Tag Archives: 3D

DevBlog 19 / Fired Up

Hi everyone!

This week André returned from vacation and is back in action, so we got some cool things to show besides new art and props!
He made some changes in how healthbars behave on screen (something he wanted to do for some time), they are now screen dependent instead of world dependent. Also, he improved the idle combat animations and behavior when the player has no weapons equipped. Only kicks and punches can save you in this situation.
Working alongside Iuri, they gave more life to the Elk. With some spine IKs system, ground adaptation makes the animal feel more real.
It’s still in WIP state (still doesn’t have the new Fur), we need more animations to make it like we want, but for now we are really liking the feel.

Old view on the left, current view on the right

Some Elk action over here

Ricardo lent us a hand and did some awesome shader work to “fire up” the look of the wooden enemies we’ve shown in previous posts.

How’d it get burned?!

Instead of baking the burnt effect directly into textures, the shader allows for countless dynamic and randomized burnt variations. It’s a great way to empower artist and reduce production times.

Burnt variations.

Picking up where he left off last week, Tomé worked on visually improving a huge temple ruin that players will get to explore in the first area of the game. Here’s how it’s currently looking:

The Temple revamped

DevBlog 18 / Art Update

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Hey, guys, Tomé here! Since André and Pichel are currently enjoying some well-deserved vacation time, only Iuri and I got some stuff to show you this week.
I worked on another stone built prop, a “Tempietto”. Like in previous assets we developed, this monument is composed of separate parts that can be hidden or relocated in order to organize different ruin compositions.

The Tempietto.

Remember the Lumberjack fellow we’ve shown before? I started exploring how his house could look like in the game. It’s pretty big. Inside there will be a few surprises for curious adventurers!

An early concept for the Lumberjack’s house

Finally, I spent some time doing an overhaul of the modular stone building kit we have. I wasn’t too happy about the tileable textures I had developed before, so I made new ones, and added a couple of new props that hopefully help these structures start to feel like ancient ruins. You can see how the whole thing’s progressing below.

Before and after the visual upgrade.

From our animation specialist, we got the polished version of the walk cycle featured in the last post, and a brand new trot animation for the Elk!

Polished version of the walk cycle.

New trot animation.

DevBlog 17 / The Elk is alive!

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Hi everyone!

This week André helped the art team by doing some improved scenery meshes from the blocking mesh for the underground passage in the swamp zone (a new area we are working on). André also worked in something he wanted to do for some time, foliage dithering fading.

Dithering per vertex when the camera is too close .

André also did the same effect but per object when characters get too close to the camera.
A reworked streaming logic is in the works, more fluid and efficient logic that can’t be noticed even if the player has a HDD disc drive (or for consoles).

The new model of the Elk is starting to come alive! Iuri began skinning and animating the Elk, and we hope to show gameplay with the new model in a near future. For now we have a very dynamic walk cycle:

The new WIP walk cycle.

Tomé has been producing some more tree models to spread around the game environments, specially dead trees for the swamp area we are working on. He also developed a few modular stone pavement groups that can be combined together to form roads.

New trees for various new zones.

Pichel made a lot of progress with the Elk model, and he has been investing a lot of time into making the fur work with our visual style. You can see how it’s coming along in the image below.

On the center the new Fur approach.

DevBlog 16 / Back to work

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Hi there!

Last weekend we showcased the game to some developers and players and some new bugs were found as expected. Some we already knew about and others were simply created when André was doing the combat demo scene we’ve shown. First thing Andre did in the beginning of the week was to fix these bugs and tweak the combat (feedback was very important). Seeing players playing and looking at what they do with the controller is very enlightening for improving small nuances in gameplay and making things more intuitive. This is a process that we intend to repeat in ever showcase we’ll do.

Tomé worked on some props this week. One of them is a very important prop – it’s basically a resting spot where one of our mechanics takes place. When the player uses it in order to recover, an ambush can randomly occur during the night while sleeping.

The various parts of this prop can be rotated or hidden to achieve different compositions and avoid repetition.

Meanwhile, Pichel is hard at work handcrafting the mystical Elk’s textures and experimenting with fur. He already finished the maps for the saddle, as you can see in the image below.

He also finished the High Poly of one of the NPCs that can be encountered in the beginning of the game. We will talk about him and the others NPC’s soon in a dedicated devblog.

The prisioner.

DevBlog 14 / Replacing placeholder mechanisms

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Hi there!

This week, André and Tomé worked on replacing some old interaction and mechanisms placeholders with quality, animated and fancy shaded 3D models. Small logic additions and adaptations needed to be made to fit the new art.

Some new props, girl model for scale.

André is also doing some logic changes in order to streamline the localization process, the entire user interface and game text will have support to various languages.
Iuri is also replacing placeholder animations and doing some new ones for the mechanisms mentioned above.

A Journey checkpoint is always important.

Pichel is working hard on finishing the 3d model of the player companion. The next step is rigging it.

DevBlog 13 / Animations

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Hi everyone!

This week André added some new mechanics he has been developing for the swamp zone, like quicksand and other traps. He’s also working on fixing the terrain mesh and polishing the level design of that zone. Some bug fixing, code polishing and optimization was done too. Interior zones are more optimized now, the light culling masks were not set correctly but as soon as we fixed it the performance increase was noticeable. Ranged enemies are now more efficient when it comes to killing the player.

We would like to officially welcome Iuri Monteiro, our new animator. We have been using mostly temporary and altered asset store content but now, with a dedicated animator, we can finally define each character’s personality and improve the overall consistency and fluidity. Expect great things in the upcoming months!

New animations examples.

Meanwhile, Pichel has been doing the retopo of the Elk model, and he’ll start texturing it soon. Tomé is working on props like the ones you can see below – the Rune Stone (the concept art for it was shown in the previous Blog post) and the Shrine. The latter is meant to work as a checkpoint during the adventure.

Shrine and Rune stone in game models.

DevBlog 12 / New props and Companion Model

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Hi there!

More illumination iterations were done this week. We encountered some light probe problems and had some lighting misconfigurations, but we are working on it. Most of them are related to our scene streaming system and light baking workflow.

Illumination tests.

Tomé made some concept tests for a rune stone that the player can interact with. These rune stones are strategically placed near points or areas of interest informing the player about story lore, area information or even gameplay. We are trying to have as little as possible distracting on screen tips during gamplay, these runes and some hints in the re-load screen are given to maintain the immersive experience but the core gameplay will be clutter free.

Rune Stone and alphabet concept.

We are doing some tests for an ancient alphabet for the ancient civilization ruins and runes like in the concept above.

Pichel is finishing the high poly of the player’s companion, he followed the concept posted in the previous devblog but naturally some changes were made to match the 3D perspective.

WIP player companion.

DevBlog 10 / Interior Testing

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Hi there!

Our exterior and interior 3D modules are finally ready and we are assembling the buildings that were simple place holders a few weeks ago. We are still experimenting with the overall distribution and lighting of the area.

Modular props are very useful since they can be reused in other buildings, even on later chapters. They can be used as ruins too (with simple painting or decal variations). In the next couple of weeks, Level building will become much faster and fun.

You can use stairs to reach higher places, they will also offer you clues to possible passages.

Some cracks, rubble and wood planks will be added later for added effect.

Temporary lightning, this shot uses a very simple preview light setup.

We plan to have smooth and immersive interior/exterior transitions, visually and auditory. Duck volumes (exterior sounds like birds will be clamped when you are inside), eye adaptation and reverb zones combined will create an unforgettable experience.

Next week André will tackle dynamic spine IKs for biped and quadruped, and Pichel will be working in a new NPC.

DevBlog 08 / Interior Illumination and deferred decals

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Hi there!

Pichel and Tomé are doing some progress in the texturing department, painting maps for all the modular props. You can see below most of the wooden assets, all game-ready.

Various finished wooden props.

This week André implemented deferred decals, they will be used for blood splats on surfaces and for details in walls/floors, like cracks for example, or other numerous applications in static objects.
Some improvements have been made in the way enemies respond to hits, like if the player swings the sword in one direction and hits the enemy, he will stagger in the opposite way he was hit. The direction of the blood particle and blood splat in floor respect the hit direction too.

Here you can see some blood on the ground with the new deferred decal system.

We did some tests with interior lighting too, still very WIP (no final textures nor materials), but now we know that we can achieve cool ambient interiors.

You can see some light coming from the cracked ceiling in the far end.

DevBlog 07 / Current Progress

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Hi everyone!

Today we will show you a floor plan preview of the area we are working on which expresses the planned size for the first Act of the game. The areas highlighted with the white contour are the ones we are currently working on. We are building assets to populate every zone fittingly, for example, if it is a predefined dry and rocky space we will not place colorful flowers.
In the second Devblog we have shown you guys a mini boss encounter that occurs in the area zoomed in the map below..

Floor plan preview of the first Act.

André improved and added more features to combat, like a new trail system (for weapon swipes) and improved bow targeting system. A new Quicksand mechanic was implemented which will have many players trapped when they try to reach some items in isolated zones.

New trail system preview.

Pichel and Tomé are working on texturing all the assets we have shown in the previous blog post. Here are a few examples of floor tileable textures.

Portuguese pavements texture tests.

Decay of Logos

Action-adventure RPG with minimal hand-holding!

Tag Archives: 3D

DevBlog 19 / Fired Up

DevBlog 18 / Art Update

DevBlog 17 / The Elk is alive!

DevBlog 16 / Back to work

DevBlog 14 / Replacing placeholder mechanisms

DevBlog 13 / Animations

DevBlog 12 / New props and Companion Model

DevBlog 10 / Interior Testing

DevBlog 08 / Interior Illumination and deferred decals

DevBlog 07 / Current Progress