Chris Hadfield's Space oddity.

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Category: Giskard's Blog

Last Updated on Monday, 13 May 2013 15:13

Written by Giskard

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News is breaking today on the BBC about Chris Hadfield and his Space Oddity Video which was recorded on the international space station. Apparently it is the first music video recorded in space. But I did some digging and apparently Chris has been sharing his experience with people on earth, wow love saying that... on twitter.

Chris is featured on the Canadian Space Agency Youtube Page HERE.

So first up, here is the music video he created, then lets look at some of his other stuff.

Here is a really cool experiment involving a dish cloth which Chris rings out... Bet you did not see this coming.... watch :)

Chris doing a Space to Earth concert with some canadian school kids.

Here is a public photo Album of Chris's photos that I collected and put on Facebook.

Thanks Chris, Thanks Canada, this stuff has been very cool :)

Taking Stock of my work.

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Last Updated on Saturday, 11 May 2013 14:25

Written by Giskard

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As I move my work in progress folder back on to my computers own hard drive space for easier access. I decided to take stock of the stuff I have made over the years that I still have locally. Much as been lost but much was saved too.

For example, this is my backup of mods I have worked on recently, including back ups of all voice actor submissions and source files from original games. You will see some mods that never got released here but did get developed enough to justify being backed up. Blackmarsh for Oblivion for example.

Looking at my other backups for mods I previously made I find Darkreign 2 AIs.

neptune-ai-v2
spitfire-ai-v1
tdr-ai-v2
ThirdLaw-ai-pack-V3
viper-ai-v3

As well as the source files needed to make them. The Art of War Missions are hidden in there too somewhere. Made by a team I formed just for that job. They ended up featured in one of the Strategy gaming mags one month.

I remember pandemic claiming nothing could be done to make the AIs build defences, their game was a pure rusher game which means it was a strategyless mindless rush. So I made an AI that build defences and as a thank you they broke my mod in the next patch whilst implementing my idea.

Not the best company who's games I modded.

Next up is mods for Dawn of War.

DOWmaxunits1.3
dow_roguetraderv1.4

I made the missing models needed to make WH40k units from the time, in to older Rogue Trader rule set units. They looked pretty cool too.

Dawn of war was another rusher RTSG but unlike other communities this community was friendly towards modders that wanted AIs to more than just rush. Rogue Trader made Dawn of war in to a much more strategic and tactical game and went down quite well with those who like me, wanted more out of the game.

I gave up supporting Relics games with mods in the end because they kept breaking the mods made for their game. This is why many mods for their games never seem to get finished. The above mods where for much older patches.

You know about my Oblivion/Skryrim/Fallout 3 and Fallout NV mods so I'll skip over those.

Operation Flashpoint was a game I modded heavily, ArmA 3 which is in Alpha right now is same game but vastly updated. Same editing tools too.

(0-8)-combatrally
1-20_R_Bridge_CTF
everonrally
of_paintball
R_Lipany_T_paintball_v2
securing-riviere
targetbravo

The Everon Rally used the island of Everon as a rally circuit, so turned a combat game in to a racing game with some fun results. Combat Rally added enemy patrols to the mix so you got shot at whilst racing. Kind of like Death Race 2000 clone.

I especially liked the R Bridge CTF because I placed tanks facing each other across a bridge and the opening moments of that mission saw them blasting each other until only 1 remained. The results was always random so 1 side got a randomly damaged tank as a bonus.

Securing Riviera was a mission that let you choose to arrive by land sea or air. You could have 3 different teams playing online or just join 1 team and play solo. The AI took over the remaining teams. My favorite was arriving by Helicopter.

I loved that mission :)

Freelancer is next.

HostileUniverseV8.1
Ringworld_addon_v2

Hostile Universe V8 was a huge mod, lots of scifi ships in it from Babylon 5 and the original Battlestar Galactic. Cool stuff. Ringworld was a system which I eventually added to Hostile Universe.I made most of the models used in this mod using Milkshape 3d. A simple model editor which is actually all you need when modeling for games.

Forget about all these 3 grand programs developers expect school boys modding their games to own. Talk about promoting piracy.... Hypocrites.....

If you own the box for X3 Terran Conflict, you will see Earth with a ring around it, that came from my Ringworld addon for Freelancer. I sent Egosoft a copy of it to view during the development of X3 The Threat and the idea stuck.

Happier times from  a modding perspective.

Mechwarrior 4, Black Knight and Mercs are games and addons I modded to death. My content for those games exceeds even my content for the Elder Scrolls games and Fallout games combined. These where made at Mechstorm and Respawn respectively.

At the time a site called Mektek viewed mechstorm as a bit of threat and would often make legal threats against us. We got a lot of trouble for them over the fact they lived in a paraniod world of hate and lies. I actually joined them for a while and did not like the atmosphere over there. Or the fact the site owner asked me to stop modding because his site could not cope with it. He would rather the not mod for him, than make mods for somebody else.

Anyway I closed mechstorm to join Mektek and reopened it when I left. There was bad blood in that community between sites that I knew nothing about until I walked in to it at full speed. It is the only other community that comes close to the sort of bitchyness I found in the Elder Scrolls community when I joined it.

Modding for all other games where far more friendly than those 2 games where.

Some Highlights of my time modding Mechwarrior 4 include.

Banzai_Training1_v1
Banzai_Training2_v1
caphold2
mst_c&h1_v1
mst_cz_3
mst-coventry1-v1
mst-gc-c&h2-v2
mst-gc-combatzone-v3
mst-gc-tko2h-v2
mst-orionarena-v3
mst-snowy-valley-mission-v3
mst-snowy-valley-terrain-v1
TB-Arena-v3
tko2hv2

All of the above where heavily scripted, some where brand new game scripts I wrote to add more variety to the game play in Mechwarrior. Others where combat missions.

I also made normal maps like

grandcanyon-v4
mst-assault-v1
mst-combatzone-v2
mst-fort-apache-v1
mst-fort-I-tude-v3
mst-fort-Terrain-v1
mst-orion-arena-v2
mst-stormy-crossing-v3
mst-stormyhills-v3
mst-stormy-terrain-v1
mst-stormy-tko2h-v3
mst-stormywater-v3

Map making for Mechwarrior 4 and its addons was never a simple affair, too many bugs and external third party programs required to do a good job.

Mechstorm actually tested Microsofts editor when they where about to release it, we where one of 3 groups to get it but when the closed beta ended, only Mechstorm had done anything with it. We had a done of maps available when the editor went live. An advantage we never really lose during all the years we spent working on that game.

What you do not see in the above list is all the AIs I made for that game, in the end I got so good at making them, players where being beaten by bots that did not cheat, they just read the battlefield, identified threats and targeted the biggest threats first. And did so dynamically, so as things changed during a game, so did their priorities.

But here is the cool part, they only remembered this until they died, when they respawned they had to start again and learn the threats all over again as if they where a new player. Cool stuff.

I love AI work, making a computer that actually thinks about things.... not like the AIs you see in Beth games which are little more than robot following instructions. Though Beth does have a simple AI hard coded in to its games that allows it to choose which idle anims or markers to go do in sandbox mode. But it is very simple.

Medieval Total War was another game I modded.

I focused on making Campaigns for that game and was the first person to do so. Several others came along later and made bigger and better mods once the door was opened but because I was first, Creative Assembly put a link on their MTW site to my Respawn site for years.

Truthfully, this was when my websites started to make an impact online.

Some of my campaigns for that game included.

empirev2
hitechcampaign
pagandawnv2
rebeldawnv1

Pagan dawn was my favorite, it allowed you to play pagan nations during a time when you could not play them.

Neverwinter Nights was a game I made a virtual world for, but nobody saw it. I was too smart for my own good. Made huge areas, with AIs that where carefully set up to have alliances and stuff. Then I showed my son my work and he fired 1 arrow in to a merchant in a town square the resulting battle between AIs killed everybody in the town.... so the mod got scrapped.

But it was bloody funny :)

I also made AIs for supremecommander but they have not been lost.

Thirdlaw AIs
Hal AIs

Again I was the first person in that community to make a release custom AIs, which spawned a whole host of other modders making AIs. One of them now works for Gas powered games. Me and him did not get along. He was part of the rusher sect where as I was more interested in smart AIs that did more than build and rush.

The supremecommander community was more rusher based though so the moment my AIs started beating the Elite Rusher crowd without cheating. I got flamed to the fuck. Gas powered games where another company that kept breaking mods made for their games so I stopped supporting them in the end just as I did for Relic.

My HAL AI remains the best AI ever made for this game since it read the map and adapted, it was the only true AI that could work on all types of maps without screwing up.

Total Annihilation was also a game I modded heavily, mostly making maps for it and the odd AI.

X2 saw the return of my Hostile Universe mod but at the time bugs in how the scripts run stopped me from actually releasing it.

Unfortunately whilst writing this blog, I noticed some folders containing my mods seem to be empty, probably a result of the power cuts recently damaging my network drive. Clearly the system seems to have deleted the files, probably because they where damaged.

I'll have to ask my friend to bring his disk around so I can get them back.

One thing I learned during my modding activities is when you want a game to do more than it was designed to do and a community has a player base that consider them selves elite crackhore bitches that beat everybody. Making an computer AI that can kick their asses every time by out thinking them is a sure fire way to start a massive flame war :)

That as especially true in the Supreme commander community.

Rushing was the strategy Emperor Hadrian beat with is wall in 122AD and the strategy that proved extremely unpopular during World War 1. Lions lead by fools is how history refers the men lead by Kitchener during that time frame. Says it all really....

I never really did see the fun in a mad building rush of units and then wham bang thank you man... game over in 10 minutes... it was just not my thing.

Anyway I hoped you enjoyed this look back at my modding activities over the past 16 years or so. Prior to that not many records where kept so there is nothing to show unless you look on Aminet for stuff by Giskard for the Amiga. Or was I still using the Gkar nickname back then.... humm... I changed it because Babylon 5 was very popular at the time and everybody seemed to have that nickname.

Helgen: Emperor

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Category: Giskard's Blog

Last Updated on Friday, 10 May 2013 15:44

Written by Giskard

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Heads up on my plans for Helgen. Research continues and it naturally causes my plot to evolve and become more detailed. The Land of Lore quest is an example of that. But feedback, eg the questions you are asking me also have an impact on the quests I make.

For example I have received no comments about part 2 of the storm crown series but lots of questions about parts 1 and 3. Stormcloak fans have asked for more features for them in part 1 for example and I am considering that request.

So part 2 is being trimmed back.

Click on the screenshots to enlarge them.

Knights of the Nine reveal them selves.....This is actually done in a very subtle way. I liked it :)

I have decided to make the 10 Penitus Oculatus quests a run up to becoming Emperor instead of purely Penitus Oculatus in nature. That means there is a smooth transition from becoming a Legioneer assigned to Helgen, to becoming Commander of Helgen, to working for the Penitus Oculatus and then becoming Emperor.

I have already made a copy of the emperors boat and palace in solitude though issues with the boat means a large part of it is blocked off. Just the area I need remains.

They will flow in to one another.

Click on the screenshots to enlarge them.

A Priest at the Temple of the Divines in Solitude explains basic creation myths to the player. Basic lore for those who do not read the books. Typos are free around here :)

Researching lore is one thing most players who claim to like lore simply do not do. Even if you do, there are degrees of study.... how deep do you go. Do you need to go deep at all ?

Lore is a very person thing were TES is concerned, you read about it, you make up your own mind. Then you realize you missed a book that changes everything and you change your mind.

That is how TES lore works, every theory is correct until proven wrong.

Whilst laying out the lore about the Stormcrown and other things. I read several books, cross referenced facts between books. For example, Lorkhans battle with the Elves before the era of man is documented in 2 different books. Each version is slightly different.

Dragonborns learn thu'ums quickly where as most normal people do not, yet in several places lead characters pick up a thu'um instantly without ever hearing the word dragonborn spoken. One ancient king of Skyrim for example learned a thu'um then actually killed him by watching a battle between Alduin and Shor.

Not something the Greybeards could learn so quickly, so we can take away information from such comments that tells us that King was also Dragonborn. Either that or the lore got messed up at that point. I choose to believe he was Dragonborn.

Some details talk about Shezarr creating the mortal plain, were as others say Lorkhan did. Then you hear stories of Lorkhan battling the Elves at Red Mountain and in another account it is Shor.

Sometimes we are lucky and a lore book clearly says "The Heart of Shor was in Resdayn, as Dagoth-Ur had promised. Though in Resdayn they call it the Heart of Lorkhan." So we can see Lorkhan is Shor and visa versa.

Sometimes we are not so lucky and we must use the fact 2 accounts of the same story talk about Shezarr or Lorkhan without mentioning the other but the story is the same even if the names change.

Lore moves beyond reading a book, it becomes about reading all the books, seeing how they inter connect and how a subtle change in words can throw us off track.

An example is the word Stormcrown... a name given to Talos, but it also accurately describes the storm that floated just above his head during one battle.

Another example is taken from the Book The Tale of Dro'Zira and the words are that of a Khajiit.

"They joined with the pride of Alkosh and were his strongest warriors. Lorkhaj, however, chose to give his roar to the Ra'Wulfharth"

Yet it talks about the battle at Red mountain so we know Lorkhaj means Lorkhan, we know Ra'Wulfharth means Wulfharth the Ash King and the pronunciation is just a funny Khajiit thing.

Sometimes we know Tiber Septim recruited the nords at Sancre Tor after using his voice according to a famous book from Cyrodiil. Other times we read the Nord text about this and it tells this story using Nordic words instead. In this case the book is called The Arcturian Heresy and says....

"Hjalti went up to the gates, and the storm followed just above his head. Arrows could not penetrate the winds around him. He shouted down the walls of Old Hrol'dan, and his men poured in. After their victory, the Nords called Hjalti Talos, or Stormcrown."

The Cyrodiil text has a similar story but uses words like Sancre Tor, Tiber Septim and other words we all know and was written before Skyrim was made. So we know the above is a second account of the same battle found in books from Cyrodiil about Sancre Tor and know it links to the Reman Dynasty indirectly too since that was their seat of power.

Studying lore is only half the battle, making sense of it is a battle in it self, but putting it together in a quest that makes sense, that is a major achievement.

In the end though, lore is what you make of it.... the Lands of Lore quest presents this information to you and the books needed to discover it your self but does not explain the details for there are far too many details to cross reference to fit it in to a single mod.

That is something I leave for you to do....

But I will be making the case for the player becoming Emperor in lore terms.... you can follow it and make up your own mind.

Helgen: Lore of the land quest

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Last Updated on Thursday, 09 May 2013 20:37

Written by Giskard

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One of the things I liked about Origin of the Mages Guild was the way I was able to explore the game lore as part of my quest line.

After recent events on the forum involving people that did not play Helgen or read the docs or read the blogs but loved posting feedback on stuff they knew nothing about and thus kept derailing my threads. I decided to have the whole "Player becomes emperor" debate in game, in the mod where the player can see the evidence and make up their own mind in his or her own way.

Of course if they never play the mod, they will never be part of that debate so it works out great as far as I am concerned. They exclude them selves, meanwhile the rest of us have fun actually playing the mod.

The idea is to use the Lore of the Land Quest (I may rename it later) to present the player with the story of Lorkhan and his aspects and how Ysmir has appeared through the ages to battle the Elves protect Nordic values.

Such a topic is hugely complicated, but having spent all day stripping it down to its basics, I managed to get the whole thing down to a quest with about 60 lines of dialog and I give the player some of the source books at the end of the quest so he can check the facts him self.

By the time your asked "do you want to be Emperor", you will be very familiar with the whole topic and be making an informed decision.

A real Lore fans choice.....

Oh yes before I go.

The quest is already finished and fully voice acted by me. I am considering posting the parts for the Lore Priest and messenger in my voice actor forum soon. The priest is a big part with lots of hard lines to read back. Not easy at all.

Other parts such as the Commanders Assistant, Mr Smith and the Priest of the Nine are not being posted just yet because I have more quests to make that need them.