Creature lists and concept art for them

[oln]

I have been inactive lately for various reasons (got a thesis I need to work on, and several health issues). But I haven't given up working on the project, just taking a break. (Still watching the forums.)
I have started working on doing changes to make implementing an AI simple, but haven't touched it in a while.

[Danimal]

Hi, i also drop from time to time to read the forum, but lately everything is too quiet. Which i can understand since like me many of us have their finals REALLY soon. Talking about ideas, why dont we do as tempest of aeter and request an art rush from OGA? That way we could get art and maybe a few artist to cover for Skorpio "relax time". We would need concepts or descriptions and a TODO list as well. What do you say?

[svenskmand]

@Oln: I hope you get better , I also have a thesis to write this summer :S But when I am bored I work on OD

I think we need a final list of creature first, then concept art. Then we can ask people to model it for us. But I think we need to decide on a creature list first.

I have commited my mindmap on the svn here, I have linked in the mood pictures, which should be replaced with real concept art at some point. The pictures use relative paths, so as long as the MoodPictures folder is next to the Factions.mm file all should be fine

I have attached my idea of a scout for the constructs: it is a seahorse like creature, that rolls when it moves, and attacks with its tail. It has no limbs, only a spine.

[Danimal]

It looks nice, but i see it more fitting to be the "patrol drone" i proposed some time ago, i have the feeling a scout needs to be a flyer in this game.

[svenskmand]

Why do you think that it needs to be flying? It gives diversity to have "walking" scouts also, and not just flying.

[oln]

It's a useful ability for scouts to be able to e.g cross lava pits. Not sure whether all scouts should be able to do this though, but if some don't, they should have something to compensate for the lack of this ability.

[Danimal]

i was thinking the same, they should be able to traverse water and lava.
Take as example DK1/2 fly, cerberus (dog) or ghost.

That also got me thinking, can bottomless pits be addded to game?

[svenskmand]

I see no reason why the scout could not roll over lava. Regarding the bottomless pit I think we should not have such a tile type as it would only allow flying creatures to pass it, and having non-flying scouts gives more diversity and creative freedom in designing the creatures.

[Danimal]

So quiet around here... my test are killing me as well...

[oln]

I am actually itching to start coding on OD again, but due to RSI I have to be a bit careful with doing too much of it at the moment.

[svenskmand]

Oln: Nice to hear that you want to code I hope you get over this RSI thingy soon

Danimal: good luck with the tests I look forward to some discussion in here with you once you have passed your tests

[Danimal]

Today i played megaglest, the game is full of units that can be used to practically finish the hero faction. The game is open source, all the units are made in blender and animated. I think permission should be asked, and use all we have a use for. If not, they can be (pretty good quality) placeholders until work is done in our own units (which have the same style by the way)

[svenskmand]

Without having seen them I think the placeholder idea is good, lets go for that. Then we can later check if they fit our own idea of the heroes.

[Danimal]

i think fleshing out the graphic aspect of the game is now more important than code to renew interest in this project from outsiders.

[Danimal]

Take this guys from example:

[svenskmand]

As placeholders they are excellent. But they lack the detail I would expect from out game, i.e. they where designed for Glest which only show the models tiny small, we show them allot larger, hence we need more details. But again they are very good for placeholder. We just need to make that clear in the releases in my opinion.

[svenskmand]

i think fleshing out the graphic aspect of the game is now more important than code to renew interest in this project from outsiders.

To do that we need more details on what we actually want, i.e. a list of creatures for each faction, then a detailed description of each creature, then some rough concept art, and then some detailed concept art, and then finally the models. We are a long way from actually being in a state where we can make or get anybody to make models for us.

I am actually itching to start coding on OD again, but due to RSI I have to be a bit careful with doing too much of it at the moment.

RSI as in?

[oln]

I am actually itching to start coding on OD again, but due to RSI I have to be a bit careful with doing too much of it at the moment.

RSI as in?

Tendinosis is more describing I guess. My arms start hurting easily from sitting at the computer currently. Gotten a bit better again now, so I might do some work the coming week.

Also, I agree with the usage of the Glest-models as placeholders or whatever you want to call it.

[charlie]

Get them in the game ASAP. Placeholders or not, they look pretty good as is and much better than nothing. So they could use more details, that's a great entry point for new contributors. Use it to advertise for help.

[TheAncientGoat]

TBH, I think we have plenty of creatures atm. We don't need to implement factions of creatures as much as we need to implement /gameplay/, and for that, placeholder, duplicate, etc models will work just as well. I feel that there's a ton of artwork, but the creature spawning process and happiness process is either unimplemented or opaque, doors aren't implemented yet, no missions or tutorials etc etc etc. Spending disproportionate amounts of time on factions are exactly what I feared would happen...

Work is work though, and if that's what people want to do I won't discourage them, I just wanted to share what I'm thinking.

But anyhow, there's no rush, when andrew gets back and oln gets better gameplay will advance, so I guess patience is all that's needed

[charlie]

http://opengameart.org/content/steampunk-spider

Construct-y?

[Danimal]

Almost a week without any activity, things have gone quite quiet around here. No news over anything on the project?

[svenskmand]

I am currently clipping the announcer sounds. And I might do some more work on the mini-map legend. But we can begin to brainstorm for creatures for the remaining factions, I have tried to get people to help with that many times but nobody seems to care much, and I agree that getting a playable game is more important right now, but I do not think we will get code work currently, but we can still develop the creature lists for the factions, we are way behind on that. Did you see the mindmap I made?

We can also start making some concept art for the creatures we have. I have a picture in my head of the flying skull. Also we need to give the creatures proper names, e.g. the flying skull should probably not be called "Flying skull" in the game, that is a bit lame.

But are people still having exams or what?

[oln]

Gonna start coding a bit again soon. Working on the player class a bit to allow AIs. Will make a separate post about this later.

[svenskmand]

Awesome Also the team colors on the floor tiles need to be fixed, else it is impossible to play :S Hopefully the fix can get into 0.4.9