Wirehead Studios

I've been checking the news page every day.  What's going on with Generations?  Are you guys getting tired of working on it?  I'm still waiting on those weapon animations!  I've tried to be patient but can't wait any longer :P

You must have missed the big news then - they've stopped developement on Generations and instead have begun work on a Gigli mod for Half-Life.

We're still working on gen. Pho had to take a break while he did some work on his computer, but he's up and running.

I should have some screenshots of the re-modeled supernailgun soon.

But... but.... the Gigli mod...  



:(

Well I'm glad to see that progress is still being made on Generations.  IMO, the only reason why I don't play Generations all the time is because it feels incomplete without the weapon animations.  The gameplay is obviously ok for the time being.  If it were up to me I would put the rest of the editing on hold and finish up the weapons next.  If the weapons were finished, the mod would feel fully completed imo.  Then I wouldn't mind waiting for further enhancements and bug fixes for releases after that.

The problem with that, is that we have to code the entire animation system from scratch. Quake3 doesn't have any animation system besides 'move forward' and 'spin'.

To get a proper, frames-based animation system in place is a MAJOR undertaking. There were a lot of code changes in 0.99d that laid the foundation for the animation system.

Phoenix can explain what's necessary better than I can.

Why don't you give them simple animations for now?  I know weapons like the Shotguns can be animated simply.  You don't have to rewrite the entire code for now if you just give them simple animations similar to what the Quake3 weapons look like.

Why put all the effort into even that, when it could go towards SUPERDOOPERAWESOMENESS?

But seriously, it would take quite a bit of effort, even for that. We'd rather put our effort into something NECESSARY than a quick and ugly placeholder.

The problem with giving weapons "simple" hacked in animations is that it takes time to tinker with the tag positions for the hand.md3 files.  Take a look at the blaster and Doom pistol.  Those have cheap 6 frame animations.  Same with the rifle and mortar.  All these are done by editing a hand.md3 file and moving tag_weapon around over a few frames.  It's no different from the player model animation moving tag_weapon around.  It's just a cheap position hack Id did.  It's really a waste of time that could be better spent doing other things.

What we're coding is actual frames into the guns.  This has required some very clever data transmission on my part, and I still have to perfect the client-server code for this.  Some weapons right now DO use frames to control their firing sequence.  This includes the Strogg Chaingun as the most notable one.  To animate a weapon we need two things:  Working code, and actual animation frames in the guns.  The weapons code has been an absolute MESS until .99d.  It was the first thing I wrote, and I had very little knowledge of C at the time.  I learned C WHILE coding Generations.  Getting guns to render was a miracle in itself.  I had to rewrite the ENTIRE client-side rendering code for weapons so that I wouldn't be dealing with a hacked-in display system while trying to make them render frames.

There's a lot to consider in the coding aspect as well.  I have to determine what the best  way is to handle not only prediction but also dropped packets between key frames.  I have to consider what position the player's fire button is in.  I have to consider framerate on the client and interpolation between action frames on the server and animation frames on the models.  Then there's the question of actually animating the models.  It makes no sense to put animations into the guns until the code is complete because neither myself nor any other modeler would know how many frames for each sequence, how many sequences per model, or what order they'd be stacked in.  Have you ever animated a model for Quake?  It's not as easy as it sounds.  I've animated models before.  If you want to take a look, check out my Doom Unleashed (http://www.planetquake.com/polycount/info/quake2/doomunls/doomunleashed.shtml) model pack for Quake 2 and use the pak8 and pak9 files for the first-person weapon replacements.

I cannot stress this enough.  It is easy to want something.  Making it happen is another story.  Anyone can want something, but you have to work VERY hard to make things work, and make them work right.  Generations is one HELL of a big mod project.  We've had to take 4 completely different sets of weapons and physics and lump them into a game that wasn't designed to handle this much stuff at once.  That Gen even WORKS is a miracle in itself.  That it works as well as it does... well, I for one believe in divine providence.  Telling us to rush things along is NOT going to change our design plan.  We strive to produce quality, and I for one do not like cutting corners just to push a release out the door when it can be done ONCE and done RIGHT.

As project leader I refuse to release material that is just not ready for release.  Yes, we do release playable betas.  The reason for this is twofold.  First it allows fans of Generations to play what we have so far.  Why hoard this to ourselves when it's perfectly good to play for fun right now as it is?  Second, it allows you - the community - an opportunity to provide feedback into the mod's direction, how it plays, and also provides us with a crucial service in the form of bug reporting.  This IS a "beta" build.  That means "not quite done".  We're not perfect, and bugs happen.  This helps us work them out so Gen can be even better once it's finished.

If you want to hold off on playing Gen until weapons animations are in, that's fine.  We just ask you be patient.  They ARE on the way.  In fact, I'm in the middle of making the last few actual weapon models as we speak.  I also have some code that our beta testers will need to look at soon and we may have to release a patch to fix a few bugs, one rather serious that is not currently affecting gameplay but will cause mappers a problem later, and also to address some playability concerns.  After that I tear into the animation frames code for weapons.  I would invite you to take a look in our screenshots section though, and download a few of our demos so you can see what the current version is all about.  Why miss out on all the fun in the mean time?

We could make all weapons spin and be done with it. Who wouldn't marvel at a spinning knife, or rocket launcher. Man 1.0 would be right around the corner..

*removes saliva from chin*

Right. Where were we. Code, skins, models, textures, pain, blood, tears. Time.