Sunday, August 15, 2010

100th Post MEGA UPDATE

Hey guys!
Eclipse is coming along Awesomely!
the progress being made is phenomenal, looking back on eninroth and TED, eclipse is miles ahead :) and we have been doing some pretty cool stuff!

with the update of Mega proportions comes the good, bad and the pretty

on the good, as i said the Eclipse project is kicking some serious ass so far thanks to our spectacular programmers, pushing what we know we can do and coming up with some really inovative new systems.

and also on the good the stage 2s have in conjuntion with me been working on the spells for the game, and thats coming allong quite well also, together we have sussed out quite a few really cool concepts :)
they are available for veiwing under \\gonzo\project temp\eclipse\documentation\spells
and also for all you creative people who would like a chance to see your spell ingame, i will as of monday upload a PSD version of a spell template and you wll be allowed to design your own, simply follow suite the way the previous ones are designed and save it in the folder and i will discuss it with the programmers and see about putting it ingame if its suitable :)

woop woop!


now for the bad:
i have been compliling a list of the creatures, plants and oracles i am happy with and intend to go into the design phase, which is great :)
...butt it means that deadlines are approaching!
the deadlies are as follows:

-Cert 4 multimedia
25th of Aug
next week wednesday, a coloured and shadowed sketch of your creature and plant design will be due

-Stage 1 Diploma - Design
23rd of Aug
next week monday, a coloured and shadowed sketch of your oracle will be due

-Stage 1 Diploma - Promotional
19th of Aug
this thursday, a coloured and shadowed sketch of your oracle or creature will be due

these dates are IMPORTANT!
submit your concepts on the blog by these dates or they simply will not stand the chance of getting into the game.
that is the cut off date

now enough of that, once all the designs are done we can get to doing our next tasks, designing levels, cross planes, videos, posters and 3d! :)

if your designs are not chosen for any reason either they dont fit the concept well enough, not submitted on time, or that they simply cant fit into the games ballance between day and night, or whatever.
then you will be working on other game peices depending on what your group is, so if your concept isnt picked it doesnt necesarilly mean i thought it was TERRIBLE, there are simply many factors that allow them to fit in :)


now, the pretty! :)

the stage 2 programmer, liam and i have been sussing out how to do the landscapes, we have come up with a method that saves massive ammounts of processing power and increases game performance :D

so i have been messing around with it and forming the first island, here is a screenshot:


this is "Unnamed" it is the first island, kinda like the basic tutorial area, the giant broken temple there is a relic from ages ago, it has inside it the portal well that allows travel between the floating islands, the desination can be changed by touching various glyphs and symbols on the wall of the temple

now we can do this we can start making other lands also! :)

i have some more things such as spells, new WIP creatures and stuff to post, but on risk of filling up the whole blog with this huge post i think ill post them later when they are a bit more developed ;)

its all coming along awesomely!
keep it up guys! its looking spectacular :D
-Michelle

3 comments:

  1. the land is a WIP also, just awaiting plant designs :)

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  2. I will design a spell when I get my hands on the template. I like the envirnment, looks awesome, if you already know could you describe the type of landscapes planned, tropical, desert etc etc. May help me think of ideas for videos.

    You mention destination can change my touching glyphs, does this mean the portals have been removed?

    May I also suggest that the x planes be finished in a week to week and a half tops. The shouldn't -really- take any longer than that. They don't have to be super duper afterall, I know I've shot ahead a little but as we discussed a lot of what needs doing in the future I won't be able to do alone and I'd hate to be twidling me thumbs waiting =p That maybe sounds arogant, not intentional :)

    Also, for anyone in my group, if by chance you need any help with anything, if i can I will help as I have time. Just ask.

    Cheers, Tom T

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  3. thanks! :) took me quite sometime to get that aurora effect working right :)

    the landscapes have not been designed yet really, there are so far two designed,
    we are aiming for 5.

    the first you visit is this land above ^ its kinda like a portal hub, there are a few of them on the plannet, its where there is a portal that can be mapped to multiple locations, either that or we'll make it just have multiple portals.. but yes the portals are still in :)
    the land is planned to be a lush dense woodland/swamp area with the ruined temple poking out from the twisted canopy, ill probably remove the aurora and make it less ethereal

    the other land is the last one, H'Rika it was the setting for the aphrosteria drawing i did.
    its a desert island with a couple unactive volcanos, its the home or a huge eithersprite colony who have sandcastles all over the place to live in.
    basically, the story goes that you must travel from land to land until you manage to reach H'Rika where the ether sprites after realising if they listen through a shell, they can hear further. over 100s of years of searching the ether sprites found a shell big enough, (its giant) that if they listen through it, they can hear the gods. they built a huge tower out of sand to mount it atop, you must get there, defeat the other oracle, climb the tower and use the shell to speak directly with your god, to gain further instructions.

    :) so thats it, those two lands are the plan so far so if you have any ideas i'd love to hear them, i can discuss the land concepts further with you in person on wednesday, or post here, or email me ill_be_ready@hotmail.com :)

    and yes yes i get you, crossplanes are quite a quick opperation, well atleast they should be. the promotional team is the furthest ahead and thats why you guys have such a quick deadline, and no, ill definately keep the progress rolling because as you said there is alot to do, we may be miles ahead the older projects, but there is still way more..
    and its good you shot ahead because in the demo, we will need at least two oracles to display how it works :)

    looking forward to hear what your thinking up! :D

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