City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Intrepid Informer vs Translat-O-Tron

Bosstone

By Bosstone,
Posted on: 2011-03-01 13:19 in CoH and CoV General Discussions

 

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Here I am again with a handy-dandy, slightly randy, rubber bandy, free van candy translation of the recent Intrepid Informer 2 article by my patent-pending Translat-O-Tron.

Enjoy...

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Hi everybody and welcome to the 2nd issue of the Intrepid Informer!
Yeah, I got dragged into doing another one. So much for hoping marketing had a short attention span.
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This week, we are very excited to introduce you to another member of the City of Heroes team whom you wouldn't have heard much about yet but we can tell you he has been working hard in the background to make sure we deliver outstanding graphics into the game.
The Zigg work-release program has coughed out another inmate in our direction. After we cleaned off the sludge he seemed somewhat presentable. We’ve unchained him from his cubicle long enough to have him do the dog and pony trick routine.
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Gilbert Martinez is one of our art leads and he has been working on City of Heroes for a little while now.
Gil is his name, we’ll get around to giving him a “hero” name sometime soon. Hmm… with a name like “Gil” I suppose we could go with Fish-Man or Water-Wiggle or something like that.
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You may have met him if you were at the City of Heroes Bay Area Meet & Greet back in November 2010,
When he escaped his cell. Luckily for us he stowed away in the catering truck for the meet and greet.
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in which case you would have noticed Gilbert wearing one of his awesome hats!
Major baldness issues this guy…
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But hats are not Gilbert's only source of brilliance.
You wanna talk brilliance? Try seeing him WITHOUT a hat on a sunny day… burn your eyes out.
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He is first and foremost an artist and he has worked on an amazing array of features that will gradually make it into the game throughout the next content updates.
Actually, he is first and foremost a living walking solar panel. But he can serve as an artist until we can figure out where to stick the plug to harvest his energy.
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Talking about amazing visuals, Gilbert's team have made a tremendous creative effort in order to come up with a particular feature that will soon make its way into the game: the Floating Fortress.
Gil’s team spent a lot of time with Fisher Price toys in a kid’s wading pool. After they were accused of just being three year olds on company time and dime, Gil started going on about this Floating Fortress thing. I swear… the big wigs here react to alliterative titles the way crows react to shiny objects.
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Without further ado, please welcome Gilbert Martinez who will give us more details on that intriguing new environment.
Without further ado, please welcome Gil “Water-Wiggle” Martinez who will do his best to justify his paycheck.
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The Floating Fortress Art Process: Part 1
by Gilbert Martinez
The F.F.A.P. part 1… the Ffap?! Oh dear gods! Please, don’t let any of the Forum Yahoos realize the acronym for it…
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Hi folks,
D**n you, Steelclaw…
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First off I just want to say how honored I feel to be part of such a fantastic group of game developers here at Paragon Studios. I couldn't ask for a more talented group of people to be working with and I hope you all are as excited as I am to see the content we are building. I also feel humbled to be writing to all of you who play our game
First, I’d like to brown nose…
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and am excited to share with you some of the behind-the-scenes work that goes into making the content you love to play.
…and then I’d like to subtly convince you that you love content you haven’t even seen yet.
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I thought it would be fun to focus this week's topic on the exterior environment art for a feature you will see in Issue 20. The design team challenged us to build a "floating city composed of stolen ships". How cool is that?
After a small misunderstanding and police involvement the design team clarified that they wanted us to DRAW a representation of a floating city composed of stolen ships… not actually go out and steal ships to build said floating city. I still think we could do it if given half the chance. If it just hadn’t been for those alarms on the nuclear submarine we’d have been golden.
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We were excited to oblige and the images you can see below show how the original paper design translated into the final game.
Not as excited as those MPs on that naval base were…
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The image above is a top-down 2D map of the Floating Fortress exterior created by our intrepid designer John "Protean" Hegner.
Sure… he gets Protean… I probably won’t get a red name at all. Or worse, they’ll take up Steelclaw on this stupid “Water-Wiggle” thing.
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This map provided the environment art team with the layout of the "floating fortress" as well as the type and number of unique and instanced assets that were needed. John also provided documentation on the mission story, gameplay moments, and photo images of the type of military naval ships that would have to be built. Those of you with military backgrounds who noticed that the new battleships in Independence Port look very familiar can thank John for bringing a little bit of naval reality into the game.
Yeah, John was with us on the Naval Base raid. YOU might thank John for the new realistic ships in Independence Port but the rest of us still aren’t talking to him. I mean really… I can appreciate wanting to do your job well but… COME ON… Taking flash photography of battle ships while we’re doing a night mission to steal a nuclear submarine?!? What were you THINKING?!
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Bringing the Floating Fortress to life in 3D was put into the capable hands of Senior Environment Artist Ryan Roth. A large bulk of the exterior zone work involved kitbashing existing art assets into a menacing conglomeration of steel and ship parts.
Ryan “KitBash” Roth… that doesn’t sound too bad… until you figure Kit as short for Kitten… yep.. that’s right… Ryan “Kitten Basher” Roth… definite red-side add-in…
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We also roped in Character Artist Eric Chyn to help with the outer protective walls. As you can see in the next two screenshots, it all turned out quite beautiful!
Since he was already chained up nearby we got Eric Chyn to help with the outer protective walls. Unfortunately security caught him digging and our escape attempt was foiled.
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Anybody that wants to commend the team for its hard work can tell Ryan Roth in person at Pax East 2011 where he'll be part of the panel representing the City of Heroes artists.
Ryan “Kitten Basher” Roth will be at Pax East 2011 and extends his personal invitation to Steelclaw, who is rumored to be planning attendance, so the two of them can “discuss” this translation.
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Our job in the Art Department is to bring the design team's ideas alive in our game through art while making it as beautiful as possible within the time restraints we are given.
And let me tell you how hard it is to draw wearing manacles!

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This can often be a daunting task but our team always strives to give our players the biggest bang for their buck.
Until they found out that is illegal… except in Nevada.

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That being said, at the end of the day it is all about fun and one of my favorite tidbits in this area may appeal to those of you who like your fun delivered inside of Easter eggs. Somewhere hidden in this zone are a few hapless fishermen just waiting for your heroic arrival. Happy hunting.
I don’t advise playing the Captain Sig mini-game though… Unless you like grind missions that go on forever and ever and ever… The Time Bandit mini task force is much more fun.

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In Part 2 of this article I'll share with you all the art process involved in bringing the interior ship areas of this zone to completion. See you then.
After reading this translation the possibility of a part 2 being published drops by about 45%.

My mind wanders so often you've probably seen its picture on milk cartons. - Me... the first person version of the third person Steelclaw

 

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A++, would read again.

De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.

 

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Kitten Basher now claimed on Virtue.

War Mace/Willpower brute, yeah? yeah.

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.

 

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Water-Wiggle huh?...

Andy Belford
Community Manager
Paragon Studios

 

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Originally Posted by Zwillinger View Post
Water-Wiggle huh?...
Great, NOW the devs listen to us!

(kidding of course; devs still won't listen) :-P

 

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Originally Posted by Zwillinger View Post
Water-Wiggle huh?...
Uh-oh... Red Name!

::Stuffs Translat-O-Tron into closet::

Move along... nuthin' to see here...

My mind wanders so often you've probably seen its picture on milk cartons. - Me... the first person version of the third person Steelclaw

 

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our team always strives to give our players the biggest bang for their buck.




Base builders are not amused.

Ignoring anyone is a mistake. You might miss something viral to your cause.

 

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Originally Posted by Zwillinger View Post
Water-Wiggle huh?...
Yesssssss... Do EEET!

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Originally Posted by Steelclaw View Post
Uh-oh... Red Name!

::Stuffs Translat-O-Tron into closet::

Move along... nuthin' to see here...
He was helping me move the meat locker, he wasn't doin' nuffin' wrong. Certainly not using any suspect technologies to reveal truthiness.

Dr. Todt's theme.
i make stuff...

 

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Just when I think I've thought of everything (no food, no drink, knees out from under the keyboard), I make the mistake of reading this and bursting out laughing...

... forgetting my team lead and colleage were still in voice chat with me via MO Communicator because I was reading this while waiting for a phone conference to start. And then had to explain what I was laughing at.

*facepalm*

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Dark_Respite's Farewell Video: "One Last Day"
THE COURSE OF SUPERHERO ROMANCE CONTINUES!
Book I: A Tale of Nerd Flirting! ~*~ Book II: Courtship and Crime Fighting - Chap Nine live!
MA Arcs - 3430: Hell Hath No Fury / 3515: Positron Gets Some / 6600: Dyne of the Times / 351572: For All the Wrong Reasons
378944: Too Clever by Half / 459581: Kill or Cure / 551680: Clerical Errors (NEW!)

 

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Originally Posted by Steelclaw View Post
Ryan “KitBash” Roth… that doesn’t sound too bad… until you figure Kit as short for Kitten… yep.. that’s right… Ryan “Kitten Basher” Roth… definite red-side add-in…
No, no. Too simple and elegant. Aha! "Bashful Kitten". Mace wielding catgirl (catboy?).

I do not suffer from altitis, I enjoy every character of it.

 

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Okay, that was funny! Thank you for today's laugh, Steelclaw.



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Originally Posted by Charcoal_EU View Post
No, no. Too simple and elegant. Aha! "Bashful Kitten". Mace wielding catgirl (catboy?).
Just might steal this idea if the name is still open...