OverviewThis project started off as my very first programming experience.
My intention was to create an MMO RPG in Gmod which replicated Fable: The Lost Chapters. I followed Goature's tutorial series on gamemode creation to get me started, and kept adding more and more bits onto it. After a while I made my first HUD element - The health bar, which replicated the one in Fable. This got the attention from one of the randoms who were connecting to my local server, who encouraged me to keep working on it, eventually recreating the whole hud with photoshop including the inventory menu. |
Eventually I made my very first source models, recreating the:
I changed the name of the gamemode 3 times, settling on ALBION. |
What Happened?Besides having to focus on school work and keeping up with everything else I got bored of working on it and it was poorly coded.
The Chicken Chaser project was a much higher priority and I thought it would become it's own Albion using the source engine. I had to end up using UDK to make Chicken Chaser, which I certainly don't regret. I found it to be so much easier to use and import models than source... and the material editor was amazing. During that year I got into making characters and learnt how bones and animations work in games along with all the extra knowledge of UDK. I learnt how to use source's Detail Props system to create the grass and stones that generate themselves over the displacements.
- It definitely helps to have a programming background when working with source. After I got this in place, I started to import my Chicken Chaser models and even created some new models - The trees, flowing river, bridge and lanterns - as shown in the image below. Then I created my very first ragdoll / player model for source, It was to be the starting model if the player chose to be a boy, complete with proper face topology, ready for animation and bodygroups for switching hair styles, torso, arms, legs and feet. - It wasn't the best looking player model, but it was a major step in understanding source's model system. |
It was also around this time I got into using Wiremod's Expression 2.
Because I was working with limited operations, I taught myself the importance of keeping code optimized and DRY. So after a few more half completed gamemodes and random scripts I finally came back to Albion, looked over the old code, cringed at how bad it was and rewrote it from scratch. I had been making my own easy HUD making system to assist creating HUD elements quickly, while always working on every resolution. I also made an easy networking system where the server calls clientside hooks, unique to their purpose, while the clientside can make requests to the server with within a table of functions stored on the serverside checking whether or not the client should be calling them at that time. The images on the left show the opening menu the client sees when they connect, using those systems it was a simple process to create this menu. The player was able to now create separate characters and play through a story I had hoped to eventually make but never did. With the menu now in place, I just needed to continue making the actual gameplay, so I needed a map... Using a couple of Chicken Chaser assets, I moved them over to source and created the best looking source map I've made (in my opinion). |
But what happened after that?
I had learned so much, but the project was so large and daunting I couldn't do it alone.