Right now I am making an animation of Ray crawling out of the ground for our Kickstarter page.  Not sure exactly how this is going to work out but I have some ideas.

Very interested in what you are doing here!  Looks like you are making great progress.

Oh yeah!  Love that old school Quake stylin.

Udderdude

Very perceptive about the Stubbs the Zombie connection!  Another member of Ragtag Studio, Chris Cobb actually worked on Stubbs the Zombie when he was at Wideload Games. I worked at that studio as well and that is why we have a special place in our hearts for Stubbs.  While you are correct in pointing out that Stubb's was one of the first games that let you play as a zombie it was missing the key element that we are bringing to the table, the ability to directly control your zombie army! 

As for the trailer footage... hmmm, that makes me laugh.  I'm not sure we ever looked at it from that angle.  You see, in that part of the game its Halloween and everyone thinks you are dressed as zombies and so you have to sneak around and not be detected as zombies.  Being so close to the game I think we may have not realized how that bit of footage might come across.  Of course the other thing you have to realize here is this is completely teaser footage.  We are a long way from done on this puppy!   Thanks again for your interest.

Anty,

You really banged out those color renders quick! They're looking good. Might I suggest a little rim lighting on the harlequin guy to make his form pop a bit more?

Also, thanks for the feedback on my character.  I like the  other hands as well, for the moment I am going to go with the more general purpose fist because I don't know to what degree I will be animating the hands. I think he should have some karate chop action hands as well!

Oh yes!  That, that, NAME! See you noticed. Thanks for the comments.  You bring up a number of points that we've had to deal with as a team and I am going to be addressing them in future posts.  As a matter of fact the next post I am working on is in regards to the game's title! Cheers.

[Update: Kickstarter Campaign is Now LIVE!!]

Hello there friends!  My name is Matt Carter and I'm one third of Ragtag Studio and art director on our new game, Ray's the Dead.  We've been banging away on the game for about 8 months and I wanted to finally get on here and make this thing official.  Ever since we started development on Ray's the Dead I have been dying to share the project with the community here at TIGSource.  Now that we've officially announced the game and things are little less secretive (there is so much cool stuff that we have in store!) I can finally start sharing with you the labor of love that we have been working so hard at.  So, with no further ado, here's Ray's the Dead!

Update: Kickstarter Campaign is Now LIVE!!

Please consider backing us so that we can make this project a reality.

Description

Ray’s the Dead is a game where YOU are the leader of the zombie army. It’s story driven gameplay will challenge you with a satisfying blend of action, tactics, puzzle, stealth, and adventure, all rolled into one fresh gaming experience. Sneak, smash, laugh, and moan your way through the last hurrah of the 1980’s as you take on the role of Ray, the newly risen zombie who has the unique ability to resurrect the dead and bring them under his control. Along the way you’ll discover who Ray really is, how he ended up dead, and most curiously, what is this giant lightbulb contraption sticking out of his head! You’ll make fantastic new friends as you build a diverse zombie army to crush your human opponents. Ray’s the dead will take you on an adventure unlike any you’ve seen before as you experience his fun and exciting tale! This a zombie game with real brraaains and heart.

Status

We've been banging away at Ray's the Dead for over 8 months now and things are moving along pretty well. Last fall we showed a proof of concept to a few people at Indiecade. After the positive feedback we received there we felt confident to set our next goal to have a playable demo ready for PAXEast in Boston. It was a lot of work (a ton!) but we reached that goal and had an amazing showing of the game at PAX. Over the last month we have been preparing our Kickstarter, which will go live this Tuesday.  From here we have a year of development ahead of us where we take the mechanics that we have, polish them, and make content.

Greenlight Campaign

About a month ago we launched our Steam Greenlight Campaign.  Things are going pretty well so far but of course we are always looking for more yes votes! Hopefully as we post more about the game on this devblog you will find it worth your time to lend us your help in getting on Steam!

Trailers

Screenshots

Links

Ray's the Dead Official Website

Ray's the Dead Twitter Page

I can almost taste the atmosphere!

made with jmickle's artgoat:

http://www.jmickle.com/flash/artgoat.swf

This tool is fun.

Tried to draw person on motorcycle but messed up so added goat.

You inspired me to try a scribble of my own.  I have to admit your came out much better than mine! hahah

@Hawt Koffee

This guy is looking cool so far. I like his proportions, the way he tapers towards the bottom.  Is this for any project in particular?

@Greg Sergeant

Triangles aren't a problem for low poly stuff per se.  With low poly modeling you are going to have a lot of "triangles". The most important thing to keep track of when dealing with low polygon modeling and triangles is which direction your polygon edges "break". Also, your low polygon head isn't really all that loy poly just yet. You could spare many of the polygons that are in the top, side, and back of the head and neck and add them to the facial features for better use. Or you could just get rid of them to lower the poly count considerably.  Cheers!   

Mankoon, I have to ask, is these characters for Valdis Story? 

[MY LIFE IS A LIE!]

MY LIFE IS A LIE!

I was on one of the computers at the college I go to and while checking my devlog I noticed a significant difference in the way my pictures looked on that monitor. It bugged me but I assumed that the computer's monitor was old or had bogus settings. I went back to my dorm and compared images on the laptop I use to create the art to my roommate's computer. The colors are completely different. My laptop is old and the screen's hue is very deep and warm compared to other computers.

When some of you guys mentioned wanting my pictures to have more contrast I was confused because to me, they have quite a bit of contrast. It makes sense, due to that fact that we are literally looking at two different pictures.

On my roommate's computer, the owl in this picture was completely gray while on my computer is was a variation of browns. I'd like to see how many of you see gray versus how many of you see brown.

Your pixel teknique looks very simple at the same time it looks really beautiful and its appeal my eyes. You have magic hands.

I really like how a few strategically placed pixels here and there can add such a cool level of texture. Like on the "Kings" legs. I also really love the subtle variation in the swirling grass "roots/vines".  I would say, however, that the background mountains don't live up to the epic awesomeness of the foreground elements!

I wanted to start posting a few images of some character art for Ray's the Dead, a game that I am currently working on.  The following shows a few of the steps involved in making a character for the game.



First I use a template as a basis for a drawing that I usually do on paper.  Then I scan the drawing and boost its levels.  Sometimes, as in this case, I do a really quick color pass in Artrage. After we approve the design I make adjustments to the drawing so that it conforms to certain proportional guidelines to ensure that it fits nicely on our character skeleton. From there I go into MyPaint and begin by tracing the outlines of the different body parts on different layers and then fill in the overall color on another layer.  Finally I add the shading for the character.



Afterwards all the parts are added to a texture sheet and a model is created for the character.  The same steps are repeated for the back side.  I might do a timelapse for the back of this guy if there is interest. 

@mankoon

Yeah, that one is really nice.  I personally love the hot pink in that one.  I think that the piece would be more cohesive if the red on the legs was the same hot pink.

Oh yeah, BTW, thanks for sharing those Blender paint brushes XRG.  I haven't gotten a chance to use them but I was super excited to see them!

Thanks, I'm glad you like it! I hope to be using the UV warp modifier going forward but for now I am doing some really hideous voodoo that I'd rather not talk about.  The big question is how I can get the animation data from Blender to Unity.  I have some thoughts but I'm not a programmer so we'll see.

I am always in awe when I see the work you guys do. I've always wanted to create my own games, and I was just wondering how hard you guys think it is to create basic 3d games (with storyline that is). Any tips to an aspiring indie game developer?

I'm wanting to create something very 'low poly' so to speak. like these:


I have only extremely basic programming knowledge, and I'm an adequate artist. Also, what kind of programs and languages do you guys use?

I'm one third of Ragtag Studio and art director for Ray's the Dead, which is shown in the above image. For Ray's the Dead's characters I am using Blender to rig individual planes textured with each piece that comprise the character. 

Animating using a skeleton allows me to reuse a lot of animation data between characters.  At the moment we don't have a solid pipeline for exporting UV animation from Blender to Unity but I am hoping that we can figure that out soon. 

Shooting for a low poly or 2D look can be a good idea for an aspiring indie developer.  Art assets take a lot of time to make and keeping art requirements down can be important to actually being able to finish a game!

It was exciting see my game on the front page of TouchArcade today! They have the link to our new trailer.  Not the teaser trailer but the  TRAILER TRAILER.  Haha.  It took a lot of blood sweat and beers to get that trailer done but I think that most of you will really dig it.  Here's the link to the article.

http://toucharcade.com/2012/05/29/unstoppable-fist-seems-like-everything-we-want-from-a-game-about-hitting-stuff/

Today I also wrapped up the new icon for the game.  You may notice that its based on a frame from the trailer.

[Unstoppable Fist]

Hey there guys,

Long time lurker here.  My little company, Ragtag Studio out of Chicago, has just released the teaser trailer for  our new iOS game called Unstoppable Fist.  Due to job restrictions I wasn't able to do proper Dev Log but hopefully for the next one.  I do want to share with you various media from the production though. For now let's start with the teaser trailer!





I hope you enjoy it!

Matt

http://www.ragtagstudio.com/