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EXIL : restart and new story
My exil is ended, after be fed up about the project (in brief, even if that’s more complicated) in late January, I take it again. Now I work alone. From a technical standpoint, my period on LLOE was greatly beneficial. I know better the UDK today, and everything that affects them (modeling / texturing). I have produced little, but tested much. And ultimately it will be assumed that the most time. Now I know what to do after what I want to get. In short this time has been very beneficial.
I still discovering many things, my last test is currently on SpeedTree and grass. I think I would go through a more traditional model for trees and other flora (so I would not use SpeedTree). Because the problem of SpeedTree is that it generates trees without leaving the option to add a lightmap, preventing rendering like this (detailed shadows on the trees themselves) :
But EXIL is now a new story. Now with two protagonists: Enklave (always here) and his wife Lena. Each will have a single player campaign for a single story in parallel, but in two very different places, let me explain …
The player will have the choice to start to play with Enklave or Lena (after reached the end of one of these scenarios, the player will start the another campaign).
Lena and Enklave are both at the head of a kingdom on the world of Ora, they are married and govern together. These days, unfortunately, their kingdom is subjected to many disasters and problems. Despite their efforts to eliminate all of the ills suffered by the people, the population expresses his dissatisfaction to the king and queen. They do not know exactly what is the cause of all these misfortunes, but they blame their leader who appears to their eyes do not make enough effort.
It’s in this tense climate that a advised general of the court will seize the opportunity to overthrow the king and queen. Through gossip and rumors, the people will throw the queen at the bottom of a dungeon, and exiled the king on the moon Quet. Quet is used as a final prison (no returns) by many kingdoms adjacent. Quet and Ora are two planets orbiting a sun. They both are a moon to another planet. Quet is known for its dangerous and unwelcoming fauna, all those who are exiled are never returned.
It is from the exile of Enklave and the imprisonment of Lena that begins the two scenarios. The player will choose which to begin.
EXIL : artworks
Here two news artworks created for present Enklave and Lena :
For Enklave I share a similar style of Captain Harlock. A cape, a black eye: everything that gives a style somewhat cheerful and very black. For Lena I’m still in vague, I do not have many ideas. I peel a ton of artwork currently on female characters (and also for architectural level design). But beforehand I leave aside the string, it’s not my style.
EXIL : modeling
Discovering of Topogun few days ago. This was an opportunity to try out retopologie (creation of a low-poly model from a high-poly) and texturing by projection. I stumbled across texturing projection with a video of “Sculptris“, a new 3D sculpting sofware who was released in 1.0. I asked myself after watching this technique in Zbrush if Mudbox did to. Was indeed the case!
Discovering the retopology the way, I decided to try topogun who had very good returns. Well after a quick instructional video on the software tools, I am left to test all these new discoveries.
Sclupting et texturing under mudbox, and creation of the low-poly under topogun. My hands take the software only lasted 10 minutes, but my modeling (low-poly) it took me an hour (not easy in the end to choose what part should have some detail or not on a uniform rock) . So I get a low-poly model of 654 triangles from a model of 1,5 million polygons !
Here the renders (in order : rock 1 under topogun, rock 1 render, rock 2 render ) :
These renders were made in real-time on the map who come from with the UDK, map presented at the GDC 2010 to show the new features of the engine (by Epic).
EXIL : programmation and gameplay
The basic gameplay, which will be shared by the two protagonists was developed and is being programmed. Many acrobatic movements and ability will be possible with Enklave and Lena. But each character has its own advantages and disadvantages. What will end up with two different gameplay and prevent any copy/paste or feeling of a repetition from an adventure to another.
That said, even if the base is common, the gameplay is fairly hard to program. I am currently working on a variety of movement, the horizontal wallrun and roll. And it’s pretty difficult in the end. Today I have a much better understanding of the code of the UDK, but it remains insufficient. Finally facing the difficulty to program all this, I just set aside the code to harness myself to modeling. I’ll go very quickly to develop the prototype as quickly as possible.
