An Unreal update news - Mist of Stagnation

As you probably guessed, we made the big move! Well 2 big moves really, 1 from Mod to a full fledged Indie, and thanks to INtense! for some help in moving our profile (and watcher!) over, we are here to stay. The second HUGE move was from the Source Engine to the UDK (Unreal Development Kit). This was a rather large decision made by the team, but ultimately the right one.

Moving over to the UDK will allow anyone and everyone to play the game, as it will be a standalone. Another huge reason for the move is the abundance of documentation on the unreal engine, and the next-gen features that it offers. As of now we are using the March 11' build of the UDK which does mean we will be using DX11, and all the features it has to offer, but will still have scaling available to those who are not running DX11 graphics cards.

Now for the fun stuff:

As per tradition, have a listen to the newest track from Secretcaptivation while looking over the rest of our media release:

With the help of DestroOmega, we have gotten the back storyline and faction stories nailed down with something that is fitting to the environment we are creating.

The 1^st faction is the Iron Masons

The Iron Masons, one of the oldest of the surviving factions, is also one of the strongest. This stems from their militaristic nature, and heavy industrial background. They believe that the way to bring humanity back from the brink of extinction is by returning the world to what it once was. They are willing to stop at nothing to achieve their goals, and have the manpower and technologies to do it.Originating from a closed society known as the Freemasons, the Iron Masons have very clear cut ideals about leadership and patriotism. Traitors are very rare, and if it occurs, the perpetrators are punished to a degree that would give most nightmares.

And then there is the Northland Pirates

A relatively recent addition to the power on earth, the Northern Pirates are a group of scavengers and survivalists, looking to make their way in the wastelands of earth. Lacking advanced technologies, they make up for it with ingenuity and knowledge of their surroundings. Living in harmony with their environment has taken its toll on their social structure. As a collective whole they act more like a pack of wolves then human beings. Prone to internal conflict, they are feared on the front lines of battle.

Art:
We have a lot of new art to show off this month, some of which has already been created, and some are keeping our modelers cranking away.

Environmental Art:

Concepts by CheeseMcBoots

Concepts by Spiffy - Blackburn-art.blogspot.com

Character concepts for the Northland Pirates:

Concepts by Cormac ‘Mac' Langan - www.ifchucknorriscoulddraw.blogspot.com

Equipment concept art:

Be sure to give us your feed back and let us know which ones you want to see in game!

Concepts by Cormac ‘Mac' Langan - www.ifchucknorriscoulddraw.blogspot.com

Models:
We have been real busy with some of these modes, keeping up with a high level of detail is no easy tasks, but the guys on our team are determined to amazing me.

Livewire has moved from mapper to modeler with our shift to UDK, and he is here to impress. He has taken it upon himself to remake our weapon models to a higher level of detail.

He has also been working on various map models and modular designs for us to use in game. These can be viewed in our media gallery here on Indiedb.com

Hairyburger has also been working like a steam engine and bringing our characters to life.
Soldier model:

Commander Model WIP

We also upped the poly count on the airship to smooth it out some

Model by DavidUnlocked

Level Design:

In the meantime, I have been taking on various roles of development, mostly in the management arena. I finally finished up our 30+ page design documents (actually it's not even really finished yet, but it's almost there!). I took the time to learn some basic animation techniques so that I can speed up some of the development with simple things such as animated map props, and I have also remade the title map and ported some of the models over to the UDK.This is still a work in progress:

I would also like to note that to speed up the development process, we will be using a handful of models and texture from turbosquid.com, but those models will never be showcased on IndieDB.com. The artists who created any of the models we use from there, will receive proper credits when the game is released. I think I have found everything that is useable to the standard we want to keep, and at this point it stands at about 4 models (rocks mostly).

We do have our timeline for release somewhat finalized, but we don't want to jump the gun and say anything about that just yet, but I will say we are looking at an '11 release.Until next time, thanks for stopping in to see us and be sure to keep your goggles on tight.

*Be sure to help support our artists by clicking their links!