So....
Hey again everyone, with me again loosing another job come the 16th Im going to be picking up Limit Release again and pushing it fowards in development, as you can already see I have begun work on new sets to expand the ammount of different shots I can have, and also to show off more familiar enviroments that have more detail in them than the original game.
What I am doing at the moment in terms of creating content from the original game is taking screenshots of areas I find interesting or finding videos of them, and then using that information to create 3d models of things that didnt have any depth to them originally like walls and floors in the original, which were just flat surfaces with 32-64-128-256 texture maps on them and modeling all the details from the textures in 3d, then using that I overlay metal textures and decals and then bake those details onto a low poly model which gives me the outcome, which is a nice model with depth and detail while retaining the original look.
This is important to me when doing stuff from the original game as I want to keep the same look without ruining it, and only enhance the details it had, that retro feel and the look of the textures is imprinted on peoples memorys and I do not want to ruin that by trying to make things look completely different from the source material.
At the moment I am almost finished with the "Ravens Nest" main room with the 'Floating Mines' in, which will be hopefully a unique piece in the animation, I have yet to do scenes from "Capture the space catapult" ,"Stop the gas exposure" and more classical missions, I am trying to get the more interesting levels to use at the moment and I am still trying to think of how to do "Destroy Justice" in 3d, I may just settle for the scene from AC3-SL instead with the orbital cannon, or something from FA with the 'Erinburgh cannons' Im not sure.
In terms of consistancy Im not really going for something thats accurate in terms of time line, I keep thinking of little things I can add but I keep having to stop myself from doing a ton of extra work, concepts get thrown out of the window every day so I guess its the normal dev process for any game, except this is an OVA.
Im hoping when this is all done it will be roughly 2 mins long or a little more depending on how many frames there are in each scene, with me splitting them all up into smaller scenes and then quick cutting between them I hope to achieve alot of good looking well animated smaller scenes that flow from each one into the other, thus making something that looks similar to the AC3 OP with its quick cuts back and forth, or alternatively something made by "Mist Crown".
Either way I have not finished development yet, and even though the deadline is approaching very quickly I hope that once I am back to the old habbit of working all day and all night long that I can get it done quicker than I have been doing for most of this year and have it out of the door by new year.
Like I keep saying this entire project is a learning experiance that I will take onto new projects in the future, its taught me that even though one person can do most of the work for a project if they have enough determination, but its always an up hill struggle depending on the situation, the best way to do a project is to get a team together that can actually meet deadlines and do good work, so that the updates and content can flow on a regular basis.
Anyways, till next update, keep an eye on the gallery!
-Dave
thanks for the update, keep up the hard work... don't over-do-it and stress yourself out! Your work is amazing!