That was one wierd night. A good night, but a wierd one. A family of mosquitos had sneaked in through a hole in my window's flyscreen and were amusing themselves by biting me everytime I started to drift off to sleep. Laid there for two hours till at 4:00am I decided, "bugger it, if I'm not gonna sleep - I'm goin' online". So I booted up my rusty but trusty P100 and logged on.
I decided to work on the last article that needed writing while I was online, ironically - the article was a preview of JED. It was halfway through this article that I travelled to the JED homepage in search of some extra details to spice up the writing. And there sitting in the news page was JED's release announcement. "Hang on" I thought, this is a bit early and there's no word of it on the main JK sites or messageboards. Not even on the JED messag.....then I realised that I must have arrived at the page just as it was uploaded. I get to start editing first. As the enormous smile set on my face I turned from the computer and profusely thanked the mosquitos which were now dazzling themselves infront of the 100 watt globe lighting the room.
Whilst JED and OpenGL (required for JED) were downloading I messaged everyone on my ICQ list, emailed all Darkness Falls subscribers and began blitzing all the Jedi Knight webboards I could find - JED IS OUT! Ever since JK's announcement ages ago, I'd been waiting to get my hands on a program like JED, and when I opened it up and began testing - I was not dissappointed.
The interface just feels right. Most important thing I can tell readers is to READ THE DOCUMENTS. If you don't read the docs and do the tutorial you will be going in blind....and you will waste countless hours learning things that would take you minutes via the docs. After a few hours and a lot of the usual frustrations of learning something new I had created a seven sector level with zero features.....hey it was early!
The program just has a very professional look to it, even for a beta version. I won't go into the specific features or start giving a 'How to', basically because I'm still learning too. Next issue however......
ForceBuilder Update . . .
Mattias Welander has been kind enough to give me this update on ForceBuilder's progress -
"I've spend most of the time since the release of the PR1 waiting for user
response. It wasn't until recently I started to work on the editor again.
I've now added the ability to create new levels and new sectors, and also a
simple error checking function. Expect at least a fully functional
sector/surface creation and editing function in the PR2, and perhaps a
simple lightshader."
Condition Red
It's been a while since we've heard from Jereth Kok and Peter Klassen in terms of new levels made. Now they are back into the Dark Forces editing world teaming up with Steve Miller to create an FX packed level called 'Condition Red'. Both of the below pictures are from the near the start of the level and clearly show changes in the way text messages are displayed and an improved HUD. Inlike most add-ons, you have no mission objectives to start with, and they are added as you proceed. The group is aiming to release the level within a month.
'Kyle wakes up to find chaos outside his cabin door... and guess who has to put it right'
'The Imperials are attacking, and it is Condition Red at Rebel Platform KL-0378'
Jedi Lost
As many DF fans may remember from the august issue - Paulius Stepanas is creating a new level for Dark Forces and it's packed full of features. (see August issue for specific details). Paulius has been kind enough to fire in some new screenshots to take a look at....