JaySuS The High Sea Caravansery - Volume 2



So... I'm Antistar JaySuS, the author of Weapon Mod Kits (WMK) http://fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1712 for Fallout 3. Obsidian took inspiration from WMK COMM in their implementation of the weapon modding system everywhere in Fallout New Vegas; something which I am quite proud of and flattered by. ....well screw that, dont wanna annoy you with my inflated ego of uberness

anyway, i rescently started working on High Sea Caravansery Volume 2, the successor to COMM, the High Sea Caravansery Volume 1, the project name is currently Roanapur as i felt a lil bitsy bit inspired by Black Lagoon and wanted to create an island similiar to that, however im in no mood atm to create new palm trees nor do i have the time to build an island as large as the far cry game, hence i settled for somin smaller, colder, a small town on an isolated island somewhere in the northern seas that is home to a bunch of outcasts and criminals seeking a merry time
so far i finished the above waterline landscaping and am now about to finish the underwater landscape, afterwards the interiors and cluttering of the whole place



if you might want to contribute in any way i do sincerely welcome that, critical opinions, ideas, madness, all that has still a place



atm i could need:

-interior artist (with knowledge of FX, navmeshing, emission, lightning)

-story writer (with the ability to create branching storylines and write em down so that one could make a quest out of it aka, if this happens then that happens)

-character artist (with the ability to create lifelike faces in the gecks facegen and create a compelling background story to that character, doesnt matter for generic NPCs tho)

-general ideas what crazy features youd like to see this time

-general modeller and texturing artists that would like to contribute in any way, theres always room for you, i definatley need shop signs for example and would like not to spend to much time creating them myself



Media:

21st Nov 2010:
http://img87.imageshack.us/slideshow/webplayer.php?id=89760689.jpg

23rd Nov 2010:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHgsjdyYfvM

24th Nov 2010
http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/9725/windowdaylight.jpg

25th Nov 2010
http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/782/stripjointday.jpg
http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/8333/boat1p.jpg

26th Nov 2010
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/598/boat2v.jpg

27th Nov 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8JXqKy86I4

30th Nov 2010
http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/2121/noodles1.jpg

3rd Dec 2010
http://img593.imageshack.us/slideshow/webplayer.php?id=37316274.jpg

11th Dec 2010
http://img703.imageshack.us/g/49317551.jpg/

I loved the first COMM, so this should be good.

I consider myself fairly decent at making interiors, or at least the cluttering and interior design part of it, there's a link to a house mod I did for vegas in my signature, and through that link you can find my FO3 mods as well for an example of what interiors I've done. My navmeshing needs some refreshing though, been over a year since the last time I did it, the Vegas house mod had a navmesh that fit well enough with my interior so I didn't bother since it was mostly for personal use.

I can write branching storylines and dialogue, I've written several radio plays and short films during high school (That was basically what we did the most, I studied media and communications there, out high schools are kind of awesome that way).
I'm also fairly decent in photoshop, and most of my stuff is texture work. I've also got a ton of unreleased textures I'm trying to get into newer mods when I can.

However, I'm now studying game design at a university, so my time is extremely limited. If I can contribute ideas or help I'd be happy to, but I don't want to promise anything at this time because I'm not sure if I'll be able to deliver, therefore I won't make a promise I'm not sure I can keep.

I'm looking forward to seeing more of this though, and who knows, if I have the time I might volounteer to help out with something if you feel that I've got what it takes to achieve the level of quality you're going for, so put me down as a maybe...I'll get back to you if I suddenly have lots of time on my hands.

this sounds quite fine to me, if you find the time just do somin , theres always room for more, you could think about some quest or somin while under the shower for example

anyway fiddled around with some neon signs, somehow the good ol beth or obsidian kinda went crazy creating em, i deleted nearly 90% of their animated neon sign nifs and they still work lol... well here are my first 3 signs (animated mind you):

http://img7.imageshack.us/slideshow/webplayer.php?id=babeyg.jpg

however i couldnt come up with cheeky names for these places yet, well maybe "beth's cream and cherries" for the strip joint but im definately looking for any suggestions...

for now i need names for:

a rahmen shop
a hotel
a strip joint

I'm actually working on an "advlt film" studio, but it'll be in Freeside. It could concievably me moved quite easily though, a strip joint shouldn't be an issue if I could just get the damn dancing to work (Already tried ). I might be able to crank out an interior for that eventually.

Right now though, I managed to get the cameras for my studio to work texture wise, so I'll be continuing on that mod for now, gonna try to add as much of the basic mechanics this weekend as I can, then work out how the quest to become an actor will work. Might have one to find actors as well, we'll see. Lots of potential here.

Loving those signs by the way, I wanted a cool neon sign outside my studio to light up Freeside some more, but unfortunately none of the ones in game really worked...Right now I've got a billboard on the roof, which I'm keeping, and the Westside co-op sign with the same texture, and that looks pretty bad. I'd love to be able to do a neon sign of just letters with the studio's name.

1. Poodles and Noodles
2. (not sure)
3. Frank's



1. Because its probably going to have dog meat as an option in your ramen.... and they rhyme?
2. Would be better to name with knowledge of the surrounding area/interior.
3. Its a game based on a specific era, you can guess where that came from. :hehe:

Stories? I can write those! Just, like, ask me about it.

As to the names? Well, you could call the "rahmen shop"... "The Dry Noodle". Then, you can have the proprietor heavily imply that it is a pun as though it weren't both painfully obvious and terrible to hear.
The hotel? "The Cornerstone". Classy, yet meaningless! It's a formula for instant success!
The... strip joint? No idea.

I've got some name suggestions for the strip joint, this kind of thing is a bit of a specialty of mine...

Knockers
As blunt and simple as it gets, but the name tells you exactly what to expect

Fuego
Fire in spanish, works if the club has a hispanic owner for example, or just because the girls are really hot...or on fire, if you're into that kind of thing.

Woody's
This club is owned by Woody, and he personally guarantees you'll get one as well. There's a slogan in there somewhere.

Inferno
Basically the same as Fuego above, but more americanized. A fire theme would work well here, Gomorrah does kind of the same thing with Brimstone, but nobody said strip joints had to be that creative.

Boobs'R'Us
Because I'm immature, and couldn't resist making that joke.

Eruption
This one should be pretty obvious, I'm not going to explain it.

The Flamingo Club
The name makes no sense, but they have naked chicks, so who gives a rat's ass? (That line could work as a comment made by an NPC if asked about the club).

Just a few off the top of my head.

lol guys, some good names up there
im still undecided tho... more names needed anyway, i have about 10 buildings or so... shops, bars, etc

anyway, i finally got those animated glow thingies working ingame, the old FO3 method kinda doesnt work anymore and we now need a NiControllerManager for all stuff animation related which is a female dog to setup if you ask me, you basicly do the same work three times and more than you did in FO3 tho i dont see any advantage so far

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHgsjdyYfvM


@urge and dancing
use those dancing idle markers and link them to your dancers, then give em an aipackage that sends em directly to this marker, many other ways to achieve that too, you could give em an aipackage that uses only the dancing idles too for example... as i said many possibilities

@pron studio
yeah why not lol, if you like, that island has lots of buildings and i dotn know yet what they will all be for, so if you like grab one , i can always copy your whole mod over into mine and if its an interior its a simple thing as setting up the doorteleport to your interior

@neon letters
dunno if ill create them, i could prolly do that so you can use em too, but then i would need to create myself a bunch of static collections in geck so that i actually can work with them without moving tons of letters all by themselves, but its a good idea, ill think bout it
in case i do that, which font would you want? and what neon design? tubes? bulbs? screen?... make a sketch for best results

Ah, about the sign, what I'd really want above the front door would be the name "Capitol Erotica" in http://www.dafont.com/bellerose.font. All I'd need would be a tutorial of sorts on how to make neon signs and I could probably do it myself.

If you remember the liquor store in westside, something like that, except the letters are spaced out and look less...crap The font I linked basically shows all the letters the way they should look, simply typing out "Capitol Erotica" with that font would show what I'd like to get working.

I imagine something like this, a metal base behind, then having those letters attached and glow red for example. Nice and simple (Probably not, but design wise it is ). The reason for that font is that it's the font I use for the logo and magazine covers of Capitol Erotica (In my mind it's basically the Fallout DC version of Playboy, and now they've opened an office near Vegas), it's what I use on the billboard, the posters etc.

EDIT: What I'm thinking is this, once the mod is done (And that's going to take a while) I'll be releasing it separately in the building I've got ready in Freeside. If you like it though, and want to use it as a building in your mod, go for it. I loved the first Caravansery, so you'd have my permission.

I'm not ready to give any details on the mod yet, as it's far from done, and I've got little time to mod these days. That's also why I don't really want to ask for that much stuff from other people yet, I don't want people to put a lot of effort into something that might never pay off for them, the status of this mod is still uncertain, that's why there's no WIP thread. If you remember the Apocalypse Club for FO3, I lost everything related to that mod except a few screenshots and some textures that are mostly useless in New Vegas, I don't want to get people's hopes up and then fail to release again.

A simple static neon sign would be amazing though, but now that I've got an idea of how it'd look, it'll require a new model, which isn't something I can do.

if its just supposed to glow and not be animated you could simply use any model looking like a board and give it a texture with your text, then create a glow map for that which is totally black except for the text which has to be white or a light grey...

if you want the letters to be 3d however, yes you will need a new model

Hmm, I'll look into that. Maybe make a prototype like that to see how it looks, then maybe once the mod is pretty much ready for release, I'll see about getting a new model together.

EDIT: Oh by the way, are you planning on having a Casino on your island?

@Urge

creating text models is actually rather easy if your 3d tool of choice accepts the font you wanna use that is, max doesnt like all it seems
would be a nice method to get into modelling

@casino
well i have enough buildings to fit whatever seems appropriate and a backyard casino would definately fit even tho i personally played only round of crabs in NV lol... not my thing actually, poker is fine but all those luck games are boring imo, anyway if i find the time itll prolly be in there

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ok i created basic interiors with about 75% clutter for:

the clinic
high sea attire (clothing store)
general store
fire & advance (Weapons dealer)

-------------------

the hotel will be called Flora's Inn or somin else with flora, made that flower sign for it...
not sure about the other names yet tho,
i guess the noodle parlor will simply have no name at all... most people will prolly think the sign is the name anyway...

------------------

and as a lil extra schmankerl i created a modified window tile nif that allows for daylight effects as can be seen on the following screenshot:
http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/9725/windowdaylight.jpg

you basicly add a plane behind the window that can use emittance effects (nolightningshader is the key i guess, not sure actually) and give the glass a lil tranparency, not needed for all window types i guess but those i used were not able to emit anything otherwise

-----------------

all kinds of wonky ideas still welcome ,
if somebody wants to give me a ready to use interior id be very happy too

interior ready to use for what? *g*

And if you`d like a "general model" ... you know my skills ^^

btw. check your malis from time to time

@bullet
yo sorry, hab die mails schon gesehn und das modell angeschaut, aber wie du ja selber siehs bin ich grad anderweitig besch?ftigt und zu faul nochn an den modellen zu arbeiten, wird sich aber hoffentlich in der n?chsten (oder 2) woche ?ndern, ganz echt total aus ganzem herzen volle kanne sorry dude, hab dich nicht vergessen

those interiors are ready to host orgies of epic scale, and for more cluttering, fxing and npc/navmesh adding

as for models i dunno atm what i could need, got the neon signs which were important and need to finish more interiors now, especially the hotel, maybe the museum if i add it, but most important right now would be quest storylines to fill the place with life

and yes, your models are really good in comparision to most crap, i still dunno what the best option to create them is, atm im tending to model my stuff in zrbush and retopo there to get nice quad distribution, or modelling in max and then retopo since as you can see on your own models you cant always avoid tris completely (much better than on the keltec tho), but they simply svck if you wanna polypaint later on a higher subD and polypainted textures are simply thousand times better than only using photoshop/gimp, not just for the seams but also the detail like scratches and so on, just compare the Keltec texture to the J3-Rifle texture... yours is photothsop and the J3 is polypaint, ill try using an edit poly to change the topology of your new gun a lil and hope the texture i can paint on it wont distort noticeably, i dont wanna do go the PS route again...

@strip joint
just finished the interior of the main area, including dancers and ambient FXing: http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/782/stripjointday.jpg, its in the building i put all those neon signs on in the test video, basemant and 1st floor are one big hall, pity bethesda didnt add fitting tilesets for all its exterior buildings nor added fitting nighttime windows, i hope it will not be too noticable, cant create models for all of these if i dont wanna work on this mod for the next 2yrs

@town
-added night time windows, they dont fit the buildings 100% but better than nothing, i might create new ones eventually if i feel like it, beth/obsidia kinda diddnt care about exterior-interior-day-night matching models it seems
-added some xmas light chains in the main area

-a big thx however for allowing us to move items in the geck on specific axis lol, just found out i can do that on x and y just like on z... great feature
-its also notable that emmitance is used much less in comparision to FO3 but instead they use scripted-time-dependant activators now to simulate day/night time light changes in most cases, dunno why actually, it means you need to place additional models and those might not fit the original, furthermore is it not understandable since they just added a batch feature for emittance, maybe its less performance hungry tho which would point at bad/inconsistent coding, but i have no idea actually

@story

pirates:
-thinking bout adding random encuounters and the ability to raid pirates during the boat travel to the island, like pirates jumping your boat and stuff... might need modified boat models for that, larger boats with interiors for example
-you get your boat after saving the life of the 1st mait who is the sole survivor of a pirate attack and accepts you as captain is my idea atm

museum:
a place like in morrowind tribunal, job to collect swords from my blades 2 collection for oblivion which will then be displayed there, museum of ancient weapons or somin, 2 grand caps as reward for each or somin

hotel:
you save flora the owner from some mobsters extorting her and gain her liking, can rent aka buy a room there, maybe she gets you jobs of all kinds worthy of a merc/smuggler

modified the boat01 mesh a lil and gave it a blue/black texture, that will be the boat you use and get
http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/8333/boat1p.jpg

redid the boat interior, might maybe lower the ceiling a lil but overall i guess it works
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/598/boat2v.jpg

I work there... o.0 (Toys-R-Us) Just got back from working Black Friday.

awww, poor echo lol, boob R us sure would be more fun on a black friday i assume

@update:

-added a name tag to the boat model with some pirate scribbles
-added the travel system, you have an autopilot onboard your boat now (terminal), select a place and you get there (the captains cabin stays accesible of course)
-added a High Sea worldspace (bascily just ocean) where you can chill out and started first tests on the pirate encounter:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8JXqKy86I4

In Black Lagoon style id like to see treasure hunting and bounty hunting strong (anti)heroes.
IMO the island that is populated by criminals should be ruled by some successful rich supercriminal. They occasionaly get into fights with other jealous pirates that would love to take over this island. The inhabitants go out on pillaging missions every day and they need you to do the special jobs that require more brains and brawns. The NRC doesnt really know where the island is, or when they do it would be too heavily guarded to attack. The criminal leader will give you these treasure hunting and bounty hunting missions to fulfill. For this he lends you a boat. Ofcourse there should eventually be a plot twist where the criminal leader turns out to be someone else and the island holds a dark secret for you to uncover.

Ok, firstly, I own this game for Xbox, and do not mod, but its something ive always really been interested in and intend to do as soon as i get a decent computer.

Ive read This thread, viewed all the images and seen the videos, and to be perfectly honest, i'm amazed.

This mod looks brilliant, and if it were a game, i'd be excited to see the end product and fully intent on buying it.

I realise that obviously, as a non PC player, with no experience of mods, my presence here is useless, but seriously, i'm a fan, and i WILL be coming back.

Will check back to this thread and see how it goes.

Good luck.

I have no modding experience myself but i use a lot of mods and i know that ideas are always welcome, so i post them whenever they come up. Most mods are made by individuals and they can always use input from other people! So you're welcome talk about mods, even if you don't make or use them.

I can only speak for myself, but to me, input from other people is essential. I always do what I want to do, but hearing what other people think of my ideas and what I'm doing is always nice, plus this place is a great way to get help or assistance when needed.

@blackice, agreed on the supervillain boss of th island thing, i divided the island into the lower town and the up the hill area where that gang will reside
on how far there will be a twist in the story im not sure yet, we will see

@kombatwombat
well, thx man
hearing that from an xbox user is definately flattering
and i agree with the others that even tho you prolly wont be able to play it your input is more than welcome, afterall as i see see it someone who is not deep inside the whole thing kinda kept his innocence and doesnt think with all those restrictions in mind and hence often can come up with ideas totally unthinkable to us who adjusted their thinking patterns according to the technical possibilities yet, made that experience during uni, freshman often are much more creative than bitter old "pros"

short update:
-fixed some things about the pirate encounter and added some variety, need a reason to go to those high seas now tho, maybe jobs send you there to intercept other ships or somin
-added hotel flora interior
-added some clutter around the main island exterior
-added some retextured items (couch, chair, vault security armor for gang security members, ski mask, etc)
-added some modified building tiles where i needed em (i have no clue how obsidian could actually build domin with those lol)

am still unhappy with the pirate ship movement, there seems to be no script function to move them along their local axis, moveto or setpos afterall simply use world coordinates which is kinda annoying, it seems easier to build a drivable boat than having it just move around lol, maybe i should just create myself an animation for that, wont be dynamic then tho but its atm neither, its simply scripted
however i think it works the way its now and ill prolly keep it for now to concentrate on filling the world with stuff to be able to spin some stories aournd it

interiors done (ready for navmeshing and finalizing / fixing) so far:
-clinic
-strip joint main area
-weapon dealer
-clothing dealer
-general store
-hotel
-boat interior

to do:
-glowing camel inn bar/concert stage (got some really neat bands at hand to contribute some songs that actually fit imo)
-gang mansion
-??

ill prolly keep some houses boarded up for first release and maybe fill em later

update:

-more finalizing or interior and exterior spaces

-added main NPCs to existing locations

-added some gang exterior security

-added chef cook apron and rahmen cloth draqes

http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/2121/noodles1.jpg

Looks good. I think it'd be cool with some more stuff on the walls though, posters and what not. It's just a thing with me, whenever I do a mod I like to have as much clutter as possible (within reason of course). I mean, if I lived in a post-nuclear wasteland I'd be taking anything I could get my hands on.