Unpacker announced to come with first patch

[Ramon Gonzales y Garcia]

Seems a little narrow minded to me, wouldnt you think if there was an artisit better here in the community than what they employ at CA (yeh they do have to pay some poor sap to make this stuff) that they would be approached and offered a place at the company?

...yet, I haven't heard of anyone being offered anything, not unlike some other game companies (not a lot of them, mind you) where they DO work more closely with modders (Bioware and DLA team comes to mind).

Speaking as someone who is loosely connected to the industry as my course/university has close links to a few major games companies including EA,Blitz and Codemasters I've heard from the men/women themselves that they're actively looking for talent as the industry grows.

well, for starters, they can download the Crusades, or Chivalry Total War and they can make their decision as to whose style they prefer(for medieval stuff)...

Also, you must remember that sometimes quality is restrained in many games due to the time contraints employed by the game's publishers.

now ain't that the truth

I think CA are doing well if they're communicating with the community, it shows they care about the game after its release.

true at least Jerome Grasdyke was helping with the coding stuff in RTW, and that is just as important, and their impending release of the unpacker is something (V had to do that for RTW)

I think we will get what we need eventually,

I think so, too, only question is, do we have to do it ourselves or will they help make things easier for us?

the truth is they dont want to or are not allowed to release their in house tools that went into the game's compilation and therefore a "3rd Party" tool needs to be implemented.

now, if they told me that then I would understand perfectly... I may not really be pleased but it is their prerogative, but pls don't tell me 'modders will not be able to edit or replace these files...because the format is optimised specifically for rendering' its almost like saying, 'nah you have no hope of understanding this... so we won't let you play with it...'
they din't let us 'play' with RTW .cas files but we did anyway...

and please do not look at this as CA bashing coz if I didn't like their products I wouldn't be here spending 80% of my free-time reading/responding to posts, (free time doesn't count the time when I have access to a 'better' computer where I am modding/playing CA games 95% of the time) but at the same time I am not blind to some things - like community modders making better models than CA

[richyg13]

I haven't heard of anyone being offered anything

You'll find this is down to generally two things.
1) They want to know theres a real person there with credentials and not just an Alias
2) They will tend to prefer someone who is willing to strive and come to them and be enthusiastic in wanting a job with them.

I'm speaking here purely from the artist's point of view since this is the main "modder" criteria. Joylen Webb, Creative Manager of Blitz Games (formerly worked for Codemasters) did a small fill in presentation at SAND 2006. His presentation was one that they give to students they take on invitations to the company. He listed that the following things were needed to be a game's artist
- Traditional Art Skills (understanding on tones etc., helps if you can draw etc.)
- Ability to produce 3D models
- Ability to produce Texture Maps
- Have some ability to rig a model if called upon

and on a slightly more sutle side

- Have an element of "human-ness" (essentially they seek candinates that realy want to be there)

They also like to see how you can break down what you've made for a game (Original Wireframe, Original Mesh, Normal Mapped/Bump Mapped Mesh, Textured Mesh, Texture Maps, UVW Unwrap)

I'll personally be starting to apply to all the british games companies come summer 2008 when i get my degree [BAHons] as a games artist. Using this technique.

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don't tell me 'modders will not be able to edit or replace these files...because the format is optimised specifically for rendering'

thats generally what their tools do, the format compresses into a file type for faster rendering (or something along those lines). Perhaps getting the compiled meshes back out of the compressed format is indeed complex but the original files that go in are still made in max, maya, xsi, photoshop... It would take someone from CA to clarify this. I dont pretend to know much about game engines as such, just how they utilize assets.

[Bwian]

A company like CA will develop tools for certain tasks, but you can be sure thet they did not for modelling and texture painting! They will have used the industry standard tools like Max or Photoshop. That way you can hire or use talent form the marketplace. No developer is going to have the time to design their own 3D modelling package to make their game content.

What they DO build a tool for is to convert the mesh from the standard proprietory formats into something optimised for their own game engine. If this is a complex process, you either have to reverse engineer a model, or have a 'key' that tells you how the game format works.

To tell us how would involve CA releasing the format they have developed, allowing anyone to make use of it.

Reverse engineering requires hex editing and guesswork, and takes time and knowledge. It's slow, tedious and requires a lot of trial and error.

The only other option is if CA release a locked down tool or import/export plugin that allows conversion to their format from Max files. This would have to handle the skeleton data as well as the mesh and UV. It would also have to protect the integrity of CA's own file format, and be as secure as the EXE file in the game itself!

[alpaca]

The only other option is if CA release a locked down tool or import/export plugin that allows conversion to their format from Max files. This would have to handle the skeleton data as well as the mesh and UV. It would also have to protect the integrity of CA's own file format, and be as secure as the EXE file in the game itself!

Well that would actually be my proposition, too. They shouldn't have huge problems to make their tool as secure as the exe (which is I think not very secure) and it would protect their oh-so-important format.
Also, I think they'll create a new engine for the next TW game which means they can scrap that format anyways so why not give it out?

[Epistolary Richard]

BTW on the whole modders being offered jobs at CA thing - in Brisbane no less than two of the CA employees I met had been modders before they joined.

[richyg13]

Very good to here, kinda gives me the strive to push further on with modding. Thinking about it, the third year project on my course is effectivly to make a mod.