SP Modern Apocalypse Mount & BRAINS Discussion Thread

[Austupaio]

The zombies will be like people except they won't feel pain or fear and (depending on the type) may have an uncanny supply of adrenaline. If you shoot them in the foot enough times they'll still die, because they bleed too. I'm not planning for the virus to have any mystic elements.

KON_Air made a modern firearms pack some time ago: http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,17044.0.html

PM'd him asking for permission to use. Thanks.

Remember if you want to make changes to the models/textures that you ask permission to edit it as well. I mean the pack is great but the models and textures aren't exactly Next-Gen Console content if you know what I mean. I'm still open to model & texture making once you reach that stage.

 

[SFtheWolf]

Still haven't received any word from the firearms guy. I'll have to find someone else or just make them myself in Google Sketchup.

 

[Deon]

I can help you with a few models after you have some result. Sorry, this is how I work . A buggy closed alpha would be enough .

 

[Qwertyman]

This is all sounding very good
sorry, I havent read all 15 pages but....  (shamless I know)

some ideas;  you NEED new animations for the zombies, ive seen them put into M&B before where they are just slow naked peasants, it doesnt work.
survivors need to be few and far between, most if not all people who join your party should be companions, or at least you need to be able to equip them, adding to the feeling of scavenging for parts.
zombie controlled settlements need to be raided, but not just an option that does it for you like in M&B, you need to enter the town, killing zombies and perhaps taking food/weapons out of crates (that act like chests) in the town/mall/whatver.
the vast majority of locations should start as zombie controlled, allowing survivors and the player to take places as hideouts.
you need lots of buildable upgrades to your hideout, to make having one main safehouse a better option that just taking everywhere.
slowly degrading items? - makes more of an insetive scavenging and stockpiling supplies. - to go with this would be non permanent ammo, meaning that when you buy one set of ammo it wont magicaly refiill after each battle (perhaps 4-5 battles worth per bundle, not depleting if you dont use the ammo though)
LOTS of zombies, 'lords' of the zombie faction (would probably be the big boss zombies you mentioned) should have massive hordes, realy realy massive hordes. dont worry about it lagging- the reinforcement system will make them come in waves.
most humans will take you as prisinor, or just loot you and let you go when they beat you in battle. zombies wont. you should have a chance of escaping the battle if lost, droping some items and losing companions. otherwise you will die (or become a zombie?)  might be a bit annoying, but i cant think of a better system.

EDIT: allso, please dont make it TOO serius, by all means make it a dark and gritty bloodfest where we will all ulitmately die horribly, but have a laugh whilst your doing it (see Left 4 Dead)  afterall, the reason so many people love the idea of zombies (in games obviusly P is because they are so goddamn fun.

 

[vadermath]

New animations cannot be modded into MnB for the time being...

 

[Qwertyman]

New animations cannot be modded into MnB for the time being...

What about mods that add new attack and death animations?

but, since your a forum regular im gonna assume your right. ):

 

[Austupaio]

From what I've gathered, although I could be spreading mis-information, there are basically differences between animations because some directly affect the skeleton and some don't.

So for example you can make a person attack slightly different, but you can't make mounts walk or run vastly different from the way a horse can. That and I'm also under the impression that even the small animation edits were a pain in the ass.

If I'm wrong about this, which I wouldn't be surprised by, please feel free to correct me.

Edit : Oh and I think those animations changes are replacers, not actually separate, new animations.

 

[Almalexia]

Nope, they were new animations. But on the other point, you are correct. You can't really edit the basic skeleton of a mount or charecter, which is why there aren't dwarves, giants, and dragons 

 

[SFtheWolf]

New animations cannot be modded into MnB for the time being...

...Oh.

There's no way at all? How do people get new melee animations to work then?

That actually has me seriously questioning the worth of this mod. I know I wouldn't be able to get excited playing a game where the enemies just had a zombie skin.

Edit: Just saw the replies. Hm..this is where I'm starting to need someone with modeling experience to help. If anyone could tell me about the feasibility of more wild run/attack animations than the defaults, while still allowing the player to walk normally, please advise.

This has me really worried.

 

[Almalexia]

Eh, even if you can't edit their walking motions, this mod should be great. I think most of us could live without some new animations 

 

[SFtheWolf]

I'm not sure I could. If the zombies look stupid that would completely break the immersion.

I picked Mount & Blade for this because of the engine. I should hope that the engine suits the concept or else it's a bad decision. Mounts aren't even really the highlight of this mod, I was hoping for the game to be able to gracefully handle huge masses on the screen.

 

[Moss]

From what I understand the custom animations are just stitch jobs. For example each swing animation is done in segments, not one long on rails thing, so custom animations just switch around the numbers that point to those different segments, so that upon releasing the mouse button combination that points towards the normal "ready overhead chop animation" you get pointed to a different animation than "swing overhead chop". For example the aforementioned "ready overhead chop" animation is replaced with the animation for preparing to throw a throwing axe in one of the mods.

As for the animations, I can say that the slow zombies look fine from personal experience. You won't get the Romero limp and shamble, but by encumbering them enough they will shuffle forwards in an appropriate matter. The swing animations look fine as they are, but you could probably stitch together some of the weapon swing animations to make them look clumsier if it doesn't look right.

As for the running zombies, the first thing I thought to myself when I saw the new versions mo-capped running animations was "Holy ****, they would make excellent zombie run animations". Most units don't get past the jog phase due to their gear weighing them down, but make yourself a custom troop with no armour or weapons and decent agility and athletics then watch them lope around, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

The good news is that making custom individual sounds for zombies only is perfectly possible, in fact you could even set up it up to have several different types for say runners and limpers. HokieBT should be able to help you out there. It may even be possible to set up differing animations for the different "races" (i.e. human, zombie, fast zombie) that you set up, but probably not.

At any rate, don't give up on the mod so soon, Mount&Blade is one of the very few engines I could see a really good Zombie survival game actually being made on and perhaps the only one where you could really capture that essential, terrifying "shambling horde" that makes the concept of zombies so entertaining.

Edit:
And just for the record, "Bad in a good way".

 

[Qwertyman]

good news from that last reply about animations!
if worst comes to worst and you cant make new animations, just mish-mash some animations together and make some clumsy hand to hand animations- running zombies will be fine so long as you make them faster than nearly all human troops,  and slow zombies will look like they shamble if you make them slow enough.

moar suggestions!

L4D! yes I know Left 4 dead is a completly diferent game in so many ways, but Valves game design theiory will still help, so heres some usefull things from valve!

you are going to spend the majority of your playing time fighting zombies, so you should make them look good! when you see a mass of zombies, the most off putting thing will be if there are three identical zombies in a row.

so design as many variations of zombies as possible. make them bland enough not to be recognisable, and detailed enough not to look bland!
I know that you can make a unit select from a random selection of items. so i suggest that you allow the zombie troop to be able to select from every type of clothing in the entire game- it makes sense and will allow for a huge veriety of variations. that will mean using something other than clothes to weigh down zombies- gloves arent very noticable so you could probably get away with giving them realy heavy gloves.
also, is there a way to give a troop a sheild, but prevent them from using it- because it would be great to have riot police zombies, still with the shield attatched to its arm!
(also, you dont want the zombies to be blocking your attacks-  if worst comes to worst, you will have to mash the animation up to make the block animation look clumsy)

Lighting-  cities will have very few lights on after a zombie invasion- nighttime should be VERY dark, but you need light sources, (are torches possible?) light sources at night can give a very good atmosphere,  low light sources work very well in L4D, burning cars- a few working street lamps, headlights on abandoned cars.  if possible in M&B these would make night time fights very atmospheric-  according to Valve game design theiory, players instinctively head for bright areas, which in M&B means that things like street lamps would instantly become strategic points on the battlefeild, even though they will give only a small strategic bonus in gameplay terms.

sound- L4D uses music cues in gameplay-  this wont work in M&B for gameplay and technical reasons. but I suggest either no music, replaced with atmospheric noise (wind mostly, very occasional barks or distant gunfire- you want it to sound empty)  or to be replaced with slow atmospheric music.

 

[jacob25]

uhm, the star wars calradia mod has an animation for reloading blasters, maybe u could contact them and borrow it

 

[muter3456]

Zombie mods....what will they come up with next  even if there isnt animations, this mod can still work

 

[Almalexia]

Zombie mods....what will they come up with next  even if there isnt animations, this mod can still work

There actually have been dozens of zombie mods, but in a odd coincedence, they all seem to fail.

 

[vadermath]

And yet I somehow feel confident this one won't. The Wolf seems like a pretty responsible person to me, not like the other people who tried...

@Tiberius: I'll bet a million bucks that you saw that kind of sig on Kobrag

 

[Wolfsblut]

And yet I somehow feel confident this one won't. The Wolf seems like a pretty responsible person to me, not like the other people who tried...

Absolute agree with this.

@SFtheWolf:

I hope you can fix the stuff with the animations to your satisfaction and still hold on to this idea.

I also agree with Moss, that this engine is one of the very few with which you can work out a thing like this one.
So i will watch this and hope the undead spirit will rise sometimes.

Best Regards
another Wolf

 

[Yeomann]

Zombie mods....what will they come up with next  even if there isnt animations, this mod can still work

There actually have been dozens of zombie mods, but in a odd coincedence, they all seem to fail.

I don't think Blood did.

 

[Teshin]

Damn, if this fails, my work will not be used...  (joke) Who was that guy who said that he wanted to use my textures?