GREGERG

First, a brief history of the Weapons Factory series. There is a wikipedia article that has a lot more detail to it if you are interested.

Once upon a time there was Team Fortress. No, not the mod for Valve’s half-life engine. It was originally a mod for the quake engine! Oh and fun fact: the half-life engines use the quake engines as a base. Life would be so boring without id software!

Anywho.. the Team Fortress guys were hired by valve, but the quake community was itching for more class-based CTF! So Weapons Factory was born. First as a mod for Quake 2, and later the Quake 3 Arena mod (I played countless hours of the latter.) Both mods were wildly popular, with a very active community and a few different competitive ladders/seasons that lasted for several years.

Then Quake 4 gets released… but the game is not nearly as popular as Quake 3. A Weapons Factory mod is started, which is unique, and has some very interesting features. The Assassin class could walk on walls! The Cyborg’s sentry homing rockets would neatly split into 3 rockets and spiral into their target. You could even swim in water! Okay.. that last one is only impressive if you know that Quake 4 did not have water to begin with. Big props to Infernal, the main programmer, for all that awesome work he put into it. It’s really unfortunate that the mod didn’t get out of beta. Lack of 3D artists for the different character models, and a general lack of interest in Quake 4 for many.

But, wait! There’s more! Recently, some of the developers have decided that they don’t want the series to die on such a sad note. A standalone game is coming, and they have invested in an engine license and a 3D modeler who has already cranked out the Marine’s model. Unfortunately they didn’t have a way to animate the models just yet.

Did you know Western Michigan University has a motion capture studio? Well you do now! I am friends with one of the few people who knows how to use it, and has access to it. I also know the Weapons Factory developers via IRC. So I got us all talking, and set a date, got the animation list, and we’re off!