TheGatewayOfRealities

Climbing on moving objects

It works! And it gives a lot of opportunities to design lots of interesting things in the levels, like moving climbable platforms.

a.17.3 Update Video

The video speaks for itself! Check the previous post for the download link.

Planes of Existence build a.17.3

Finally it's there! 

Most of the awesome things is covered in the update video already (the following post), but this is where you can get the download link to try it out yourself!

Planes Of Existence a.17.3 win64.zip

If you're lazy to read the changelist, here is a quick note for you:

We changed controls quite a bit, so please check them in the "menu->...

2017-07-05 17:09:39 +0000 UTC View Post

Water 2.0

We really needed a new water shader, because the one we had was ugly, simple, and it wasn't working underwater at all! While its still a long way to the final look, I think it looks quite good already!

It has waves, faked indirect inscattering, better foam near the shore, refraction, specular... In other words, it has tons of weird hacky math to make it look nice! And I think I figured out a golden ru...

Inventory is taking shape

That tab has been there for a while already, but only now its starting to look like a real inventory! 

Icons are there, dropped items have special models (container cubes) they are displayed in as sprites, inventory is split into convenient sections with background images, it's all scrollable, it blurs the game behind it so its easy to read, we've got tooltips implemented... Its all going pretty good!

Icon style

So today I was working on graphical things for the next build so you don't get confused because of all the "programmer art" we've put there so far :}

I did some more placeholder models (better have quickly thrown together models without textures than just boxes with arrows everywhere), and drew a few icons so you can try the inventory and weapon systems... meanwhile I decided that it's time to settle down on the final style for those icons!

What do you think of it? I was looking into som...

Do you see the difference?

    Thank you so much for supporting the project this month! And phew! What a major chunk of modelling is done. Sorry for being silent lately, just wanted to finish this thing as soon as possible! 

By the popular request, people wanted to see more detailed style for the characters than was shown in the first demo... It's surely 10 times more time consuming to make, but its also very rewarding. 

Let's take a look what exactly has changed since I last posted a...

Time for art!

With the movement, interaction/skill, and combat systems all coming to functioning and usable state, its finally time to resume working on all the art assets! 

And here you can see some progress on Hizathri and Sergal models. I've decided that it would be best to finish them first, because their models are quite different in anatomy and features, while still sharing the same rig. Together they provide a good example workflow, making it easier to create and animate other species later on.<...

Movement system is almost done!

Its hard to put it all into words, so instead I'm going to shower you in GIFs! Woo! 

Animations and the character model are really-really temporary (all of them are going to be removed later and replaced with proper ones), and the green floating boxes are what will soon become equipable weapons.

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Sliding down unwalkable slopes:

Diving:

2017-05-14 19:34:17 +0000 UTC View Post

Stamina bar

All the new HUD elements are pretty much done!

We're aiming to release the new playable version early this month, as of right now there is still a lot of things to polish before we can make a playable build - but its coming closer!

After that, we're planning to return to a more regular release schedule, finally starting to provide more frequent updates again!

HP and other bars

It's a little thing, but its very important for any game! And also I think they look quite delicious...

More texture work

Forgot to post it as well! I made an interesting algorithm that populates the texture with small elements (like rocks and grass blades) and makes it tile.

All the new textures now have height information for more interesting blending, as well as normal maps! Just like people wanted :}

Feels so good!

Feels so great to be creating more 3d art for the game again! I enjoy creating those little natural things that will populate the environments and texture the surfaces of the upcoming maps.

Also... deserts are my favorite biome in the galaxy!

Definitely going for this Grand Canyon / Arizona type of cliffs, and while they need to look convincing, they must stay within the artstyle of the game. 2017-04-16 17:20:04 +0000 UTC View Post

Serenity plane

I took the heightmap of the first level that's going to be in Planes of Existence and put it through some cool photoshop tricks... Wanted to see if I can make it in a similar style to Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and I think I got it pretty close!

I have to say that lately this game has been giving me some of the best inspiration I ever had! I don't even own a WiiU or Switch to play it - but I'm deeply captured by it's ingenious design, charming graphics, gameplay freedom... even just by watchin...

Future plans - video update

Wooo! It's finally there, it's finally done. I'm so happy and tired!

Now - onto working on the next pre-alpha build, because it's also been a LONG while. Many things have changed since then and I badly want to show you what it is!

Video incoming

Finally the promised video update is complete! 

Now it's only rendering left. It was already rendering for 15 hours straight, yet with no avail - turned out there was a major mistake I had to fix. And now I have to do it all over again!

It all suggests that the video will be ready on first of April, but dam, I don't want to upload it on April Fools day! It's a serious talk about gameplay and game design I want to bring into the light.

 What would you suggest? Should I wai...

Still working on the video...

This video takes forever to make. 

I've made a script of 4500 words, recorded at least 7 hours of myself talking (and failing), then edited it down to 20 minutes of what's going to be in the video... Which was the easy part!

Now it's down to creating visual accompaniment for it, almost like it would be slides for a powerpoint presentation... A lot of them... 

Those slides are also adding some additonal info on screen, about which I didnt talk (if I were to do it, it would...

March Update

 Thank you so much for supporting the project this month! 

I will be very short in this post, because there is a new video coming out for this month's update!

Yes, that's right, finally!

The topic of this video is a detailed insight into the design document, an overview of all gameplay elements (such as exploration, combat, interaction, and life simulation) and other features planned and coming in the future of the game.

I'm currently devoting all my energy into it,...

Regarding download links and discord.

Many people seem to be unable to find the download links for some reason, even though they are still in the history of everything I've posted. 

So with this post im just gonna give the links to the posts cointaining them, for easy navigation :}

How to join discord: https://www.patreon.com/posts/discord-server-6676615  By the way, if that method doesn't work fo you (some...

GIF#011

Today added crouching and crawling, as well as jump-crouching. 

Later I'm planning on adding various kinds of tunnels the character can enter and crawl through (like caves), and also crouching while jumping might help to jump slightly higher.

GIF#010

Thank you so much for supporting our project this month, I'm working all days and nights, trying to finish the new animation/movement system as soon as possible so you can try it out in the next pre-alpha build sooner!

Today I implemented double (triple, quadruple) jumping and sliding down steep slopes

GIF#009

The combat locomotion seems to be in the working order! The character faces the direction of your mouse, analogue stick, or locked-on target.

If you go to the opposite direction from this target, the character will start walking backwards from it, allowing you to still aim your weapons and not turn your back to the enemy.

And of course its not that easy - there is like 25 different transition animations for various cases and turns.

Plus, as you see I already started workin...

GIF#008

While I'm busy with the animation system, Hopfel is programming the new camera behaviour, such as lock-on mechanics!

GIF #007

Locomotion system is on it's way... re-doing an entire system for the 4th time seems to have it's benefits!

Overall the controls feel responsive, a bit oldschool though, like in a good old platformer. I like it that way!

GIF #006

The reason why I havent uploaded new gifs in a couple days is that I dismantled the whole system and started from clean slate. 

This time it's not just a test: the whole architecture is thought through - weapons, aiming, shooting, running, swimming, jumping... all the glory and complexity of state machines. Now to implement that... Dx

GIF #005

Phew! Finally some result! I'm quite happy with this strafing  animations... it requires 10 different ones blended together!

8 different directions, but left and right ones are duplicated, you can see them switching when Moving Backwards variable  changes. 

In a nutshell: walking forward and walking backwards animation are inheritely incompatible, they have the order of foot placement reversed, and if 50% blended, they would just compete and cancel eachother ... 

GIF #004

While the animations themselves are raw and look ugly (the upper body is not animated at all for example) 

The goal is quite simple right now - to make it so the character's feet stay on the ground and don't slide! But that is especially tricky when you have to blend 8 different directions, but it's getting there... 

2017!!!

Greetings, Gatekeepers! And first of all, happy New Year!

  2016 year was one heck of a ride! Both on global and small, personal scale. For me at least, it certainly was, full of changes. 

  One of such changes, and one that is the most awesome, is of course, you! Everyone here helped to change my way of life and thanks to your support it allowed me to start chasing my dreams, every day doing something that my heart desires so much... I'm happy to work on such a...

GIF #003

Just by using 4 additional animations, the Bethesda's infamous strafing animation issue is easily solved...

In process of making them...

GIF #002

"Zoidberg noises"

Making strafe animations is awfully hard xD

But actually posting it now, I managed to make something decent, that's coming up next.