Well, a day after the loss of our vehicle creator and the "restructuring" of Project Torlan, I have some very good news to bring to you.

I've recently gotten in touch with "Schwinnz" from the Gearbox forums. Apprently, he has assembled a team of modders for the aim of completely porting HaloPC over to Unreal Tournament 2004. They haven't done much yet in light of the question of legality (which has surfaced around Torlan recently, as well), and Schwinnz just sent an email to Bungie basically asking them if it was fine or not to do such a port. Well, in light of the fact that Schwinnz's team and Project Torlan have very similar goals, I emailed him today suggesting that our two groups merge into one, unified Halo conversion project. To my great delight, he is very excited about the idea and has agreed to join up with us.

Why is this good? Schwinnz's group is composed of 10 members, all of which are crack modders, and (most importantly) good UV mappers. Finally, the element we have been missing for so long has now been found. I absolutely cannot wait to get started working with Schwinnz and his guys. Xabora has also informed me that if Bungie replies positively about the whole HaloPC porting idea, he is willing rejoin the project. Add to this the fact that "Exodus" has expressed an interest in eventually beta testing and consulting for the Project, and the list of potential new members is getting very long.

This is a great day for Project Torlan.

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First, let me start out with some bad news. As you might have seen from the comments on the previous news post, our newest member, Scully, has left the project. That leaves us short our vehicle creator and--since Xabora left--short one of our mappers as well.

But instead of crippling the project, this turn of events has given me cause to re-evaluate our goals. I see now that the vehicle stint was a sidetrack. Torlan's first and foremost aim is to convert maps, and that's just what we should be doing in what are still the early stages of this project. So, I've spoken with TheNut (AFDrew), and he has agreed to learn UV mapping (a skill we have been lacking) in order to begin the process of converting a new round of Halo maps to UT2004.

I want to thank Brandon and others for their support of Project Torlan so far, and the support of our visitors is needed now more than ever as we move through this rough period. Please, even if you only visit the site occasionally, drop us a comment. Let us know what you think of the Project, and what you'd like to see. Every word of encouragement goes a long way to keeping this project alive.

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Thanks to our newest member, Kristina, Project Torlan has succesfully converted the Ghost to UT2004. The textures and sounds are perfect, and it even includes a temporary cloaking trick. See the screenshots below, and head on over to the downloads section to pick it up right now.

Ghost 01
Ghost 02
Ghost 03

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Indeed, this one comes from the newest member of Project Torlan, Xabora. Thanks to Brandon for getting him in touch with me. This guy successfully converted Blood Gulch into a VCTF UT2004 map, albeit using a different method from the one we had been trying. But don't go scrambling to the Downloads section just yet. This is an early version and far from the final release.

As you can see from the screenshots below, texture quality is an issue, and the map is missing a lot of things. But this is the farthest we've come so far and it's a great indication of where we're going. Torlan is alive as ever, and we are on the road again.

Blood Gulch 1

Blood Gulch 2

Blood Gulch 3

BG in UnrealED

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At this stage in the project, we're really being held back by our lack of people. So I'd like to make a call out there to anyone who visits this site. If you have UnrealED, Maya, or 3dsMax experience, PLEASE contact me (preferably by replying in comment to this news post). We could really use innovators who believe in the project and want to see this content come to life.

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Sorry folks, I haven't been as involved with the project recently as I would like to be. It's been very busy around my place. Now that the HEK is out, we have so much to learn and re-learn that it could set the project back a little while. I'll keep you updated.

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