Command & Conquer: Dawn of Tomorrow teaser thread

[AchromicWhite]

Looks awesome. Man I love build up anims xD

[Nyerguds]

WW buildings don't bother fading in the house colour, though. They either build up with it, or build up as greyscale and just switch to house colour after it's fully built.

 

Of course, this is your mod, and your style

[Kilkakon]

Time for an update!

 

With this building done (there's one urban one to go but I need some inspiration before I tackle it) I've started working on maps again. Last night I played through Matt's Test of Time map again, as he provided me with two harder versions after the first was a bit easy due to my giving him the incorrect economy figures. His hardest one is ideal and with the smallest change I'm happy to implement it into the game as is. Yay for working AI!

 

Next I'll need to hit the other maps and finish off their AI. Goatmessiah's one needs some air harassment to keep the pressure on (Tomorrow can defend so easily so AI needs to be hyper aggressive).

 

Oh and here's my cameo for the Naval Command. Cameo. How is one meant to say that? Cam-e-o? Came-o?

[cn2mc]

I call it an icon...

 

[Nyerguds]

Cam-ee-oh.

https://www.google.be/search?&q=define%20cameo

 

A brief vivid portrayal or depiction

[Kilkakon]

That quote makes me feel like I've read a movie blurb or something.

[Kilkakon]

Time for an update!

 

Over the weekend I have been bashing my head against the monitor trying to get this AI working. It's really quite profound how the smallest changes turn the AI from incredibly passive to super aggressive and back again... The best result I have so far is when I make a deliberate mistake (specify 4 actions for the teamtype but only give 3) which works great, right up until about 20 minutes in when some of the tanks that are fighting get teamed up with one at base and then get stuck on the river. Once this happens of course the entire AI chokes until I kill the offending units manually.

 

Sigh.

 

In more positive news I can share that I found a good resource thread on PPM today: http://www.ppmforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=40231

 

I used one of the explosions for my chemical strike. It's like, divine providence. It's exactly the right size for C&C.

 

 

Looks great ingame!

 

I also tried to fix the Gene Bank graphic, changing the logo on top from radioactive to biohazard. It looks okay to me although ingame it's looking a bit weirdly shaded. I'll have to use different remap colours there.

 

[Nyerguds]

Wow, not bad

[AchromicWhite]

This all looks great!

Man, I wish I'd found that explosion when I was making Classic Rev (for the SCUD missile). Basically, it was a nuke changed to be a 3x3 explosion.

I like the new 'Gene Bank' building, too. You said it was strangely shaded in game?? Maybe just fiddle with the shade of the remap and it'll be fine... sometimes stuff like that ends up looking weird in game.

[Kilkakon]

Hey thanks guys! I'm glad the Tomorrow superweapon is coming along just as favourably as the Cruise Missile for Japan and USA!

 

I know what you mean White. Here I was having a non-productive day at work, reflecting on my previous failed project for RA2 while skimming through PPM, and then I bump into that thread. It was literally perfect for this.

 

And you are also right with the Gene Bank. The fixes required were minor and are difficult to tell from this image, but here you go:

 

I also put in a few hours today working on the mouse cursor. I admit I didn't expect it to take as long as it did, but hey, it's done now.

 

Check out the new targeting cursor for Chemical Strike!

[AchromicWhite]

Dude... that's boss. Better than the Nuke one, TBH. I always liked the Ion Cannon target cursor better than the Nuke one anyway.

  -Liam

[Kilkakon]

Time for an update!

 

Today is a great day :laugh: I have finished the last building for the Urban environment! And if something I am half-planning with Nyer falls through (He's indicated he'd be okay with trying to clone some Barracks for me, but nothing has been committed just yet) it is also the last building for the mod entirely. Let's take a look shall we?

 

 

It's the one with the light roof and the small tower on its left

[MattAttack]

wow!  I think that's the best one yet... Now you just gotta let me add civilians walking down the street and trucks/cars cruisin' down the road for you!

[Kilkakon]

I look forward to seeing what you can do Matt

 

Today I finished the AI for the interior map One map down, 3 to go, and then just testing all of them to make sure there's no problems :engie:

[TaxOwlbear]

I will so LP this when it comes out.

[Kilkakon]

Awesome! I'm glad everybody is looking forward to it

[Kilkakon]

Just giving people bit of an update

 

I've been sick for the majority of the month, which has affected my C&C development work. I can report that I've just finished going over another map, one that Goatmessiah submitted earlier. His map actually helped me identify a few tech tree bugs which I've now resolved, mainly Russian Construction Yards being able to produce a few Japanese items if captured by Company of Answers on his map. All fixed now

 

Weirdly, just as I was about done, the map started to crash on load... and the fix was to move the triggers back up to the top of the text file. Strange huh?

[Inq]

Well, hope your feeling better, this mod looks great, can't wait to play!

[Kilkakon]

Thanks for the support Inq I appreciate it. <3

 

Today I spent some time trying to work out the WSA format and getting my world map into it. It was a lot of trouble using a few different tools (Red Horizon was rubbish, but WSASet worked!)--still not perfect due to XCC mangling up the palette a tad but definitely close to getting something working.

 

 

I wonder if I can make all of the faction colours appear Will have to investigate these WSA files a bit more.

[MattAttack]

OH MY GOD KILK THAT LOOKS AMAZING!!

[Jacko]

omg....

[Blade]

Thanks for the support Inq I appreciate it. <3

 

Today I spent some time trying to work out the WSA format and getting my world map into it. It was a lot of trouble using a few different tools (Red Horizon was rubbish, but WSASet worked!)--still not perfect due to XCC mangling up the palette a tad but definitely close to getting something working.

 

 

I wonder if I can make all of the faction colours appear Will have to investigate these WSA files a bit more.

 

RedHorizon doesn't have the format correct, it doesn't set a field called Delta correctly in the header which is needed by the game to allocate the decompression buffer. This is why its hit or miss if a file encoded by it works in game. Regarding the palette issues, TD uses stretch tables (interpolation palettes) that it reads from disk to stretch the images at 640x400 because the WSA format is pretty much limited to 320x200 (mainly by the size of the Delta field in the header). You have to ensure that you also generate a new version of this file to match your palette if you want the image to be drawn correctly in game (unless you are only playing it in DOS of course). Nyerguds has a tool for generating them.

[Tschokky]

Wow. My goodness. That is just off scale Kilk, you are one awesome man here!

[Kilkakon]

Wow guys. I think this is honestly the most positive feedback I've received for anything I've done ever. XD Thank you all so much. I'm working hard as I can to try and get this done!

 

I can reveal that well, on Friday I realised I'm running out of time to actually get this done this year! With the necessary promo and web work that needs to be done after finishing the mod (for conversation's sake let's say that takes a month) I basically need to get this all wrapped up by the end of November. Definitely doable, just need to remain committed

 

Here's the specifics of what's left to do:

• Finish off the AI for the submitted maps (Jacko's contest entry, Goatmessiah's contest entry, my own Japan vs. Russia map
  
• Complete the campaign transition as you can see above
  
• Put together the cinematics
  
• Cast some voice actors (Need British EVA)
  
• Beta testing perhaps?
  

 

RedHorizon doesn't have the format correct, it doesn't set a field called Delta correctly in the header which is needed by the game to allocate the decompression buffer. This is why its hit or miss if a file encoded by it works in game. Regarding the palette issues, TD uses stretch tables (interpolation palettes) that it reads from disk to stretch the images at 640x400 because the WSA format is pretty much limited to 320x200 (mainly by the size of the Delta field in the header). You have to ensure that you also generate a new version of this file to match your palette if you want the image to be drawn correctly in game (unless you are only playing it in DOS of course). Nyerguds has a tool for generating them.

Ah makes sense. Thanks for the technical explanation. I did find Nyer's tool which allowed me to have fun breaking the palettes a bit (it's a bit of guesswork working out which palette goes with which wsa haha). I will need to use it when I tackle the territories as I have more factions in my game, need more colours on my map!

[Nyerguds]

still not perfect due to XCC mangling up the palette a tad

XCC? Why would you include xcc into this process?