NumberWan

It's far better than I expected! Can't believe I've seen it. And there is Mon Mothma! Now that starts to look like Dark Forces.

@@ensiform I see, that's what I suspected. However then this method isn't exactly, what would be best to use. The catch was to make the terrain in the map (for GtkRadiant), and then place other objects, like md3, buildings, NPCs, waypoints into it. And then compile to be played.

So the new trailer for Rogue One is coming in almost one day if not hours. Let's see what they've got for us. Source

Well, Maz kanata didn't work for me as a little master. She is no way Yoda... So I hope the mysterium, established by Grand Master in previous episodes, will return together with his appearance at least as a Force Ghost. Which isn't impossible, given the fact, that we her his voice in TFA. Not sure how Force Ghosts work, but if we stick to the films only, I presume, that they can be seen only by those, who are most connected to them. Thus Luke can see Yoda and Obi Wan, but not Qui Gon (but Vader could). Rey didn't see any of them, so the rule remains true. We haven't seen a moment yet, when for instance a Force User would be able to see a Force Ghost, while being with others nearby at the same time (e.g. can Luke see Yoda, when Han is nearby? And can Han see Yoda in this instance? What about Leia instead of Han, would she be able to see Yoda's Ghost?).

@@ensiform Not sure, which one do you mean? Sounds like it would change the scale via the compilation process. Or do you mean something else?

I don't think it exists for 1.5. I use several Radiants depending on my tasks. The smoother the terrain is, the more brushes you have - that's true. However in smaller maps you'll get the better results with smooth terrain and a larger amount of brushes. In large maps it can be hidden via fogs, some props, etc. A big maps are suaully made for vehicles or space. Scale works okey in Radiant if it's offered to Scale option from the menu. If you try to rescale the objects manually, it will result in errors and devastate your map.

@Acrobat Of all the strange ideas this one with palpatine is better than most. I actually even like it. Old EU developed the idea, that Palpatine might have had a child, though I never got the real idea, so was there one or not. Meanwhile they say, that actor and comedian Ade Edmondson has secured a role in Star Wars Episode VIII. I am not familiar with him, but MSW mentions it as a rumour, and that the role is top secret for now (no doubt). I find it more interesting, that Frank Oz is to be present on the set of Episode VIII as well. Most people discuss, whether we will see Yoda in the next chapter. Which is not impossible, given, that the old Jedi master learnt of a Force Ghost form after death. There is even more reasons to believe that, as the set for Ahch-To (Jedi Planet in the end of TFA) was made in such a way so that a puppet could also move along with the actors. sounds too familiar.

Yesterday I tried a slightly different and much easier way. It doesn't involve the smooth change in the textures, though with some effort you can apply it on theis terrain as well. You don't need Easegen for this, though some of the options exist there too. I tried to use gensurf In Radiant. Basically it's what the Gensurf says, that you can create walls, floow and ceiling in Radiant. You can choose type of the terrain (valley, hills, waves, etc). But there is also a bitmap terrain. This one is the candy, but a bit tricky. I made 1024x1024 picture in Black and white of the location I want to make, making lighter places the mountains (white = top), and darker places the place, where the Player can walk (black = lowest canyon). Then I saved them as different formats to try (BMP, but either greyscale, monochrome or 8 bit something like that). You can make these in Paint or Photoshop, in latter case it might be smoother. I wanted to make a really big map and the problem was always, that despite the heights map (BMP) the location was pretty square, no hills. The problem seems to be with the huge brush I use to create. Thus I made a much smaller (2-5 times smaller) brush and made it with BMP. It works perfectly. After that you can you use the Scale option (Selection > Scale...) and make it the size you want. Just be careful with the number of brushes (Divisions 60x60 worked just fine (8x8 by default), and I used decimate). This allowed to create a map of a size of t2_trip. In total about 1700 brushes (problems start usually after 4000, though it's not the possible maximum).

A bit out of turn, but looked through my saved links on the matter (I had a lot of issues with terrain creation in JA, and actually still overcoming them), and just remembered, that gensuf is considered to be outdated. It was originally made for a different kind of aditor, thus the newer versions of Radiant don't have this plugin at all. One site actually suggests a different way for making a rock or mountain and you can see some tutorials on this website. I also remember, that one of the early mods for JO wasn't made in Radiant, but it was Quark! I don't think it differs much, but what if that editor has other options for making terrain. There is also a different way, which I tried only once and not for making natural environment: it's to create a map outside Radiant in some sort of other editors (e.g. Worldcraft for Half-Life 1 also makes *.map format and it can be opened in GtkRadiant). The issue is perhaps that if you create something too great (too cool) in a newer program, it might cause trouble in Radiant and Jedi Academy. Also this tutorial https://youtu.be/62zJ5Fr-qcs

The very names of the Inquisitors suggest, that the organization isn't small and is far numerous than the Sith Order. Personally I feel that the two Inquisitors didn't manage to supply their roles to the maximum. Nothing really intersting has been revealed about them except for a few abilities and their status towards Grand Inquisitor. It was previously stated, that Rebels who have ties with TFA. Personally I can't believe that the two stories exist in one Galaxy, but I can't imagine the situation from Rebels and Ahsoka together with First Order and Rey. Just trying to imagine the two in one franchise is a bit difficult for me. Curiously it isn't a problem to think of Ahsoka-Kreia line, or Rey-QuiGonJinn, or Ahsoka-Bastila. In this regard they fall into one structure quite good for me.

@Cerez If you are leaving JKHUB, maybe there are other ways of keeping in touch with you? Surely, Star Wars isn't the only field of interest both for you and people you talk to here on the forum.

@Cerez I am surprised this topic appeared only now. The cancellation of KOTOR, Dark Forces, Shadows of the Empire and many other things has been a major issue among fans since the cancellation of everything. While I couldn't see you here, I actually thought, that you left the forum because of this very reason (partly joking). It was an almost mortal blow to me too, though I rework the information, given to me by the new canon to fit into the general storyline. For instance I ignore for the most part the comics about Kanan (if look closely, it's a repetition of Kyle Katarn story, he even uses the Moldy Crow ship in one of the stories), and others (like about some Imperials, new adventures of Luke, Leia, Han, etc). What I know about some of these - they are quite dull. The same unfortunately applies to most games of late. As contraversial TFA can be, I always dig into the new stories (and most of people might have known that already), so the new quote by Ahsoka Tano, which is seen in my signature here in the forums works perfectly: while not seen directly, there is a senator from Taris on the Republic world of Hosnian Prime. Taris itself can look differently though. What I see now with the new canon is that there is no point for them to develop something new, so they grab ideas from the old canon. Personally I would have used it as a basis, but kept most of the original stories as canon. I can still see a hige amount of possibilities for good old RETCON, which can work even now with TFA. Even Jedi Academy can be uncontradicting with the new canon with proper explanation.

In an interview about the Rebels, dave Filoni said, that the new Inquisitor was of the same species, as the Cassie Cryar - Terellian Jango Jumper. The name is not known however, but we will see more of him in Season 3. And yes, more Inquisitors are coming. Maul will also have more scenes in the next season. As for Vader, I am glad they say, that Ahsoka's appearance in Vader's life is NOT the same as Luke's. There is no way she can turn Vader or change his views, and it's important, that Ahsoka reminds him of hi past only, while Luke is his son and represents both his past and his future, so that is why the two encounters are different and work in different way. While Ezra's lightsaber was destroyed, he won't be using a crossguard lightsaber, which was found on Malachor. Filoni said, it was indeed a nod towards TFA, however this was a weapon of an ancient Jedi.

@Asgarath83 You might find it interesting, that even the developers of JA didn't like the terrain technology in this game, and used various things to trick or get an alternative. In Tatooine levels, as well as Vjun and a few more they don't make all the terrain in GtkRadiant or EasyGen. They simply put various kinds of md3 rocks, made in other programs like 3Dsmax. The method is far easier, but has its own traps, unlike classic terrain making. I was puzzled with what they did with t2_trip.bsp. It uses what seems to be an EasyGen terrain, made fully out of brushes. However the structure of the triangles there is different. Have a look on these two pictures. The first one is the terrain of different heights, which I generated in GtkRadiant. The second one is what can be seen in the swoop bike chase map, which includes canyons and mountains. I tried to understand that until I tried the "decimate" option in gtkgensurf in Radiant. It allows to produce a terrain, which consists of triangles of different sizes. I guess, it can help reduce the number of brushes per map, thus this makes it a bit better than Easygen (I can't recall this option there). Years ago one mapper advised me to use an alternative to vertex, if changing the shape of the hill. Can't remember the hotkey in gtkradiant though.

It is impossible to remove the brushes, created in Easygen simply by pressing delete button/backspace. You'll need to "ungroup entity" (select the unimportant brushes only) and delete after that. This whole aspect of Easygen is very interresting. It makes the whole terrain an entity of special kind, I would say, which works in a peculiar way. I wasn't able to figure out, how many files or things are actually inlvoved in it. But I am sure, that Easygen does the blending aspect as the other way: can't remember the names, but you put Opacity brushes on the borders between brushes of different textures (e,g. sand and grass), thus after compilation in Radiant 1.6. for instance you see a smooth change in the terrain while playing. Easygen does the same effect without these brushes on border.

Okey, I see. In any case thanks for the suggestions!

Well, I used Easygen several times and there are many things I don't like about it, though if used properly, I am sure, it can make amazing results. I had problems with it on several ocasions: 1) there were too many brushes generated in easyGen for GtkRadiant and JA specifically. 2) the export of the maps caused using some entities, originally not in JA (something like that) 3) textures were used in the wrong way (different paths for Q3 and JA, easy fix). 4) I tried to blend more than 2 textures at once. E.g. you have sand texture (A), grass texture (B) and stone texture ©, and if all three are near (A+B+C), and a blending mode is used for all of them, the map might not work properly. I think it can be checked if you see a black triangle on the surface in easygen. It should be A+B, A+C afar and B+C farther from other blends. Depending on what you want to achieve, you might want to clean all the map inside the Radiant.

This one is partly related to coding, but for the most it's about things (e.g. entities), that are present in JA, but don't work. Last time I asked about scaling a model in the game via a script, as some of you might remember. But set_scale doesn't work in game, not in any way, even though the docs say otherwise. This time I would like to talk about target_give, which is present in JA. It can serve as an object, which when activated, can give the Player certain items. E.g. the Player uses the button and gets some ammo. Easy as easting a pie. But it won't work for me, though I followed all the instructions. When loading a map and using the trigger, the map would crash back to the Main Menu and show this message: I searched the Internet for possible answers, but most people encountered the very same problem even back in 2008. I wonder why doesn't it work in SP (haven't tried it in MP). I also tried an alternative: made a script, which has a command of set_item. It works a bit different, and crashes sometimes with a different error depending on the item (for instance, it doesn't work at all with Ammo, but it's not the same with medpack). Has anyone looked into this? Is there any alternative to this one? Maybe coders can could look into this too.

So, according to some sources, Season 3 will be the last in the Rebels animated series. Notably, Billy Dee Williams is invited for two episodes in Season 3, and some characters from the Expanded Universe are set to appear as well (many assume Thrawn to be there, but this is just a rumour). It is also believed, that the last season will tie the current Star Wars stories with the new film of Rogue One. In one way or another. Source After Season 3, a new series will be launched, perhaps telling us the stories about the events after Return of the Jedi, but before The Force Awakens. I think that period could give a lot more material to the authors, as a lot has been made already for them: various books, characters and events, which will undoubtfully be used in newer adventures.

Waypoint work very strange sometimes, well, for me it was a problem when I had a location, which can be achieved by wypoints through 2 identical areas. When NPC would pursue a Player, he would use path A or B in order to get the Player in the final point. However strangely, if the Player moved slightly closer to path B, when NPC was n Path A, he would start running back to use path B, while in real life it was more logical and faster to complete Path A and kill the Player like that. The problem with the walkable areas instead of waypoints could also be in cases, if the floors are different in one room. Like in the Bespin level above. It would be logical, if some NPC (which isn't a Force User for isntance) in order to get from upper area, would use stairs first and then get down. In other cases NPCs would ignore some parts and jump, where normally a living person wouldn't do that. In any case waypoints seem to be of better use in a Map, because if it's large, you would have to do a lot of work placing special brushes everywhere. The process should be automatic then, otherwise it's time-consuming.

@@the_raven Ah, yes! It was indeed there in the arena level, as far as I remember. I am still not sure, where did they manage to get some of the skins in that mod. Not that they were really any special, but curious to explore. Btw Padme's model also served as one of the characters in the level of the city of fogs.

Not very new, but there is a picture of filming at a location, where Luke and Rey meet in the end of Episode VII. The hive-like structures are seen on the set. We know, that back in Autumn 2015 filming already took place, but now the story continues on the same planet (the first jedi Temple). But this time its Pinewood Studios. UPDATE Seems this will be the next filming location for Episode VIII. A Market in Ireland. Though filmed in Ireland, this one would be, presumably, be a continuation of the planet, shot in Dubrovnik.

The resemblance of TFA to ANH is okey in some scenes and moments. But when it is present throughout the whole film, it works like a bad joke, which isn't bad per se, but repeated more than twice becomes at least boring. Just I said I would still praise the film and recommend watching it (my personal formula is IV-V-VI-I-II-II-IV-V-VI-VII) for the younger audience of fans (especially the ones I am responsible for in bringing up ) I will still buy a DVD perhaps, and I even have the action figures now. But the weaker side of the movie made me write my own version of The Force Awakens plot. Maybe I will post it somewhere here, when i am satisfied with all the things in it. I would still insert some of the deleted scene back into the film.

I haven't seen any Dark Side Padme (and it's actually difficult to imagine, even though I am not unfamiliar with other N.Portman's works like Black Swan and Closer, etc), there were several reskins of her model to look like someone else. I remember there was a very strange resin of Padme to look like Mara Jade. Very strange.