I'm sending this now so you can have it proof read, and I'll try and take some new shot's for Warlords tomorrow. I might want to make changes before you post this so please give me a shout before you do, I might read it tomorrow and wonder WTF! I was thinking..
CB Mag: Halie, thanks for taking the time to talk to CB Mag today. There is a lot of interest about you and the mods that you make, especially with your latest epic, your artistic rendition of Frank Miller’s bloodfest, 300. Let’s start of today with a little background about you and your modding history. How did this all start for you?
Multi coloured plastic cowboys and Indians and when I was '11' plastic WWII soldiers. My room was a huge theatre of war where nations rose and were crushed before bedtime. Epics such as 'Spartacus', 'The 300' and 'Jason and the Argonauts' inspired me as well. That scene in Spartacus when the Roman legions march over the hill before the final battle, unforgettable.
Moving on, I'd worked with computers as an animation compositor for 12 years but never had any interest in them outside of work until RTW was released. In fact my home PC sat in the spare room and was hardly ever switched on. I guess like many fans I'd seen the 'Time Commanders' series and just wanted that game so bad. I didn't really get into modding until BI came out, it was then that 'Attila Reloaded' started releasing his Roman re-skins. Then the 'Revisio Cartae Geographicae' mod came out I was drawn into the whole modding scene.
CB Mag: You are one of those TWCenter legends that have made a name for themselves for both originality of ideas and artistic skill. End of Days I & II, and now 300 Warlords of Sparta…what attracted you to these projects?
Legend!, aww, I wouldn't go that far, hehe.
I think modders harbour secret desires to be authors or film directors, maybe not all but certainly those who take on the mantle of leading a mod or being the driving force. Modding is similar to the early days of Hollywood, independent teams doing their own thing flying by the seat of their pants, it's exciting stuff.
The EoD mods were, for me, simply
living the dream. I looked at the mods that were around and other than Blue Lotus and the LOTR based mods there wasn't anything in that vain. I wanted something that was a bit scary. Though the real attraction was being in control of something that I knew I was going to want to play myself.
CB Mag: Taking on this kind of project, and the work that you put in at TWC over the years, I can’t help but notice the indelible mark you have left on the site and community. Please tell us- what motivates you?
I can't do things in half measures and if it's something I love then it gets 100%. That and I'm slightly obsessive. You know as well as I the community three four years ago wasn't very harmonious, things had happened and the wider community was divided. Like many new members I wondered why there wasn't more community based projects, I didn't know about the then defunct 'Trivium' and the NTO was floundering. So for me it was pretty much a blank canvas, I'm a vandal at heart so blank canvases don't sit right. I was lucky though, apart from myself there were several others who all joined around the same time and by and large had similar ideas. With the backing of Hex and Archer things started to happen, firstly with the creation of the 'Council of War'.
CBMag: For those modders that are out there reading this, who have been around for a while now, and are still looking for personal direction or the motivation to keep on going, any advice?
In the words of the great Harry Callaghan ''A man's gotta know his limitations.'' As HeWhoMustNotBeNamed preaches, ''don't over reach and be realistic'' (words to that effect). As an admin I moved more mods to the morgue than I care to remember, a lot of work, hard work, down the drain. If a mod is floundering cut it back, if it's really bad scrap it, don't make the mistake of flogging that nag to death.
That's not really motivational is it.
Thrash your team once a week to within an inch of their lives, twice if their really belligerent.
CBMag: The CB has recently initiated an effort to reinvigorate the modding aspect of the site. What do you believe is missing or does not exist in adequate quantity/quality in the modding community?
Actually nothing. Back when the 'CoW' was first introduced the problem was simply people didn't want to put the time in, for different reasons, but mostly I think because TWC didn't seem a very stable environment. There always seemed to be the feeling that TWC wasn't a ''modding'' site, mostly due to 'ON' owning it and, in part the mistrust lurking in the background due to past fallouts between projects.
A lot of modders had a long seeded mistrust of the Curia and the whole rank system, few got involved, many avoided it like the plague, and for the most part they were right to do so. But for those of us who joined around '05' all of that seemed a big mystery and to a large extent TWC was wasting it's potential due to issues we were unaware of or didn't care about.
Since Ian took over and with the release of MTW2 things have really turned around, you might need to step back to see it but TWC's modding community is a different beast on many levels these days. It seems providing a stable environment and letting members come up with their own improvements is working well. Least if the current CB projects is any measure of the wider community.
CBMag: What was your biggest modding disaster and how did you overcome it?
Never really had a disaster. I'm just that good.
What I will admit to though is wasting hundreds of hours trying things that just didn't work and ended up in the trash. I think unit making in particular and 2d work to a degree needs a certain amount of risk taking to get good results, the trick is (which I learned the hard way) don't post your every creation on the boards for all to see, take your time and get good, try and join a team that are willing to give you time to learn, 'talent' even when raw still shines through and the better teams will see that. Don't be afraid to make an almighty balls up because that's how you learn. Unless of course your one of those sickening little gits who was born naturally talented.
Not that coding isn't a risk game as well, I imagine Mak still has nightmares about garrison scripts and invisible captains on the backs of giant monsters.
CBMag: Players and modders alike have always commented on your “unique” style of models, skins and art. Would you mind sharing with us a hint of what makes your creations so inimitable and easily identifiable?
haha, dodge, burn and contrast. I like my work to be toned down but rich at the same time, a bit grubby as well. I guess due to the subject matter (dark, brooding and opulent) my style just evolved naturally.
It'll be interesting to hear what people make of my '300 Classical Edition units.' I'll say there not
historically accurate but then what is?. I've seen research threads on just about every mod on TWC and imo, an artists rendition is an artists rendition, something as true today as it was when some Greek guy sketched his neighbour on jar while he was wearing his new
curiass.
CBMag: Can you give us a brief description of your 300 mod and its main features? What can the players expect in terms of factions, special features, cool units, heroes etc?
I'm a big advocate of immersion factor and as the initial release will only have one playable faction, (the Greeks) it had to have something extra to draw the player in. With that in mind it had to be based on Alexander with the added feature of 'Hero's', in technical terms the ability to give a general a unique portrait set, model and texture. At first I only included Leonidas and Xerxes, but as Leo is going to die (didn't spoil the surprise did I?..
) early on, that would only leave the unplayable Xerxes. So I dreamed up a few characters for the starting generals (the Warlords of Sparta) and gave them a bit of back ground, which hopefully will make the mod a bit more interesting.
The big feature will be the choice of playing the 'Warlords edition' where the units are based on the movie, or the 'Classical Edition' where the units are more historically styled. I've already written a disclaimer to state they're inspired by the period, and not necessarily accurate. Another feature is the generals portraits for both factions are entirely new. More on that later.
There's a ton of other features included (and planned for the future) but I don't want to give to much away just yet.
CBMag: Have you tried to stick to Miller’s vision of the events, move closer to history or even add some flavour of your own?
As it's a game based on 'a' battle I had to put in a lot of work on expanding it beyond the film. Basically the mod starts at the end of the film, the final scene in fact, from there there's a little bit of historical accuracy and then it's up to the player to take it forward. We have plans to make the 'Classical Edition' more accurate, but we'll have to see how popular the first releases are before committing to that.
CBMag: Assuming that your preferred type of modding is unit-making, can you name the unit/model you had the most fun creating and the one that is your favourite?
Gosh, umm, That's hard. I guess from EODI the 'Shaolin Masters' and the 'Dracule,' the Shaolins were kind of an after thought and really simple to make, but they had to look right, which is actually harder to do when the units so simple. The Dracule took ages to make and were close to the bin, but I persevered and in the end I was fairly happy with them (the one in the pic is actually from EODII, I don't have the original any more).. From EoDII; The 'Swineheard', I just love that big boars head cod piece. He was based on
Slaine (Irish mythology), I intend to do a much better job of that model at some point..Another fave is the 'Riders of the Sidhe' I did for MasterofNone's '
Gods and Fighting Men', an ethereal androgynous elf type unit (yeh me two
). The '300' units are to new to really pick a favourite just yet, but the Athenian Hoplite is looking pretty bad ass.
So no, I guess I couldn't name just one.
CBMag: This is the first time you worked on a 1-man mod, which means you must had to undertake tasks you had probably never tackled before, like coding and text editing. What was the learning curve like? Did you face difficulties and if yes, how did you go about them?
The idea was to get an initial build together and then ask people to help out on the specifics. The first task was getting a map which was a total mystery to me, so as many people will tell you if you want a map you go to one man,
Uranos, fortunately for me he was keen to make a map, and even better he already had one, the 'Age of Hellas' map, it's had quite a few tweaks mainly the removal of a lot of Greek regions which we did to avoid a siege fest. It's a really interesting map, there's so many impassable areas you really do have to plan your moves, there's almost no unit's to recruit beyond basic town militia's once you get into central Greece, so you have to be careful not to move to far without a support army already on the move.
Once that was done I stated spending a lot of time on the '
Wiki' learning how to make things work, to be honest and bearing in mind I've the attention span of a goldfish, it wasn't that hard. Obviously you have to go looking for stuff in the workshop and do a lot of leg work, but I actually managed to get a base mod together pretty quickly.
That was when I hit a wall. Now I'm pretty lucky to have worked with some of the best modders in the community, so when I did get stuck I just asked for help, (I'll not name the A-Team here as their all pretty busy and I want to stay in their good books
)
Thing is these are people I've worked with and generally their happy to help if you've put in the initial work, as generous as they are with their time, no one is going to make a mod for you.
CBMag: You are one of the few people that have actively contributed to the community by sharing not only knowledge, through all the tutorials you have written, but also by making available to all the very product of your work; your excellently modeled and skinned units, all found in Halie’s Shed.. What has driven you to make all these contributions and how hard is it to be consistently active in this regard?
If I was doing this professionally or I had time I'd probably make a ton of small mods, but as it is I want to make certain units but have no real reason to. Alternatively a lot of people want to make mods but don't have the resources to make units, so I started
The Shed. Once '300 WoS' is finished or at least the first release is out the shed will be more active again. I don't want to give up making units just yet and I don't want to work on another long haul mod, so I hope to take more requests and release some of the other units I've made but not put out yet, there's quite a few.
In addition I want to make more generals portraits using the face gen program I've used for 'Warlords,' time permitting I'd really like to make a set for every culture in RTW.
CBMag: Throughout your modding career you have always worked in very small teams or on your own. Have you ever tried working in a larger team and if no, why not? What advantages and what disadvantages you think working in a small team has?
Actually the first mod I worked for was potentially huge, sadly it died but I learned two important lessons. 1; I didn't want to work on historical mods, not then any way, 2;The more people that have a say the more likely of headaches and failure. People who've run mods like RTR and EB deserve a lot of credit, I'd say that level of leadership takes something very few people can muster. Disadvantages; none really, it only takes two people to make a mod (if one of them is Makanyane and the other me
)..
CBMag: You have been a member of the modding scene for so long that you are bound to have known a great deal of modders – and you have also played an instrumental part in giving modders the attention and recognition they deserve on the site. Are there any of them that have really caught your attention and you admire a tad more than the rest for any reason?
Apart from the obvious (they know who they are) .. The '
FRRE' team stand out, those guys have made some great mods and resurrecting
Res Gestae is a very cool project to take on.
Individually 'wlesmana' the creator of
LOTR TW really stands out, it's an incredible mod and Wles is an incredible modder.
I've a lot of admiration for King Kong as well, not so much for 'Stainless Steel' because I've never played it, but the units he's made for 'Third Age, are simply stunning.
CBMag: What qualities are you most looking for in a modification? Is it graphical excellence, originality, complexity, stability or perhaps something else? What really makes a mod special for you?
Stability is important, at least reasonably so, vanilla TW games have inherent CTD's that not every mod team is going to catch but as long as a mod works on a reload I can live with that, then yes, graphical excellence is high on my list. If a mod sounds fantastic but has to many poor units I won't bother giving it a go. In fact their are one or two artists who's units I'll avoid because there's nothing worse for me than zooming into a battle and seeing some half arsed blurry ugly unit fighting on my time.
Next is playability, which is why I rate the FRRE guys, I think it was 77Bc that I first played and the scripting really made it an enjoyable mod, not that I'd want that all the time but if it's well thought out it can make a mod far more interesting. That's why I asked Salvor to do the scripting for 'Warlords'.
Lastly it's atmosphere, or believability, historical accuracy is all well and good, but if something is drab it's drab and if something spoils the immersion factor I'll consign a mod to the trash in a heartbeat. I played a mod that was great, huge, brilliantly put together, then this one unit pooped up in battle that just looked ridiculous, I mean on the level of Sean Connery's Irish accent in 'The Untouchables'. That mod hit the trash half an hour later.
CBMag: You have also ventured in creating your own music for EoD II. What was the experience like? Had you ever attempted that before or was it something that you did for the first time?
CBMag: What gives you inspiration to write a track? Do you have a favourite style or any specific influences? Does the music you write sound anything like what you prefer to listen in your everyday life?
AH, yes, well the missus and the nipper went away for the weekend and I wanted to give it a go, I think it turned out all right considering I play
guitar and I did nearly all the tracks on a £200 keyboard! in two days. My rock star days are long gone now and this interview could put a serious strain on the server if I started delving into that part of my past. I made the music purely for the mod and no, that's not really the style I play otherwise. Music is just to vast a subject to go into.
CBMag: You have also written the background story for EoD II and it was a very interesting one, if I may say so. Do you also like writing? Is this dark fantasy your favourite genre or is there a lighter side to this grim, vampire-loving figure?
Yeh, I like writing but rarely have time, most of the '
Chronicle of the Night-breed' was written while I was at work and I had animation rendering on my computer. EODII didn't really have much of a premise, a scene in 'Underworld: Evolution', and again it came down to immersion factor, so I had to write it. Actually it would have been much shorter (it continues in the mod) but I think the only time Mak got a rest was when I posted a new chapter for her to read (I worked her really hard on EODII
) ..
Vampyres are a favourite genre for me yeh, I can't deny it, I personally thought the 1992 Dracula with Gary Oldman in the lead was an awesome film. But no I'm not all doom and gloom, I rarely wear black, don't own a black cat, or wear a cape at the dinner table.
CBMag: Empires is approaching, screenshots, previews and podcasts fly all over, and debate on the game is getting hotter by the day. What are you expectations of Empires, judging from what you have seen so far?
Looks amazing, and looks like it'll take about four years to make a half decent mod in any setting other than the vanilla. Also looks like it won't run on my computer (MTW2 doesn't either)...
CBMag: So, what is the future for you? Got any plans or you will just wait and see how things go?
I've got a two year old daughter who becomes more interesting every day, I have a few ideas to expand 'Warlords' beyond the initial release, though depending on how well the first version is received that might be the only release.
I'll still mod as I mentioned in the 'Shed' question, but at a much much slower rate. To be honest what I'm really hoping to do is actually play the mods I've made, I've run extensive tests on them but never just played for the sake of playing, and I need to put that right.
Careful With That Axe Halie!..
Originally Posted by M.CorneliusMarcellus
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