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Rob Nesler

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Everything posted by Rob Nesler

  1. Cultures are being defined now. This will be a guide for how we establish clothing, architecture, etc.
  2. These were just some possibilities. Yes, these might be extreme and it's possible that the manifestations will be more subtle, but the goal will be to make certain that they are interesting, in-game.
  3. I will not be able to address all those other questions. There were many other versions of this concept thread. She evolved out of them and probably had some faun influences.
  4. Once the meshes are stretched in the "stretch rig," they get their own "control rig" and then they can be animated or tweaked in ways that are appropriate for their character. Otherwise, by default they borrow from existing animations.
  5. Wouldn't you rather see "god-like" concept sketches first?
  6. I will see what i can do. These are all good ideas.
  7. Was it just vodka? I think there was some scotch...yes!: The Balvenie, Signature, 12yr....that's the one. And lot's and lot's of vodka.
  8. These are all great ideas. We will do what we can to create a recognizeable world, but with unique features/areas in order to present a world that is also not simply a middle age european fantasy, as well as one that is much larger and varied than what we see in this first game.
  9. Yes. Someday, in the not too distant future.
  10. We will draw up some ideas that we think are in the ballpark, and make them, get them working in the game, judge the effectiveness of the silouettes, materials, movement, and refine until we are satisfied.
  11. Rob, I have a question regarding "transparency." Whats so different with the Kickstarter model versus traditional game development where those other studios can't talk about the game at all and theres worry of trade secrets being leaked, NDA's, etc, where as Kickstarter seems to give you freedom to do as you please. To answer this effectively, might take several paragraphs. Let me make an attempt to be brief for you here, but maybe leave the opportunity for an "update" that addresses this question in a more comprehensive way. Also much of what I say here is my own opinion on this topic.The most crucial difference, is that when a developer is contracted by a publisher in a typical work-for-hire situation, the publisher is bringing all the money, for all development, marketing, PR, manufacturing and distribution of the product. For that, they want a certain amount of control over the Intellectual property and how it's presented, because they feel it's the best guarantee of the products success. Developers are more often than not restricted from discussing or presenting any aspect of the project, without consent and editing from the publishers Marketing and PR groups, to avoid controversy and control the message of the product. In Project Eternity's situation, there is no publisher. There is a community of donors, who have pre-paid for the game, and in some cases actually paid to participate in the development of features. We already have to expose much of what we do to this smaller group anyway, because they need to know how to design their thing. For the larger community the risks I mentioned in the previous post, are actually not that great: time and brused egos--is not really that high a price to pay. Their contributions have faithfully earned them the right to read, see and comment. The information is going to go out there anyway, so we might as well flow with it. At the risk of stating the obvious, nothing we say or present is going to undermine our ability to sell this product, right? As added value, we're giving the communtiy 18 months of entertainment product, not just the game and the other things.
  12. We will be creating a forum for interested people to put up their art ideas, soon. I was hoping that a little bit more of the world, characters and creatures was developed and revealed before we open it up; to lay the groundwork for artist to depart from.
  13. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/62556-the-man-said-its-not-so-bad-to-have-some-fun/#entry1284917 I'm not advocating against humor; I'm advocating against the game becoming either too ridiculous to take seriously or too much of a meta-game of the forum. @Ieo I actually like the fact that there is no railing; the setting is supposed to be the high middle ages. I don't really think that the historical period is known for its dedication to "safety." It actually helps to show that the time period and universe aren't just "safety first!" and is a little bit more gritty. Yep, no OSHA in this world.
  14. Thank you! I love the updates and transparency so far. Confirmed: Art Direction of World and Creatures coming January 1st! :-D LOL
  15. Exactly, I can't wait until my rogue gets a hooded cloak and walks around with the cloth moving and wrinkling with every step. We are wanting them too! But it needs to look good and perform well, so that it doesn't distract from the experience. So, we are doing our tests with a variety of physics based techniques. When we have something that looks good and doesn't cause unsolveable problems we will call it a feature and let you all know.
  16. YES!! this was a key reference image that I used. Again this drawing was exploratory, to contribute to the conversation of architectural style. It's not necessarily going to be in the game. There are others, and they are all color, but i didn't post them yet. Can you post the buildings location in Google maps?? Are there other buildings in your town like this, because yes! we do like Romanesque.
  17. Well of course. It's polite and useful commentary like this that I find particularly inspiring. I'll get right on this, just for you. Why thank you sire and I tip my hat to you. I look forward to the updates that show the art direction of the game. I know that is the basic of the basic. For me however I would moderate what I show as the creation of my work. Of course you guys aren't trying to impress right now but show the process behind the development. Keep doing the updates and stay positive. I will not be afraid of presenting unfinished or exploratory work to this community. This is not your typical game development and marketing paradigm. People have pre-paid to not only get a great game, in 18 months, but to also get a view (and in some cases collaborate) into the game development experience, now, and to the end. This update was clear right in the beginning, in spite of the humour, that we are in a foundational, groundworky, nitty-gritty stage. In order for us to be successful, we must build and test things in a very crude state. So that we maximize our time, all early asset development must be very flexible and easily edited to allow for rapid iteration. This is how we will effectively get to a state of confidence in scale and capability with respect to all visual features and performance, in the game. There is a natural order to game development. The initial steps are rarely shown to the public, because of the often less "impressive" aspect of it, and because publishers usually restrict access to game content in the early stages. More often, developers go "dark" for several months, sometimes years, before they show ANYTHING! We are, instead, embracing the complete "Kickstarter" experience that people have paid for. This kind of transparency comes with obvious risks: it takes time to assemble, write, and respond to responses to updates and we expose ourselves to much greater criticism.But make no mistake! We know that what people write and more importantly--how they write it--,says more about them than it does about us or what we are doing. If the feedback is relevant, thought out, and not abusive, it is far more likely to be considered by us as important and useful. Words vomited in hateful threads are tainted by drama and ego and are therefore useless to me. In the end, this game will be great! and everybody who contributed to the kickstarter will have been able to witness, why! If their feed back was "useful" then they might also see the part they played in this development experience, as well. Art Direction of World and Creatures will be coming, but not this year. ;-)
  18. Well of course. It's polite and useful commentary like this that I find particularly inspiring. I'll get right on this, just for you.
  19. I encourage our character artists to start high on the poly count. Edair is under 4k--so "high" for this kind of game. This allows for more flexibility, as we can always LOD the assets down to lesser numbers, as needed--in some cases, automagically.The number of enemies will not be restricted because of poly count. intelligent combat AI, pathing and collision avoidance are the more costly CPU processes that will determine enemy counts, not to mention quite simply: "Designer Requirments" for an entertaining and manageable battle.
  20. Just out of curiosity, how does this compare to other Obsidian games like the Fallout series, ToEE, etc. Those games had backgrounds that were rendered for VGA displays (640x480) at the low end of screen support we are quadrupling those numbers and targeting a 6x9 aspect ratio, at the high-end we might be approaching 10 times the pixel count. IWD maps were around: 3840x2880 pixels
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