ModCast Episode 31: "Wouter's Back"

[Locutus]

[img=right]http://polycast.apolyton.net/images/modcast_logo2.jpg[/img]
Does exactly what it says on the tin. The thirty-first episode of ModCast, an official podcast of Apolyton Civilization Site (ACS), is now available. Entitled "Wouter's Back", it finally features all four core panelists again: Wouter "Locutus" Snijders, Tony "GarretSidzaka" Kiehl, Kenneth "Impaler[WrG]" Ferland and John "bt_oz" Archer, along with first-time guest co-host Duane "Wyz_sub10" Wysynski.

An official podcast of Apolyton Civilization Site, ModCast is an ongoing effort to give the Civ community an interactive voice on Civilization modding; sibling show PolyCast focuses on Civ strategy and RevCast focses on Civilization: Revolution. To date, ACS is the only community on the web to produce its own Civilization podcasts.

Summary of Topics:

- 05m21s | News
Art conversion from one game to another -- not done?
- 13m17s | Artist Sketchpad
We Look at seZereth's Blood Mod.
- 20m16s | Code Corner
Discussing the new leader traits from the Tsentom1 Python Traits mod by tsentom1.
- 28m02s | Spotlight
We interview Duane `Wyz_sub10` Wysynski about the CIV Gold project which he leads up.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Yay, my work is discussed in a ModCast.

I thought I'd add a bit to your discussion. I agree to most of the points that have been made throughout the discussion, but I wanted to elaborate a bit.

Firstly, I'd like to point out that, judging from my release threads, at least for Kohan II converted stuff, I actually got several people to BUY the original game, thus aiding its creators. Which brings me lots of joy, because despite being the conversion freak of CFC (now officially so ), I always have lots of my own doubts when I port stuff from one game to another.

But hey, eventually, it all comes down to the fact that I make lots of people a bit happier, and nobody sadder or poorer (and as illustrated above, that even sometimes benefits the creators of original artwork, because when properly credited, it's free publicity).

I must admit that giving credit comes to me after being probably the most undercredited author on CFC myself. When in any pack you see "unknown" listed as author, with at least 50% probability it's me. I've done a lot of reskins of units and buildings and stuff, and most of it didn't get published on CFC separately, since from early on I've been a resident skinner of TR mod, and when stuff gets ripped from there (and it often does), there's no reliable way of knowing I made it and crediting me - so I'm quite fine with it, but that adds to my liking for crediting other people and stuff.

Also I must note, that ripping stuff from a game and putting it into Civ is by no means a simple process. Even for other games that use Gamebryo engine with its .nifs and stuff, it is usually the wrong version of the engine, and each game has its own quirks of how it gets used. Therefore a conversion act is sometimes as labor- and time-consuming as probably the initial act of creating said content was, the more the farther the game is from Civ game engine-wise.

It is also a very thrilling process of figuring out how stuff works, especially when converting from non-Gamebryo games, kind of solving a puzzle. I'm finding that lots of the time I'm doing the conversion not because it could benefit our mod, or even the community as a whole, but just for the thrill of it. I actually have a large-ish collection of converted stuff I won't release because there will hardly be any use for it in Civ 4, that I converted just out of curiosity.

And lastly, I must add that I admire the work of every author who creates completely original content for Civ 4, a feat that I can't reliably replicate. I guess I got to scouring other games for convertable items because I'm really bad at drawing and modelling myself, and still I wanted to be a meaningful contributor to the community. But to every person making units, buildings and other stuff from scratch: you're the best, guys! You are the backbone of Civ 4 modding community! Keep up the good work!

Oh, and thank you guys for taking your time to review my conversions, even if it was done in context.

 

[seZereth]

the blood splatter is a nif effect, and it is triggered like any flintspark by a txt_key entry in the relevant kf files (hurt, die).
So... I had to modify all the kf s to add the txt_key to trigger the blood splatter at the point where the unit is hit.

cheers