Original Idea and Script by Decoy, fine-tuning and spell checking by
Forceflow. And double-checked be Darksaber hehe.
Okay, this month's edition of our interview, and also the first interview ever, will be with top opter Darksaber. We'll hopefully learn more
about how he started out, his ongoing drive and his never ending HOT temper =O). Darksaber has been with us since the beginning of the
project and has done a great deal off work on the Rebel Fighter Patch. Currently he, JC and Decoy are working on the Imperial Fighter Patch
(IFP).
| XWAUP: | Okay DS, let's get this show on the road, shall we? |
| DS: | Yes sure what would you like to know?
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| XWAUP: | First off all we would like to know how you got hooked on this whole OPT-ing? Was it just that you wanted to edit games and you just pulled out the first game you could lay your hands on, or did the whole Star Wars concept made you pick XvsT and later on XWA? |
| DS: | Well as you may have read in my profile on the contributor's page, I have always been interested in Star Wars since I was a kid.
So when X-Wing first came out, guess what I bought it, played all the missions and so on, but I wanted more, Tie Fighter came and went
the same way. Then they released XvsT, this brought a whole new meaning to the game, with better craft and a whole new interface. Well, when eventually I started surfing the Web the first thing I looked for was Star Wars. I found hundreds of sites on the subject and finally came across a site called Datamasters, from which I found links to other sites, these sites had utilities such as OptSub by Demon that allowed you to edit, opts. This interested me a lot, I found out you could make new craft for the for the game, but I couldn't figure out how they did it, but I persevered and taught myself how to make basic models with Rhino and when ACE DXF came out that's where it all started really. I started making new ships from the TG opts, ripping them apart to make new craft, my first complete opt for XvsT was a station of all things, you my think this was a bit ambitious, but shielded spaceport turned out pretty well, then I started making my Ashgard series, people started to like what I was making, then a young chap called Saxman contacted me about his Ewing and basically the rest is history, hehe :)
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| XWAUP: | Couldn't you have better choose an other game like Quake, Unreal or maybe a different flight sim, a lot of games come with editing tools which could have made your job a lot easier. |
| DS: | Well I suppose I could have, I only have ever played Quake 1 to me was a bit boring, going around a maze type layout shooting
soldiers, to me that wasn't a challenge so Quake know stays in it's box. I haven't a clue what Quake 3 or Unreal are like, as I
haven't played them. I liked playing Jedi knight and MoTs, but for editing them No that hasn't really interested me.
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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? |
| DS: | This is a hard question to answer really, as I haven't bought many games that do have editors with them, but yes I think they
could Stealth's Ace Dxf is very well made even though it does have the odd bug. And with people like Jedi Hunter making a new Opt
utility I think it will be easier for the upcoming opt makers.
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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? |
| DS: | Well since I have been on the scene the community used to be quite large, but over the past two years the interest in XWA has got
smaller. People get bored with one game and move on, put it this way XvsT used to be the in thing, then XWA came out and people lost
interest in XvsT, due to XWA' s advancement in graphics and a better game engine. But like I said people get bored and find a
different better game to play, like you mentioned UT or Masquerade something like that. I don't really see the community growing,
unless LucasArts start to listen to the public and what they want which is very unlikely, sorry but all there interested in is profit,
they couldn't give a shit about the PC user these days. This really annoys me, because if all they really want is profit wouldn't it
make sense to make the new games for as many game platforms as possible, therefore they would have more profit and everyone is happy. As it is at the moment the only new game that LucasArts are bringing out for the PC is Obi-Wan which is basically a prequel of Jedi knight, yes it looks good from the previews, and I'll probably buy it, but it looks like Obi-wan will be the last game LucasArts will releases for the PC. I would like to see more Star Wars Flight Sims, I would like to see Starfighter and Battle for Naboo on the PC but doubt we will see those. I'm sure, I'm not going to pay £200 for a console just to play these games, and if they're anything like Force Commander or the Phantom Menace, I defiantly won't be buying them.
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| XWAUP: | You have been making quite some name for your self with in the XWA community. One because your work kicks ass second because you seem to be a bit hot tempered let me sum up some of your favourite quotes. "PISS OFF", "I'm surprised it doesn't need an other layer of DIRT", "JEZZ do I have to explain everything" and my personal all time favourite "IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT MAKE YOUR OWN". I know there are more but let's keep it to this =O) Now I was just wondering would you like to share with our readers what pisses you of most? |
| DS: | Well thank you for saying so. Hehehe, what really pisses me off, hmm hehe well were do I start. First, it annoys me when some new kid comes along who has now knowledge of opting and starts slagging off my work, this I take personally, ok for example when I first showed the Xwings with the Squadron logo's on them, people started moaning that the logo's where in the wrong place and so on, I placed the logo's as I thought right and from what references I could find, but no that wasn't good enough for some folk they had to be place a millimetre over or something like that, this really pissed me off. Even though the other people worked and helped on the Rebel Fighters I still class them as my own work, 7 or 8 months and god knows how many version of the dxf went it to making those opts and when people don't appreciate what you do, it really starts to annoy me. The most recent thing, that is pissing me off at the moment is the subject of the Tie's, the thing about the bloody window on the back of it, I couldn't give a shit whether it has a window, but people still go on about it trying to prove it has one. Why hasn't this been mentioned before, nobody complained at the old TG Ties. I'll ask you a question. Have you ever seen a picture from the films that show the hexagonal plating thing at the back of the
tie proving that it is a window, and can you see through it as if it was a window, this is not including shot of the interior which
basically prove nothing? |
| XWAUP: | Not on top of my head, I can't recall one, no... |
| The thing is people want the best looking opts with the least number of faces, so it doesn't screw up there crappy PC's, sorry
but if you want quality you have to sacrifice something and this happens to be the face count. Other things that piss me off, cocky, arrogant kids who think they have an answer to everything, certain people, I won't mention names, also piss me off. Since I have been around the community for a while now you get know some people pretty well even though you have never seen them or spoken to them, you start to form your own opinions of people and the cultures, as this is a world wide community I find some Americans the worse of the lot, there arrogant, bigheaded, load mouthed know-it-alls. Fare enough those certain people probably think the same about me, but at least I know I'm an arsehole. |
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| XWAUP: | Hehehe ok let's cut the bullshit and get back to OPT-ing here, since that is your main activity at the XWAUP right now. Could you please tell us how you start a new project, does it take a lot of research? |
| DS: | Well another hard question to answer, starting a new project, I don't know really, you just sort of get a felling, it starts with
your imagination of how the model should look, I myself don't draw anything on paper, it just happens, it's hard to explain. But if your making something for the XWAUP it's a lot easier as you can find plenty of sources to research, I myself have quite a books and CD's on Star Wars, other sources you can look at are SWMA, Star Wars Technical Commentaries just to name a few.
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| XWAUP: | What kind of program do you use to make your models and why do you use it? |
| DS: |
Well I always use Rhino, it has a very user-friendly interface, it's easy to learn, you can import, export different type of
files.
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| XWAUP: |
Did you ever try any other modelling program and if so why did you ditch it? |
| DS: | Hehehe, yes load of them the first one I tried was Protocad what a joke that is it's a DOS based program that is really crap.
Pixel 3D that wasn't bad, actually but I couldn't save with it, LightWave, I couldn't figure this one out, hmm what else AC3D another
crappy program. The most recent is 3D MAX I haven't had the time to figure this one out yet, and it's still on going.
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| XWAUP: | If you could make your own modelling program build up from components of today's 3d programs could you give us some features it would surly have? |
| DS: | Not sure really, I find Rhino very satisfactory.
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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? |
| DS: | I think the engine is ok, but when XWA was made it was a rush job and they used the same engine as what you use in XvT, and
basically is the same game engine as seen through all the Xwing, Tie games, if LucasArts ever made a new Space Flight Sim, in the same
design as the xwings games, I would like to see a completely new game engine, something on the lines of Starlancer or Freespace but
better with it's own editing feature. The Opt format, this is tricky really as the opt relies on the game engine to work, but one
featureI would like to see is actual working landing gear and canopy.
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| XWAUP: | You have been using ACE DXF all these time but now there is a new OPT program in making what do you expect from this? |
| DS: | Funny you should ask this Decoy and myself where talking about this the other day. Well has to have all the features that Ace
has, but incorporating the Engine Glow Editor all the features in Opt Enhancer and Opt2Prj, manual imputing of say the rotation
editor, better interface with the mouse for zooming panning and so on, use of less computer resources, able to use something else
besides windows OpenGL, the thing is if you get a new video card it usually comes with it's own GL drives but for Ace to work these
new drivers have to be disabled so the Windows GL drives work. There are a few other features but off hand I can't remember at the
moment.
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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? |
| DS: | At this moment in time I don't see anything new from LucasArts for the PC, like I mentioned before the only thing new on the
cards is Obi-wan. The rest of the new games are for bloody Consoles, unless with the two new films being made something will come from
those I'm not sure. To start with they will have to change their attitudes towards the PC user. Five years is a long time in computer
terms, new advancements are being made every day, so in 5 year we could be running PC's with something like 3 or 4 GH processors, but
you would have to site in a fridge to use them Hehehe, so who knows what will happen. As for playing XWA for the next five years I
hope not.
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| XWAUP: | Could you tell us a bit about your future plans can we expect anything from you beside XWAUP work? |
| DS: | Yes hopefully you can, I have always liked the Starfighters from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, I have been planning to make
them for a while now, but have never got around to them yet, I still have a few Hangars to make, the Dxf's are more or less
done, so when I get around to them I will. I have a few Dxf's Rebel made of the Independence Day craft, I would like to make these in
to opt one day, there are a few more projects, but the list is endless.
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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 XWAUP project. Why, well to enhance the craft TG made a mess of. And I really enjoy it. 2. Do you rather work alone or in a team? 3. What's the best thing going around in the XWA community right now. 4. Who is the biggest upcoming talent in OPT editing? 5. What is the most important part of a good OPT, just one please? 6. What color underwear are you wearing right now? 7. Will PC games be abandoned by LEC? 8. What's the best OPT (made by some one else) you have seen so far? 9. Will the XWAUP ever be finished? 10. How did you like the interview?
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| XWAUP: | Okay, thanks a lot for your time! We all hope to see some more of your great work very soon! (And with the IFP hot on it's way it sure wont take much time! |