Dead State [ex Zombie RPG]

[e1ke]

Lo voglio prima di subito

[Hank]

cazzo figata

[Larios (( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°))]

poi mi leggo tutto, gli ambienti sembrano piu dettagliati di quanto sperassi

[acct-eliminato.62]

[TucoBenedicto]

Qualche piccolo update sull'art direction.

This week we've got our character modeler Joey doing an update about some of the improvements he and Oscar have made on our character models to improve both the look and performance of our NPCs. Here's Joey:

We've been redoing the characters to make them a bit better. Previously, we had a naked body to which we latched all kinds of stuff: hair, trousers, shirts, shoes, and miscellaneous detail. On top of that, to accommodate dismemberment, these parts were divided up too. Now, we're decreasing the number of objects. Here is a picture of R_____, one of the [characters you may meet] in the game, the old and the new version:



The old version consisted of 16 objects: a torso, a head, hair, a left arm, a right arm, a left leg, a right leg, the vest, two seperate bracelets, a choker, the crotch of the trousers, a trouser's left leg, a right one, and two shoes.

The new one consists of 2 objects: a body and a head. We'll still need separate arms and legs for dismemberment, but this time, we're only going to use a special dismemberment model (consisting of 6 objects) when it's actually happening; the chances are *really* small.

Companions will use these two objects, generic people will have separate head and hair, so 3 objects total.

A couple of reasons why we made this decision:

- It runs faster. Less objects is easier for the computer.

- Less seams. You can see a bit of a lighting issue on old R____'s right arm, near the shoulder. That's the point where the arm would be taken off if it were cut off.

- Less wasteful textures. Before, we had to load the texture information for the entire naked body, even if you only saw the head and arms. Now, there isn't any!

- Unique textures. Every pixel of the texture can now be unique to that companion, which, for example, allowed us the tattoos, and the personalized face. That means every companion gets his/her own face, and other NPCs will get a few options as well, whereas this was just one male and one female before.

- Unique models. As long as we keep to the standard skeleton, we can vary the proportions. R____ here is a bit chubbier than other women might be, and we can make others thicker still. Nothing too radical, but but a bit of character nonetheless.

The textures are a bit bigger, but that it won't hurt performance; they're still very small compared to modern games, and don't use normal and specular maps.

In all, this ought to make Dead State's characters less of a drain on your computer and less of a sore for your eyes.

Most characters and every ally in the game has a portrait. Last week we showed off the model changes to one of our characters. This week, I’ve included the in-game portrait for that character. All our portraits are done by Kim, our 2D artist. The 2D portraits and our character model sheets are used as a basis for the models that Joey makes.

One of the goals of the portraits is to capture the spirit of the NPC’s personality and give each survivor a unique face. The designers (Annie and me) come up with a general look and feel for the characters, then give a bio and reference material to Kim, who then drafts an initial concept. After a few notes from Annie, Oscar, and I, Kim tweaks the portrait and gives it the full color and shadowing treatment. Sometimes dialogue or character arcs are used by Kim to give the characters an expression that suits their personality without going in too extreme a direction – they’re kept near to neutral to suit the content of most conversations. All ally portraits, info, and status are recorded in the player’s journal.

If you look hard enough, you may be able to find a few more “photos” of some of the other survivors lying around somewhere… Also, feel free to shoot some questions to Kim in this thread.

[The.End]

Francis femmina

[TucoBenedicto]

Update su Dead State:

As we continue to work towards our Kickstarter presentation, we thought we would show off some new screens of the game to whet your appetite. Today we’re showing off a few of the many upgrades the player can make to their shelter. Take a minute to look at and compare the pictures of the unaltered and transformed shelter:



You’ll notice a few changes between the two sets of pics. In the first one, you’ll notice that the only protection the school has is a flimsy chain-link fence. This is going to prove to become a liability as zombies or other humans start showing up and trying to take it down to get inside (which is game over), so it would be in your best interest to upgrade it to the reinforced fence, which is shown in the bottom pic. The reinforced fence ups the amount of damage the fence can take before it needs to be repaired, which makes it less of a daily concern.

You’ll also notice a watchtower in the second pic. The watchtower upgrade has two benefits. Every day it generates morale daily in the shelter by just being present. It also opens up a new job at the shelter – guard duty. When allies are posted to guard duty, they can intercept attacks earlier, which causes less damage to the fence per guard assigned. You’ll even notice an ally guard hanging out in there in the pic.

The final difference you might notice (aside from more people around) is the car. While the car is not an upgrade (it allows you to travel farther for fuel costs), there is a garage upgrade that is necessary to maintain your car or enhance it. Cars can become faster and more efficient with upgrades. Of course, you’re going to need a decent mechanic if you want your car to keep running.

We’ll be showing off more upgrades to the shelter in our Kickstarter presentation. Keep watching our board, Facebook, and website for more information on our Kickstarter launch and for new Dead State information. As always, feel free to leave feedback on what you’d like to see for our Kickstarter launch in the previous threads. We’re working hard to put together the launch and we can’t wait to show you the progress we’ve made. Thanks for all your helpful comments and support everybody!

[Aanok]

Diobò, con tutti 'sti ottimi indie e Kickstarter non mi rimarrà di che comprarmi il pane

[Jehan]

Diobò, con tutti 'sti ottimi indie e Kickstarter non mi rimarrà di che comprarmi il pane

this

[e1ke]

Aggiornamento:

4/23 Monday Design Update - First Look: Dead State GUI Design (plus more)

This week, it’s time to show off a little more of what’s going on in our game these days. Let’s take a look at the GUI… FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER!

But first, let’s examine the process of how we got there. Our GUI starts with design. Design outlines all the key features of the GUI, what’s going in which GUI, how important each feature is, what our art theme is going to be, and the layout. We then take all of that and we mockup a concept of the GUI, which is a very rough idea of what design needs before art makes its final suggestions.

The layout of your main GUI is of critical importance. A good GUI isn’t going to save a bad game, but a bad GUI can cripple a good game. The GUI needs to do the following:

-Draw attention to important information.

-Be laid out in a sensible way to allow players to jump in (*it helps if it borrows from other games in the genre for familiarity).

-Allow access to important actions and sub-menus without relying exclusively on hotkeys.

-Not be too noisy or take up too much screen real estate.

-Relay tactically sensitive information in an immediate and logical way.

-Have a consistent theme.

Once the designers finish the GUI mockup, we turn it over to art. In our pipeline, we have recently added a very talented GUI artist to work on the many different screens we have. Oscar (our lead artist) and both Annie and I have given several rounds feedback to get the GUI just right to balance design, functionality, and artistic/readability needs of the GUI. Additional testing of the GUI will tell us if we need to make any further changes.

Now let’s take a look at two of our GUIs – both are works in progress, so they may not be representative of the final look of the GUI. This is not a mockup, it exists in the game.

Here’s the main GUI:


You’ll notice a couple of things.

-Our art style for the GUIs reinforces the “scavenged materials” aspect of the game.

-The Noise Meter at the top tells you how noisy you are.

-The portraits tell you who’s with you, what their health is at, and if they have any statuses.

-Your currently equipped weapons and hot slot items (medical kit and grenade shown), remaining AP, HP, and any statuses you may have.

-A text box overlay on the left for messages.

-A list of sub-menu icons on the right (inventory, group commands, map, and main menu).

-We reduced it as much as possible to not interfere with gameplay.

Now, let’s take a look at one of our sub-menus (also a work in progress). This is the character sub-menu:



You’ll notice the following:

-Again, the GUI is made up to look like something made with available materials. Since the player starts in a school, the icons are stickers and the sub-menus are made to look like post-its.

-We’ve got HP, Max AP, and current Armor rating next to the portrait.

-Perks earned are listed under the portrait.

-Stats and Skills take up most of the space. Distributing points is demonstrated in Skills. At the 3, 6, and 10 levels of a skill (the circle), perks can be earned.

-We have an explanation of each skill, stat, and perk found on the 3X5 card below – mousing over a sticker will tell you what you need to know about that item.

-We have left some room to expand or add to certain items and additional space for the GUI to fit on widescreen or conventional monitors.

-A list of available sub-menus can be navigated at the very top of the screen. It is very easy to get to any screen in the game.
So that’s a first look at our GUI and a little bit behind the process of creating them. Let us know what you think!

And also, just because:



School’s in, Dead State fans!

Anche se i ritratti fanno cagare, trovare un disegnatore migliore non sarebbe male

[Dudo_Q]

L'avevo cancellato dai segnalibri, ci rientra di prepotenza.
Grazie eike, illumini le mie giornate in questo forum di oscurità

[Lucasart]

Mai smesso di credere in Dead State, sarà Day 1 sempre e comunque
Certo, sempre se questo Day 1 arrivi prima della mia dipartita.

[Crius]

promette sempre meglio

[GianluOwNx]

Sono in astinenza da game con gli zombie, need moar!!!!

[TucoBenedicto]

Nuovo update.

Just a quick update this week. We’re hard at work locking down and polishing what we want to show for the Kickstarter. We want to make sure we show as much of the Dead State experience that we can before we ask fans and gamers to pledge money to our game. To that end, we’ve actually been expanding our team. The GUIs you saw last week were done by Mazin, who also did the GUIs for Age of Decadence. We’ve also added a composer to the team whose work you will be hearing soon.

That brings our team size up to about ten people working on weekly tasks for the game – and that’s not counting semi-regular contributors on the art side. I see my name or Annie’s thrown around as the “people who are working on the game” so I think this week I’ll do a refresher on who else has been working on this game.

Oscar – Oscar is our Lead Artist. Oscar supervises all of the other art tasks, and is responsible for much of the art and level work in the game. He is pretty much the jack-of-all-trades on the project and assists in design and scripting tasks in addition to his art lead responsibilities. Oscar is also responsible for the art direction on Age of Decadence.

Nick – Nick is our Lead Programmer. Nick is responsible for engine modification, content tools and systems implementation, and pretty much anything that has to do with the code. Nick is building upon code he worked on for Age of Decadence, though Dead State has plenty of new features that have kept him busy.

Ivan – Ivan is our animator on Dead State. You’ll be seeing a lot more of his work when we show off footage of the game. Ivan also worked on the animations for Age of Decadence.

Kim – Kim is our portrait and 2D artist. She has done all of the portraits for Dead State and is working on multiple other 2D art tasks such as inventory icons.

Brandon – Brandon is another 2D artist specializing in logos. Any time you see a store logo (of which there are many in a modern day game), mascot, product billboard, or poster in the game, it was probably drawn by him.

Joao – Joao is a 3D artist who did all of the weapon models in the game and is currently working on level objects and level art.

Jason – Jason is another 3D artist and longtime contributor helping out with objects in the game.

Joey – Joey did the 3D models that you’ll see in the trailer and our screenshots.

Mazin – Mazin is our new GUI artist. He also worked on the Age of Decadence GUI.

Leif – Leif is our composer. You will hear his work in the trailer and some of our other promo material.

And that’s who is working on Dead State. Obviously, one reason we’re doing the Kickstarter is to compensate our team and allow them to devote all or most of their time to the project, which will allow us to plan around more rigid milestones. Many of our team members have been working on or contributing to the game for a while now. You’ll find most of them stopping by here on the boards, so feel free to give them a virtual thumbs up.

Also, here's a look at our infirmary upgrade for the shelter:

[Crius]

Praticamente il team grafico è quello di age of decadence

Inviato dal mio GT-S5570

[TucoBenedicto]

Praticamente il team grafico è quello di age of decadence

Inviato dal mio GT-S5570

Non del tutto, e non solo il "team grafico" (visto che anche Nick, il coder, è del team di AoD).

Comunque il gioco già ora si presenta meglio di AoD; spero solo che con il nuovo motore aggiornato abbiano risolto alcuni problemi dell'altro gioco, tipo una camera orribile da gestire e qualche evidente problema di performance.

[bragut]

Appena pubblicato il Teaser trailer su YouTube. Vi avverto che non si vede un cazzo ed è realizzato malissimo. Inutile, ma a quanto pare qualcosa si sta muovendo.

[Larios (( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°))]

e' quasi peggio del nuovo logo di ngi in effetti

[Lucasart]

Bhe dai, ha un che di... una sorta di... richiama un po' quei film li... avete capito, no?