Difference between revisions of "User:GreatEmerald"

Revision as of 03:41, 10 March 2009

Just to make the signature appear as normal... :)

I methodically update articles by using the following Wiki tools:

• Most Wanted Pages
• Random page

And I'm also thinking of using the Category:Stubs, but haven't used it yet.

Using only PC, so Unreal Championship knowledge is approx. 0, but I tend to read about it and get some parts of them.

But I own Unreal Anthology, so I have quite a good knowledge of Unreal, Unreal - Return to Na Pali, Unreal Tournament, Unreal 2, Unreal Tournament 2004 and, as I have it as well, Unreal Tournament 2003. Only Unreal Tournament 3 won't work on my older laptop...

To make the long story in the next paragraph short, I'm converting maps, have created a few and work on a mod. Trying to expand LA too. Also the author of some crazy ideas, such as Harbinger = Hellbender and Prisoner 849 = Frostbite, as well as a few stories.

For those who want to see some interesting speculation about Unreal's history I suggest going to this Oldunreal forums thread. If you want to only see my speculation story about The Sunspire, see User:GreatEmerald/Sunspire Story. Also take a look at Talk:Prisoner 849 for another speculation story.

You can see the list of my TODO in Liandri Archives at the bottom, and an expanded list of what I am currently doing/did in Unreal games in my Worklist.

History/Work

Did I get UAnthology first? Nope. First I played the UT2004 demo, and really got into it. That was back in 2004 03. I still have the CD including the UT2004 demo in my CD archive (I got it from a multi-content CD that are sometimes included in PC magazines)... That introduced me to the Unreal universe.

After that, I decided to see what started all of that. That's how I got Unreal. And that's when I started creating custom content. I learned UEd1 there, attempted to make a few maps... The first test map made by me was a small cubic egyptian-themed map for exploring - I made it following the Wolf's tutorial from his site, and later on I used the TCUERG from OldUnreal. As I generally like the Nakhti theme, and one texture pack that was included with an egypt-styled map was partially corrupt, I made a texture pack called Egypt4Unreal.utx from that texture pack (all of the textures that were not broken). After some time I got quite a nice library and assembled Egypt4Unreal2.utx, which I still have - it includes all of the egyptian themes I could find for Unreal.

So later on, in around 2006, I started converting Unreal SP maps to DM. First I tried to convert the Sunspire, but it was so big that 16 bots weren't enough. My first successful attempt in converting was DM-StoneThrone, I still have it and use it. That map is really fun! It's a conversion of Velora Passage, a special edition for RTNP and UGold users (but useable in U1 as well) that can use Terran Weapon Match - that map has a trick that allows all of the 13 weapons in the match. Actually the trick works even in UT, where the weapons have the old appearance... And this map was the first published one.

The first published map with my elements was DM-FrozenEgypt. Yeap, a Nakhti themed map! Well, partially. The top level of it is a converted Watcher of the Skies, while the lower area is Nakhti themed with mysterious chambers... First published my own map was DM-10ball, a Skaarj themed map with a lot of teleporters, a few secrets and 10 rooms that are identical from the first glance.

Somewhere late 2006/early 2007 I got UT. When I found out that it was absolutely compatible with Unreal, I was really amazed. Had a few issues though, but overall it was OK. I came up with a huge idea for DM-InfernoTown, a conversion from 2D Heroes III town preview, when I noticed that those buildings there look like created just for Unreal. From then I tried recreating a few pieces of the town, unfortunately, BSP errors destroyed a few parts and my enthusiasm. Though I still have the parts I converted, I didn't create anything new by myself since then. Have to say that some parts of DM-InfernoTown were really looking good and maybe I could continue my work if someone teaches me how to avoid those BSP errors... If you are interested, you can see a few screenies here: http://www.oldunreal.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1201194002 And if you want to see IMO the best screenshot, it's this one: http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/3513/shot3gk2.png

At the same time I started converting Unreal SP maps to UT. I like Domination the most, as it is not shape-dependent. I created a DOM map of beta Bluff Eversmoking with 5 DOM points that is very fun to play too. There were a few more convertions, like DOM of RTNP's Neve's Crossing.

UT was very close to perfection because each match gave me something new. Mods like XMaps and Arena Match made each match very unique. Generally I like customisation and randomisation. So random things each match was really very fun to me.

After that I got Unreal 2 and after completing it and seeing that U2XMP is dead, I started my quest of moving U2 weapons to other Unreal series games... First I tried creating a few Unreal 2 Deathmatch and Capture the Flag maps (yes, it's possible), but as there were not enough people playing U2 I gave up and tried exporting the weapons. First attempts were to UT, but for the lack of skeletal animation the idea failed as well. I also thought to convert them to U1 which got Skeletal support with 227 patch, but then I got UT2004 and decided that it's easier there. But first things first...

After U2 I got UT2003 and was re-amazed by the graphics. All of the small things such as sand flowing through the blocks in Nakhti (wee!) themed maps, flames by particles, detailed levels etc. added a really nice touch. There were a few bad things there though, but it was still OK. There I tried converting BR, CTF and DDOM maps to DM, and that was really successful. Unfortunately UT2003 was not so random as UT was. But the graphics took my attention. I also found a few converted levels from the classic titles, like DM-ArizAII2k3 or DM-HealPod2003. They brought the classic feel back.

Then I got UAnthology and UT2004 with it. That proved to be the top-notch. With the latest MapMixer it is even more random than UT, and movement was really a lot more free and fun (when I got to play UT I really felt like a huge brick... What the hell, I can't lift off the ground?). Onslaught is also very interesting. The fact that most of the mods nowadays are for UT2004 and that there's an active online community made me concentrate on UT2004. The fact that UT2004 supports VCTF (Thanks Liandri Archives! ;) ) made me convert Onslaught maps to VCTF, and continue the work on converting all sorts of maps to DM. That's what I'm still doing at the moment.

Before I never had anything with UnrealScript. But since UT2004 I started learning something. Why? Well, remember the U2 part of this article? UT2004 has a Total Conversion mod UTXMP which - yeap - includes most of the U2 weapons! It seems that it's done, there are U2 weapons in UT2004, but no - it's only in TC UTXMP that is just as dead as U2XMP is. Well, maybe slightly less... But anyway, I decided to port those weapons to the usual UT2004. For that I needed UScript knowledge. So I learned a thing or two, but still my knowledge is very limited. It's enough for that kind of mod though. So now I have successfully converted most of the U2 weapons to UT2004 - all I need now is to solve a few things, ask for permission and publish the mod :) I can say that UTXMP weapons are really, really fun in UT2004. It's a well-worth thing having them! Most of the work needed now is the configuration menu - it will be huge, as you know how I like configuration :)

As of 06:36, 10 March 2009 (EDT), I've already finished the mod (still needs debugging though), and I now have UT3, so I'll start modding for it too. Older games won't be forgotten as well - I still have to finish my UT2003 Style mutators, UT3 Style mutators (UT2004), Minor Deployables code for Unreal II: XMP and other projects I've started. Yet UT3 is very fun and it will now be my primary target. I now have quite a medium amount of UScript knowledge, so I can create mods that are a lot better than I did earlier.

TODO list

My TODO list in the Liandri Archives:

• Ghost Warrior - Complete, Keep until the next completion
• Kai - rewrite
• Raptor (XMP vehicle) - rewrite
• Harbinger - rewrite
• Juggernaut (XMP vehicle) - rewrite
• DmCurse - start
• Adrenaline#Unreal Championship 2 - cleanup and use the data in other articles
• Shock Core - combine
• The Eldora Well - expand
• ChaosUT2: Evolution - start
• XMP-Alcazar - start
• Artifacts - start
• Single player - start
• Hell - move and start a new article

My TODO in Unreal games (see this page for the recently done content in Unreal series games and an updated list of what I'm doing now):

• Finish the TODO list here (Liandri Archives)
• Add more mutators to the UT2003 style mutator pack (UT2004) - Complete, Keep until the next completion
• Unlock and convert voicepacks from UT (UT2004) - Cancelled, already done, Remove
• Path Assault Trials maps (UT2004)
• Convert maps from one gametype to another (UT2004/UT3)
• Complete the Might and Magic SP map pack (UT2004/UT3)
• Debug released mods (UT2004)
• Finish the Minor Deployables mutator (eXpanded MultiPlayer)
• Consider remaking U2αXMP in some game...