Ok, so. I'm gonna turn this blog back into what it used to be. Which basically was me posting my graphic stuff and talking a bunch of crap. I'm gonna keep the English though, to keep things a bit more international. With a new project in the making, I figured I might as well try to reach out to a bigger crowd!
So, anyway. New project? Yep, that's right. New team making it? Totally. After GGC, we (me, Vilya and Teddy) decided to do our own thing and split up with Trashtalk. We don't have any official name yet, still working on that part, but we've been working on a new project since the start of the summer! I took a few weeks off (as did the rest of the team) to go visit home, so the last month haven't been super productive really. But now I'm back on my beloved island, ready to get back in the mix!
So about the new project. I'm not gonna go that much into detail, but it's basically an action rpg done in pixel art (fuck yes). We've drawn inspiration from a lot of old classics, like the earlier zelda games (A Link to the Past especially) and the Secret of Mana games. We all have a soft spot for Korean MMO's aswell and the focus on farming/grinding gear, so that also plays a big role in our game. Oh, and it has co-op support!
We're calling the game "Secret of Grindea" at the moment. Might change in the future, but I think it sums up the game perfectly!
Not gonna ramble on about it, I'll go more into detail as we add more stuff. Gonna post a screenshot though for all of you to enjoy! This is just a few weeks of work, so there's a lot of more stuff to be added and changed.
I'm basically doing all the animations, character/monster sprites as well effects and such. Vilya is responsible for all the environments, the GUI/HUD, menus and all that. Teddy is the Rambo-programmer and been doing a pretty kick ass job so far! I'll be posting videos and stuff later to show of more of the game, as well as my animation work.
And, yeah. That's that I guess. I'm gonna try to keep this thing updated to the best of my ability. Probably won't be once every day, but once or twice every week is my aim! Now, back to work. See you fags around!
This will be my final post regarding my work on our project Overkill. It's going to cover my role within the project, how the game turned out in the end and what I would recommend other people to do if they end up in my seat. Enjoy!
Recap
Our vision for the concept was a co-op hack and slash type of game, with over the top cute graphics mixed with extreme amounts of Violence. We had envisioned an overload of epic gears and achievements which the players would collect as they played through different levels, using a variety of skills as well as a “free-flow combo system”.
Early mockup of Overkill, made by me.
The scheduled time for the project was 10 weeks, starting in March 2011 and ending in late May. Besides working full time and more during these 10 weeks I had been developing skills and tools for this project since last summer.
The outcome of the project did not match our vision for the final game, in several areas. The most noticeable being the absence of multiplayer. The game was designed, and built around 4 player cooperative multiplayer. The day before GGC (www.gotlandgameconferece.com)and our deadline, we decided to remove the multiplayer all together. This was mainly due to us having extremely little time for play testing the game properly, ending up with a ton of bugs which we just didn’t have time to fix. The number of bugs was severely reduced when the game was played in single player so we chose to go with that option instead.
Besides this we had to leave out a lot of planned content for showing of the project. We had two secret events that we had to cut, one larger area of the level and another playable character which we just didn’t have time to implement correctly. One of our main features, the combo system, also took a pretty severe beating from not having that many combos for the players to unleash. This, in combination with poor tooltips and a pretty steep learning curve made it hard for players to catch on to it. All in all the game did not turn out horrible, but it could have been so much more.
Gameplay from the final product.
My Role
My main work areas during the project were character modeling and animation. I have 3D modeled all the playable characters and enemies in the game, as well as rigged and animated them. Considering my previous experience within 3D animation and rigging (zero) and the amount of content I actually managed to push out within the time frame we had, I’m rather pleased with my contribution to the game. I’ve done closer to 130 animations all in all, with an entire character (20 animations) not making the final cut.
A quick video showing my pipeline a few weeks into the project.
What we did present at GGC was a decent product in my opinion. Much of the graphic content was there; I just think we needed another week or two to polish the gameplay part. With more work and polish put into this project, I think it could’ve turn out pretty great. The short amount of time, poor planning from our side and broken promises from the HGO (not delivering unity pro license until the very last weeks) made it turn out way below its potential.
The Jester, the character I think turned out best in terms of animation.
My improvement
Before the start of the 10 weeks we had dedicated to this project, I spent months teaching myself how to rig and animate characters in 3D studio max, since we’ve had very limited lectures covering those areas at HGO.
In time for the start of the project, I had gathered a solid ground of 3D animation knowledge but never really tried it out in action so to speak, with exporting animations and trying them out in an actual game engine. The animations I had been doing prior to the project start were all pretty small test animations with no elaborate motion such as body rotations and such.
This is an early test animation I did for one of our playable characters.
After a few weeks into the project, with me improving in all areas, this is some animations for the same character which we ended up using in the finished project.
Recommendations
For anybody taking on the role of animator/rigger/character modeler I have a few recommendations.
First and foremost, put the necessary time into it. If you are running on a very short deadline (like we did) then you need to work a lot. Don’t be discouraged if you have to work 14 hours a day for weeks in a row. Sacrificing your spare time now might result in a great job in the future!
Second, don’t be afraid to reuse animations instead of making completely new ones for everything. Sometimes it might feel like cheating, but if no one knows you’re cheating then no harm done! If you have four different characters that all needs running animations, use the same one as a base for everyone. It’s much easier to change and add personality to an already established animation then making a new one from scratch.
Third, exaggerate your animations. Don’t be afraid to go over the top with your motions. We have a tendency to go the other way around. If a guy is swinging a sword, then have him really swing it. It doesn’t really matter if the motion is impossible for a normal person to perform it, as long as it looks like it’s possible.
Finally and maybe most importantly, don’t be afraid of criticism. People will not love everything you do. You will have to redo stuff a lot of the time. This is what’s going to make you learn, become better and probably what’s going to separate you from the people who don’t land a job in the future.
As for overall project recommendations, make sure you play test your game as early as possible. Have a working prototype of everything the final product is going to have AT LEAST a few weeks before the final deadline. Don’t wait until the night before, because not everything’s going to work as you intended. There will be bugs, there will be balancing issues and gameplay changes.
Focus on quality before quantity. Instead of adding more content and features, focus on what you’ve got and polish that until it’s perfect. It’s the little things that make all the difference.
Once again, don’t be afraid of criticism. Receiving it as well as giving it. If you think something could be done better or in a different way, don’t be afraid to let your team members know. By not just settling with the first option you have, even if it’s great, will make your game stand out from the crowd.
Closing words
Overall, this experience has thought me a lot. Mainly working with 3D, but also understanding the importance of group dynamics and roles within a team. All in all, while the project did not turned out as I had envisioned it, I'm taking a lot of knowledge with me into my next project. Which I'll be reveling sometime soon. With that being said, thanks for reading my blog, and I'll see you guys around!
Just gonna do a short update with a video of the gravediggers animations in game. He has a total of around 25 or so animations, most of which can be seen in this video. Enjoy!
I'll update with more videos of the other characters within the next day or so!
lördag 7 maj 2011
Ok, just a quick update of what's going on. Been working steady on the animation front, still waiting for Teddy to give me an updated build with the Jester in it, where he don't look like a pedophile. Stupid Dwarfs!? ruining everything for me :@ (www.dwarfs-game.com Teddy and another dude made it, you can get it on steam for like 8 bucks or something, super great game!).
Anyway, gonna update with a few illustrations I made for our GGC presentation. Been a while since I did any 2D art (like, 3 months or something?). But I still got it!
Now, I'm gonna drink a beer for the first time since like January or something. Next update will probably include more animations and gameplay videos. Cause like I've said, I've got loads (LOADS) of stuff to show, I just don't have any cleaver way to do it until things get put into the actual game. So, til next time! Byeee!
onsdag 20 april 2011
Ok, been a while since a updated this thing. Main reason being I just don't have time to update with everything I do. Since I'm basically only doing animations, I would have to edit animation reels of every character I'm animating. Which takes a lot of time. Time I rather spend animating something else. So what I'm gonna be doing is updating with gameplay videos from the game itself and just showing of the characters that way. It looks better, takes less time and you all get to see some sweet in game action from Overkill. Great!
So I'm gonna start things of with a short video made by Teddy, with him trying out our newest addition to the character rooster, the Berserker Knight. All the animations and character models are made by me. Textures are made by Vilya and Jonathan and Lina have done all the 3D modeling except the characters.
I will continue updating with videos as things get implanted in the game. Til next time!
First of all, the design has had a small facelift, mainly for easier navigation. Also, I'm gonna be using english instead of swedish to not only limit my self to swedish readers.
The blog is gonna have a somewhat more serious tone (SOMEWHAT) as I'm gonna be using this blog to communicate my work on Overkill to teachers and (maybe) future publishers or employers. And of course anyone who's the tiniest bit interested in what I do.
So for any new readers, my name is Fred Ström, I'm the lead 2D/3D animator and character modeler of TrashTalk, a small group of game programmers and graphical artists trying to make more then decent games! Besisde my passion for animation, I have experience in 3D modeling/sculpting and 2D illustration. I also have a softspot for pixelart and retro styled graphics.
At the moment, TrashTalk is working on Overkill. It's a 3D hack 'n Slash game set in a over the top, generic fantasy world were you play the super evil overlord who want's to destroy all that is good. Our game features super cute graphics, extreme amounts of violence and a free flowing combat system!
So yeah, that's about that. I'm gonna be updating here frequently with animations and character models I make for Overkill, and anything else related to the project.
Bye for now!
tisdag 5 april 2011
Fan vad jag mår gött nu alltså. Även fast jag inte borde. Har räknat lite på antalet animationer jag måste göra fram till GGC (http://www.gotlandgameconference.com) och landade på typ 160 stycken. Ungefär 3.5 om dagen ska jag göra. Det här är också bara the basic stuff, finns massa småanimationer som kanske inte är viktiga för spelets funktion, men som kommer vara skillnaden mellan "lol nice indiespel typ" och "fan harni gjort de här!? ser ju ut som värsta storproduktionen". Plus att jag måste modellera resten av alla karaktärer. Och rigga och skinna alla. Så trots allt detta mår jag fan oförskämt jävla bra. Gick typ och garvade på vägen hem bara för jag tänkte på hur schysst allting är egentligen. Tror det är en kombo av att vi verkligen är i the zone med Overkill, är aspepp och det ser ut att bli så jävla bra, att jag hänger med TrashTalkgänget hela dagarna och garvar röven av mig och att man kan gå i bara tjocktröja klockan 20.00 utan att frysa röven av sig. Luktar gott gör det också.
För att inte göra inlägget helt menlöst postar jag den här fantastiska videon, som jag antar att ni alla redan sett (eftersom ni följer trashtalkbloggen såklart). Jag står för animationer och modellen, Vilya för texturen och Teddy för combosystemet och the commentary!
