Game Demo submitted! + Video Walkthrough

After an eventful few months, we have reached the a major milestone for Knightside Chronicles and have completed our first iteration of the game demo/vertical slice to demonstrate the gameplay and concepts for Knightside Chronicles.

To mark this event, I've recorded a quick gameplay demo video/walkthrough for those who are unable to try out the game for themselves.

UV's optimization

As you know, Avi and me are in charge for texturing the level. Here is the approach for UV optimization:

As we can see, we've got one of our sections fitted in the UV area in a way there is no overlapping, which is good. Yet still is kind of messy, and can delay the texturing process if we are using Photoshop - doesn't apply if we use mudbox or zBrush, since we are painting over the model on those packages... downside is our textures lose quality compared to working with Photoshop straight. So, let's take a look at how our UVs are currently arranged:

In here we can see each platform has their UVs placed separately from each other. Makes sense, since they are moving platforms and are an entity on themselves. Yet still, when they are put together, would be nice to have a sense of continuity on the texture, so we arrange our UVs in a way they resemble a single tile, just as they appear at the level:

Organizing the UVs this way helps speeding up the texturing process, since, let's say, if I paint a yellow arrow in the texture file, it will come across just right:

To get it right with the previous arrangement, I'd have to hunt for the right UV on each section and try to puzzle-paint the arrow hoping for the best, which is timeconsuming and not the best approach.

Arranging, of course, doesn't come for free. We need to pay special attention to which faces are getting aligned and make sure what we see selected in our UV Texture Editor is what we want to match in the actual model:

Another issue we are facing here: the main platform's UVs are way too small, this won't give enough room to place a texture with good resolution:

There is also an issue: both UV patches are referring to the same platform, yet still their size is radically different, which will cause less texture quality in one side compared to the other side: 

This particular case is doubly unfortunate since the smaller area happens to be the visible area, and also the most important. 

The more area we can use, the best resolution we get, so we will try to make this area as big as we can, and try to get both areas the same size. Then we face a dilemma here: get either two same-sized decagons in our UV map, or place both of them in the same area, so they share the same texture on each side. I decide to go for the latter, odds are we won't get to see the part below the platform that often, and will save time on the texturing process. So, at the end, our UVs fit both sides of the platform:

Then we got this mini piece of platform that connects everything:

. We can choose either connect it to the other platforms, or to the Crystal platform (or connect absolutely everything, problem with that is massive waste of space due proportion issues). We also need to be very careful as of what faces are we connecting with what. We can make use of the edge selector, so we know which pieces go together:

Sometimes we might even have to break the UVs in pieces in order to puzzle them together.

And well... at the end we end up with UVs looking like this:

They are not perfect, we got a floating space up there that belongs below a tile so doesn't really matter. We are in the final countdown so we can´t afford to be perfect, we got to prioritize: main areas get the bigger UV space and fit UVs, unseen areas won't get such royal treatment :)

Avi will be in charge of the UVs from now on, so show him some love. Merry Monday!

Textures

Hello guys! I am facing some problems with the texture part. Not the textures themselves, that comes pretty much straightforward, more like problems in the ZBrush - Maya connection. Here you have an screenshot of how the Ravager looks in Zbrush:

This is pretty much Texture map + Normal map + a ZBrush material called "jelly bean".

Everything awesome so far... but when you try to recreate it on Maya, THIS happens:

As you can see, gets massively screwed. Texture map displays ok, the Normal Map is the one that doesn't show correctly.

This already has got the following tweaks:

• Layered material, so the crystals look transparent and more "glossy" than the rest.
• 2D bump attributes tweaked to "use as : Tangent Space Normal", and played with Bump Depth.
• I also played with the Alpha Gain in the Color Balance tab, does pretty much the same than this thing above. 

 Avi suggested to redo the sculpting subdivision levels without smoothing. I tried that, but it kept the low poly hard edges and looked quite bad.  Asking around I got David to shown me a way to do both things: use smooth in the subdivision levels and keep the original low poly proportions. He made a video for that in here:  https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BwDFuVSgOQ2EMTFOdTFvd2l6Rkk/edit?pli=1 .

I followed that method, then again, that was not the problem, as you can see:

Render with the first lowPoly-smoothed Normal Map 

Render with the second lowPoly-preserved Normal Map  

Only difference you can appreciate is the change in the pattern design due I had to sculpt it again, but other than that is creating a weird bump in the facet limits in the crystal, instead of defining them as it should be:

I also got the maps tested in marmoset:  

This render gave me cancer :c , and totally lacks transparency.

Assuming is an issue of shaders, materials and/or illumination, I guess what follows is to send all the files to Josiah for him to test it into Unity, and see if we can do something so this doesn't get lost in translation. You can find these files at 3D Art > Enemies > Ravanger in the DropBox folder. They are objRavager.mb, Master_nm2.psd (normal map), Master_Trans.psd (transparency map) and Master_tx2.psd  (texture).

Finished Caruso Base Mesh

Caruso's base meshes. The Nude version was modelled using Nell's reference images and will be used to get the right body shape for the clothed version of Caruso - the head is reused from the nude Caruso mesh.

The clothed version using Nell's concept art to base it on. After some feedback from Cullan and a few creative decisions we decided to go for a vambrace on his left arm with a rolled up sleever but made the coat's collar/lapels symmetrical because it was agreed it looks better this way.

Character Concept Art

Here comes the concept art for the game characters. Introducing...

First version of our main character, Caruso Mendes 

(I wrote Mendez, since this is the way the family name 

is written in Spanish and feels like a spelling mistake

 the other way. Mendes is, however, the Portuguese way

of writing it so is perfectly fine). 

Second version, with large coat.

Third version, now depicting Cullan's fashion statement.

Closeup

The siblings.

Caruso's front & side views. 

Reference image for the modelling team.

Enemies!

Following the PDF guide Cullan provided, I've made these designs for the potential look of the enemies. I'd say you guys concentrate in the overall shape, and any cracks/organic stuff  we can add later in zBrush/Mudbox. Below, in the silhouette miniature line is depicted the scale ratio between them. 

Merry week!

*EDIT*

After some feedback from the team, I've added the back side of every enemy (except the mini Tumbler which was already modelled):

... and some add ons for the Sentry design as on how it works & moves:

First attempts at overall look & feel.

Hello everyone!

I am adding here the first sketches of how I imagine the world of Caruso, and Caruso himself. You tell me if I got the vision correctly:

Also, I am including a collage with the mixed race/latino traits I imagine Caruso might have:

Tell me what you think!