I've been at work on this project for the longest time, and during this time I have been unsure as to whether or not anyone would have enough interest to bother playing this first of all, and whether or not any of those few who might play it would enjoy them selves.
Judging by the majority of feed back I have received on here, aros-exex, Aros Playground, MorphOS Zone, DOOM World, E-mail, and so on...
...well there appear to be a lot more people supporting this and showing sincere interest than I expected and for that I am both surprised and utterly grateful. Though now I am at a cross roads and need your input as to which path you think would be best suited for the game.
I have been spending plenty of time mapping, and still have plenty of mapping to do. That I'm having no problems with. I've been educating my self on the inner workings of various BOOM based DOOM engines since the summer of 2001, and know "just about" everything I think I need to know. Judging by the majority of feed back I have received, my mapping style is kosher. So I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing there, and keep adding detail and coming up with new ideas to make each level unique and of it's own.
Where I am at a cross roads though is the graphics department. I have to create or let someone create a new palette for the game. I will be limited to 256 colors, though Odamex will soon be able to display in 32 bit color, but will still only be 256 colors until the Odamex engine evolves past that which won't be fore some time. Because of this (and other reasons), I need to go back and make the best palette I can, but before that can be done, a texture set must be chosen, and perhaps a coloring decision made in regards to the current enemy sprites.
This is where I need your help, I have three paths in mind that I can take. They are:
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1. Darker More Realistic Textures with mostly unchanged Aminet Enemy Sprites . (My current approach, less hassle, but not the most professional.)
Use the enemy and item sprites that I have been using with as close to a match to their original color palette as possible (most enemies require 8-16 colors to them selves).
In conjunction with those sprites I will replace 90% of the textures in the Aminet Source Package with all new textures with a less cartoony look than most of those featured in the Source Package, giving the game a darker and more series tone like I, II, Tower Assault, and The Killing Grounds...
...but with sprites that tend to lean to the cartoonish at times.
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2. Darker More Realistic Textures with Aminet Enemy Sprites that Have been recolored to match the darker tone of the new textures. (I LOVE this idea, but it would require the assistance of seasoned graphic artists.)
Find a talented graphic artist(s) who could take my new textures as a source to create a new 256 palette for the game, then, with that palette, recolor the original enemy sprites from the Aminet Package, and alter them a bit to give the cartoony ones a darker and more serious tone that conforms more to the other entries of the Alien Breed series.
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3. Use all Aminet AB3D sources. Textures will need enlarged and enhanced and new ones will need created that conform to the general theme of those found in the Aminet resources. (I'm not too keen on this idea, but if everyone votes for it, it will again require the assistance of seasoned graphic artists.)
Rework the existing textures in the Aminet Package to look appealing in larger environments with a better resolution. I.E. all textures would have to be converted from 64x64 to 128x128 without looking like crap.
Or, using a palette created with the original sprites and textures, modify the old textures so that they have more detail and look presentable in 128x128 should they not look good as it.
Additionally a LOT of new textures would have to be created to that conform to the cartoony look of the Aminet Sources and the original Alien Breed 3D.
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4. There are too many FPS's in the world, this is blasphemy, BRING BACK Little Computer People instead!!!
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Note: Options 2 and 3 could push the first official release back a month or two depending on how much help I receive from graphic artists. Option 4 was supposed to be my April Fool's news, but it never got posted for some reason. That makes me a sad panda.
Work In Progress:
http://www.doomworld.com/vb/wads-mods/63688-advise-for-my-crap-please-thank-you/
