C&C 3: The Forgotten Interview with Blbpaws

[Sonic 296]

HeXetic from Planet C&C has posted a very good interview with Blbpaws, the team leader for the recently released C&C 3: The Forgotten. For those who are unaware, The Forgotten is a huge mod for Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, featuring a new faction, new skirmish and multiplayer maps. There is also a brand new campaign that uses high definition FMV mission briefings. Here's part of the interview.

 

HeXetic: So, C&C3: The Forgotten. Looking over the units list, among other things we've got disc-throwers, Tick Tanks, Tiberian Fiends, the Hunter-Seeker missile, and even the Veinhole monster as a superweapon. A lot of Tiberian Sun stuff; but that's by no means a bad thing, as TS is probably the most beloved of the Tiberian franchise games. To what extent did your team try to bring the left-behind parts of TS into C&C3 with this mod?

 

Blbpaws: There's a lot of C&C canon influence, no doubt, as the mod is set directly in the C&C story. For each thing we've brought back (and for many of the new ones we've introduced, too), we try to tell the story of the unit. For example, you only get Tick Tanks once you complete a bonus objective in mission 1 that involves capturing an abandoned Nod base, you only get Impact Drones (a souped up Hunter-Seeker drone) once you raid a GDI base in mission 2, and you only get Tiberian Fiends once you fight in a Red Zone town that's sympathetic to your side where the villagers have tamed the Tiberian life. We feel adding this sort of narrative depth to the story--leading the player to construct his faction in a real way, not through arbitrary levelling up--lends more substance to the great units we're bringing back. It's the best of both worlds.

 

HeXetic: Mod tools have been a bone of contention with C&C games for quite some time now, but teams like yours still seem to put together great releases. How much time would you say was spent on developing new or better tools to work with the C&C3 engine? Were there any specific or memorable challenges to overcome in getting The Forgotten units, structures, and campaign into the game?

 

Blbpaws: We used Bibber's tools as a start, but we had to modify them to get them to work with our internal subversioning system. Happily CommieDog, Tsumetai, and Mike together have an excellent understanding of computer languages and the SAGE engine. Another tremendous challenge was getting the Full Motion Videos in-game, and linking all the missions in the campaign, where jonwil's tools proved helpful. Dozens of other parts of the mod required lots of custom code and hacking modules together, from the Vein Monster to the Beastmaster. For me, one of the biggest technical challenges was creating an AI for The Forgotten. There's no doubt that the official mod tools are too difficult to use, but having such a dedicated and experienced staff made these barriers surmountable for us.

Click here to read the full interview. And make sure you download and try The Forgotten for yourself.

[Lauren 78]

Sorry but the technical part is just a great lie.

Another tremendous challenge was getting the Full Motion Videos in-game,

Ehm yeah, copy paste and about 4 lines of ini... reeeeealy hard.

[...]Dozens of other parts of the mod required lots of custom code and hacking modules together, from the Vein Monster to the Beastmaster.

Okay lets see, Vein Monster: just a animated model with the weapon like the Rift Generator, sounds challenging, and if its coded otherwise, go learn to mod again as it feels exactly like I just described and doesn't need any special coding. Also Beastmaster... I really can't think of something that would be difficult to create them.

There's no doubt that the official mod tools are too difficult to use, but having such a dedicated and experienced staff made these barriers surmountable for us.

Sorry guys, look at other games that come with mod tools, then come back and say that again. The mod tools provided by EA are one of the most easy to use tools we could have and wish for.

In terms of the campaign, it would have been nice to integrate the objectives directly into the HUD and after-mission scoring, as EA did, but that wasn't possible, so we just used basic text.

Ehm also very easy to do, MissionObjectiveList anyone?

 

Sorry but The Forgotten is another mod that just happens to be bigger then most but really has nothing else special to it then the self made FMVs.

Edited September 26, 2010 by Lauren

[Sonic 296]

I'm sorry to say but your post reeks of jealousy Lauren. The amount of work and effort gone into The Forgotten is tremendous. And Blbpaws and his team deserve some well earned recognition. So rather than bad mouthing it why don't you make something better.

[Lauren 78]

I don't rant about the work, I rant about the FALSE statements they gave in that interview, if I would wish to bad mouth it I could easily come up with many more things. Its just the fact that they try to achieve praise with writing nonesense.

Also I work on the Kane's Wrath Mod SDK and I am part of Tiberian Sun Rising, sooo am I doing enough for you now or do you just don't like people just wanting to set things straight, and all my statements in the above post are true, and the quoted ones are false.

[Golan 6]

I'm sorry to say but your post reeks of jealousy Lauren. The amount of work and effort gone into The Forgotten is tremendous. And Blbpaws and his team deserve some well earned recognition. So rather than bad mouthing it why don't you make something better.

Sorry but the CNC3 community would be A LOT better off if people wouldn't spend so much time bragging about nothing and instead bothered helping each other. Lauren is right with all the facts he listed and the points perfectly well illustrate how people people simply don't care about much other than getting their own 15 milliseconds of fame.

Yes, the team deserves respect for their work. For their interviews, not so much...

Edited September 26, 2010 by Golan

[Sonic 296]

You guys can keep spreading your technical mumbo jumbo about the SAGE engine, It means nothing to me because I'm not a modder, just a dude running a fan site and reporting the news. You have a detailed understanding of the engine and that's great, but to come in here and **** on someone else's work is not very professional.

 

Its clear you have only registered here just to argue and get your point across.

[Lauren 78]

I didn't register here to just jerking around. I registered more then a year ago and used my account here a bit to promote my SDK. Then when I feel like someone is about to jerk with everyone else, you start praise them and defend them. And when 2 of the most renowned modders of the newer titles register to back me up you just insult them? If they did register here before, were active and made that post would you say the same or is it maybe you, jealous about they didn't register before?

Sure its your page, but defending people lying to not only you but all your readers without listening to others that are maybe new here but not new in the community isn't that professional either. It would all be fine if they wouldn't demand to be praised as the best of their art.

 

Edit: By the way: their coding work is based on a great amount on the findings Golan, Bibber and I made (yeah I don't back up that claim because you don't wish the mumbo jumbo). Think of that a bit.

Edited September 26, 2010 by Lauren

[Golan 6]

You guys can keep spreading your technical mumbo jumbo about the SAGE engine, It means nothing to me because I'm not a modder, just a dude running a fan site and reporting the news. You have a detailed understanding of the engine and that's great, but to come in here and **** on someone else's work is not very professional.

You mean less professional than bragging about solving problems that aren't problems to begin with?

Modding of SAGE games since TW has suffered greatly due to the portrayal of the process as something arcane, incredibly difficult or highly technical. Furthering this impression through false statements is incredibly harmful to the community - it should be natural that people speak up against it.

 

Its clear you have only registered here just to argue and get your point across.

That's the point of a forum, isn't it? You can check our comments on ModDB and other pages frequented by the mod team, you will find that we try to be as constructive as possible towards the project. Edited September 26, 2010 by Golan

[recover 2]

Without knowing all the details, I will try to add to this discussion.

 

Another tremendous challenge was getting the Full Motion Videos in-game

I would guess he meant that the entire process of recording, editing, encoding and finally putting it in-game was a tremendous challenge. I would be surprised if it wasn't.

 

I must agree with Sonic that there seems to be a lot of bad blood here. Ultimately, this forum is about friendly discussion all things C&C. If you want to insult someone, I suggest you talk to that person directly. No need to bring us in to the fight.

[Lauren 78]

The question was about the tools available and the challenges they brought.

[PurpleGaga27 40]

I can tell from the arguments you guys are making, this mod is far from finished. The mod can be perfected if improved. We all know that the C&C3 Sage Engine cannot take everything we can try to work and experiment.

 

The only thing unique on this mod is the sky textures imported into C&C3 so players were able to see real sky textures on some mission maps. On that part, I need to know this on how that part was done in C&C3 modding so I can update the info on the C&C3 Mod SDK FAQ.

 

At this point of time, some latest C&C3 mods are using some KW content and balance changes. I noticed some scripting errors for some of the mission maps. Also mission 2 for the Forgotten campaign needs to make that map a little wider. (too narrow for units in the north to go through the terrain) As for the units, some of them like the Disc Thrower and Tick Tank are from C&C2 Tsun. Any reason why they were used in that mod instead of some new unique units? There's one time I asked a question to the dev team regarding having the Mutant Ironback and Scrapbus into the mod and they refused for that.

 

After all, I knew the German modders are the smart guys in CNC modding.

Edited September 26, 2010 by purplescrin

[Blbpaws 1]

I almost didn't post this, but I do think it's important to give criticism a fair hearing, and ignoring it wouldn't do that. I quote the other participants here not to respond argumentatively, but to be clear about what they are saying and about what I say.

 

First, let me point out that the Lead Designer of the C&C development team, Sam Bass, seems to match what I say. He specifically commented on our creative use of EA's tools and overcoming technical challenges. See: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/09/22...3-the-forgotten

This is a great mod…even with the SDK we put together, creating content for SAGE engine games is a pretty tough road to hoe, let alone putting together a full faction and campaign (with video!).

 

It’s amazing what people with dedication can do. Kudos!

 

But I don't think just because Sam Bass agrees with me that something is right. Let me address each point in full:

 

(Regarding my claims about FMVs) Ehm yeah, copy paste and about 4 lines of ini... reeeeealy hard.

I think it's pretty apparent that the process of doing FMVs was indeed quite complex. Even if you want to put aside the non-technical work (screenwriting, casting, directing), there's still the technical process of setting up a film capture environment that's similar enough to EA's so that we could use the result--this involved the challenges of matching lighting, etc. Broken Wall Films, a key part of our team, handled this very well. After that point, there was the matter of getting the raw video footage edited into the discrete videos, more than a dozen in all. And then there was the technical process of getting those videos into EA's format, decoupling the sound and video so that the engine could recombine them, continually adjusting the video codec to suit our footage (I believe that EA's codec was not usable with the tools we had, but I'd need to check that with the film guys). Then, after that, there was the INI and XML coding to get the videos in-game, the only part acknowledged in Lauren's post. It's worth noting that no one else has done FMVs on any scale, much less this one--there's probably a reason why.

 

Okay lets see, Vein Monster: just a animated model with the weapon like the Rift Generator, sounds challenging, and if its coded otherwise, go learn to mod again as it feels exactly like I just described and doesn't need any special coding. Also Beastmaster... I really can't think of something that would be difficult to create them.

Tsumetai and CommieDog handled the intricate details of the XML, though I edited some of it as we went along. I've never had a reason to look at the Rift Generator code--maybe they did--but I can tell you the Vein Monster is a nine-stage weapon to better simulate a monster growing, attacking, and dying. I think we could have gone to a simpler weapon, but it wouldn't have been as good. As far as the Beastmaster, I haven't looked at the code--that was all CommieDog--but I know there were a number of revisions to it over time to get it right. I think the broader point when you talk about code is that it's a mistake to conflate something being difficult with something being impossible. Of course it's possible--if it wasn't, it wouldn't be in the mod. It doesn't mean that the process of making it didn't have some challenges, which I tried to convey.

 

(Regarding mod tools)Sorry guys, look at other games that come with mod tools, then come back and say that again. The mod tools provided by EA are one of the most easy to use tools we could have and wish for.

The impression I get is that Unreal, Oblivion, and Starcraft all have very solid tools that are relatively better than EA's offering--in an internal email last year, Apoc even said as much. Even putting aside other games, look at how few C&C mods are finished nowadays. Even the very talented modders in this thread--so far as I can tell--haven't ever released a 1.0 version of a mod for C&C 3 or RA3 with original units, much less a faction(I want to be clear that I say that not as a personal attack, but as a demonstration of how difficult it is to complete a full project).

 

I'll look into the MissionObjective List. I feel like we tried it and disregarded it for some reason, but I don't recall what that was offhand--this was probably well over a year ago.

 

One comment in particular bothers me:

Sorry but the CNC3 community would be A LOT better off if people wouldn't spend so much time bragging about nothing and instead bothered helping each other. Lauren is right with all the facts he listed and the points perfectly well illustrate how people people simply don't care about much other than getting their own 15 milliseconds of fame.

 

As I noted, I don't think Lauren's claims are terribly in context, but I certainly dispute that I was "bragging about nothing." First, I think The Forgotten is a lot more than nothing in the context of RTS modding. Second, I specifically highlighted again and again the many staff members who made this possible and how nothing would have gotten done without them, so this certainly isn't about my "fame," if you call C&C fansites famous. By the way, one of the people I highlighted as being helpful was bibber. Thirdly, we run a site that's dedicated to helping people get better at both modding and mapping, so I don't think the criticism that we're all about ourselves is accurate.

 

Bibber, we do have the capacity to patch the mod, and we will indeed release one in response to the feedback and suggestions we've gotten, including yours.

 

In terms of the claims of bad blood, I don't know of any. I'm not really familiar with Golan or Lauren's projects (though I recall promoting them in newsposts over the years as part of our efforts at C&C Labs to foster creativity), and bibber's tools have been helpful, as I said in the interview. Maybe I'm missing something, but I see no reason for bad blood here, and I certainly don't feel any. We've gotten a lot of positive feedback on the mod, and here we got some negative feedback--it's not the end of the world, and I hope by addressing it I helped clarify things.

 

Does that clear things up some? In terms of judging the mod's quality, I'll let the results speak for themselves. You can read plenty of unbiased fan comments on joystiq, escapistmagazine, rockpapershotgun, filefront, moddb, strategyinformer, fileplanet, or any number of C&C sites.

Edited September 26, 2010 by Blbpaws

[Lauren 78]

[...]

And then there was the technical process of getting those videos into EA's format, decoupling the sound and video so that the engine could recombine them, continually adjusting the video codec to suit our footage (I believe that EA's codec was not usable with the tools we had, but I'd need to check that with the film guys). Then, after that, there was the INI and XML coding to get the videos in-game, the only part acknowledged in Lauren's post. It's worth noting that no one else has done FMVs on any scale, much less this one--there's probably a reason why.

There is a one click tool over at PPM for converting avi files to the format EA uses. Also it was just as you said to the technical side of exactly how to get the stuff you have in the game, not about the actual creating of that content, and that part is a few clicks.

 

[...]

Tsumetai and CommieDog handled the intricate details of the XML, though I edited some of it as we went along. I've never had a reason to look at the Rift Generator code--maybe they did--but I can tell you the Vein Monster is a nine-stage weapon to better simulate a monster growing, attacking, and dying. I think we could have gone to a simpler weapon, but it wouldn't have been as good.

I tried it and I really noticed nothing about growth stages, sorry but it just doesn't look like that at all.

 

As far as the Beastmaster, I haven't looked at the code--that was all CommieDog--but I know there were a number of revisions to it over time to get it right. I think the broader point when you talk about code is that it's a mistake to conflate something being difficult with something being impossible. Of course it's possible--if it wasn't, it wouldn't be in the mod. It doesn't mean that the process of making it didn't have some challenges, which I tried to convey.

The thing here is I can't see how there are any difficulties to create such a squad where the user looses control if the banner carrier is dead. I'm not demanding something impossible, but it also doesn't look like something special that should be explicitly used to demonstrate your superiority.

 

The impression I get is that Unreal, Oblivion, and Starcraft all have very solid tools that are relatively better than EA's offering--in an internal email last year, Apoc even said as much.

You can do more with them? Yes. Easier? No. In the interview you talked about how difficult it is, and it is not. XML etc is so much easier to learn then Unreal Script or the 'Craft Editors with hundreds of menues and senselesss complicated stuff. If you compare the StarCraft II Editor with the older WarCraft III editor you might notice that they even tried to copy some elements of the WorldBuilder, and not to mention it is also a crashfest. Wonder why...

(Can't speak much about the Oblivion stuff, but from what I heared from others it can be a pain in the ass too. Oh and don't even start with the CryEngine or Source, they are like Unreal, just even more difficult)

 

Even putting aside other games, look at how few C&C mods are finished nowadays. Even the very talented modders in this thread--so far as I can tell--haven't ever released a 1.0 version of a mod for C&C 3 or RA3 (I want to be clear that I say that not as a personal attack, but as a demonstration of how difficult it is to complete a full project).

Calling a mod 1.0 or a beta isn't that simple. We could have pushed TSR out years ago and could be easily now at 3.0 or greater. Naming a mod 1.0 doesn't make it finished. (See for example TWA)

 

I'll look into the MissionObjective List. I feel like we tried it and disregarded it for some reason, but I don't recall what that was offhand--this was probably well over a year ago.

Maybe you aren't as godlike as you think? It's exactly what EA uses.

All in all your bragging about your excellent understanding is just false.

 

One comment in particular bothers me:

 

As I noted, I don't think Lauren's claims are terribly in context, but I certainly dispute that I was "bragging about nothing." First, I think The Forgotten is a lot more than nothing in the context of RTS modding. Second, I specifically highlighted again and again the many staff members who made this possible and how nothing would have gotten done without them, so this certainly isn't about my "fame," if you call C&C fansites famous. By the way, one of the people I highlighted as being helpful was bibber. Thirdly, we run a site that's dedicated to helping people get better at both modding and mapping, so I don't think the criticism that we're all about ourselves is accurate.

That nothing in "bragging about nothing" was towards the coding stuff, as its easy. It was in no way meant to say your mod is like nothing. Just some parts you bragged about.

The problem for your site is:

1. Its extremely isolated. I've never seen someone of your staff posting/helping somewhere else.

2. Your site is apart from mods like allstars and forgotten completely unknown to nearly everyone. That "dedicated to helping people" just isn't known.

For example it just states "At C&C Labs, we make maps and mods for Command & Conquer games. If you enjoy building things, please join us and contribute your skills. Here's a little bit about who we are and what we do." and that is on the About Us page, nowhere on the front page, also it doesn't state anything about helping. Then about 3/4 of the screen "» Teach Others - Want to learn how to create your own C&C maps using World Builder? [...]" Nothing about modding. The only thing it says "join us we want your skillz!" Clicking on "Modding" then TW you just get a bunch of links to tools and 2 links to "Tutorials" that everyone can see just by reading through the offical sdk documentation. And the Forum has a small subtopic about TW with ... wow 5 threads.

 

Does that clear things up some? In terms of judging the mod's quality, I'll let the results speak for themselves. You can read plenty of unbiased fan comments on joystiq, escapistmagazine, rockpapershotgun, filefront, moddb, strategyinformer, fileplanet, or any number of C&C sites.

Its not about the quality about the mod, its about that untruthful bragging that leads to our posts.

 

 

Oh and btw: Sam Bass is in everything modding out of his comfort zone. Sure he picks up things someone has thrown at him to please the community. As Golan said: "Modding of SAGE games since TW has suffered greatly due to the portrayal of the process as something arcane, incredibly difficult or highly technical." And after a while sure it gets picked up by developers that have nothing to do with the xml code for example.

Edited September 26, 2010 by Lauren

[Doctor Destiny 41]

If you people don't stop the drama, I'm going to delete every post made in here and lock the damn thread. Enough with the ego stroking and e-penis envy already.

 

Crap like this makes me glad I don't mod TW and RA3.

[Guest Stevie_K]

If you people don't stop the drama, I'm going to delete every post made in here and lock the damn thread. Enough with the ego stroking and e-penis envy already.

 

Crap like this makes me glad I don't mod TW and RA3.

 

Adding to it as well huh? Instead of just locking it already you must fit in your own input of ego stroking as you call it.

Discussions are what forums are for. If it's prohibited, I think it should be marked with bold in the forum rules and guidelines

 

[Doctor Destiny 41]

Adding to it as well huh? Instead of just locking it already you must fit in your own input of ego stroking as you call it.

I don't really want to lock it, but it's ridiculous to see mod teams fighting over something as insignificant as an interview. This has nothing to do with ego stroking of my own, especially since Sonic noted we should keep an eye on this thread and you're not helping the matter by butting in.

 

Discussions are what forums are for. If it's prohibited, I think it should be marked with bold in the forum rules and guidelines

Discussion is fine, but what's gone on here hasn't been much in the way of "discussion." There would be no issue if five different people weren't stirring a pot they don't need to clean up.

 

The worst way you can go. That feels like you intend to censor the criticism we give.

There was no criticism, just accusations. I don't want to be forced to take any action, nor does Sonic, but we will if it's necessary. Besides, this is a news forum, not a "bitch about the topic" forum. Keep that in mind.

[Golan 6]

Great mod! Keep up the exceptional work!

[CommieDog 0]

Okay lets see, Vein Monster: just a animated model with the weapon like the Rift Generator, sounds challenging, and if its coded otherwise, go learn to mod again as it feels exactly like I just described and doesn't need any special coding.

Well, the damage-dealing part of it is coded like a Rift Generator. However, its damage radius is smaller at the beginning and end of its attack.

 

Also Beastmaster... I really can't think of something that would be difficult to create them.

Yeah, I thought that too when I first suggested the unit. But actually implementing it was tricky because a lot of bugs came up, and unfortunately at least one of them made it to release.

 

Ehm also very easy to do, MissionObjectiveList anyone?

I've heard that it is impossible to do without EA releasing the XML code for the campaign maps, not easy. Maybe I missed something, though, and I would be relieved if that was the case.

 

I told them how to fix the crash an I wonder if they will fix it in the next version

You certainly did, and your fixed worked. However, we ran into another problem with the new minimap TOW. I'm sure any insight into how or why a minimap TOW would cause problems changing the graphics settings would be appreciated, because I'm baffled.

 

if there will ever be a next version.

What makes you think there won't be a next version?

 

As for the units, some of them like the Disc Thrower and Tick Tank are from C&C2 Tsun. Any reason why they were used in that mod instead of some new unique units?

Mostly to show that the Forgotten doesn't have the R&D budget that GDI and Nod have. Instead, they fight with yesterday's weapons.

 

There's one time I asked a question to the dev team regarding having the Mutant Ironback and Scrapbus into the mod and they refused for that.

By the time we heard of EA's plan for mutant units in C&C4, we had already invested considerable effort in our current roster of units. It would have been great to know of them before everyone else (including quite possibly the C&C4 developers), but it was not to be.

[Lauren 78]

I've heard that it is impossible to do without EA releasing the XML code for the campaign maps, not easy. Maybe I missed something, though, and I would be relieved if that was the case.

1. He just states he doesn't know, not that it is impossible.

2. jonwil isn't the modding god many think of, more then once stuff he said turned out false.

3.Whatever

Edited September 29, 2010 by Lauren