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A New Sunrise

Year: 2008

My first endeavour to do something serious: making a game modification. I was a huge fan of the C&C series, almost obsessed with, actually. I've started converting Generals: Zero Hour into a third and final part of the Tiberium Saga, how Westwood should have done. After CnC3: Kane's Wrath was released, I switched over to it, because the engine was way more advanced there.

Long story short: I couldn't get it to success, even though I've made certain progress by delivering a handful of assets and concepts. The development lasted for some years, and over the time similar awesome projects started to emerge, better organised, with higher pace of production. The necessity of competing with them demotivated me even further.

Eventually I screwed the project up and abandoned it due lack of clear vision, holistic plan of delivery, procrastination and also because I've met a girl ❤️.

I wasn't the only person working on the mod. There was a russian guy under the nickname Dexter, who contributed two models (NOD artillery and Banshee), a cyber-commando concept and a ton of valuable advices. Thanks, mate, wherever you are now! There was another guy, english speaking, who's nickname I sadly don't remember. He made the power plant model, so kudos!

After many years I've realised I missed two key parts to nail the project down:

  • Clear plan of release, to say "this month I must release such and such units, and in the next one - the following units".
  • Reliable and scalable pipeline for asset production: every item was a snowflake and instead of building a library of reusable assets and doing justified kit-bashing, I started modelling and texturing each unit from scratch. Of course, it didn't scale and I soon started to slip.

I should have released something small yet valuable first, maybe just one fully working unit. Then I could have figured the production pipeline out, the best way to scale it, and so on. Ehh..

The modification's account is still up and running on ModDB, but who knows for how long it will stay so, that's why I have assets downloaded and presented below. To my surprise, according to ModDB, in 2025 Kane's Wrath is still very much a thing, and people are still making mods for it, even though Youtube posts don't have lots of views. After all, CnC3 can be considered a retro game, with the majority of its fans growing beards and bellies.

Well, maybe one day I'll make a shorter version of what I intended to achieve and publish it for everyone to see. Who knows.

As for the mod, it's just such a warm shiny relic from the past, a shard of my early adulthood!

Learned this time

Try streamlining processes, isolate similar parts that can be re-used.
Have a delivery plan.

Images

After exporting the models from 3dsmax to Blender today, I've decided to render them with applied bevel, higher resolution and better lighting. I couldn't export textures, even though most of the models were untextured anyway.

# Units

As you can tell from the amount of units created, I gave my preference to GDI over NOD :) I am just used to find their designs more solid, robust, aesthetically beautiful and pleasing the eye.

# Structures

I couldn't do lots of models of facilities. Even the power plant isn't mine, I only came up with the concept of it, but the other contributor had the model created under my supervision.

The volcano defence gun was the only structure that was a working unit in-game, without textures of course.

# Concepts

Some hand drawn concepts I created while listening to lectures in the University :)

# Logos

Just some silly logos I made to use as avatars. Photoshop lvl80.

# Textured in-Max screenshots

Some in-Max screenshots with textures applied. By looking at the textures now, having today's experience with Blender, I can totally say I overdid them. I should have used lesser amount of details, probably strip away some decals such as unit numbers, as no one would be able to tell them even after zooming in on a unit in-game as close as possible. Also, as I've mentioned above, lots of elements such as scratches, panels etc. could have been exported to a shared kit and later re-used on other models.

In 2008 there was no Substance Painter or anything, so a typical process of texturing was rather tedious and as follows:

  1. unwrap the model,
  2. project the UVs to a png file,
  3. import the file to Photoshop and use the png file as a layer,
  4. create a material in 3dsmax, plug the psd file in,
  5. draw the texture in Photoshop, observe real-time changes in 3dsmax.

Cool huh?

# Renders from 2008

Just some renders from 2008, for the sake of nostalgia.