Hello Everyone!
I have been hard at work this past month putting together a new area of the bunker (medical ward/child daycare facilities). It is incomplete still, but I will show a few progress pictures which will be shown in greyscale (Nothing is textured yet).
Pictures:
Examples:
Finally, I have spent a huge chunk of time creating gameplay for this new area. I have been programming the drone behaviors and have been making new sounds/music to accompany them.
I know it probably doesn't look like much now, but in just a few weeks/months it will really start to look awesome! It still needs more assets, proper ceilings (some areas don't have any yet as you can see), and needs to be unwrapped and textured. I already have some epic ideas for the final look, and I can't wait to get to that point!
Thanks to everyone who has supported me so far! I have officially been working on this for over a year and two months, and I'm so excited to have gotten so much done this year!
Till next time,
-DSP
This all looks great, and I have several questions.
1. Is this game set entirely in a bunker? Or will we be able to see the dystopian world outside of it? You said he will be in a large city, so I assume that it is outside, but will there be locations outside of the city? Other towns, kind of like fallout?
2. What kind of survival elements will this have? Will we need to eat, sleep and drink? Will there be radiation?
3. What kind of enemies will there be? You mentioned robots, but will there be bandits and mutants?
I'm getting a fallout-vibe from this, but I don't know if that's what you are aiming for, although if it is you are doing a damn good job. Keep it up!
Hey there! I'm happy to answer any questions you have!
First:
The first thirty minutes/hour or so roughly will take place in the bunker,then you will have the opportunity to visit the surface and try and find someone/something to help explain to you what is going on. The city will actually be the setting for the majority of the game (and introduces plenty of new locations and remnants of people to encounter). My intentions are to divide G.R.I.T. into two four hour (that's the minimum length) games for a total of eight, one on UDK and the other on UE4 :)
My game is going to be more linear, but will still include plenty of areas out off the main path to explore and will reward you with audio logs/gear/etc. for exploring. Think the style of Metro 2033 and how they had plenty of different towns/extra paths in the metro.
Second, The game is going to have survival features like radiation detection, limited, timed respirators, managing health with medical supplies from abandoned machines, food and drink can be stored and used or sold based on toxicity level upon collection (you can also consume them and purchase detox pills and such). I plan on having audio logs and upgrades for gear found around the game that you can discover.
Third, there are going to be a few different drone types, along with the expected raider/bandit type characters. I intend on making the Drone's the main antagonists, however humans can be even more terrible when trying to survive..
I hope that has cleared things up a bit! Let me know if you have any other questions and I will be happy to answer them for you!
Thanks!
-DSP
Why not both on UE4?
Hi Expack!
The main reason is that I've spent over a year on G.R.I.T. (I started May of 2013). If I were to try and transfer all of my progress over to UE4, I would have to recreate the UI functionality, code, levels, etc. that I have made so far. It would simply take too much time to be worth the graphical improvement. Besides, UE3 is still very powerful, and UE4 can in some cases be more difficult to run on some systems. Despite its high performance for all of the features it offers, UE4 has a higher minimum requirement as a result.
Believe me when I say that I've wanted to switch! In fact, I even have access to UE4 and have dabbled with it (for example. I put some of the 2007 Bioshock assets in: Youtube.com)
It will take some time to get part one out there. At that point I will be able to move the assets/ui elements over to UE4 without having to remake what progress I have made :)
Hope that answers your question! If you have any other questions, I'm happy to answer them.
-DSP
Ah! I was thinking that might be the reason - which is QUITE understandable - but I wanted to know the real reason first so I didn't make myself look like a fool. :)
What inspired G.R.I.T's unique look? To me, it looks like the Fallout universe finally met the 1980's, what with the more modern-looking metals and materials meeting all the grime, gunk, and intentionally-retro styling.
Can you give us an idea of what your art toolchain looks like? I imagine you try and utilize as many time-saving tools and techniques as will make your life easier while ensuring the level of quality you want.
I must say that the way things are colored makes them stand out VERY well - in fact, I'd be willing to wager that the coloring would hold up if you reduced the resolution to, oh, 320x240 and dithered everything with 256 colors or - if you're feeling especially retro - 64 colors! (I'm kidding about the wager part, BTW. I made the tweaks I mentioned to G.R.I.T. screenshots from IndieDB in Photoshop, hence I meant what I said about the coloring standing out.) In fact, I'd suggest you separate your DOF from pretty much every other game's DOF by desaturating what isn't in focus (see Edvardtoth.com ). In this way, the player's eyes will be further drawn towards the important things.
Also, you wouldn't happen to be looking for a voice actor who can learn tricks other than acting, would you?
Well, I've always been drawn to games like Bioshock, Fallout 3, Metro 2033, etc. for their unique, dystopian aesthetic. Fallout 3 and Full Throttle are other great examples of retro that I just love. Also, Alien comes to mind as far as the classic retro sci-fi. Honestly, I don't really know how I developed the style.. I sort of just started designing... and this was the result. I let me hands do the work, and my brain would just go "OOH, how about this!".
For my workflow, I do some simple sketches on paper (and, believe it or not, I have little drawing talent). For the objects and animation I use 3ds Max, and for texturing I use DDo and NDo to really help with texturing: it is SO useful for quick, detailed texturing for grime and dirt. I use Photoshop for textures along with these programs to really make the details pop! No other secrets really for workflow :P
Heh. I'd love to see some examples of these retrified (Oh yeah, Made up words for the win) pictures! :)
The idea about desaturating to a sepia tone sounds very interesting to me! I'll definitely give that a try.
If you'd like, Pm me or contact me via skype: noodlespagoodle
I'd love the feedback! We can discuss some form of voice acting as well :)
I look forward to hearing from you!
-DSP