SOLitary: 1st person adventure - recruiting

[Smoking_mirror]

SOLitary

> This is not a commercial project. This is a learning project for people with beginner to intermediate skill set.
> There is no money involved but it will be a “new” idea, so when it’s finished there might be some way of getting money from it. Any one who contributes will get a share (%) of any future proceeds and the right to use the game to advertise their own future projects (put it on your web page)

> Game style: 1st person puzzle/adventure (similar to- system shock)
> Location: Martian Penal Colony.

> story: SOL mining corp places martian malcontents and political prisoners in a penal colony in the southern highlands of mars. There is no contact with the other colonies, or with Earth. Prisoners are often taken away for “experiments”. The main character is put in to solitary confinement after a fight with another prisoner. You hear a riot. The power goes off and the cell door opens. The prison is filled with dead bodies and a few survivors. There are guards, a colonial commando force, prisoners and something else…
Maybe you can find a way out, or at least find out what is going on.

> features: inventory system, security hacking, cyberspace hacking system, high tech crafting, remote drones, armour and guns, a hit location system for player an enemies.

> Enemies: Prisoners, mining robots, colonial commandos, combat robots, guard forces, cyborg bodies, cyborg zombies, AI drones.

> Levels: Prison, Prison hospital, Prison Library, Prison factory, Guard Barracks, Prison exterior, secret lab, Secret lab core

> Level types: Most levels will be fairly small with lots of obstructions, locked doors. You will have to do quite a lot of backtracking to get all the equipment, information that you need. There will be a save game system, but only at the beginning of the level. Once you know the route through the level it will be quite quick. There will be non-combat ways of dealing with groups of enemies (such as letting the air out of an airlock using the cyberspace interface, or hacking some sentry guns to target guards instead of prisoners).

> Game technology details: Using 2.49 Blender, Texture face materials, Burster web plug-in

Some things are done already, I already have some enemies, I have versions of the code needed for some parts of the game, many props, weapons equipment. I also have a working AI system.
I have all the skills needed for the project, so it’s not going to stop halfway though. What I need are assets such as level sets and concepts. More props, more enemies, level design, testers, sound and music.
Here are some concepts:

Anyone want to be part of an exciting project? It would be great to point your friends and family to something you had a hand in making…^^
For an idea of the style I’m going for you can try System Shock Portable

I have already finished one blender game and this time I’m hoping to make something bigger, better and more exciting.
I also plan to make this game a resource for the Blender game engine community. Each prop and enemy will be modular, other users will be able to download them to use them in their own games.

[Smoking_mirror]

If you want to contribute, here are the guidelines:

Colour palette:
main elements-
Greys, blacks, browns and pastel colours- crimson, sky-blue, orange, olive
screens and lights-
whites, bright primary colours red green blue purple

Materials:
Textured cloth- padded for warmth, built in heater and systems interface components, shiny steel, exposed circuits with LEDs, dull grey plastic, reflective glass face plates.

Model sizes: characters 1000 polys max, textures any size, but one per model and will be re sized to 256256 for the game. Props 200-1000 polys, try to fit may props on a single texture sheet.
2d art work (keys, junk, medipacks and other inventory items) should be 256256, will be resized but good to have a large image for the HUD display. 2d concept art, any size, should be a JPG or PNG.

Once I have more props and texture tiles there will also be a possibility of making levels. Levels will be modular, so the game will have a number of empties which will add the required corridor or room section on start up.

After some experience with my first game I found that most non-blender users (In fact most of my friends and family) don’t have high quality graphics cards. For that reason I’m using texture face materials for this project. All textures will be baked. I will release the bake light setup later if people want to bake the textures themselves.

[Casio23]

hi,
i am interested as i have never done anything like this before, and you mentioned begginer to intermediate skill level.
i wont be able fully commit myself, but am willing to undertake small tasks like baking and some modelling.
so if you need something small doing, just pm me
derek

[Smoking_mirror]

Thanks, Some of the beginner type things that need to be done are:
Making, texturing and rendering inventory items.
(Check out the attached blend for an example of how to make a simple item).

Finding concept art to be used for making inventory items (Do a google image search for things like -passkey, gadget, armour, medipack, hacking device, maintenance tool, medical device).

Making and texturing props.
Try to think of the kind of things you might find in a prison or a lab. Radios, x-ray machines, TVs, bathtubs etc…

If you want to do a simple texturing job, select the object, go in to edit mode with TAB and press U. From the list select “project from view”.
You will need to move the verts around in the UV window to get them to match up with the image properly. From an object like this I can rebake it- and others on to a single UV.

Another area which needs development is the cyberspace module.
This needs simple geometric shapes such as pyramids, diamonds, gates and other things which can be simple, but should have character. Roughly 100-200 polys.

Also black and white textures for the cyberspace environment… grids, number walls, arrows, warnings all that kind of things.

Attachments

prop.blend (363 KB)

[Casio23]

ok- i dont fully understand the cyberspace idea

[NoPainNoGain]

I could do the level desgine

[Smoking_mirror]

Once I have the texture tiles ready I’ll be uploading a sample of how the levels should look.
From there it will be possible for people to build the levels.

There will be two stages:

1. Making the modules (room, doorway, corridor section, corridor corner 90degrees turn etc…)
2. Placing the modules in order to make a level.

Each module will have a script which makes it not display (along with it’s contents) if the player is far away. This should make the game run much faster.

For the cyber space section I’m still not sure if it’s going to be first person, (like in the original System shock) or if it will be a top down “pac man/ super bomber man” type game. Anyway, whatever style I go with, I will need enemies and objects for this section too.

Attached is an example of an ICE monster (Intrusion Countermeasure Electronics).

Some things that would be needed:
ICE monsters (level 1-10)
data structures
exit gate
area gate
ICE mine
worm
programs
I/O interface (real world switch, like a door lock)
player/ other users

Attachments

cyber_bad.blend (145 KB)

[sdfgeoff]

I am currently involved in a few game projects, but if you want props, post concept art or reference images and I will model. I am not much good at texturing them though.

[Smoking_mirror]

Thanks, I’ll try to post some ideas. I don’t have a computer tablet (and found it not very intuitive when I used one anyway), so one of the areas I’m not that good in is concept art and hand drawn textures.
Most of my textures are procedurally generated, then baked.

So one area I could do with a hand in is concept art. Right now I’m working on some level tiles and textures so I can make the first level modules.

[Casio23]

could you maybe let us know what models have been done so far? so we dont all make the same thing.
cheers

ive modelled a few low poly labatory items - tell me what you think / if this is what you need.
http://www.pasteall.org/blend/4533

you can make it look darker - i just turned up the AO so you can see it
oh, and the cage has 2 textures - sorry but i thought it would be better than a high poly model

[sdfgeoff]

OK, I understand not being good at making concept art. I’m not either.
Just post reference pics from google, or give me specific objects to make, and I’ll make them.

[Smoking_mirror]

@casio23
Looking good. When you have a small library of objects together I will bake them on to one texture sheet.

What I have so far are some large scale control pedestals, some big reactor/generators, and a whole load of high tech computer boxes.
One thing I don’t have is furniture, such as beds, bookcases, stoves, benches, chairs (I only have one), desks and that kind of thing.
I also am looking for office implements, like fans, computers, cups, water coolers, tvs, clocks.
And always some random junk to make the levels look more inhabited, such as old tyres, stoves, clothes racks, dentist chair, medical machines (such as MRI or X-ray) fuel tanks, tool boxes, paintings and artwork, parcels…

Here’s an example of some random tech props.

I’ll try to post a tutorial on how to use real pictures of an object to quickly and realistically texture an object.

Attachments

tech_props.blend (239 KB)

[sdfgeoff]

Sure, random junk is in the process of being made.
(gets out hammer and crowbar…)

[Smoking_mirror]

I made a tutorial on how to make simple props using images found on google.
You can find it here:

[Casio23]

thats good, i was just checking i was making the right sort of stuff
thanks

[sdfgeoff]

I have started a bed.
Image of bed when starting textures:

will be finished tomorrow

[Smoking_mirror]

The bed looks good, will it be a wooden bed? If it is metal, the legs should be a little thinner. Thanks for the assist.^^

One design philosophy I should talk about is wood vs metal. The game is set on mars. Wood is very rare there, so it would only be used for luxury items, such as a table in the warden’s office, or the corporate offices of the labs.

Most common should be metal, glass, ceramic and concrete. I’ll post up some textures that can be used for a general resource, as soon as I get a chance. Rare materials should be plastic (unless it’s a kind of bioplastic found in the labs), wood, cloth, paper, leather and other natural materials. The prisoners wear a kind of bio-engineered cotton. Very low quality and cheap, it wrinkles easily. So any cloth you show (like on the bed) should have a lot of creases, or wrinkles in it.

[Casio23]

ok - ive had an idea,
im gonna make a room, and stick all the objects on separate layers. then you can take each object and use it, see the context it will be used in, and might have a finished room for you depending on whether or not you decide to use it

[Smoking_mirror]

That looks pretty good. Nice colour palette.
In BGE it’s important to share space on a UV texture sheet. so each object should be created just once. From there we can modify it and create a game object which can be duplicated again and again in the game engine. SO you only need one fuel tank, and one table. But you could also create a broken fuel tank (which would be switched with the standard model when shot) and a bloodstained or broken table.
This means that we need to make the table, and the fuel-tank quite generic looking.

You know how in real life it is difficult to tell two different fire extinguishers apart from each other. This is what we should aim for in every prop. But it needs to have some kind of detail, like on fire extinguishers, you have stickers and warning labels. This is why I favour using real pictures rather than found textures. Real pictures already have a lot of random detail on them- like the keypad on the computer, or the drawer on the wooden table, which would take a lot of time to model realistically by hand.

Another way to do it is to have a single texture with may different kind of materials on it which you can unwrap basic shapes on to. For example in my space game that I recently finished I had 14 different fighters, all of which shared a single texture. I will post a tutorial on that soon too~ and post a texture sheet that can be used.

I didn’t have much time this week, but I did get a few hours to work on the prisoners models and code.
There are a set of male and female models and textures, they include 15 different heads, 2 male and 2 female undressed bodies, and one set of uniforms for men and women. Men have orange uniforms and women have a nice purple uniform. When a prisoner is spawned by the character spawner it will randomly select their sex, state of undress, head type and weaponry. Any previous injuries and loot they might be carrying. This should give a nice natural blend of prisoner characters walking around the prison. (also the chance of some dead bodies). All the textures for these guys fill one 512*512 square, I also have a little room left over to add a few more props (I’m thinking of extra hairstyles, glasses and gloves, utility belts etc…).
They are very low poly 1000 triangles each. I’m not happy with the pants yet though, may change them a little around the “box” of the pants (the bit above the legs) too baggy right now.

Thanks for your help everyone, and soon, merry Christmas.

[sdfgeoff]

Well it was going to be wood, but I shall change it into metal, it’s easy enough.