Blog 165 (30/12/09), The Last Blog of 2009 Options

Heya guys, welcome to this week's blog. I'm sorry to say that it won't be as awesome as last week's but we still have a few tricks up our sleeves.

Chronoshift!

Occult has been working on ingame effects for chronoshifting objects. These will be used for things like the Chrono Miner and Chrono Legionnaire. We've strayed away from duplicating the RA2 effects to the book and used some artistic licence to create a far more spectacular effect, seeing as the RA2 effects seemed a bit lacklustre.

Occult has gone and created something really special here, as you can see below. The effect's sounds have been put together by AdrwIvrsn.


Chronoshifting in 3...2...1...

Allied Beretta

Guy with a wrench has been texturing the Allied Beretta; the main side arm of the Allied Forces. Engineers and Technicians will be armed with this as a measure to ensure that they are able to defend themselves from ranged attacks.

Pew Pew Pew!

Alpha 8 Patch 4

danpaul88 has released Alpha 8 Patch 4 to the testers. Here are the changes that have been made to this version of the AR.

Final Changelog

Game Changes
• Re-remove Mirage Tank that snuck back in somehow (I must have added it to test something and forgot to remove it again...)
• Added 'under attack' strings for War Factories, Ore Refineries and Power Plants
• Added 'destroyed' strings for War Factories, Ore Refineries and Power Plants
• Added 'destroyed' strings for minor weakpoints
• Added 'repaired' strings for minor weakpoints
• Tweaked physics for Allied Grizzly Tank
• Tweaked physics for Soviet Rhino Tank
• Updated health/armour regeneration for War Miner
• Updated health/armour regeneration for Chronominer
• Increased firing speed slightly for MP5K
• Add purchase icons for new Grizzly Tank
• Add updated Grizzly Tank Tread texture
• Added creation sounds for Grizzly Tank
• Added alternative firing sounds for Grizzly Tank
  
  Map Changes
• Added refinery controllers (and therefore miners) to Dune Patrol
  
  Script Changes
• Modified dp88_buildingScripts_weakpointSounds to use string IDs as parameters instead of their descriptions due to limitations on maximum length of script parameters. String IDs can be obtained using the tdbedit tool.
• Modified behaviour of dp88_linkHealth to behave better when more than two items are linked together. Ideally in this case one item would be the main item and all other items would have the dp88_linkHealth script to sync with it.
• Created dp88_damageAnimation - A script to set animation frame based on health %. Has inputs for health state animation (and health/low power) as well as 5 sets of %, frame start, frame end, low power frame start and low power frame end to allow maximum flexibility. Default %'s will be -1 to disable that state, so you can use as many or as few as necessary. Setting low power frame start to -1 will cause it to use the frames from the powered state.
• Updated dp88_AR_Chrono_Miner script to work without needing to be spoon fed the IDs of waypaths it should use for each step of it's journey, making it much more flexible and allowing more scope for using multiple chronoshift zones (ie: this one is busy, lets try the next one) in future.
• Updated dp88_AR_WarMiner script to work without needing to be spoon fed the IDs of waypaths it should use for each step of it's journey, making it much more flexible.
  
  Installer Changes
• Additional start menu shortcut added for wwconfig.exe
• Renegade Serial key registry entry is now copied to AR installation (if it exists)
• Renegade WOLData.key is now copied to AR installation (if it exists)
• InstallPath registry entry is created. Combined with two above entries this should make WOL work out of the box for anyone who has Renegade installed with a valid serial

Pending Changes

Game Changes
• Add Veteran / Elite weapon upgrades for those units which do not have them setup (Flak Trooper, Crazy Ivan, V3, some others)
• Add global promotion sound (team)
• Add purchase sounds for units which do not have them (most vehicles...)
• Add low power strings

ModDB Indie Game of the Year 2009 Awards

Just like in previous years, Bluehell Productions would like to ask for your help at the 2009 IGOTY at ModDb. As drunkill explained in his news post on the issue, nominations are now open for mod and indie-game candidates. Until January 7th, you can nominate as many projects as you'd like. Then, nomations will close and the Top 100 Mods and Top 100 Indie Games will be presented for the MOTY voting phase.

Nominate us for Mod Of The Year 2009
(click images to go to respective moddb profiles)

Every vote counts!

We would also like to suggest nominating other strong C&C related projects, to let the world know we're still alive and kicking. C&C projects have always had a strong showing in this. My pick of the rest would have to be Renegade X, just for the sheer amount of work they've put in to recreate Renegade on the Unreal Engine. The feeling of nostalgia is something incredible and Fobby & crew are a good bunch of guys. So if you stop by their moddb page, you may as well give them a vote.

Please note again that the mods and indie games are handled in their own categories, so there are no reasons to hold back voting for other C&C mods just because you want to have a strong vote for APB and AR.

Team Messages

I've been just chilling out really. Seeing friends who I haven't seen in a while and generally taking a break. It's good.

cfehunter has been at home, looking at computer hardware.

dtrngd has had exams, oddly, at this time of year.

danpaul88 needs to send me the current string database.

Occult and Teamwolf now have a website bio each.

The rest of the team has been enjoying the holidays.

We're Looking For...

We are looking for extra staff members to join our ranks!

At the moment we are looking for:

2d Artists

What we are looking for in a 2d artist, is someone who:

• is enthusiastic about working with the BHP Apocalypse Rising Team.
• has spare time.
• will be active in the foreseeable future (a.k.a we don't want you running off).
• is competent at creating their own 2d textures.
• is over the age of 16 (we overlook this if you are what we assess to be a mature individual. This rule is known as the TruYuri rule).

PM me with your application stating why you would like to join the team along with any past experience. Please provide example textures, if you have any.

OWA's Random Corner

Here's an awesome video Lord_Kane linked me to. Bad Apple.

To an end...

Regrettable, but directives will continue in order to formulate a future for next week.

very nice effect and love the allied Beretta:)

Aww...the RA1 chrono SFX didn't sound as nice as the 'foop' from RA2 But still...epic man. Very, very epic work.

Also thumbs up for Lord_Kane.

Aww...the RA1 chrono SFX didn't sound as nice as the 'foop' from RA2 But still...epic man. Very, very epic work.

Also thumbs up for Lord_Kane.

The sound was a creation of AdrwIvrsn. I guess I'll make a mix of RA2 and RA1 sounds to make it look better. Also, the animation has changed "a bit", I think it looks better now. We'll try to post some ingame screenshots in some weeks.

Everything is looking nice, good job AR team

I already want to use the Chrono effect!

Very nice Pistol as well. Will all (Allied) units get it like in Renegade? Or will certain units get it like in APB?

effect looks beutiful, but it sounds that it still need some big machine to get chorono effect work

Animation is a bit long also, i think, but still it's awesome.
And nice Beretta. Guess it's a laser pointer on it, right?
BTW, Happy New Year everyone! Finally holidays in Russia)

Pretty nice chronoshift animation !

Epic Chrono Effect is EPIC!!!
BTW the Baretta is looking super Sexy! Can't wait to use it!

Gotta love that chronoshift. W0000t! Bio on frontpage!

Create blog as always.

Sweet. Nice work.

The chrono effect Looks nice

Awesome as ever occult

As for bad apple? awesome.

for those that are curious, the video bad apple is based off a theme in the Touhou series of "bullet hell" or "curtain fire" games, if you want, shoot me a pm on irc and I will invite you to a touhou channel I created, but its a bit of a weird place so, PM at your own risk.