mdgunn

Should the portal hide a load and is on a different map or is it there for effect and in same map. If there is a portal does it not leave you not knowing where you came from and how the new place relates? The game may well have some intentional confusion so maybe the portal adds to it, or may just seem confusing to the player and not just the character. Questions, question. Sounds like we do enemies later...at least for now.

Posted info on a test map in graphics section, though arguably it's maybe more related to progressing the design so posting a link here to.

This was done partly to serve the BB task for 'Starting Dungeon' (https://bitbucket.org/alexandru_afrasinei/forth/issues/22/graphics-starting-dungeon) and partly to test the Brush Based Building Pack. It isn't really trying to be a dungeon but rather just a fairly generic environment, possibly underground (no windows!). At the start there is a loose hint of the meteor cube and a crypt object near each other as a crash site. The exit ramp at then end then could lead on to the island. I haven't yet uploaded the brush pack nor the map. Might need to tidy up a bit but it probably could be put up any time. Wouldn't recommend people rely on the brush pack at this early stage or re-work may be required. probably best I iron out any problems of use first but feedback would be welcome. NOTE: Video contains spoilers

Have started on the CSG based (at least at first) modular building pack. The idea was to help people construct rooms quickly and hopefully with some degree of uniformity. For example common door heights, wall thickness, level heights - this could be nailed down through docs instead though so there are other options to get some common specs in place.. Currently I'm not sure how useful this brush pack is for others. I will probably use it myself as I quite like working with the limitations of brushes for prototypes so will probably take it forward a little more for myself at least. I suspect that most people are already comfortable with their own way of doing things (which is fine) and that this may well not be that useful. Still I'll probably do a test version and see if anyone thinks it will help. The prefab section allow rooms to be constructed rapidly around a central grid and also has some whole rooms and corridors like below. However, so far these are quite boring and generic looking (partly on purpose to get a simple room actually in place). Not sure if I will pursue whole room prefabs too much. Have yet to decide fully. The room below has been dropped in place of a single drag and drop action. Unfortunately it's not a very exciting room!

Test scene for a meteor strike. I think this is going to take some time to get to a final state (audio queues, volume fades, impact effects, corrected particle effects, explosions etc.) and now probably isn't the time to do this. This is more a a cinematic test than anything else to see if something like this would be what we want before we finalise something like it..

Not a final scene, though modified might have made a title sequence perhaps. Test scene for meteor and possible 'artifact of power'. This stuff not in repo yet.

In general if you want something to have a colour you need to select those faces in a 3d program and shrink them right down so they fit in the tiny square. Shouldn't really matter how you've unwrapped it as long as it's located in the small square of the colour you want.

yeah....the png is there for you to load up as a texture that other programs can use to position UV's. Path in repo is forth/Materials/Simple/low_poly_palette.png Not sure exactly what you want to do. I have 3D Coat but sadly I've not really got my head into it very much if you have any specific requirements.

and another.... https://store.steampowered.com/app/363950/Windscape/

Material was missing from repo for low poly texture so added.

How about starting with something like a meteor shower or something. This may help introduce a strange energy source into the game which may help bridge the sci-fi and fantasy realms a bit. One or more of the meteors crashes into a temple/pyramid/tomb/mysterious structure you wake up but maybe it's not clear if you come from a casket/tomb/crypt/pod/experiment or if you fell with the meteor. Maybe there also the shell of the meteor with equipment in it or it's a pod shaped crystalline vessel or something. After that you need to get out of the crash structure. Maybe some of the other inhabitants are energised and alive from the mysterious energy of the crash so some simple enemies, could be humanoid, creature or mechanical. Could be guardian creatures/robots of the structure. Maybe it's not just a standard crypt but something more complex...I suppose a lot like the cauldrons from Horizon Zero dawn. Could be traps or simple climb mechanics, collapsed or collapsing walls or floors. Could lead into a cave like section that someone wanted to do. Initially the interior and/or cave sections should be super short for a concept, maybe 2 or 3 brush based rooms connected with short corridors and some ramps or simple stair cases. And few more section for the cave bit before getting out onto the surface of an island (or land if the islands split later). I have tried before to put together brush based constructions sets before so I might put this together maybe in an early form if people think we may have some brush based sections. Some people are probably quite quick at putting together levels just in a 3D program but I think brushes will allow more people to have a try at putting levels together along with some more useful colours in the simple library. Might put together a library folder for colours pulled from the low poly palette so these can be dropped on brushes.

Might try to figure out an lower poly variant but this was shows the initial intended design. As with some others this is quite sci-fi and perhaps less future fantasy. Could be changed as we finalise a clearer concept of what the shapes of our future fantasy are. (Cubic, spherical etc).

Might find it easiest to catch you at the weekend. I'll pop into Discord when not at work etc..

Not that happy with these yet just quick work in progress items to improve later.

Happy to retheme these if people feel we are too sci-fi on any of these and need a different more mysterious/magical direction. Added to repo

Sounded quite intriguing. Interesting stuff.

The guardian is us right? Destroying yourself.....that's a biggie. I think if you go there there'd probably have to be something personal to attach to (loved one, kid etc.) as the world is kinda hard to attach to. Maybe, just thinking about movies really, though they stick maybe to close to standard story lines too.

In Blender have a UV/Image window on one side (left) and a 3D window (on the right). Do the following: select the object Tab into edit mode CTRL-A to select all or select the faces, or click select the faces you want to assign a colour to. Press U to unwrap and select Unwrap Scale down the unwrapped faces which will appear in the UV/Image window a few times so they are really small and fit within the coloured square of the colour you want the faces to have. You also need to make sure you have the 3D view in material view and you need to create a material with an image map of the UV image texture. This bit can be confusing if you are not familiar with materials but if you mess around in the texture tab and material tab you should figure out how to do it. The image in the UV image window you load from the low poly one in Material/Simple . When you export your model you will probably need to set the material in Leadwerks again on the model as I think it will not have selected the shared one in Material/Simple but instead expects to see it in the same folder as the export. That confusion might be a bit confusing. If so I can probably catch you on Discord, though I may be at work. Not sure on your timezone.

If we're going with wizard then I hope he captures something like the essence of this.... and really as little as possible of the essence of this.... Still I'm sure anything will be cool.

Added a palette material we could share across objects to get a uniform colour scheme (which could be changed in an instance) and would reduce draw calls, reduce memory usage and increase render speed (I believe). Also updated the tree slightly and now using this palette.

I will do some props I think. I guess we are still going low poly. Some of my models were low poly but not 'low poly' style so I think I'll try head back more into low poly style. I have put a palette texture that could be used for low poly models in the simple material folder. If we all used this where possible then we could switch the entire palette of all related objects very quickly and easily and also I think it would reduce draw calls and texture memory usage. I still had some ideas for island creation and texturing I might try out. If you GameCreator are trying to make a playable island then I will not try to worry if it is playable but more focus on if we can generate quickly and mostly automatically with minimal hand-crafting. Here's the low poly palette in use in Blender.

How you going to do the island? Going to just go CSG for now?

More test assets. Not finals, would probably remodel according to theme. These are less overtly sci-fi. Just playing around trying with some themes to see if a style appears, and if certain shapes might be more or less future fantasy, traditional fantasy or sci-fi. Added to repo.

Another test prop. I realise theme may change but I am messing in Blender anyway so though I'd add it. Added to repo for now.

Added extra test prop. Could be converted or redone in alternate theme style.