"Angel: City of Angels", and "E2:Elseworlds At War" Mod previews

[bearded]

what about all the alternate slayers?  the ones that became activated in the season finaly.  it would be interesting to play as a custom created alt slayer.

[tommyboy]

Nothing to say you couldnt take a custom herofile type out in the Mod, be they potential slayer or whatever else.

[tommyboy]

http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/i/illyria.htm

Here is a link to Illyria (who essentially) killed Fred and took her form. It would be very cool if Illyria made it into the mod. Also Will there be more Buffy characters? Xander, Willow, Demonic Anya, Dawn or Tara? And where's Lorne?

So far I've got Buffy, Willow, Giles meshed and in the Mod. Todo's are Xander, Sid, Faith and Kendra.
Illyria and Fred is probably an Either rather than an Or. One or the other. I'm leaning towards Fred, but I only just got Season Five on DVD today, and am working through Season Four, so when I've watched Illyria in action I may favour including her rather than Fred.
Or I may just put both in.
Lorne may be a playable if I can figure out how to make him work without being the offspring of Banshee and Dream Girl.
Tara would just be a weaker Willow, so if she appears it'll probably be as an NPC. Probably. If.
Dawn too might appear for completions sake, as might Riley Finn.

My "playable as" cast list at the moment are:
Angel (sword, meshed, Muscle,Fast, jumper, Shapeshifter to Vamp form)
Spike (meshed, Muscle,Fast, jumper, Shapeshifter to Vamp form)
Buffy (mr.pointy, meshed, Muscle,Fast, jumper, won't spontaneously combust in daylight,weapon master-flamethrower, crossbow)
Giles (knife, meshed, skilled fighter, weapon master-flamethrower, crossbow)
Willow (meshed, Wiccan)
Xander (meshed, normal human)
Faith (to be meshed, Muscle,Fast, jumper, won't spontaneously combust in daylight, hot tempered? Berzerker?weaponmaster-flamethrower, crossbow)
Kendra (to be meshed, Muscle,Fast, jumper, won't spontaneously combust in daylight,weapon master-flamethrower, crossbow)
Gunn (Axe, meshed, skilled fighter, weapon master-flamethrower, crossbow)
Wesley (Axe, meshed, skilled fighter, weapon master-flamethrower, crossbow)
Cordelia (meshed, skilled fighter, precognitive)
Sid (to be meshed, skilled fighter, faster/stronger than human)
Oz/Werewolf (to be meshed, normal human/lycanthrope)
Fred/Illyria (to be meshed.normal human-inventor? Illyria -strong/fast
Connor( to be meshed. Strong fast, jumper, acrobatic fighter)
Dawn (to be meshed. Normal human
Lorne (to be meshed. Scream/song powers. Precog/empath?)

I'm still in the early-ish stages of deciding not just who is playable but what powers/Attribs/stats everyone gets. This means people may disagree with my choices, and input here is welcome, but bear in mind its my Mod, I'll make what I want ultimately. I suggest you open up the Editor and change stuff if you think your fave character has been nerfed.
Certainly I'm thinking that playing as Xander, Dawn and Fred is going to be a LOT harder than playing with Angel Spike and Buffy.

I'm also trying to include a healthy variety of Demons, from straightforward strong-weird-looking to more exotic powersets. These will NOT tend to be canonical. Sorry, but most of the demons in both Shows tended to look too similar, or to complex to model in FF (ie dozens of horn/spike thingies on face), or just to have non-ff powersets.

[Podmark]

:D :D :D :D :D ~ Pod is very excited!

You have no idea how awesome it is to see Gun and his axe for me.
Hmm no Doyle?

A suggestion on how to handle the 'normal' guys as playables. One you could make a mission where you play as just the human guys against some demon threat - it'd be a much greater challenge than using Buffy or Angel etc. Another possibility would be pairing a norm with a super, say Buffy and Xander and part of the mission is to keep the norm alive. Just throwing out some ideas.

Oooo now we need a skin of 'sergeant fury' Xander

[tommyboy]

One of the (many) great things about EZscript is its scalability. So the amount of minions you get in an encounter is proportional to the strength of the hero(es). This means that although a mission played as Xander alone will be a bit harder than playing as Buffy alone, I shouldnt have to script too many custom missions for the weaker members.
Hmm....yeah, Doyle. Again with the "too many spines on the face" in Demon form, he just isn't really a feasable mesh.
But I guess if Sid gets a look in, Doyle should definitely make the grade, so I'll almost certainly add him.   

[AfghanAnt]

I just thought having Illyria in the mix would give you something different to play as, you could make her hero file resemble her time powers rather than just brute strength.

[Podmark]

Yeah I could see that mesh being a pain, he very rarely transformed though, or even fought if I remember clearly.

If you do a Pylea mission you should include the Groosalugg. Actually there are so many characters I could suggest, Drusilla, Darla, the Master, Lindsey, Adam, Harmony etc. It's your mod though, you need to figure out where to draw the line on characters.

[tommyboy]

Yeah I could see that mesh being a pain, he very rarely transformed though, or even fought if I remember clearly.

If you do a Pylea mission you should include the Groosalugg. Actually there are so many characters I could suggest, Drusilla, Darla, the Master, Lindsey, Adam, Harmony etc. It's your mod though, you need to figure out where to draw the line on characters.

Two constraints (well, three really) that I have with this Mod are, with so many great characters in the Bufgelverse,
1. I have to make meshes and skins that look like them, facially (rather than a Generic Superhero Face, or I Just Made It Up Face) which is tough. Lotsa work to get even a passing resemblance.
2. I have to write dialogue (not lots, granted, but still some) that captures a little of the wit and pathos and drama of the shows, plus the idiom of the individual characters. I'm also toying with ripping some dialogue from the shows for voicepacks/cutscenes/both.
3. The powers thing.
These 3 constraints mean that each great character I add is a heck of a lot more work than just adding, say Batman or Spider-man would be. Which means I may have to forgo some characters, at least untill theres an Expansion Pack to add more characters meshes and missions...

[Podmark]

Totally understandable.

[tommyboy]

Lots o fun today making new weapon models for FFX_Weapon_Master.
I've replaced the standard flamethrower and handgun, and added a crossbow, sword, 3 different axes and a samurai sword:

Top row left, Angel wields a flamethrower (with permanent flame FX attached),
Middle row left, Wes has an FFX_axe_3, Giles his crossbow, Angel is using the weildable Axe_2 to deliver smack-downs, and Gunn has just buried his FFX)axe_gunn in a Scourge-Demon.
Middle row mid pic, Giles (despite his pin-kitis) holds off the Scourge with the FFX_crossbow.
Middle row Right pic, Gunns FFX_axe_gunn is visible, Wesley in the distance has just used the FFX_Hand_gun, Giles still with crossbow.
Bottom row, some of the weapons in the Armoury Room of the Hotel/Base.

The FFX_axes etc are supposed to be melee weapons like the electronux,  but aren't working right yet, but since all your usual melee moves are available whilst they are out, they look good in action.
The FFX ranged weapons have been moved to Bip01 R hand so they look better.

As well as the Armoury room in the hotel, I'll probably have a couple of other bases in the various maps where you can rest/save/pick up more weapons, such as Cordy's appartment, Lorne's Club, Wesleys pad, Gunn's base (possibly with mini-army of vampire-slayer-juniors).

If people think it worthwhile, I'll release an FFX weapon pack with the new flamethrower, handgun, crossbow, axes and swords. Be warned that you have to set up templates, powers, FX and FFX text files to get them to work right. If you don't know how to do all that, you'll just have to download the Mod to get 'em. 

[tommyboy]

Faith:

[M25]

The weapons look great.  It may even be possible to put together an install pack for them. 

[tommyboy]

Some better shots of some of the weapons:

[Podmark]

Faith looks great. Really looking forward to this.

Nice to see Buffy working with Hellcat :P

[tommyboy]

Xander(W.I.P. esp. the hair..):

[tommyboy]

2 kendra skins:

[AfghanAnt]

There is something off about Xander's face.

[tommyboy]

There is something off about Xander's face.

Yes, I think the eyes are too close together, and too small.
I'm a bit happier with this version:

but its still not perfect...

[Podmark]

Yeah Xander is looking much better now.

[CF Kane]

Now, the Buffyverse mod will be for  :ffvstr: right? I'm asking because a lot of the buildings in your screenshots look like the old  :ff: textures and maps.

[tommyboy]

Now, the Buffyverse mod will be for  :ffvstr: right? I'm asking because a lot of the buildings in your screenshots look like the old  :ff: textures and maps.

Yes its for FFV3r (only), but to give variety I'm including lots of FF maps, buildings etc. A lot of the FFV3R textures are a bit too cheerful for the mood of the Mod, and although they make for a nice contrast in some maps, I like to use the old FF maps too.
(And yes, I realise I could retexture the FFV3R stuff, and may do that too.)

[Cyber Burn]

Tommy, not to be a pest or anything, but are you still planning on woking on the "Elseworlds at War" mod?

[Revenant]

Tommyboy this mod keeps looking better and better!  I commend your work.  It's nice to see you branching out into other realms, like the photoskinning and face-sculpting!  The second Xander and some of the others eeriely resemble their real life actors.

[tommyboy]

Tommy, not to be a pest or anything, but are you still planning on woking on the "Elseworlds at War" mod?

Yes.
But.
I'm taking a litle time off from both Mods to sort out an MUA meshing problem and some RL stuff.
I'll be getting back to both mods in the coming weeks, but no release is imminent (for one thing, I'm remaking most of the EWAW meshes). 

[Cyber Burn]

Thanks for the reply Tom.  Hope things work out alright with RL.   Everything that's been previewed so far looks great, but I'm really looking forward to the Elseworlds mod.

[Cyber Burn]

Hey Tommyboy, I just wanted to give this thread a little bump and say thank you for releasing the EWAW meshes, as well as to see how both mods were coming along and if you had any more preview pics for us.

[tommyboy]

No big progress I'm afraid.
My time gets split 'twixt E2:EWAW, COA, LSH, regular meshing, MUA meshing, and some behind the scenes stuff not yet announced.
For instance I have been re-exporting most of the FF objects so that they can be interacted with in FFV3R when FF maps are converted. This will bear fruit in all three of my Mods, but also in other peoples Mods.
I'll have to try and focus on E2:EWAW and/or COA as both are pretty close to some form of release, but in addition to all the above, real life has been taking more of my time of late, so I'm making no promises as to when.... 

[Epimethee]

For instance I have been re-exporting most of the FF objects so that they can be interacted with in FFV3R when FF maps are converted. This will bear fruit in all three of my Mods, but also in other peoples Mods.

Oh, this is definitively nice. Too bad you need a real life, though! :P

[BentonGrey]

Ohh, that's good news Tommy (the FF objects, I mean), as I've been going about that scattershot.  Let me know when you get it done, as I'd really love the options that would provide!

[Cyber Burn]

I really hate to "necropost", but I've been wondering for awhile now how these two mods were progressing.  If nothing else, I can at least give this thread a little bump and say thanks for all your hard work.