My latest obsession: ROTJ Throne Room Duel SP

[therfiles]

Hey friends. So I've recently been on a huge modding kick, and I've really always wanted to accomplish some OT single player missions. They are so tricky because finding good source maps for the mission is difficult - as many mappers who've created great OT maps have gone inactive over the years. The Throne Room duel was a no brainer for me because (1) the duel is simply amazing and deeply cinematic, and (2) JKO has a pretty nifty Deathstar map (you may remember ffa_deathstar from JKO). So I decompiled Raven's map, retextured it, gave it a facelift, and added some details. Now, it still needs a bunch of work, but I'm not a mapper at heart, so I'm satisfied for the moment. Anyway, here is my progress:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vktCsZ1oeak
 
As you can tell there are a few...janky moments: the Emperor rotating with his chair (such a headache), the Emperor's spaghetti hands (yeah...I'll need to reanimate that), and the simply bizzare saber hand off between Vader and Emperor (you have no idea how hard it is to convincingly fake this. Sorry for the terrible camera angle). My goal here is to be as 1:1 with the film as possible, but the scene is simply too long. I'm going to have to cut a LOT of filler lines, and distill it to the important part. The cutscene is already 2 minutes long, and I wouldn't want to go super long!
 
Anyway, the gist of the gameplay will obviously be the duel between Luke and Vader, but I have some ideas how to make it a bit more special than that. I'll be manipulating the player's force powers, to reflect their current skill set (over the duel, you'll get new abilities, saber and powers, as you get into the force). I'm trying to make dueling A LOT harder than base JA makes it. I'm not a huge fan of how JA dueling in SP descends into just hack, slash, repeat. My goal is to give the player as many choices in the duel as possible. As Luke, you'll constantly be battling against the dark side, and will be able to turn at any point. There will be a bunch of neat "alternate endings" because of this.
 
Hope you guys dig this! No idea when this will be anywhere near finished...but I hope to have more updates soon. Let me know your thoughts and how I can make this better!

 

Credits:

 

 

• Map brush work: Raven Software
• Luke Skywalker: skin by Circa, model by DT85, Toshi
• Darth Vader: model by Toshi
• Emperor: skin by JV Order
• Royal Guard: Dog95
• Force Pike: Laisum
• Throne Model: Eniac

 

 

[Lancelot]

The cutscene was well done. Not bad for a first build. It's a concept for something that could be interesting.

 

Your project reminds me of a mission from the original Knights of the Force, which recreated this duel, but it was in an early alpha stage. It also gave you the option to choose whether to kill or spare Darth Vader. But I think your project will become the KotF mission on steroids. There is so much potential. I believe there will be members here to help you out.

 

If you need more inspiration to make this mission "bigger", take a look at Star Wars Infinities: Return of the Jedi: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars_Infinities:_Return_of_the_Jedi

[Alvar007]

I know how hard this can be. A fully scripted 50 seconds machinima took me months. Good luck with this project!

[Noodle]

Have you thought about making the camera different in some parts of the duel? I remember someone made a 2D like arcade test that was pretty interesting, I'm sure something similar could be achieved for the duel, so that it would look similar to the part when Luke goes batshit crazy on Vader.

[GPChannel]

Amazing job!

[Jeff]

Wow this looks really good. Excellent start. 

[therfiles]

@@Lancelot: Totally dug Star Wars Infinities line! Love the imagination and alternate story threads it set up. Great stuff, and I'll have to mine that for inspiration. And yeah, my thought is to take this one mission/level at a time, but really infuse as much gameplay and features as I can.

 

@@Alvar007: I know! You should totally send me your work in a PM or something! I just love what people can do with this game! But you are right on the money - placing cameras and waypoints can be the most tedious process EVER.

 

@@Noodle: oooh! I didn't think of that. I'm totally gonna have to try that! Good call. I wonder if that would work. Definitely worth a try. I'll have to get back to you.

 

Thank you all for your continued support!

[DT.]

Nice job!

 

Just an FYI - give credits to Toshi as well for Luke, as I just did a tweak.

[Noodle]

I can't remember who did a small test in which he made Jedi Academy some sort of side scrolling game. It was quite an interesting concept, but I can't find the video.

[therfiles]

@@DT85 - Will do! Thanks for bringing that to my attention.

 

@@Noodle - I remember that...was it this one on Moddb called "Jedi Fighter"?

[Noodle]

@@DT85 - Will do! Thanks for bringing that to my attention.

 

@@Noodle - I remember that...was it this one on Moddb called "Jedi Fighter"?

 

No, but the idea was similar! The modder didn't change any of the code, but instead just changed the controls and the position of the camera.

[Kualan]

Looking good! Nice to a recent boost in activity with people's modding activities.

[Langerd]

Hey friends. So I've recently been on a huge modding kick, and I've really always wanted to accomplish some OT single player missions. They are so tricky because finding good source maps for the mission is difficult - as many mappers who've created great OT maps have gone inactive over the years. The Throne Room duel was a no brainer for me because (1) the duel is simply amazing and deeply cinematic, and (2) JKO has a pretty nifty Deathstar map (you may remember ffa_deathstar from JKO). So I decompiled Raven's map, retextured it, gave it a facelift, and added some details. Now, it still needs a bunch of work, but I'm not a mapper at heart, so I'm satisfied for the moment. Anyway, here is my progress:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vktCsZ1oeak

 

As you can tell there are a few...janky moments: the Emperor rotating with his chair (such a headache), the Emperor's spaghetti hands (yeah...I'll need to reanimate that), and the simply bizzare saber hand off between Vader and Emperor (you have no idea how hard it is to convincingly fake this. Sorry for the terrible camera angle). My goal here is to be as 1:1 with the film as possible, but the scene is simply too long. I'm going to have to cut a LOT of filler lines, and distill it to the important part. The cutscene is already 2 minutes long, and I wouldn't want to go super long!

 

Anyway, the gist of the gameplay will obviously be the duel between Luke and Vader, but I have some ideas how to make it a bit more special than that. I'll be manipulating the player's force powers, to reflect their current skill set (over the duel, you'll get new abilities, saber and powers, as you get into the force). I'm trying to make dueling A LOT harder than base JA makes it. I'm not a huge fan of how JA dueling in SP descends into just hack, slash, repeat. My goal is to give the player as many choices in the duel as possible. As Luke, you'll constantly be battling against the dark side, and will be able to turn at any point. There will be a bunch of neat "alternate endings" because of this.

 

Hope you guys dig this! No idea when this will be anywhere near finished...but I hope to have more updates soon. Let me know your thoughts and how I can make this better!

 

Credits:

 

 

• Map brush work: Raven Software
• Luke Skywalker: skin by Circa, model by DT85, Toshi
• Darth Vader: model by Toshi
• Emperor: skin by JV Order
• Royal Guard: Dog95
• Force Pike: Laisum
• Throne Model: Eniac

 

 

I recommend using blender for creating animations. 

[Lancelot]

@@Langerd

Most of the animations seen in the video are fine as they are. I really like it that it feels as if you watch the movie. The animations are not too flashy like you see in many games (such as KotOR, where everyone moves their arms around while talking). The only animations that are important, so I think, are Palpatine's laugh, Vader handing the lightsaber to him and a better animation for Luke while being handcuffed.

[Langerd]

@@Langerd

Most of the animations seen in the video are fine as they are. I really like it that it feels as if you watch the movie. The animations are not too flashy like you see in many games (such as KotOR, where everyone moves their arms around while talking). The only animations that are important, so I think, are Palpatine's laugh, Vader handing the lightsaber to him and a better animation for Luke while being handcuffed.

I mean to catch the posture of the Palpatine and his hand little movement. I HAAAAAAATE Shaking movement or animations where characters are just talking .... AND YET THE MUST MOVE WHOLE F@@king BODY FOR NO REASON!!! (Sry... my rant .. i rly hate this .. Ekhm.. Rebels)

 

Rly Well made cutscene but if we have oppurtinity to make it more detail - I say lets try

[therfiles]

Yeah I'm using Dragon right now...which is not my favorite program to say the least. All the animations could use some refining, that's for sure!

[Ramikad]

Yeah I'm using Dragon right now...which is not my favorite program to say the least. All the animations could use some refining, that's for sure!

 

Give yourself to the Blender side! It is the only way you can save your animations!

[minilogoguy18]

OMG, you're using Dragon?! That's like rubbing sticks and stones together to make fire when someone is handing you a zippo lighter and a can of gas. There is no reason to use Dragon, it's a total waste of time, delete it and use a real animation software.

 

If you're using a actual animation software with more tools though you're not doing much better if you're still doing FK animation.

 

I don't know if anyone has a good Blender solution but for 3DS Max and Softimage you can attach pre made bipeds to make animating much faster or build something custom like I did which will give you way more control and be "JK specific".

[therfiles]

Alright! So here’s the full first cutscene (build 2): (also, sorry about the weird aspect ratio. Had some trouble getting this to run on my Mac for whatever reason)
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QebOk2n8v2U&feature=youtu.be

 

Fixed up a few of those janky animations (though the Emperor rotating with his chair and Luke’s handcuffs still need work). Some look a bit stiff, but I’m satisfied, especially with Dragon (a program from the dark ages apparently). I added a few more animated moments (@@Langerd, that little hand motion you love so much is in there!). Also, let me know if you guys dig the way I cut down the already super long scene!

You’ll see in this version that I’ve started to depart from the 1:1 approach. Some moments look really good recreated exactly (camera position, etc) like the film, but others required a bit of tweaking. I took a few artistic liberties to add a bit more cinematic flare to the scene. Hope it’s not too annoying!

[AngelModder]

I gotto say using what you have, dude this kicks ass! Really cool! I hope you finish this some day so we can all try it. 

[Lancelot]

@@therfiles

One more thing I have to praise is the camera work in the second build. Instead of trying to recreate the original angle, you gave it your own style.

Especially the camera rotation is a clever way to mask certain things, like Vader handing the lightsaber to Palpatine.

 

This is the opportunity to give this scene, regarding camera work, your own take. If you think you can't recreate it to match the movie, try to work around that and try something different. When you use the camera wisely, you can give some scenes a more cinematic feel. Also, I suggest a rotating/moving camera when Luke walks towards the window. The camera should be focused on him and rotate at a 45-90 degree angle.

[therfiles]

@@Lancelot: Thanks! It's funny, I work with video for a living (I hesitate to call it "film" at the moment) so these new angles and moments are really the things that keep me going and excite me! And excellent suggestion! That moment did feel a bit strange to me, but I didn't try and fix it for some reason. I'll see if I can get a more suitable angle that maybe shows more of his face haha.

 

The angle is so severe at the moment because it's hiding the cluster-f rotation of the Emperor happening in the background ...but I'm sure there are more artsy ways to fix that! Thanks again for all the support, y'all!

[Noodle]

The only thing that bothers me at the moment is how fast Vader and Luke walk at the beginning.

[therfiles]

The only thing that bothers me at the moment is how fast Vader and Luke walk at the beginning.

 

Haha...Yeah, you caught me! The timing of nav_goals can be super tricky, so instead of messing with those, I've been changing the walkspeed parameter instead. And yeah, I think I may have pushed it a bit too far. I'll keep messing with that.

[minilogoguy18]

Not really the dark ages, just made with the assumption that there wasn't free software that could do a better job. Softimage EXP (later named Mod Tool) was around at the time that Dragon was made and largely used. So many people used Max that they didn't realize that the free version of Softimage|XSI could do a far better job in a fraction of the time.

 

You could also get way better movements out of the face, since it's a cut scene you aren't limited to "player" models, you could take the existing models, subdivide the meshes and add more facial bones to get much better movements. There is a separate skeleton they used for this reason that had a lot more facial bones for JK2.