Happy Halloween! Have some treats!

Hi all! Kyle here to wish you all a Happy Halloween if you're into that sort of thing. I hope you're all having tons of fun, lots of candy, and donning amazing costumes!

We have a few things to share (around 80 images in the above slideshow, so better get scrolling!), but first I'd like to give a few paragraphs on the Alpha and then touch on Project 401, before getting into some updates from around our team...

More on the THG Alpha

What IS the Titanic: Honor and Glory Alpha?

• The THG Alpha is the earliest stage of turning the post-New-Direction models and material we've been making into a playable experience. The Alpha contains the latest work in the form of both finished and work-in-progress assets.

• The Alpha will allow players to explore our work as it's made. Instead of waiting potentially much longer for a more finished product, you'll be able to fire up the Alpha and see our work as it progresses. Not just in screenshots on Patreon or videos on YouTube, but by seeing these things for yourself.

• It also serves as a love letter of sorts to Harland and Wolff and the workers who built these ships. We've spent so long trying to piece together this ship from historical records, it's only fitting that we explore the real ship's construction and tell (and show) that story to you all in a way that hasn't really been done before all that much.

• The Alpha will be free for probably quite some time, and everyone will be able to play it as such, though Patrons will get early access to updates as they come.

Why now?

• You may recall previous statements about the need to wait for a more polished product, however small in scope, before releasing the THG Alpha. The problem was that, due to the way the ship's being recreated, it's not totally practical to wait for that time. It's not fair to anybody to wait until we can say "here's half the ship, everything is 100% finished, named, and optimized," nor is it fair to only release a piece of finished steel in an optimized void. Neither is particularly attractive after the time this has taken.

• With that in mind, we decided there's no time like the present. The ship is under construction, and no construction site is going to be clean and orderly all the time, so let's just embrace that fact! More to the point, let's let all of you enjoy the process for yourselves!

Who's making the Alpha?

• While practically the entire team is working in some way on THG and the Alpha, from research to modeling, the core Alpha development is being led by myself (Kyle) for the most part, for now.

• We have an increasing number of modelers working on assets for THG's ship, many of which will see their way into this Alpha early on. We also have a couple of people making stuff for the Alpha specifically, namely things needed to flesh out the shipyard aspect. We'll get to that in this post!

• On the programming side, we have our programmer Tyler working on the UI/UX aspect of the Alpha, and eventually Derek will join in on a few things, though we've decided it's best if he focuses mostly on Project 401 with his limited time.

What can we expect from the Alpha creatively and technically?

• On the creative side, there won't be anything too crazy. It will primarily be a walking simulator, a way to explore our assets as they're being made and finished, in the context of a shipyard. There will be a handful of building interiors serving various purposes, both for displaying our assets and also telling the story of how the ship was built. There will be some NPCs, but don't expect anything advanced. Basic weather and time controls will allow the player to set the mood, and we've even had our composer, Anthony, create a few pieces of music for the Alpha. There are a few other things we're experimenting with, but we don't want to get into any of that for now.

• On the technical side, it will definitely not be the most optimized thing. I know, big shock. But given the WIP-y nature of things, that's just how it has to be. This also allows for stuff to be updated at a quicker pace as it's being made, and allow for more people to work on the project if needed. Some stuff will go in right away as finished, optimized assets, while other stuff will be replaced over time with newer or finished assets. Though it's worth noting that considerably more effort is going into making sure any messiness is limited. For example, there will be no meshes with names like "pasted_pasted_polysurface1765" and unfinished stuff will be partitioned from finished stuff within the project. We want to avoid a full-on repeat of the mess of Megademo/401 as much as possible, while still allowing for imperfection.

• The Alpha will also serve as a test bed, allowing us to try out things that we might not be able to do in a more finalized product, or things that would otherwise need to wait a long time. For example, that WIP-y and experimental nature of the Alpha is why you'll be able to see NPCs now, instead of years down the road! They'll probably be a little janky, but that's okay.

All that being said, I'd also like to address Project 401...

What's up with Project 401?

Project 401 development is still ongoing! However, it's going slowly. While there are some THG assets being made that will also be used in Project 401, the biggest hurdle has been optimizing this beast.

Project 401 stems from Demo 401, Demo 401 stemmed from Megademo, and Megademo was an amalgamation of smaller demos and "temped" spaces brought in from 2014 to 2019, with more spaces added during the Demo 401 era from 2021 to 2023. Almost all of this stuff was imported in very messy ways and with no naming conventions, along with a host of other issues. It's been a nightmare for Derek to work with, and he's someone who prefers order and cleanliness in his projects.

So, Derek's been going out of his way to clean up the mess the Project 401 inherited from those earlier efforts. There was some cleanup in the making of Demo 401, but those efforts went into overdrive for Project 401. Assets following naming conventions, meshes recombined in ways that make more sense, better lightmaps, redoing of UVs that allow for a smaller number of more optimized materials, and much more. The end result will be a far cleaner project, a more polished product, and an experience that runs much better for more people.

But that takes time, and Derek, as one of the only people able to do this work, has very limited time these days. That may change as we go, including finding more people to help in those efforts, but it's slower going for now. But it IS progressing!

Derek's efforts lately have been focused on getting exterior spaces polished and wrapped up, as well as some other areas. He's also been testing out night lighting scenarios, shown above in the Grand Staircase and on-deck!

Once we have more substantial news on Project 401, we'll share it. But for now, most of the work is background stuff to make the project easier to work with, cleaner, and more optimized.

Finally, let's get into the treats...

Alpha updates!

On my end, I've been polishing up some of the shipyard assets. In this case, refining the exteriors - and in some cases interiors - of the buildings we'll be using for displaying our assets and telling the story of Titanic's construction. One of those buildings is the yard's General Store.

The General Store was a facility used by workers to gather various resources needed in the course of building the ship. The upper level was used especially by cabinetry and joinery workers to build furnishings for the ship, both as storage and to get the parts and fittings needed for their work.

The lower level of the Store was a massive storage space for the endless supply of rivets needed to hold the ships together, which I suppose is ironic for us considering we have not yet added rivets to our virtual ship.

The next steps will see the Cabinet Shop getting some upgrades, and then we'll be moving on to some other important steps.

Offices!

No shipyard would be complete without its offices, and we certainly will have a couple of those within the confines of the main office building of Harland and Wolff!

Our master modeler Gio whipped up (at shocking speed) Lord Pirrie's office, a gorgeous space once used as the main meeting and work space by William Pirrie, Chairman of Harland and Wolff. As if that weren't enough, he also created a theoretical version of Thomas Andrews' office...

Gio also made pretty much all the furniture we'll need for the offices, and our modeler Donald has been cleaning them up. For example, this light fixture used throughout these areas:

Another shipyard space we haven't really shown much yet, but which will serve as a central repository for information on how we're recreating the ship, is the "Presentation Room" or "Consultation Room" depending on who you ask. It was famously photography by Robert Welch, and it will be one of the centerpieces of the THG Alpha:

People, People, People!

Our NPC person, Pavel, has been hard at work churning out for people for us! A while back, Pavel created some shipyard workers for us! The yard had some 15,000 men working on their ships, with several thousand working on Titanic alone, so we absolutely needed these guys for the Alpha!

More recently, Pavel has made stokers! You probably won't see them much in the Alpha shipyard, barring one possible feature that might or might not make it into the early Alpha...

Among the things our programmer Tyler has been working on for the Alpha is this, a "character creator" of sorts! It would allow you to choose a class of character and even modify some aspects of the character like clothing or color. HOWEVER, it must be noted that this is NOT a final feature, and may not make it into the first release. Consider it our one indulgence in showing possible features that aren't confirmed. But as I said, the Alpha could allow for this kind of experimentation.

Heavy Lifting!

No shipyard would be complete without some of its machinery. With that in mind, one of our modelers who often works on non-THG stuff, Dennis, has been creating a couple of prominent and widely-used pieces of equipment in the yard. One of those is a huge steam crane that puttered around the yard on rails, hauling giant pieces of steel around the plate racks.

The other piece of machinery is a contraption used for punching rivet holes in the shell plating, a bunch of which were installed in the various sheds in the yard, including ones you'll be able to access.

But alright, I get it! There's a lot of talk about the shipyard here, but what about the actual ship?! Let's take a look...

Lifeboats, telegraphs, and more!

One of our very talented modelers, Sehba, has been working for some time on one of the ship's lifeboats! It turns out there was much more to these guys than you'd think. A whole host of fittings and features ranging from provisions storage to the mechanisms for releasing the boats from the falls.

Of course, the colors are not final - these are just material tests! But once this boat is complete, Sehba will do the others. Like with many of the other things shown here, there will be more images in the slideshow at the top of this post, so go check those out! For now, let's move on...

Our modeler Jordan has been hard at work creating Titanic's telegraphs! Like everything else, these are far more detailed than the usual fare, and we've been going all out to try and get them as right as possible. See more images in the slideshow!

Modeler Matteo created an extremely detailed model of Titanic's deck benches based on a ton of references including 3D scans, and the result is stunning! We can't wait to one day see these guys sitting on the deck of the ship, but maybe they'll be in Project 401, or you'll be able to see them in a shop in the shipyard in the meantime!

Matteo is also working on some other fittings, some of which you've seen in previous updates. The latest are these brackets for the handrails see in the 2nd Class Staircases!

One team member who's been with us for a while now, Steven, has recently started making some assets for us! These include a few interior joinery elements for the 2nd Class Staircases, as well as exterior fittings like life rings, and other items.

Finally, one of our newest modelers, Vicente, has been off to a strong start with a bunch of new assets, a few you've already seen in a previous post. For example, he's gone and made a whole set of standard drawers used throughout many cabins:

Vicente has also started making (and re-making/upgrading) some other standard furnishings common to many cabins, like the pullman bunks:

But that's enough of that for now! There are a few other things to show, so let's get to those!

Planning Ahead!

Our crack researcher Freddy has been pushing ahead on his project to create his own full model of Titanic! This model is not going to be nearly as detailed as the THG model, but is - at least for now - primarily an exploration of the structure and layout of the ship. As such, he's been acting as a sort of scout, looking into various aspects of the ship's structure and plotting that information in 3D.

The end result of Freddy's work will make it far easier to create the detailed THG structural model, leaving fewer mysteries to figure out when it comes to how the iron plans should be interpreted for where some piece of steel goes or how a bulkhead is constructed.

Speaking of plans...

More plans!

One of the newest additions to our team is Diana (no relation to the artifact and pronounced differently), an architect who decided to try her hand at something slightly different.

The original plans can often be difficult to read and are usually quite warped. As such, we needed versions of these plans that don't have those problems. At the same time, since we're making the steel structure of Titanic to the level shown on these plans, it makes sense to be able to show that information ourselves. So we're making our own versions!

We're hoping to have a few fun uses for these plans, but we'll leave that for later! For now, we'll move on to the last thing on the list for tonight...

Jack's Adventures!

There actually isn't too much from Jack at the moment, as he's been working on things we cannot get into here or yet. But rest assured he never stops in his efforts bring the stories of these ships to life with amazing visuals!

One of Jack's most recent videos was a new launch animation for Olympic! You can find more images on the THG Facebook page, and the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ8taWySOxs

Jack has also been experimenting with creating 360 views, which could be of use in the Titanic Atlas project we've talked about previously, or as a way to explore Titanic without needing a NASA supercomputer. While it's not something we're seriously looking to do yet, here's a test example using Scotland Road:

Just one more thing...

Our aforementioned master modeler, Gio Castro, recently started a new Instagram page to show off his work! While he works with THG and creates models for us, he also does his own things, including models and renderings of the other Olympic Class Liners (to say nothing of the awesome stuff he creates and paints - yes, paints - in real life). So go check out his page for more cool stuff: https://www.instagram.com/olympic_class_interiors_by_gio/

Conclusion...

And with that, we're done with the Halloween update! And, given the time, almost done with Halloween itself.

This year was kind of slow for us towards the beginning, barring the wonderful meet-up and live event we had on the Queen Mary in April! We still need to do a post looking back on that. But since then, we've added more people to our team, and work has been picking up! And since then, we've been working on the THG Alpha, and we're VERY excited to finally have all of you running around in our little virtual shipyard!

Thanks again for all your support, we hope you're all doing well in these trying times, and we'll see you in the next update!