SQS Ultra Story and plot

[Madison Lastrega]

Well I am breaking the project down into 4 parts, and 4 som projects..... Don't worry , I am staying pretty simple for the most part:-) ‎  with earthworld you progress through 12 zodiac chambers like the original. ‎  There will be a preset amount of enemies.... Sounds easy, but there is also a preset amount of recovery items too.. So skill is a must..

In earthworld you will level from 0 to 25. Fireworld 25 to 50 , ya see a pattern here :-) ‎  The games will actually be only 4 to five hours each, so not to big, and sense they are room based, not to hard to construct.... So far I am rolling along.... Making map pieces as I go :-) ‎  Maya makes light work of that task. I gotten pretty good with it:-)

Gotta talk to ben and discover how he made his enemies, that is wayyyyyyyyy cool. Would love to have world specific enemies... Ben has gotten soooo good. Proud of him, my game probably won't be as pretty as his but fun , I hope.

In fact the most difficult part is the password system I need to make in order to go ‎  from earth world to fireworld.ect.. But that is months away, so I have time to think about it :-)

Yeah like I said before it was a crappy Atari game, anything I make will be an upgrade :-) ‎  more to come........ ‎  ML

[Verdite]

"In earthworld you will level from 0 to 25. Fireworld 25 to 50 , ya see a pattern here :-) ‎  The games will actually be only 4 to five hours each"

Wow! You know ive been playing TAC casually over the past year, been taking it easy... I'm 17 hours in and still only lvl 45, getting to lvl 50 in 8 hours will be a blast!

"Gotta talk to ben and discover how he made his enemies, that is wayyyyyyyyy cool. Would love to have world specific enemies... Ben has gotten soooo good. Proud of him"

Well im up to 18 or 19 finished unique enemies now, so im pretty damn used to making enemies. You gotta create your monsters and NPCs piece by piece, with stubs, and there is a limit, of 2400 vertices per model. We have Holy to thank for x2mdl.

Anything you need help with let me know, I know nothing about swordquest!

[Madison Lastrega]

Thanks for the offer, custom enemies will make SQS unique worlds even better.... Can his x2mdl do animated objects as well? That would be awesome, and how do set the animations, oh boy oh boy I am so exited.... See these were not available when I started before.... Holy said he was working on it, he delivered on that promise...... Sweet. Thanks Holy Diver:-) .................... ML

[Madison Lastrega]

Happy 4th....... Er..... 5th of July everyone :-) ‎  got my daughter for the holiday, so will be busy for a few, but have some modeling questions will ask tomorrow........ Daughter wore me out today , she's 10 :-) ‎  night friends.............ML

[HwitVlf]

I was thinking that SoM's pedastal/key setup might works well with SQS. They're basically keyed switches so they work well with puzzles, and it's easy to make new custom pedestal/key sets. They don't even have to be a pedestal; you can place them on a wall or even make them flush with the wall so they're hidden.

Do you have the Metasequoia Keynote plugin set up yet?

[Madison Lastrega]

Hmmmmm....I do not good sir, ‎  I wish to learn more about this keynote plugin you speak of kind sire :-)

Sorry been wrighting script so was caught up in the moment but seriously , I don't that plug in, and am interested :-)

Thanks for the idea as well I am doing a portal system in the game, so ‎  that is in line with my game so, thank you :-)

............ML

[HwitVlf]

There's a thread with Metasequoia goodies here, but here's the direct link to Keynote. The zip has a couple other plugins included. Keynote is the one named "bone". You'll also need the included "ExportDotX" plugin wich lets you save the animated x models made by Keynote, but the other plugin(s) in the zip are unrelated optionals. There's also a document here with a basic description of the controls in Keynote. There is a seriously outdated animated MDL tutorial Here.

The main thing that is no longer correct in the tutorial is the information about "anchors". They are what bond a mesh to an animated "bone" in keynote. We found a much easier way to do it:
- Cover each bone triangle in a unique material. Doesn't matter what color or properties the material has, it just can't be used on anything except a single bone-triangle
- Add "-[unique material name]" to the end of the object name for any mesh you want to move with the bone.

For example, if you want a mesh ‎  named "crystal" to move with a bone that is covered in "material1", then change the mesh's object name to "crystal-material1". So you don't have to make any of the "anchor boxes" mentioned in the tutorial doc.

FYI, about pedestals, they have a copy of their "key" hidden inside the base. When the player uses the key item near the base, ‎  SoM removes the key item from the player's inventory. Then the pedestal, which is an animated MDL model, insta-pops its hidden copy of the key into the air above the pedestal, and slowly floats it down into place. Making it look like the player inserted the key.

If the player "examines" the base again, SoM adds 1 key Item to the player's inventory and the pedestals floats the key out of its slot, then insta-pops it back into hiding- making it look as if the player picked it up.

Attached is an animated Skull Pedestal MQO I made for someone here awhile back. If you have any troubles, just say and we'll get you set up. ‎ 

[Verdite]

Joe if you need taught how to animate in metasequoia I can teach you no problem. If you've got Skype we can set it up this week.

[Holy_Diver]

FYI, about pedestals, they have a copy of their "key" hidden inside the base. When the player uses the key item near the base, ‎  SoM removes the key item from the player's inventory. Then the pedestal, which is an animated MDL model, insta-pops its hidden copy of the key into the air above the pedestal, and slowly floats it down into place. Making it look like the player inserted the key.

Seems like it might be better practice to make the key and pedestal two objects. That way you could use different kinds of keys with different kinds of pedestals, or more than one key on one pedestal.

Like how you could do Sun, Moon, and Star key in KF2. I can't remember if there is a slot for each key on the pedestal or if they share the same slot. The keys were shaped differently as I recall. But maybe I recall wrong.

It would be annoying. Stacking 4 objects to make each Sun / Moon / Star pedestal. But I don't know how else you'd do it without extending the idea of pedestals. The pedestal itself would be an inert object. I don't know how you'd deal with not inserting two keys into one pedestal. Probably they should each have their own receptacle. Whether they do in KF2 or not.

You could cut down on the number of files by putting the animations in the item models and somehow having the object PRF files pull in the item models. Would require extensions. But would save bandwidth and make maintenance easier. Speaking of which, it would probably be best to remake the pedestals that come with SOM to work in that way. The file names would need to be changed to support games using the old ones. It would be like removing the palette swap models once there is a better way to do palette swaps.