Reposted with updates: SC2 Map modding project (who wants to get on board?)

Players of Warcraft III may know of my Norj'Hal Elves project. I completed the first act and a good chunk of the second before I saw that SC2 was coming out and thus decided to wait for the new engine to make a map for a game in its prime rather than invest in a lengthy project for a game whose glory days are over.

The Norj'Hal project was a real success, though. Briefly, I took the story of Aszune, the ethereal voice Thrall hears in the depths of Stone Talon cavern, and twisted it: she should never have gotten her heart back. And, there was and Oracle in that cave other than Medivh, but Medivh spoke to the seekers because Aszune had just wounded it badly, nearly succeeding in murdering it. The Norj'Hal were an offshoot of the Night Elves who settled in arctic, coniferous forests just south of Northrend, led at one time by their Queen Aszune, unbeknownst to them the daughter of Aszhara who continued her mother's desire to bring demons into the world and purge its other races. When Aszune was discovered, she was hunted down and killed, her heart taken from her, and all memory of her buried beneath a fictitious history crafted by the society's elders, the Bahr Tan. But, Aszune walked the nether with her demonic allies, and re-emerged during the Reign of Chaos.

So, with a new Starcraft mod, I'd like to do something similar, taking an unfinished string from the Starcraft I storyline and expanding it as part of the background for the Starcraft I and II storylines. A good deal of the story I have developed already, but as Starcraft II comes out I will take in that storyline and be sure to integrate it into my own. Like Norj'Hal, I want to have an extensive series of cinematic cut scenes as well as quests, and (if possible) a multi-map feature like Norj'Hal and the Orc Expansion campaign in WC3.

The story begins with an epic scene of the UED fleet as they are chased down by the Zerg in deep space. It will be revealed that there are infested terrans among the fleet who betrayed its location to Kerrigan's forces. DuGaulle's successor will commit one final, selfless act to take as many Zerg as he can down with him as a small portion of his fleet escapes amid the chaos. There will be base-building and defense levels, extensive exploratory missions, and numerous "micro-combat" levels where you lead limited squads of marines or ghosts in maps that not only are the interiors of Terran vessels (like the mission on the infested Science Vessel in SCI), but are actually laid out to LOOK like the interiors of such vessels. Depending on what doodads are available, we might even be able to make a detailed interior of a Zerg lair.

People who've played my maps know that I am skilled at creating detailed terrain that offers both stunning visuals during cinematics as well as functionality for gameplay. I can't wait to get my hands on that new editor! I am also a good programmer, and am anxious to see what Blizzard offers us for a scripting language (hopefully it'll have the ability to code AND and OR logic statements rather than just write functions to mimic them...).

Reply to this post or send me a private email message if you want to get on board with new unit design, model making, or trigger writing! (Edit: or vocals--if we get on it from the start, we could put together a separate vocals team with its own director to give the map another dimension.)

UPDATES:
- It looks like SC2 is slated for release around the middle of next year (June 1st is Blizzard's target), so the time to start this stuff is now.
- I plan for the opening sequence of the campaign to be a rendered cinematic depicting what I wrote about in "The Last Ones Standing"
- I have commercial sound editing software on my PC, and will be making use of it to complete this project, so if you want to be a voice actor LET ME KNOW! If you want to spearhead the vocals and associated labor in this project, that'd be even better!
- All major contributors to my maps get sincere credit, not just in the final "Good Job You Won" segment of the map but as text cards played in the beginning. You make something that make the project better, you will get recognized.

 

Sounds cool dude. I'm not good with any of that stuff though

PS: Fixed your links for ya

 

I'm down for it if it does get released near the summer, or when I have some extra time.

I'm sure I'll be interested in getting familiar with the new editor whether or not I'm engaged in a project, so I might as well do it.

I'll be learning Maya between now and then as well as some other things like AfterEffects a bit more in depth, so I may be able to help with the cinematics as well. Sounds like fun.

So put me down for Cinematics, Voice-overs, and Terrain/Trigger development.

 

Great to have you both on board!

Bear in mind, Norj'Hal was a months-long project, so any time you can contribute is fine. Now that I know a lot more about map editing, I will probably have a steep learning curve with the SC2 editor (SC2E). For now, I just hope that gmax will be able to produce any simple models that we may need for SC2E but cannot find in the editor, and that the mechanics for re-texturing units are similar (it's amazing what you can do with just a little 6-sided box in terms of creating new environments!).

So, once the game is out I'll set right to work learning the cinematic system and scripting language (I don't think anyone knows what it's going to be yet, but Joneagle_X you mentioned that you know Maya--is it like Python?). Also important will be learning how to place doodads in the editor very precisely (it'd really be ideal if we could get a typed-dialog box to pop up for each one of 'em, in addition to the grid mechanics they're sure to provide).

Next it'll be a matter of learning to texture and create slightly different versions of several units (for heroes, alight story-dignificant alterations, etc), and then we'll set about figuring ou the sound utilities and what all is in the music. What I've heard so far sounds amazing, so we shouldn't have any trouble putting together some really epic stuff. Also, I've established from working on previous that it is legit to use things like orchestral performances of pieces composed before the 1920s, which opens up a number of epic pieces for our use in the game and in cinematics.

As for voices, I'll be working on the script in advance of actually creating the thing, and I will try to send off packages of dialogue to be composed in a single sitting so that we don't waste anyone's time. It will be important to have a reasonable microphone and a couple of different places you can go with different acoustics. Such as, your bedroom/dorm room/living room, an empty theatre for cavernous effect, and hopefully some place with lots of echo (although I can add those effects to some degree). Repetitive backgound noises aren't so much a problem, and if you want to play different characters I can make slight adjustments to the pitch and reverberation digitally in addition to your own efforts to make different voices.

With download speeds and computers getting ever-faster, I think we won't have much limiting us in terms of what we pack into this thing!

Looking Forward,

Capt. Picard

 

Well... I can help you out slightly with the music pieces. I'm a music major and I have access to VAST amounts of material in the public domain (before the 1920s, as you cited, lol)

Umm... I am not familiar with much more than the fact that Python exists. However, my two roommates are extremely knowledgeable with Python, and I may be able to pick some stuff up from them as well as ask them for assistance.

I was referring to Maya in the function of using it to create the models to be placed in the Cinematics. I'm not really sure how the piecing of the Cinematics actually occurs, but I'd be willing to learn and/or to provide the base materials for getting it done.

If you can send me a brief outline of your script that is more in-depth than your story, I may be able to start narrowing down some of the song choices when I get a chance.

Tsarchovsky might be a good pick, and Beethoven is always a nice selection, but I'm assuming we'll be going for things outside the public domain.

Furthermore, there are a lot of composers here who might be interested in having some of their pieces utilized or even composing something specifically for us.

 

Boy, I've got to keep nurturing a friendship with you, Joneagle, and refrain from making posts about bizarre terran units that may besmirch such a thing!

Music and composition thereof, either from a repository of works or from scratch for a specific purpose, is just what I need. And the fact that you know a 3D animation tool, well that's better than a scripting language! This is great! I'll post more on the storyline as I get it fleshed out, but briefly the idea is going to be that the fleet separated from the doomed UED expedition will set down on a nearby planet to make repairs with plans of then resuming course to Earth immediately. They will find themselves the targets of a renegade clan of Dark Templar with fierce, radical religious motivations and little regard for human life (at first) in their quest to forever change the direction the Conclave was moving the Protoss race. Depending on how the Xel'Naga fit into SC2, I will include them to some extent, same goes for those hybrids, although I'll likely have to just touch briefly upon them in order to keep my storyline consistent with Blizzard's official version. There will, however, be a lot to do with extra-universal forces and the debate over whether these things, intelligent though they may seem, are truly "alive." There will also be a lot of comparisons of characters (protoss or human) to machines, as well as comparisons between Zerg and machine and Zerg and protoss/human (a nice way to introduce discussion of the hybrids no matter how Blizzard steers the story). I would like to finish the story on a good note, but I won't say at this point whether the remnant fleet makes it home or not.

I do approve of your classical music taste, though--I think that Tsaichovsky's Marche Slave, with its somber beginning reflecting the funeral of an assassinated Czar and an uncertain future for the nation, would make very appropriate music for one or more major cinematics.

 

I agree. There's quite a few of his cycles that are very "Terran" in nature, especially with the Russian theme that seems to pervade the UED.

I'll take a look at some Russian works, but I really can't do much without a semi-complete storyline.

You can AIM, MSN, or Yahoo me. My respective SNs are in my profile.

Furthermore, like I said, I'm only just beginning in Maya at the behest of ArchLimit, so when he returns (if) or I get more time, I will be improving in that area. I also think he would be very willing to involve himself in a project like this.

So as a general outline, we're going to be following the UED's progress back toward Earth, correct? And it's going to be of a nature similar to your story (Last Ones Standing)?