If Stardock were a real company, a guy like me wouldn’t be allowed to put up dirty laundry like I’m about to put up.
For those of you who know me, I’m a bean counter. It’s probably why I love strategy games so much because tactics are for amateurs, logistics is for experts.
So one of my ongoing angst with the Elemental budget overall is just how large a percentage of the budget thus far has gone into “modder tools”.
Don’t get me wrong, I love modding. But in my day, modding meant opening up LUA or Python scripts or creating your own “stuff” using tools like After Effects or Maya or 3D Studio. THAT is modding.
Now, I have seen and known about the Workshop tools in Elemental for a long time. I’ve discussed them. The Map Editor I understand. Being able to make maps is important for modding. The tile designer is important too for people who want to create their own custom environments. However, the particle editor I didn’t “get” and I had, on more than one occasion, brought up the $$$ spent on building it.
Well, on Friday I finally got to see why it’s there and what it does. The internal build on Friday added in the spell effects (i.e. when you revive land or cast fireballs or whatever). I had assumed that each spell effect was being created in Maya and exported to be used. I was shocked to learn that no, all of the spell effects were made with the built in effect editor.
The spell that really shocked me was whirlwind. In the game, we’re in a battle and there’s lots of units fighting it out when they show me the Sovereign casting whirlwind on a group of units. A tornado shows up and wreaks havoc. My first inclination was “Great job! That looks great” and wondered what they used in Maya to do that. That’s when I learned that no, none of the spell effects were made in Maya. They were all done with the built in effects editor – in less than 5 minutes. That’s why it cost so much to make. It allows for crazy amounts of spells to be made and visually implemented by us and modders alike.
What’s really sad, and this is the really embarassing part, when I’ve demoed Elemental to the media and showed them the workshop, I didn’t show the effects editor because I didn’t think it was a big deal. Turns out, it’s a very big deal.
In another couple months, you guys will be able to play around with this too. I can only imagine the kinds of crazy stuff people will make and share with this.
Particle editor? Hoo, count me intriqued.
Um... That should never happen. You should check if you have proper air flow and possibly remove excess dust from the fans and components.
Will we be able to add "physical effects" to a particle effect ? You said the whirlwind had wreak havoc : were the units flying randomly ? Can we create such pysical effect in the particle editor ? Or is it just a layer drawn over the battlefield ?
Sounds awesome! It would be cool to see some spells in action.
This is some amazing news ... I can now start my dreams of altering the subspace of reality.
Maybe I can mod in some Roots of Gaia, or a Meteor
not to mention Static Discharge where conducting metals rise to the surface, and electrical bolts arc throughout the entire battlefield. (Earth/Air combo spell)
Interestingly, Bethesda took a similar approach with the Elder Scrolls series starting with Morrowind: they built the thing to build the game, and then they built the game. Another practical result is that, once built, the incremental cost to develop expansions, other games on the platform, etc. is very small.
Brad - You've mentioned wanting to mod in old-school games. If the Elemental platform is flexible enough, you could end up with relatively small development costs for games and expansions for several years.
Look at Salesforce.com. Yeah, they're core competency is CRM, but the Force.com platform is such that business people with no IT background can create simple apps. Was Force.com expensive to develop? Probably. The the cost to develop new functionality now is trivial.
Just my 2 cents, of course.
STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT! I too am one of those old fart gamers (would look forward all week long to go to my friend's house to play on his Pong console because it was awesome) and I physically can't take all of this teasing. I have been lurking this board for months on a daily basis even though I am not in the Beta just to see how things are going and to see if the testers think it is going good because this *could* be the game I too have been looking forward to for a loooong time. But the teasing of all of the goodies the game has to offer is making me so anxious for the game that it is starting to hurt. It is like being back in high school, going out on a date geting some action, but not going all of the way and having your junk hurt so bad that it feels like someone stuffed a pincushion into it and then hit it with a hammer.
Anyways guys make it epic.
For Brad: When I finally finished Avatar IV I did the Rocky run around the house multiple times, fully expecting a parade in my honor to be held for my hard, long suffering win. It was then that I realized, 'Oh crap, I'm done with it. Now what??!' and sadly moved on. What a great game.
Trust me when I say there is plenty of airflow. If you saw it, you would think that comment is funny.
More good news. Yaah!
Did you never play around with Particle forge for Sins?
Makes you wonder what other surprises Frogboy (and therefore, by extension, us) are unaware of.
"By the way, we already remade Archon as a quick test of the modding tools, what do you think?"
Frogboy,
it depends on who you are trying to impress. If you want to impress modders, getting an article out there on how moddable Elemental is (with videos) would be really cool. If you need, get one of the FX artists to demo it. Remember that modders are customers too, they're not shopping for necessarily the best "game," they're shopping around for the next environment they want to spend a few years working with.
It's a big choice, so we can be pretty discriminating, and probably not a lot of the modder community even knows about Elemental. If they do, they're probably still assuming you can only make turn-based games with it.
Don't be afraid to get into the little details!
Im hoping to get one more pass at the UI of the particle workshop, before it gets into the hands of user, at the moment is very "Designed by engineers", however that dose not stop it form being awesome.
Good to hear. Now mormegil...once you are done with it, don't forget to start to work on your next project: The creature creator for Elemental! [Something like what we had in Spore]
Seriously, if we could have something like that in Elementall....I think that EWoM could be the "perfect" game for a strategy gamer and modders.
I think Elemental will be modder friendly, but not THAT modder friendly. Besides there is the tile designer
This brings to mind a guest lecture I attended in college given by a then vice president of epic games, although I can't remember his name. The subject of his talk wasn't the programming or development of games, but more related to bean counting. The jist of it went that the unreal Engine was developed as a means of removing programmers from game development work as much as possible, so that those who licensed it(Epic's main source of revenue) would be able to primarily use artists and game designers to create their games with a minimum amount of programmer work. The reasoning being that programmers were both slow to achieve a given result and relatively expensive.
The talk seems poignant to the subject at hand, in that good modding tools will not only help modders, but will push future Stardock developments to be faster and cheaper. That might appeal to Frogboy's inner accountant too.
I second this sentiment.
It is long overdue to have a user friendly "quality" toolset attached to an even higher quality game/game engine/platform. I am sure Stardock knows how huge the PnP Rping community is and a very high % of such are not very keen to computers and feel the old school way is the only way, however I believe that the ever increasing distance between each players residence and the reality of real life now in days Elemental may just have enough flexibility to capture such audience as well as the gamers and perhaps even those who like sandbox type gaming with there custom uber toons. I feel that a good solid game mechanics and core script, engine/AI, etc comes first to back story, plot, etc. (not saying it is not important just second). Take Disciples 2 it has a well thought out story and pre made races from which to start a plot, but once one has done this (most of the time not even completed because the race being played is not to ones liking) that is it; the game is shelved and forgotten, one is left with the wish one could make ones own custom choices so one could play(re-playability). The game was simple by comparison, but what it lacked in AI and strategic choices it made up with its creative unites, great graphics in the tactical screen. This always seems to be the theme with games they are great in one or two areas and lacking in all the rest (rushed, deadlines, etc.) Why can't Elemental finally be a GREAT game as well as a complete one, one that looks into fine tuning all aspects of the game including the modding which now in days its just as much a part of a games content as anything else (it will never hurt to have switches *would you like the lights off, on or just dimmed a bit or a lot your choice*. Flexibility and quality with out compromising a rich detailed fun game is sure to be a winner.
Im glad my whirlwind blew you away brad.
...
........
YEAH I SAID IT!
Really though, it was only the 3rd spell id ever made - and was first showed the particle editor just 2 days prior.
I can attest to how cool of a tool it is. It needs some UI polish and debugging for sure but whats there is really mindblowing.
For those who *are* artistically inclined you can draw your own emitters textures and the particle editor will find them, and you can then put it into your effect. It is SO MUCH FUN. I can't wait to get back on to working on spells!~K
Ooh, I loves me some particle systems
Are particle systems tied to spells only or will we be able to embed them on tiles and units?
I can't wait to make effects like the happy rainbows of friendship or...
J/K I am going to make a nuke.
What can I say? Impressive!
I'm wondering how expansive the spell effect editor is. Is it kind of like a 3d flash editor, where you can have vector animations, loops, load your own textures, etc? Any ability for you to import your own custom animations created in external programs?
Don't make the tools TOO much fun or no one will play the game!
Seriously, I can't wait to play around with this!
I agree with others - Show & Tell on Youtube!
You hit the spot right there! That's the point of developing and using and engine and its assorted tools, abstraction. engine users/programmers should not worry about memory allocation, dangling pointers and software architecture when adding a new ability, a new spell effect, a new orc. If they do worry, the engine failed.
(distorting by quoting out of context) "...programmers should not worry about memory allocation, dangling pointers..."
So, they should program in the language I've been programing in for the last 30 years?? Guaranteed no need to worry about those two things
You get one guess what language I mean.
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