PC Game: Homeworld

Post by **AndyThomas** » Mon Jan 14, 2002 8:56 pm

Waiting on my new PC to be able to play this, but go and have a look at: http://www.b5mods.com/ to see what people are doing to adapt the in-game ships into ones from other series. Can you guess where I'm going with this?! Nigel, anyone? How difficult would it be? Might be a little pet project as and when...

NC · Post by NC » Mon Jan 14, 2002 9:29 pm

I've never actually tried doing a mod for any game, never really interested me, I had a look at the Unreal editor once and that wasn't very nice...In theory at least it shouldn't be very difficult. You've already got an X Bomber model so you have the hero ship already, my imperial fighter is far to heavy for a real time game but it wouldn't be that hard to create low res models.It looks like all the tools are listed on the site...Andy now you've finished Genesis maybe this should be your new project Nigel

Shane · Post by **Shane** » Mon Jan 14, 2002 9:35 pm

Cripes! I heard about the B5 mods for Homeworld, never knew they were that good though. They seem to have the mod programs for download, although I don't know how easy they would be to use. What is the minimum requirements of a PC to actually run the Homeworld game anyway?Shane.

Post by **AndyThomas** » Mon Jan 14, 2002 11:01 pm

Spec is, um, better than mine although probably not by much - although there is a sequel, Homeworld Cataclysm, and Homeworld 2 is due out this year so I would anticipate something nearer the 500MHZ sort of mark. Although from what I read on their forum, there are varying detail levels - so you could probably scale it down detail wise if you were having problems. There are some incredible screenshots of EA destroyers and such like on that site and its forum. Ever since Sierra cancelled the B5 game these lads seem to have been doing it anyway - Homeworld's a Sierra title after all. I've got one of the nice 3D mouse mats they did for the game as promotional material before it got cancelled. Eat yer hearts out

(My machine's a P166 in case you're wondering. Now you begin to appreciate why I can't do the funky video editing type stuff you lot now do!)

Post by **AndyThomas** » Wed Jan 16, 2002 1:05 pm

Hmm. Sounds like quite a complex project then. I suppose the main things you'd want are Makara's ship, X Bomber, and EDF and Imperial Fighters. You'd have to have some equivalent to an Imperial carrier as well. Not easy if there's sounds to think about as well as graphics. I can see why it'd have to be a group effort, and I'd noticed that these things tend to go that way. Little easier when you already do it for a living or have student amounts of free time on your hands of course! BTW Mike, how coding proficient are you? You're legally trained, aren't you?Oh, and while we're on the subject of games - I take no responsibility for you getting horribly addicted if you download the demo game from the following:http://www.apezone.com/The nice thing is it'll run on anything with the power of a pocket calculator!

Post by **AndyThomas** » Wed Jan 16, 2002 5:27 pm

Coo, assembly language eh? I did a tiny bit of machine code on the BBC B to control a robot, but I was mainly a BASIC bod. Tried to get into it on the Amiga but failed miserably - not such a nice thick user manual as the old BBC ring bound job! Did go a little with AMOS though. In theory, following my Masters course, I can programme in simple C - but nothing too complex. I also vaguely understand perl, but I'd like to be able to do more with CGI really. It's just a time thing these days. Perhaps I ought to find myself a local course on it or something, although generally I find that the Net's got enough stuff to muddle through with...

Matt Darcy · Post by **Matt Darcy** » Wed Jan 30, 2002 4:10 pm

Gents.I am a professional Computer Consultant and I have been programming for around 10 years now (scince I was VERY young). I am not very arty but have played with some of the mod tools before and find it is quite mathmatical to map skins over models, and to create maps and the links is just a series or triggers and responses. I would be very interested in starting a project, I can supply all hardware and software needed and I'll even put a box on the web so everyone can access it to do work at the same time.Any tackers.Andy, Nigel, Mike and Co I am looking at you and you know it !!

Post by **AndyThomas** » Wed Jan 30, 2002 4:28 pm

You know, now that I think about it, I have actually done a skin mod for Quake 2. It was utter pants, but quite straightforward with the right tools - it was just a case of altering a skin that was normally applied. But of course what we're talking about here is actually building a 3D model from the get go, because I don't think there'd be anything close enough to the XB to be able to just plonk a different skin on...