Marathon: Infested *IMPORTANT UPDATE*

[infestedsmith]

Greetings fellow Mara-Men (and Women). It saddens my heart to see the degeneration of all things Marathon with the closing of the Orphanage, and the untimely demise of the Scenario News page, but we know that Marathon can never disappear, and so we have hope! I'm here to add a little spice to the waning light of the wonderful Marathon series.

I present once again:

Marathon: Infested

The release date for Marathon: Infested is 2008. For those who have never heard of it, it's been in production for a little over 3 years, (probably more) and went from a 2D Aleph One project, to a full 3D game.

I have come here to this Pfhorum to seek approval or disapproval for my project.

I have pics too! (No main screen pics though, sorry! )

Here are 2 recent and NON-PUBLIC screenshots, please do not share these outside of this site.





(Don't mind the UV coord glitches )

In addition to the sneak preview seen here, I have a partial list of the basic progress:

?Storyline 95% finished. Involves horror elements, surprising twists, huge and small environments from ship to canyon to desert. Tycho vs. Durandal.
?Chapter/Map names, subject and location are entirely mapped out. New technology within my 3D tools allows me to create my maps in a 3D modeling program, enabling fast creation of high detail maps.
?Hundreds of drawn concepts have been made for characters, weapons, locations and maps are complete, giving me a close look at the entire project as a whole.
?Complete monster and weapon lists have been made, showing what monsters and weapons will be used, and what new content will appear.
?Marathon in 3D problems are being addressed, and things like bullet casings, no decals, no crouching, no jumping, teleporting, AI and other such things are entirely documented and are being worked on.
?So faithful is my vision for this project, that even the weapon damage and character health is designed to be EXACTLY the same as it is in Marathon.

?Primary weapons have been modeled, texture and basically animated.
?Primary enemies have been modeled, some textured, with some close to final model, or entirely complete texture and all.
?Scenery items are being made, some completely finished, with an effort to remain 100% faithful to Marathon.

?Texture sets are entirely planned and conceptualized.
?Two Texture sets are entirely complete: #1, The ship texture set which consist of 42 high-quality 1024x1024 textures based 100% on existing Marathon123, and Rubicon designs. #2, the Marathon 1 Pfhor Texture set, provided by Jay Faircloth.
?Other texture sets are in the works.

?Marathon: Infested demo is in the works, featuring the entire Arrival chapter with 3+ net maps, 4 weapons, 6+ alien foes and allies.

?Many music pieces are finished, and others in the works. Music will be an important part of Marathon: Infested.
?Many game sound effects are finished, close to the 50+ mark.
?And more...

Come October, the demo will hopefully be released, pending engine networking fixes.
With the release of the demo will be the opening of a new self-hosted CFG games forum. Stay tuned!

Tell me what you think, and please feel free to email me:
alexandersmith@coldfusiongames.com
www.coldfusiongames.com

NOTE: Please be kind in your assessment of my work. With the exception of scripting, music, sound effects and 1 texture set, I am make this project 100% myself, models, textures, particle effects, chapter pictures, terminals, and all that jazz. It's not easy in 3D, and I get burned out a lot, so don't come here and tell me my stuff is junk. I like helpful critiques.

NOTE2: Also please IGNORE the Marathon: Infested website at the CFG website, it is in a shambles, and does not represent ANY current progress, I'm still figuring out how best to revamp the danged thing.

[irons]

I've been waiting for quite some time on news of this project. I think I contacted you one or two years ago asking for help using the dim3 weapon-in-hand models. Anyway, it looks pretty good, and I hope you make it to release!

[megabyte]

I use to check the site regularly. No more updates came for a while so I stopped. Glad to see work on this project. I can't wait till its finished.

[JohannesG]

I'm thrilled to hear that this project is still ongoing.

[irons]

There's one thing I noticed: why is the assault rifle showing up in the HUD if the player is holding a pistol?

[infestedsmith]

The HUD is currently WIP. There's been a flurry of changes in the engine, and I waiting for all that to settle down before I get the HUD to final look and function. I find myself constantly having to do things over because of engine changes, and so I use a lot of placeholders now.

[MasterYo1]

There's one thing I noticed: why is the assault rifle showing up in the HUD if the player is holding a pistol?

The pistol is actually fully automatic and grenades fly out of the scope.

[JohannesG]

Btw Alex, what is the current status of the dim3 community. Any interesting projects going on there?

[infestedsmith]

Btw Alex, what is the current status of the dim3 community. Any interesting projects going on there?

Unfortunately there are not. The dim3 community is filled with kids and other newbies enticed by the idea of easy game making. The map making is easy enough, but weapons, characters, scenery and all that is very hard to make. Especially if you want to make them look good.

I have finished a small level design contest game, which is the basic start of a series I will eventually make (on another engine). You can try it here:

http://www.coldfusiongames.com/utb.html

[infestedsmith]

Unfinished Pfhor Fighter. (Organic texturing is HARD )



To make animation easier, the models are done as the ones in Oni, with the legs, arms, forearms and such things being disconnected.

[Slapstick]

Nice stuff alex, I like the HUD (I understand the interface is not finished ,but it still loks neat ). I will probably stay away from the dim3 forum for now... (Still using dim3)
The map and textures look great, can't wait for the demo release! By the way the monster model is the first that I've seen that actually looks really like a pfhor fighter.

[visciom]

Very nice stuff here. Keep up the good work!

[Phortiphy]

Great, I'm glad to see that this is still up and running! I hope you'll update more frequently ; )

[infestedsmith]

Nice stuff alex, I like the HUD (I understand the interface is not finished ,but it still loks neat ). I will probably stay away from the dim3 forum for now... (Still using dim3)
The map and textures look great, can't wait for the demo release! By the way the monster model is the first that I've seen that actually looks really like a pfhor fighter.

Thank you! This Pfhor Fighter version is a lot better then the last one I made. My first attempt, well, it was embarrassing!

Very nice stuff here. Keep up the good work!

Thanks! Your awesome weapons enhancement pack is a big inspiration for me.

Great, I'm glad to see that this is still up and running! I hope you'll update more frequently ; )

Yes I definitely will. I'm going to update both my main site, and all the game sites including the Marathon: Infested page this weekend. I will then post major announcements on the CFG website, and weekly updates for Infested on it's respective website. That way, I'll always be pressured to have new content to talk about in my updates, and I'll finish things faster.

[eliasj]

Looks excellent overall! Make sure to add the 'gland' to the back of the fighter's head.

[Dauta]

It looks ace! I'm particularily loving the layout of the hud. Just like in Marathon, only adapted for 3D.

[Cathunter]

Greetings fellow Mara-Men (and Women). It saddens my heart to see the degeneration of all things Marathon with the closing of the Orphanage

To misquote Mark Twain: reports of its demise have been greatly exaggerated.

The Orphanage is still open for business and accessible either through the usual address or directly to the new [post="http://marathon.bungie.org/Orphanage/Home.php"]Home Page[/post].

Cathunter

[VirtualX1]

Holy shit, that looks awesome! Good luck with that! i wish i could help but i have no skills in mapping or modeling

[chinkeeyong]

stuff

Hey Alex! Remember me? I was that noob who went around spouting ideas and who never got a single thing done. You probably have the most complete high-quality project in the dim3 community, apart from Awnee.

[The Thug]

This project looks very promising. Can't wait until it's finished!

[Crater Creator]

Looks good so far, infestedsmith. A few random comments:Try to think about function as you make maps. Hazard stripes are colored that way to warn people, not to spruce up an otherwise boring hallway. So limit that to areas where there's danger; beyond the danger of walking into a wall .I love the smoothness of your Pfhor fighter model. I do think you made it too human, though. Going from Marathon's sprites and original concept art like this, we see the fighter is very bony, with little muscle or fat. It has a 'glad' as gpack called it on the back of the head, and similar talon-like protrusions on the front and back of the knee. The eyes dominate the part of the face we can see, with deep eye sockets and hollowed temples and cheeks, making the head somewhat skull-like. The shock staff isn't a straight pole, but a more organic shape with a crook at the end. The head of the staff has rounded 'lobes' in the sprites, which look more organic than crystalline to me.Everyone uses the engine that works for them, but I must point out Dim3 isn't all that up to date. Its capabilities look to be on par with Marathon:Resurrection and other games in that generation. To really take Marathon to the next level graphically would require a modern game engine. I salivate over what normal and specular maps would do for Jay Faircloth's textures, or how it could bring out the tone and definition of your character models.Are you doing the whole project yourself by choice, or necessity? There's a talent pool on these forums and elsewhere you could tap into if you like.

[chinkeeyong]

Try to think about function as you make maps. Hazard stripes are colored that way to warn people, not to spruce up an otherwise boring hallway. So limit that to areas where there's danger; beyond the danger of walking into a wall .

It looks cool, so there.

[Major Pedro]

[*]I love the smoothness of your Pfhor fighter model. I do think you made it too human, though. Going from Marathon's sprites and original concept art like this, we see the fighter is very bony, with little muscle or fat. It has a 'glad' as gpack called it on the back of the head, and similar talon-like protrusions on the front and back of the knee. The eyes dominate the part of the face we can see, with deep eye sockets and hollowed temples and cheeks, making the head somewhat skull-like. The shock staff isn't a straight pole, but a more organic shape with a crook at the end. The head of the staff has rounded 'lobes' in the sprites, which look more organic than crystalline to me.

A question- have you ever tried to model something organic in a normal polygon-based 3d modeller? It always ends up like that.

@infestedsmith- your model is good, but try using a non-polygon modeller or simply having more detail. A higher vertex count isn't always bad, and you can get it way more realistic.


The screenies look wonderful, btw

[Crater Creator]

A question- have you ever tried to model something organic in a normal polygon-based 3d modeller? It always ends up like that.

Erm, to answer your question, yes. But what do you mean exactly? It always ends up smooth, or too human? That doesn't make sense. I made specific comments about this work in progress model, regarding things which can certainly be addressed with a "normal" polygon-based 3D modeling program.

[Shadowbreaker]

Looks good so far, infestedsmith. A few random comments:Try to think about function as you make maps. Hazard stripes are colored that way to warn people, not to spruce up an otherwise boring hallway. So limit that to areas where there's danger; beyond the danger of walking into a wall .

You must never have played Xmas: 3.