We've been a bit slack on the blog posts again... sorry! As always it's never through a lack of content to show off- we've just been super busy. That aside, I'm happy to announce two major milestones have been reached!
The first: Our unique Combat Mechanic! We've taken a really long time working on our mechanic as to ensure that its innovative, rich and solidly grounded in its authenticity. We've approached a number of experts in the field of Japanese swordsmanship and are now working with an organisation in the UK (Somerset Budokai: Fredeast.org.uk) to ensure that we strike a balance between playability and authenticity.
We're not quite ready to show off any gameplay of the mechanic just yet, as we've had to scrap some of our older animations and re-create them based on video footage we captured of the Somerset Budokai students. We're making/implementing these animations as I type, so it won't be long until we have something ‘full-featured' to show off.
The next milestone is: Our first complete environment!
An in-engine screenshot from our Kamioka Castle scene
As anyone with an appreciation of Japanese culture will know- everything the Japanese do has some form of ritual. Everything is a craft; from weapon smiths to architects, carpenters or textile workers... even the most basic trade has its traditions. This is, to some degree, why everything takes so bloody long to emulate in 3D for a game!! Researching, designing and building our environments has been made a little easier by virtue of the fact that we're re-creating REAL historical sites. Plenty of photos exist of Japan's many castles, and in some instances you can walk around them as if you were really there using Google Maps (Nagoya Castle: LINK).
For our first full environment, we've decided to focus on a Kamioka castle (a small fort built in 1564). One of the main challenges from an indie artists point of view is to create assets which can be easily reused. As such, pretty much every element in our map has been designed so that they are modular and can be reused to build different/bigger castles or fortresses.
We're going to focus on showing off the castle itself for now, as we want to show off the whole environment in a later post (a video which also shows how combat works).
The castle utilizes some of the Marmoset Skyshop Shaders
From Friday we'll be at Rezzed- a big UK Indie/PC/Console gaming event! If anyone reading this is going to be there, hit us up on twitter!
Cheers,
Sam
Nice! What texture maps are used? Diffuse, normal, light?
How many polygons does the model have? I'm asking because I study Gamedesign and I want to model similar buildings for some portfolio work but which I am able to use in a game.
Thanks Firespray31, we're using the Marmoset Skyshop IBL Diffuse & Spec shader, that also includes a Normal map. I haven't quite got the shaders exactly as I want them yet, and the textures themselves look a little clean in the renders above.
We've got some alternative materials that I'll use to show wear around the base etc...
How about realizing combat animations first?
As per the blog post, we had to scrap some of the combat animations we already have so that they better represent the style of Japanese swordsmanship that we're emulating. We'll be showing these new anim's, and the latest player model, very soon!
Sick! Good job guys! :D
Thanks!
Very impressive. I've spent some time modeling Japanese architecture with the intent to have it modular (for a now dead project), so I can empathize with you about the unique difficulties presented. But one nice thing is there is no lack of detail to be found. No shake is without gables or adornment, and yes, prepare to curve that roof in all three axises and THEN figure out how to get the roof tiles to follow it. Very challenging indeed.
And I'm glad you guys are working so hard to make the animations and fighting system as authentic as fun gameplay will allow. I find learning game systems that are based on reality to be way more fun, and often times reality can help solve many game issues too.
Keep it up and keep us posted :)
Thanks for the feedback :) !
Nice job guys i can't wait for the battle mechanics post.Also i really love that you try to take many real fighting practices into this game
and the factthat you recreate some animations which would have taken plenty of time to be created also shows your dedication.Can't wait!
Cheers MGreg!
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