UnionVGF Indie Game developers (or thinking about becoming one) corner

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Love the lightning effect on the Katana. Your 3D modeling skill seems to improve quite a bit too. Thats a nice looking hand.

I have been into studies of modular tilesets level design, & maximise reusablity.....at work. :grin:
How best to create levels lego style. Very exciting stuff. Can't wait to put them in action.

In the meantime, I am done wth the headgear, & next step is the armor or weapon. I have to restrict myself not to go overboard in detailing in Zbrush, as alot of details can be done in Substance painter, beside the character is not design for close up. Game assert making is about optimise quality & efficiency.

I watched some master artists & pick up some tricks that proved helpful, like the new Zbrush 4.7 ZModeler, & able to put them directly in action.

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I'll be interested to see how it looks when you get it done and in game.
 
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Well did not make that hand myself, mostly doing the scripting and the weapons, but the lightning effect turned out good yes.
I think increase the intensity of the lighting spark glow & making the the blue effect more blueish (less purpurish) & slightly more opague, & it will be perfect.

Like is an example, from Path of exile
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For reason unknown, I got this promotion on my facebook. Its under great discount now.

Body-Kun.
https://sugarandcotton.com/collecti...dy-kun-models-for-artists?variant=31518101133

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I think its good for quick test Keyframes of the action of your game char.


Just wished they have more props, but maybe I can use my limited art & craft skill to make a few.

I have Pediophobia (Fear of dolls & Manniquins), but the Body-Kun figure (at least the male one) is okay for me.
Some of the articulate figures I seen online are creepy to me. Any action figures with hair or life like eyes (like Barbie), I freak out.
 
Is that character going to be animated?
Yes. It will be a long term study. It will hopefully have a simple playing arena, & a coupe of IA enemy charcters, & 2 basic attack skills.

The modeling is slower than I wanted, but I do learned many new tricks, like retopology & making my own 3d alpha & brush in Zbrush.

Retopology is a game changer that I got hate to the party, allow me to freely scrupt higher detail model that better resend the shape, then using it as base to make the final model. faster in making complex shape then using primitive like cylinder & planes.

These are some the videos I learn from


master Modeller Gilberto Magno
Long video, & no, I do not know spanish, but its easy to follow. Pick up many tricks here.
 
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Changed a bit on the lightning particle (more blue now)

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With DeepSky Haze:

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And bought me some more motion capture animations:

 
Changed a bit on the lightning particle (more blue now)

NdqjTx1.jpg
CFP3v3Y.jpg


With DeepSky Haze:

zK3QVLW.jpg
rOU3GvA.jpg

And bought me some more motion capture animations:



You should really consider setting up a demo area. Basically, you just take a small portion of the map (like what you have visible in the screenshots), and you use all your props and try to make the area look finished.

It's what I did in my videos. The area you see in my videos is pretty much the only area in the game I've worked on. It really helps gauge the final visual quality and help me make graphics decisions. It doesn't even have to be included in the final game, just something for test purposes.
 
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Changed a bit on the lightning particle (more blue now)

NdqjTx1.jpg
CFP3v3Y.jpg


With DeepSky Haze:

zK3QVLW.jpg
rOU3GvA.jpg

And bought me some more motion capture animations:


Damn, these are some cool lightning effect. One of the thing you can do is, as you level up the lightning skill, the glow get more intense.

I agree with Godsmack that you should have as arena & use it as a base for testing.

Thats exactly what I will do.

After I done with my character & anaimated it, with simple run & 2 attack skills, & a poor dummy AI enemy, I will make a small stage like a hallway for testing & showcase.

Anyway, small update.
I am done with the shoulder pads & belt (can't see in pic) while making some custom Zbrush brushs alpha.

After that, I took a snapshot & made quick & dirty concepts of the shoulder belt & chest clothing. This is the one I am happy with.

Funny how far my model is off the original concept I made, but I think the actual 3D model looks better. The original concept armor looks too cartoony.
gmxTEq4.jpg


Well, I also signed up for 2 years of Maya LT subcription for 565.25€ included VAT.
 
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Last update for the week. Alot of the work was unwrapping UV. No one like UVing but a necessity nevertheless.

Base model of character is almost 100% done. By that I mean, Base model with one full armor set. I have a few design match & match, but that will be for later.

Next major step is to do high res scrupting in Zbrush, then I will do the weapon & shield. Can't wait to do weapon & shield.

It was taking longer than I planned, & when the modeling phase is done, I made a final evalution/review, but so far the 2 main points that slowed me are

1) Hair.
Those Braids are painfully to make. & I rework quite a bit & finally decided to to use transparency. Spend a whole week just for hair

2) Armor design & modeling.
I did not use a fixed concept. The concept 2D i made was never used. LOL.
I spent a great deal of time (easily taking over 1 week total) researching & looking at various design online & made a lot of concept sketches.

I guess its a necessity for someone that is inexperience in fantasy armor design, & in general suck at asthetic design overall.
I seen some every sick fantasy character concept arts by people online, that is well beyod me. Talent I guess. But I believe talent can be catch up with lot of hardwork & studies.

But its fun, & the time will not be waste for I am sure I can trim alot of time in future. I think I am happy so far, but I always strive to be better.

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Coming up with concept art is hard because you are making a 2d drawing that will be translated to 3d. It's difficult to know how it will look until you have done a few and get a groove going.

I didn't bother drawing any 2d concept art that much. I just looked in books and then looked at other games, and used those for reference to figure out how I wanted my characters to look, and to decide what will look appropriate in my game world. Of course, there is always trial and error. Once you see things in game, you will often change your mind or want to make adjustments. It's good to work back and forth and test things out to avoid having to redo large amounts of work.

Don't forget to take into account rigging and animation. Every armor piece or whatnot on the character will affect the rigging process.
 
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Thanks to the Technie Collider Creator I can now make better colliders:

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After some testing with cutting down the lamp I figured that best is to do is to switch the tag when attacking, may use that with attacking enemies as well:



I think that will have some objects around each of the worlds that can be cut down or destroyed that will give the player experience points.
 
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While taking a quick break from creating new units, I thought I'd play with the lighting a bit.

This is a quick and rough test, but which lighting do you prefer? The dark one looks more real and lets me spice up the environment with torch lights and whatnot. The light environment has more of an RTS feel and is a bit more charming.

Like I said, this is a quick test, so ignore anything that doesn't look right like overly shiny textures. I'd have to modify them a bit if I decided to go with the dark lighting.

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Edit: and here is a combination of the two which has nice shadows and dramatic light, but still daytime.

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Thanks, I'm probably going to try out the third one for now. I like the dark but I worry it may look silly having miners or lumberjacks working in the dark.

Either way, I should have a new video out soon showing off the new units, animations, base camp with unit creation, and whatever else.
 
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Update for the week. Almost there. Once done, its high detail transfer & texturing.

Still have a shield & weapon to be made still.


After that painful task of rigging & skin weighting. Been a long while since I play with animation.
CLn81lP.jpg
 
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Update for the week. Almost there. Once done, its high detail transfer & texturing.

Still have a shield & weapon to be made still.


After that painful task of rigging & skin weighting. Been a long while since I play with animation.
CLn81lP.jpg

My rig took a long time to build, and I had to follow a few tutorials.

Building a skeletal rig in itself is not difficult, but making a functional rig that can be used to make "good" animations takes a bit more work. I mean, if the rig isn't that great, all the animations will be harder to make and take a lot longer.

I don't think rigging and animation is Modo's strength, but I doubt it is really that easy in any program.
 
My rig took a long time to build, and I had to follow a few tutorials.

Building a skeletal rig in itself is not difficult, but making a functional rig that can be used to make "good" animations takes a bit more work. I mean, if the rig isn't that great, all the animations will be harder to make and take a lot longer.

I don't think rigging and animation is Modo's strength, but I doubt it is really that easy in any program.
I have the classic animation handbook, I think its still at my parent place, in my room. so I will pick it up when I return. The whole process is hard & very time consuming.

Great animation is critical for good action game.

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While at it, I made a simple concept art for the sword, base on simplification of the conan Atlantean Sword used in the original Conan movies.
For someone so small on screen, its more import to have details that can stand out than fine details, so I use contrasting colors & broad lines

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While we are at the Atlantean Sword, here is epic sowrd scene from the movie
 
Alright, here is a new video. It's not really up to my standards of quality for a video, but it'll do. I just wanted to show off what I've been working on so I can get back to making the new units.

new units, new animations, new lighting, new environment colors, new HUD/UI test, enemy health bars, and more

 
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Alright, here is a new video. It's not really up to my standards of quality for a video, but it'll do. I just wanted to show off what I've been working on so I can get back to making the new units.

new units, new animations, new lighting, new environment colors, new HUD/UI test, enemy health bars, and more


Love all the little environmental movement like flag, grass & water reacting to the wind.
Damn, the animations of the units are great. You have some serious talent in Animation.

I since release games from big studio with much weaker walk animations. I like also there is a flag where the unit walks to.

Anyway, small update. Sword & shield. Nothing overlay fancy. I wanted a more rough look.

I did not go crazy on the details as the gears will not be seen in close up, & I can add details easier im Substance painter.
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Love all the little environmental movement like flag, grass & water reacting to the wind.
Damn, the animations of the units are great. You have some serious talent in Animation.

I since release games from big studio with much weaker walk animations. I like also there is a flag where the unit walks to.

Thanks! Yeah, I try to make the world feel alive. That's why each unit has a nice idle animation, so when there are a few units on screen, even when they aren't doing anything, it still adds to the scene. The grass is Unity's built in grass, but I modified it a bit. The water is from an asset I bought, mainly because it is a shader, and I have no experience with building animated shaders.

I made the flag in Modo. It is actually pre-rendered. I just rendered the animation (with physics soft bodies stuff) and saved the best frames that looped well. Then, converted that into a sprite sheet and brought into Unity. This saves me from having to rely on actual cloth physics in Unity, although if I build a king, he will need it for his cape. In a previous video, I showed a cape (I think I did anyway).

I find animation comes fairly natural to me. I think it is because of all the drawings I've done over the years "posing" characters. For example, to draw two characters fighting you have to pose them to give the effect you want (swinging hard, getting hit, whatever), and animation is just a series of poses chained together.

The animations that require two hands are much harder (two handed sword, bow, etc.) because each hand has to be able to reach the weapon in all poses. I just wish I had more time to do the animations. Being a solo dev means I have to spend time doing everything and can't really focus as much.

I added a flag where the units walk to because an arrow or icon on the ground can get hidden behind scenery (buried in grass, behind a wall, etc.). I wanted something that was easy to see, and fit with the game's overall theme.

I'm going to do a few more characters this week, then ramp up the enemy A.I. so I can get some testing/tweaking done and see how the characters are doing.

It looks like your game is coming along too.
 
I will make a simple stage with a few enemies, & see how to prceed from there.

The assert making is taking me longer than I like, but I am improving my speed. I think I have decided on my first enemies.

-Zombies. Melee. I make make many variant from a base zombie, & everyone loves zombies
-succubus. Range. Not a natural choice, but it can easily (I hope) be modified form my base heroine. Add horns, a tail, & wings, modified the face a little, & we are good to go.
Stone Golem- Melee/range It can be easy made into many variants, ie Fire, ice golems with small changes (I will show concepts soon)
 
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One thing I can say for enemy design,if they are to be animated, the more enemies that reuse the same animation rig, the better. Making a new rig for each character can be time consuming, plus you won't be able to share animations between characters. Of course, this is not always possible. I just try to find things that I can do to make life easier.
 
One thing I can say for enemy design,if they are to be animated, the more enemies that reuse the same animation rig, the better. Making a new rig for each character can be time consuming, plus you won't be able to share animations between characters. Of course, this is not always possible. I just try to find things that I can do to make life easier.
Totally agree. Thats why most enemies will be bipod, & I will maximise reuse of asserts.

I planned & work an Easy week, as overwork can lead to burnout & developer's block, & I have been woking very hard for past 2 months.

Just finishing up stuiff that need to be done, like eyelashes, teeth, & the final armor pieces.

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Succubus concept.

Some details:
I wanted a 2 tone skin, Main skin to be slightly purply, but not too much, I tested, & overly purple/Magenda just not work. Thing about 2Dconcept is how easy to change color tone using layer correction layer.

I am not sure about the secondary tone on forehead, but the secondary skin tone seems to work well on arms & legs.

Talking about legs, I choose a normal hum leg, so I ca easily reuse asserts as rigs, & I am not fan of goat legs on succubus.

The costume is just quick job, I need think about it further, but I have some slightly creativity block.

The Succubusses is suppose to be seductive & darin life essence of its victim via seduction, so they need to slook slightly sexy. But I want to keep game classy , so tehy will not be overly sexualise, & still seductive when you see them.

I think I may make the horns, wings & tails separate parts & own sketetons (attach to main one) so I can reuse asserts & easily change them to make different variants of succubusses.

But let me know what you guys think.
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I think it looks cool.

Honestly though, the real test will be seeing how it looks when 3d modeled. It looks like it might be fairly tricky, but I think you can pull it off.

I think the most important part of design is consistency. Every model has be fit together in the game world. This includes both environment objects (rocks, trees, etc.), characters, and any architectural pieces. Getting them all to blend well together is tricky. It may even be a good idea to get your environment done a bit more first so you can see how they will look in their proper surroundings.
 
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I will spend time on conceptualise the game world soon.

In meantime, I work abit on the succubus costume. More organic looking. Maybe I should change the color theme to be less wonderwoman looking.

Modeling should commense soon.

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Succubus WIP. WIngs are far bigger than concept, to look more functional
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