Original Idea and Script by Decoy, fine-tuning and spell checking by
Forceflow. And double-checked be Darksaber hehe.
| XWAUP: | Well, let’s get started with the interview, shall we? |
| Adm. Andy: | Okay, shoot.
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| XWAUP: | Once again we’d like to know how you got started.. Did you just want to edit as many games as you could, or did Star Wars inspire you to work on XWA? |
| Adm. Andy: | Well I never had thought much about editing other games. I had always favored the X-wing series from Day One, back when I got the
original X-wing on floppy disk for Christmas, 7 years ago. I didn't really get into editing until after XWA came out. Probably the
greatest inspiration I had was seeing Darksaber's fighter opts and JM's capital ships.
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| XWAUP: | Have you ever thought of editing another game with a larger fan base than XWA, like Unreal Tournament, Half-Life and the like? |
| Adm. Andy: | Not really, XWA has more of an appeal to me just because editing a flight sim is easier.
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| XWAUP: | Do you think that the custom made editing tools for OPT editing can compete with any of the editors that come out of the box for other games? |
| Adm. Andy: | That's one I'm not sure about because I've never tried to edit any other games. However based on that joke of a mission
'skirmish' editor that came with XWA, I would say that fan-made utilities are better in the sense that there will always be new
versions with updated features and because they're doing it for the love of the game not some greedy company that only does things
when marketing says its feasible.
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| XWAUP: | What is your opinion about today's XWA community. Since it is a small community compared to for example the UT community you should have a good overview of what is happening in it. What kind of future does the community have, with the apparent lack of support from LucasArts? |
| Adm. Andy: | It's a great community, definitely an innovative one considering the lack of updates from LucasArts. The fans really do enjoy the
game even though its 2 years old, and the amount of progress in getting the game to reach its full potential is going to keep X-wing
Alliance alive for a long time to come. Not bad, considering it was based on the old XvT engine of 1997. :-)
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| XWAUP: | As the latest member (well, if you don’t count JM’s return) that has finished an opt, what do you think of the rest of the XWAU members in helping you get started? |
| Adm. Andy: | I would have to say that the biggest help has come from Darksaber and Decoy as far as the 'opting' sessions went when I was a
ripe newbie. Everyone has been a tremendous amount of help though, and I'm glad to have worked with the best opters around! :-)
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| XWAUP: | Could you please tell us how do you start a new project; does it take a lot of research? And for craft like the Supa Fighter, where there isn’t much information, do you find that more difficult than when there is a lot of information? |
| Adm. Andy: | Well in the case of the Supa Fighter, I saw it as a piece of junk that could have been made better. There wasn't that much info
to go on, so that left a lot of creative freedom. On the downside, you had absolutely no reference photos to go by, so it was hard to
try and build something that, for the most part, could look as detailed as the A-wing or Z-95. The cockpit was especially hard because
TG didn't even have anything for me to base it on. With the Lulsla it was different in the sense that while I had creative freedom, I needed to keep it in synch with the movie Mon Cals. That's the reason why it's a departure from the original design in that its more like a mini Reef-Home. The only features that it really even retains from TG's design is that it has the two forward engines on the ship's top bow
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| XWAUP: | Right now you are doing all of modeling, texturing, and OPTing for the project. How do you feel about that? |
| Adm. Andy: | Well I can't say that. From what I've seen its really Darksaber and Decoy that have done the most work. If anything, I've done
maybe a tenth of the work that they have. :-)
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| XWAUP: | What kind of program do you use to make your models and why do you use it? |
| Adm. Andy: | The two programs I use for models are Rhino and Fireworks just because that seems to be what a lot of people are using. Also
Decoy's texturing tutorial is in Fireworks, so that is what I have been using since I started
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| XWAUP: | Did you ever try any other modelling program and if so why did you ditch it? |
| Adm. Andy: | Nope
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| XWAUP: | Are you pleased with the XWA game engine and the OPT format and if you could put one thing in the engine and one more function into the OPT format what would those be? |
| Adm. Andy: | For the most part I'm pretty happy in general with the opt format, though it would be nice to have 120 km or 160 km sized opts for doing the Death Stars. I would like the engine to have had the accurate speed settings that are used in the movies so it doesn't take you forever to get somewhere in real space. |
| XWAUP: | We’ve traditionally used ACE DxF but now there is also OPTTech. What do you think of the program? |
| Adm. Andy: | Personally, I love OPT Tech. It's a lot less time consuming to zoom in on ships and texture application is much easier in the way
of being able to select multiple faces without having to go through all of them one by one. The only things ACE DxF has over it is
that it can center and scale models as well as rotate textures without messing the surrounding texture coordinates up.
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| XWAUP: | How do you see the future for Star Wars space sims and do you expect LEC to come with any thing new soon or will we still be
playing XWA the next 5 years? |
| Adm. Andy: | I think LEC has screwed the PC gamer for the moment. The last best attempt at anything even remotely resembling a space sim was
Episode I: Starfighter, but alas you need to shell out a good $299.99 for Playstation 2, so it would either seem that we will be
playing XWA for years to come unless LEC decides to make an Episode II simulator (oooh, I'm flying a Y-wing! Hey wait a minute, that's
nothing new ;-()
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| XWAUP: | Could you tell us a bit about your future plans can we expect anything from you beside XWAU work? |
| Adm. Andy: | Well as far as real life goes, I'm planning to go to college and get my degree in Computer Art. From there I'll probably go get a
job in the video game industry. As for XWAU stuff, hopefully I'll return when time permits.
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| XWAUP: | Last but not least we have some short questions we would like you to answer short and firm |
| 1. Why are you working on the XWAU project? To help speed along the process and because this project is truly everything a fan-based program is, the strive to perfect XWA in a way that LucasArts never thought possible. 2. Do you enjoy working in a team, or would you prefer to be able to concentrate more on your own projects alone? Even though most of my XWAU work was primarily done by me, the benefits of a team is that there are always people to help you out whether it be creative input or fixing up an out of whack model (like the mines for example). =) 3. What's the best thing going around in the XWA community right now? Without a doubt, the X-wing Alliance Upgrade. Babylon 5 TC is probably the second best. 4. Who do you think is the biggest upcoming talent in OPT editing? (You’re already a talent. =) ) Hmm... On that I can't say. I'll probably be laughed at for this but I really liked that Cloakshape Fighter that JMR was working on. He certainly has determination in making a file the best that it can be after going through several versions of it. It's too bad that he hasn't shown anything in a while though. Then there is Road Razor's Planetary Security Fighter model which is looking pretty damned good if I do say so myself. 5. What is the most important part of a good OPT, just one please? Textures make or break the opt, though it is my expert opinion that you can never have to much dirt. 6. Do you have a girlfriend? Another fun project I'm currently working on =). 7. Will PC-games be abandoned by LEC? I don't think LEC will completely abandon PC games, but it will probably be a long time before they build any new flight sims. 8. What's the best OPT (made by some one else) you have seen so far? It's either a cross between Darksaber's and Captain Hottie's X-wing or Darksaber's and Decoy's TIE Advanced x1. Matt has won best improved TG design award. His Missile Boat kicks so much butt! :-) 9. Will the XWAU ever be finished? READ the FAQ!!!! =) 10. How did you like the interview? Everything went great, thanks for having me. Time for me to get back to my undercover freighter though, my shipyards are calling me. :) |
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Okay, thanks a lot for you time! We all hope to see some more of your great work very soon!