Update 15: Art Progress
Hello Everyone!
If you haven’t stopped by the Twitch stream in a while you might have missed some of the recent updates on the art side of things.
We described our player character art progress in Update 07 (back in March) and have been steadily working since then to continue to define and refine our art style.
In the time since that update, we’ve continued to commission work on “key art” textures, located a solid outsource partner based in the US, and added two artists to our team.
Here’s a quick breakdown of the progress on each of the following: Player Character Art, environment art, and critters.
Apologies, this is going to be a long one, but we promise plenty to look at.
Player Character Art
At the end of September, Motion Logic Studios reached out to us about assisting with the project.
We spoke with the CEO of the company who immediately got the style we’re shooting for. We sent over the original Human (“Hult”) model and they sent over a couple of texture variants as a test a few days later.
We were really happy with the test, especially given the speed with which they were able to get it back to us.
Naturally, we had a lot of feedback and we spoke with John, the CEO, about areas in which we could improve or push some of the modelling, while still maintaining the old school look.
The next step was to iterate a bit on some of these ideas in the form of rough concepts for each of the main armor types (while considering potential class variations).
Again, we had tons of feedback, but the overall approach was heading in the right direction. We decided to quickly get things from concept and into the game as quickly as possible.
Robed characters seemed likely to give us the biggest challenge, as well as provide some great opportunities to improve overall visible customization, while retaining the classic style.
We picked this guy as our target:
With the model in place, we’re able to work through the technical implementation, evaluate the visible slots, and discuss things like attachments and texture variations.
It’s still early in the process, but we’re really excited about the progress. Plus, we feel that we’re not only nailing the classic style, but also pushing it to do more without losing the old school charm.
If you like what you’re seeing so far, be sure to stop by the Twitch stream(s), pop into our Discord, or look for image updates on our site.
We’ll be working with this first Player Character model in game, iterating on the animation system, and kicking off new character work with Motion Logic Studios, as we round out the year and roll into a really exciting 2022.
Environment Art
One of the two artists to join the team recently is Harrison (aka Padas), who is focused on environments. He immediately got to work on refining out placeholder assets, while we kicked off discussions and reference gathering for developing Night Harbor’s look.
For the time being, this work has primarily been in the market area, but in the coming months we’ll be completely redoing Night Harbor’s layout in preparation for full content implementation and the new structures, objects, and points of interest.
As you may have seen in the past, we’ve been shooting for a very specific style of hand painted texture style, in the hopes of hitting a look that’s evocative of the illustrations and paintings of the classic fantasy artists we’ve always loved.
Another thing that Harrison has been focused on is replicating the style from our key art textures, and looking at ways to scale the production of that art.
This has led to a lot of experimentation, feedback, and iteration behind the scenes.
And naturally, I’m sure dungeons are on peoples’ minds. Per Harrison’s original explorations and submissions to us, I’m sure we’ll be delving into that topic more soon.
Critters
Last, but absolutely not least (unless you’re discussing relative size of creatures and buildings), we have the contributions of Connor (aka Zukan), who has joined us as a character & props artist.
So far, Connor has primarily been working on critters for us, and his style is amazingly spot on!
Upon seeing the first versions of the rat and his textures, we were immediately in love. The painted style nails the look. He’s also created a beautiful bat and very sneaky snek (and some variants).
They’re fantastic!
We’ll be working on their animations in the coming weeks, as well as getting more critters in to replace the placeholders we’ve come to love over the course of the year.
That’s right, the Capsule Crew™ will slowly start retiring to their future roles as plushies in the merch shop.
——Goodbye satellite bats, … we’ll always love you!—-
To wrap this up:
As you can see, we’ve got a lot going on. But, you can keep up with things in real time on the stream(s) and Discord during those gaps between updates.
We’ve had just as much, if not more, going on in the Tech corridors of our grand temple. Expect another update to cover that work soon.
We’ve added two new programmers (“Hi, Gary and John!”) and they’re already hammering away. Plus, Ali has been a BEAST this year, and continues to plow through Nick’s feature requests and bug reports. So, there’s a ton to talk about.
And then there’s the lore work...
Okay, maybe we owe you a couple of updates.
On that note, talk soon!