Aliens

[hcpookie 3770]

Vilas has granted me permission to import his Colonial Marines items into Arma 3.  So here we go!  Fair warning - this is going to take some time.

 

Vilas' original work:

 

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=7128

 

As you can see the individual weapons and the APC are present.  I am not sure if the colonial marines' body armor will be a part of this... may need to consult a tutorial on that section.  APC already works in-game, and definitely needs some config love:

 

 

 

 

Best laid plans... I am planning to bring Vilas excellent work up to the A3 "standard" by addin PIP, etc. so the vehicle can enjoy all the new things A3 has to offer.

 

 

I also plan to include a few things not created by Vilas, but will probably rely on Vilas' textures, etc. so things like the dropship will have the same overall texture palette as the APC.  Yep, bringing in the dropship. 

 

 

 

Brainstorming here:

 

 - The sentry guns.  That's a given :)  They could be remote controlled or automated.  I like the idea of an automated drone... would need to use the UAV "gunner" since they are invisible, and also would need to figure a way to add/remove the "gunner" from the turret when it is erected or disassembled.  Need to either find or build a 3D model.

 

 - Alien "drone" mesh: can a custom 3D model be used as a "soldier" mesh?  3D models are certainly available for download.  The tail wouldn't work but the rest of the "man" would work.

 

 - Motion tracker... how would one go about making it work?  Make it "reveal" all entities in a 30m radius?

 

 - Face huggers / eggs could be spawned as animals, perhaps as an always "enemy" animal.  No idea.

 

 

I don't want to step all over the Pandora map topic so I'll keep posting here.

 

 

I remember fondly the Alien Doom mod way back in the 90's.  Scared the shit out of me.  It would be nice to have maps with a dark, claustrophobic atmosphere to enjoy the same kind of feel in this game world.

[SpaceNavy 16]

Nice.

I had the "Alien drone" part on my personal to-do list.

Xenos have the same skeleton and are approximately the same size as humans so that wouldn't be a big deal.

 

Making new animations for walking, running, crawling, etc would be the real challenge.

 

Looking forward to new updates.

[wansec_6 200]

G'day Pookie,

Glad to hear Vilas is letting you port his Aliens mod. Tried the A2 version last night. All the weapons showed up and worked except for the sounds. Looking forward to your success with this project.

As you are going to bring everything up to A3 standard, will you be adding the capability to mount accessories on the weapons?

Thanks.

[jarrad96 1940]

You could try and use the same method BI used for it's Automatic turrets for the Alien Sentry guns? They're in arsenal, just look for (turret)A , as that's the automatic version- they can be linked to a UAV terminal, but they can also fire fully by themselves, from memory. 

[1212PDMCDMPPM 200]

I remember fondly the Alien Doom mod way back in the 90's.

 

"Aliens TC" by an autralian guy, Justin Fisher IIRC. That was soooo good !

 

Excellent news hcpookie !! 

[lodu 145]

 

 - Alien "drone" mesh: can a custom 3D model be used as a "soldier" mesh?  3D models are certainly available for download.  The tail wouldn't work but the rest of the "man" would work.

 

 

 

[wansec_6 200]

G'day Pookie,

Perhaps when you've ported the Colonial Marines Icebreakr will let you port his Zetaborn aliens to take on the Marines!

[hcpookie 3770]

I spent the better part of yesterday researching the drop ship overall shape and understanding the landing gear and how it deploys.  Looks like the model they used in the movie was pretty simple, so the gear just swiveled down on a hinge.  Not much you can do inside the drop ship other than sit in the pilot seat.  So it should come together with ease.  The sheer number of weapons on it is going to be interesting.  I don't think it should have much armor, making it easy to shoot down, but the weapons are going to take some refinement since they will make it so overpowered.  I am finding "blueprints" of the drop ship online with interesting details, so the weapons should have a sense of at least adhering to the movie's standards although we never saw them in use. 

 

 

"Aliens TC" by an autralian guy, Justin Fisher IIRC. That was soooo good !

 

Excellent news hcpookie !! 

Yeah that was it!  Playing MP matches with Alien Doom was "the" best MP experience one could enjoy.  So many memories.  Hidden rooms behind "alien walls".  Low ammo and low health.  He made it feel like you were desperate to finish the map and save your ammo no matter what you did.  "Short controlled bursts" LOL   So much fun.  I remember going from the "this patrol on this map is boring" to the elevator down to the alien infested level, and just standing in fear in the elevator.  "Woah didn't expect this".  SOOOO much fun!  Damn.  Getting sentimental now :)

[1212PDMCDMPPM 200]

I spent the better part of yesterday researching the drop ship overall shape and understanding the landing gear and how it deploys.  Looks like the model they used in the movie was pretty simple, so the gear just swiveled down on a hinge.  Not much you can do inside the drop ship other than sit in the pilot seat.  So it should come together with ease.  The sheer number of weapons on it is going to be interesting.  I don't think it should have much armor, making it easy to shoot down, but the weapons are going to take some refinement since they will make it so overpowered.  I am finding "blueprints" of the drop ship online with interesting details, so the weapons should have a sense of at least adhering to the movie's standards although we never saw them in use. 

 

 

Yeah that was it!  Playing MP matches with Alien Doom was "the" best MP experience one could enjoy.  So many memories.  Hidden rooms behind "alien walls".  Low ammo and low health.  He made it feel like you were desperate to finish the map and save your ammo no matter what you did.  "Short controlled bursts" LOL   So much fun.  I remember going from the "this patrol on this map is boring" to the elevator down to the alien infested level, and just standing in fear in the elevator.  "Woah didn't expect this".  SOOOO much fun!  Damn.  Getting sentimental now :)

 

 

Weird, when quoting you, your writings about the dropship are appearing.

 

About Aliens TC: and remember that in Doom vanilla, every sound was linked to a monster, it was impossible to have ambience sound so he created fake invisible unkillable not damaging monster that would play their activation sound when seeing you on the first time. That's where "check those corners" and other alien scream sounds were generated. The guy was just brillant ! I even created additional levels to play with Aliens TC... And yes, now I'm sentimental too !!! 

 

Count me in if you're looking for alpha testers !! Afterall, it's one of the first time my avatar is on topic ! ;) 

[Macser 776]

Animating a drone wouldn't be the hard part. Well, not the hardest part. Configs would arguably be harder to get together. But I assume actions could be directed to a small set of animation states. Laborious and probably very boring considering the number of them.  I imagine what Bad Benson and McRuppert did with their raptors would be very similar.

 

Of course you could ditch the whole alien deal and go with the military background hinted at in the technical book. That would bring it down to something slightly less ambitious. Not that anyone should be expecting anything outside of a few addons. I'm sure you'll have enough to do getting them ready. :)

[HorribleGoat 1473]

Brilliant!

Vilas' work in A2 was inspiring and its great to see them in A3 too!

Macser is correct, making a xenomorph and animating it is not too hard and it wont need that many animations to work and move in game either so the configs won't be that difficult either. 

[Reverend Baker 0]

Is it possible to use the camo from https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/194631-blufor-tropic-vehicle-textures/  the blufor tropic vehicle textures?  Just an idea.

[HorribleGoat 1473]

Is it possible to use the camo from https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/194631-blufor-tropic-vehicle-textures/  the blufor tropic vehicle textures?  Just an idea.

Highly doubt that since all models have their own textures that don't really work with models. Someone would need to make new textures with same style.

[hcpookie 3770]

Progress is moving slower than even I expected.  Got a good part of the dropship cleaned up and looking better, mating surfaces and animations.  Vilas' APC fits the dropship just right.  :)  Of course I had to add the "Bug Stompers - 'We Endanger Species' " insignia.  A little bit of trivia, in the movie the emblem changes direction so that the eagle is facing forward in some shots and backward in others.  I guess they had to position the decals any way they could :)

 

Landing gear is done for the most most part.  I need to figure out if I can make it "lean forward" as in the movie when the APC disembarks.  May add that animation, maybe not.

 

Control surfaces added, as are the animations for the weapon pods and the chin turret.  Weapon pods "smoothed" on top so it looks as it does in the movie when stored... all smooth on top.  The cross-pattern is a bit challenging to line up.

 

I lucked out in finding a high-res orthogonal view of the drop ship that I think I can use for making the rivet panels and other "detail" pieces.  For better or worse there isn't much detail on the ship, just the rivet panels.  Then on to making some semblance of a cockpit, weapon configs and proxies... the list never ends!  :wacko:

 

 

I'm going to be busy with Real Life this next week so this is as far as this will likely get for a bit.

[Valken 622]

So awesome! I've been getting my Aliens fix with the current Aliens TC with some Brutal Doom mixed in GZDoom. Cannot wait for this. 

 

I would love it if you can modify or inherit the motion sensor radar similar to STHUD, BUT as an ATTACHMENT on the weapon like a heartbeat sensor:

 

 

Not sure how hard this would be. Oh, and please add flashlights and laser attachments to the guns. 

[1212PDMCDMPPM 200]

hcpookie, I'm amazed by how fast you're fixing things !! To me, all those configs on model is just magic. :) 

 

Quick question about the dropship: is the arma engine capable of handling the deployment of the weapon pods (for a lack of better word):

 

 

if you need some reference material, you cand find some here (but you most probably already are aware of those links):

http://avp.wikia.com/wiki/UD-4L_Cheyenne_Dropship

http://avp.wikia.com/wiki/Bug_Stomper

[hcpookie 3770]

Quick question about the dropship: is the arma engine capable of handling the deployment of the weapon pods (for a lack of better word):

Look closely at the two pics I posted... first one (in-game) shows the pods deployed.  Yesterday's pic (in buldozer) shows them stowed.  So "yes" they already are animated :)

 

Now the challenge with animated gun pods is that I'll have to make a "master safe" weapon so the pods are not able to fire in the "stored" position.  OR, possibly a better solution, will be to make a user action that equips the weapons such as "set mode to Armed" only if the pods are deployed.  That's going to take some research to get right and not overly-complicated.

[1212PDMCDMPPM 200]

Nice !! :)

 

 

Now the challenge with animated gun pods is that I'll have to make a "master safe" weapon so the pods are not able to fire in the "stored" position.  OR, possibly a better solution, will be to make a user action that equips the weapons such as "set mode to Armed" only if the pods are deployed.  That's going to take some research to get right and not overly-complicated.

 

Can't you link both to the same action ? "Deploy pods" would actually deploy the pods and set master safe off while "Retract pods" would set master safe on then pack the pods.

[hcpookie 3770]

You misunderstand.  I can do that with the built-in engine animation values now.  The challenge is to make it so the pilot must deploy the pods BEFORE he can shoot the weapons.  Arma has a new animation value that can do this, but requires the pilot to switch to a weapon.  HOWEVER I do not think it would let the iconic "electric motor" sounds work!

 

Here are my thoughts for an ideal scenario - I could add a check in the script to monitor the altRadar control that makes the landing gear "squat" when it touches down.  This would provide the script a "true/false" condition which will allow the script to only activate when the drop ship reaches a certain altitude... in other words, when the animation state of the landing gear changes, you are now airborne.  This condition would be monitored by the script, and the script would "arm" the dropship "only" when the dropship is in the air.  It would in theory prevent the pilot from opening the gun pods (and shooting missiles!) while on the ground.  Pilot would have to fly let's say 5m in height before the pods become "active".  That is ideal... and of course will need a serious amount of testing. 

 

I did something similar for the Scud mod I made in Arma2.  I am not happy with these kinds of scripting solutions, but I see no other way to make the pods work "completely" with the cool "electric motor" sounds AND the "must be airborne" condition.

[1212PDMCDMPPM 200]

Ok, it's far more complex than I had anticipated... Thx for clearing things up.

[hcpookie 3770]

The good news is the dropship animations are indeed working... the bad news is I still have a mountain of crap to do to it LOL

 

  

[Macser 776]

Looking good so far. Even for a couple of vehicles it's no small task. :)

 

As to the previous poster, setting up the stowing/deployment of the pods shouldn't be too complex. If I can do it in OFP it can probably be done better in A3. I didn't use any looping scripts. Just 1 linked to a user action, with a condition for the pods arming/disarming/animating and 1 for more accurate launch positions for the missiles and rockets, tied to a fired eventhandler. The user action script simply animates and either removes or replaces just the launchers, not the ammo, as it's triggered. The action itself will only appear under a certain speed and height.

[Reverend Baker 0]

Are there any plans for the Solaco Frigate?

[hcpookie 3770]

Well I take back what I said about the alien 3D model.  It would seem every (free) model out there is taken from one of the AVP games.  No original work I can find to download.  I'm not certain but I would not consider a model taken from another game "allowed" unless express permission were given.  And none of the free models brings up details except "this is from game XYZ".

 

It seems that if I want to shell out some cash, there are plenty of models, which I'm unwilling to do at this point.  Not really interested in purchasing a model!

 

So I'm going to rethink adding a xenomorph alien.  Perhaps there are other solutions that are taken from other games (with permission) or otherwise come with "no strings attached".

[haleks 8212]

Ranwer135 has been working on an Alien project, I don't know if it's still on, but maybe you could get in touch with him?