orbital inc

Thenior · Post by **Thenior** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 1:43 pm

I know the story of Orbital Inc and everything, and I also know that the devs are hanging around here too.

What happened to the orbital-inc website? Their old project Descent IV used the Crystal Space engine, and I work with that engine now. I was thinking that they had converted it to C#? Jorrit, the Crystal Space leader, was rather interested in it, and now Crystal Space is just reaching a normal version (IE 1.0). Please tell the whole sotry if possible...

DCrazy · Post by **DCrazy** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 4:24 pm

The D4 project did not, in fact, use the Crystal Space engine. We were going to use it but then we switched over to the Torque engine, which powered Tribes 2. Then we switched over to the Auran Jet engine. Then Valin Halcyon (President of Orbital) met someone who was developing his own engine and acquired that technology. Then Parallax stonewalled us and Interplay and the project went bust. The entire time I was also writing my own engine called IsoEngine which went absolutely nowhere since I knew nothing about 3D programming. I was in eigth grade.

Orbital later bought nutrinopets.com, a virtual pet game, and the website has been down ever since.

<-- Programmer on the D4 team

edit: And on a personal note, I never found the CS engine all that impressive. Looking at recent screenshots it actually looks like a decent engine but early versions sucked. Then again the Crystal Space project was only like a year old.

Robo · Post by **Robo** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 4:56 pm

Ah yes, the story of 14 or so people with 5 people who actually did anything.

A complete flop, and all of us know why.

<-- Level Designer/Level Design Director/Game Design Director - I was never too sure what my purpose was, I just made levels for sod all..

Thenior · Post by **Thenior** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 5:21 pm

Is there a way to get all the content for the project? Do any of you know Valins email? the Planetdescent one does not work...

DCrazy · Post by **DCrazy** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 5:43 pm

1) No, Garner deleted the FTP last month. There's nothing left.

2) Valin's email is cockwad@f.uckjob.net.

Thenior · Post by **Thenior** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 6:38 pm

You serious? What kinda crazy email is that?

Now really, do you know his email?

DCrazy · Post by **DCrazy** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 6:53 pm

Am I serious about the email address? No, of course not. Am I serious about the resulting opinion you can conclude from it? Damn straight.

I don't have his current email address, nor would I want it. Send an email to whatever address is on nutrinopets and he'll get it.

Unix · Post by **Unix** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 7:39 pm

DCrazy wrote:1) No, Garner deleted the FTP last month. There's nothing left.

2) Valin's email is cockwad@f.uckjob.net.

Good job beating the profanity filter

Top Gun · Post by **Top Gun** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 9:18 pm

I noticed that the site went down recently, so I'm assuming that's it.

Narfig_Agar · Post by **Narfig_Agar** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 10:47 pm

2) Valin's email is

Bwaahaahaa!!

Nice.

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 1:54 am

i shoulda killed the swearfilter contravention but I really don't care about the words. Not like it's gonna cause someone's head to explode and it's not like valin's manner is any big secret.

DCrazy · Post by **DCrazy** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 5:27 am

Alright, I promise not to bypass the filter anymore. But my point still stands.

Skyalmian · Post by **Skyalmian** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 8:14 am

DCrazy wrote:1) No, Garner deleted the FTP last month. There's nothing left.

Bummer. I would've liked to have seen the level "Lusankya", if it had been made/started.

Robo · Post by **Robo** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 12:19 pm

DCrazy wrote:Valin's email is cockwad@f.uckjob.net.

ROFL

Thenior · Post by **Thenior** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 3:09 pm

What happened to Valin? The thing that Ferno was talking about?

Someone out there has to have a backup of the stuff on there computer...

DCrazy · Post by **DCrazy** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 4:26 pm

Valin left the Descent community after D4 fell apart, and quite frankly, nobody misses him. He was an egotistical megalomaniac.

Top Gun · Post by **Top Gun** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 11:06 pm

I would be happy if someone had available a backup of a certain music track that was released by Orbital shortly before the D4 project went under. The name of the track was "One Way Ticket." The only copy I have got corrupted during some file transfer or another. I know it's grasping at straws, but would any ex-Orbital peeps happen to still have it lying around?

As for the D4 project itself, I can't comment on Valin, since I really didn't know him, but from what I experienced on the outside, he seemed nice enough. I do know, however, that I was very devastated upon reading the announcement of the cancellation; I was relatively new to the community, and the thought of that project dying off was pretty disappointing.

bugmenot · Post by **bugmenot** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 11:47 pm

Top Gun wrote:I would be happy if someone had available a backup of a certain music track that was released by Orbital shortly before the D4 project went under. The name of the track was "One Way Ticket." The only copy I have got corrupted during some file transfer or another. I know it's grasping at straws, but would any ex-Orbital peeps happen to still have it lying around?

meh, 'i' do. i'll upload it to my site.

http://home.exetel.com.au/jerodael/grem ... ticket.mp3. up for a week max.

love this bugmenot account, btw... i occasionally read these forums, just have never bothered with my own account.

Skyalmian · Post by **Skyalmian** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 7:24 am

Anyone have a full list of the tracks that were made for "Descent 4"? I know of "Hogbert", "IO", "Lusankya", the Main Menu track, and now "One Way Ticket". Any others?

Thenior · Post by **Thenior** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 10:37 am

If someone was paid to give all the d4 stuff, would they do it?

Trackball · Post by **Trackball** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 7:34 pm

http://home.comcast.net/~d3bubbalou/gxc/default.htm

Excellent Pyro-GX Model.

Be nice if we could recover all the content.

Thenior · Post by **Thenior** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 7:36 pm

woah where do I get hte 3D file for that that is great

Top Gun · Post by **Top Gun** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 7:44 pm

Thank you kindly, anonymous user.

Sky, I don't recognize any of the other ones you posted, other than the ubiquitous Hogbert. However, I did find a Hogbert 2 file on a website run by someone who was involved with the project, although I can't remember who it was. I also have another track released at the same time as One Way Ticket, Jack Knife. Besides that, there's also the Hogbert remix that was posted at PD.

DCrazy · Post by **DCrazy** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 8:20 pm

Eagle did the D4 Pyro-GX, which you can see in the PlanetDescent header.

Personally I think Eagle's model is much closer to the one in the D2 movies than is Bubba's, though Bubba's is very nice in and of itself.

Capm · Post by **Capm** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 10:18 pm

Valin and his project were doomed from the instant they left MSDS. It was his fatal mistake. Valin got a big head and thought he was holding all the cards. And he wonders why he got stonewalled...

BUBBALOU · Post by **BUBBALOU** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 10:44 pm

here we go...... I think the last post indicates where this thread will lead... good time to lock it since this is not a MULTIPLAYER topic anyway NHB mode engaged

Thenior · Post by **Thenior** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 11:54 pm

So nobody saved all that stuff anywehre?

DCrazy · Post by **DCrazy** » Sat Jan 08, 2005 12:34 pm

I doubt it.

Capm, regardless of your disagreements with Valin, the reason he got stonewalled was because Parallax was (and still is) involved in a lawsuit against Interplay, alongside BioWare. They really couldn't care less about Valin or MSDS or whatever, considering they refused to even talk to Interplay.

Top Gun · Post by **Top Gun** » Tue Jan 11, 2005 5:19 pm

Crap; I just realized that my copy of Jack Knife has also been corrupted. (What did I do to these things, anyway?

) Any chance of someone having a copy of this one as well?