Work on the shotgun has progressed well. The sounds are in place and I've been able to recreate most of the frames that have been chopped off on the right due to Halo's screen resolution. There are still two frames that are a real pain to remake because there's just so much of them chopped off. So, I've deviated from the shotgun a little and moved on to another weapon for the moment. It has been decided that the needler will not be included in Halathon. Not only is it far too much work to give it a decent firing animation, but the physics of Marathon simply will not let us make it work the way it should. Keep in mind that nothing in this project is solid. There is still a small chance it will make an appearance in the future. For the most part it depends on what the A1 devs are willing to fix in the future, because the player-created guided projectile code has been broken.
But do not worry, there will not be an empty weapons slot in Halathon if I have anything to say about it :P
Since the shotgun's been proving a pain lately I decided to move work over to the weapon that is to replace the needler which is the Fuel Rod Cannon. At first glance I thought, no way is this gun making it in Halathon. But, the more I began to think about, the better it sounded. It basically fires a bigger, stronger, greener version of the grenades that Marathon's assault rifle does. I've already gotten the physics to work quite well, not to mention the sounds. It still needs a firing animation, but other than that it's already pretty far along in the process.
Oh, and by the way...
Halathon's first release debuts today!
Nothing is finished, and the plasma rifle hasn't even been started on yet. So, to say the least, this is a very early release. But, it is a taste of what is to come. The main reason I put the files up is because I was playing around in some multiplayer maps against just aliens, and it was fun as hell :P
I just wanted to share the experience.
I'm sorry that the hi-res versions of the weapons are not available yet. They're simply not ready for release because there's this nasty bug that we like to call the First Frame Bug or FFB. Basically when Marathon draws a hi-res image that hasn't been displayed before, it takes roughly 2 seconds. That may not seem like much at first, but consider all the frames that need to be drawn in Marathon. There are 9 frames for the melee attack animation alone. Now take into consideration firing and reloading sequences for each weapon. It ends up taking a good minute or so to get each weapon running smoothly and effectively, which is far too long by most gaming standards. So, until this little bug is either fixed, or we find a way around it, you'll be stuck with the crappy images that I didn't bother setting color tables for.
Hopefully in the near future I'll get the fuel rod looking and working nice and sweet. So stay tuned
Posted by Tycho7 at May 6, 2004 06:58 PM