Homeworld 1 Remastered

**ajlsunrise** · 15th Aug 11 2:12 AM

This project is targeted to adding the original Homeworld campaign to Homeworld 2 as well as graphically updating/remastering (not redesigning) the Kushan and Taiidan ships.

ModDB Mod Page

Mission Script Status:
Mission 1: M01 - Kharak System - Status: 0% complete

Idea Section:

Spoiler

Known "Issues":
- ~~Research Ships can't/don't stack - I think I've figured out a solution to the problem of "More = Faster".~~ I've created a workaround for this, however the coding for it is quite... ugly... But it gets the job done.

- Collector PDA's don't work properly, i.e. Collectors don't "spin" around the asteroids they're collecting. There's nothing we can do to fix this.
- The Homeworld 2 capturing system is completely different from Homeworld 1's capturing system, although a hack might be able to fix this.
- The Homeworld 2 engine does not allow for standard Homeworld Repair Technology, although there will be modifiers to offset this "flaw".
- The Gravwell Generator Frigate does not repel strikecraft away from it; instead, it just slows them down. There is no good effective way around this.

Ship Remaster-list:

Kushan

Taiidan

Turanic Raiders

Kadeshi

Other Ships

Current Team Members:
ajlsunrise33 (aka radar33) - scripting
jkberna - modelling, hodding
Krnt - weapons fx, attack styles
Chimas - ship icons, animation, capture points
Dark Saajuk - drones, dockpaths
jnaymie - fuel script
Pouk - quality control

Previous Team Members:
skygunner58203 - hodding

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Feel free to offer ideas or comments, or offer to help us.

**jkberna** · 15th Aug 11 3:26 AM

Great, and here are the "remastered" units we have so far as well-

Kushan
Scout

Heavy corvette

Bomber
cloaked fighter

Taiidan
defender

Karos
Junkyard dog

**skygunner58203** · 16th Aug 11 10:52 AM

Well, to post a small update from the hoding side of things. I am currently working on the heavy corvette. After a few......misunderstandings of what needed to be done, I finally got my stuff down pat. One thing I have learned....Wings3d is freaking awesome for this stuff. The corvette and scout should be completed shortly.

**jkberna** · 16th Aug 11 2:36 PM

great Skygunner, ajlsunrise for the campaign, do you need me to the ships in any particular order??

**skygunner58203** · 16th Aug 11 2:40 PM

Well, I have been replaying Homeworld 1....first mission had a resource collector, Scout, Access to Interceptors, the mothership, and 6 Cryo trays.....thats not even counting the scaffold and the salvage corvettes used in the cutscenes

**Siber** · 16th Aug 11 3:14 PM

Plus target drones and some asteroids.

**ajlsunrise** · 16th Aug 11 4:21 PM

For now, I'm just going to be using the standard HW2 units for testing purposes.

My current project right now is to get all the animatics working...
Does anyone know how to convert hw1 .bik files to hw2-accepted .avi's?
I've downloaded all the necessary programs to do it, but it doesn't seem to be working properly.

**skygunner58203** · 16th Aug 11 5:15 PM

Just a thought.....but couldn't you just find the vids on youtube, rip them, and convert those to the right format? just a thought.

**ajlsunrise** · 16th Aug 11 5:28 PM

I've already done the conversions from .bik to Windows .avi. I just need to figure out how to convert the Windows .avi to Homeworld2 .avi...

**skygunner58203** · 16th Aug 11 8:28 PM

Hmm.......not sure there. Doesn't HW2 use DivX?

**ajlsunrise** · 16th Aug 11 9:36 PM

I wish... It uses DXGM which, as far as i can tell, is the same as DivX, but simple hex-editing won't make them work, either (I've already tried).

**ajlsunrise** · 17th Aug 11 2:57 AM

Good news. I've gotten the videos and speech working (as far as I can tell), but now I'm having trouble implementing the localization speech. I suppose I could do it so that whatever language the game disc is, the localization text for the animatics are always in English.

What do you guys think?

(also, I don't have access to any other language version of Homeworld 1 so I wouldn't be able to export/import the audio anyway).

**ajlsunrise** · 17th Aug 11 10:02 AM

I made a logo today. Tell me what you guys think of it (if it's crap, you can say so, I won't be offended).

Click on the thumbnail; the actual picture looks much better.

**skygunner58203** · 17th Aug 11 10:55 AM

Yay for videos! I'm gonna finish my scaling of the models i have tonite.....god i cant wait til sunday

**ajlsunrise** · 17th Aug 11 11:01 AM

I have created a moddb group for us. I will post links once it is approved.

**jkberna** · 17th Aug 11 1:53 PM

Cool, that will be very useful, moddb will get the mod to a lot more people, and maybe we can get more help.
About your logo, it's not bad, but i think you have a more important and difficult work to do, the scripting.
Btw congrats on getting the videos and speech working, about the other languages, make it in English, i bet it will be a lot of work just like that, Maybe we can post a article on the moddb asking for help with that, people from the other contries to contribute with their languages.

**ajlsunrise** · 17th Aug 11 2:28 PM

I had to have a logo for the moddb page, so I kinda just threw that one together.

**skygunner58203** · 17th Aug 11 8:03 PM

Well, at least we have finally gotten started on this endeavor......again. Let the campaign mod commence!!!!!!!!!!!

**ajlsunrise** · 17th Aug 11 8:31 PM

ModDB update: the dev group (feel free to join it or not, you don't have to) is up and authorized, but the mod still has yet to be authorized.
I've already invited the two of you (skygunner and jkberna) to the dev group.

jkberna, if you can access the mod page, would you mind uploading some images of the new ships there, please?

**LeviathansWrath** · 17th Aug 11 9:56 PM

to make the levels you can just use mikali's map maker thingie.

**jkberna** · 18th Aug 11 6:14 AM

Will do, but i don't have much time rigth now so i just posted one image that symbolizes the goal of the mod, the journey one, it would make a better logo, that or the guidestone.

**ajlsunrise** · 18th Aug 11 9:21 AM

Oh, you posted them in the dev group. That's okay.

**jkberna** · 18th Aug 11 11:31 AM

Next i'm doing the salcapvette, have you done any work in making salvaging be possible??

**skygunner58203** · 18th Aug 11 1:45 PM

Using the HW2 engine, i'd guess the salvage corvette would need the marine boarding ability and the ability to gather salvage....i think

**ajlsunrise** · 18th Aug 11 6:30 PM

As far as Homeworld 1-style "salvaging" goes, it's impossible.

Actually... I just had an idea.

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ModDB Update: the mod page is up.

**LeviathansWrath** · 18th Aug 11 9:57 PM

Are you guys redoing the ship models or whatever, cause if you arent HWU alrdy has those converted.

**ajlsunrise** · 19th Aug 11 4:33 AM

No, we (jkberna) are (is) making higher poly versions of the same ships.

This is a pic of the original Homeworld 1 scout (no touching up, etc):

**jkberna** · 20th Aug 11 1:01 AM

Yes, i will make higher poly/texture models.
Here's work on the salvette so far-

**ajlsunrise** · 20th Aug 11 2:35 AM

looks great! Are you using goblins at all?

**jkberna** · 21st Aug 11 1:19 AM

Yes, i will be using goblins, the changes to the original mesh isn't very big, the new detail level will come from texture enhancing and goblins, for example the original salcapcorvette was 364, my new one is 800 with 300 polys being goblins.

**ajlsunrise** · 21st Aug 11 11:31 PM

I added a list of the remastered ships to the first post. If I missed anything, let me know. However, I don't know which ones have been HODed yet. I'd love for someone to get in-game shots of them we can post to ModDB.

Also, there's now a ModDB forum thread.

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Also jkberna and skyrunner, we have a private dev thread on the ModDB forums where we can talk.

**jkberna** · 22nd Aug 11 7:35 AM

Very good update Sunrise, you can add the Attack Bomber to the remastered list, but the multigun vette isn't, it has a lot of deferent features, but won't be much work.
I'll make all the models from m1 for you to have everything to work with, so next is the collector.
About the in-game shots, it's up skygunner.

Another thing i just discovered, the kushan target drone is actualy a taidan and vice versa. Makes sense because you can't target friendly units. But i can't find the kushan's textures :s .

**ajlsunrise** · 22nd Aug 11 9:18 AM

The r2 target drone uses the textures that are in the r1 target drone folder. However, what's more interesting, one of the NISs in Cataclysm uses the r1 target drone (the taiidan version) as "buoys".

I'd say use the r2 target drone for the Kushan, as it would make more sense for them to be attacking their own target drones, and not the Taiidan's drones.

**skygunner58203** · 22nd Aug 11 11:12 AM

Update: Have finished resizing/hodding what i could. Resized all i have been given, hodded the few that didn't use turrets. I'll send them as soon as i'm back from ND as i'm sending this update from my phone. Ready for the new models whenever you want to send them. While i can download the models to my phone....i can't upload from my phone.

**jkberna** · 23rd Aug 11 10:23 AM

Target drone remastered and sent to Sky. I will post a idea about it on the development group.

**Ice** · 24th Aug 11 9:36 AM

If you need help with hod and animation from ship parts

I help you and you team .

greeting Ice

**jkberna** · 26th Aug 11 11:50 AM

Thanks ice, but we are fine for now, i'll contacr you if we need any help.

**ajlsunrise** · 4th Sep 11 8:18 PM

Okay everyone, I have a question:
In HW1, the Gravwell Generator Frigate exploded when it ran out of juice.
Should we keep that the same, or just make it so that it is disabled for a certain length of time?

**Zephyr** · 5th Sep 11 1:58 AM

Explosions make everything better

**saladin1973** · 6th Sep 11 4:43 AM

- Collector PDA's don't work properly, i.e. Collectors don't "spin" around the asteroids they're collecting.

I'm obviously a complete noob next to you guys but couldn't you use the circlestrafe attack pattern for this?

In HW1, the Gravwell Generator Frigate exploded when it ran out of juice.

Explode

**ajlsunrise** · 6th Sep 11 7:52 AM

I'm obviously a complete noob next to you guys but couldn't you use the circlestrafe attack pattern for this?

No. That would be an attack command, and there's no way to remove resources from the asteroids. That would be an interesting way to have infinite resources on the map though, lol.

**jkberna** · 6th Sep 11 8:27 AM

I never used the Gravwell Generator b4, and probably won't use it again, but i think we should keep things as close to the original as possible. There already are plenty of things that have to different because of the game engine :s .

**Siber** · 6th Sep 11 10:47 AM

Having a gravwell push things away from it should be entirely feasible. A sphereburst push weapon does the job pretty well. It's far from perfect, I suspect it may apply a flat velocity change to what it hits rather than a force, making the mass value of ships pretty pointless, but it can push fighters around if they're already slowed way down.

**saladin1973** · 6th Sep 11 11:37 AM

No. That would be an attack command, and there's no way to remove resources from the asteroids. That would be an interesting way to have infinite resources on the map though, lol.

No, I know it's an attack command, what I meant was can you not make the PDA beam a weapon and have the collector "attack" the asteriod using the circlestrafe attack pattern? Make it so the "weapon" does zero damage and can only "attack" asteriods then add a secondary role of resource gathering? Wouldn't that work? Or does it have to latch on to an asteriod to gather resources?

I know you guys know more than me but I'm just trying to apply some out-of-the-box thinking to these situations

**Siber** · 6th Sep 11 11:51 AM

There's only so far out of the box you can go before you can't reach your tools anymore

I've gnawed over this particular problem quite a bit for HW:@, trying to reproduce the HW1 effect, and eventually decided we're just going to have to have a latch point a good distance away from an asteroid and a PDA visual effect. There just don't seem to be the scripting tools nessicary to make it work any better than that.

**ajlsunrise** · 6th Sep 11 12:06 PM

Having a gravwell push things away from it should be entirely feasible. A sphereburst push weapon does the job pretty well. It's far from perfect, I suspect it may apply a flat velocity change to what it hits rather than a force, making the mass value of ships pretty pointless, but it can push fighters around if they're already slowed way down.

I already tried weapons. The problem is that I can't make the repulse effect center on the generator instead of where the weapon hits.

Or does it have to latch on to an asteriod to gather resources?

Yes. Otherwise, we have infinite resources... though I wonder if it could be made into a MAD animation...

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...have a latch point a good distance away from an asteroid and a PDA visual effect.

That's probably what we'll end up doing.

**saladin1973** · 6th Sep 11 1:01 PM

There's only so far out of the box you can go before you can't reach your tools anymore

Is that your way of saying "shut up noob"?

Assuming you can't animate a latch point, what about an inivisible outer-layer on asteriods that contain the latch point and use a spinning animation to achieve the appearance of circling the rock? Sorry if my ideas appear hairbrained, I'm just very enthusiastic about this project and wish I had the skills necessary to help

**Siber** · 6th Sep 11 4:30 PM

Its more my way of saying that there are several quite clever and ingenious ways to make it work, but as far as I've been able to determine they all involve steps that simply can't be done in the engine.

I've tried putting a looping animation on asteroids to achieve that effect, but I couldn't get any animations at all to work on asteroid objects. Perhaps that was a failure on my part, if they can be made to animate then that's probably the best option. You can put a circling animation on the harvester, so it pivots around a point far in front of it, and that does work, but has significant drawbacks. In particular little things like engine burns and collision meshes will not animate, no matter what, so raiders will be shooting(and damaging!) empty space for most of the harvesting cycle. Also when you stop harvesting, the harvester immediately snaps from its current position in the circle back to the start, no matter where in the animation it is at the time.

**saladin1973** · 7th Sep 11 6:48 AM

Well to be honest, how many of us actually paid that much attention to harvesters after the first few missions? They'd be off doing what they do with an escort whilst you completed mission objectives so I'd say harvesters circling asteriods is the least of the worries for this project. And don't worry Siber, I was just being playful. I know what you meant

**ajlsunrise** · 16th Sep 11 5:05 PM

Here's another question for the community:

There is code in the original Homeworld for an Interceptor trial during the first mission.
I've already implemented the code (ie. wrote it), but I have not activated it.
Should I activate the trial, or leave it out?

Homeworld 1 Remastered

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