1.Apologise that my efforts have offended you.

2.Redact all the work I have done from the mod, leaving no trace of my involvement in the mod.

3.Leave the team and ensure no evidence of my involvement is traceable in the mod.

 

Obviously I can only speak for myself and the work I have put in over the last 6 months. As for the other issues that have offended you I can only say, Its a shame you feel this way.

 

And just in case you are wondering if I am a child/teenager with a immature attitude.

I'm 45 years old, have 2 kids. 1 is 5yrs the other 3 months old. Work shifts of up to 12 hours a day. married and still find time to do my hobby.

 

I do this as a release, I'm a hobby coder who likes doing crossword puzzles and likes the challenges that coding affords.

 

Please don't be offended by any of this response, No offence is intended. But please let me know what my next course of action should be!

[SomaZ]

Maybe to make things a little bit clearer.

I don’t see any of that. And yet you cheekily dare to call them "your" models.

 

To me this seems straight up disrespectful to what the original creators of these models did or more precisely: I think it's major kick in the nuts to what MD2 stood for – even while you are providing credits to the original authors most of the time, you still refer to them as "your" models which is a habit that is bothering me all over this community.

I’m fine with you calling them your kitbashes or your frankensteins but please stay away from referring to them as "your" models. And just to make this perfectly clear: allthough I think it's wasted potential I really don't give a shit about your choice to use ported models, I'm just annoyed by your attitude in presenting them.

Thats already in the pack bro because its my model

@@AshuraDX

But the one, clear thing you need to understand here, is that we ARE NOT disrespecting Wector’s original work. Plus, a lot of the original content is still there, anyhow..

You are not disrespecting Wectors work directly. We can all agree on this I guess. You guys put a lot of work into this to revive this mod and this is a great thing! Though you disrespect other content with statements like the one I quoted above this quote. And I'm pretty sure Wector would never have stated something like this. Ashura is pissed because of statements like these, because Tompa probably put a fifth of time (see my last post) into changing the model into "his" compared to the original work, which is disrespectful and indeed a kick in the nuts imo. Ashura also stated, that he would be fine if you guys present this a little different. If you had said that this is his "work" instead of "model" no one would be pissed. This, while worded badly by Ashura imo, is a valid critique and something easy to improve on. So take this as a starting point to improve further.

@@AshuraDX:

2. Critics is really good way how to improve ourselves but you just slated us without knowning how big amount and timeconsuming work we have done behind the courtain.

 

3. I understand overall feeling about ported material but it is less than 10% of models there and we arent just capable yet to make some parts from scratch. But we are trying our best.

 

4. We are quite confortable what has community produced over years so why making things from scratch and release this mod in year 2134 when we can use already created material with agreement from original authors? That is our tribute to authors that we want their models in this mod. There was never mention about claiming their models as "ours". I am maybe using sentence "my work" "or maybe my model" sometimes but I also post description how it was done with all neccesary credits.

 

5. I have planned small presentation few days before beta comes out what was changed but you really spoiled my willigness right now.

 

6. This project started as big tribute to Wector. If he was still around he would have been in our team. I am pretty sure he would have agreed with that because he was planned further updates. But it all stopped and he left. Thats why we started updating and bring this mod into year 2018. And this step really need to be done from beggining. We are planning to continue this mod and add OT and sequel content too if we see this mod is appreciated ... and u really havent helped that. But still I can see positive feedback and lot of people who are glad even for few textures. I think people should be glad that we are making something like this. With this attitude JK modding community would have been already dead.

2. Pretty sure Ashura knows how time consuming all of this stuff is. If I rip out the bad wording in his post I see a lot of tips for improvement. Don't take things on the internet personally.

3. Tbh, Ashura said that he doesn't give a sh*t about the ported content. Don't reduce his post on this. We'd love to see original models from you, that's what I read behind his lines (especially in his second post, has nothing to do with an enormous ego imo).

4. Look at the quotes at the top. Your statement may apply to most of your texts, but in this case it doesn't.

5. Don't give up. Pls, this is very harsh what Ashura said. I understand this. Take it as a challenge to surprise us with even better content and a shiny presentation. As he said, he would gladly see his model in your mod, as long as the presentation is fine.

6. As far as I understood, Ashura is glad someone is working on this. But presentation of other people content in a bad way can be rather frustrating for the creator of the mentioned content. Therefore you need to make sure the presentation is done right. That's the downside of using other people content.

Please don't be offended by any of this response, No offence is intended. But please let me know what my next course of action should be!

No need to take action. The skybox thing is something to improve on and a simple (but very harsh, I agree) critique. I was just wondering what happened to the skybox in the video. It looked like a huge turnoff compared to the original one. Concider this (no offense) next time and this completely stupid discussion will finally end...

[Tompa9]

I can agree with that @@SomaZ. Sometimes I say "my model" instead of "my work" but this all mean "my work" only. I agree it is lazy spelling but I don´t really mean it that I appropriate models of original authors. I will also work on better presentation and many comparation pictures soon when beta comes out  It is truth that this WIP topic is often updated in a hurry because of no time and most of the updates are posted on MODDB page. 

[JAWSFreelao]

This became very constructive. I dig it.

[AshuraDX]

Well it would seem I have to apologize for letting the skybox error slip through the net. It seems to have upset you. And for that I can only say I'm very sorry. I'm also sorry that I don't have the ability to make a video to the standards of others who have come before me. I'm often short on time and don't have the resources that others have. I don't claim to have standards of the likes of you or Lucas arts or Disney, but I do try my best.

 

Its very sad to me to read this, because I think in many cases your missing the point of what the team is doing. In an age of "movie remakes" and "game remakes" it doesn't seem too much of a stretch to simply "update" a very popular but ageing mod.

 

As for the use of models that come from other sources, I cant comment on that because it is a subject I have no credible knowledge about and I can only say this. I have seen your work here on the downloads page and can confirm you seem to have a real talent that is unchallenged and for that I respect what you have done and take very seriously what you have said.Tompa9 is very talented and has shown his worth many times over, Irrelevant of his age and I respect him also.

 

So how can I respond to your post? I mean "me" personally. How should I respond to your post?

 

1.Apologise that my efforts have offended you.

2.Redact all the work I have done from the mod, leaving no trace of my involvement in the mod.

3.Leave the team and ensure no evidence of my involvement is traceable in the mod.

 

Obviously I can only speak for myself and the work I have put in over the last 6 months. As for the other issues that have offended you I can only say, Its a shame you feel this way.

 

And just in case you are wondering if I am a child/teenager with a immature attitude.

I'm 45 years old, have 2 kids. 1 is 5yrs the other 3 months old. Work shifts of up to 12 hours a day. married and still find time to do my hobby.

 

I do this as a release, I'm a hobby coder who likes doing crossword puzzles and likes the challenges that coding affords.

 

Please don't be offended by any of this response, No offence is intended. But please let me know what my next course of action should be!

I am sorry that you felt offended by my remarks about your post. It was not meant to be any sort of attack on you as a modder or as a person.

 

Things like that skybox slipup can happen - everybody makes mistakes. And I am not offended by that. I was just using the skybox slipup as an additional example as to what I was getting on to.

Which was your presentation of your work and that it could be a lot better.

 

I might be a bit different in the way I give feedback on things. I am very straight up and honest about what I think - I barely sugarcoat my feedback - even less so when I find myself repeating the same points over and over again (across different projects by the same author).

 

This habit might be a german thing and it is something that many people seem to have a problem with. This is probably increased by the fact that I am very inclined to be cussing about the place for no real reason and my generally rather rough way of expression.

 

The following does not apply to you specifically but really to most who reacted to my post here.

If you read my initial post carefully, like @@SomaZ did, you will see that I did not insult anyone personally in that post. I was only giving my feedback on how you present your work and how you could improve that for future showcases. I should probably mention that I work in the Marketing/Advertising department of a small german company and probably look at these things from a slightly more professional pov.

 

Let me phrase what I said a little differently: Everybody will agree that quality needs time. And I do not think that anyone would judge you guys for taking more time with preparing your showcases to ensure the best possible results. If you want to showcase your work in a way that is appealing to the viewer, try to critically review what you have done before putting it out. If you start doing this, things like that missing linebreak in the post should be instantly noticeable and very easy to fix. Simple things like that can allready drastically improve the percieved quality of what you are showing on here.

On that note, let me also rephrase my essay about taking criticism from others:

 

Nowadays everybody seems to be instantly personally offended by anything that is not wrapped in cotton candy and has almost completely lost its impact required to actually make a change.

 

When picking up criticism on anything you have done, try to detach yourself from what was said about your work and look at it from a neutral point of view. Read the feedback carefully and take it as it stands there, word for word - try not to interpret anything - take it as it stands there black on white, ignore anything that may seem like a possible implication of anything and then evaluate:

 

If what was said is a straight up insult, or just "ermahgerd dis so shiddy" ignore it and move on, some people are really just assholes and enjoy making others feel bad for their own pleasure and there is nothing you can do to change that - so why bother with them and even help them get their fix by getting offended and responding at all?

 

If what was said is just the highest praise - that's cool! It can help you gain confidence in what you are doing but you should allways be weary of how much whoever gave that feedback knows of what you are doing. The ability to give accurate feedback on something depends on wether you are capable of acquiring an accurate perception of the situation. And that ability requires a considerable amount of knowdledge in the field of whatever you are reviewing. There is a term for this in Psychology but I can't remember it. The Theory behind it is somewhat similiar to the so called Dunning-Kruger-Effect which describes your own capability to evaluate what you are doing and grade it accordingly. If you mindlessly accept everyone's praise of your work you may become blind to things you could do to improve it and just assume the cocky attitude of seeing anything you do as flawless.

 

Now we get to the important bit. If the feedback that does not fall under either of these two extremes is what you should care about the most, as that is what will help you progress and grow. If you utterly refuse to accept this kind of feedback you are locking yourself out of progress and any talent you may have is going to waste, which is a real shame when it happens and can be very frustrating to watch for the reviewer who gave said feedback. The key to recognising this type of feedback and making use of it really is being able to detach yourself from your work and to assume a neutral, as objective as possible position and then critically reviewing your own work under the named aspects. Which is everything but easy and requires a certain maturity to do. Which you are most likely lacking if you continuously find yourself feeling offended by feedback that is not just licking your bum with friendly words.

 

That is all I will say for now. If anybody wishes to continue this discussion, pm me. We should not derail this thread any further.

[Tompa9]

Hello fellow members!

 

While the latest preparations for a Beta release are taking place, I´ve decided to share with you some BEFORE/AFTER images so you can imagine how MD looked before and how it is looking right now. We appreciate your support and stay tuned here or on MODDB page for May the 4th! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[GPChannel]

I just cant wait to play this masterpiece

[General Howard]

I just cant wait to play this masterpiece

 

Don't forget that this is still in a Beta stage. We are constantly working on improvements all the time. Just by looking at the above screenshots ("After"), they're still a work-in-progress. And certain skyboxes still need adjusting. But yes, we're looking forward to releasing and hearing public feedback.

[MagSul]

Don't forget that this is still in a Beta stage. We are constantly working on improvements all the time. Just by looking at the above screenshots ("After"), they're still a work-in-progress. And certain skyboxes still need adjusting. But yes, we're looking forward to releasing and hearing public feedback.

 

Keep at it, the improvements look great!

[DerFürst]

This is a much better representation of the improvements to the mod.

[Tompa9]

This is a much better representation of the improvements to the mod.

 

Yes this debate was very constructive in the end. Thanks @@AshuraDX

[Langerd]

Hello fellow members!

 

While the latest preparations for a Beta release are taking place, I´ve decided to share with you some BEFORE/AFTER images so you can imagine how MD looked before and how it is looking right now. We appreciate your support and stay tuned here or on MODDB page for May the 4th! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I must say ... This is IMMPRESIVE WORK HERE! Jkhub members ,ade an amazing Job - So as you !

 

I remember my first play of this mod. I thought it was a masterpiece. It inspire me to make my own SP missions and duel. Of course some levels were not as good as others and there were some problem with cutscenes but that was very hard these days to even make something like that.

 

Looking at your remastered version i am immpresed... VERY immpressed. Most of these screens have a very big effect. There are only two things i am not sure of - the mustafar skybox was better in my opinion in previous version. And Electro Staff for Magna Guards were much cooler before - they were glowing like hell. Our Community is creating very cool things lately. 

 

I cannot wait to come back and Duel Characters from the movies once more! Gyyaaaa!!! :3 *lightsaber fight sounds*

 

 

[Tompa9]

I must say ... This is IMMPRESIVE WORK HERE! Jkhub members ,ade an amazing Job - So as you !

I remember my first play of this mod. I thought it was a masterpiece. It inspire me to make my own SP missions and duel. Of course some levels were not as good as others and there were some problem with cutscenes but that was very hard these days to even make something like that.

Looking at your remastered version i am immpresed... VERY immpressed. Most of these screens have a very big effect. There are only two things i am not sure of - the mustafar skybox was better in my opinion in previous version. And Electro Staff for Magna Guards were much cooler before - they were glowing like hell. Our Community is creating very cool things lately. 

I cannot wait to come back and Duel Characters from the movies once more! Gyyaaaa!!! :3 *lightsaber fight sounds*

 

Thank you for your support Langy! Your work is also very good and appreciated . This is still just beta so any suggestions are welcomed. I'm pretty sure Mustafar skybox will be little bit edited but trust me that original was really bad texture and you will appreciate it more on lava river part. I can also look on electrostaff and add them some more glow

[Langerd]

Thank you for your support Langy! Your work is also very good and appreciated . This is still just beta so any suggestions are welcomed. I'm pretty sure Mustafar skybox will be little bit edited but trust me that original was really bad texture and you will appreciate it more on lava river part. I can also look on electrostaff and add them some more glow

For saber file i remember there is an option to make it use efx instead of small lightsaber glow that old electrostaff were using. 

 

Look here ! - https://youtu.be/_gV_tI8-3Bk?t=87

 

i think it can use some effect file that will be this lighting effect. 

[General Howard]

Hi, all..

The time is finally here.. After a year of hard work from myself and the team, we’re pleased to show off our first iteration of the mod that you’ll all no doubt be familiar with, that Wector originally released back in 2009, remastered for the current generation. As it’s Star Wars day, we felt this would be the perfect time to give something back to the community and hopefully re-ignite some of the passion we all have for Star Wars, that Disney and more specifically; EA, have tarnished, over the last few years.

 

As the mod starts to run, you’ll begin to notice some big improvements across the board and we hope you’ll be pleased and appreciate all these new changes that’s been made and gone in to the mod’s development, to bring it up to standard of some of the more modern Jedi Academy mod’s out there, such as “Movie Battles II”.

As this is our first iteration of the mod, it is only a Beta, so you may no doubt run in to some minor bugs and glitches, along the way. Some, the team are aware of, but feel free to post and leave any feedback about any bugs you find, so we can get them addressed and fixed, for when the final version of the mod is released.

But enjoy the updated version and rest assured, that the team are still constantly working hard to deliver a fun and immersive Star Wars experience.

 

Happy Star Wars Day! And May the Force be with you, always.

STAR WARS: Movie Duels Team.

 

Download Link:

http://www.moddb.com/mods/movie-duels/downloads/movie-duels-beta-version-manual-installation

 

 

What´s new?

========================================

 

List of some KEY improvements, over the original mod:

 

- Mod is using OpenJK as its primary game engine.

- New & accurate lightsaber blades (the "movie-like" SFX Sabers have been added).

- New & more accurate lightsaber sounds.

- Faster lightsaber ignition speed.

- New animations and duel stances for most of main SW characters.

- New camera angles.

- New & improved player models.

- New & more movie "accurate" skyboxes and map textures.

- HD audio dialogues, music and option for subtitles.

- Expanded character menu and basic menus with more options.

 

Installation

========================================

 

Note - Before you start the installation you must remove any other Modifications in your "LucasArts\Star Wars Jedi Knight Jedi Academy\Game data\base" folder. Critical bugs can occur if Movie Duels is combined with other mods.

 

1. Extract MD_Beta.zip to your Gamedata folder. For example: "LucasArts\Star Wars Jedi Knight Jedi Academy\Gamedata" folder.

 

2. To Play you have to double-click on STAR_WARS_-_Movie_Duels.bat in Gamedata folder

 

3. To uninstall just delete files that were extracted.

 

Thank you for downloading the Star Wars: Movie Duels Modification!

 

[darthpepo1]

i've been playing a bit, and man it feels awesome, i really liked how you made vader, he really feels like him, could you guys release a separate version to use him in a normal jedi academy?