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[Christian]

Wait, is the game still side-scrolling or did it switch to first person?

[cubit]

Yep, 1st person (and perhaps 3rd, but I'm undecided) - I just felt ultimately that the side-scroller genre was not going to do the setting or my game play ambitions justice.

[cubit]

Onecoin: Thank you

Another small update:

I was finding that I just couldn't get close enough with my macro photo shots to get the information I need for the environmental R&D. My aim is for a fully scientifically accurate representation of our world at the microscopic level... right down to the cellular patterns.

So, I decided to purchase a microscope: This is a stereo microscope but in this shot I have an adapter mounted for attaching my DSLR.



Normally when you think of microscopes you probably think of slides. Wafer thin slices of specimens with a backlit image. That's certainly useful for me and I have some slides which show cross sections of common plant stems:



However, what I really need is more information about the microscopic surfaces of specimens I gather, so I take shots with a top light (currently a LED handheld torch but I think I will rig up something more effective).

The top light gives me more material surface property reference but the backlight is still useful too:





Here are some dandelion seeds, to the naked eye those strands that help the seed ride the wind look like strands of hair. Up close however, reveal details that you may not expect:







The seed head itself is an interesting structure:





Finally, specimens don't always have to be static:
I found my french bean plant to have some unwelcome guests: Aphids





The shrivelled body here is a shed skin:



I was reminded of the constant struggle for survival that occurs, here I witnessed a larvae and it's Aphid victim. The larvae was sucking it's body fluids out. Charming

[Grhyll]

  This is gorgeous!
Some gameplay anims remind me a bit of Tentacles (mobile game). Ever considered VR?

[LRTT]

Hi James

Been a while my school friend, still watching the night skies for UFO activity? 
I been watching your traffic through the web and this project Infinitesimals is mind blowing!
What happened to dry ice studios btw?
I still remember EON and the music you composed for it.
Just for the record, any publishers watching James is a great investment not only for his inspiration, ideas and logical input but financially rewarding and a good business partner and if like me a good friend to have regardless how hectic life can be.

Thinking of you bro,

MB

[JobLeonard]

BTW, if you want to blow your own mind, try to draw on paper while looking through a microscope. Suddenly the tiniest of motion becomes AN EPIC ACT OF CREATION.

Ink on porous paper looks especially awesome.

[cubit]

Grhyll: It's certainly an option to go for some VR. It would seem to make sense for the kind of experience too, though I wouldn't want to aim for it soley as the hardware requirements/gear needed for VR are imo one of many barriers to entry for gamers :D

LRTT: Martyn! It's definately been a long time! I'll send you a PM shortly

JobLeonard: Now that's a cool idea, I will definitely give that a try  

[LRTT]

 

[ActualDog]

Wow, this is gorgeous! Macro's such an interesting world, I really love the microscope shots. Following for sure.

[Uprising Studios]

 
men this project looks awesome!
congrats on the hard work!

[Audiosprite]

This looks so so good

[cubit]

Hey everyone, just a quick update to post some of my recent work with the POD's internal cockpit and weapon systems... still very early and will be much improved!

[cubit]

Thanks ActualDog, Uprising and Audiosprite 

Another little update:

[michelmohr]

Blown away by the graphics, I hadn't seen such good explosion / dust particles yet!

[SimonFelix]

Damn, this looks fantastic! As a Microbiologist by trade, seeing microscopic photography used in a game gets me really excited   

[Rojom]

I'm sorry to say, but this has been the most frustrating game(?) devlog I've read on TIGSource. There were initial promises made on the front page of a 2D sidescroller. Now the game has changed entirely to a first person shooter (albeit with very good graphics as shown in the latest update). Like many, I thought the initial sidescrolling animations were game footage until you clarified that they were concept art (and still, after more than a year, it is not clarified on the first page). I was disappointed, but hopeful and wished you the best. I waited patiently for months for gameplay of that 2D game, but none was given. Instead more concept art, infographics on controls/mechanics, and just so many ideas that were never realized were posted.

A few examples:
- All of the POD leg physics were scrapped for what I feel is an "easy way out" first person view. The talk of a "procedural animation" and all of those depictions of how legs will react to different surfaces... nothing.
- The external modifications of the POD are now not even going to be seen in-game. Why were the internals of the POD even necessary to elaborate on? And on such a high level of detail? Textures of the inner layers? Even the video showcasing it. Was it necessary?
- Videos in general. There were of such an extremely high quality, but alas they were only concepts. As someone said, you might as well have been making an animated short.

Etc, etc. There was just so much time spent on conceptualizing, and to such an extreme level of detail, that it confounded me that those man-hours could have been used developing things in-game.

This summarizes my disappointment and frustration:

I'm quite confused by the amount of time you are spending on these concepts. You might as well just make an animated short instead of a game. These segments look amazing, but I hope you aren't setting the bar too high if/when it comes to actual gameplay.

Not trying to be negative, just trying to be realistic. You have an amazing concept and a great grasp on character design and animation. If you're some sort of wizard and you can throw these together in your sleep, more power to ya!  

Hi Reilly,
It s a fair question! They don't take a huge amount of time to make, but for me the important part is showing the vision of the game clearly at the start of development (and this project is in the pre-production stage). I need to recruit some programmers so another reason I'm doing these are to whet some appetites for when I put the call out shortly.

I've worked on a lot of projects in the past where the dev team didn't really know what sort of game they were making - or at least they had a very mixed view of it. From my experience I'd say that most dev team members don't really read the design documentation of the projects they are working on apart from areas relevant to the section they work on (at least in bigger companies). And even if they did I think that even clear design docs can be open to a lot of interpretation and people come away with differing visions of the final game after reading it.

So these animations are mockups of how I want the game to be and I do believe that we can reach very close to these (and certainly surpass them visually). It's important to set a high bar and to communicate the vision right from the start.

So I won't be doing hundreds of these but I'm planning on doing a few more to showcase specific gameplay aspects that I want to clarify from the start.

A game idea that once excited and interested me has me now disappointed and frustrated. I think this goes to show that it is important to start a public devlog with at least some gameplay showcased to show that the bulk of game development has actually started, ie coding and implementation of ideas. Months and months of concept art and concept gameplay videos is not the way to go.

[cubit]

None of the POD's legs physics are scrapped... they just aren't ready to show yet. There is also a third person mode planned, it's just not implemented. The POD's screen makes it impossible to NOT have the legs visible:

(as this concept shows:)


Also, when there is more than one POD running around in the player view, I could hardly pretend the legs didn't exist for that one.

Please bear in mind I'm one guy (except for hiring some help with modelling tasks very recently). The fact that I'm currently making a start on weapon systems and testing things might make it look like a shooter... a game where you just run around firing endlessly. But that's entirely untrue. That weapon firing the explosives cannot fire at that rate in the final game and you cannot even have a bunch of ammo for it. But for testing things that doesn't matter

I never intended for this devlog to be a "promise"... it's a devlog. I thought that including the conceptual stage would be interesting to people and help show the process (the concept process, being a part of it all).

It's not just concepting that I've been doing though. All the research to make sure the environment is accurate takes time, writing the story and design docs, sound design, music, everything! And the learning process of it all for me in tackling areas of game dev that I've not tried before. The technical aspects alone have been very challenging and I'm still figuring out how to do certain stuff because the engine doesn't really support it out of the box.

I work on this game in my spare time whilst working full time in the games industry. These things take time to get to the level I want them to be. I should perhaps just post updates in a few months where most systems should be in better shape but I thought more frequent little updates would be helpful for building interest slowly.

The reason I changed to 1st/third person was entirely due to feeling that the side-scrolling genre was limiting what I had planned for the POD leg system - and it would just be cooler to be down there 'in' the grass rather than looking at it from the side. So the devlog includes that switch in viewing perspective as a natural progression.
----
And this is written directly on the front page on top of the animated concepts:
"Here is an early 2D animated concept for some of the POD’s  locomotion/abilities. I should note that the games art style will not be  black and white silhouettes – it’s just quicker for me to animate the  concepts this way…"

So perhaps I should not have bothered posting the concepts stage on this forum (maybe that belongs in the polycount thread instead) and focused on only showing stuff here when it's further along? But it seems that even when I write "this is an animated concept" above something you didn't read it anyway

But if I do ever neglect to clarify such things, it's not done in some kind of attempt to deceive people - that would be self destructive.

So, after all that, does that make you feel a little more assured?   I mean, if anything the 1st/3rd person version of the legs animation system is even more ambitious in it's function than the original side-scrolling one was, there was a lot of things we could 'fudge' in side-scrolling that must be perfect in the first/third person view.

[io3 creations]

Just came accross your devlog and I like the "concept" even if it seems to have changed over time.

It reminds me of "Honey, I shrunk the kids!" :D

I know that things can change.  While most devlogs (and projects in general) tend to remain on track to the original vision, there have been some that changed or were even abandoned.  In a way, it sounds like Rojom really wanted to play the 2d side scrolling game and that's where the frustration comes from.   Much like when Kickstarter projects change the game from what was promised during the funding campaign.  In a way, while there's no monetary exchange, the emotional investment can be considered equivalent and people may feel similarly dissapointed.  I'm sure you know the feeling when you really want something and you keep waiting and waiting for it ... and then you won't even get it.  But that's how life is ...

As for the devlog, it is what it is.  It is not a promise but an initial vision of the project and what happens along the way.  

Maybe you could put the sentence about the *change* even closer to the top (and make it part of it red to be more appearant) so people who tend to skim can see it.

On the plus side, I have a few ideas for side scrollers (e.g. a spider game) so I'll look at your ideas for aspects that I haven't considered or inspiration for gameplay.  

I'll take a better look later but it seemed like you mentioned using Unity in the first few pages.  I'm assuming actual gameplay in latest videos (e.g. Hunter Gatherer leg stability physics tests) and not just more concept animations. :D   Are you still using Unity or perhaps changed to Unreal?  I agree with @MichelMohr.me, the explosions and dust looks really good.  Did you create that yourself or did you use an asset?

Looking forward to more updates and "soon-ish" release. :D

[cubit]

Hey io3

Yes, I created the particle FX. I wouldn't buy assets except to learn from them if they are something advanced. In a previous project a few years back we did purchase assets in a time of desperation for place-holders due to time constraints, but the plan was to replace them eventually.  

Both videos are running in engine, not concepts - I moved over to UE4 a good while ago. Primarily because I had been using it day to day for my employment and had gotten very comfortable with it.

Clearly I have erred in this thread and I have obviously misconstrued what devlog means on Tigsource. But, I often consider my life to be a rather unfortunate series of mistakes. I can just add another to that countless list

But I have always tried to learn from my many screw ups. And so I will no longer post concepts or any small development updates in this thread and will instead reserve it for 'significant milestones'. The next significant milestone will likely be a fully working POD with the legs in a advanced state that I am happy to showcase.

I had been warned many times by friends not to post early work online and perhaps they were right - For the reasons above but also there have been very specific stuff from the concepts ending up in other projects from even "AAA" developers (more than can be reasonably attributed to coincidence). I literally had to talk a friend out of ranting about it online and calling it out because I simply have no wish to engage in conflict with ANYONE and I suppose it was my fault for posting work out there so early). This is one reason why I have tried to limit content I post online a bit because it then means I feel I cannot continue making those aspects because people will assume it was derived from those other projects because they get released first. We all take inspiration from many sources, including other games but I guess it just means to be careful what you put out online too early.

I want to make it very clear that this project consumes my life... there is barely a moment when I am not working on it...except for when I have to work for money (which I have saved been saving for two years to fund this game!) and when my GF or family drag me away .

I will not compromise on the quality of the game. I have turned down development deals from publishers so that I can develop this the way I want to without being forced to compromise or change things. So I'm doing as much as I can indie to keep that focus. I care about the quality of the game above all else. One reason I have not attempted any kind of crowd-funding is to avoid getting into a situation where I am suddenly indebted to outsiders, that would be just the same as getting a publisher. I would consider those paths when I have a much more solid working base and use the publisher/crowd-funding to augment and finalise. I am however, potentially partnering up with some others to help moves things along soon.

A slightly related annecdote: Years ago I worked for on Operation Flashpoint 2. I left the project about a year and a half before release for personal reasons but also because I felt the project was moving away from the OFP roots of hardcore military sim (I was a HUGE flashpoint fan!).

Just before I left I had been working in my own time on a 2D concept animation of how I felt the game should be. The atmosphere, the vibe etc. I never finished it but the incomplete version was well received in the company when I showed it before departing. So after I had gone, the video somehow got leaked and posted on youtube. There were literally hundreds of thousands of views and people assumed it was leaked in-game footage! I even posted in the comments that I had made the video, it was not meant to be publicly released and was only concept animations but my comment just got downthumbed! :D That original leaked video has been lost due to the youtube account deletion, but here it is:





So, I suppose I should have learnt from that experience and clearly watermarked all concepts as such in the actual images/videos themeselves to ensure no misunderstandings were possible.

Well, until the significant update... adios! I will continue posting concept/art updates from time to time in the polycount art thread however, which I suppose is more at home there.

[Rojom]

-snip-

Fair points; I guess I did overlook the clarified "concepts" portion on the front page. I was just taken aback by your graphics and animation (seriously man, you have an eye for composition/directing if you were to ever do an animated short  ).

Looking forward to seeing how this progresses. Maybe the game will reach 4D someday

edit: Please don't feel obligated to post your concept art elsewhere because of me. I did enjoy seeing them and so did everyone else, and it is your development log in the end.