it'll probably utilize 95% of the vanilla geck entries and assets. So at what point is that a TC?

So to sum up my opinion- I think you will find that many, if not most experienced and veteran modders(of all types) will not work on a really ambitious mod if there is no precedent for a release. Which are the guys you really want on your project.

Sure we think it's cool! do we hope for the best? hell yes! does experience show uber ambitious mods usually end up incomplete? unfortunately yes. Do we hate saying it? I do.
we'll all probably still be here in a year or 2, or at least on new vegas, or tes5. popping in from time to time.

I never join mod teams, I've done limited outsourced work for more mods than I can count, so unless I know the crew(and have released work, and probably been around the scene for a couple years) I'm not willing to directly throw my time into projects. It's a catch 22. which is unfortunate. Big fish are also neck deep into their own fantasy what if ambitious mods anyway, and good luck prying them away from their baby.

iif as the project lead- cannot and will not be willing to do the entire project singlehandedly. Don't be project lead. Lead = ninja, leaps tall buildings in single bounds, faster than a speeding bullet, sixual tyrannosaurus.

Anyway- give it your best shot! prove these svckers wrong. I think the modular approach is a good idea. seems to work for me. otherwise I'd never release anything.


Well in this case- Bethesda own the franchise outright. and you are modding their game- the one stipulation is, as long as nothing is copied from the other games, I think 99% that its cool, and only does good things for bethesda. So rock on

edit: I think it's important to keep the first post updated, that info a few posts up is basically lost in the middle of this thread. and the first post currently doesn't tell me anything

Thanks guys for the insight. Let's go through and address all the above



We will need animators. Luckily our Lead Modeler has some animation experience but if we could find a dedicated animator that would be better. Just to give you an idea on some of the animations we'll need: NPC kneeling (intro), custom model animation (rats, the master, etc.), custom death animations (the body melting). Those are just off the top of my head. There are others on top of that.



We've been in touch with him actually and I've been slowly weeding through the UI to try and learn as much as I can with his assistance. We were just hopeful that there may be someone else out there with experience to expediate the process as me having to learn it from scratch on top of the other work I am doing will lengthen the time it takes to complete the project.



Perhaps programmers is a bad word, instead I should use scripter. In either case someone that has the anolytical and systematic thought process of a programmer/scripter and enjoys working on that is who we are looking for especially if they have experience doing such in the Fallout 3 engine. We have a programmer helping us out but with as much work as we have in this department the extra help is much needed.



We don't need a web designer to finish the project, however as our website is the main point of information and updates we think it would be nice to have a theme that better represents the project and provides a unified experience through our main page, forums, etc.



We have already started working on the areas and with the assistance of community resources such as Cliffworms work we have V13, V15 almost complete, Shady Sands about 1/4 complete, and Junktown started. More than likely we'll have a good majority of the areas completed before we nail down the scripting and UI.



Our belief is that even if this mod doesn't get completed (which we believe it will) we will be able to provide a lot of enrichment to the modding community to include tutorials, new game assets, etc. We'll most likely beta areas in a modular fashion to show people our dedication/quality of work and to get feedback and issue information and hopefully generate interest for other modders to help with the project .



We will be using a number of the vanilla assets however there are a LOT more we'll have to create. On top of this as we are going to hopefully be trashing the current leveling system, skills, perks, travel and other game mechanics in preference to a custom one that is more suited to the classic Fallout. IMHO that qualifies a TC as we are completely re-working some of the core game mechanics.



Luckily the project lead is willing to do the entire project singlehandedly However, the project lead would also like to see the mod completed within the next one to two years also On top of data collection, some semblance of project management, marketing, and everything else I do I am working on learning the scripting, UI and actively constructing areas as those are a big areas of need. Luckily we have a scripter and modeler helping us along although they aren't dedicated resources but it definitely expedites the process with their assistance!



Great idea, thanks for the suggestion!

Keep the constructive criticism and comments coming it only helps us to improve and aids in providing more clarity to the community.

That would be me, especially the sixual dinosaur bit


Ooh remnds me to dig up my thread as well

noooooooo, don't tell yourself that.



That's not what you need unless you are just making tiny tweaks to existing animations.



There is already a kneeling animation, it is called LooseCrouchTalkB .

You don't need to use animations for special deaths such as a body melting. In fact I doubt an animator would be able to do what you're asking for. It's not an animation function. It's been done already and it uses scripts and tokens and effects and things, not animation changes. FOOK has some mod embedded in it which creates special deaths like that, you would want to find whatever that is and use/adapt it or use its mechanism.

New animations for rats, the master - - you do not do this through new animations. You take an existing creature in the game that is close to what you want (such as a mole rat or a super mutant or maybe just a normal human NPC?) and redesign the mesh/texture on the model. Then you get to have the new-looking model and get to retain Bethedsa's professional animation.

Check this mod out. It is a baby Deathclaw follower. http://planetfallout.gamespy.com/mods/372/Baby-Deathclaw-Commander . See how little and different-looking the baby deathclaw is? He does NOT use new animations. He is the regular deathclaw, edited, with the normal Deathclaw animations associated with it being left intact. The model changes were by a most-talented guy named Zenl who is known to do projects like this for people's mods (he made that one for me, and he also made me a Fallout 2 style Super Mutant (just style, not identical) which is going into my mod within the next few versions (the armor is not yet colored but the skin/shape/etc is all there - http://www.finhosting.fi/~fallout/screenshots/ZenlComplete1.jpg http://www.finhosting.fi/~fallout/screenshots/ZenlComplete2.jpg http://www.finhosting.fi/~fallout/screenshots/ZenlComplete3.jpg ). That mutant uses no new animations.

When it comes to creature/NPC animations: always, always work by creating something that re-uses the existing creature/NPC animations. You must not expect to get an animator who can or will create animations of the necessary quality to be rigged to a brand new model for an NPC/creature in Fallout 3. Don't waste your time asking for one or waiting for one. It's a complete waste of an animator's time too, and he would know that, since there are so many good animations in the game now.

I'll check this out.




We'll get in touch with them and see if we can utilize it.



I'll try this when I have an opportunity and see if we can get it worked out. We may still need to some custom animation but doing this will definitely cut down on that need if there is any. Thanks for pointing this out.

I hate to rain on anybody's parade, but I'm on Tarrant's side with this - and with all due respect I think that the project will either take 5+ years or will simply not achieve it's objectives. Tarrant is right about animators and doing animation in Fallout3 - and it really is not the most critical factor in a re-work of the game. I do wish you the best of luck, but after a year your team is still pretty small compared to the stated goal for size, and you would already need to be a long way into the real work of it to catpure huge interest from dedicated modders.

My recommendation would be to reduce the scope, clearly define the objectives and then conduct your own anolysis of the team, of what you still need and what would be realistic. If it were me, I would carefully condisder the objectives versus the resources available, and would make sure that I came out ahead in terms of staff, time and planning that would ultimately lead to success. Your team is still skeletal, your ambitions huge and I fear for your ultimate success in such a state.

With my own "DLC", I included no animation changes of any kind simply due to the complexity required in their consutrction, tweaking and testing. I have tons of models and over 1,000 textures for those models, but I limited myself to not even attempting to do the things that I'm no good at to improve my chances of success. I wish you luck with yours!

Miax

Looks like it could be interesting. It may take a long time to come to pass, but regardless, it could be potentially very amazing.

Don't let the negativity get you down.

Also, Tarrant and Maximus, don't be so mean. Ambition isn't a crime.

I think, at this stage, website development and all things related to that should be pretty low priority. The reason that people are skeptical here is that the mod promises great things but it is only just getting started. Large spectacular projects are announced (and usually disappear) all the time, so especially if you need a lot of help from all sorts of people with different skills, I think it would be better to wait with most of the recruitment until you've made some significant progress.

You could always use placeholder meshes that are later replaced with custom ones (using a molerat model instead of a rat model for now, instead of not placing any creatures at all until someone has modelled you a rat) or skip a part of the mod if you absolutely cannot do it without new models or whatever. With some creativity you'd be surprised home much can be achieved with the original material FO3 offers.

Modders are much more likely to join a project where the project leader has already proven that he is serious about the project and has the skills and determination to work and finish something of this scope, by showing what has been done already.

You could spend a lot of time making the project known to the world by setting up a pretty website and trying to recruit people, but at this point I'd think getting stuff done by yourself is more important. That's how I see it anyway. So what is it exactly that you can do by yourself?

Also as said before, needing 'programmers' is very vague. What for? Quests? Scripts? Both those things are pretty easy to learn, especially if you look at the GECK Wiki and how it is done by Bethesda in the game itself . Of course you might need some help for some of the more complicated scripts but the whole thing is far from rocket science.

If you can already design interiors/exteriors, doing the job of making (at least part of) the quests and quest related scripts yourself instead of relying on others completely is something you should definitely consider. Always try to do as much as possible by yourself.

Being mean would have been to say nothing at all. Taking the time to push in the right direction is an act of kindness.

Exactly.

Is it more cruel to be "Nice" all the time and watch someone struggle for months only to fail in the end? What kind of "helper to the modding community" would I be in that case? Not a very good one.

Some that cares enough to offer "constructive criticism" is not being mean, it is trying to help someone from making a huge mistake - with the hopes that, if worded professionally and politely, will help the modder into a more realistic path that Will lead to success.

Ambition is not a crime, and neither is trying to help someone from driving off the road.

Miax

We appreciate all the comments and recognize them as very constructive criticism and are taking notes as appropriate to help improve our mod and make this project a success.

What Tarrant said about reusing creature skeletons and animations. Do that at any cost.
Rats = molerats= seemless=easy=done. rat+rig+animation=hard=ouchie.
there currently 0 modders in the fallout scene I know of working on custom creatures.

Saidenstorm is currently the only modder who has released custom rigs and full animation sets for them, and currently the only dude who really knows their [censored] there. that I know of anyway. And he's out in thr real world bustin his balls. Or else he'd be modding. He is pretty dedicated.
So if at all possible, Just rig any new creatures to existing skeletons. It'll save a LOT of hassle, is usually in the standard skill set of any modeller, all they have to do is know how to rig and set up the dismemberment. its so easy compared to making a good rig, and then studying the required animations, doing the animations, getting all the blends and bone priorities half decent, and getting it to look good. it is pretty heavy stuff.

All basic scene and object transform animations can be very easy. like doors. I could do all a hell of a lot of easy activators objects like doors, all kinds of stuff really, really quickly, like 10-20 doors in couple hours?dunno, but it is quitck and easy. you'd be surprised how many people here can whip them up and export them. or if it is really basic, key it in nifskope. Don't be put off by people saying there are no animators. There are.

However. The utilities we have for doing any of the expanded animations types are limited or non existent. ie morphs/texturetransforms/materialcontrollers/particles ect. Are all stupidly annoying to do, as you have to hand key the bloody things in nifskope. with max- It's not oblivion modding, where you have a full 3d package and all that control it affords, just export them lickity split and have a very short turn over. It is very limiting to animators. But any kind of transform is a piece of cake because we can virtually export them directly from our 3dapps. But it gets annoying if you want to add in that green light turning on when you hit activate on the door.... So yeah, it truly depends on the animation complexity and most of all its type.

The melting animation, like death critical effect? again saiden is the daddy, he has some rather nice effects in his mod. Well worth researching at the very least. And is again the only modder I know of who probably has gotten custom particles into the game. I can't, I tried all kinds of things like hex editing morphs and particles but I'm a retard, so they don't work. Anyway, while they can be pretty complex to set up imo, if you want to be tweaking the particle systems by hand and crap :S. it is nothing to worry about, is not priority, is eyecandy, and a proxy or placeholder can be implemented from day 1.

In fact that is a good point, make proxy entrys in the geck/assets, like when ever you go in there to mod, for example- As soon as I have completed the male version of a armor asset, I will duplicate the nif, for the female version(even though it'll look stupid on a female, I'll make a blank icon, and just copy a version a vanilla world model to accompany it. so when I go into the geck and make the entry, all the custom assets go in and I can just replace the proxies later as I do them this is good idea to keep the workflow going, Never ever be waiting for assets, unless it's tilesets- which imo if you are doing a large partial conversion mod, are probably your priority #1. As well as height map for the exterior. really level or world building can't happen without some of those assets.

If I may say so, I think this needn't be one of those large overly-ambitious projects that after years of development produces no noteworthy or released content as some have seemed to infer or stated. I like the ideas from others of working on various parts of the Fallout 1 world and releasing those "episodes" until a full TC is accomplished. This way you do not run the risk of working all those years and having nothing to show for it. You would also be able to get community input from the released content. So in the end you might be a large overly ambitious project but you were able to achieve many useful marks on the roadmap to a full TC. You might consider organizing the TC into various sub-projects that would be released on their own to the community but would be fully compatible and intended to be used with the other parts of the TC. So you could have a well known, high quality mod already released which the community loves by itself but will eventually be included into the TC once everything is ready.

I join in with the others who have expressed their support and well wishes for this ambitious project! I never played any other Fallout game before FO3. But, after reading all the hardcoe original Fallout 1 & 2 types rave about the great story and writing I downloaded the Trilogy pack from Steam and really gave Fallout an honest try. Much to my disappointment I found it unplayable. I believe part of it was that my rig is a 64 bit system and the game won't run well on it. (Constant crashes, graphic glitches and freezes) But the main thing I found unplayable was the cumbersome (I'm trying to be nice here) gameplay mechanics. I don't care HOW good the story is, the way you have to play that game totally ruins any fun whatsoever for me.

Anyway, if this gets done it will give folks like myself a chance to experience some of what many people rave about the original. Also, I do have a very limited amount of modding experience and can contribute in minor ways if needed. I'm not too bad with interiors, cluttering and such so if you have a need for that I'd be glad to help. Check my sig for a look at my mods.

My apologies, I didn't see any constructive criticism in your posts, but apparently there was. For that, I apologize.

All I heard was "No, don't do that!" Apparently, I really don't know nothing about criticism. Because I get worse every day. Maybe I'm jaded.
Again, my apologizes.

Don't do it!

If you do, my head might asplode with awesomness.




How's that for constructive criticism?

Well, I don't think it qualifies as either Constructive or Criticism to be honest.
Just silly humor.

Again, my apologies to those who took my words wrong.

Wanted to give everyone a little taste for the work we've been doing the past month:

http://fallout3mod.com/resources/ShadySands/F3MSSClose.jpg

That layout does look like, I think, one of the FO1 or 2 towns =p

Shady Sands!

One of my biggest questions with such a project concerns layout. It's not clear to me at all that the same layout works well when perspective is changed. My favorite example is the game Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines. It was the first 3d first-person perspective game by a bunch of developers well-schooled in 2d rpgs. While the game looks great, the maps all feel very empty. My take on why is that in a 2d map of, say, a tavern, one barkeep, half a dozen noname NPCs, an interactable bookshelf and a back door can feel like a complete room. The same setup in 3d fpp is woefully empty. So much more has to be interactable for a 3d location to make it feel full. This is why I'm sure Bethesda filled Oblivion and FO3 up with clutter. It's not all that useful, but you can kick it around or fill up your inventory with it, so the space feels full.

In addition, boxy layouts like Shady Sands work great in 2d, but I'm not so sure about 3d. I'm afraid it will look like a bunch of flat uninteresting space and a few square buildings.

I'm not trying to throw cold water on the project. It's just that I don't really think that faithfulness in map-layout is necessarily the way to go here.

gothemasticator

My first reaction to your statement that you expect the project to take one or two years is that you haven't a clue about what you are proposing. I'm not saying that to be mean, just speaking from experience. Like many who have already posted, I have seen many big project announcements come to nothing and the underestimation of the time and amount of work involved is a real red flag. One post said 5+ years and I think that is more likely. By that time, the Fallout 3 game engine will be obsolete. I already have a love/hate relationship with it, and frankly will be glad to see something better. Moore's Law makes me hope that hardware and software improvements will make FO3 as dated in 5 years as FO1 is now.

Sure you can learn a lot from your failure, but why plan on cannibalising little bits of a failed massive mod for other mods when you can start on something new that will take less time and most likely be much more welcome by mod fans? You can learn just as much or more from making mods that actually get released.

My second reaction is why would anyone want to put that much time and effort into a non-original project that doesn't promise any gold at the end of the rainbow? Not I, said BadPenney. I've got whiskey and women to pay for. The only one who stands to get paid for your efforts is Bethesda Softworks, God bless 'em.

As for the guy who said that complete dismissals can be completely dismissed: those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Fallout and Fallout 2 were great games for their time. I loved them. I blame a good deal of the relatively tepid story lines of Fallout 3 more on the gelding of the gaming industry by the Moral Majority and the rating system created to save the souls of our youth than I blame the developers. If the game makers want to be able to release to stores then they have to play ball.

That is what I love about modders. Not that we can reheat yesterday's leftovers, but that we can give Tipper Gore and all right thinkers everywhere a virtual finger, make something more out the stripped down models available at the showroom, and even create something new and fresh, We don't have to play by all of the rules. Killable innocents? Just like real war, baby!

I'd rather go where no one has gone before than to replay a dressed up old game that holds no surprises for me. Been there, done that.

I resemble that.

Well I'm not going to predict the future, certainly 5 years is too far to see. but I reckon it won't be a whole lot outdated in 5 years. Nothing will change in the industry for about 3-4, which is the best speculated release of the next generation of consoles. So there won't be any massive industry leap until then, and everybody starts developing 8th gen games or whatever it is. So that it will probably be d3d11.. which is stuff we can see in games today though it's still a new api, and with better hardware it can power some serious badass bits.
but even if everyone is on 4GB Vram and 8+ cores in their cpu by then, another limiting factor, a rather large and over looked one imo, will be that games at the moment cost 10s of millions to produce and years to dev. I bet that developers will not want to start sinking even more millions and or take any extra years to get a game out the door- basically you can see the ceiling is starting to get close. games for the next 3-4 years are probably going to be using existing tech for the most part. Though hopefully by year 5 everything will be looking like a cg film with sick looking GI and shadows everywhere. like cryengine demos

Gamebryo isn't going anywhere. Oblivion uses it (FO3 is an update version). Oblivion is nearly five years old now, still heavily played, still heavily modded, and the game still sells for $20-$30, unlike most games that old which are routinely $5.

The engine isn't going to doom this project. It's actually one of the best things going for the project.

gothemasticator

Yes, but the Unreal 3 Engine wasn't around then. Unreal 3 (WHICH IS FREE) is 100x better than Gamebryo. Everything is more detailed and looks so much better than Gamebryo. Not to mention C++0x is around the corner.