gamophyte on 28/9/2020 at 04:09
(
https://vimeo.com/462496381) https://vimeo.com/462496381
Walking around looking at the sky. A little bit more to do, wanna add even more distant line of trees, and perhaps some other small tweaks. Note that the banding you see is due to compressing dark pixels. Imagine this with no banding. :cheeky:
Edit: Brightened GIF [video]https://i.imgur.com/DN9Ozq0.mp4[/video]
nicked on 28/9/2020 at 08:44
That distant art is something else. Beautiful!
gamophyte on 28/9/2020 at 14:21
Thank you Nicked!
gamophyte on 6/8/2021 at 17:05
Small update:
I thought covid down time would be perfect for dev work on this project but I was wrong. It lowered my tolerance for things going wrong, and tedious things became even more tedious.
I had to create a completed circular stone railing on the stair tower, then splice it up into sperate objects so that the bounding boxes made sense. Ie the player collides with the rails on the inside like a fence, as well as a climbable pathway from the outside. It was painstaking to have it fit together and not have texture flicker because of overlapping objects. My work flow died half way through the railing and have been just focusing on IRL job.
But I'm glad to say this past week I finished the railing, and I have motivation again. Just glad to be away from that tower area for once lol. I imported my realistic torches from my other city project and yeah, I love these bitmap fires!
Now back on it, I'm being careful not to burn myself out, and moving to other areas. I at least want to finish the courtyard for a small teaser trailer, and will hopefully have that by years end.
gamophyte on 24/2/2022 at 20:52
Hello to those who are still interested in this project and subbed. I was just checking in with @Phantom where I'm at with this (since he put so much work into AI modeling), and prob wondering what happened to me; Then I thought why not just make that an update here.
I've not stopped totally, just doing what I can here and there. I would say though the breaks between are getting longer and longer. But when I do come back it's usually pretty fun and I get a lot done before taking a break. Outside of more terrain carving I finally imported my realistic flame torch (that I originally developed for my indefinitely-held city mission). It really looks great now in Buried Deed.
[video=youtube_share;MY4IIjMJ30s]https://youtu.be/MY4IIjMJ30s[/video]
NOTE: What is depicted is not necessarily the final product. Textures, models, and sounds are subject to change. The captured video was greatly brightened to help with YouTube viewing/compression, the actual gameplay will be much darker.
Making them is so easy that I'm surprised I don't see them more in post-newdark missions. They don't have to be HD per se, but anything other than the default spiky flame model and particles would be great.
If there is interest, I might make a DML mod people can drop in to replace Vanilla torches in OM and other maps (I think that's how DMLs work). I'll probably leave off my system-expensive heat disks (to emulate heat waves).
But beside the torch, the video is also serves as a small glimpse of the courtyard area, at least at this stage.
To ensure that I keep going, I split up work into small victories, but I regret making one of them finishing the courtyard first - it has oh so many custom objects. I was doing this to actually have something pretty to look at for a short trailer video.
For this reason, the biggest delay lately is getting tired of how Google Sketchup exports 3DS. It's a sliver-triangle hell. I have to re-open the model, and guess where I might draw lines to help it not make stupid triangles.
And yes, I'm aware that I've said in the past I was going to finally learn Blender, but never did. I get anxious and just want to create. But now I can see in the long run it's burning me out to use Sketchup. With being on such a long break from BD now, I have no excuse.
If anyone has a favorite video series on the topic, preferably free (or cheap), let me know. I'm going full 101. I am thinking I'll have an ah-ha moment once I learn to a certain level, that I will fall in love with object making again.
redface on 26/2/2022 at 20:28
This looks seriously fantastic. But don't forget to work on other aspects as well, not just the pretty looks. That's how I failed to release my mission(s) - once the visuals were done, I had hard time to find motivation to do the "boring" tasks that piled up.
gamophyte on 26/2/2022 at 21:25
Quote Posted by redface
This looks seriously fantastic. But don't forget to work on other aspects as well, not just the pretty looks. That's how I failed to release my mission(s) - once the visuals were done, I had hard time to find motivation to do the "boring" tasks that piled up.
Thank you, and it's very heeded advice my friend.
My only saving grace on the work part is that I actually love carving terrain, and placing, as much as making something pretty. I go into a peaceful zone and listen to hours of my fav podcasts and it's really not work at all. I made most of the this chateau pretty fast because of this. Objects slowed me down.
I think my real Achilles heel will be objective gates. I've changed what I wanted the experience to be, and how to flow, like 10 times. My first draft was extremely ambitious and would set out to have a experience never seen in a FM. But the work, omg. I'll keep some of the ideas but I'm more tempered and focusing on mood, story intrigue, and stealth. I won't get to make my most ambitious horror elements a reality, and so am leaning more on adventure.
By the way, something that's been bothering me; I've seen some tech and special effects come out in recent FMs that I straight up have in my FM. Which should be fine but I really hope people don't think I'm biting off them. At least I have the emails with these ideas in them, predating the FMs to prove it. Maybe this just means I have to up the ante to distinguish the FM. More work :cheeky:.
Godlike on 8/10/2023 at 22:55
This project still going on ?
gamophyte on 8/10/2023 at 23:20
Yes, albeit very slowly. I actually started working on it more often lately, now having gotten through a terrain challenge I was having.