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Work in Progress / PonyCraft : Tainted Skies

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TheComet
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Posted: 15th Jul 2012 16:54 Edited at: 19th May 2013 01:00


You all knew this was coming, sooner or later someone would have to have snapped and traded their sanity for the colourful kindness that is My Little Pony : Friendship is Magic. I didn't see it being me but hey, it's me. Deal with it.

PonyCraft is a non-profit oriented RTS/RPG hybrid. Take Diablo and mix it with some WarCraft, oh, and ponies. You can control multiple hero units and each hero unit has their own unique upgrades. Unlike most games, what you get is what you get, meaning if you lose a unit, that unit will be gone for the rest of the campaign. The only 6 exceptions to this rule are the mane 6 characters.

Competitive multiplayer? Yes, it is on the to-do list, but first we want to finish all of the mechanics and abilities.

PROTOTYPE IS RELEASED - DOWNLOAD IT NOW

http://www.streamsniffer.com/Pony_Craft/pony_craft.html

Tips
*Press attack (hotkey: "T") and then click on the ground to target any enemies in that area
*Middle mouse button can pan the camera
*It's easier to look around by moving the mouse to the edge of the screen
*Use the hotkeys for commands (they are on top of the buttons)
*CTRL+<number> will create a control group. If you press <number>, you will select the units you added to the group again.

Team

TheComet - Project manager, programmer
CoffeeGrunt - Storyboard
Alccarion - Concept Art
Biomech - 3D modeler & animator
TheZachadoodle - Male Voice Actor

Engine Highlights

-EVERYTHING is script controlled. This means you can change anything you want without recompiling the game (as long as the engine supports it).
-Every unit can have any ability.
-Debugging with Fluttershy.

Help us out!

http://ponycraft.forumatic.com

Pon-E3 live stream recording

Pon-E3 Livestream (14/7/2012)

Update videos

PonyCraft - Update Video #1
PonyCraft - Update Video #2
PonyCraft - Update Video #3
PonyCraft - Update Video #4

Have some art!











And a large picture : http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh100/TheComet92/HalterGateLoadingScreen.jpg

Have some in-game screenshots!








We're working hard to get a working demo out so stay tuned.

Comments, critique, bashing and laughing at is appreciated!

TheComet


Yesterday is History, Tomorrow is a Mystery, but Today is a Gift. That is why it is called "present".
Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 15th Jul 2012 18:41
This is pretty awesome looking and it could be a fantastic project. Congratulations on Pon-E3 by the way. I'll be watching this to see how it progresses. I like the RPG-RTS concenpt and well...I enjoy MLP.

Oh and Ponies + mounted guns. Yes please.

Agent Dink
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Posted: 15th Jul 2012 18:58
I still don't see what you all see in these ponies, but the project does look to be shaping up! Good work. I'll be following this one, I'm sure.

http://lossofanonymity.wordpress.com
TheComet
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Posted: 16th Jul 2012 10:29
@ Seppuku Arts

Thanks a lot! I'm trying to get rocket launchers onto the pegasi just because the idea of that sends a shiver down my spine.

@ Agent Dink

Thank you!

There's a lot more to these ponies than just the show. The fan-fiction is fantastic (not to mention pretty gruesome sometimes), most of the music appeals to me, and the artwork is also really nice to look at. It really reflects how awesome the whole community is, and I feel like contributing to all of that by doing what I do best: Making games.

TheComet

mr Handy
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Posted: 16th Jul 2012 16:36
Put Your Hooves Up in the Air!

«It's the Pony, pony me this, pony me that» — Bronies
«Socks are sexy. You should wear them!» — Bronies
«I sell apples and apple accessories» — Applejack
Chris Tate
DBPro Master
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Posted: 16th Jul 2012 23:12
Not a fan of ponies, but I am looking forward to seeing how this turns out; I tend to like your ideas.

Melancholic
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Posted: 17th Jul 2012 01:24
This project is looking quite awesome, I’m no fan of ponies, though it helps when they appear to be firing rockets :p.


I can count to banana...
Sergey K
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Posted: 17th Jul 2012 16:29
rts, rpg, mmo. it looks like you puted lots of features on this one!
im looking forward for more updates from you TheComent.
the Pony really looks gr8. you have a nice modeler!

Advanced Updater for your games!
TheComet
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Posted: 17th Jul 2012 18:32
Put Your Hooves Up in the Air!

I'll put one up so I only decrease my programming capacity by 50%.

Quote: "Not a fan of ponies, but I am looking forward to seeing how this turns out; I tend to like your ideas."


Thanks a lot!

Quote: "This project is looking quite awesome, I’m no fan of ponies, though it helps when they appear to be firing rockets ."


I won't let you down with those rockets!

Quote: "rts, rpg, mmo. it looks like you puted lots of features on this one!
im looking forward for more updates from you TheComent.
the Pony really looks gr8. you have a nice modeler!"


I needed a challenge. Thanks! And yes, our modeler is a really talented guy, I've never seen such smooth animations before... He's really one in a million.

@ all - Should I use parallax mapping for the units, what does everyone think? Here's a picture with parallax mapping:



TheComet

Dar13
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Posted: 17th Jul 2012 19:56
Quote: "Should I use parallax mapping for the units, what does everyone think? Here's a picture with parallax mapping:"

Nah, it'll get to be too performance draining when there's a lot of units on the screen. A nice bump map shader would be fine for individual units I think.

Sergey K
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Posted: 17th Jul 2012 20:40
i dont like it. you should use some kind of fur mapper on your pony if there is. or at least you can use some fur texture.

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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 17th Jul 2012 22:18
It makes Twilight look too shiny. I think the current shading works better.

3d point in space
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Posted: 17th Jul 2012 22:32 Edited at: 17th Jul 2012 22:33
what is this with my little pony. the last job I taught all the kids put ponies on every thing.

Developer of Space Chips, pianobasic, zipzapzoom, and vet pinball apps. Developed the tiled map engine seen on the showcase. Veteran for the military.
SoftMotion3D
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Posted: 18th Jul 2012 04:01 Edited at: 18th Jul 2012 04:04
This looks pritty cool....im gunna keep my eye on this project aswell! keep up the good work

The attraction to it oddly is when you make the ponies look bad ass! But maby thats not odd at all....lol

Yodaman Jer
User Banned
Posted: 18th Jul 2012 06:43
Quote: "PonyCraft"




Just kidding. It sounds kinda epic, it's just a shame I don't like these Ponies.

-Yodaman Jer

Not contributing much of anything useful to the forums since September of 2007.
Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 18th Jul 2012 12:37 Edited at: 18th Jul 2012 12:37
Quote: "It sounds kinda epic, it's just a shame I don't like these Ponies."


It's okay, looking at this game, I'm sure it'll cure you. I mean, look, they've got mounted guns, who can argue with that?

TheComet
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Posted: 19th Jul 2012 08:49
Thanks for the feedback on the parallax mapping, I have decided to try adding some fur to the normal map and to reduce specular lighting to get rid of the shininess a bit. If that still doesn't look good I'll just get rid of it and use the models as-is.

There was a problem with the rendering of chained paths which would not allow connections from every unit to be drawn, and would not allow units to "enter" an already chained path of another unit, just further along the line. Well today I fixed that, and it was much harder to fix than I expected.

In order to save some speed I made it so units walking along the same path could share the ping and connection objects as there's no reason for every unit to have their own object, that would just be a waste of processing power. The algorithm that gathered all of the unit's waypoints and reduced them to just a single path for rendering was pretty hard to create, so I'm happy it's all working now!

Here are some screen shots:





TheComet

Sergey K
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Posted: 19th Jul 2012 18:26
this one kinda reminds me a game called "Ballerium" my friend loved to play this one. its more or less like this game you working on TheComent.
its an mmorpg with Warcraft style. you have endless traveling. the server were generating new map everytime. you reached new zone.
i hope PonyCraft will be more or less like Ballerium. hopefully even better

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TheComet
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Posted: 21st Jul 2012 15:24 Edited at: 21st Jul 2012 15:26
I'll have to check that game out. Thanks Sergey K!

@ all

As requested by a youtube user named 21994mat who said the following:

Quote: "Is it possible to make a group units move in a specific pattern (melee ponies in front, weaker ponies in the back) instead of all rushing to the point?

Or formations like this:

•••••••

•••••••

••••••• • • • • •"


It required some complicated rotation matrices and grouping algorithms, but nothing I can't handle.





If the formation is impossible to achieve (for example if there is something in the way like a cliff or a rock), the unit will just go to the actual mouse click coordinates.

Only units who are within a range of 5 are able to do formations together. If units are further apart from each other, they will just move to the mouse click coordinates and not bother with formation calculations.

It is possible to disable formations in the settings script (if it annoys you). This will be a menu at some point, but scripts are easier to use currently.

More to come!

TheComet

Dar13
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Posted: 21st Jul 2012 17:25
Formations are awesome! Have you ever played any of the Age of Empires series? They're some of the best RTSs I've ever played.

CoffeeGrunt
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Posted: 24th Jul 2012 15:29
I've mainly been working on story concept/organisation for this project.

Felt I should keep you updated with music I've been organising for this project:


It will be a boss theme for one of the first boss battles.
Super Nova
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Posted: 25th Jul 2012 03:32
Nice theme there, sounds pretty epic to me! I know from personal experience music can be a huge motivator while working on a project. Everything looks really good so far guys.

"What I have shown you is reality. What you remember, that is the illusion."
Fallout3fan
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Posted: 25th Jul 2012 20:58
I just discovered this forum, I'm glad we are getting attention.

_!!!!_
,0~U -Well I do say, its been quite a fancy forum for
__-____TheZachadoodle.________________________________
Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 25th Jul 2012 22:21 Edited at: 25th Jul 2012 22:25
Theme seems pretty neat. Can already imagine maps where it might be suitable.

I am a little curious about the story you've got planned.

CoffeeGrunt
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Posted: 26th Jul 2012 05:47
I've been working on the story, but naturally I wanna keep surprises in for non-devs who intend to play the game.
mr Handy
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Posted: 26th Jul 2012 09:09
@CoffeeGrunt
Like Celestia's a stallion? I already know that

TheComet
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Posted: 29th Jul 2012 22:09


TheComet

Travis Gatlin
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Posted: 30th Jul 2012 02:39
I've never been a brony or interested in MLP but this actually looks cool. Nice tech, nice graphics, and nice job Comet.

http://www.3dartistonline.com/user/Travis%20Gatlin
You can find my latest work here. Please comment on my work and tell me what you think!
Sergey K
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Posted: 30th Jul 2012 14:25
looks amazing. im following this project from the start and everytime you suprising me even more!
Nice work man.

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Phaelax
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Posted: 31st Jul 2012 10:56
Nice work on the pathfinding/formation stuff.

"You're not going crazy. You're going sane in a crazy world!" ~Tick
TheComet
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Posted: 31st Jul 2012 15:01 Edited at: 2nd Aug 2012 20:24
Thanks a lot everyone for the good feedback!

Our concept artist Florent Biton has finished making our new logo:

http://forum.thegamecreators.com/xt/xt_apollo_pic.php?i=2380311


TheComet


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Sergey K
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Posted: 31st Jul 2012 17:41
looks very invested. but not all the time the best graphics makes the game looks good
for example your Pony logo. only 7 colors. but looks good.
so keep that in mind.

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FireIndy
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Posted: 31st Jul 2012 18:01
Wow, I love the logo! Everything looks really cool. Awesome work guys

haliop
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Posted: 1st Aug 2012 03:01
AWesome LOGO!~



[URL] http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=198467&b=22 [/URL]
erebusman
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Posted: 4th Aug 2012 21:23
I really like the idea and the logo is very "dark" which gives a Tim Burton'esque feel to it to me.

However the purple pony model seems a little bit too much "my little pony" it needs to find its inner darkness more like the logo.

I think you guys should really do some sort of 'style sheet' for the art look and feel so as people create art it fits with the overall theme that you've picked.

Here's one valve did for Team Fortress 2 as an example:

http://www.valvesoftware.com/publications/2007/NPAR07_IllustrativeRenderingInTeamFortress2.pdf

Notice page 3 has some color palette's to use for artists for example?

Mind you I'm vibing off the logo the most but maybe that's not your intended look? so go with whatever you intend of course


Keep up the good work.
TheComet
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Posted: 8th Aug 2012 10:37
@ Sergey - Thanks, I'll keep that in mind.

@ FireIndy - Thank you!

@ haliop - Thanks. Just a tip for your signature, change
to
for it to work.

@ all

The scripts used to be "parsed" on the fly which was pretty slow. Now they are compiled to byte code when you load them and interpreted by the game. It's funny to think that I've written a small compiler in DBP...

There won't be much to show in the next few updates because I'm working on the scripts. I want to add support for variables, conditions (if...endif), counting loops (for...next), boolean operations and parenthesis. Here's my to-do list:

- Scripts
--> Compile scripts to byte code
--> Byte code interpreter

--> Dynamic registers to store values in
----> Bind script variables to registers
----> Integer registers
----> Float registers
----> String registers
----> Write register content to open file
----> Read register content from open file
----> Move register to register
----> Swap register contents

--> Conditional commands in scripts (if/endif)
----> operators: < / > / <= / >= / =
----> boolean: and / or
----> Support for parenthesis

--> "goto" command with user defined labels
--> Counter loop (for...next)

Still a lot to do! I'll be happy when this is all over because it's pretty hard!

TheComet

Your mod has been erased by a signature, please reduce him [overall] to no larger than 120 kg please.
haliop
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Posted: 8th Aug 2012 16:34
thanks for the tip



[href] http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=198467&b=22[/href]
TheComet
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Posted: 8th Aug 2012 17:09
Hmm, did you remove the space here?



TheComet

Your mod has been erased by a signature, please reduce him [overall] to no larger than 120 kg please.
haliop
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New World Order
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Posted: 9th Aug 2012 11:50
good god, i don't comprehend how I only discovered this thread just now O.O
This looks so insanely good!
My head is practically exploding with ideas right now... slow moving cider-supply-carts that buff nearby ponies, pegasus-ponies conjuring up thunder&lightning clouds, parasprite infestations that damage your buildings and drain your ressources..... ahhhhh!!! xD
but I'll leave you guys to it, you're doing a fantastic job! Can't wait to see more of this!

the pinky pie miniature on my shelf approves of this project
speaking of PP... pleeeeaaase include the party cannon? =)
CoffeeGrunt
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Posted: 9th Aug 2012 14:15 Edited at: 9th Aug 2012 14:17
One of Pinkie Pie's abilities is the party cannon, yes. We're also gunna have some pegasi units who can carry thunderclouds and suchlike as weaponry, and your other ideas are worth considering.

Actually, I'm not sure if you're available, but looking back over your profile - and that shiny badge you have - you are exactly the sorta person we need.

We've hit a bit of a rut finding bronies who are capable of putting out good model work. If you're interested, you can contact me on my email below, on my profile. It's volunteeer work, and you're welcome to help to any degree that you want.

It's been difficult finding modellers, and I really wanna get a bunch of good ones to make the leap from concepts and placeholders to a living, breathing game.

Also, for updates in our other departments, I have a piece of concept art and music.

We just hired a new concept artist, he's currently working on a Storm Dragon artpiece. For now, we have this Spitfire concept that's going to lay down the groundwork for pegasi armour ideas:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/14311175/spitfire%202.jpg
[Apollo doesn't like the URL, have to copy-paste I'm afraid.]

Also, currently a WIP, but this is the main theme we're going for. Inspired by the Black Mesa Source theme, amongst others:
http://soundcloud.com/memark2/tainted-skies-wip-2

Most of our progress really has been in Story, Programming, Concept and Music. Glad to say that we've got lucky in the latter two, and me and Comet are doing our best in the former to open up options and make a fun experience.

Non-linear story writing a la Bioware style is also so very fun! I'm holding my cards to my chest on the story I'm doing though, for the moment, we're aiming to reveal it slightly through trailers and such.
Quik
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Posted: 13th Aug 2012 04:38
Woah CG, whoever that concept artist is - that armor is amazing



Whose eyes are those eyes?
Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 13th Aug 2012 11:20
Quote: "[Apollo doesn't like the URL, have to copy-paste I'm afraid.]"


Looks awesome. Also the reason Apollo doesn't like your URL is because it has a %, which is usually generated when you put a space in the title of an image or folder. For some reason they screw with the forums.

TheComet
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Posted: 13th Aug 2012 19:42
Some random small updates.

-We've begun making 3D assets

-We're working on a map of the inside of Twilight's library. A lot of people helped compile screenshots of scenes from all of the episodes so we can create an accurate layout of the interior of her library. It actually has a lot of rooms!

-I'm pulling my hair out in an attempt to get boolean operations working in scripts.

-I bought a t-shirt. Front, Back

TheComet

Your mod has been erased by a signature, please reduce him [overall] to no larger than 120 kg please.
CoffeeGrunt
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Posted: 15th Aug 2012 16:44
An update on some of the model work being done:



Both are WIP and currently being tweaked.
TheComet
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Posted: 15th Aug 2012 23:28
After two days of extensive talking and experimenting with a really great guy (thank you Sergey K for all of the great help!) we have come up with a definitive game style. The following is the result of our work.

How it currently looked
Added Parallax mapping and emissive lighting
Added Toon effect
Added Bloom

Final effects:







TheComet

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Sergey K
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Posted: 15th Aug 2012 23:41
anytime man.
im looking forward to see this shaders in your own engine.
hopefully you success

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TheComet
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Posted: 15th Aug 2012 23:52
Could you all please post your honest feedback on the following points.

1) Do you like/dislike the parallax mapping (and why)
2) Do you like/dislike the cartoon outlines (and why)
3) Do you like/dislike the oilified textures (and why)
4) Do you like/dislike the bloom (glowy effect) (and why)

Thank you.

TheComet

Your mod has been erased by a signature, please reduce him [overall] to no larger than 120 kg please.
swissolo
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Posted: 16th Aug 2012 02:44
I'd like to see this applied to one of the models CG posted before revealing my opinions...

swis
Joined: Tue Dec 16th 2008
Interstellar
Chris Tate
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Posted: 16th Aug 2012 03:51 Edited at: 16th Aug 2012 03:55
Quote: "1) Do you like/dislike the parallax mapping (and why)"

I like it; without it the textures look flat

Quote: "2) Do you like/dislike the cartoon outlines (and why)"

Nice so far, but could look a little better. At first glance, it seems that it would look cool if only the outline edges where inked, and not the inner edges. It could also look nicer with manual textures or specular maps that feature outlines drawn on them.

Quote: "
3) Do you like/dislike the oilified textures (and why)"

Hmm, not really; but who knows it may look good on other objects.

Quote: "4) Do you like/dislike the bloom (glowy effect) (and why)"

Yes I like it, but it could still look good with a little less blur so as long as HDR is used (high contrast without the blur). Or perhaps the distance of an object could affect the blur scale.

I think lightmapping could boost the quality further. My opinion would probably differ if a lightmapped environment was shown in the images.

The red light doesn't seem improve the look of the scene to me, but overall it looks 7/10 to me, but it will probably look 9/10 in time.

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