By Ernest Khoo
(02/09/01)
You may have fought hideous aliens in
Half-Life's Black Mesa Facility. You may have engaged in countless
fragging matches in the various sci-fi inspired structures in Quake and
Unreal Tournament. You may even have traversed through the treacherous
gardens in American McGee's Alice. Okay, so those places are brilliantly
designed and beautifully textured, but they're all just part of someone's
fertile imagination.
Now, won't it be smashing if you can actually
conduct a deathmatch in a map modeled after a real-life location? Although
it's now possible for you to walk through computer models based on
real-life structures, being able to target your online friends with a
virtual sub-machine gun in a location that you know exist is a totally
different experience.
Last year, Singapore.Gamecenter.com did a
story on maps designed by Singaporeans (see story Playing at home: Local Half-Life/Counter-Strike maps). One
of them is a map by this group of boys from the Anglo-Chinese Junior
College (ACJC) who called themselves Team Fragnetics. They did a model of
their school and turned it into a Half-Life Deathmatch map. Although that
was only a preview release, those who have been to the school will notice
how close the model is to the real thing.
The boys got the idea to
do the map in June 1999 when their seniors suggested the idea of doing a
Half-Life deathmatch map of the school. "They even had some pretty crazy
ideas like your health decreasing when you walk through the school
canteen," said Abel Yang, the teams's 3D Modeling and Mapping expert. "I
then started to work on the structure and managed to get something out in
Oct 1999."
In late Nov last year, these boys spent a couple of
weeks after 'A' levels working on the final version of the ACJC map. As CS
is the hottest multiplayer game around right now, the boys have already
ported an earlier version of the map from Half-Life to CS. However, as
some of them were due to be enlisted into the army, they had to work fast
to complete the final version of the map. "After our examinations, we knew
we didn't have much time left," explains Christopher Choo, the teams
Project Manager. "But that made us work faster." Team Fragnetics
eventually finished the ACJC CS map and released the final version on 11
Dec last year.
Singapore.Gamecenter.com caught up with Team
Fragnetics during their time off from Basic Military Training recently and
spoke to them about their creation.
 Blow
it up!
The
members of Team Fragnetics are:
Christopher Choo
"Avenger" - Project Manager
Abel Yang "Dixon" - 3D Modeling and
Mapping
Kwok Yang Bin "Zem" - Technical Expert
Hong Xiangrong
"#sucker" - Texturing
Chong Kwong Sheng "Sephyre" - Tactical and
Strategic Advisor |
The ACJC Counter-Strike Map: A
timeline
1999
Jun
- Initial concept of ACJC Half-Life map proposed.
Oct - Prototype of map completed.
"This version had
windows in the classrooms that were individually breakable. It was so
detailed that we couldn't replicate it as a playable Half-Life
map."
2000
Feb
- Idea for ACJC Counter-Strike map proposed.
"We knew that
once we ported the map from Half-Life deathmatch to CS, it would be a hit.
So we just did it."
Jun -
Preview Release 1 of the ACJC map released. This was a Half-Life map. It
contained the Lecture Theatres, a few corridors, and some classrooms. It
also included three models - two anime-inspired ACJC girls and a
construction worker.
Sept - After
one week of intensive work after their preliminary examinations, Preview
Release 2 was posted on the Net. A total of 8 Mb, this release contains
both the Half-Life and the CS maps.
"A lot of people
were complaining about the size of the file since they only wanted the CS
map. They didn't want to spend time downloading 8 Mb only to throw 4 Mb
away."
The auditorium, the void
deck, another Lecture Theatre, and a couple more rooms were added. The car
park was also extended. The library block was added but it was sealed off.
Bomb points were added to a few locations. One of the bomb points was
inspired by an idea from Christopher.
"I had the idea that
the main pillar of the school is at one of the staircases, where the bomb
point was. My theory was that when you bomb it, the entire school
collapses, and you lose."
Oct - The team decided to call themselves Team
Fragnetics.
11th Dec - Final
version of CS ACJC map released. Old textures were taken out and replaced
with new ones.
"The original
textures were rather bland and not very realistic. They looked too clean.
So we sampled dirtier textures from the photos we took and added them to
the walls, wirings, bricks, and also the boxes lying
around."
27th
Dec - Release 1.01 released to patch
spawn point problem.
Singapore Gamecenter: You guys
started work on the final version of the ACJC map after your 'A' levels.
How did you manage to complete it in such a short time?
Abel Yang: Those weeks in November were the most
intensive time I ever spent working on the map. All of us worked on a
32-hour work cycle, and then sleep the next 16 hours. The worst thing was
that I got my enlistment letter (for National Service) late! Initially, we
planned a lot of other things such as finishing the character models after
we create a release. I was hoping that if Christopher was enlisted in
December, at least I'll be around to work on it. But now, I'm out of
action as well!
Christopher Choo: We worked on the final
version for 2 weeks. We just worked and worked till we collapsed. We slept
overnight at Abel's place for god knows how many days.
AY:
We only took breaks when the maps were being compiled. That's when we'd
watch Star Trek. (laughs)
Q: Since the ACJC map is based on a
real building, did it make designing the map easier?
CC:
Even though we've the structure of the school, like the dimensions of
the corridors and how high the ceilings are, to work with, these are
actually limitations. We can't make the corridors a lot wider because
people would then ask why the corridors are so wide! One huge issue that
we had to grapple with is that we wanted to have more freedom to change
the dimensions of the school but we can't since the model has to be
approximately real.
Q: Tell us what's the biggest problem you
faced while designing the map.
CC: If we were not
working on a replica of the school and tried to make something not based
on any real location, we would have been able to come up with a map in a
shorter time. What we tried to do was to reduce as much details without
people realizing that it's not as accurate as the real thing. We removed a
lot of beams and pillars. We had to make the map look real without slowing
the computer down too much.
AY: Before working on the map,
I was doing non real-time 3D modeling. I used to design stuff and do
science fiction rendering so I like to put in lots of polygons and
details. That's why when it comes to the map, I tend to go overboard.
Actually, handling the technical bits of the design comes naturally once
you get the hang of it, but there're still a lot of problems with the
engine.
CC: We tried to make a lift that could go to all
three levels. When we implemented it, the engine crashed! We just couldn't
duplicate the problem across all the machines we tested on so we couldn't
fix the problem. That's why we took that out.
Q: Since this is a map of the school, did you get any support
from them?
CC: Before we started on the map, we did
approach our teachers to see if they could help us. Well, their reply was:
"No guns!" (laughs) So we thought, "What do you mean no guns? How
are we supposed to fight with our hands?" That's why we decided to do it
on our own. The school only knew about it when Lianhe Zaobao (Singapore's
Chinese newspaper) wanted to interview us. We had to give a formal
notification to the school before the interview, but our principal wasn't
so sure what we were doing. She thought it was some IQ
game.
AY: Whatever it was, when our teachers said no guns,
it meant the end of official support from the school.
CC: We
did do a bit of testing in school though. We installed it on the school
computers and played it there.
Q: Well, after you told
the school about this map, did they have any violent objections to it?
After all, CS is a game with plenty of violence.
CC: The
teachers were pretty okay with it. They just took it as a hobby that we
have. When they saw the final product, all they said was: "Very
interesting."
AY: The bottomline was that we had a
disclaimer saying that this is not affiliated to the school. It's just a
replica of the school and it does not have anything official to do with
ACJC.
Q: In the preview releases, you modeled two ACJC
girls. Tell us more.
AY: The models were more of a
technical challenge. I wanted to try my hands at human figure modeling.
The biggest problem with doing the model is the skirt. Basically when she
walks, you have a skirt and you need to animate the limbs. In other
models, the skirt would be attached to the legs. In this case, the skirt
had to move independently from the legs. Doing that was challenging. Also,
and we had to cover the underneath of the models. (laughs)
Q: Why model a girl rather than a guy, and why do they
look like girls straight out from some Japanese
anime?
AY: If we wanted a guy, we could easily use the
skin of the standard Half-Life model and just modify it. I based it on two
existing models that I downloaded, one for the figure and another for the
texture. Since they had significantly different structures, I compared the
two and slowly modeled them until I had something unique. Since the face
of the anime model looked better, I just mapped it
on.
Q: What tools did you use to do the
map?
AY: The most important tool we used was the
measuring tape! (laughs) We used it to measure the dimensions of
the corridors, rooms, and stairs. We also used a digital camera to take
photos of the tiles, walls and even shots so that we have something to
compare to when we do the models. The hardware we used included a G4, two
Pentium IIIs, a Duron 650, and a Celeron 466. For software, we used
Photoshop to do textures. For the models, we used 3D Studio and Milkshake
3D. For maps, we used Worldcraft, the software that came with Half-Life
for you to map levels.
Q: Since the map is based on a
real building, what are some of the comments you guys
received?
CC: Well, some people said that this might not
be the best environment for CS since it follows the structure of the
school closely. When we first released it, we asked Halflife.net and
PlanetHalflife to put it up. Many people tried it were quite impressed.
Some of the negative comments have to do with the lag problem. Also, some
people didn't like the narrow corridors and thought that they were not
very maneuverable.
Q: Were there things you guys wanted
to do but just didn't have the time?
CC: We wanted to do
a Counter-Strike movie using the game engine! A short clip, perhaps 10
minutes long. We even got a scriptwriter! But since we were running out of
time, we couldn't get that done. We were thinking of something with a
humorous storyline. If you look around on the Net, you'll be able to find
some very interesting Quake movies but you hardly find any Half-Life
ones.
Q: What do you guys think is the coolest
thing about map?
AY: The fact that map exist at all is a
great achievement in terms of mapping and gameplay. A real area is not so
easily map, and what's more, it's a playable map!
CC: I
like the skybox best. Even in the preview release, some people commented
that it looked very real and gave the atmosphere that you're not in any
generic 'Half-Life land' but in an identifiable location. We actually took
pictures of the area around the school so when you try to look at the
horizon, you can see the condos at the back and the sports complex in
front.
Hong Xiangrong: The best thing about the map is that
it has a homely feel. A lot of people who played it were from the school
and they were just happy being able to walk around the school. Even the
vending machine was there!
Chong Kwong Sheng: The library
corridor because that's the only place I mapped. (laughs) But
seriously, the map gave those of us who were from the school feel
nostalgic. Since we're now not in ACJC, we miss some of the things in
school. Walking through the building makes you think of those stupid
things your classmates and you did.
Q: Having done a map
on Counter-Strike, what do you think of the future of the
mod?
AY: Basically we're sick and tired of CS. We've
seen too much of it. After working with it, we all agreed that the
Half-Life engine is quite a blotched piece of programming. The CS mod is
even worse.
CC: As a game, it has a good concept. But doing
development for it is a different story. When you do something that's not
the norm, you'll notice that there're a lot of limitations with the
engine. Well, people will still play Half-Life and CS, just like people
still play Starcraft. But we think that it will reach the end of its life
span maybe by the end of the year.
Q: If you think that the
Half-Life engine, which is based on the Quake 2 engine, is already
out-dated, what about other engines like the Quake 3 or the Lithtech
engine which is used in No One Lives Forever?
AY:
Basically, engines are there for a purpose - to build a game. I'm more
familiar with the two major engines, the Quake and the Unreal ones. Both
engines are different in how they work but when it comes to geometry and
construction of solid blocks, they're pretty much the same. The thing
about these two engines is that when you make a map, a lot of the
rendering work is passed to the video card.
CC:
Fundamentally, whatever engine you use, your processor has to keep up with
the load. If you've a more powerful processor, you can make your engine do
more.
Q: Well, it used to be that developers have to design
a game as well as create the engine. Now, the trend is that developers are
concentrating on game design and simply license the engine they want to
use.
AY: It's basically division of labor. You have a
company who can concentrate its resources in creative development without
worrying about technical details, and you have another that focuses just
on the technical bits to develop a really good engine and then sell it to
people. A very obvious example is the game Star Trek: Elite Force. It
looks exactly like Quake 3 Arena but there's a strong storyline. That's
where the creative team comes in.
CC: I think concept is
important. Take CS as an example, it uses the Quake 2 engine but it's an
amazing game.
Q: Do you guys have any future projects in
the pipeline?
AY: One thing we would like to do is a
mod. If we have the appropriate resources, we might want to do a game
engine. But it'd be a miracle if we even get that off the
ground.
CC: We are talking to some people who're interested
in software development. So maybe after Basic Military Training, if we
have time, we can take on other task. There's a good chance that we won't
do anything for CS anymore. We'll move on.
AY: We may do
something using the Quake 3 engine. I personally think it's a better
engine than Unreal. I basically don't like the mapping techniques for
Unreal. We are thinking of a few ideas for a mod, it could be
military-based or sci-fi based, it could even be about immersive virtual
reality simulation.
Q: Any advice for people who want to
do maps?
CC: Making a map is a lot of hard work, and try
not to do it before you go into National Service. (laughs) But
seriously, if you want the map to succeed, you need to find a team that
can work together. Some people don't even dare to start doing a map! So we
say, don't be afraid, get people together and start doing
it.
AY: And don't do it for profit. Do it for fun, and don't
expect to be paid for it!
"You can download
the ACJC CS map from the Team Fragnetics website at http://www.surf28.net/acjc/."
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