So, it's been the holiday season recently, which has put a damper on what I've been able get done.


The R-L
Real life has been interesting lately, I'm on Christmas... er, winter break, so I've been working really really hard at relaxing.
It's nice to be back home and close to all my friends, my first semester at College(University) was not very much fun at all. But despite being emotional shitcake, it was academically rather successful, so I actually have a 4.0 GPA (all A's). Um, I know Europe has different systems, but I have no idea what they are so you guys are gonna have to trust me on this one: I'm the Man.

Xmas
So as a vaguely Christian family, we celebrate Christmas with gifts mostly, although we did set up a nativity, which earns you brownie points when hot Catholic girls come over to your house...

Anyway, I got some cool stuff for Christmas. A lot of books, including The Great Terror: A Reassessment by Robert Conquest, which I'm excited to read finally, although I really should finish the Gulag Archipelago first.
I got a Half-terabyte external HD, which will probably last me a very very very long time, because I've been used to the relatively tiny 60 GB on my laptop. Maybe I'll just backup my entire computer eight times.


Game Stuff
Angels 2X is doing pretty good, although it's pretty stop-and-go in the visuals department, but word on the street is that it's going pretty well programming-wise. The explosions, at least, look very convincing in motion(see Sir Sapo's Journal)

I've over the year or so built up a decent collection of sound effects(I like searching for them, oddly enough), and we put some "Ger-doosh!"s in to good effect. I'm hoping we get more sounds in than we ever did for Angels 22 and *shudder* Angels 20. I was also lucky enough to find a Gundam sound fx archive(in questionmarks -er, Japanese). I might put up a .zip of the best ones next entry, just to give you guys an idea of the potential coolness we're working with.

Sir Sapo also did some very impressive work(and unexpected) work on the water for the game, so, as opposed to the giant rectangle that was the previous iterations of H2), you get actual wavy, dynamic(to a point) ocean-ness:

Yeah, he needs to get a good video of it, it looks awesome in motion(doesn't everything?)

I've done a fair amount of work the past couple of days, the major accomplishment of yesterday being the completion of the rotation animation(for barrel rolls and the like) for the Partisan Mk III, the superbadass main fighter from Angels 22. The previous animation had only one frame between the top and side views, which was a little jumpy. So my project was filling in the gaps be adding another 2 angles and then some, because in Angels 22 we only ever had a top view, so that 360 rotation was essentially an illusion, and we're bigger than that now...



Yeah, some of the frames are a little rough, but it won't be too noticeable because it'll be pretty fast and now that the player can zoom out, it's more likely to scaled a lot smaller in-game.

The other major thing is a Feasibility Study(too much DID for me...) into color schemes for the various aircraft. Using the Photohizzap, it's easy to do camouflage or just switch colors, so even changing the animation frames won't be too hard. Here's the current selection:



We're still struggling with what airplanes to include, but here's the selection so far(from left to right in the piktar)

F/A-18E Block IV Super Hornet: The most basic aircraft we plan on including, and the easiest to fly. Not too fast and easy to control, with a good selection of weapons and the ability to carry a lot of them, it'd be super-great if it had the armor to hang around a while. The only airplane here that's a real airframe... for now.

F/AX-44 Mark II Partisan The starting aircraft from Angels 22, a heavily armored fighter/close-support aircraft. Not the fastest thing around, but it can dish it out like no other, and it has the armor to take a few hits itself. More maneuverable than the Super Hornet, but with a payload penalty due to it's compact size.

F/AX-44 Mark III Partisan The Super-Fighter the you were supposed to get halfway through Angels 22. Pretty much like the Mk. II, but better in every way. And it has a Laser(remember those Gundam sound effects I was talking about?) The only trouble is it's so high performance, the pilot must be very careful not to get into an unrecoverable 'situation'.

F-45A Kestrel Not totally sure this is going to be in the game, but if it is, it's going to be cool as hell. Ridiculously fast and maneuverable, it carries a relatively light air-to-ground loadout and modest armor. Ever wanted to fly high enough to see the curvature of the Earth? This is it.

I've asked what people wanted here on the journal before, and there was considerable interest in the SR-91A and the Su-37K from . We'll just have to see, though, what would be good additions to the existing airplanes(and what will be easy to draw)

So, that's what's new with the game, I should post another entry soon, probably after I get back to College next week, but before I start classes on Wednesday.

Sir Sapo and Prinz Eugn
I already put this up in a Lounge thread, but here's a picture of the entire Angels 2X development team. Starting first row on the Left: Sir Sapo, Prinz Eugn.



Comments are um, mandatory. That's right, I went there...

Ok, goodnight!