Bespin Range in beta, tutorial fix

There was a wrong targetname in the Fig 8 of Imperfect Tutorial on NPC Navgoaling It has been fixed now.

The other piece of news concerns Bespin Range, the forever project, which was on hold for a number of years due to the missing roffs. I got those roffs a (long) while ago and has since been developing the level ever so slowly. Other problems have been granting me frequent visits, like the unability to remove weapons from the player (script commands do no good), but after a long and bloody battle I finally found a way around the evil plans and traps of the Raven programmers. There are still a couple of issues left (you can't defeat the wicked Raven guys that easily) but once those are sorted out, a second closed beta will be sent to the unlucky beta testers.

Forced Playermodel tutorial revised

Due to a bug appearing arbitrarily (or so it seems, at least), a revision note and an additional chapter has been added to the Forced Playermodel Tutorial. If you have encountered no problems with the method, it's naturally not necessary to update your project. However, if the skin of your forced model disappears after loading a savegame, you might want to have a look at the end of the tutorial, where the additional chapter resides.

NPC navgoaling tutorial uploaded

I've now officially linked to the NPC navgoaling tutorial I wrote a couple of weeks ago due to a general pressure to have one (in reality a lone mapper was asking about controlled NPC movement but who cares about details). Still, nobody cares about that at all. At least I don't. A bloody boring subject. What comes to Punks, however, I decided, against everything sensible, to add one more room. To be honest there was a reason for this room. Just like the whole level was initiated by my desire not to waste the multifloor elevator, this one room was added only because I wanted to include the iris door in some project before I quit mapping. And since this will be my last project, what better opportunity there would ever be?

Not everything goes as the Punks plan

More precisely, I decided to expand the level just a little. But with such a small level to begin with, even a small addition is a large one relatively speaking. In this case it was just three rooms. They are mostly finished now, and, once again, I can move on - or rather go back - to the animations. I also received a superb skybox from Mercenary. It'll make a huge difference in this level! And I also, quite slowly, started already the initial hunt for a female voice actor. Gotta try to grab a chance if one suddenly is offered.

Animated Animation Anomalies

While the 85% finished of the previous news post might have made it seem like Punks was nearly finished, the reality was something different. I discovered, or really rediscovered, Wudan's Dragon and have been making new animations aplenty for the level, to liven up the cinematics. Quite an amazing tool, really. But of course no magic wand, and requires lots of attention and effort to produce good results. Well, my results aren't that good, but then again I've mostly stared at the short-cut icon rather than used the program, so what can you expect...

But anyway, lately I've been slaving with the program to get the required animations made, and to move on with the project. The architecture needs only very minor tweaks that shouldn't take a day to finish. I've kept postponing acquiring voice actors until I've the animations working and running, but that time will come soon now. Then the notorious hunt for a female voice actor commences... But all in all, things don't look that grim, really.

Now and Then, Here and There

It has certainly been a while. Much of that while has gone to something else than mapping, but not altogether. Memories of Sins has been paused for a moment as I have concentrated on an even smaller project: Punks. It's actually a small salvaged part of LH Pt with many additions to make it a real SP level. In the center of it will be a fully functional four floor elevator.

Other than that Punks will present a deeply moving story of an eternal love and a struggle against the cruel world that would crush that love before it even really had a chance to begin. In short it's a mushy love story; just like you all like it! The good news among all this mumbo jumbo is that this level is already 85% finished.

The New Tiny Project

Project Lighthouse Platinum got removed and the new project, Memories of Sins, placed in the vacant slot left behind. Like I said a couple of months ago, this new project is a small one. Already about half of it is mapped. It will have extensive cinematics, quite heavy indeed considering its size, and that will require also some extra time. But all that will happen in due time. This project is quite reasonable, compared to the scrapped LH Pt, and I'm very hopeful it will be eventually finished.

Hopefully I will also soon have good news about Bespin Range. Although it has been a few months already since the last time I conveyd pretty much the same message, this time I'm even more hopeful.