Cthulhu in Amnesia help

[The chaser]

That of the falling bricks, that kill the player. Requires a lot of scripting. I will see if I can get maya and do something about it. BTW, you could learn modelling. Just the basics.

[The Rock Worm]

That of the falling bricks, that kill the player. Requires a lot of scripting. I will see if I can get maya and do something about it. BTW, you could learn modelling. Just the basics.

I will see what I can do about the bricks, I do not have a good 3D modeling program; nor the money to get a new one. If you want, you could try the Cthulhu tentacles.

[The chaser]

I will download the student version. I wouldn't waste money for maya. Anyway, for beggining blender will be ok. It's completely free, and I made cool models with it. So, I suggest you to use blender (for training) and very later maya.

[Kman]

Hoooold up a sec, I think you're biting off way more than you can chew. I'm not sure if you understand this or not, but a full on Cthulhu monster would take weeks to model, and probably even more to properly animate it. On top of that, I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but the normal walls in Amnesia can't just "fall apart on their own", they're static objects, meaning they can't move. If you wanted to do that you'd have to assemble walls with the individual brick models by hand, and even when that's done there's nothing stopping the player from just tipping over the walls by themselves. On top of that, I don't even KNOW how you could do the floor/ceiling, the best way I could think of would be again assembling them out of individual bricks/rocks, but in that case you'd have to set all them to static and script certain ones to turn dynamic when a tentacle breaks through it, which would be insanity. Even with that said, you'd probably be able to see holes in the walls and ceiling and it probably wouldn't come out looking very good.

I'm sorry if it seems like I'm being a dick, but I'm just being honest. You seem to be having a lot of ideas lately, but I don't think you understand how insanely impossible all of them are, and then you run off to people on here and try to get them to do it for you (asking someone to make an entire Chtulhu model when they don't even know how experienced of a modder you are). Start off small, make a normal custom story first, learn how to map, script, and model, because as it is now I'm sorry but you really don't seem to be experienced enough to be trying most of these ideas.

[The Rock Worm]

Hoooold up a sec, I think you're biting off way more than you can chew. I'm not sure if you understand this or not, but a full on Cthulhu monster would take weeks to model, and probably even more to properly animate it. On top of that, I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but the normal walls in Amnesia can't just "fall apart on their own", they're static objects, meaning they can't move. If you wanted to do that you'd have to assemble walls with the individual brick models by hand, and even when that's done there's nothing stopping the player from just tipping over the walls by themselves. On top of that, I don't even KNOW how you could do the floor/ceiling, the best way I could think of would be again assembling them out of individual bricks/rocks, but in that case you'd have to set all them to static and script certain ones to turn dynamic when a tentacle breaks through it, which would be insanity. Even with that said, you'd probably be able to see holes in the walls and ceiling and it probably wouldn't come out looking very good.

I'm sorry if it seems like I'm being a dick, but I'm just being honest. You seem to be having a lot of ideas lately, but I don't think you understand how insanely impossible all of them are, and then you run off to people on here and try to get them to do it for you (asking someone to make an entire Chtulhu model when they don't even know how experienced of a modder you are). Start off small, make a normal custom story first, learn how to map, script, and model, because as it is now I'm sorry but you really don't seem to be experienced enough to be trying most of these ideas.

I know that the Amnesia walls are static, that's why I'd use large 'special' bricks. The bricks would be stacked up for sure, but be too heavy and large for the player to push down. As for the ceiling/floor I have thoughts on that too: One layer per room would be widder than the rest and many movable boards would be on them. Once boards are in place then the bricks could be placed, thus I have both a floor and the ceiling for the next room below.

I have 'test areas' with which I can try things out, so level making isn't a problem. The problem is I want my story to 'make a good first impression' and to 'stand out' from the rest. Some first stories look very well done and/or scripted. Now while I probably couldn't script a whole lot yet, I wanted something not seen before in an Amnesia Custom Story.

I have lots of story ideas not mentioned in the forum, some I could do and others I am working on. However, when an idea comes in that might outshine it I explore it to see if it's possible. Right now I'm working on a 'simpler' story. Short but has stuff not seen in other stories, or at least not been done like this before.

When I thought of an 'all movable' castle and furniture I couldn't resist the idea and wanted to explore it.

[The chaser]

The HPL engine is very versatile, so you could do it. BUT: As Kman said, it is an insane amount of work. Instead of making it spectacular, it could be only tentacles (hell, in the wiki says that he is like a mountain, the model would be a pain). So... making just tentacles would be MUCH easier.

I sincerely appreciate the ideas that come in this forum (a lot are almost impossible, but are ideas, and that's important). So, I could work in something always that it is original. If maya doesn't kill me with animation issues (assuming that I know how to model in maya) it would be like five days (I'm surely wrong, so I pre-apologize because I've never animated anything.)

Anyway, it's always good to have ideas. Keep them, rock worm!
If I was you, I would begin doing simple things and getting familiaritzed with the model editor. Make simple stuff like desks, chairs, doors, and that. I recommend too to learn about making custom materials. It seems very hard, but if you keep following, you should know how to make a custom object without any problem.

When you make your first model, even if it is the simplier thing in the world, you will say: "I'm the boss!"
(It's what I said when I created my first cube that I could grab and throw)

[The Rock Worm]

The HPL engine is very versatile, so you could do it. BUT: As Kman said, it is an insane amount of work. Instead of making it spectacular, it could be only tentacles (hell, in the wiki says that he is like a mountain, the model would be a pain). So... making just tentacles would be MUCH easier.

I sincerely appreciate the ideas that come in this forum (a lot are almost impossible, but are ideas, and that's important). So, I could work in something always that it is original. If maya doesn't kill me with animation issues (assuming that I know how to model in maya) it would be like five days (I'm surely wrong, so I pre-apologize because I've never animated anything.)

Anyway, it's always good to have ideas. Keep them, rock worm!
If I was you, I would begin doing simple things and getting familiaritzed with the model editor. Make simple stuff like desks, chairs, doors, and that. I recommend too to learn about making custom materials. It seems very hard, but if you keep following, you should know how to make a custom object without any problem.

When you make your first model, even if it is the simplier thing in the world, you will say: "I'm the boss!"
(It's what I said when I created my first cube that I could grab and throw)

I agree, tentacles alone would be great! Good luck with the model editor.

I've successfully made a 'castle_brick' heavy enough so that you can't move it, but should be easy enough for the Cthulhu tentacles. I didn't remember he was mountain sized, I always pictured Cthulhu Godzilla sized. Since I got the bricks right, I will eagerly get to work on building the castle. After that, then have all the movable stuff inside it and build the cliff/sea.

[The chaser]

Well, maybe someone is agree in making the tentacles. I would do them, but I never modelled with maya, only with blender. But, if you want, I could get the texture and make the model in blender, then you could search for an animator. making a tentacle isn't anything hard. Send me the details with a P.M (how much tentacles, how big, characteristics). I will see what I can do.

This looks promising...

[The Rock Worm]

Well, maybe someone is agree in making the tentacles. I would do them, but I never modelled with maya, only with blender. But, if you want, I could get the texture and make the model in blender, then you could search for an animator. making a tentacle isn't anything hard. Send me the details with a P.M (how much tentacles, how big, characteristics). I will see what I can do.

This looks promising...

Will do, I will send you a P.M. asap.

Also, I may have to change my story a little. That many bricks 'falling into place' makes Amnesia a bit lagged. I will have to make the story take place at the beach instead of in a castle.

[xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Okay...hm... how do I put this. Well, see, its like this. I'm always looking for interesting animated models to fill my portfolio with and I want my next project to be a bit bigger than my previous ones. I haven't quite decided yet, but this were my ideas so far:

1. Fuchur or "Falcor" as he is called in english from the Neverending Story (the badass book version of course, not the flying tampon from the movies. Non-movie illustrations of Falcor are rare, but this might come somewhat close to the description.)

2. The Lady of Pain from Planescape: Torment (might be a bit boring animation - wise but the mesh would be challenging)

3. Some sort of interesting Lovecraftian being. Yes, this could also be Cthulhu, although I'd prefer a more "non-standard" version. He has been depicted in art so incredibly often already, the concept would need some sort of interesting twist to stand out from the crowd. The pictures you linked to are already an interesting start but I wouldn't want to use them as an exact concept. (They're too stylized for that anyway )

Soooo... theoretically, there is the possibility that you could maybe get your whole Cthulhu. But before you get your hopes too high - I still haven't entirely solved my maya - to - hpl - export issues, so we probably wouldn't even get him into the game.

Besides, if he was that big, even if we got him imported, we would run into all sorts of issues with the textures...I would have to use tiling textures a lot to get a decent resolution close-up, which means I have to make up for the lack of unique normal map with more triangles - and we don't even know how many triangles HPL can handle on a skinned mesh. Also I don't know if its even possible to use more than one material on the same mesh in HPL.
Another thing: the Ambient Occlusion would need to be baked into the vertex color or a separate lightmap for it to look good with the tiling textures, but there doesn't seem to be a way to multiply vertex color or a separate map over a diffuse map with the shaders available...

you see, there would be thousands of problems. Nothing that can't be solved I guess, but I'm a modeler and animator, not an expert on anything HPL - related so we'd probably need a lot of additional help for that.

I'm also with Kman here - right now the story idea sounds cool, but too vague and - most importantly - way too difficult to achieve. At least too difficult in HPL. If we were using UDK with its powerful material editor, stable and flexible animation pipeline, countless scripting and coding options and huge detailled documentation, I'd say its possible. But with HPL - eh I don't know...

Maybe we could talk about a smaller Lovecraft enemy instead and solve the Cthulhu thing with the tentacle only idea The chaser mentioned? But I'd like the concept to be a bit more fleshed out before I start such a project...