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"OLD SCHOOL" WARNING!

I can't imagine these can be found anywhere else. If you look closely at the video in Privateer II the Darkening you might see the textures below.

Here are a few small textures from one of the rooms on the Reliant.

Just found them on a floppy disk in another old box. I probably did these at home to keep up with deadlines.

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Mike_ 12-8-2001 11-44-40 AM 545x208.jpg


I must be the first to post a toilet cubical wall on your wonderful site :confused:
 
You have a heart of a tiger my friend. I almost could touch one once (a tiger not a lion) at the Central Florida Fair last year but there was a fence between us. You can tell by their body language that they trust your company or at least don't see you as a potential meal :p. Also a Detroit Lions fan so I'm a bit envious of you with your lion gals there. Yes I seriously typed that.

As to the wall comode, hell why didn't we think of it sooner? They could have a cleaning machine that washes it for you at programed times or manually. It would seal water tight of course. If you want a sterile seat anytime... hmm maybe I need to make a patent.
 
Love those textures. Of the games you have been involved with, i remember playing Privateer2, Starlancer, Sam&Max (all of them), Republic Commando and Battlefront. And at least Starlancer on a regular basis.
I love how much consideration "on-board-life" was given in Starlancer. It doesn't really have many cutscenes, but those few seconds of walking around the carrier show a huge amount of detail. Of course your designs couldn't have been built as live sets in the first place, not even with twice the budget of WCIV. Made me realize just how limited live action filming really is, probably one of the reasons it has all but disappeared from video games again.
 
Red Baron said:
Love those textures. Of the games you have been involved with, i remember playing Privateer2, Starlancer, Sam&Max (all of them), Republic Commando and Battlefront. And at least Starlancer on a regular basis.
I love how much consideration "on-board-life" was given in Starlancer. It doesn't really have many cutscenes, but those few seconds of walking around the carrier show a huge amount of detail. Of course your designs couldn't have been built as live sets in the first place, not even with twice the budget of WCIV. Made me realize just how limited live action filming really is, probably one of the reasons it has all but disappeared from video games again.
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Thank you for your comments!

We worked very hard on Privateer back then. Also, the equipment was not as good as today. Using an old ball mouse was painful after hours of use. (Just thinking, I hope it's OK for me to put this stuff on the web?)
 
Hey! The man to talk to is Chris Olivia, he's in charge of the art team. You may know him from the Digital Anvil/Warthog days, but if not I can connect you!
 
I'm a tremendous fan of Privateer 2, and it is a great honor and a privilege to have you here, sir.

The ships of that game are marvelous. Even after all these years, they have a charismatic charm about them. [Starlancer's, too]. I dimly recall reading that they were modeled in clay first; any truth to that?
 
Bob McDob said:
I'm a tremendous fan of Privateer 2, and it is a great honor and a privilege to have you here, sir.

The ships of that game are marvelous. Even after all these years, they have a charismatic charm about them. [Starlancer's, too]. I dimly recall reading that they were modeled in clay first; any truth to that?
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Thank you!

The in-game ships were designed by Nick and Phil long before I arrived. The earliest memory I have is a lot of (higher poly) rendered images on a wall, I don't remember clay models. The ships had to be made over and over again as we realised the limitations of the ram and CPU.

My first job was done well before the game started. I remember four of us in a little room (Cheadle near Manchester) we made the animation that got us the contract from EA. I was working at ICI at the time and worked nights and weekends on the intro animation. I remember leaving my job to work longer hours on the gig.

Later we moved into a small house in the same town and started modelling with passion. This is when a few of us went to see Chris in Austen Texas. Returning we started building ships in EOR a really hard to use software package for making 3D objects.

During this time I was shown how to us 2D programs by Phil and 3D software by Nick, Jon (Rashid) and Paul Steed. It was very hard to get the software and the hardware then, (Windows had just come out). This all happened because Nicks Dad, Eric could get all our gear. I would have done nothing without the help of Eric and Nick.
 
Michael Paul Cottam said:
My search for the old is bringing up all the lost memories of a time gone by.

I found the image below, it's all the old games I worked on.

The Contract, Harry Potter, National Geo and a few others are missing.

Think I made a small dent in the game industry.

View attachment 6146

Anyone played any ?
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I recognise some of those!
I had / played all of the ones off the top row except the dreamcast version of starlancer and the PS game Invasion
SWoN, Gladius, Sam and Max, both Star Wars games (really liked Republic Commando, shame it didn't get any sequels, that left the story hanging).

Never thought I would speaking to the man who worked on them in a forum!!
 
This brings back memories.. So Mike, I visited you guys at Warthog back when you were making Starlancer (you gave me a 3ds max 1.2 manual in the car back to the train station.) So what happened to that giant Heretic model you had hanging in the ceiling?
 
Zohrath said:
This brings back memories.. So Mike, I visited you guys at Warthog back when you were making Starlancer (you gave me a 3ds max 1.2 manual in the car back to the train station.) So what happened to that giant Heretic model you had hanging in the ceiling?
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Hi Zohrath,

I'm not sure what happened to that model, it was great! I think it was Phil's. After moving to the larger Warthog building I left to work in America, so I've never seen it since. We had a big Warthog too.

I've given SO many books and CD 's away to help as many people as possible. I've even given (some "want to be artists") PC's and Mac's. I have also given 19 XBox machines and 5 Play Stations away. Crazy!

Did you learn 3DS MAX? I hope it got you a job!

I've introduced a hundred + artists to game jobs over the years. Now they take my job's ;o).

Hope your working in the industry!

M
 
Oggy said:
I recognise some of those!
I had / played all of the ones off the top row except the dreamcast version of starlancer and the PS game Invasion
SWoN, Gladius, Sam and Max, both Star Wars games (really liked Republic Commando, shame it didn't get any sequels, that left the story hanging).

Never thought I would speaking to the man who worked on them in a forum!!
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Hi Oggy,

Thanks for your post!

It was very sad that Republic Commando was not continued, just before and shortly after a lot of us lost our jobs. I was working on Mercenaries (Playground of Destruction) at the time and had to move to Vancouver to start the game that became Skate.

You will find that most people in the industry are very down to earth. I was amazed when Mr George Lucas first sat next to me at Lucas film, he was so not what I expected. A fantastic man to meet.
 
LeHah said:
Welcome, Mr Cottam! Pleasure to have you here. We always love hearing from the people who helped make our favorite gaming series.
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It's great to be here LeHah!

I've been amazed at the response to my post! It's so wonderful to see that our games are still being played and enjoyed by 1000's. It's given me a new lease of life to make some more!
 
Paul is AMAZING, he's one of my favorite people in the world. He's still so kind to fans after all these years; I can't say enough about him. He provided a LOT of the Privateer 2 content available at WCNews.com and continues to answer questions about how the game works to this day!
 
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