Well, it has only been, what, a week since I posted Episode 13 of The Phoenix Imperative, and now I have three more Episodes for you folks to read. As usual, choose an appropriate resolution to view them with.
Episode Fourteen: Reporting In
Episode Fifteen: Friendly Dinner Coversation
Episode Sixteen: A New Friendship
Five Genres
Sunday 18 December 2011
Monday 12 December 2011
And Another New Episode
Yes, slowly but surely, not to mention sporadically, I continue to work on The Phoenix Imperative. Here, finally, for your reading pleasure, is Episode 13!
Episode Thirteen: The Law Comes to Town
Enjoy :)
Episode Thirteen: The Law Comes to Town
Enjoy :)
Monday 21 November 2011
Finally, a New Episode!
Ok, I have one new episode for you folks. Hopefully I can stay away from New Vegas and the Lonesome Road long enough to produce a few more soon...
Episode Twelve: The Ghosts of Megaton
Episode Twelve: The Ghosts of Megaton
Friday 11 November 2011
11.11.11
No, the title is most definitely NOT in reference to Skyrim!!!
It is in reference to the fact that November 11th is Remembrance Day here in Canada, and Veteran's Day in the US. This year I wanted to do something to commemorate it, and all the Skyrim crap just helped me along. No, I am not pissed off at the game, just the poor choice in timing for its release on Bethesda's part. It is a gimmick, and a badly timed one me thinks.
Okay, enough about that, moving on.
My original idea for a screen shot involved quite a number of characters, most of which, although you may be familiar with them, have not yet appeared in The Phoenix Imperative. I really didn't see the point of including characters that might confuse people, not to mention be more of a spoiler than I intended. So, I went with something much simpler, and more personal to the people involved.
You will see only three characters here in FO3's version of Arlington National Cemetery, Cameron, vancleef's Silas Caine, and Yorak, the game personality of vancleef's younger brother. I remember learning earlier this year, on Memorial Day in the US, that vancleef and Yorak had lost a grandfather to WW2. I have an uncle that survived being in the infantry during that time, and he still suffers from the horrors he witnessed over there. The three of us are the only ones I know on the Nexus that have been personally touched by war in some degree, so I thought this attempt at honouring today would be best. I hope you do to.
Included after the image is the original text from the posting on the Nexus. I will link the image here with the Nexus posting, for anyone that cares to comment there, and show your support by endorsing it if you can.
It is in reference to the fact that November 11th is Remembrance Day here in Canada, and Veteran's Day in the US. This year I wanted to do something to commemorate it, and all the Skyrim crap just helped me along. No, I am not pissed off at the game, just the poor choice in timing for its release on Bethesda's part. It is a gimmick, and a badly timed one me thinks.
Okay, enough about that, moving on.
My original idea for a screen shot involved quite a number of characters, most of which, although you may be familiar with them, have not yet appeared in The Phoenix Imperative. I really didn't see the point of including characters that might confuse people, not to mention be more of a spoiler than I intended. So, I went with something much simpler, and more personal to the people involved.
You will see only three characters here in FO3's version of Arlington National Cemetery, Cameron, vancleef's Silas Caine, and Yorak, the game personality of vancleef's younger brother. I remember learning earlier this year, on Memorial Day in the US, that vancleef and Yorak had lost a grandfather to WW2. I have an uncle that survived being in the infantry during that time, and he still suffers from the horrors he witnessed over there. The three of us are the only ones I know on the Nexus that have been personally touched by war in some degree, so I thought this attempt at honouring today would be best. I hope you do to.
Included after the image is the original text from the posting on the Nexus. I will link the image here with the Nexus posting, for anyone that cares to comment there, and show your support by endorsing it if you can.
In my time here as a member of the Nexus community, I have had the good fortune to meet many good people. Some of these folks have been personally touched by war. My good friend vancleef and his younger brother Yorak lost a grandfather to the WW2. Another gentleman was a veteran of, if memory serves me correctly, the Iraq war. He lost a good friend and squad mate to enemy fire...right before his eyes. I have an uncle that was in the infantry during WW2, and to this day, he still, on occasion, wakes up screaming from nightmares about what he saw and did.
It is for these people and many others that have had their lives touched by war that I post this image. I want them to know that the sacrifices of their friends, family and loved ones are not forgotten. If nothing else, I hope this image makes everyone that sees it stop and think...and remember.
On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, when the last bell tolls, please take the time to honour our heroes, both past and present.
War...war never changes...
But maybe we can...
Sunday 6 November 2011
Teaser
Alright, it has been quite sometime since I last posted episodes of The Phoenix Imperative, but things have not gone well for me over the last couple of weeks, and I just couldn't find the drive to work on it. My creativity has been slowly creeping back over the weekend though. I managed to do a handful of unrelated images over the last week, and went back to work on the comic Saturday. I ended up being a wee bit unhappy with what little I did get done, so I have been revising the poses and animations I chose for the script. The work still continues, but I don't expect any finished episodes until sometime next weekend. With Remembrance Day coming up in Canada (Veterans Day for you folks in the US) I have a piece I want to get finished for that first. I am waiting to hear back from my Nexus friend vancleef about the use of another character for this shot, but I will most likely proceed with it without the character. I expect to be fiddling around with getting the poses right for the few characters I will be using, so I will see what I can do for now, and I can include the missing character later on. If I have the poses chosen for the existing characters, adding in one more won't be that big of an issue for me.
For now though, I will leave you with this teaser shot for Episode 12: The Ghosts of Megaton and Episode 13: The Law Comes to Town. Here we have Sasha Ashe, Silas Caine and Ghost on the set at Moriarty's Saloon.
For now though, I will leave you with this teaser shot for Episode 12: The Ghosts of Megaton and Episode 13: The Law Comes to Town. Here we have Sasha Ashe, Silas Caine and Ghost on the set at Moriarty's Saloon.
Wednesday 12 October 2011
New Mod Blog is Up!
I have a new modding blog started! I have been meaning to do this for about a month now, so I finally got around to doing it today, after starting a thread on the Nexus regarding my taking over FuzeTek's Resident Evil project. I hope you folks like it :D
Saturday 1 October 2011
A Different Approach
First off, I thought I should let you know that yes, I am working on "The Phoenix Imperative". As a Matter of fact, I managed to finish scripting two episodes and started the script for a third before starting this post. Well, almost finished two episodes. The scenes and dialogue is done, I just have to figure out the poses and animations I will be using.
And that more or less leads into the main part of this post.
Up until now, the way I have been doing the work on the episodes for the comic have worked for me quite well. I would write down my ideas in a note book I carry around with me just for that purpose. In it I would put episode outlines, thoughts on story progression, what characters I would be using and the parts they are to play. Also included are a list of the various factions and organizations in "The Phoenix Imperative" and how they will interact with each other as well as with Cameron. From there, I would type out the scripts on my computer, and then go through the long process of scanning through all the different images of the poses I have and chose the ones I need for each screen shot, and jot them down on paper so I know what I need while in game.
Having these three separate sources of information has not really posed any problems for me in doing screen shots, until now. Normally, I have no problem remembering what lines of dialogue go with what images. Keeping both connected in my head has helped with getting angles, lighting and some other details just right. While doing the last three episodes, however, I lost that connection in my head. I couldn't remember what lines of dialogue went with what poses and expressions. I was constantly having to exit the game and recheck my script, then restart the game again and reset up the next image. It was time consuming and annoying, to say the least. Mind you, I blame this lack of connection on how much time had passed between when I finished writing the scripts and finally getting back to taking the screen shots.
My solution to this is rather simple. I just have to add more information in the scripts, then print the relevant pages off for reference while I get the screen shots. The scripts already contain the dialogue, initial scenes and notes on character interaction. All I need to add in are the specific poses for each character in each image, as well as facial expressions. Nice and conveniently all in one location, enabling me to put dialogue and poses together in my head, then transfer them to image. I don't know why I wasn't doing it before...
And since I am here, I will share a couple of screen shots of Cameron pretending to be Vasquez from the movie Aliens.
And that more or less leads into the main part of this post.
Up until now, the way I have been doing the work on the episodes for the comic have worked for me quite well. I would write down my ideas in a note book I carry around with me just for that purpose. In it I would put episode outlines, thoughts on story progression, what characters I would be using and the parts they are to play. Also included are a list of the various factions and organizations in "The Phoenix Imperative" and how they will interact with each other as well as with Cameron. From there, I would type out the scripts on my computer, and then go through the long process of scanning through all the different images of the poses I have and chose the ones I need for each screen shot, and jot them down on paper so I know what I need while in game.
Having these three separate sources of information has not really posed any problems for me in doing screen shots, until now. Normally, I have no problem remembering what lines of dialogue go with what images. Keeping both connected in my head has helped with getting angles, lighting and some other details just right. While doing the last three episodes, however, I lost that connection in my head. I couldn't remember what lines of dialogue went with what poses and expressions. I was constantly having to exit the game and recheck my script, then restart the game again and reset up the next image. It was time consuming and annoying, to say the least. Mind you, I blame this lack of connection on how much time had passed between when I finished writing the scripts and finally getting back to taking the screen shots.
My solution to this is rather simple. I just have to add more information in the scripts, then print the relevant pages off for reference while I get the screen shots. The scripts already contain the dialogue, initial scenes and notes on character interaction. All I need to add in are the specific poses for each character in each image, as well as facial expressions. Nice and conveniently all in one location, enabling me to put dialogue and poses together in my head, then transfer them to image. I don't know why I wasn't doing it before...
And since I am here, I will share a couple of screen shots of Cameron pretending to be Vasquez from the movie Aliens.
Tuesday 27 September 2011
Moving into Modding with the Cameron Companion
Over the last little while, I have been thinking about redoing my Cameron companion, mostly hoping to make her with self-contained resources to make her less dependent on other mods for a public release. This came about for two reasons. First, I want the experience in creating characters with self-contained resources so they will be more stand alone and eventually have some custom stuff. Secondly, since I plan on the public release including the Nexus, I don't want to have to worry about the loss of access to a dependent mod, something that is currently an issue with the current build of Cameron, as well as Herculine's RR Scouts.
I have also wanted to make Cameron bring more of "The Phoenix Imperative" to other people's games than just Cameron herself. I have believed for a while now that her home in the comic, the Surface Monitoring Station, would be the perfect place for people to find her, just like Bridget did. To that end, I finally tried contacting the author of that mod, Voza, and asked him about his future intentions with the mod. There have been no updates in about a year, nor has Voza himself made any comments on the mods thread since December of last year. I believe that makes the mod a dead one. If there are no future plans for the mod on his end, I am hoping he will give me permission to take the mod over. With some work, it can become a part of Cameron's world in other peoples' games, allowing them to, if they wish, begin there own adventures in The Phoenix Imperative!
I have also wanted to make Cameron bring more of "The Phoenix Imperative" to other people's games than just Cameron herself. I have believed for a while now that her home in the comic, the Surface Monitoring Station, would be the perfect place for people to find her, just like Bridget did. To that end, I finally tried contacting the author of that mod, Voza, and asked him about his future intentions with the mod. There have been no updates in about a year, nor has Voza himself made any comments on the mods thread since December of last year. I believe that makes the mod a dead one. If there are no future plans for the mod on his end, I am hoping he will give me permission to take the mod over. With some work, it can become a part of Cameron's world in other peoples' games, allowing them to, if they wish, begin there own adventures in The Phoenix Imperative!
Sunday 25 September 2011
New Episodes!
Well, I said there would be new episodes up before the end of the weekend (my time anyway), and damn it there are! I hope they are worth the wait :) Enjoy!
Episode Nine: Trespassers Will be Executed!
Episode Ten A: How's You're Head? Pt1
Episode Ten B: How's You're Head? Pt2
Episode Eleven A: Inservio Ergo Sum Pt1
Episode Eleven B: Inservio Ergo Sum Pt2
As usual, click the "choose size" drop box and pick Original.
Episode Nine: Trespassers Will be Executed!
Episode Ten A: How's You're Head? Pt1
Episode Ten B: How's You're Head? Pt2
Episode Eleven A: Inservio Ergo Sum Pt1
Episode Eleven B: Inservio Ergo Sum Pt2
As usual, click the "choose size" drop box and pick Original.
Saturday 24 September 2011
Update!
Okay, just so you folks don't think that I am just flapping my gums in regards to my working on new episodes, I have Episode Nine all shot and ready for editing, and I will be spending most of today working on getting Episodes Ten through Eleven, maybe Twelve, shot today. If I can't get them all edited before days end, I have tomorrow to finish that up.
There will be new Episodes this weekend!!!
I will leave you with this shot for now :)
There will be new Episodes this weekend!!!
I will leave you with this shot for now :)
Thursday 15 September 2011
What's Going On?
As most of you are aware, it has been some time since I posted any new episodes of The Phoenix Imperative. I apologize for that, but I have managed to get myself distracted with quite a lot of mods for FO3, FNV, Oblivion and Classic Doom. Yes, I said Classic Doom :)
While exploring the mods for FNV and Oblivion, I have come up with some ideas for The Phoenix Imperative. The biggest one for FNV I have been using is Requiem for the Capital Wasteland. It basically turns FO3 into one big mod for New Vegas, allowing the character you create in NV to travel back and forth between the Mojave and DC. Experimenting with some FO3 mods has had a high success rate so far. This, I hope will allow me to run two completely separate FO3 games with different mods, so I won't have to remember to turn some on and others off when I am bouncing between "game realities". What I mean by that is, at some point down the road, you will be introduced to at least one alternate reality. One where familiar places and people are similar on the surface to the ones you have already seen, different enough to almost be completely new characters. I have already decided that I would need to build some "sets" from scratch, as well as drastically change some characters, so this would be an excellent place to put them, without really cluttering up my load order anymore than necessary.
What has caught my eye in Oblivion are the pose mods I have been using. In total, I have more poses available in Oblivion than I do in FO3. The Goma pose pack alone has 16 esps and around 850 poses! Thankfully, someone has gone through all the trouble of making a "picture book" mod with images of just about all the poses from a number of popular pose packs for Oblivion. Looking through these images, I have found several that would work great for The Phoenix Imperative, but I will need to learn how to port the poses over before I can use them. *sigh*
Speaking of learning the art of modding, I have been working on a new version of my Cameron Companion. Some of you might be asking "What Cameron Companion?". Since I never formally mentioned it before, nor have I released it anywhere for public distribution, that would be a valid question.
In the early stages of working on the comic, I decided it would be easier to get the screen shots I wanted with Cameron if I had her as a companion instead of my actual character. I could set her up anyway I wanted, and not have to keep going in and out of "free camera mode". That is time consuming and irritating, to say the least. So I did a companion version of Cameron, based on the RR Companion Vault system, which a number of my guest stars are also based upon. I ended up sending her out to most of the friends that allowed me to use their characters in the comic.
The new version of the companion is an experiment with making Cameron less dependent upon other mods, having more of her own resources. So far, Cameron is working like I hoped she would, but the mod still has more master files than I would like, even though the resources from some of those masters are now self-contained. I hope to figure out how to remove those masters without messing up the plug-in: I have already done that once :( Any suggestions from you folks would be appreciated :)
In case anyone asks about a public release of Cameron (and I know some of you will), I do want to upload her for public distribution. Both the original version and the new one have problems with doing so. The original version uses Anthony Ling's Finer Things as a master, as well as Operation: Anchorage. Until recently, having Ling's as a master was problematic as it wasn't available on the Nexus, so that prevented me from uploading Cameron there. It is currently available again, so I guess that is one problem solved :) I wanted Cameron to keep her Gauss Rifle, thus the dependency on O:A, but it has been reported to me that she doesn't use the Gauss Rifle, so I will have to swap it out for something else.
The new version of Cameron will require that I get permission from a number of modders to use their resources first, and even if I get all the permissions, I still won't be able to upload her to the Nexus, as she is using some, ah, "ripped" content from the Mass Effect games. An absolute no-no on the Nexus, but allowable on VGU (Video Games Underground), where the ME content comes from. In any case, I don't want to upload the new version until I can remove all the master files, except RR Companion Vault and, of course, Fallout.esm.
Now that I am done rambling, I will share a couple of images of Cameron with her Mass Effect gear.
Cameron in her Terminus Armour
And Cameron with her Anti-Material Rifle
While exploring the mods for FNV and Oblivion, I have come up with some ideas for The Phoenix Imperative. The biggest one for FNV I have been using is Requiem for the Capital Wasteland. It basically turns FO3 into one big mod for New Vegas, allowing the character you create in NV to travel back and forth between the Mojave and DC. Experimenting with some FO3 mods has had a high success rate so far. This, I hope will allow me to run two completely separate FO3 games with different mods, so I won't have to remember to turn some on and others off when I am bouncing between "game realities". What I mean by that is, at some point down the road, you will be introduced to at least one alternate reality. One where familiar places and people are similar on the surface to the ones you have already seen, different enough to almost be completely new characters. I have already decided that I would need to build some "sets" from scratch, as well as drastically change some characters, so this would be an excellent place to put them, without really cluttering up my load order anymore than necessary.
What has caught my eye in Oblivion are the pose mods I have been using. In total, I have more poses available in Oblivion than I do in FO3. The Goma pose pack alone has 16 esps and around 850 poses! Thankfully, someone has gone through all the trouble of making a "picture book" mod with images of just about all the poses from a number of popular pose packs for Oblivion. Looking through these images, I have found several that would work great for The Phoenix Imperative, but I will need to learn how to port the poses over before I can use them. *sigh*
Speaking of learning the art of modding, I have been working on a new version of my Cameron Companion. Some of you might be asking "What Cameron Companion?". Since I never formally mentioned it before, nor have I released it anywhere for public distribution, that would be a valid question.
In the early stages of working on the comic, I decided it would be easier to get the screen shots I wanted with Cameron if I had her as a companion instead of my actual character. I could set her up anyway I wanted, and not have to keep going in and out of "free camera mode". That is time consuming and irritating, to say the least. So I did a companion version of Cameron, based on the RR Companion Vault system, which a number of my guest stars are also based upon. I ended up sending her out to most of the friends that allowed me to use their characters in the comic.
The new version of the companion is an experiment with making Cameron less dependent upon other mods, having more of her own resources. So far, Cameron is working like I hoped she would, but the mod still has more master files than I would like, even though the resources from some of those masters are now self-contained. I hope to figure out how to remove those masters without messing up the plug-in: I have already done that once :( Any suggestions from you folks would be appreciated :)
In case anyone asks about a public release of Cameron (and I know some of you will), I do want to upload her for public distribution. Both the original version and the new one have problems with doing so. The original version uses Anthony Ling's Finer Things as a master, as well as Operation: Anchorage. Until recently, having Ling's as a master was problematic as it wasn't available on the Nexus, so that prevented me from uploading Cameron there. It is currently available again, so I guess that is one problem solved :) I wanted Cameron to keep her Gauss Rifle, thus the dependency on O:A, but it has been reported to me that she doesn't use the Gauss Rifle, so I will have to swap it out for something else.
The new version of Cameron will require that I get permission from a number of modders to use their resources first, and even if I get all the permissions, I still won't be able to upload her to the Nexus, as she is using some, ah, "ripped" content from the Mass Effect games. An absolute no-no on the Nexus, but allowable on VGU (Video Games Underground), where the ME content comes from. In any case, I don't want to upload the new version until I can remove all the master files, except RR Companion Vault and, of course, Fallout.esm.
Now that I am done rambling, I will share a couple of images of Cameron with her Mass Effect gear.
Cameron in her Terminus Armour
And Cameron with her Anti-Material Rifle
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