EDIT: I consider myself to be more or less on an indefinite hiatus rather than retired. I might get back into custom content, but don't hold your breath on it.
Hello all,
This is to let you know that I will no longer be making custom content for THUGPro anymore. It was fun while it lasted, but I simply do not find it fun or fulfilling to work on content for the game anymore. Now it just doesn't feel fun. I don't feel any joy or satisfaction when working on a map or playermodel. Just headaches and sore eyes.
I have been working on THUGPro content since early 2017, and at the time, I was so dedicated to wanting to make content that I was willing to learn a program that I never used prior to then. I did not even know what a Blender was until those thug_tools were dropped by the mysterious asdf__, but that did not stop me from wanting to fulfill some silly little dreams from my youth. I mean, skating around collecting S-K-A-T-E letters in Delfino Plaza was what dreams were made of... to me at least. But as time went on, the magic just kinda withered away, and it just isn't fun or cool anymore. Also did not help that I've had projects that remained unfinished even five years later. Progress was just slow, and it was slowly eating me from the inside.
Also didn't help that working on content took a major toll on my mental health, having mental breakdowns because I spent years working on one thing that could have taken a fraction of a fraction of time, among other personal issues i wont mention here. It wasn't like i was busy either. I had college, but i wasn't working or going out with friends. Just staying home mashing away on a port of a level from a shitty BMX game. And sure, it wouldn't get as much recognition as something like Baltimore, but that didn't matter to me. I worked on maps because i enjoyed it... at least i thought i enjoyed it.
I did try taking a break from making content back in 2020, and resumed in 2021. And at the time, it seemed like it was going good, getting back into making content with a fresh mindset and being more "professional" about level making by making sketches and writing down ideas instead of just wingin' it in blender. It worked for the most part, but all the negative shit immediately came back, and it just started eating me from the inside again. I decided to release Mushroom City, a map i have worked on for years. It isnt finished, but i have no interest in finishing it. But at the same time, I dont want to let five years of work go to waste.
What really broke me was how disorganized the documentation for these Blender tools is. It is almost impossible to get any help for some tool functions if you're either not in the THPSX discord server or weren't there when it was first discovered. For example, I tried getting time-of-day functions to work on a map, but for some reason, it just wasnt working. So i tried looking it up online and got zero results. Looked through the THPS tools page on tharchive.net, nothing. Looked in the github repository, nothing. I then decided to download a map that had working TOD stuff, and the readme mentioned a "new time of day system"... What new TOD system? What is this new system that i should apparently be aware of? Also, i dunno about you, but if i gain new knowledge about something that could be useful to others, i would try to let others know about it. Not keep it to myself and vanish from the community without a trace.
I dont know if other communities are like this, because i havent been in said communites, but it seems like a big problem here in the THPS modding community. "oh it's in the discord go look there." i am not gonna go in a server and look through thousands of pages of backlogs to find one little thing. and not everyone is interested in joining discord servers, either. see? this is what i mean by the documentation being garbage. This knowledge is scattered among various discord servers and channels said by people who are gone from the community. at this point, the challenge is less in learning the program itself, and more in trying to find this information. Also, i know i cant say much in how documentation is made since i havent made a blender tool myself, but i dont need to be a coder to tell you that documentation sucks. I don't need to be a five-star chef to tell you that food sucks. I don't need to be a musician to tell you that a song is forgettable. I don't need to be a graphics design major to tell you that your design sucks.
All in all, if someone needs help and all you can say is "go look in the discord", then something isn't right. I don't need to rip out my own scalp just to find something that someone else already figured out many years ago. Modding communities are supposed to be supportive, helpful, and have resources readily available that aren't locked behind a cool-kids membership. I shouldn't have to pester various people who never respond to DMs or friend requests just to know how to do one thing. And I get it, thug2 is a closed-source game. It was bolted down to prevent reverse engineering. It isn't like TF2 or Fallout where tools were provided by the devs themselves. But guess what? Super Smash Bros Brawl is closed-source too, and there are TONS and TONS of resources on how to mod that game. So that's a moot point.
And that's pretty much all I have to say for now. Sorry if I sound mean-spirited or salty, but I really want to let my feelings about this be known. And like I said, I won't have plans on making any more THUGPro content. I feel like focusing on my mental health and well-being is a lot more important than dwelling on tools for a video game from 2004. Hope y'all can understand. If not, that's okay I guess.
-ShOscar
