Tarot Redhand wrote...
But it's not like the old days when they used to stick around. Eeee, wen oy wurr a lard... ()
TR
Modifié par Valthrendir, 07 novembre 2013 - 08:07 .
Shabby Hyena Lunatic emerges suddenly and unexpectedly from a dense shrubbery...
Never really expected to return to either this thread or the Project, but was poked with a sharp stick just recently, not so much with regards Doctor Who specifically, so much as salvaging something out of all the work that went into the Project. The initial idea was to take the Modules and rewrite them, change some dialogue and characters, shove some Placeables about, etc and turn them into entries for my "Kyru" series, or "Demoness Tales" in the case of the less "futuristic" ones...
Anyway, since SO much had been done SO quickly on these last year, my mind had gone somewhat blank over some of them. Therefore I decided to take everything out of the Big Box it had been thrown in last year and play through all twenty Modules as the simplest, quickest way of determining how best they could be turned into something else. Two things quickly became apparent.
1. TOO much had been done TOO quickly last year.
2. Nevertheless, there was a lot about them that I liked as they were, eg: as Doctor Who.
I therefore spent a few days idly wondering whether or not I would resurrect the PHoD NWN Doctor Who Project, regardless of whether anyone else ever saw it...
Eventually, becoming fed up with the muffled growling noises of Hyenaesque cogitation, Fifi helpfully made my mind up for me, like she does most of the time. Her considered, thoughtful, erudite suggestion was "Just bloody do it."
So, I'm just bloody doing it.
Resurrecting this project is not an easy task, since I am now reminded that I originally started this with a view to releasing it to the Community and therefore began compiling Haks specifically for it. Big Haks. VERY BIG Haks. I mean, not just big, I mean GARGANTUAN. Rather impractically gargantuan, all things considered.
But then, it's not a very "practical" project in terms of public release. Twenty adventures (separate Module for each), each one set in one (or more) completely different points in Space and Time. Being the dribbling obsessive that I am, I want every one of those places to have a really distinctive look and feel that sets it apart from the others. In most cases this meant reskinned or even completely NEW Tilesets, literally thousands of new Placeables, most of which I'd already done for Demoness Tales etc and then all sorts of specific Doctor Who CC as well. And that's before you add the hundreds of tracks of new music, the hundreds of additional sound effects, etc, etc...
Those Haks evolved over time, were not intelligently or logically created and were a dark blight upon the cosmos, hideously debased things that should never have been allowed to walk freely upon the earth without being extirpated from existence and destroyed by purifying fire.
So I've destroyed them.
Instead, I'm now using my usual Demoness Tales Haks which I use (with certain specific additions) for every NWN thing I do. Thus, I know what's what. These Haks are every bit as Gargantuan, but, if and when the Doctor Who Modules DO ever see a release, I can simply remove all the content in the Haks that I haven't used and release only what's necessary since I've got a pretty good grasp of what's in the Haks and where. However, without turning the whole series into a bland run round a load of Tilesets everyone's seen before a million times and losing the individuality and strangeness of the various worlds the TARDIS visits, these Modules are still going to require a VERY LARGE amount of CC. No two ways around it, even with my current thoughts on creating a little top Hak for each individual Module which holds textures that reskin certain Tilesets and Placeables so that they have a different look in certain Modules.
I am at present working on this more or less as I would on any other personal project and not worrying over every little detail regarding how it will work as a Community release. This makes it a damn sight easier to do.
There are a lot of things I'm not happy with, which got done far too hastily last year in an effort to finish a ridiculously ambitious thing in an improbably short amount of time. I'm announcing no release dates or anything now, at least not until such time as I'm happy that things are more or less done and done right.
However, I don't see why they can't be released, for the benefit of anyone prepared to download the farcically large amount of CC which is unavoidable to make the Modules look and sound as I want them to.
My disgusted loathing of the so-called New Series, my rabid irritation at the assorted garbage that "sabotaged" this project last year and the entirely pathetic little hate campaign carried out against me and this project by Valthrendir for whatever sad, spiteful little reasons motivated him are all things far too rubbish and ephemeral for me to bother with them any more.
Therefore, I can hopefully overcome the purely practical elements of this project to the point a realistic release is possible. For instance, aside from just trying to cull the numbers of Tilesets and Placeables and stuff as far as possible without lessening the wild visual impact which is one of the best things about these Modules, there are still questions such as... the music.
Music is vitally important to supporting the atmospheres of the various worlds, really adds to the tooth and claw clashes between Velpa - the PC companion character - and assorted hideous monsters, and, in essence, more or less every event that occurs.
As with Demoness Tales and everything else I do, my NWN music folder is replete to the point of bursting with over a thousand tracks, some of my own composition, but many taken from piles of different film scores from Alien to Raiders of the Lost Ark, from Predator to Ran, Willow to The Relic, Xena, Doctor Who itself, assorted other computer games and so on and so forth. Apparently, it has never before occurred to me, edited and altered by me - sometimes considerably - as most of this music is, to consider that it's all copyrighted and that throwing it about the landscape could be considered a tad bit iffy...
To keep even a shadow of the ambience that the music adds, I'm going to have to wade through vast masses of open source files most of which won't be remotely suitable and/or nail myself to my overburdened synthesizer and compose a hell of a lot of new music and hit things with Audacity-shaped bricks a lot. Naturally, this sort of thing is time consuming and adds to the reasons I'm not going to announce even a vague thought of a release date as yet.
So, to just sum up what could probably have been said in three lines:-
The PHoD Doctor Who Project has crawled back out from under a rock. It is currently being worked on, overhauled and hit with a range of colossal bricks.
I've reworked Velpa in gmax so that she's a custom model, a bit more bestial and formidable than just using a standard phenotype. I've thrown away some of my earlier efforts at old Doctor Who monsters and redone them. There are already much better Terileptils, Zygons, Sontarans, Cybermen and Wirrn with more planned. Finished the Emperor Dalek. Done a proper Davros model. Redid the Time Lord collar/headdress things with a larger, heavier brick; wondering about doing some proper Gallifreyan robes too. Also reworking some of my NEW monsters. Messed with the TARDIS a bit more too.
Still using all my usual custom music, but considering assorted options for surrogates for a public release. Not much I can do when it comes to alternatives for sound effects such as the TARDIS demat sounds, that Dalek "heartbeat" sound that's always audible in their bases and spacecraft. I think there are about fifty sound effects I've taken from the original Radiophonic Workshop files and put into NWN. Technically they must all be copyrighted too but they're kind've necessary for Doctor Who. The Dalek voice soundset I did myself, so that's probably OK. I may have to ask a few quiet questions in the right places with regards the sound effects...
I've thrown three of the stories away completely because I now identify them as being finest quality rubbish and thus they must be impaled with pure iron spikes and dissolved in acid. Three much better replacements are being hit with acid-proof bricks. Some of the other stories are undergoing fairly major alterations and, shockingly, one or two are quite good and thus being more or less left alone.
The Project is alive. It is being hit with bricks. It will be finished.
That much, assuming one of my own creatures doesn't fall upon me and kill me any time soon, is certain.
As to what mutations it will undergo to reach the Community and precisely when it will reach you... er... only Time will tell...
(Apologies that this post rivals Tolstoy's War and Peace in length.
<pushes the like button...>
*laughing too hard for sheer joy and absurd pleasure to actually type anything*
*other than that*
*ok, and that, too*
*will you stop that!*
*fine, yeah, he can type but he's laughing too hard to type in any tense other than third*
*like that makes sense*
*how do you put up with him, bird?* <I have my own id. you're just a momentary fragment of his>
*...*<*raven grin*>
*you're absurd* <aren't we all ;->
<...over and over and over>
Right...
Possibly we need a little further elucidation here...
Before - too late...
(Can't that wretched Corvid keep him under control? What's it FOR otherwise?)
MOSTLY before anyone becomes in any way over excited - I only stumbled upon this thread sort of by chance when hunting out an apparent resurrection of the ABC. And even then, I only wrote that great lumbering Sumo Bison post above because WhiZard had asked the question.
To put the basic facts into a quasi-sensible format:-
Yes, I have taken the Doctor Who stuff back out of the Big Box.
Yes, I am working on it all again.
Yes, I do intend it to be finished, without the desperate and none too efficacious rush of last year.
No, it isn't going to be available tomorrow.
It's been thrown in with all my other stuff, Demoness Tales, etc, and I had intended to work on it when the mood took me, as inspired, between other things, with no particular urgency.
The fact that there are those of you still obviously very eager to see the results of all this nonsensical messing about with Daleks and bricks and things immediately makes me feel more inclined to work harder and more often on getting these things done and tackle the assorted technical problems of how to keep the CC under some form of control.
Please bear in mind that I have no internet access of my own and only strictly limited access through someone else.
Further to this, it should be pointed out that I have never once actually played any Community Module, nor ever released any of my own - excepting a couple of basic little things for the ABC and a VERY silly Demo Mod for my rubbish New VFX Hak.
Putting Modules out with accompanying Haks for the Community is thus not something I am in any way familiar with and I want to be sure I don't mess it up. I've already found quite a few glaring stupidities from last year that would have made things decidedly difficult for players had the rushed initial release actually happened.
So please bear with me as I try to do everything more or less right, even if not necessarily in the correct way. It will take TIME. But your enthusiasm and positivism - stupid damned word - are noted and I will make the DW Modules more of a priority than I had intended.
<high-fives...>
Gimme feather! *slap*
Hey! On the hand, idjit!... <couldn't resist ;->
<...the raven>
No, no, stupid Corvid - Control HIM, I said, not manipulate ME!
RRRRRRRRGH!
Shabby Hyena object bites reflexively but finds only one mouldy, black tail feather in jaws.
As I need to conduct a full and proper test of Image Posting Abilities, or lack thereof, I thought I might as well prove that there is some new activity on the PHoD Doctor Who Project Mk#2...
Rather than just use the spherical "Remembrance..." Emperor Dalek I did already, I have now made a proper Davros model...
Davros' chair is a different shape to a Dalek, just to be difficult, so I took the skirt section of Henesua's Dalek model and beat hell out of it with a huge brick until it was the right shape for Davros' chair... Which, of course, meant most of its little balls parted company with the panels and had to be shoved back into place...
Even more painstakingly fiddly were all those wires and bracing supports and so forth around his head. Doing all those took TIME.
But, I think it was worth adding Davros to NWN, iconic villain that he is.
I've wanted Giant Rats in NWN for years. I tried rescaling the standard Rat model to outrageous proportions, but since it's animations make it hop up and try to bite your knee, when it's fifteen feet long it sort of hurtles insanely upward over your head like an utter, utter cretin... I have now FINALLY got round to creating an entirely NEW custom Giant Rat model as Giant Rats were absolutely vital for the "GreelRat" story in the Doctor Who Project, based on a fanzine I wrote about a million years ago. This notably includes the filthily immense Outrageous Cyborg Rat menacing the Doctor and Velpa in its base in the sewers.
Also got round to doing proper models for the Cybermen instead of the completely rubbish nonsense I tried to do with clothing parts which despoil your screen in that garbage Cyberman image earlier in the thread somewhere. These ones, generic Cybermen vaguely based on the "Revenge..." and "Earthshock" versions with PHoD bits stuck on are independent models and so I could make them that little bit taller than the human phenotype since the Cybermen were always supposed to be enormously tall - though being actors in suits, they varied in height quite a lot... The PHoD Cybermen are still using a very basic working texture which I intend to hit with a large, silvery brick at some convenient juncture...
But I thought I'd stick a picture of them into this test anyway, just to efface memory of those risible things earlier in the thread...
This is from the DW Module currently being thumped mercilessly with a selection of atomic bricks...
Typical PHoD Mayhem...
As if a Dalek taskforce in Central London isn't bad enough, next thing you know there are Hideous Colossal Gargantuas lumbering about knocking buildings over, trampling all PHoD's nice new UNIT Placeables into the tarmac and being generally anti-social, as is the approved habit of giant monsters everywhere.
And this is just one of the smaller ones...
Fantabulousgreatsome !!!
Holy Fing S! Holy Fing S! Holy Fing S! Holy Fing S! Holy Fing S!
Mental Blue Screen
*Faceplant*
Five "Holy Fing S"s? High praise indeed.
Does Davros come with a built in dishwasher?
No, but he does have AM and FM stereo radio plus CD player function.
(And an insane desire to conquer the universe - partial functionality).
I know why I love all your work ! *Dream before her computer* 
I'm not the biggest fan of Doctor Who but this looks fantastic.
Nice to hear that this project is still ongoing 
I haven't been around for a while, so in response to the following:
My disgusted loathing of the so-called New Series, my rabid irritation at the assorted garbage that "sabotaged" this project last year and the entirely pathetic little hate campaign carried out against me and this project by Valthrendir for whatever sad, spiteful little reasons motivated him are all things far too rubbish and ephemeral for me to bother with them any more.
I am just casually making some content that is Doctor Who related, potentially for a module that I have some ideas for. I am just excited by the series in general (classic and modern), thats why I have been doing this from time to time since 2008. I don't see how this would have any impact on your work.
That said, I am looking forward to your modules and I am curious to see how you progress your storyline throughout multiple ''episodes''.
ValthrenSpleen:- Feigning wide-eyed innocence now, hm? You and I both know better - and I find it offensive that you actually believe you're being subtle. Just don't bother.
I don't converse with Spleens and I make this post only to state that I am not rising to the pathetic baiting you indulged in across several threads and PMs before, or your egomaniacal pomposity or any pretence of outrage or innocence. I have no problem with someone liking the New Series just 'cause I hate it or with anyone doing what they like with Doctor Who in NWN and know of at least three other people who are doing Modules (one of them even doing it seriously). It's not my place to throw dictates around as to who shall do or like what. Don't mistake opinions for edicts. A pity you don't seem to understand the concept of tolerance.
Anyway, as I say, I'm only making this post at all to assure you that any further posts from you directed at me of any kind will be completely ignored and no replies whatsoever made. Sounds puerile, but that seems to be the only level you function on.
I don't propose to clutter BioWare's nice, shiny, new(ish) site up with spurious drivel just because of whatever deluded reason you have to delight in trying to drive me from the NWN Community as evidenced by your past Spleenism. So post what you like if you must; you won't get a reply.
The ACTUAL reason I oozed lumpily back to this thread again was noticing Eternal Phoenix's post and recalling a few others with similar sentiments.
I was doing a playthrough of one of my DW Modules, checking for bugs, and got to this point...
...and wondered if anyone out there had any need of piles of Weirdo Spacecraft, mostly on the large side? (The one depicted is about eight or nine Area Tilespaces long, give or take).
I've done quite a few strange spacecraft of my own design and, though some of them are intended as Dalek or Terileptil ships, they could be used as absolutely anything... well, not absolutely anything, not as, say, a Banana Plant, but as whatever sort of spacecraft you wanted them to be. Because there wasn't much in the D20 stuff last time I looked beyond specific Star Wars ships... Same goes for all the vast, futuristic buildings I've done for my Doctor Who and Kyru series. There's a lot of non-specific stuff that could be used for all sorts of sci-fi settings. Big Domes and things - go back and look at some of the earlier pictures to see some more examples.
I will be releasing all the Doctor Who monsters and specific stuff, but only when I've got them all finally done and sorted out, which, since I keep faffing with them, will probably be when I finally get the Modules done.
However, there's a lot of just general sci-fi stuff that's "finished" and, though I wasn't thinking of doing so before, if there is any interest (I don't know what's going on with the D20 these days), I can make a note to add it to the list of stuff I intend to get round to putting on the New Vault just as soon as I have the time.
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