10 days till Black Dawn!

[[NE]Fobby[GEN]]

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Hey guys!

10 days until the Black Dawn release! This is the first in a series of 10 blog posts which will be put out until January 28th 2012, the release date of Renegade X: Operation Black Dawn.

Renegade X is a Tactical FPS game with RTS elements. On January 28th, we will be releasing a short singleplayer campaign (Operation Black Dawn) as a demonstration of what is to come in the future. The release date of the final multiplayer version is still to be announced, and hence, we thought it would be good for you to have something to play while you wait. Black Dawn will be a 1-2 hour experience for most people, complete with custom cinematics. It will be an opportunity for you to get used to all the weapons, vehicles, characters, and changes before the upcoming multiplayer release.

In these short blog updates, we will discuss Black Dawn, its characters, and its development process over the last year and a half.

Blog 1: The Backstory

Operation Black Dawn takes place on a small island in the Black Sea. The island has been turn into a fortress belonging to the Brotherhood of Nod, an international terrorist organization.

Satellite images show that the island is heavily defended: automated turrets lie on all shores, and troop patrols roam the island day and night. Although it is unclear if Nod forces have access to sophisticated anti-aircraft batteries, there are large forests stretching across the island which obstruct the view of satellites.

On a recent trip to the Tiber River in Italy, Tiberium research specialist Dr. Ignatio Mobius and his daughter Sydney Mobius were captured by Nod's Black Hand elite team.

The UN's Global Defense Initiative, an international military force committed to world order and peacekeeping, has been authorized to conduct a secret naval operation. GDI intelligence has confirmed that the Black Hand smuggled the scientists and other prisoners of war onto a ship to Albania, where they were then flown via C-130 to this Nod island stronghold. Since Dr. Mobius is GDI's leading scientist in the field of Tiberium, he is a valuable asset and must be safely returned before the contagious spread of Tiberium further harms the world population and environment.

Hence, the objective of "Operation Black Dawn" is to destroy the Nod base and recover the scientists. Two GDI battalions have been dispatched to deploy on the southern and eastern shores of the island. The battalion to the east is to distract Nod forces, while a commando team attacks the southern beachhead, flanks the enemy and infiltrates the Nod base with air and ground support.

The commando team will be led by Nick "Havoc" Parker. Havoc, who grew up in Allentown, Pennsylvania, joined the United States Marine Corps at a young age. He quickly became recognized for his rough and tough attitude and bloated ego, which made him unpopular with his superiors. His service was unconventional but effective, and it made him a public relations nightmare for the Marine Corps.

He was recruited by the GDI because of his proficiency with weapons and impressive war record. He was assigned to GDI's elite Dead 6 commando unit. Eventually, Havoc, due to the drawn-out anti-Nod campaign in northern Egypt, was dismissed from the unit and began operating solo, using his special forces training to fight Nod his own way, although still nominally under GDI control.

In this operation, you play as Havoc, and you'll be fighting alongside two old friends from the Dead 6 and some other familiar faces and voices. We will be covering the other characters gradually in the next ten days!

That's it for now. Be sure to check out THIS THREAD for the next 10 updates. See you all tomorrow!

[Demigan]

I have a question:

Since the single player is going to be 1-2 hours, will you have different difficulty modes? And one problem I have with most single players is that even the highest difficulty doesn't offer a lot of challenge, maybe having a difficulty mode where the amount of enemies is doubled or tripled?

yours sincerely,

Demigan.

[SeL]

Awesome stuff! Cannot wait to play it

[Jam]

I have a question:

Since the single player is going to be 1-2 hours, will you have different difficulty modes? And one problem I have with most single players is that even the highest difficulty doesn't offer a lot of challenge, maybe having a difficulty mode where the amount of enemies is doubled or tripled?

yours sincerely,

Demigan.

There are multiple difficulty modes.

[XD_ERROR_XD]

i also have a question: will the next RenX community Q&A be released before black dawn? :Þ

[woandre]

Maybe make a Black Dawn main topic on the front page already, for the bugs, isseus, glitches, suggestions?, help, etc.

[[NE]Fobby[GEN]]

9 days till Black Dawn!

Blog 2: The Dawn of Black Dawn

When the Unreal Development Kit was released in November 2009, faith in the Renegade X project was renewed. We were at Renegade X version 0.4 at the time for Unreal Tournament 3, and at this point, the mod had been out for two months. The devs and our fanbase had a blast in these two months, but there was always a question of what to do next with the project.

The UDK was released to the delight of Totem Arts, because it was the fulfillment of everyone's dream: a standalone Renegade X. Future versions would no longer depend on just the Unreal Tournament 3 fanbase, but instead, simply any machine that fits our minimum system requirements. This gave us the second chance to do everything we always wanted with the project. With the experience of building the mod from scratch on UT3 and releasing it, we quickly learned what we had done right, what we had done wrong, and how to improve on all of it.

It became clear to us that much needed rebuilding for the UDK version of Renegade X. Most of our code needed to be re-written for various reasons, static meshes and environment pieces were in need, our game's style needed to be revamped, and we needed time to reorganize ourselves. We took our time in figuring out what we wanted to do with Renegade X, and came to the decision to do a short singleplayer campaign as a build-up to the next major multiplayer release. We felt that this was a good move, because it would allow us to create a singular Renegade X experience that did not depend on servers, lag, online exploits and major glitches. It would be our way of introducing Renegade X to the non-C&C and non-UT3 world to build up extra following and hype, while easing our way back into multiplayer. After all, most of Black Dawn's assets will be used for multiplayer, so it has given us the organization and assets necessary to effectively start up properly.

The prototype name of the campaign was "Beach Assault", because that is generally Black Dawn in a nutshell. We wanted to bring in a familiar Normandy-invasion vibe that some movies and games did exceptionally well, and mix it with the classic C&C95 beachhead mission and C&C Renegade together.

So the first things that came to mind were hovercrafts carrying GDI troops and Gunboats armed with cruise missiles on one side, with Nod turrets and bunkers on the other. But we wanted something more than a beach invasion - we wanted to incorporate aspects of the original Renegade singleplayer as well. It was only natural that Operation Black Dawn would be aimed at rescuing GDI scientists, and that a classic commando experience was absolutely necessary.

The following two videos inspired us - the first is the original C&C Renegade trailer, which featured alternative character models. It shows Havoc stylishly infiltrating a Nod base at night, using his covert nightvision, dodging and leaping away from attacks. This type of smooth arcadey infantry gameplay didn't quite make it to C&C Renegade or previous versions of Renegade X, and we wanted to incorporate them into the UDK versions.

This other video is a classic Tiberian Sun cinematic where a Mammoth Mark II rips into a helpless Nod base. The sense of chaos and utter destruction inspired us for a similar part of Black Dawn, which we hope you will experience for yourself soon.

Below is the original rough MS-Paint internal sketch for the Beach Assault singleplayer map. It was a starting point to lay some ideas down.

After many revisions, we came up with a much larger idea that still incorporated all the major inspirations described above. The mission went from being a 25 minute extra to a potentially 2 hour adventure. Black Dawn eventually looked like this:

Now it needed an official name. A few of the names we came up with were "Renegade X: Operation Command & Conquer", "Renegade X: Operation Red Sand", "Renegade X: Covert Operations", "Renegade X: Tiberian Dusk", but then we all kind of agreed with a name that took elements of all of the above - Renegade X: Black Dawn.

And the rest, as they say, is history. Be sure to visit us tomorrow for the next blog update - see ya!

[cirex]

When you gonna publish this all in a book? your a good writer in blogs and vlogs .

[Demigan]

looking GOOD!

And you gave me the sudden hope that there will be a mammoth mark II, although it's going to be a far, far stretch to get that one in .

I was also thinking that you missed an opportunity here, what if you had made the single player based on the renegade-multiplayer experience? So as you travel, you can keep upgrading yourself with money, depending on what you destroy, secrets you found etc. Ofcourse, the actual details would be hard to implement.

I also thought that it would be possible (this is wishful thinking ofcourse) to make a single player that has multiple Tiberium aspects.

Think a co-op mission like black dawn. The AI has a steady spawn rate of various infantry and tanks. They just keep attacking, sometimes an 'event' where a major assault team is assembled and attacks the co-op team.

The co-op team can buy equipment for themselves, but also buy AI units that will form a team, with a max value of whatever credits. These teams can then defend the base and launch strikes vs the enemy base, similar to C&C multiplayer. But with the added component of small divisions and groups instead of two or three people working together.

Yours sincerely,

Demigan.

[TeamWolf]

Really cool updates so far, I love the background work that went into it all. Looking forward to the next!

[helly]

Looking forward to playing it.

[[NE]Fobby[GEN]]

8 days till Black Dawn!

Blog 3: Death from Above

What's a Command & Conquer game without aircraft? That's what we asked ourselves after completing the Unreal Tournament 3 version of Renegade X, which didn't have aircraft yet. We always wanted to do something special with aircraft in the UDK, especially since we have access to a much better physics engine than Westwood originally had, and Black Dawn will be your first peek at aircraft in Renegade X.

To improve the experience in every way possible, all types of aircraft have been modified in some way, and some familiar units have been introduced. I should make clear from now that no aircraft will actually be drivable in Black Dawn, but you will observe many and take down hoards.

The first unit worthy of mention is the A-10 Warthog, a fixed-wing jet armed with a powerful rotary cannon and missiles. We first saw the A-10 in C&C 95, and then in the C&C Renegade singleplayer. You'll witness these babies coming in a few dire moments throughout the campaign, annihilating ground forces with awe. A-10s will poke their head in multiplayer as well as a part of a new airstrike feature, which will specialize in wide-area damage rather than a specific structural target like the current superweapons.

The second is the Transport Helicopter. While it didn't have a weapon in the original C&C Renegade, our team felt that the lack of any means to defend itself made it useless. It was more expensive than an APC, and yet it was easy to spot and fairly easy to shoot down. So we decided to give it a chaingun on each side - this way, passengers inside a Transport are able to shoot at enemies and potentially cause lethal damage to enemy forces.

The third is the Apache. With this unit, we wanted to find the sweet spot between a realistic attack chopper and an arcadey one. We believe we have found it. While it is highly maneuverable, a player still must skillfully pilot an Apache. You'll notice in Black Dawn that they are perhaps best at strafing runs and hit-and-run attacks, rather than just sitting still in the air.

We also didn't want to make it identical to the GDI Orca, so its weapons and abilities have been set up uniquely. Originally, the Apache had short ranged missiles and a long-ranged machine gun with no reload. In Renegade X, the Apache will have a heavier-calibre machine gun with a slightly slower rate of fire and a finite amount of rounds per clip. It will also have access to quick rocket barrage, which can only fire at enemies ahead of the craft. The Orca won't be making its way to Black Dawn, but you will definitely see it in multiplayer, and it will play differently.

That's it for today. See you tomorrow for the next blog update!

[prodotypical]

Damn! Looks so sick. I can't wait!

[EvilRaffi]

The idea of posting 10 blogs until Black Dawn will finally be released is great. Can't wait to play it! Btw, it looks awesome. You have done an awesome job recreating the spirit of C&C Renegade.

[Jello]

This looks epic! I'm really excited about this, more so any of the mainstream games out there.

I wish you'd left in the old HUD though, the new one looks weird.

[[NE]Fobby[GEN]]

7 days till Black Dawn!

Blog 4: The Mobius Family

"Mobius may be crazy, but he holds the key to this Tiberium riddle" - General Sheppard

Ever since the Tiberium meteor crashed into the Tiber River in Italy in Italy in 1995, there had been a scientific fascination with it. After all, Tiberium was composed of several valuable chemical components, including unknown components from deep space.

Tiberium leeches metals and other heavy minerals out of the soil, concentrating them in crystals which can be easily collected by specialized vehicles and processed into easy to use resources. As such, it is an amazing opportunity for any economy. However, it also has a deadly effect on the environment and all carbon-based life, and has led to the extinction of species, the deadly transformation of temperate environments, and millions of human casualties. The spread of Tiberium destroys all that is around it, and if unattended, will eventually cover the entire planet.

Both GDI and Nod collect Tiberium for refinement to attain an economic boost, which can in turn be spent on their militaries. Both factions also do extensive research on the substance. While GDI continues to look for ways to reverse the effects of Tiberium growth and poisoning, Nod experiments with Tiberium mutations on human subjects, looking for ways to spark the next step of human evolution.

Dr. Mobius is fascinated with Tiberium and its mutagenic properties, however, his enthusiasm and almost gleeful fascination turn to horror, as he soon realizes the ramifications of Tiberium's properties. He then dedicates himself to finding a cure for Tiberium-affected humans.

In Operation Black Dawn, Mobius is captured by the Brotherhood of Nod in an effort to revitalize Project ReGenesis. Your mission is to fight hostile forces until Mobius has been located.

Alongside Dr. Mobius is his daughter Sydney, who studied Tiberium alongside the GDI. She contributed to GDI's knowledge of Tiberium-based weapons, and co-designed the Mobius research Powersuit. While she is outwardly critical of Havoc and is often annoyed with him, Sydney has an attraction to Havoc. Ladies, can you blame her?

[nzdriver]

what's the file size of black dawn going to be i have a small datacap and large files cost me

[XD_ERROR_XD]

The newer version of mobius' face looks really strange.But I must tell you Sydney looks looks incredible

[Nielsen]

Dr. Mobius is

[adamXXII]

when this game had to be bundled with the other Westwood RTS games to even sell. And it generated enough of a fan base to be remade completely independent of Westwood. The second I heard about the voting I enlisted everyone of my friends that ever played Renegade to vote, and they're all equally excited. Just one question. Please tell me you guys brought back "boink" headshot?

[XD_ERROR_XD]

Just one question. Please tell me you guys brought back "boink" headshot?

it never disappeared ^^

though it will be in multiplayer only, off course.

[[NE]Fobby[GEN]]

Boink won't be in Black Dawn since you'd probably hear it hundreds of times, but it'll be back for multiplayer.

[adamXXII]

So many questions, and so far you guys have seemed to have the right answer for all of em'. I guess I'll have to wait until the 28th for the rest to be answered. Thanks to the entire development team for reincarnating this lost chapter of CnC

[Jam]

what's the file size of black dawn going to be i have a small datacap and large files cost me

You will have to think around 3 gigabytes filesize.

[[NE]Fobby[GEN]]

6 days till Black Dawn!

Blog 5: Heads Up!

As time draws closer to the "Renegade X: Black Dawn" release, we thought it was time to discuss the new and improved HUD. Renegade X HUDs have gone through many revisions in the past couple years, and we weren't very satisfied with what we ended up using in the UT3 version. You'll see it in the image below:

While it displayed all the information that was necessary, it felt bland and in need of an uplift. It was difficult to read when the screen was bright, and it was too obstructive. The glowing effects gold and red effects were not aesthetically pleasing.

So we decided to design a HUD that was visually appealing, practical, and minimalistic. At first, this is what we came up with:

However, when Epic released scaleform features in the UDK, the team wanted to make good use of it. After about a year of using the unreleased HUD above, it began to look bland, and the scaleform possibilities gave us some new ideas. We created a new HUD: this new HUD was an evolution of the standard UDK HUD while retaining the clean and minimalistic aspect of the display above.

Furthermore, the new HUD also indicates damage, showing you where you were hit. If you are heavily damaged in a short period of time, the edges of a player's screen become gradually more red. You can also see your next and previous weapon silhouettes.

As we've mentioned before, we have added a stress metre to Renegade X, because we have included new sprint and dodge features to the game. Jumps, dodges, and sprints all take energy out of the sprint metre, which is represented by the circle with the stick figure above the player's health.

See you all tomorrow!

[XD_ERROR_XD]

heh... i must tell the new hud indeed looks better... but i really miss the old one...

i so loved it how it scared you were when your health went from full to yellow when you got hit by a ramjet... it made the game more tensive! :Ð

[nzdriver]

Black dawn is 3GB and my plan is $2 per GB that's a total of $6 dollars I'll have to pay to my ISP, a small price to pay

[Havoc89]

Its actually close to 4 gb

[EGDamag3]

I cant wait for this! Bringing back the good ol days with a new leash on things, it is looking amazing, prop's to the team for putting this together! Realllllly looking forward for the multiplayer release!

[SeL]

Awesome updates Cant wait till tomorrow

[cirex]

what's the file size of black dawn going to be i have a small datacap and large files cost me

Does that even exists for home Internet connections? Even my phone has unlimited data usage .

But may I suggest other sollutions that make sure you not need to pay:

-In my country every MAC Donalds has free WIFI internet, probably even in your country, take a laptop and start downloading, or take a smart phone with a 4 GB SD Card to the mac donalds and start downloading.

-How mush do they respect privacy on your school/work? When they do not censure the web on your school/work, download it from there to a USB/Laptop/Phone.

-Use a download manager, find out when the new month starts, so the datacap would be reseted. Than give your download manager the order to download until 50%, this will be arrond 1,5-2GB, than the day the datacap gets reseted, you download the other 50%.

So 3 sollutions, I hope you could use these tips, since I think you already waste enough money on these money milking companies. .....OMG DATACAP, I am so happy I still have an old Internet deal for my phone, because all the new deals from these companies for mobile phones, are all with datacap. But still, datacap for home Internet does not really exists anymore in my country, or at-least you should search for it on page 10 on google....

But a tip for the publisher totem arts, think on uploading a .exe install file/UDK unstall file and a compressed .rar/.zip file. On this way people who dont have the .rar/.zip knowlege, still can install the game with an .exe file. and the others that have to take care of there connection limits, could save a small amount of data. Its the only thing that the totem arts team probably could do from there side to support these victims of overpriced Internet providers.

[nzdriver]

in New Zealand all our internet plans have data caps our government has invested in fiber optics but they won't be ready till 2013. i'll just ask a friend who gets free internet at his work to download black dawn.

[Qbert987]

love the new hud. looks realistic

[TeamWolf]

The new HUD is looking really good, I love how clean it is.

[Demigan]

The new HUD is looking really good, I love how clean it is.

I wouldn't mind a gritty one

[TeamWolf]

I was more talking about how compact yet detailed it is with a very nice clear layout.

[woandre]

love the new hud. looks realistic

Lol, I just have to make this comment:

"Realistic, because we sure have a HUD irl"

[Hugo2607]

I don't know how many people will download Black Dawn, but will you guys be able to handle the traffic?

[[NE]Fobby[GEN]]

5 days till Black Dawn!

Blog 6: Art

Oh man. They're all gonna be like "Ohh, so THAT'S why Black Dawn took so long. It's awesome!!"

After making the top-down concept of how Black Dawn should look and play, it was time to get started on the art. We wanted a nicely populated map with a lot of foliage, trees, and props. We did this so that we could have a lot of content ready to go into multiplayer. From the very beginning it was clear that the project would require help from the entire team. Crysis was definitely an inspiration, because similarly, it had characteristics that Black Dawn would later have, such as the trees, water, foliage, and props. We first created a water material, and then began the terrain itself.

Speedtree was a useful tool to quickly create trees on Black Dawn, but we soon realized that having many speedtrees on the level really beat down the performance. We cut the trees in half, and we were still getting a low framerate. Although speedtrees look great, we decided that we needed to make our own low poly trees, that way we can still have a lot on Black Dawn without causing the framerate to drop fatally.

Once we had enough to show off, we released the very first picture of Black Dawn, along with a riddle for people to guess its name:

Lighting in Black Dawn went through many phases. After getting a full-day system working on our test level, we decided to implement that system into Black Dawn. Unfortunately, it too was a performance hog, so we decided to instead break down Black Dawn into 10 short levels (5-10 minute long each), and keep the lighting dynamic to some extent. As you complete the level, you'll notice that the sun will begin to rise and shine down on the carnage that is taking place.

So naturally we changed lighting around quite a bit. Here are a couple experiments we did.

We had to do a lot of props for Black Dawn, as mentioned earlier. Below are a few examples. Enjoy:

See you all tomorrow!

[Techno]

Amazing Renegade X has been a better experience than 99% of the games that established development companies and have put since the birth of this project.

[jenskai1]

i can't thank you enough mate, this is done extremely proffesional.

[prodotypical]

I'm getting way too excited. *tightens belt*

Everything looks phenomenal. Five days kids!

[Pixie]

Can't wait...five more days!

[Wizard17]

Wow! Cannot wait till the 28th!

[[NE]Fobby[GEN]]

4 days till Black Dawn!

Blog 7: The Dead 6

The Dead 6 was a GDI special forces commando team that operated in the First Tiberian War. All six members of the Dead 6 were, officially "killed in action", in an effort to remain covert in risky situations. The official stories are that one died in a raid on a terrorist bomb-making lab in southern Chile. Another fell during a bloody conflict while gathering intel on rival Nigerian warlords. Another was assassinated by thugs in the Balkans. Another died in Turkey; another in Australia; another in Jordan. The original Dead 6 team consisted of Havoc, Sakura, Gunner, Hotwire, Patch and Deadeye, but two members of the team left - Sakura joined the Brotherhood of Nod because it offered a higher salary, and Havoc left because he preferred to work alone. However, members of the Dead 6 are sometimes reunited in special situations.

In Black Dawn, Havoc, Gunner, and Hotwire will be making a reappearance.

Nigel "Gunner" Grant

Sharp-tongued and tough-minded Nigel Grant was a former Special Boat Service operative for the British. This Afro-English lad's formative years were spent toughing it out on the streets and in the pubs of London's south side. After service as an elite solider in the U.K.'s SBS, Gunner joined up with the GDI and the legendary Dead-6 Commando Detachment as a rocket soldier. At 6'6" and 274 lbs., Gunner doesn't complain about the heavy lifting. In fact, he doesn't complain about anything; the often caustic Brit gets the job done with a steady hand and a cool head and saves the shop talk for the pub.

Shai "Hotwire" Aviv

A tough-as-nails commando and a woman of few words. Prior to joining GDI, Shai Aviv was a member of the Israeli Mossad, where she served with distinction. Rumour had it that Hotwire was killed in Jordan, but her body was never found. When she joined the Dead 6, she took on the roles of tactical engineer, proving to be an invaluable asset on the battlefield, when vehicle repair, structure capturing and demolitions were needed.

See you all tomorrow!

[nzdriver]

in black dawn will Hotwire be able to heal you?

[kenz3001]

im loving all the intel on renegade and black dawn big thumbs up

[159456]

ba da ba ba baa, im lov'in it

[WNxBoMbZu]

Moaarrr!!!

Seriously the first thing I do when I wake up is check this thread to see if Fobby has posted new content

[XD_ERROR_XD]

Moaarrr!!!

Seriously the first thing I do when I wake up is check this thread to see if Fobby has posted new content

damn right you are!