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Brilliant!
where is dl link ? I want to destroy some buildings too
the screen with mech adjustment remind me about Titans of Steel: Warring Suns, i spend hours tinkering with gear overthere, the menus was greatly design (wish this game was faster in tactical battles!)
Destructible building, fences, lights, brightmaps, hidden base in mountain, start from water. this mission video show that you know what all mech is about (i personally dont ). You have excellent taste. And work on meaningful for gameplay stuff.
city would look more alive if there were:
- car on streets (bonus if moving)
- tiny spritey humans running awfully slow from player.
- more trees
- cranes & gantry cranes
- chimneys producing unharmful and visible CO2 (yeah I know unrealistic)
- ships on water (where else they should be on mountain? )
- pipelines
- railways (with trains and train stations)
- big industry machines on tracks (excavators)
but please keep all above with as low detail, pixel as possible. The current look of your mod is perfect.
as someone mention before the 2d sprites of your mechs probably would look better with higher contrast. I also boost the color a little.
this robots could be easily recolor and still look cool. Recolor for different environment (snow, desert, jungle, navy).
edit:
also im not a racist but
your mechs are too pretty, looks like toys and not like crude machines of death, as they' should.
no, i change my mind. they fine. Just need some love.
/edit
P.S. can i somehow help you with something in this mod?
Last edited by Lagi on Fri Jun 05, 2020 3:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
Hey thanks Lagi, I feel that you deserve a detailed response.
Lagi wrote:where is dl link ? I want to destroy some buildings too
It's coming, just a matter of time.
Lagi wrote:city would look more alive if there were:
- car on streets (bonus if moving)
- tiny spritey humans running awfully slow from player.
- more trees
- cranes & gantry cranes
- chimneys producing unharmful and visible CO2 (yeah I know unrealistic)
- ships on water (where else they should be on mountain? )
- pipelines
- railways (with trains and train stations)
- big industry machines on tracks (excavators)
Some of this is planned. There are already a few cars and trucks scattered around the city you can see in the videos I posted.
In terms of the number of trees and things like that, I have to strike a balance between performance and visuals.
Lagi wrote:as someone mention before the 2d sprites of your mechs probably would look better with higher contrast.
...
this robots could be easily recolor and still look cool. Recolor for different environment (snow, desert, jungle, navy).
I generally agree with yourself and cherno that the sprites could use more contrast. I like your edits. As the original graphics are indexed, it's fairly trivial to just use a different palette and completely change the look of the sprites.
I plan on doing this, but I first have to improve my tools because right now the export process is done by a bunch of shitty python scripts that are badly in need of a re write.
It's easier to change the palette once and then export every sprite then it is to manually adjust each sprite individually.
Lagi wrote:your mechs are too pretty, looks like toys and not like crude machines of death, as they' should.
Haha yeah, they look like toys because they literally are toys. The guys that made Iron Assault back in the day just kitbashed a bunch of Bandai model kits, took pictures of them and then digitally painted over them. Pretty similar to how many of DOOMs monsters were made.
I'm a little surprise that nobody got sued, but I suppose the game is obscure enough that nobody who mattered noticed this.
Lagi wrote:P.S. can i somehow help you with something in this mod?
Not right now, but perhaps later.
Anyhow, I'll jump the gun and give another general update here:
Spoiler:
Finishing up the training missions. I ended up making 2. One of them is a semi guided tutorial level, and the other is just a test range and sort of test track where you can trial your builds.
There is an endless list of fiddly bits and issue that I want to get sorted before I release the demo. I get to frequently experience that wonderful sensation of realizing that a single point on my TODO list actually entails several sub points and is about 10 times as much work as previously thought
New projectile effects are in. I've gone with dithered sprites for things like smoke trails, and this is quite noticeably faster. While I think in an overall graphical fidelity sense the new effects look worse, in a stylistic way they fit a lot better and are more "period correct". I may lean into this, but for now only projectiles use these effects. Impacts and explosions still use conventional methods.
There is still a lot of administrative/behind the scenes stuff that needs to get wrapped up before the demo comes out. This is mostly QoL stuff and UI work. There's one more broad UI thing I want to get in, which is the info base. This will be a documentation/lore section of the UI. Then its a matter of balancing unit and weapon statistics and tweaking the missions. After that, a pass on effects and some sound work (eg, stuff like tanks making tank sounds as they move).
Then after all that bullshit there's a handful of nasty bugs that I'm waiting to squash until things are in a more concrete state.
But hopefully you guys will get to play this before the heat death of the universe.
Hello.
I've updated the OP with some new info. The demo is currently in the hands of some capable people.
Barring any game stopping bugs it should be out soon. I mean that. Soon. Not "Soon".
Have some screenshots of the finalized product:
I cant await to kill civilians in their apartments.
Skys are very moody, especially the sunset.
ReformedJoe wrote:
It's easier to change the palette once and then export every sprite then it is to manually adjust each sprite individually.
I check Iron Assault video. Mech sprites are too bleached originally. I dont want to figure out how to open files .raw, .lz, ... to get to the pictures, if you do it already.
Hey, give me a shot, send me your rip pictures and i would adjust two sliders in paint.net for all of them at once.
Nmn wrote:Absolutely loving it!
All the best luck with it! May your motivation never run out.
Thanks. The motivation comes and goes, but I certainly intend to finish this thing.
Lagi wrote:
...I check Iron Assault video. Mech sprites are too bleached originally. I dont want to figure out how to open files .raw, .lz, ... to get to the pictures, if you do it already.
Hey, give me a shot, send me your rip pictures and i would adjust two sliders in paint.net for all of them at once.
I appreciate your enthusiasm, but let me explain why I don't want to do things this way.
1. Manually editing the images creates another step in the art process which, in addition to taking more time, is problematic because:
2. If I were to then create alternate versions of units using a differing palette, I would have to ensure the palette was stylistically similar to the edits or tweak the new versions manually.
3. If there turns out to be an error in my export process, I would have to fix it, reexport the images, and then manually tweak them all over again.
So in the end, it is much better to attack the problem at the root, which is the palette used to export the images.
When I'm done fixing my tools, and if you desire, I can send you a package containing the image source files and you can play around with the palette directly.
Barring any catastrophic event I'm planning to drop the demo within 24 hours.
On a whim, and because I was bored, I recorded a bunch of short videos showcasing different mech builds. I spammed them out in a bunch of other places, so I might as well spam them out here as well.
Spoiler:
Kinetic build. Shreds stuff at close range, but has problems with heat. Ammo might also become a concern if you aren't careful.
Long range particle sniper. Heat management is critical. Letting the enemy get too close is also a really bad idea.
Bruiser with a bunch of lockon missiles. If you vector your shots correctly you can one shot most enemies. Possibly sliiiiightly op.
camper wrote:looks amazing! better than the original.
The original has a certain charm to it, but it hasn't aged well. It was already incredibly dated when it released. I mean, Mechwarrior 2 was released at around the same time and it's lightyears beyond Iron Assault in terms of visuals.
Vostyok wrote:I bet this would be epic in coop. Mix and match mech loadouts for the killer team. Or screw it and go Xcom and 100% sniper team.
There's potential, but multiplayer is a future goal. Maybe it works now by some miracle, but I would guess not.
Anyhow,
Demo Release!
Thanks to some capable playtesters, I think most of the major issues with the demo have been smoothed out. There are of course a lot of things left on the ol' TODO list, but I think I've sat on this long enough. So I'm going to boot it out into the wild and see what happens.
Spoiler:
Requires latest GZDoom and a copy of the Doom 2 iwad.
). You have excellent taste. And work on meaningful for gameplay stuff.
I also boost the color a little.
