an interview and a ufo (try saying that with a mouth full of lemons :) )First off, here's the interview between me and Neil "Nobby" Barnden (Director of the Art Stuff).
Me: On average, how long did it take to make a single car for Carmageddon 2? And how long for a ped?
Neil: Each car took about half a day to design on paper, then a couple of days to model. Texturing and preparing each car for in-game use (tweaking text files, setting up snap-able parts etc.) took around two to three days.
With the peds, the basic design took a week or so of experimenting with very low-poly shapes to get something acceptable. Then designing the skins started off at, say, three a day whilst building up a catalogue of faces and 'basic' looks, which then got faster as the project progressed until we could bang out twice as many a day. Modelling and texturing the animals took about two days per animal. The hardest part of the process was getting the naming of all the body parts right - every ped has to have uniquely named parts that are then referred to in a text file. That led to hours of fun when something somewhere got named wrongly.
Me: Why were so many cars were dropped ?? And will the cut cars be released in a patch?
Neil: A few cars got dropped from the final game either because I wasn't happy with the design, or they didn't really add anything to the mix of vehicles we already had, or more importantly because we just ran out of time to get them textured up or prepared for in-game use. We've currently no plans to release a patch or add-on pack ourselves as we're working on other stuff.
Me: Which is your favorite car and why?
Neil: My favourite car? Visually: The Eagle3. I think it's a really good evolution of the Eagle design (but then I built it, so I would say that!). My favourite car to drive is CWR's Prop Shafter. Handles like a dream, and it's the best all-rounder in race/combat situations.
Me: Will there be a patch for real time lighting?
Neil: When everyone who has a copy of Carma2 writes to us to confirm they've upgraded to Pentium II P550s, then we might do a real-time lighting patch. In the meantime, sorry, we've no plans along those lines.
Me: In Plaything 2. Why, when a joint is moved on one side of the skeleton does the joint on the other side shoot to the mid bottom of the screen?
Neil: The Plaything2 oddity you mention sounds like a bit of a bug to me. The Plaything was never intended to be used to manipulate joints, so your best bet is to refrain from messing with 'em! You must remember that the Plaything is not commercial software, it's Stainless' internal tool, and as such is full of bugs and half implemented 'features' that are attended to only when they absolutely have to be. We live with lots of bugs so Ian can get on with getting more sexy features in there. The 'release' Plaything is in the state it was when we finished working on Carma2 - it's changed a lot since then, but unfortunately that means we can't release 'upgrades' because it would be giving too much of our internal development technology away. But we figure that in its release state, if it was good enough for us to use for the whole game, it's good enough for the fan community to use for add-on material.
Me: What else would need editing in order to make a total new shaped ped ? Still with 2 arms, 2 legs, 1 head, etc just different sizes than current peds.
Neil: Getting different shaped peds in the game would demand that you edit a ped's text file (in the directory/.twt file of a ped, with all his other bits - untwatting is necessary to get at these) to input the new co-ordinates for the various joint positions. The co-ordinates can be got in the Plaything by floating the cursor over the joint and reading the co-ordinates from the bottom of the left hand window.
Hopefully I didn't squander my opportunity by asking all the wrong questions! Neil is a top chap and thanks very much for taking the time to talk to me!
And finally,
HERE is the U F-Ool as textured by Scarehead! Errol out
