Joe Adkins Mods and Machinema

1. Upload your video to the class area on YouTube and include a link on your blog.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntWv9GvNVRE

2. Blog at least three (3) screenshots of your project. The screenshots should be posted as popups with a resolution of at least 800 x 600 pixels. Also include one image in the body of the blog (max width 480 pixels).

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3. Blog descriptions of: a) How and why your project differed (if at all) from your original proposal, and b) Any lessons learnt from your project that you can share with the class and the wider mod community.

.......I saw a commercial for GTA 4, and wondered why GTA Vice City and GTA San Andreas didn't get numbered titles. It also gave me an idea for the final project--to create a playable demo level in hammer. Some of the hammer tutorials that I have read will definitely help in making the demo level, and have helped shape my idea of what I can do with the level, such as playing custom music, func breakables, and triggering effects...especially the "filter_activator_name" which when tied to a trigger, will allow the trigger to only fire if the trigger is breached by a phyics object with a defined name. I drew up some blueprints (see previous blog).....

....Started making the level in my time after work. It takes a lot of time, but is interesting, so it is pretty fun. I designed the architecture and geography first, then textured everything, added lights, props etc, and finally charachters. I downloaded a variety of different character models from the interent. Most of them have been created as replacement models for Alyx, but I decompiled and recompiled some of them with different names, so that they would replace other characters, such as gman, kliener, monk, etc.....

...Created all of the IF-THEN functionality with triggers and filter_activator_name entities. At this point it is beginning to become hard to test the level as compiling is taking a extremely long time....eventually the level does not complie at all and hangs up on the vvis.exe. I read more about it and find out that vvis decides what can be visible from any point in the level and decides whether or not to render when a character is at a certain point. This can become complicated and take a long time compiling, but there are ways to optimize the level to reduce this compile time and also reduce the render load of the level. I do not have the time to worry about this stuff right now as I have to finish by friday the 16th, so I decide to set vvis on fast on compile and see if it will work...it does.

....I create some face poser scenes to put into the game. The face poser phenome editor has a hard time detecting the audio for some of the audio clips, so I just add them in myself, somewhat randomly just to save time.....

....The level is almost complete, but I cannot get the npc enemies to spawn with the point_template method that I had read about (which is useful for spawning squads of npcs)...maybe i will show in class without NPCs as time has run out.

This project has taken me a whole lot of time to complete, but I feel it is worth it as I have made something that I can be excited about.

Since I am retroactively writing these blogs, I will try to write my thoughts for these time periods the best that I can remember.

.....Still don't know what I would like to make for a final project. There are a lot of things that I could do, but they would just be exercises, and not something that I feel strongly about. Maybe I will need to do more research into what is possible with hammer level editor and then something may come to me. I think i will see what else there are tutorials on and see if any of the topics pique my interests.....

....I read more tutorials and am in the process of watching some more videos from those guys at Noesis. I fooled around with reskinning models, and surveilance cameras/monitors. Pretty interesting stuff.....

1. Concept

- What element is the main focus of this mod or machinima?
The main focus of this mod is to make a demo level for an idea I have for a full length game
that takes the player on a detailed adventure into the world of recreational drugs(including
use, manufacture, sale, etc) and follows the characters arc from being a low level drug dealer
to becoming a drug kingpin. For the demo level I will create a few tasks that the character
has to complete in order to push the story forward.

- What interests you about the element you have chosen?
I am interested in leaning and implementing "if--then" style functionality in Hammer, so that
the story telling and adventure elements of the demo level will be interactive.

- How will you abstract this main element?
Don't plan on much abstraction. The hope is that it is pretty straight foreward--a small, but
fully working demo for a game idea.

- What simplifications will you make?
The "if-then" functionality will be simple, such a brining an physics object to a trigger near a
character, or pressing a button, etc. that will cause something to happen, such us unlocking
a door, etc. so that the character can move forward in the level

- What will be your final "product" (note: everyone must produce video documentation of the project whether or not the project is a game or a machinima)
The final product, as previously stated will be a fully functioning playable hl2 mod that is a
demo for a drugged out recreational drug dealing game.

2. Technical
- On what game will this mod or machinima be be based?
The mod will be based on Half Life 2, but I will make some custom physics models of my
own, and also download character models and other decorative models from the internet, so
that I can make the level resemble the HL2 universe as little as possible and more like
something set in a contemporary place and time.

- Which techniques will you use from those learnt in class?
Custom model creation, hammer level creation, faceposer scene creation....all of them
hopefully and a whole lot more!

- Which new techniques will you need to research and implement?
"If-then" style functionality in hammer, more advanced triggering of multiple events, other
general intermediate to advanced hammer techniques to make the demo more functional
and more narrative than what we have learned in class.

- What technical problems do you foresee?
None. I plan to conquer all technical problem, or at least find creative solution to ones that
do arise.

3. Schedule
Because of a change in my employment status, I will be required to work on Fridays and will
miss the last few weeks of class. I will do all of the project at home in my spare time. I plan
to read tutorials, watch tutorial videos, pretty much anything that I can come across to find
out as much info that I can about hammer level creation and functionality.

Here are the blueprints of the demo level that I have drawn up--a dance club, laying out some of the "if-thens" that I would like to impliment.

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It seems that there is a problem with getting the zipped model files to work in model viewer and the game, so I am going to put up a zipped file including the SMD and QC, the VMT and VTF files are available in the original archive, and they should still work.

zipped model files(model files don't work, but get the VMT and VTF files here)
.mdl vmt,vtfs etc.

QC and SMD files
(put into folder: sourcesdk_content\hl2mp\modelsrc\humans_sdk\Male\Group03m and compile and it should go to the right place, if not, you probably know where to put the resultant files.)
QC and SMD

please try this out and let me know if it works for anyone at home.

Happy Modding.

Download file

Katherine Anna Kang is a fairly big name in the wold of machinima. In 2000 Kang left a position as director of business development at id Software to found Fountainhead Entertainment. Kang and her new company kept a close relationship with id Software (she is married to John Carmack) and developed the first fully functional machinima creation program called Machinimation, which uses the engine from id Software's Quake III: Arena. Machinimation allows the creator to set up scenes and control all of the elements by him or herself, which eliminates the need for the characters to be simultaneously independently controlled. The process involves compositing and recamming techniques to create a scene. For example, to create an interaction between two characters, the first character would be animated, the scene saved and played back with a second character added and animated, while the first character plays back as initially animated. Next recamming techniques are used to change the camera angles, lighting, etc. to make a completed sequence. As one of the creators of the technology, Kang uses Machinimation to the utmost proficiency in the creation of "Anna" which won the "Best Technical Achievement" award at the 2003 Machinima Film Festival.

"Anna" is a 7 min 48 sec visual narrative piece that depicts the life cycle of a flower. The choice of subject matter points out both the amazing possibilities and some of the limitations of Machinimation and machinima at the time. By not focusing on human subjects, the limitations on lip syncing and lifelike character expressions and movements were avoided, allowing Kang to focus on the stunning visual capabilities of the medium. The dialogless narrative is coherent and captivating, showing the flower grow from a seed, battle natures elements,finally to be picked and put in a vase. One of the reasons "Anna" is so interesting is that it is hardly discernible from a traditional 3-d animation. As Henry Lowood points out in High Performance Play: The Making of Machinima, "contemporary machinima projects such as Kang's own Anna have made such tremendous strides in graphics and narrative expression that traces of game performance and practice have been difficult to discern." Familiarity with Quake III is not important for the reception of the piece because it is not readily apparent that "Anna" has any connection with the game whatsoever. It simply uses the game engine to create something completely new and unrelated.

Machinima Online score: two crowbars way up!

Here are some screen shots of the custom character that I created.

Here are a few things that I learned during this exercise that might be helpful for other students:

1. A model can reference more than one texture. For my model it was important because after adding the hair and merging the models, when I exported the rendermap, then reimported it as the single texture, it superimposed the hair texture over the body texture, so the entire model was covered with hair--not cool!

2. The way that I achieved using two textures for the model was as follows:
a. downloaded and installed this plugin for photoshop which allows saving as .vtf.
Download photoshop vtf plugin
b. saved the two textures (body and hair) that i created in photoshop as .tga
c. in xsi mod tool, selected the body polymesh and textured it with the body .tga
d. in xsi mod tool, selected the hair polymesh and textured it with the hair .tga
e. merged meshes, etc. as we learned in the noesis timebomb tutorial.
f. connected the single polymesh to the valve biped rig
g. exported the smd as is (i did not create a rendermap or reapply it)
h. in photoshop, changed the size of each of the textures i made to 512x512
i. saved the two textures as .vtf

The rest is pretty much the same as the tutorial explained, except now there is no need to use vtex.exe. Just put your .vtfs that you made in photoshop in the right place and make some .vmts for them. Compile your model, and check it with mdltextureinfo.exe. You will see that the model will be looking for two textures, and it will provide the name and location of the .vmts that it is looking for.

3. If you use the xsi mod tool basic charachters as a starting point, without making a seperate head, the model will NOT have eyeballs.

4. Getting the fingers of the rig and the fingers of the mesh matched up is a hard task, and even if it looks alright in xsi, when it is imported and animated in HL2, it can result in strangely mangled hands.

If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask. Happy modding!

My idea for an art mod would be part of an installation art piece. The installation would be a real life replica of my bedroom (probably not a replica, I would use all of the objects from my room in the installation piece). In the bedroom is a computer, and on the computer is the mod. The mod is a 3D replica of my room, complete with computer, which in the mod could be used to play minigames, and listen to mp3s, etc. The idea is that it would be like a playable snapshot of my life. People who came to the exhibit would get the full effect of the art piece because they are able to see all of the real stuff, just as the see it in the playable version. For those who miss the exhibit, they would be able to download the mod and play it anyways, but they wont be able to experience the real and the virtual side by side.

The room that I created is called Pizza Parlor Panic.

You are on a hot date at your favorite pizza parlor. Right as you are ready to seal the deal, three zombies infested with headcrabs bust in and start raising hell. You think to yourself "I'm sure to get laid if I can be a hero!"

With this new found confidence, you rush all of the customers and your date out of the pizza parlor. You tell everyone "Don't worry. I'll take care of those creeps. I deal with shit like this all the time. I'll have us all back inside finishing our pizzas in no time." Your date rushes up to you and plants a huge wet one right on your lips. As you reenter the pizza parlor, you think to yourself "I'm for sure going to have sex tonight...if I can make it out of this mess alive."

Once inside the pizza parlor, your confidence is drained when you realize that you don't have any weapons. But then you remember that tonight's pizza special is pepperoni and explosive hot jalapeños, and that gives you an idea.

Your goal: Kill all of the zombies and headcrabs so that you can finish your date and hurry on home for the good stuff!

Here is my face texture put onto the model of Vance. It is not a perfect fit and could use some tweaking to make it look even better, but here is my first attempt at face texturing.

When I have tweaked a little and improved the texture/model match, I will upload the username\half life 2 deathmatch\hl2mp\materials folder so stay tuned!!!!!

Here are two screenshots of my face texture on the Ted model. I also added a T-Rex tattoo on the neck for a little flair. It seems that the model that is used has a large effect on what the texture will look like. Finding a model (or making one) that more closely resembles my facial features would probably make the character look much authentic.

--Establish a goal and topic that you believe in and that expresses your thoughts and views.

--Research your topic and let the goal, topic, and research naturally come together into a whole.

--Design the I/O structure, game structure, and program structure so that they are streamlined to most forcefully represent the goal. Key elements must be central to the topic and goal.

--Evaluate and look for common design flaws, and possible player shortcuts. If the game isn't working well at this point abort before programming.

--Put all ideas to paper in prepartion for programming. Focus on player experience instead of technical aspects of the game.

--Program the game. Should be easy if all previous planning was done with care.

--Test the game to see if there are any problems. If so, take time to think of many possible solutions to fix the true nature of the problem.

--Polish, polish, polish, polish.

Other interesting ideas from the article:

The tool shapes the mind of its user; the saw suggests that we cut wood, and the freeway suggests that we drive wherever it takes us, not where we choose to go.

If deep down inside you know that you met your goals, then ignore the critics and the public.

If you can't get your texture on your model in the model viewer, it could be because the model is looking for the .vmt in a different location or as a different name. Download this utility, place it in the bin folder where your vtex.exe, studiomdl.exe, etc are located. After that, drag and drop your .mdl file on it and it will tell you where the model is looking for the texture. If it is a different name, rename the .vmt to what this tells you. If it is a different location, put your .vmt and .vtf into the location that it tells you. Make sure your .vmt tells the correct location of the .vtf and everything should be good.

Download file

Happy Modding!!!!

Flipside

A mod made by 12 students in Denmark in one month as part of some sort of educational challange set up by Denmark's National Academy of Digital, Interactive Entertainment. I decided to try out this mod without knowing anything about the game other than it's description:

You have just escaped from a mental institution. You’re on the run. The sun is shining, the birds are singing. You are jumping happily from cloud to cloud. You know that the only way to freedom is by reaching the ship at the end of the level. A cute bunny is jumping towards you, blocking your path. By pushing a button the whole world flips around and shows its dark side. The bunny is now an evil nurse who is trying to stop you from getting away. You headbutt her, clearing your path. With a push of the button the world flips back and shows its light side again.

The game is a two dimensional side scrolling game, which was a surprise for me since most of the mods i have seen are different variations on elements from Half Life 2 and its 3d world. Flipside is nothing like Half Life 2 in any way. Even though the gameplay is pretty simple (you have to progress through the board and press enter to switch from happy side to evil side as various obstacles can only be cleared by one of two sides), and the controls awkward (resulting in an overly difficult game) this mod was very inspiring for me because it shows the wide range of results possible with the source engine.

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"McLuhan writes that games are "social reactions to the main drive or action of any culture". Describe at least one "social reaction" that might be activated by video games. Include at least one game as an example."

The way I understood McLuhan's article was that games were the social reaction to experience of living life in a certain culture. In this way, video games in general were activated or created in response to the situations of our consumer culture. As people became accustomed to hyper consumption--always needing more or something new--video games were a response to satisfy this drive. Old style games like jacks, yo-yos, hula hoops, etc. became boring as they couldn't really be consumed. Even though every game's course of action would be different, people found a way to become bored with the physical material used to enact the game. Even though that old hula hoop still twirled, it just wasn't new anymore and, as good consumers, we wanted something that was new. New, not in the sense of a new experience, but new as in something that wasn't what we already materially possessed and used. And that is where video games came in. It was like finding ways to dress the hula hoop up so that it was new, thus sparking peoples desire to consume it again. The basic experience of the early video games were to move controls and/or press buttons in a series until you have reached some invented goal. But the graphics could be changed, different stories could be told, different buttons combinations could need pressing--creating an infininte number of possibilities in terms of individual game play experiences, as well as marketable consumer products. For example: Pac-Man and Mrs. Pac-Man; Space Invaders and Doom.

Lamp Animation

Cat Face

A screen shot from Tomb Raider Legend. Tomb Raider, or more specifically Lara Croft, has become one of the most recognizable video game icons in recent memory. A successful game franchise (Tomb Raider Legend being Tomb Raider 7), successful movie spin-offs, even game hacks so that fans can see Ms. Croft in the nude, have all been created based on the appeal of the video game charachter art of Lara Croft.

Is Tomb Raider art? I have never played any of the games, so I don't know if I would consider the the game as a whole as art, but I do think the character design of Lara Croft could be considered as art. Even though the article we read made distinctions between commercial video games and video game art, one being the intention of the artist to have the work considered as a piece of art, and the fact that commercial video games are team created, I think that these distinctions, while insightful, seem to define what art as something that someONE (even though some of the artworks cited as video game art are from teams also) makes and claims is art. I don't know whether Toby Gard, the creator and designer of Lara Croft, considers himself an artist or intended Lara Croft to be considered art, but unlike the authors of the article, I don't think that it really matters. Lara Croft has been bestowed the honor of being an icon, and there must be something about the character design that speaks to people and resonates within them. If someone is creating art by putting a mustache and beard on Lara Croft, emulating Duchamp's Mona Lisa modification, does that not create an association between Mona Lisa and Lara Croft, more than just indicating that they are both icons, but as both being famous works of artistic representation?

I have never played Half Life 2 before this class, but from my short experience the narrative seems very linear, with only one major course of action available to the user. This is not much different than the linear narrative structure of most films and books; however, one major narrative difference is the user is able to navigate the narrative and the narrative space at his or her own leisure. This gives the user more control over the pace of the narrative, as he or she can control when the task required to progress the narrative is completed. It would be nice if Half Life 2 was less linear, with many different paths or choices for the user that would effect where the narrative will go. Non-linear narratives or choose your own adventure type narratives are some of the really interesting things that could be possible with video games.