Motorfield City Mod

[T3mas1]

Hello,

I know my mod is not very popular, but at the occasion of releasing a new version of the mod (should be released by the end of this month), propably the last one, I'd like to give a better idea about making such a mod and tell you what was cut, where I sought for inspiration etc.

This could be also a farewell with you guys, since I really don't think I will ever continue modding Mafia 1, but who knows... thus the mod - The Motorfield City Mod: Part II - THE END is CLOSED, it'll be released but just as a freeride map with no traffic, with no pedestrians, no missions, no story, just the map itself, if you have a better idea, let me know.

The Motorfield City Mod

I was working on the mod for 2 years. That's a lot of time! I always worked on it on my own, there was nobody to help, just me. I've learnt a lot and I hadn't modded any game before. I remember that I couldn't even spawn myself into the world I was creating. Till this day I haven't figured out how to transform the mod (game reads it as FreeItaly - that's a freeride mission) into the tutorial mission which would be better. There's nothing wrong about learning to script later after having done the environment.

Before you go on - Explanatory note:

a MISSION - a folder that is located in the game's directory and it contains several files that contain scripts, placements of collisions, placements of models etc.

a mission - a game mission that you play

It's actually the best you can do, as this way you can make several identical MISSIONS with the same environment and after that you can start scripting them as seperated sections of the story line/game, which is better, it's clearer, you don't have many scripts in one MISSION so you don't get lost and you can change the time/weather and lightings.

I wanted to proceed this way, but I always had to change the city a bit, I couldn't help my self so as a result all my missions are within one big MISSION - that means in one MISSION you have a lot of scripts and there are no loading screens.

It took a lot of time to finally make a funcional mission, I'd always had to make several experiments before it was possible to put something together.

One of the hardest parts for me was putting all the missions together and making sure EVERYTHING works as it should. I had to make a lot of notes:

[I ain't no kid, I just can't write properly. :/ ]

http://imgur.com/a/kiRyb

I remember there was a big problem with saving the progress. And when it finnally worked I found out the enemies had become brainless as a result of loading the game after a save. But luckily I found a way out of this non-sense and it works normally now.

I've played the mod about 25 times just to find mistakes.

I hope you've noticed it, the map of Motorfield is actually built on the autodrome in the sixth chapter. Therefore the name of the city is Motorfield, but one day I came up with a different explanation: http://imgur.com/a/Z51Ec
I found the word order weird so I deleted the text from the texture and never came back to it.

comparison:



scripting:

I used BSV6, it worked well, but the problem is sometimes it locked the MISSION so you couldn't add any script anymore, so I needed to use a backup at a certain point it really slowed me down, because I had to start over again and I felt down because of it so it also dissuaded me from continuing my work.

When I was finishing the mod it accured again, but this time it didn't matter so much, because there was no need for any extra scripts, but it's a problem for the future plans/updates, but I think I could deal with anyway.

The funny thing about scripting is that you can call your scripts however you want, so you understand their function but nobody else does. Hard to encrypt I guess.

Cut content:

http://imgur.com/a/84KSI

All autodrome surface was supposed to be used. It was supposed to be one big city but the roads were too curvy and inclined that it looked very weird.

+

There was one extra cinema mission - Out of fuel in the air - it wasn't cut since it's never been made but I have written the script for it


[it goes on on the other page]

I ain't sure if it would work though and it's not done. It was about going with an ambulance car to a place where a plane crashed, you would have to take one survivor to the hostpital within the given time. Also the movie/mission Flood was supposed to look different. So was The village run.

The flood was supposed to take place in the city where the mod is set, but I couldn't find any good spot where you would start jumping over things. The village run was supposed to be with zombies that don't have any weapons just their bloody hands that're ready to kill, but for some reason they never fought, they weren't dangerous without guns.

There was Ralph as an easter egg, he was the first human-being in the world apart from Tommy of course... he said: So this is my kingdom and Tommy replied: It looks so...

Also there wasn't Billy. His roll was played by Pauli. His fate was the same as Billy's.

*SPOILER: The ending was supposed to take place on this railway station



But it turned out to take place in front of the Morello's bar in the end.

Backups:

Nearly 200 backups of the mission folder have been made
+ about 4 times the mod has been backuped to a flash disk with its all textures and models

The city has changed a lot!

You can download one of my backups to see how much has changed.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/phmvmbt24ql61jn/The_Motorfield_City_Mod_ALPHA_VERSION.rar


Music:

1. The ending theme is from a czech television series Četnické humoresky that I was watching while working on the mod. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgjPuI4YFNo

2. The song that plays when you're with Billy in the pub is from The Ikarus Mod (Slovak patch?) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0R3s0Ovmq5c

3. Most songs are from the french movie TAXI 1 (including the menu song)

The translation:

As you know I've made three localizations for my mod - Czech (my native language), English, Russian

Apparently the Russian one didn't work but I am working on it!

Interestingly the Czech dialogue order is unique apart from the other ones. So I had to rescript dialogues because of it while translating the mod into English luckily the Russian version is built on the English translation as it seems, so it wasn't a problem. While testing the translations I came to hear Mafia's characteres speak English and Russian and I had a chance to compare it with the Czech version and I gotta say the Czech one is the best, not saying it just because I am Czech, but the English and Russians translations aren't bad either!

Introduction videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx5BOvSWggo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZhXdj0_f_w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb2EroRwIXk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjSTh02dZQE

In general I enjoyed working on the mod, but there were some tough times as well. It's been a great experience, now I have a better idea about how games are constructed. But I think it is time for me to start enjoing games the old way - by playing them!!!

The Update:

There weren't collisions in the flat around the windows. - fixed

And I also added a sign on the door leading to roofs. - fixed

After sleeping before the final mission you get healed - fixed

Placements of some objects in the village - fixed

A policeman standing in the middle of the road after finishing the sequence in the warehouse - fixed

Changing one charecter model - fixed

Some other things - fixed

The update should be released by the end of this month. By releasing the update I wanna release the mod officially and try to upload it here in the DOWNLOADS.
The only reason why I am not releasing it now is that I have to wait 'till I am sure the Russian translation works. I wanna release it uniformly. But you can play it now already, if you want to:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/a5retjb1rxk1ak8/The_Motorfield_City_Mod_1.1.rar

This way I have pre-release testers , so please if you're playing the new version and you find some bugs or problems, let me know here.

Last edited by T3mas1 on Fri Sep 22, 2017 2:28 pm; edited 1 time in total

[AMadeMan]

This mod looks amazing! Awesome to see Mafia modding still growing strong.

[AsaSK]

Really looking forward to this!
_________________

The official Mafioso Mod thread

[T3mas1]

The mod has been officially uploaded in the download section.

[AMadeMan]

Awesome! Congratz man!

[brokenneedlecaa76]

your mod looks incredible I can't wait to play it. During the time that you built it and all the lessons that you learned did you save the different lessons scripting and such that you could make a tutorial from your experiences. I would love to hear more about the building processes.thanks again for your great modding work; muchly appreciated.I hope to learn from you

[T3mas1]

AMadeMan brokenneedlecaa76: Thank both of you for your praise! Glad you like it, feel free to play it!

brokenneedlecaa76, I am not that skilled. After releasing the mod I wanted to make a tutorial, I had talked about it in some of the older posts. But I was busy because of school and later on I started forgetting some of the more advanced things I'd learnt about scripting, though I am sure I would be able to relearn everything in a few days again. I've seen a lot of Mafia 1 modders and they're much more advanced. I think I would embarras myself if I did a tutorial now. One way or another I am know trying to figure out how to script my lovely Mafia 2

I think the Mafia 2 modding community may be at a breakthrough and I want to be there during that time. The game has great potential and has more modding tools than you would think, so I am gonna lay off Mafia 1 for a while. For the time being I can suggest you one long document about scripting Mafia 1 made by Djbozkosz

http://www.mediafire.com/file/y7kxyum950eujjg/MafiaScriptDataRef_%28Djbozkosz%29_%5BEnglish%5D.pdf_extract.pdf

I had to reupload the file, the official page frow where you could download it has been banned. Though I am not sure it is full. You can search the web for a better version.

I learnt much of the things there. The only things I couldn't find or understand there or I had problems with were saving and acting upon arrival.

[brokenneedlecaa76]

any help i receive is great and appreciated. I learn from the smallest of things.

[weigzy]

Awesome play of the mod man! Thanks for me having fun

[T3mas1]

weigzy: good to know!

At one point during the development of this mod I was making a hole in the ground up the hill in the factory area, where you could find a monster truck, because I wanted to script a simply mission for which a hole was needed, but unfortunately I was unlucky and the folder with my mod became corrupted for some reason. Luckily I had made a lot of copies of the mod so it wasn't the end of the mod, but I lost my progress on the hole and that surely put me off going on with that mission.

Now many months after the release of my mod I decided to remake this mission, the mission will be (maybe) used in the Šafry's pack mod, unless its author refuses to include it.

I just want to show you the cut mission, in case you are interested:
Here's the video, it doesn't have any starting point yet. The objective is to kill the enemy. Police forces that appear after you have killed the enemy may be added.

I stumbled upon a very interesting piece of writing that I wrote two years ago, it was about my mod. I tried to come up with a story for my mod.

This is what it says:

Tommy Angelo hid in a city by the name Motorfield after having betrayed Salieri. He needs to wait in the city untill things calm down. Detectiv Norman is with Tommy because he needs to protect him and keep him under surveillance. It is still possible that Tommy can by murdered or may give up as a result of having been under stress for too long. Detectiv Norman still sees a little Mafioso in Tommy. He doesn't trust him very much. Not to mention that he is risking his life by helping him. The police want to get as much as possible out of the Tommy's case. The police send him to kill Bosses that the police can't reach. They are taking an advantage of Tommy because they know he can't take a step back. Today Tommy is supposed to go to Norman for a new task...