So there's this guy, see? His name is Hamish Sanderson, and he's done a lot of messing with Marathon. And in April of 2000, when bungie.org ran a mapmaking contest called Simplici7y, he decided to enter it. But there was this problem - his map, while very cool to look at, didn't work very well. You could run through other players in places, and shots would stop working after a while... he tabled it. A year later, he dusted it off, got some poor fool to help debug it and playtest it, and dumped out on you, the unsuspecting public. It's pretty amazing for a 7-poly map... would definitely have won an award in the contest, had it not been a year late. Cool scenery, great flow, nice weapons tweaks, and a couple of surprises add up to a pretty fun map. Try it out. (More than 2 or three players and it's just a suicide fest... but what do you want for 7 polys?)
One of the true masters of Marathon Shapes editing releases another unfinished project... this time a radical departure from the typical Marathon TC. (Is there such a thing?) It's based on (and inspired by) the Millstone textures, by Don Carson... the first project, I think, to use these. There are no weapons, no baddies, no puzzles... just some really, really thought-provoking techniques displayed in a beautiful, mostly greyscale setting. Your first runthrough will probably leave you saying "what's the fuss about?" Well, run around a bit more. Did you find the pool table? Did you think about what you saw? Did you find the dining room? Did the chairs make an impression? Did the landscape texture(s) strike you as unique in any way? (If the answer to all of these is "no", well, you're probably not the target audience of this package. [g]) Enjoy... if you're building scenarios (or thinking about it), this could very well give you some spectacular ideas. If you just like cool Marathon tricks, grab this... it's worth your time.
Trojan was one of the most ambitious Marathon 1 projects ever done. (In fact, it was one of the most ambitious Marathon projects, period... of any flavor.) The driving force behind that project, Hamish Sanderson, began, two years ago, to bring Trojan to Marathon Infinity... but many other projects got in the way, and the project was shelved. (There is still development going on in the Trojan universe... just not by HAS.) He decided, finally, to release the work they'd finished, for others to see... there are some amazing tricks in here. With the help of Adrian Bourke, this package sports a nifty installer that'll take your marathon files and turn them into a completely different beast... no muss, no fuss. Check this out...see what multiple TCs can do for your skillset.
If you've built complicated elevators (lifts, to those across the pond from us Americans), you've almost certainly run across a Marathon engine limitation which can make it impossible to use the action key to trigger the elevator control (punching or projectiles are all it recognizes). This happens because the active area for a switch comes at some fixed percentage of the floor-to-ceiling height, which may or may not correspond to where you've got a switch. HAS has released a quick demo map showing a rather elegant way around this problem. (If you don't understand my wording of the problem, download the file. It's pretty small. If you're making maps, it could help you make more elegant ones.)
Two Trojan-related spinoffs... Landscapes 1 and 2. Day and night, in lots of red tones. Rendered beautifully in 256 and Thousands. Send Hamish fan mail if you want him to release more of his odds and ends!
A patch that incorporates the hunters from the original Marathon into the Infinity environment. Replaces the MOAH with a big black hunter who fires nasty firebolts... pretty cool, but the readme gives directions on converting back to something more traditional if this bothers you. Comes with a sounds patch that adds 8-and 16-bit versions of the original Howl (much preferred by many old-timers), and detailed instructions on using the unused sounds slots in the Infinity (or M2) sound file. All of this is ready to add to your own scenario, if you'd like to do so... the necessary physics model is included as a separate file, as well as being merged into the test map. All in all, a pretty cool patch... brings back the old times!
Detailed information on reactivating (or activating, depending on your view) the unused slots available in the M2/Mi Sounds file. This is a great way to add new sounds, without losing what's already there. The doc mentions that you can see the technique being used in "M1->Mi Hunter conversion patch that this doc is bundled with"-while the patch does have these docs bundled, this version is just the docs. If you want the patch, you need to get it from the Alterations section.
One question that has come up more than most is "How do I get the Marathon CLUT in a form I can use it?" Hamish Sanderson has answered that question, with two files: a Photoshop CLUT file (directly importable), and a PICT containing all the colors in a nice grid, that you can eye-dropper anywhere you need in any painting program. There are also some very useful hints on making Marathon artwork in the readme... if you're doing serious work in Anvil, and having troubles making things look right, get this file. 'Nuff said.
Another one from the master. A tutorial/base for building Marathon sprites... includes three poser models, a detailed readme, and sample output picts. If you're thinking about creating new humanlike sprites, this is a wonderful place to start.
This is a patcher for the Trojan Marathon1 Scenario. Use this ONLY if you have the Marathon1 game from the Trilogy Box set.
When people talk of "Total Conversions" of the Marathon universe, Trojan is one of the names that should come up first. Trojan is a complete replacement for the Marathon package-think of it as an action game that happens to use the Marathon engine. The artwork is superb, the new weapons are awesome, the baddies are frightening... and the full package is completed. Twenty-five levels of pulse-pounding excitement... don't pass it up. If you're using the version of M1 that comes on the Trilogy disc, you'll want to grab the Trojan/Trilogy Patch, as well. (It's only 35K.)
Converts your HUD to look like what you might see as a Pfhor soldier. Classily done, as should be expected from HAS... right down to the fonts. Deleted inexplicably from these archives... but back now. (Weird.)
Hamish Sanderson might know more about the down-and-dirty details of color editing for Marathon than anyone outside Bungie. (He has, after all, done 2+ total conversions...) In an effort to find some external value in the enormous amount of work he put into this stuff, he decided to write out some helpful hints for those folks interested in shape editing for Marathon. Beginner or expert, you should read this... you'll almost certainly find something useful here. (Heck, it's only 35K. Download it twice!)
Here it is!! For all of you that has emailed me along with the posts on agm. This has been compiled by Josh, Chris and Hamish Sanderson. This file is put together in open doc format.
I have had this patch for about a month now. It was sent to me and for some reason I never got it up. To the author I apologize. This is probably one of the cleanest jobs I have seen yet. The bobs that usually run around with a magnum, now run around with spnkr's. AND, they are pretty deadly!! It took four restarts on the game so that I could just get a good screen shot. (And it's not really what I wanted) These guys are have one priority and you can probably guess which marine they're gunnin' for. This comes with a great read me, the patch, a test map and a physics model, which makes the bobs go after you.. A great job and a fun patch!!! Be careful with this one!!!!
From the creator of Trojan comes this collection of tips, hints, and step-by-step instructions on how to create new art (sprites, not chapter art) for the Marathon series. Most of the work was done with M1, but the information is perfectly appropriate for use with Anvil. All documents are in Simpletext format, except for the Photoshop color tables and the like... If you're trying to create new monsters or weapons for Marathon, you'll find information of use to you here.