Update

Well. Its past my 6 months publish deadline but still the team is as keen as ever to see this project thru.

We lost 2 months initially due to both Xmass and explanatory marathons on some level design elements so now that time needs to be made up.
To aid forward momentum, I have discarded the entry level of the game development for now and will revisit it later as part of a look-back scenario.

Now player starts within the entrance of the cavern systems.



Wmb's are used here to get a deeper atmospheric mood than what models can deliver and to assist entity removal not possible with block geometry.

Our scene management is currently being refined and due to a lack of modellers, most of my time is currently centred on level design refinements.




Comprising both wmb and model formats, the cavern worlds the project is played within offers some design challenges like variety and rewards for tunnels and open caverns.


After some time navigating within claustrophobic cave systems, player needs to feel some relief by coming across caverns where open space permits a breather of sorts.



We are still along way from refining textures for low level shader and detail maps and quite a long way away from having characters yet but the target is to arrive there as soon as possible.

Scene management currently keeps FPS at a stable 60 and the overall progress is still at level1, some 30% only.

I like the atmosphere and the colours!
The claustrophobic cave part is especially impressing!
How does the player move there? The 'stairs' are made for jumping or climbing?
I wish you good progress! Hope, you will find some modellers!

Just came to my mind: Don't forget to test movement, camera and gameplay in the levels quite often!

Thanks pappenhiemer

The 'claustrophobic' scene has sloped floors which can't be seen in the above screen. Its a natural rift formed by an earthquake that gives access to artificial cavern systems further below, deep in the Underworld.

There will be some climbing parts but the player is played with 3 chooices
1. Natural human mode in which case player has to climb.
2. Augmented suit mode where player can jump, climb or swing down
3. Augmented suit with flight module.
The modes are dependant upon the choices player makes in the room above with the suit cabinets.

Player scripts are still being worked on and c_move camera has a lot going for it by maintaining a distance from walls so as to not penetrate the walls etc automatically (doesn't always work )

Current gameplay camera mode is FPS.

Well if you need a modeler I can help, Email me at alexnabokov@comcast.net

here is some of my work

http://s185.photobucket.com/albums/x34/alexnabokov/Portfolio/

That would be awesome thanks NabokoAlex as we are need of modellers.
Payment only on publication deal though so If your wanting to follow this up, register at http://nvisionsnz.com/phpBB3//index.php and I'll activate you so you can check us out,
Cheers...

Just an update on some models.

Part skinned and animated at around 50% the models now make it possible to actually test collisions and gameplay.

All created in MED

Normal maps, materials to come yet but still subject to crits

Cleaner Beetles, keeps complexes clean from debri and foreign matter


Alarm lights (not yet implemented


At rest


Rehua




Upper Reaches heavies, speciess Rattus

I like the cleaner beetle very much. Colour, shape and pose are wonderful!

The skin of the others are still an early sketch I suppose, because it is very flat. The flying model needs a sort of contrast on the skin, a second colour. Maybe, the next step could be adding small lined drawings or signs overall the skin, similar to the beetle, but with smaller lines.


What sticks out is the hand of the rat. It should be less straight in idle pose, and it doesn't grip the sword close. To solve the latter you could make the sword and its handle bigger.

Thanks Pappenheimer, can always rely on your crits and directions.
Oddly enough, after posting the flyer, I had started with the lines on the skin but mostly, its not really going to be seen, only briefly and rarely but it will cause significant grief, still, when its been killed it will be looked at then by players, just to see what it is.

Yes, Rattus needs work still on his grip but I'm not sure if I want to tighten the grip or scale the weapon up (based on the asagi I think its called)will play with it more.

In any event, all the weapons the species has need the same sized handle as thats where the prob actually lies since I use the same model for each different version (old rat, plump rat etc) so some use a club, others the long handled sword and others, crossbows aand knives.

Forgot to animate the idle hands movement so will get onto that too, thanks.

THe 2d concept art is pretty cool.

You shouldn't stretch the terrains like that. If you must have high mountains, then use a model and map it so the sides look good. You can regiain some of the performance hit by crunching the models and using LOD. The character models are good for a hobby project.

The levels need better static lighting and use of detail blocks. If the textures were not so bland it would help, however good lighting would help to hide that.

Hi Ya A.Russel, long time no see mate.
Thanks for the pointers and will certainly be improving heaps shortly.

More screens of current refinements as level 1 gets its finalisation tweaks

Looking from the old 'Suit room' access into Start Pos. The transparency is a piped view of the outside
that provides real world sunlight for plant and animal health.



Start Pos, where player makes its entrance. The brighter area is where the teleport mechanisms reside








The AutoDoc and Computer access pods




Looking back out into the suit room and access hallway




Looking into Medi Center Pyramid