Quote: "lets just hope that this pack has btter sounds and doesnt need an update for it to work "
The sounds likely won't be any better. My profit margin is low to non-existant on FPSC model packs so I'm not willing to invest in having sounds professionally created at $60-$100 or more per sound effect. The sounds included in MPs 9/10 were modified from stock FPSC sounds, so they are not legally dubious and are royalty free. I couldn't say same if I were to get source material from various sites. At the minimum, it's not a risk I am willing to take. That said, If someone out there can do better and wants to market a compatable sfx pack, I am all for it. I'll even help promote it if it is good. Otherwise, there is nothing stopping users from changing sounds themselves either from online content or swapping from other model packs they may allready have.
As far as needed updates goes, I think only a minority of users had problems which were the result of using very old versions of FPSC or having out of date DirectX libs. Honestly it is hard to tell and a bit frustrating because AFIK nobody who posted bugs posted their system spec. info. At any rate, anyone using the TGC store will have to have at minimum the version of FPSC which has it. I figure that's a good thing.
Quote: "That's something I never even considered. Anyways, I plan on making a lot of expansions to weapons which I'll release the source to publicly, so with any luck we'll get the official FPSC (with some bugging Lee of course), Lemur, and EFX all sporting new weapon expansions that you'll hopefully find useful."
Sorry for being speciffic. I meant to speak in general about source mods. Hopefully other teams will not take offense.
Airslide, is there any chance you can send me something with your modifications? I want to maximize compatibility with features like your shotgun reload system but without a way to test it is not going to happen. I am open to catering to any mods which can be accessed through gunspec without losing compatability for users without source mods.
I think the naming convention I will use will go like: bullet01, bullet02, bullet03, etc. Ideally, say I have seven visible bullets hanging out the gun; bullet01 - bullet07. Once I am down to six ammo, bullet07 should cease to render and so on untill none are visibly left. If a weapon only has one visible ammo (such as an RPG or crossbow) only "bullet01" would be needed.
Quote: "How about adding a covering to the ammo belt, so you can't see it. It saves waiting for a script. But if you want to keep the belt, that's understandable"
I want to keep it. There's something that gets the juices flowing with seeing the belt.
Quote: "Is that a good tool? Would you recommend it?"
I thought I did
Max has loads of features which are worthless for this sort of work. XSI is more speciffic to game development and is meant to compete against Max in the industry. I know Pandemic LA used XSI for Mercenaries and other projects. It is a professional grade tool at half the price of Max for the full version and the Mod Tool version is FREE and only has some cinematic rendering and file management aspects disabled AFIK. It has it's own exporter plugins for DirectX as well as Source and other engines. The key point is that it has integrated modeling, animation and UV mapping in one package. It can also load Max bipeds and has other features that make it compatable with its competition. However, I've never used it myself and can't personally vouch for how well it gets things into FPSC but it looks good on paper, at least.
Quote: "And anyone who makes or uses weapons in FPSC should feel my pain..."
I feel your pain, Fred. I am animating both fire modes for the SCAR rifles in the same file so that it won't take much effort to export a dual-mode weapon should they become compatable with FPSC.
