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[AnotherPlace]

Looks great, superb graphics!

[JOHNMCLAY]

WOW! Somerville is love at first sight man! It puts me in mind of Deadlight by way of Counter-Spy, if D-Lite had a competent animation system and Counter Spy was a tad more organic in its exploration. 

This is by far my favourite project on TIG, and I can't wait to get my hands on it! :D :D :D

[Olsen]

@JOHNMCLAY - Thanks brother!  I never played Counter Spy but I enjoyed Deadlight and finished it in one sitting, despite some gripes.  Yeah it's worth noting that this portion i'm working on is an example of optional encounters when you veer from the main path.  My intent is to have the player discover tasks/people along the way that pay off later down the line in a small but noticeable way.  This guy for example will be found milling about at your main hub if you opt to help him out.

@AnotherPlace - cheers man!

@bejkers - Glad you found the third and final resource of stuff!  I need to start thinking about mailing lists in the future.

[Fenrir]

Still impressed with each new post, good job!

[Alternate Craig]

This is a beautiful union of motion capture and cartoon shaders.

What are your plans for music and sound design?

[Olsen]

This is a beautiful union of motion capture and cartoon shaders.

What are your plans for music and sound design?

No motion capture, all animated from scratch.  I have an audio friend working on things.

[io3 creations]

The character movements certainly don't look like motion capture to me - unless someone either tried to really create unique character movements or after capture made sure to fine-tune and add real character to it.  This kind of character movement tends to be achieved better with "classic" animation approach.

I wrote about my facial expressions experience and how the motion capture approaches of the past decade or so ... didn't capture that well and why manual animation works better.
https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=38175.msg1233004#msg1233004

[Alternate Craig]

I never would have guessed it was hand animated. Based purely on my own experiences with mocaps. Possibly because I spent a lot of time fine tuning, combining and masking mine.

On reflection though it does have a very Prince Of Persia feel to the movement.

[Tjomsling]

Hi Chris! I just stumbled on your project looking for Kentucky Route Zero artwork and tips. It might be a bit too much to ask but could you possibly share a pic of the John model's wireframes? I want to emulate the KRZ art style for an exam and simply cannot decode how the geometry is set up.

And I'm glad I stumbled on Somerville. It looks incredible! Like two of my favorite games, Flashback and KRZ, had a baby. Thanks for sharing the process.

[Grimwood]

Beyond breathtaking, the animations alone make this already the most stunning videogame out there besides Uncharted 4. Ori and Journey. Added it here a while back: http://www.themasquera.de/games/work-of-art/
Seriously, there are no words to describe the pure beauty and immense talent..

[io3 creations]

Hi Chris! I just stumbled on your project looking for Kentucky Route Zero artwork and tips. It might be a bit too much to ask but could you possibly share a pic of the John model's wireframes? I want to emulate the KRZ art style for an exam and simply cannot decode how the geometry is set up.

And I'm glad I stumbled on Somerville. It looks incredible! Like two of my favorite games, Flashback and KRZ, had a baby. Thanks for sharing the process.

I'd say Somerville's characters are more of a "mid poly"  but KRZ's are "low poly".  You can easily find many examples (with wireframes) of various characters, objects, etc if you search for "low poly" (and relevant terms) on the web.

[Tjomsling]

Hi Chris! I just stumbled on your project looking for Kentucky Route Zero artwork and tips. It might be a bit too much to ask but could you possibly share a pic of the John model's wireframes? I want to emulate the KRZ art style for an exam and simply cannot decode how the geometry is set up.

And I'm glad I stumbled on Somerville. It looks incredible! Like two of my favorite games, Flashback and KRZ, had a baby. Thanks for sharing the process.

I'd say Somerville's characters are more of a "mid poly"  but KRZ's are "low poly".  You can easily find many examples (with wireframes) of various characters, objects, etc if you search for "low poly" (and relevant terms) on the web.

Thanks. This is going a bit of subject so I'll be quick about it. You're probably right but the poly amount wasn't the main factor. I was looking for the character style of KRZ (thin frame with long thin limbs) that still posed or animated well. I was running in circles on Google, and Pinterest, and Digital Tutors somewhat (just to emphasize that I know how to interweb to a certain degree) and finally decided to ask Chris. But all's good, I've handed my exam project in.

Now I'm just looking forward to more news on Somerville.

[Olsen]

Hello and thank you for your kind support.  Apologies, I've gone dark for a bit.  I have been knuckling down whilst simultaneously being mauled at the day job.  Luckily I've put in my notice and am going to go full time on this for a nice amount of time and potentially hunt for outside support.

Hopefully it all goes well and I'll keep you guys informed.

[Christian]

Hello and thank you for your kind support.  Apologies, I've gone dark for a bit.  I have been knuckling down whilst simultaneously being mauled at the day job.  Luckily I've put in my notice and am going to go full time on this for a nice amount of time and potentially hunt for outside support.

Hopefully it all goes well and I'll keep you guys informed.

Any plans for Kickstarter? This is a project I'd back in a heartbeat

[Olsen]

Cheers Christian!

I am in the process of exploring all options right now.  You'll know when I know

[io3 creations]

Luckily I've put in my notice and am going to go full time on this for a nice amount of time and potentially hunt for outside support.

Hopefully it all goes well and I'll keep you guys informed.

Brave man!  Good luck!

[Tjomsling]

Sounds good! Good Luck.

[lionfish]

I just found this thread, and it looks great.  I'm trying to understand the art style, and appreciate you mentioning shader forge and posting progress pics.  Great job!  I'm really looking forward to watching this develop.

[SplineO]

Awesome art style and animations!
As an animator I'd love to get a glimpse at your animation workflow. I always struggle getting clean Motions with just using Mayas HIK Rig (or Motionbuilder for that matter, which I often use for keyframe work). Anyway, great work for sure. Looking forward to every update!

[Olsen]

READY FOR PITCHING!

Hello there!  Apologies for the long gap in posting (as usual) I have recently wrapped up my day job and have made the giant move from Sydney, Australia back to the motherland London.  Everything came together in the end, however and my timeline for finishing all pitch materials was successful and I am now happy to start seeking building a team and pitching to publishers and investors.  Below is a quick summary of the things I've put together.

ENVIRONMENTAL DETAILING

Outside of refining controls and fixing bugs I've concentrated on making the environments as dense as possible with detail.  Every slice of environment I intend to hint toward a story or history there.  

Sometimes little animated vignettes you stroll in and out of.

BUTTON PROMPTS

Not the most elegant solution but it gets things done for the prototype.  It's made me realise that there's opportunity there for me to shave controls down to the absolute minimum.

FX TWEAKING FOR READABILITY

The little guys were losing their shape with such a dark background in the church I decided to sit down and put a little hero lighting on them along with FX work to make them pop.

MAIN MENU

The main menu is a lazy one.  Visible z-buffer cycling through various locales in the demo.  Also added credits and control key for first time players.

FEW EXTRA ANIMS HERE AND THERE

Loads more of these contextual anims peppered across the whole thing.