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Hi everyone, In addition to my recent updates of my games on hUb to Direct3D9 goodness, I have been continuing my exploration of 3D-space in my project The Swörd. Hopefully this stuff will see the light of day in an actual game (on hUb of course) within the near future. /johno |
Submitted by johno
Wed, 09/23/2009 - 23:02
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Good read! Very
Good read! Very interesting!
I love your Lego-inspired characters!
Have you looked into screen
Have you looked into screen space ambient occlusion? I think you would gain some performance with this technique. Unless of course you are just pre-calculating the occlusion, then forget what I said. =)
I'd also suggest another lighting/shading technique to look into.. but I've forgotten it's name.. hObbe should know, I think he showed it to me once (or was it Martin?). It had another way of looking at lighting/shading, so that the amount of light sources didn't affect the performance.. darn it, what was it called.. I remember thinking "wow, this is awesome" when I saw it.. I'll have to get back to you on the name, I think I have it scribbled down in my notes somewhere.
What you have so far looks great though, I love the Rayman style arms. =)
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There's no kill like an overkill!
I think the AO is
I think the AO is prerendered (i.e. lightmaps) so runtime performance and compatibility is not a problem. The only drawback is that it takes a while to generate the lightmaps
I think your after deffered shading? Basically the lighting is applied in a final full screen pass looking up normals and stuff per pixel.
@johno cool to see some progress
Do I sense a bit of artist frustration there 
Possibly it would work to run skeletor on a free license of Maya. Nothing that I have tried though. But I do agree on your decisions to run on vertex blending as a well tested technique, not to mention easier to work with.
Maybe I should sell Skeletor licenses
Yes all lighting is pre-calculated
The recent AO work is just another way to "fill the lightmaps with information".
Indeed there is massive artist frustration going on with me; I meet with a friend om mine (who is an industrial designer who wants to get into games) about once a month, and every single time he asks about The Swörd and promises to get me some kind of animated character. And of course we go through the whole skinning vs vertex blending thing each time as well... *sigh*
Daniel: I think in some way the Lego-dude sort of looks like you! That wasn't really intentional, but the source file for the PixelMesh is now called toll_warrior_anim.obj...
/johno
"you can't stop the change"
I hope I get to shoot that
I hope I get to shoot that Lego-Toll!
Daniel
Avatar inspiration
I just realized that the initial inspiration that led me to the current Lego-style is actually the image in the SoP forums that is displayed for user who have not uploaded a specific avatar image...
There is something about the slouchy shoulders that I really like, maybe I should go back to that style (it can be seen on the dude with hair and red shoulder-pads to the far right on the grid in this image). The bulky should-pad thing is so cliche...
/johno
"you can't stop the change"
Good reading!
Swörd really looks like a cool project that can be used to make not only one future title but as a base to many!
I can feel the artistic angst you are going through there, especially concerning the animation part, never got into that part of 3d modeling myself, but it sure is a path I need to take one of these days.
Maybe later on I can hook you up with a couple of lowpoly chars, would be a treat to make when the time is available! We are like a big family here at SoP so if you have something in mind already don't be afraid to send a pm with some specs and I'll see what I can do!
Keep up the great work!
// Gridur
Thanks Gridur!
We indies need all the love we can get!
/johno
"you can't stop the change"
Cool style! Looking forward
Cool style! Looking forward to see them in-game too. Wherever it might be
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Solid Core Entertainment
Developer of Roadclub and Sense: Survival Prelude (Developer blog)
A Mazing Monk, could be an
A Mazing Monk, could be an inspiration for low-poly mesh animation and giving characters CHARACTER
The game is also quite cool and somewhat disturbing...
A Mazing Monk