Teila's Blog

Ryan and I have spent the last couple of weeks dealing with thousands of animations.  We are trying to sort them out, ones that work and ones that don’t and tweak them for use in the game.

Ryan’s job has been to add some nice animations to the player controller. This is the controller that will accept input from the players to make the character move, jump, and do a variety of animations based on triggered events. The final controller will hold every animation the player character uses in the game. It is a big job and he had to test, blend, and combine many animations.  It is looking very good though, and I love the bow animations. 🙂  We also have a lot of emotes, useful to role players, as well as some specialized walks and runs. Players can use these to add “character” and moods to their own character.

My job is to work on the animations for the NPCs. In order to showcase these animations as well as our clothing options, and character customization, I am building a market area where NPCs interact with each other, wander around the market, have specific jobs to do, and model the amazing clothing.  You will see poor folks and peasants, solders, hunters, and even noble lords and ladies. Once I get that done, I will add some AI so the NPCs will actually react to each other and form relationships. Adding a player to the mix should be fun as well because the AI will also include the player.

Later next week, I start testing an amazing tool for buildings in Unity, a parametric modeler.  So far, the results from the previous testers have been nothing short of remarkable. This tool will help us to flesh out our cities and build unique buildings that suit our cultures. I am looking forward to this very much. I do not know if the beta status will preclude me from showing you my results, but soon, I will hopefully have something to share.  Modeling with this type of tool is more CAD-like that my typical modeling in Maya, so I will probably have a lot to learn. 🙂

I am also waiting on the beta for a terrain tool which I think will work well for us as well. I already have some fabulous tools, but this one may work well for creating the different biomes and landscapes, allowing us to have more detailed worlds/cities with less overhead. I have already completed a model of the the terrain for our major city, Caerleon and will be adding details to the terrain once testing starts.

Networking is going well, with the server and client reading the movement of the players. There is a little glitch that is being worked on at the moment. If my poor networking programmer didn’t have a day job, I am sure we would be further along but I guess someone has to pay the bills. 🙂

So…to wrap up the changes since I last posted, we have a player controller stocked with excellent mocap animations, a test scene full of animals, herding each other, babies following mothers, wolves chasing chickens, and animals reacting to a player in the scene. This gives us a test scene for our hunting and trapping skills, which are at the top of our list at the moment. We have a bunch of very nice clothing options, with pieces that can be mixed and matched and dyed to different colors.  We have Unity terrain of the entire Aryiure continent, from which we will take our starting areas and the city.  We have a robust claim/field/house building system for players. This can be used in our Mini-Game to allow players to stake out areas and use them for buildings or crops.  All of this can be combined with our terrain scenes.

Before we can show off the mini-game, we need to finish a few more skills (cooking, fishing, etc) and get the server working properly. 🙂 Yes, it is taking a long time..but we are grinding along.

Oh, and I have a couple of artists working on icons and so far, they are gorgeous. Hopefully I can show them off soon.  I know you like pretty pictures.

Thanks for hanging in there with us.  There are lots of amazing games out there, many of them similar to our old Adellion dreams.  So far, we have successfully kept ourselves from being distracted by them. 🙂  They have many features, and lots of money behind them…but none of them so far are exclusively for role players.  I hope, that when you are all tired of the same-old MMO, you will join us for some good old fashioned role play, where the stories are yours to tell.

Teila

Hi everyone!

We are continuing to work hard and have a variety of updates for you.

Networking is coming along. Unfortunately, the networking system we were using seems to be faltering as the developers working on the system disappeared, yet again. Not sure why developers who make systems for Unity seem to give up so easily.  Anyway, Dennis is working with a friend who is developing a custom system.  It is moving along very quickly and this time, we really should have some characters running around. Dennis has hooked up several computers and the client and server are working great together. We just need to integrate our character system and a few other technical issues and all should be well.  It has been a long road, with many disappointments but maybe this is it for us. We will see. There are other ideas out there too but right now, we will keep slogging along.

I am building models for Caeril, which will consist of a series of modular pieces used to build a massive city.  As I have stated before, the city will be built with optimization in mind, giving players the ability to gather as a community in various parts of the city with minimum lag.

For example, Market Square, with it’s colorful market stalls surrounded by shops will be a popular place for players. Some will live above the shops and use the shops to sell their wares. Others will visit the square to sell items in the stalls or to buy from the player shops and other stalls.  During certain times, there may be festivals or special market days available. In another part of town a square where the church and monastery of Light might hold a religious celebration, also drawing players to it’s center. Beyond the main walls, the docks will be a busy place, a home to many who work on ships or who own warehouses for their merchant businesses.

All of these busy places will be free of lag due to the system we are using. Each area will not be affected by outside areas, and be free of loading screens and hopefully, lag. 🙂  As soon as my city is modeled and including on our server/client testing I will looking for issues.

Areas outside the city will be more spread out, less of a problem since there will probably not be large numbers of players in one area. Instead, players will be building their own houses and laying their own fields on land they own. Both of these systems are ready and waiting for testing on the server as well.

Our terrains have been enhanced with some lovely new shaders as well as new water. We have tested a system for streaming in the terrain, avoiding loading screens and creating that open world that everyone loves. It has so far worked flawlessly and as soon as I have the city testing on the server, I will start putting together the environs around Caeril, rich farmland, hills, copses of forest, coastlines, and other areas for player to explore.

Ryan has been working on some other areas to explore, underground, beneath the city, and mysterious places to discover. He has continued to work on animations, putting together controllers for our player characters as well as AI for the NPCs and animals.  He is also managing to squeeze in some skill work including tree chopping. We now have the ability to chop down trees and have them grow back along with seasons that actually have changing grass and tree foliage.

Some pretty pictures with new shaders!  The Bloodlands is looking beautiful!

I will post some city pictures a wee bit later. Putting together Caeril is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle but it is fun! 🙂

Teila

Thank you!! I love the feedback.

I have received a lot of great input regarding the UI panels for the Character Creation system.  Based on those suggestions, I have made a few changes. I also do have plans to redo the text. What is in place at the moment is just a placeholder. I want a nice solid text that is easy to read and have found that Unity’s uGui, while a fabulous tool, isn’t very kind to text so plan to supplement that in the near future.

Other issues seem to be my buttons. I rather like the colorful buttons but I guess they are not popular with today’s grim gamers. 🙂   I won’t completely get rid of them but I have made a few changes where I think the buttons stood out too much.

One thing to remember, we are not making a typical hack and slash game here. Our game is about stories and role playing. It should appeal to people who are creative and open minded.  The dark grim GUI’s suit the games they are meant to represent, but simply doesn’t work for us.  While living in LoA won’t be a dreamy fairy tale, you might die, and you might struggle, but it isn’t about death. It is about life and a life that will have ups and downs.  Most of us don’t wear black clothes everyday.  We don’t walk around in a dark world.  I remember visiting Russia as a young person. On a rainy day, I looked out from my hotel window and saw hundreds of brightly colored umbrella’s on the ground below.

Most of us love color because it reminds us that even though we all will die someday and we all will sometimes have bad times, that life can be colorful, even if we make it so.

So..still want your feedback and if you don’t like color, that is fine. My use of color was intentional, not accidental.  Oddly enough, many people loved the color while some did not. Funny how that goes.

Still hoping for your feedback as so far, it has helped us to make a better GUI for our character system.  So far, I have replaced the buttons for the cultural panels to make them blend better.  I plan to try a drop shadow behind the panels.  Also, I am redoing the text to make it easier to read.

The next time you see the panels, they should actually working! Dennis is all done with the scripting and coding for the character system so I will show that off next time.

Teila

I have been very busy making UI’s for our character creation part of the game.  After spending a great deal of time researching UI’s in popular games and in Indie games, I finally sat down with a notebook and a pencil. I sketched out my ideas and shared them with the programmer who will be linking all the artwork together..and make it happen.

I talked to one of my lore guys and gave him some work to do writing up some blurbs regarding lore that will be used on the GUI.  My goal is to use the GUI to link the player directly to the lore, even before, he/she even walks in the world. Character creation is the beginning of character development in the mind of the player so we will start here.

I like a realistic art style but with simple layouts, easy to read and pleasant to the eye. I kept a consistent theme but used bits of color and flavor representing each of the culture present in the game.

First panel is the login panel.  At the top, all of the cultures are represented by small shields.  The image here and in the other panels were taken from in-game although they maybe updated later as things change.  This seemingly simple panel took the work of three people…Dylan created the beautiful title logo at the top of the page.  Kerensa worked on the shields, and I put it all together on the page along with a picture of the Bloodlands in game. Simple, easy to read, and already introducing the cultures to the player.

After logging in, the player can choose to create a new player or use one that is saved.  Once the player choose the character, the Enter Game button will become solid and he can enter the game. If he chooses to create a new character, he can do so now.  Yes, Buford is running around in his underwear again. He does have clothing, honestly. We will have to show those off soon.

Next step is diving deep into character creation.  The player will see an introduction to Aryiure and a bit of information useful to creating a character for the game. There first step is to chose from among the seven cultures available.  The backdrop below is a beautiful night time scene on an island off the coast of Caeril.

The red flag alerts the player to important information in the box below. There, she is instructed to choose her culture by clicking on the scroll.  After clicking a map appears and the player can choose a culture by selecting it on the map.  Later, an optional link to more lore information will be added for those who wish to be better informed before making a choice.  The lovely map was made by Richard.

After choosing a culture, the player will be taken to a lore page about that particular culture. There he can read a bout about each culture and choose again if he prefers another.  He can also choose a birthplace, used mostly for role player purposes but will also be useful when the game advances and we can add in more towns and villages. After choosing a birthplace, a popup will give you information and the Next button will lead you to the next panel.

Each culture will have it’s own panel. Above is Sala and the church, created by a friend, Cobus, captures the deep religious faith of the Sala people.

Below are the Aethan’s, island dwelling people with a taste for adventure. I wanted a light, breezy feel for their page.  This is an in-game screenshot.  Text for the cultures will be filled in after we reduce our summaries to fit into those tiny little boxes! 🙂  Working on it!  The art work on this panel was made by me, Photoshop, and some lovely textures I found. I had lots of fun with it.

The Drulons are a unique culture that lives in a deep and beautiful swamp. I wanted to capture the mystery of their culture, shrouded in mist and symbolized by the stately living sentinels.

The screenshot for the Tarians was taken from an asset I purchased. I plan to pull out the modular parts in that pack and rebuild the castle in our game, along with the icy flows on the water. The Tarians live in a mountainous area, cold and snowy for a large part of the year due to the elevation. This picture reminds of Adoken, the main city of Tariana.

Those of you following my blog will be familiar with the next picture. The Bloodlands was the scene of a bloody battle but now is a peaceful farming area, dotted with small villages and fields.  It is also the home of Caeril, a multicultural city that will be  the first area featured in the game.  Kerensa created the beautiful top piece on the lore panel, which mimic’s the sun rising over the plains.

The Sakoians are the people of the desert.  Large dunes and rocky desert floors spread far and wide. A small village with a well is most welcome to travelers and traders who cross the desert on a daily basis.  This is an in-game shot.

Giant trees, children of the goddess Kainna rise above the forest floor and shelters the Dalmite people who live beneath their branches.  This is also taken from an in-game screenshot.  I had quite a challenge creating huge trees and finding a way to make them look realistic and yet unique. I plan to build villages and cities in the trees in the future.  Kerensa created the beautiful initials on several of the lore panels, including the tree-like letter D.

Once the player chooses her culture and is happy with her decision, she can select Next and go to the next panel, where she can choose her gender, name her character, and then use sliders to create a customized and unique character.

No, this is not our characters as you can tell since this fellow does not at all resemble Buford from the above image. Ethan is a dear friend of mine and he visits all my terrains where I use him for scale. 🙂  He was kind enough to stand in for our characters.  While Dennis was setting them up, he suggested some changes to the way I created the customization, clothing, and hair tabs. So once I make those changes I will take some pictures and post Part II.  The same tabs are there, just different layouts on the pages.

As you can see, there are three pages for body, face, and head customization plus tabs for clothing, markings (freckles, scars, tattoes, etc.), and hairstyles.  Once the player chooses gender, suggestions will be given in the naming guide below with specific ideas for naming his character based on the culture he has chosen.   Skin, eye, and hair color available will also be based on the culture as well as the clothing and in some cases, the tattoos.  When finished, your character will be ready…at least his appearance and the beginnings of his background story. He has a culture and a hometown as well as an appropriate name.

You are probably wondering where all the stats are? When do I get to choose to be strong or intelligent or all those things?  In LoA, we will be doing things a little bit differently. You will have a chance to decide your character’s path forward as well as his past before you are fully immersed in the game…but how you will do that will have to wait for another post at another time.

So..next time, some better pictures of the customization with our actual characters.  I should have those done soon.

Please comment and let me know what you liked or didn’t like. I appreciate constructive criticism and I love to know how you like it.  It is big motivation for me and the others on the game.

Other updates on the coding front..Ryan has been chopping down trees in the forest and the character looks great, no longer looking at his feet and head doesn’t go through the tree. He is adding skill as expected. 🙂  Dennis is making a fabulous chat panel with all sort of great features that will help you to role play and chat during game play. Feel free to toss some suggestions…but better hurry as he is moving quickly.  Kerensa has promised me some more concept art.  Dylan is writing some great lore to round out the UI panels.  Oh..and I should be showing off some player house building soon, using a system similar to Rust, but much better. I hope to use it to show you how to build treehouses in those giant trees very soon.

See ya! Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and a Happy New Year!

Teila