Welcome to MODSonline

Hey gang,

Just wanted to say great show. I found your podcast on iTunes and am listening to a bunch of old and new episodes while I'm working.

I'm an animator in the video games industry (consoles; don't hate me) and I've been reading up and floating around modding for years as means to do some of my ideas but I've never actually done much with it.

I had a suggestion for topic I'd like to hear you guys cover related to this: it seems that 80% of the time when people say modding they really mean level building or editing. I'm wondering why there isn't more attention paid to custom modeling and (especially) custom animation in mod tools and among mod communities (I imagine it's a bit of chicken&egg/supply&demand on the developer side) beyond weapon model swaps and character reskins.

If all the game assets were as easily replaceable (or even got as much attention) as the maps, couldn't more of us be making totally new games using existing engines? I know some mod teams have some crazy smart guys who've figured this stuff out and ARE making totally new games but the community knowledge on the knowledge of modding game characters seems lot more limited and/or coveted in modding then the topic of game environments.

Am I totally off base here? Have I just not found the right sites and information? Or is it really that most of the community is content to just play with maps and not the characters?

I'd be really interested in hearing your guys thoughts on this.

Thanks for the suggestion. I made note of it to talk about this in our next show.

Awesome, thanks a lot. I look forward to all of your thoughts on the topic.

It's funny, while reading your reply, beneath it there was an advert for the "Half Life 2 Mods for Dummies" book, which by most reviews, seems to cover only mapping in depth. Another Half Life 2 modding book was supposed to get more in depth on other modding subjects but it's been delayed repeatedly over the past two years.

having had to technically edit the HL2 book for foyle - i know a few of the reasons why this is...

there were huge constraints on what he was allowed to talk about...and everything had to be step by step and by the book (in a sense)

at the same time - there were page constraints that definitely cut into what he wanted to express in the books

good question about modelling - and we answered it in the show :)

Really? Constraints from Valve or the book publisher? Did they actually not want any of the character stuff discussed?

I know there was another book on HL2 modding supposed to come out that detailed that stuff and it's been delayed for 1-2 years :/

I listened to the last show (the recorded version; not the live one) and I didn't hear it discussed. Was that part maybe edited out?

Thanks again guys and keep up the good work.

constraints from the publisher. They provide me with an outline of how to write the book and also limit me to a certain number of pages. I have to be very details (for dummies) and cohesive (I can't jump around with topics). So I started with mapping and touched upon additional modding topics as best I could.