Games Project Lazarus

NEW POST

Hey guys... I've been away for a while improving my game development skills and I am finally at a stage where I can show the latest details on my models... with new tools and Alloy shaders at my disposal, I want to join other incredible artists who are empowered by Unity and REALLY show what it can do... This is also my first foray into UI design and understanding how it works in Unity...



So without further ado, here are the latest models for Project Champion... with a fresh coat of paint... in the coming weeks I am aiming to have my first gameplay alpha to show to you guys (I smartened up and snagged a copy of UFE). The background you are seeing is the first level that will be tested on, and it is a work in progress.
My biggest challenges so far with this progress is integrating Substances for portability and ease of detail, and also learning how to use Enlighten (which I love for it's real time GI feedback but steep learning curve) and dealing with inconsistent bakes which was not an issue when I was using beast. Hopefully in Unity 5.4, I will be able to bake down my textures. At the moment, all of the lighting is real time.

Another challenge was getting the skin, hair, and eyes to look natural as possible, something that is very difficult to do in real time, while keeping it stylised enough to avoid the Uncanny Valley. I may do slight shader tweaks to the characters a bit if things get too crazy...


Sorry for the large art dump, but I have been very excited to show my latest progress...

Aiko (In Engine Renders)







Blade (In Engine)




And a Zbrush shot.

 

Hey everyone, just passing thru real quick to give you an idea how far I will be taking the damage on the character models...and the level of detail that I hope to achieve. My idea is to have a least three levels of damage on each character, making the next level more gruesome than the last... and using code, I hope I will be able to switch through the textures by blending into them based on hits...



Damage level comparison:

 

The model looks great, can't wait to see him and others animated

 

Me too... I have 17 characters to go... all of them will have such features... the important thing I will need to learn is to definitely code mainly for stuff like progressively damaging the models... I can't wait to finish this model and work on the next... i'm in school and I'm working so it is taking longer than I expect...

The challenge is making sure the characters have the visual fidelity I am seeking... stay tuned

 

Question, does anyone know how to change the textures settings all at the same time? I am looking for a script and I can't seem to find any info on this... thanks

 

Here it is (credits to Martin Schultz).

 

Thanks but it looks like I will have to modify it to have bigger texture sizes... the fighter models have textures that hold up pretty good in close ups... this will be very useful

 

Ohh, this so cool! the second fighting game! me too im working in a classic 2D game play fighting game

Eternal Champions, a old classic of SEGA, i remember when i played it in my megadrive ;_;

Is great know that there are more peoples interesting in fighting games engine, i absolutely support it like the great Kinetic Damage to the end!

 

Hey thanks man... I am going to need all of the support I can get... I am still going to need to learn coding to make my game come alive... I also need to find out if i could legally produce the game (I guess it will be classified as a fan made game)...i'll probably show it on youtube since the franchise has lay dormant for over a decade, to garner support. I've also decided to keep the game 2.5D for the sake of ease and speed reasons (I can make my characters as details as I wish ), and all of the deaths will carry out in full 3d. And it will be a PC game first.

So in order, I have to do:

1. Character Modeling (with textures)
2. Level Design (with textures)
3. Animation of characters
4. Programming the moves into the character
5. Coding in general.
6. Audio and track design (I made sure I created some voices for the characters.

Could I get away with Javascript for this game? Or will i have to step it up with some C#? Also how would I setup my controls for the project?

Stay tuned...renders coming soon.

 

Well, I have finally finished the texturing on this first character and now prepping it to be rigged... but of course I wanted to share with you a little taste of what you will be seeing when these characters get into a nasty fight. For this one, I wanted to show the progressive damage that i hope to achieve in game. The shader still needs to be worked on and still trying to figure out a good way to blend the textures that build up to the damage. These are video clips taken and comped from Unity... I would love your thoughts and ideas.

stay tuned and have a good memorial day weekend...


http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/8557/kqz.mp4
http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/9120/6je.mp4
http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/7026/gqao.mp4
http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/5611/805.mp4

 

looks amazing! i really like the shading.

looks like have diffuse map, normal map and specular map right?

the damage system looks pretty cool

btw, the link in your sign to facebook don't work.

 

Thanks man... The shader I made has Diffuse, NM, Specular, Secondary Specular, Additive Masking, and clip maps (using SSE). And that video is just clips put together from screen shots... nothing is programmed! I have to figure that part out... but i will definitely program once i get some levels up and more characters to play with...

 

ohh, i see.

I really like the specular. you are using the general specular and a secondary specular with a texture for control the intensity?

EDIT :

sorry for asking a lot about the shading. im trying to make my model looks better, i want to add like you a secondary specular map and incandescence map for glow some parts in objects.

here how mine char is looking in the viewport of unity.



I believe everybody know the powerful men in the universe.

 

Yup...I have one texture that control the highlights and another for the strength of the shine... the gold trim and silver trim is done with an additive specular mask that allows me to overdrive the specular on any part of the body... the eyes are done with a special shader that gives the illusion of realistic eyes.

Since I don't have Unity pro, I will not have shadows until i get a licence... but that will not stop me from working on this... also I will be doing some Shader R D this weekend... Playing Virtua Fighter 5 for reference... but keeping this game on a 2D plane...

EDIT: Well, if you have the Strumpy Shader Editor, then it is all possible... In my shader, the emissive is controlled by an Alpha channel in the diffuse...

Nice He-Man btw... I loved him as a kid...

 

hope can see other characters and the girls of the game

 

You certainly will... I have a list of characters that will need to be designed in a timely manner... Trident is being rigged now...and i can already see inherent problems now, especially since he only has one hand... and I will definitely deliver on the girls

 

@Ratonmalo: On that FB link, you have to like the page to gain access to it

 

As I am sitting here working on the rigging, I am taking notes on things we should try to avoid, especially when we are painting influence on the vertices. And of course, it pains me to change some things to better make the design flow easier. Here are some of these notes:

-- Clipping is the number one killer on a project especially for games that involve full contact action (and it really pisses me off to see it. In the case of Trident (as much as I loved it), the pauldron on his shoulder had to be removed to accommodate the motion of the collarbone with his punches and any attack he performs.

-- When you do the rigging, even if the fight camera is going to be far away from the fighters, I put my model through a Range of Motion test to make sure the model can be flexibly animated. Not really a need, but I usually feel better if i can put the model into a split and the envelope holds up (using XSI here), especially in the crotch area.

-- Since this game is going to be 2.5D, polygon count on the characters is pretty much irrelevant here (doesn't mean go apeshit with the model either). I set up a nice buffer between 30,000 and 50,000 triangles, breathing room that allows me to create the models with the highest fidelity that the engine will allow and not worry about constraints to my creativity.

-- Shadow Skeletons. This is my first time really using it for game work, and I will say this, I am glad I am using it here... virtually no overhead, and easier to work with than the bones (especially with gimbal lock). And they envelope VERY well... I am using a custom rig to drive the animation (biped is good and all, but I would rather use my own skeleton). If you are interested in a quick video on how to set up the shadow rig manually, I'll be glad to set one up.

I still need to figure out how to set up the hitboxes in XSI and hope they transfer to unity perfectly. I think I will need two (one for giving the strike, and another for taking it... definitely a candidate for a prefab). Also GATOR works like a charm, especially if you have meshes that are exactly the same (as far as vertex position), in the case of Trident's trunks, torso, and legs, this worked very well... and cuts down on the amount of weight painting. The meshes will share the skeleton, which is fine since you will be able to fix both models simultaneously. And if you will be using the same rig, make sure the bones names are exactly the same on all of the models (hence why the meshes share the same rig)

-- Armour and rigid body parts are a bitch to vertex weight... this is reason why I changed the armour on the primary outfit. Use your judgement and decide whether or not it will work for you. There may be some parts of it clipping, but keep it to a minimum.

Stay tuned for some more stuff coming. Trident is nearly done on the rigging side. here is a pose test with the pauldron removed. I do miss it, but this will make the model function better without it, and show a more primitive side (his people were advanced in science while his enemies perfected the art of war. Trident is a mix of both)

 

Hey everyone, just passing thru with an update on the design of Atlantis... I kinda like working with Unity terrains since it is so much fun to work with... kinda wish I could use my shaders made in Strumpy Shader Editor to bring my terrains to life. I am now thinking of breaking the terrain up and having the cliffs as geometry. I am not thrilled about the stretching on the mountain so I may end up doing this.

Also for the trees, I am not using the built in shaders... I am trying to get away from the fake look of the terrain... I would love your thoughts... the small man is the character in his level... modelling terrains is very new to me... i am using a combination of Vue, Photoshop and Zbrush...

Stay tuned.

 

That looks like a good start, I like the wide space feeling, like you're in a crater filled with vegetation or something. Some dinosaurs and kinky vegetation inside it maybe ?

 

Well, i am definitely going to work on adding some trees and some patches of grass... but more or less it is going to be an island paradise. I will definitely have some fish in the water swimming, just waiting to nibble on the losers body and something creepy waiting in the depths . I don't like the plateau feeling now, so I am going to use geometry for the mountains so I can actually use some of my custom shaders on it.

One issue I may run into is I need some geometry to break up the vast ocean... although I could imagine Atlantis being very desolate...

 

(A poly saving solution for adding relief to the background is putting a skybox with drawn mountains on the horizon)

 

I like this idea... and it looks like I will have to revisit Vue for this process

 

Well, as much as this pains me, I may have to stop with this project :'(. I am looking for the original creator, and even though this is a fan made project, i don't want to run into any legal battles just to resurrect my favourite fighting game. Should I stop... or keep going with it?

 

Ha ! No, no, no you shouldn't give up
Every problem got its solution : if it is about legal issues, why don't you make your own fighting game, without searching it to be a tribute to Eternal Champion ? (and it's often this way some biggest ideas are born)

 

Well, this is a tribute to EC (insider)...and I even found the original creator on Twitter ... i think i may direct him to this thread and show him what i am making... but you're right, i've put a lot of thought into the models... why throw it away...

 

One thing though, considering the quality level of your models and polycount of your backgrounds, I guess there would be an estimated 2 years of development if you do this all alone (mine will have taken 3 years, and it's not as detailed as yours).
Good luck, and don't ever give up You won't have this chance to have enough time to make your own game twice in your life, imho (kids, family, daywork, etc).

If you found the original creator, you could propose him to collaborate for it to go faster

 

Thank you for your encouragement man... it feels really good to hear that....i do see about a 2-3 yr cycle for this game... I also have to design the wreck models for each character so i could def see this going longer for me but it is worth it... someone even went as far as saying that Trident look like he could be in Elder Scrolls Skyrim


But time to get cracking on this. What do you think of the visual tool, playmaker?

 

How did I never noticed playMaker yet
Honestly, it looks perfect for designing fighting games, as there are so many different states to deal with.
Maybe I'll give it a try after release, but for a starting game like Project Champion, it would be perfect.

It appears to be good for prototyping, too.

 

If i can buy it tomorrow, that would be awesome And fighting games would definitely benefit from this

 

Good morning and Happy 4th, finally started doing the animation (figured this would make more sense to do first) inside of XSI and trying to figure out how to bring it into Unity (thanks to Giyomu) and so far the results are very satisfying aside from the use of skin cloth which is very useless at this point and I can't tweak the interactive cloth . That clipping is going to annoy the hell out of me especially with characters that have to wear flowing gowns.

I am now thinking of using a technique that I was reading about in VF5, it may not behave the way I want it but it will have to do for now until true collisions can be done on Skinned cloth... I will have to use bones in the cloth and then set up the collisions and hitboxes from within Unity


Anyway, here is the video (real time from Unity) showing the possible fight pose of Trident, the first character... the animation is far from done (getting used to animating again and idle poses are a bitch to get right) since I need to get the rhythm of a gladiator fighting.

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/4673/c59.mp4

 

That bounding security box trick is brilliant
I never thought of this, and this could end the problem of huge performance hits due to mesh collision detection.

 

And since I would have to preroll the interactive cloth, I am using bones with rigid bodies on them, and have invisible boxes... I need to be reminded how to setup the hitboxes...

 

Just create solid boxes in your characters animations (under XSI here), animate them as you wish, then in the Unity import turn off their renderer and attach a rigidbody + box collider to them ^^

 

I think i saw something like this for TF2 where they setup individual boxes for hit points... this is so impressive... I am working on basic animations first before I start doing attack animations. And for each hitbox, I would have to parent them to each major bone

The animations:

IdleFight
Crouch (it has it's own unique animation)
Walk Forward/Back (I could reverse the leg animation in code)
Block (Will blend with crouch)
Jump (will split landing incase player gets hit)

 

May I give you some small advice for splitting animations, as I faced those problems
- crouch -> split into "crouching" (playMode Once) and "crouched" (playMode Loop)
So you only have to launch "crouching" when hitting down button, following up with "crouched". It is also useful for resuming your crouch_strike and crouch_hit animations to a crouched state without having to go by all the "crouching" phase.
- jump -> split into 4 anims : jumping_up (ascension), jumping_idle (when your guy is floating), jumping_down (descent), and landing (guy is landing on floor, if you don't have it there will be an unsmooth feeling when your guy lands)
Splitting into ascending/idle/descent will let you manipulate the height and duration of your jumps as you wish.

Splitting and organizing animation steps must be the most tedious chore I experienced in the making of a fighting game :s

 

I can imagine ... and I still need to set up my input (didn't do this yet lol) so I can test my work using the PS2 controller (not paying $64 for a Xbox 360 controller LMAO unless i can get a wired one) and I hope i don't have to use the built in character controller for this game (it reminds me of a giant pill)... and I will enjoy doing the hitboxes parenting them to the null based rig ...

Some of my challenges will probably include the fact that the in game characters are all different heights, and I will probably have to offset animation in code for every character...

I also forgot the "ThrowReach" animation...every character will share this generic animation

 

While i am working on the models' animation (having fun with it btw), I would love to share with you the profile of this character, which I have carefully crafted. I love writing profiles on characters so here it goes:

Trident

Real Name: Trident
Height: 196 cm
Weight: 127 kg
Occupation: Gladiator
Time Period: 9600 B.C.

Story

Trident is a gladiator on his world, and is so named because of the trident that replaced his hand, which was lost in a duel with a shark. During his time, his people provided the advances of sciences to better their lives in the sea and on land, while competing with the Greeks to see who would control the surface. Knowing that their world would be submerged within the ocean's depths, the Atlanteans designed environments that would help them survive the transition.

The people of Atlantis offered the Greeks a deal: they would want to coexist on both land and sea, but the Greeks would not accept that, since they only focused on the art of war. In response, with the advances of science, Trident was created as their champion to fight in the glory of Atlantis. On the day of the duel, Trident gained the upper hand against his opponent, nearly defeating him, until a pillar in the arena that was rigged, fell on top of him, resulting in a heavy loss. With Trident dead, his people were forced to live out the rest of their days beneath the sea, taking their culture with them.

 

Hey, everybody...

Just passing by with some cycles for this model, trying to make everything feel dynamic and have a sense of weight... I've kinda struggled with the walk cycle since I find walking animation tough to tweak... if anything I would love your thoughts and suggestions to make this feel weighty.

Here are the animations taken from XSI:

Fight Idle:

http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/5108/gmtd.mp4

Crouch Idle (This one was quite nasty looking at first with the legs clipping):

http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/3130/hqy.mp4

Jump (I had to play the original game to get this jump right, and I am still tweaking it so it has some weight to it):

http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/5697/fgky.mp4

WalkForward (This one is still being tweaked, and since he is walking forward, I could use the root of the skeleton to calculate walk speed):

http://img594.imageshack.us/img594/7628/9unc.mp4

 

Here are some animation tests from Unity... kinda disappointed at the results of the skinned cloth, and my rigging setup is not working as I like ... and I am not getting any proper results from the interactive cloth, unless I will have to model the hanging bits pointing forward... anyway, here is the video, feel free to comment... more animation coming up.

 

skinned cloth always is a pain! i having the same problem with some parts of armor.

Your animations looks really cool! hope see more soon

 

Holy S*** dude... yeah, I am doing more now, trying to do the animations for him getting up... such an awkward motion, especially if want them to get up quickly... very hard to do

 

Yeah, about the animations I change the position of the controls depend of the animation to make it easily, after all you bake the animations to the bones.

what 3D soft are you using?

 

Softimage XSI I still have to account for the ground positions and different hitting situations... more to come trying to stay inspired

 

I'm setting up the cloth on my alternate mesh, and I am running into issues with collisions. The model is not scripted yet as I am still working on animations for it, but is there is quick way to get the cloth to respond to collision such as the legs on my model. I could easily turn on generate colliders for the meshes on import, as expected (I use XSI for Cloth simulation when I do CG work). Setting up capsules and box colliders are too slow to tweak. Rigged cloth is too cumbersome, and Skinned Cloth is useless at this point.

Any suggestions would be great...

EDIT: Is there a way to pre-simulate the cloth? Like when the model is loading, i can have first animations ease into position, which is usually a pre-fight animation (This is done in 3d packages to allow the cloth to settle onto the character). Will that be easier?

 

about the cloths, did you try this?

http://www.farfarer.com/blog/2011/07/07/unity-skeletal-ragdoll-jiggle-bones-tutorial/

 

Yes, i tried this and I don't like how unnatural it looks... I finally got the Interactive Cloth to work properly, but i am still dealing with issues like the attachments moving at certain frames...

 

Hey, just passing through this thread with a new updated version of Atlantis, with a better attention to design and scale. Right now, I am exploring ideas of setting a waterfall somewhere in the high cliffs with some mist effects (looking forward to updating my license to pro) and plenty of smaller islands that can be seen in the distance. The island in itself is about 400x400 (metres) and I will be sure to cram plenty of details into it. And the gray dot in these captures is the characters.

As for the sand, I am not sure if i should keep it as a mesh or a terrain (I hate the blurring terrain textures) because I do want some grass on the sand and trees. Stay tuned.

 

looks good

are you making it 2D game play or move around the stage?

 

I am going to keep it 2D game play , since having it move around the stage is too complex for me (still learning how to use Antares Universe). I am still putting the scene together and trying to get all of the trees to look varied...