[WIP] The Red Skulls: a custom free-roam campaign.

[The_Cereal_Killer]

Triple posting and heavy bampin' for epic updates.

This project is now under the full power of the Red Skull Engineering Corps. (a team headed by me), members of which include Lodex, Darkhalo003, Pepzee, Lonesface, Rerout343, and Skidrow925. The Spartan 3 was successfully scaled and allowed to use marine animations.

Speaking of animations, I've recently learned animating (just the past 4 months; line break FTW). Here's a really shitty one I made when I was learning:

He was going to be standing in the back of a dropship (that explains his arm, eh?) and then grab a gun off the wall. Scrapped obviously, for newer things, but it wasn't a bad start.

Other stuff, other stuff... Red Skulls will now function with a new variable - time of day! The clock I wrote is below:

(global short seconds 0)

(global short minutes 0)

(global short hours 0)

(global short days 0)

(global short weekday 5)

(global string dayofweek "Thursday")

(script continuous clock
    (if (>= seconds 5) (begin
        (set minutes (+ minutes 1))
        (set seconds 0)
        ))
    (if (>= minutes 6) (begin
        (set hours (+ hours 1))
        (set minutes 0)
        ))
    (if (>= hours 24) (begin
        (set days (+ days 1))
        (if (< weekday 7) (set weekday (+ weekday 1)) (set weekday 1))
        (if (= weekday 1) (set dayofweek "Sunday"))
        (if (= weekday 2) (set dayofweek "Monday"))
        (if (= weekday 3) (set dayofweek "Tuesday"))
        (if (= weekday 4) (set dayofweek "Wednesday"))
        (if (= weekday 5) (set dayofweek "Thursday"))
        (if (= weekday 6) (set dayofweek "Friday"))
        (if (= weekday 7) (set dayofweek "Saturday"))
        (set hours 0)
        ))
)

(script continuous metronome
    (sleep 30)
    (set  seconds (+ seconds 1))
)

The script itself took like 30 seconds to write, but I'm amazed that this idea has evaded me so long. Many noteworthy free-roam campaigns incorporate the time of day as a gameplay element wonderfully, such as Red Dead Redemption by which this campaign was heavily inspired. The time has been scaled to what I believe to be appropriate considering the time people will likely spend on a Halo 1 map - 30 seconds of real time is equivalent to an hour of game time. There are 5 seconds per minute and 6 minutes per hour in the game. It also tells you the day of the week which I added for no apparent reason. The time of day can be used to control many things, most obviously of all being whether it is night or day. We currently are not sure whether it will switch between the two if the time reaches that point while you're just standing around in an area, or if it will check the clock only when you travel to determine whether you arrive at the destination at night or in the daytime. Opinions are welcome.

Here is the health regeneration script the campaign will use, if you want to see it (in case you want to use it, I've bolded out the parts you'll need to enter your own information into):

(script static unit player
(unit (list_get (players) 0))
)

(global real health_increment 0)

(script static real shield
    (unit_get_shield (player))
)

(script static real health
    (unit_get_health (player))
)

(script static real unchanged_shield
    (* (shield) [your biped's shield strength])
)

(script static real health_number
    (* (health) [your biped's health])
)

(script static real health_lost
    (- [your biped's health] (health_number))
)

(script static void increase
    (unit_set_current_vitality (player) (+ (health_number) health_increment) (unchanged_shield))
)

(script static real health_increment_set
    (set health_increment (/ (health_lost) 20))
)

(script continuous health_recharge
    (sleep_until (and (< (health) 1) (= (shield) 1)))
    (health_increment_set)
    (sleep 15)
    (increase)
    (sleep 15)
    (increase)
    (sleep 15)
    (increase)
    (sleep 15)
    (increase)
    (sleep 15)
    (increase)
    (sleep 15)
    (increase)
    (sleep 15)
    (increase)
    (sleep 15)
    (increase)
    (sleep 15)
    (increase)
    (sleep 15)
    (increase)
    (sleep 15)
    (increase)
    (sleep 15)
    (increase)
    (sleep 15)
    (increase)
    (sleep 15)
    (increase)
    (sleep 15)
    (increase)
    (sleep 15)
    (increase)
    (sleep 15)
    (increase)
    (sleep 15)
    (increase)
    (sleep 15)
    (increase)
    (sleep 15)
    (increase)
)

Once your shield is recharged, it heals 5% of your lost health every half a second, over the course of 10 seconds (which is the same amount of time health takes to regenerate in Halo 3).

More about the team; if you think you'd like to join (for whatever reason) go ahead and add me on Xfire (cerealkillingincorporated) and we'll talk about it. Third-person animators are specifically welcome, because I am the only one on the team so far, and I'm not exactly a veteran at it.
Team page: http://www.xfire.com/communities/rsec/

Story update: the entire campaign has been determined to take place 21 years after the initiation of the Spartan 2 program, and it is set entirely on the world Tyer (pronounced "teer") which has been known for heavy rebel and smuggler activity as of late.

Questions? Opinions? Comments on my good looks? Post them, you dumb hooker!