Project Eches - Sneaky Peak

Here's a sneaky peak at the game we've all been working on for our final project this year. (Echoes)

Project Echoes - Sneaky Preview from Project Echoes (C) on Vimeo.

Still not finalized but the team all have a great feeling about this project and that it's going to be completed to a good standard before the deadline! We're holding a second play-test on our university campus this week after the great feedback from the 1st (and hopefully our playtesters will agree we've worked on that feedback!).

Less than 2 weeks to get this project done, so I'm going to keep working at it until then. Wish us all luck!

Project Echoes - Optimized Ivy and Ninja Theory

As you've probably seen I've been posting some images of heavily ivy-ified props recently which I keep saying that I'll be optimizing soon. Which I have now got around to doing! I suppose a very important question might be why did I decide to do so much damned foliage considering it's known for being a pain in games? 

One of my main influences for this aspect of the environment has been playing Enslaved and getting to move around the environments in that, which I can honestly say despite very linear levels (infact, because they are so linear) are beautiful artistically speaking. Here's some shorts of the environments which I've found influenced me during this project -

I love Ninja Theory's use of colour and foilage in Enslaved, and I feel the broken down post-apocalyptic future covered in green plentiful grass has wonderful juxapostion and really adds to making the environment feel like a plausible place where the world doesn't end after it's apocalypse,  instead it grows anew. 

I've just started playing DmC (and have Heavenly Sword on my wishlist on LoveFILM), and I can see the same level of work and detail in this game as seen in Enslaved, which has been motivating while working on the levels for Echoes. DmC has the same wonderful use of colours seen in Enslaved in a completely different palette but still clearly the same style, and the concept art is gorgeous. This is the style in which I'm going to be trying to develop my art within the next year or so, as it always feels so fresh and engaging to an audience. Currently this is the vein I'm seeing my art develop in and in the future I would love to do some work for Ninja Theory.

So here's my first post of some optimized foliage covering my ruins for the game. Personally I'm loving the addition to my ruins, and feel like it's giving them a munch more personalized and overgrown and abandoned feeling than I was getting before, and I feel this is getting me closer to where I want to head with my work

However after optimizing this I do have a lot more understanding why some games have shyed away from ivy, especially before generators and in game tools. The first stages were especially time consuming, but it got a lot quicker afterwards. I'll be posting up a tutorial for how I did it in the next few weeks once I've got some more of it done with the other ruin pieces. So watch out!

Project Echoes - 'lil Screenshot

Been playing around with some shaders and lighting and just wanted to share this picture of the Winter Court in Project Echoes =)

Just over a month 'til the end of the project and it's wonderful seeing it all come together.

Project Echoes and My Problem with Trees!

Currently fighting against a few problems with the level. The alpha planes are looking a little off in my level. Currently I have these trees in the level, but I find they're looking very flat and with them being so low I'm not sure they work well.

Here's a video of some rough game-play with these trees:

Here's the other leaves I've made which would relay less on opacity, and have more possibility for shape. I am also wondering if they would improve my FPS in Unity as they're would be less alphas to calculate.

Here's video of how it would look in game-play:

I feel that although the trees with the giant leaves are a better design, that they aren't right for this environment. Feedback from the team has confirmed this, so I'm looking at ways to make my trees less obviously game-y. I'm thinking if I move the leaves up higher that this would help as they'd always be further away and it'd be easier to dress the trees for viewing from below.