Some Trailers - Umbra

I talked with Andrew about what he thinks still needs to be done for Umbra and we came up with a surprisingly long list. One of the things on the list was some trailers for a semi truck. I decided to tackle these and I completed the basic models of them. I have a tanker, box, and flatbed trailer done. After I get them all unwrapped and such I can go through and make variants on them to add a little diversity to them in-game.

Anyway, here they are:

Some of the other things I'll probably be working on are highway signs, business signs, and a water fountain, among other things as we need them.

Finally an update!

Hey guys, sorry it's been so long since my last post. Most of what I've been working on hasn't had a lot of visuals, so I wanted to get some before I posted. I only have some images from the main and pause menu for Umbra, a generic main menu and upgrade screen, and some more models for Umbra. I also have a couple small updates on Iguana X, Nordic Sol, and Paper Samurai. To start things off, here are the pause and main menu for Umbra:

This is the original main menu layout, the text for the menu are 3d models and the texture on them pans(moves) across them. Umbra was modeled by myself, and the other two were modeled by Corey Farmer, both were based upon hand drawn concepts my Max Newsom. When the cursor is over start game or exit the textures will change to show they are selected. The cursor is an animated sequence of an asteroid on fire, created by Andrew Talarico. Since this version we have added updated foliage and adjusted the scale/position of Umbra. Sorry for the missing polygon on the rocks and such, the computer I was previewing on has a low end graphics card.

This is the pause menu. we had quite a few people working on this one. When pause is pressed the camera will animate from a behind view to this, and the sphere grows(Done by Bryan Harlow and Corey Farmer). The text graphics were created by Dan Langford and Dave Troyer. Corey and I put together the AS3 and Unrealscript to make it work. Corey was a huge help in figuring out how to pause the game correctly, something that was stumping me for a while. The textures for Sola(The main character) were created by Andrew, but I think he has updated them since this render.

While working on the menus for Umbra I got the idea to make generic menus/pages to use as templates for future projects. So in my spare time I've been trying to put together these pages. So far I have the Flash side of things done for the main menu(mostly taken from Umbra) and a skill/weapon upgrade screen. I have the Unrealscript done for the main menu(again, from Umbra) and have started working on the upgrade screen. I have most of it figured out, but am trying to find a way to pass Unrealscript variables into AS3. I can easily get them from AS3 to Unrealscript, but not the other way. All I need it for is to pass the players current number of points into the SWF so it will display correctly. Once I get them done, all I'll have to do is replace the images with the new ones and they'll be complete. Here they are:

The main menu is a little blank, but a background will fix that. If I have time after they're all completed I'll go back through and add an options menu to it. 

The upgrade screen will show current points, as well as the current level, name, description, and cost of the items/skills that can be purchased. If the player is unable to afford an item the upgrade icon will disappear, or if the item is at its max level.

Here are some more rock models, the first one is a high poly one for the main menu. The second is another rock cluster, this time I tried for a stacked rock as opposed to a scattered rock look. The second one is a regular low poly model.

I'll summarize the other three projects in brief little blurbs:

• Nordic Sol: Getting all the conversations in and animations. Bryan Harlow is mainly working on the animations. David Fuson has been adding more pixelart assets into the level.

• Iguana X: Ryan Hess completed the iguana and Andrew and I have all of the primary props done.

• Paper Samurai: Compiled the menu and combat system, Bryan has done an amazing job of making the menu, and helping me troubleshoot some game stopping bugs. All that really is left is to figure out why the combat system only works for one match(two rounds), and to add the updated animations/graphics into the levels.

I think in the future I will not have so many projects going at once... It's a lot to keep up with, and to stay motivated about. Motivation is probably the number one helper in completing projects. Sadly, on Nordic Sol and Paper Samurai, I lost quite a bit of motivation. Mostly this is due to lax leadership, or a lack of interest from the creative directors(Perhaps this is only my perception...) Once we get both of those done I'll have to write up a post mortem on them.

Anyway, thanks for hanging in there with me. I should be able to post more frequently like before, so stay posted! And have a great Thanksgiving!

Some Images - Nordic Sol, Umbra

I have a few images from Nordic Sol that I made as placeholders until the art team can make some in the same style as the rest of our assets. The drawings aren't the best but I had fun practicing with my pen tablet. I'm slowly getting better with it. Now if only I was better at drawing... Oh well, practice helps with that!

Here is a table that the sword will be resting on in the melee part of the tutorial:

And here is a practice dummy that you will have to attack to proceed:

And, as I promised in my last post, I have the main menu map laid out for Umbra. I will probably have to adjust it when I get a look at it with our post-process effect over top of it. We would like the menu to be like a cast shadow onto the wall in front of the player, but with our current color scheme on our textures I'm afraid that it will make dark text too difficult to read. Below is everything laid out with almost all of our textures. The actual land doesn't have a unique texture made for it yet, nor do the rocks. For the land I am using a texture that Bryan Harlow made for a past demonstration, and the rock texture is a stock one from the UDK.

A Simple Update - Nordic Sol, Umbra, Paper Samurai

I don't have any images to show at the moment, I've mostly been working on code stuff for Paper Samurai and Nordic Sol. For Paper Samurai we are in the process of readjusting the sizes of the characters, score bar, and other misc. graphics to get them how we want them. Bryan Harlow has the menu for the game almost done, and all I have to do is make a round counter and figure out how Michael wants the score to be presented.

With Nordic Sol, I've been slowly putting the conversations in. I get caught up on exactly how we want a scenario to work out, so that slows me down a bit. I have the intro conversation completed and the melee portion mostly done, but was waiting on a design answer from David Fuson. I should have quite a bit more done by the end of the week. We're getting all our assets put in and seeing exactly what else needs to be done.

Thanks to some help from Corey Farmer we were able to get the pause menu working and actually pausing correctly. Before when we tried to pause it would pause everything, including our pause menu, leaving us with no way to unpause. Luckily Corey found a function in the UDKHUDBase.uc file in the default UDK classes that actually paused the game while allowing us to still interact with menus. Since we have that working Corey has been working with Bryan to get the animation worked out for entering the pause menu. Today I'll be setting up the main menu map, and seeing what I can do without having some of the art redone.

Anyway, that is all for now. If I get the menu map to where I want it I'll be sure to post an ingame render of it.