Abyss: Hi there Avis, and thank you for taking the time out at this time of year for a chat.
Avis: No problem.
Abyss: Did you have a good Christmas? Did you get up to much?
Avis: Christmas for the Avis household is a ‘don’t worry all the freaks in red costumes go away soon’ type of thing.
Abyss: Any interesting New Year Resolutions (I'm giving up smoking again - with years of practice I might just crack it this year)?
Avis: lol, yeah I might join you on that one, can’t say I’ve thought about it, but if it helps pad out this interview, then aspire to bring about world peace and save more kittens than I did last year.
Abyss: How old are you anyway, and where are you from?
Avis: 31 as of a few weeks ago, I’m from Sunderland in the North East of England.
Abyss: OK, let's get The Empire thing out of the way - like myself you're obviously a huge Star Wars fan. Can you tell us some more about this?
Avis: Well, The Empire thing wasn’t spawned from star wars (for me anyway) it was my way of playing X-Tension i.e. with an Iron hand. But it goes without saying I am also a fan of the Star Wars movies (all of them including the ones that people who can’t accept they were always meant for kids don’t like) goes against majority opinion but,, we are talking The Empire here not The Democracy after all.
Abyss: Everyone knows that I am the true Emperor anyway but just don't need to broadcast it. What other films / TV series do you enjoy in a similar genre?
Avis: I’m a huge fan of Anime (Japanese Animation), a few being Cowboy Beebop (a MUST see), Macross / Robotech, Bubblegum Crisis, Escaflowne and far too many more to mention. None anime, If it has space ships with lasers or giant robots I’ve either seen it or am waiting to see it, no matter how dire it is
New Battlestar Galactica I am liking more and more,, Baltar (sp?) would be automatically accepted into The EmpireBtw- everyone knows you’ll develop breathing problems and start noticing a rash of purple sparkleys round your jacksy if you attempt to claim the title of Emperor again..
Abyss: Riiight... Let's get some of the standard questions out of the way first. Favourite junk food whilst working?
Avis: I was expecting where is the exposed exhaust shaft leading to the core reactor,, but junk food it is, Bar of chocolate, the question may as well have been what do I eat, then I could have answered junk food, and if you asked what do you like to eat I could give you the same answer I give the wife ‘I duno’ or ‘anything’
Abyss: Have you ever seen a rash like this before?......strange. Sorry - Luke or Han?
Avis: Both morons, Luke was a wet nose jedi wanabe, and Han was an idiot who didn’t know when to cut and run. Not to mention both these thugs couldn’t recognise The Empire was the galaxies last best hope for peace, or was that Babylon 5, whichever they were Vandals and Terrorists.
Abyss: Snow or sun?
Avis: Sun, Fish don’t feed much when there is snow about and Avis doesn’t venture out either.
Abyss: Intel or AMD?
Avis: Intel, recent convert. I like the fact you have to work real hard to break an Intel Chip fitting a CPU cooler.
Abyss: Nvidia or ATI?
Avis: Ati. I personally prefer the way Ati cards render games, a personal thing I don’t feel any loyalty either way just happens to be what I like right now.
Abyss: On this note, you have just upgraded your PC to help with some of the work you are doing on The Return. What are the details, and why did you pick what you did?
Avis: Intel P4 3Ghz Prescott (should have went dual Xeon,, but..) 2Gig DDR. Rendering is humongously system intensive, no game or other application I can think of hammers a computer as hard as 3D rendering, my old system was getting old and rendering to the very high standard egosoft expect wasn’t within my old systems capabilities, so I took the plunge,
Ironically I haven’t had a chance to play anything on my new rig (except a test run of X2 which was most satisfactory. Rest of system isn’t important for rendering.
Abyss: Not too shabby then. You've been around the X community for pretty much as long as anyone. How did you come across it? Where did you first find out about the X series of games?
Avis: I used to be a regular on another space games forum (Particle Systems), and while moaning (yes I’ve always done that
) that this game wasn’t ‘Elite’ enough I was pointed at Egosoft a couple of weeks later PCZone had a rolling demo on it’s cover and that was that, I felt an overwhelming NEEED to have this game.
Abyss: Now, the community will have seen many of your videos you have made in the past. What inspired you to make them - just the X games?
Avis: As mentioned I am a big fan of the I-War series of games by Particle Systems, who lets face it made the dady of all cut scenes for their games simply breath taking, those cut scenes combined with my love of X and its quirky alien races is all the inspiration I needed.
There have always been a number of good writers on the forums, I’m not one of them
I have a good fiction writer trapped within me that just can’t articulate words and constructs of the English language, I do however have a flare for art (I like to think) which allows me to tell stories my own way. In a way each video inspires me to make another as by the time I’m half way through a given video I have learnt so much new cool stuff that the 1st half seems crude so I put off the cool stuff until the next video. So I’m caught in a vicious cycle of making videos Abyss: And you're bringing this talent to The Return. Can you tell us something about this?
Avis: I’m working on plot / story cut scenes, (not on my own I must point out there are other very hard working and far more talented people doing this also).
Abyss: You're in the UK, Egosoft are in Germany. How do you get instructions on what to do - do you get a storyboard or something and work off that?
Avis: I usually receive a Word Document or two (loose script highlighting core criteria for scene) and a pack of models, I am also generally given a huge amount of artistic licence, so long as I meet all the core criteria for the scene everything is cool.
Abyss: In an earlier interview with Bernd, I asked him what he would like to improve for the future. He was clear that the cut movie scenes were not as strong as the rest of the game. Do you agree, and how much of an improvement will your work deliver for The Return?
Avis: Totally agree, they weren’t as bad as some folks made them out to be but I will concede with Bernd that they were not the games best points, I’d like to think my work will help put right that weak point of the X series. The main failing of the in game cut scenes imho was that for the scenes to look good they had to be high polygon count but to do that meant they hit system resources very badly, by pre-rendering they should run equally well on any system.
Abyss: Without giving anything away, I'm sure you've got a screenshot or two from what you’re working on. Let\'s have a peak at what we can expect.
Avis: (shuffles off to make sure Bernd isn’t going to heat ray me for revealing these single frame renders - nope - good) Look at the links then!
[ external image ] [ external image ] [ external image ]
Abyss: Woah! I'm liking what I see there, and having seen more than a clip, I don't think anyone will doubt the huge leap forward. Whilst I enjoyed your previous videos, there was always of course a quality issue with bringing them down to a respectable size for people to download them. Do you face similar restrictions for the movies in The Return, i.e. limited to a certain file size or can you just 'fill your boots'?
Avis: I’ve been asked to render the video at over DVD quality resolutions what is used in the final product I’m not sure, my working frame size is currently (910 x 512, my other videos are only 640 x 360) compression isn’t my problem
egosoft have publishers for that kind of thing. The only limitation is I have to somehow get these video clips to egosoft, but aside from that its quality 1st and compression and compromise laterAbyss: So just how much better than your own videos will the quality be?
Avis: Can’t even compare my own previous videos, they were bad cartoons compared to the standard of work egosoft expect. When I make a video myself If I don’t like how a scene looks I may re-render it but most likely it stays, with this work, it gets re-rendered until it looks as good as I can make it, not what renders quickest or what will make do.
I can’t even compare this work to still renders I’ve done in the past because I feel I’m surpassing all previous benchmarks and standards I’ve set myself.
Abyss: Obviously, the movies are still works in progress. How long does it take you to a) design and finish a typical 30 second scene, and b) how long does your PC then sit there heating the whole house whilst it actually renders the scene up?
Avis: Not an easy question to answer, every scene is different to the previous, the last scene was very heavy on additional modelling and enhancing existing models so took a lot longer than expected (weeks), but the current scene requires very little additional modelling so will no doubt take a fraction of the time to complete, raw render times, on a good run I can achieve 5 seconds of footage every 1 hour rendering, but usually more towards 2 second per hour of rendering.
Abyss: Can you do anything else on your PC whilst it is rendering during that time, or is it a 'click and leave for a day' task?
Avis: Click the Render button and leave the PC to get on with it and of course supplement your central heating system, these times I fall back to my trusty Xbox
Abyss: What software are you using to work on the scenes?
Avis: 3D Studio Max.
Abyss: Hmm - this just seems to get better and better. Outside of the work you're doing for Egosoft, what is your main job?
Avis: Self Employed, jack of all trades (Computer related)
Abyss: And any hobbies or interests outside of the world of gaming (besides crushing minor rebellions)?
Avis: Freshwater Angling, particularly Fly fishing but not exclusively and fly tying (making the delicate little insect looking hooks out of feather and bits of whatever) another good pastime while waiting for a render to finish.
Abyss: One point the community has wanted to see is how some of the developers like yourself play X². I myself prefer trading and mining, and taking the missions on offer. How do you play the game?
Avis: Heavy duty trader even forgoing factories in favour of roaming the galaxy in a TL buying and selling everything remotely worth buying, with intermittent bursts of Galactic conquest,, usually brought about by a consistent lack of good trade runs
Abyss: Do you restart often, or just keep the same game going (or just 2 or 3)?
Avis: Same game for long time, but I haven’t played X2 nearly as much as X-T which I had started over 3 times in.
Abyss: So what is going on in your current game?
Avis: If I had my save game anymore (HDD crash a little while ago) I haven’t played since, so don’t have anything happening in my game
Abyss: Sorry to hear that. What other games do you play, both in the genre and outside?
Avis: Anything and everything, except them silly pop idol and dance games. Top of my head.. Ninja Gaiden (xbox), Rome Total War (PC), IL2 Forgotten Battles (PC) and Project Gotham Racing (X-Box).
Abyss: What are your hopes for The Return, and future X games. Are you a big fan of a future Online Universe?
Avis: There are so many things Id like to see in future X games, bigger sectors, more flight physics (for fancy dog fighting techniques) I really could go on all day what I would personally love to see in future titles, but as a way of change I wont. Online Universe I will wait and see, The idea terrifies me to be honest, I have resisted every MMORPG to date, and I’m proud of this fact, and X OU is the only potential game to threaten my hard line stance.
Abyss: There has been some speculation on X² being ported over to a console version. Whilst there is nothing confirmed, this has caused considerable debate. Do you own any consoles, and what are your thoughts on this?
Avis: Cool, I’ve always defended consoles on the forums, less well informed
people would say console games are nothing but brainless button mashing events, that may have been true 5+ years ago much has changed these days, I know plenty of potential X players who own PS2 and Xbox’s.I think it’s a great idea, not in place of PC version but as well as,, no one looses.
Abyss: Great stuff. I personally think it is a pretty good idea to, and don't have any worries about 'dumbing down' - I don't think the Egosoft crew can do this!
Is there anything you wanted to answer, but I didn't ask the question?
Avis: Yes,
Abyss - Do you think you may have used too many smilies in this interview? thus tripping the forum software into blocking this post and me having to abuse my moderator status by either hacking them out of the interview or by getting special allowance from BurnIt! for extra smilies ?
Abyss: And your answer would have been?
Avis: Not at all
Abyss: Avis, thank you very much for taking the time to chat, and by the way, the original draft of this interview had to have 28 smilies removed! Happy New Year to you, and to all the community.
Avis: Same to you and everyone else.
, I am but the sum of my experiences… and today I am more than I was yesterday. 
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