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[lagdog]

@tjpalmer: I have to admit I'm mostly a visual language guy, I rarely even name my character designs : >
I have some vague ideas for plot, like maybe the dragon you ride was a prisoner you free, or the creature that's stalking you
is really the transformed body of your lover. But I am sceptical ill be able to build anything with to much depth.
I will most likely hire a writer to help develop that part of the game.
yeah each battle will hopefully have interesting ai stuff, and things to figure out.

@oroboros: thanks ^^ and yeah, the feel/atmosphere and lighting are really high up on my'things to get perfect' list

I said I wasnt going to do any 3D until I had things more fleshed out but I want to do some test animations
one of the things they got right in sotc is the way things animate when they are huge, I want to do some tests and study on the physics of giants

[lagdog]

messy wip sculpt for testing big scale animation and scale feel in ue4

I want to avoid all use of numbers/digits in game if possible and use visual cues
so health is visually signified from animation~ if the enemy is low hp it will limp, run or be enraged like in monster hunter.
on screen gui should be minimised and just general things like that to make it feel more like you are in the game.
I find a hud kinda gets in the way if you are trying to sell an atmosphere with some games so I hope to avoid it

[Christian]

Climbing? Giant creatures? Could this be the indie SotC I always wanted?

Following, eager to see more!

[lagdog]

@christian: i hope so ^^

I've been looking at minecraft seeds and I really like the idea of using them as reference to build the geography,
The giant arches and waterfalls from nowhere are really  cool.
For architecture, well I did originally want to be architecture free, but I like how ruins and buildings work in this landscape to much. main inspiration for architecture is dark souls probably- medieval ruins super sized... but on a sparser less dense level than DS.

the new ue4 came out today and its gotten really nice foliage support
i hope this means i can go a bit crazy with it : B i love overgrown ruins
https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/unreal-engine-47-released

[blekdar]

I also promote the idea of 'maybe you don't have to kill everything', and with the princess mononoke idea, try to protect them or take them down non-lethally.

Or, you could even go the Metal Gear route, where you get better rankings for defeating, but not killing them.

And to add, these beasts are majestic as hell. You keep doing what you're doing here.

[tjpalmer]

Sorry to keep yammering, but your work is so cool. I think the scenery you plan so far is also fantastic.

To keep scope down, might it be possible to release each animal as a different game? The first "game" would still be huge scope (having to put all the groundwork in place), but it would make sequels very natural and allow sweet focus on making each creature as amazing an experience as possible.

[lagdog]

@blekdar yeah i quite like the mononoke idea also

@tjpalmer I'm not to worried about making a lot of characters
once I have developed a workflow its pretty straightforward. Though creating a workflow that involves fur and feathers is going to be pretty hard. Id put the fur and feathers up there with the climbing mechanics as the two things that are going to be hardest to do in this project.

----
I have been busy with work stuff so I haven't been able to do to much on the project lately
but I have had some time to think about it

Ive also seen some of ori and the blind forest, and its just an incredible game totally challenged my reasons for working on behemoth.
I think it will be much harder for me to do, because I have to deal with a non-fixed camera but I really really want to capture such a beautiful environment as ori, particle fx and blowing foliage everywhere. and good use of shadows and light beams.
Ori has also made me think a lot harder about the feeling of playing.
I think I want to try and evoke emotion in the player, the intro to ori is pretty incredible and tugs at the heart strings.
To say the least Ori is inspiring as fuck :x
I'm pondering changing the mc from human to a creature....
Also I somehow managed draw a black owl like in ori before being aware of it, Tho I guess mine is tubbier and a dif style
not sure if I want to change it now or not.

The plan I have in mind now~
Is ten behemoths, the mc and the dragon you ride. This should keep number of chars down and quality up.
To keep enviro art down and keep it high quality I will try to reuse zones for different behemoths.
my thinking for zones is to have one main starting area and then smaller zones surrounding it, like in ori i guess,
so for example grassy plain starting zone, ruined castle to the south, caves to the east, mountains to the north
forest to the west.

I have some stuff in mind to redesign the dragon mount also, to make it more interesting.
perhaps the dynamic of the mc and the dragon mount is where I can find a way to evoke emotion
like in how to train your dragon... hmm
lots of stuff to think about anyway : >

small doodle from today, bit outlandish maybe, but splorin ideas

[tjpalmer]

Understood about life being busy. Great to see an update. (I've posted so much here that I might not next time around, but I'm sure I'm not the only one still very interested in this project.)

[Grog]

You're definitely not the only one interested in this tj... SOTC is definitely in my top 5 favourite games.

Have you considered starting with just the player plus the mount? A huge draw of SOTC was the realism. You were not a hero, you staggered around, hung on for deal life, and your horse didn't listen half the time.

Once you start getting into the actual game side of things, maybe work on the two of those, making them feel good together. Work on the climbing mechanics in the environment (walls, trees, etc).

For me this is a very important aspect and something you would want to capture, based on what you've wrote so far (which I love!). Also really digging the art. Especially the black drake/dog (which is the mount? if so, sign me up...)

[lagdog]

@grog yeah i dig that simplicity, i would ideally like for the player to start in an empty grass plane, and have that feeling of exploring a vast open area without the usual game gui and story stuff.

I'm back working on the project and I've started looking out for a ue4 person to collaborate with ^^

I did a little more to the test stag, its not anything that i wouldd want to put in as a final thing, I'm just using it to figure out the art style.
one thing i haven't been able to decide on is how to handle the fur.
Sculpted fur is appealing and simplifies the art process massively, I'm just not sure i can get a nice atmosphere with it.
the sculpted style of doing fur lends itself well to the bright wow/lol colour pallette, I suppose i want something darker
maaaybe more along the lines of dota 2? the other issue is the character has to climb the monster and wont have any physical fur to grab onto.
1 way around that is to say the player has some kind of ability to suction to surfaces 'magic' or  w/e, and maybe if the monster notices you it will shake you off, unless you stab your dagger into its hide and hang on.
anyway making this stag will let me try out some things, I think I will r&d more on the alpha style of fur but i have a feeling it poses to many issues to deal with humm. mostly performance related and getting it thick enough to look good that and
blending shell alpha fur into plane alpha fur im kinda skeptical i can achieve that. shadow of the collosus had the advantage of a very low screen resolution so it hid some of the clipping, that and the creatures fur was in patches so it didn't need to blend it area to area. i think i will test both and see what works.






This old model i'm thinking of re-sculpting and re-purposing for behemoth, its never going to see the light of day other wise i think had it forever, first time I've posted it online, and it seems like a waste to let it sit on my hard drive for the rest of eternity ^^'
er right mouse view image em : P





some more doodaas




I'm going to chuck a quick rig on the stag tomorrow and play with the fog and stuff in ue4 to try and
improve the feeling of scale

edit
oh dang!
just came across this, maybe its what i need?

[lagdog]

this hairworks thing is really really impressive : o
I downloaded the hairworks viewer, it hasnt got a fork for ue4 yet but dang it seems super powerful
i love the dynamic hair strands, it adds so much life

once the ue4 fork is realesed ill be able to do some real optimisation tests to see if its viable
I have a gtx 970 so it should handle it fine, just a bit concerned it wont on lower end cards ^^'

[lagdog]

i did a little testing with hair works, it seems to have a ton of potential
I found it expects the guide curves to be made with shave and a haircut, im notreally a fan of that program its pretty clunky so I hope i can figure out another method to create them with better grooming. Ive tried xgen, but it wants the curves to be mapped to the vertices somehow i think, not sure how to do that yet.





witcher used this stuff in withcer 3 recently
http://fat.gfycat.com/DigitalGloomyFrenchbulldog.webm

its just now coming out for ue4

[GekidoRising]

I'm happy this just popped up now as I meant to reply on this the last time I saw it because I gotta say, so many of these designs are so absolutely up my alley. As some have said before, it's almost a shame that the behemoths need to be killed because they look so absolutely divine. From their (mostly) benevolent appearance and the halo like apparel, I sort of get the sense that the behemoths are like wise, old guardians. Call me odd, but I feel like it would be fun to strike up a conversation with these behemoths if they could talk, they look like they'd have some neat stories to tell :D

Also want to say that I really dig your dragon designs too, although, I have to admit, I'm not exactly sure which ones are your dragon companion and which ones are actual behemoths! Either way, I do quite like them, especially the draconic fellow in the sketch you just posted!

I also really like your chimera-esque tree archer and your owl behemoth and your wolf behemoth. I like A LOT of your behemoths it what I'm getting at haha.

One big question that I find myself wondering as I was reading this, it may be a somewhat odd question but if I may ask, what inspired a game like this? I realize there's quite a bit of discussion about SotC, but I can't help but feel like there's something else behind this game too. Just a random feeling, I guess, haha.

Lastly, I'll close out with some quick notes. First of all, great find with the fur rendering, hopefully the tool for sculpting it improves over time! Secondly, I saw your note from a few posts prior about making the character not human, I am very very okay with this and I'm curious to see what you come up with. Lastly...

Do you have a gallery somewhere I can watch? I'm curious to see what else you have!

[Pixel Noise]

Just posting to say, like pretty much everyone else, "OMG THE ART".

Maybe a way to please everyone here - both those who want to hunt these things, and those who don't - is to have the narrative to be loosely based on some sort of disease/infection/magic/whatever, which causes these creatures to grow enormous and also mutate/become dangerous. Maybe by defeating them, you can "cleanse" them, thus reverting them to their normally majestic state.

[inkwellmachine]

The concept art looks great, and you can't really go wrong with the high concept "fight giant monsters with beautiful visuals and riveting climbing controls."

Just make sure you aren't making a clone of SOTC. Shadow is already a great game. We don't need another re-skinned version of it. Take the concept and do something clever and original with it, because there's still a lot of design space Shadow never tapped into with that brilliant premise. For instance, maybe you can give the player the option to tame/trap the giants instead of murdering them. Or maybe the giants could roam freely. Maybe do a Monster Hunter/Shadow of the Colossus hybrid, where the player has to train up and gather special materials/conduct research if they're going to have a hope of besting these monsters.

Those are some specific examples, but remember: re-skinning someone else's game with new graphics does not make a new game. It can still be fun and compelling, but if we want the SOTC experience, we might all be better off playing that game. Give us something new that an amazing triple-A game can't already give us.

[diegzumillo]

Amazing art skills. From concept to execution I love your work. It's hard to see good 3d around. Anxious to see your animation skills

[lagdog]

@GekidoRising: I'm not really sure which to do yet ^^' I'm a pretty indecisive person but I'm leaning  toward benevolent guardian, talking to the would be pretty badass : D
I'm posting a mix of things at the mo, of things which I'm more or maybe less liking, so I'm not really sure i will model them but i am exploring ideas.
inspiration, i think Ive googled, 'sotc sequel' or 'sotc like game' once a  year since sotc came out 10 years ago
not really sure what caused the tipping point of wanting to do this, maybe seeing people discuss there fond memories of the game on reddit. I remember furiously researching how to access extra collosi after beating the game, which of course didn't exist xD.
I remember in the 'making of' the game had originally planned to have 50! Collosi in it and for it to be 4 person multiplayer o.o
It just sucks there's nothing out there at the mo.
End goal for me would be for me to have a frame work that allows me to explore endlessly my love of creating epic/pretty creatures.

@inkwellmachine: thanks man ^^ and yeah i hope to do some interesting things, i think the player plus dragon dynamic will be one of the major differences, sitting on the back of the dragon while it climbs a super collosi might be badass, also perhaps flying? I'm unsure, theres a lot of ideas worth exploring : D monster hunter and sotc are tied for my all time favorite games so i have got good influences ^^

@diegzumillo: danks, i will try to do good : )

I'm getting a website sorted for the game in the next few months, was messing around with banner ideas today.

[lagdog]

wipy wip on the steed for the mc
plan is to use a combination of alphas for the feathers and hairworks between

[lagdog]

sites slowly pulling together

http://kiwilondon.co.uk/dev/lagdog/#

[lagdog]

thinking about next goal, I want to do a proof of concept and a full workflow
test.
something with climbing a behemoth using blueprints, and i need to work out a good way to groom for hairworks.

quick enviro doo da, i had the idea of doing all artificial environment assets
as vast concrete cubes with little detail adornment. My thinking is it has the awe effect i want
but it wont be work intensive to create, mostly using tiling textures and vertex paint.
not totally sure about the idea yet they look a bit to much like modern buildings so far.
i might need to make the perfect cubes to avoid that.