Update #34: FIRST ART UPDATE

Great, thanks for the update I don't have much input just..

 

Wow

I thought it was a bit strange they were using SoftImage for games, that's usually 3DS Max and Maya territory, the learning curve is going to be rough but they're all Autodesk and there's a lot of overlap between all of them. From the community pages on Unity's site it seems Maya, 3DS Max, and Blender are way more prevalent, so there's probably a lot more support for Unity integration with them.

Great update! I'm loving this!

Softimage is not really that uncommon in game development world. Though I think it's UI is way more complicated than any of the Autodesk's apps. I believe it has very good and complex cloth/fluid/particle simulation components. Character rigging for animation (from what I remember from older versions) was also quite intuitive, editing envelopes and painting weightmaps used to be a pain in the ass with Max. Don't know why they switched but I hope that the learning curve will not be too steep - they're pr0s after all. Maybe it has to do with compatibility issues with Unity engine as Ocelot said. Anyways, the wip 3d assets look awesome!

 

Thanks for the informative and funny update.

Nice stuff, and I am not feeling waah, urrr, arrrgh, or meh at all about it.

If James is from Fresno, you should realize that he's probably already an expert at realizing decaying worlds and evil characters.

This may just be WIP, but we're still all BWUUH o.O...

 

While it may not look like much(specially to those of us who live in the past with the IE games), this approach that they're doing, it turns out nobody has done sh...(my nemesis, forum filters strike again) like that for more than 10 yrs.

Edited December 5, 2012 by martix

I'm curious though, is the game intended to be viewed at a fixed perspective as with infinity engine games or will the camera orbit?

 

I'm looking at that tower model and noticing all the doors are accessible from "this side" of the model. I was just wondering if that's because this is the only side that will be visible or if this was the more interesting side to show.

If you read about Project Eternity you'll quickly find out that it's a 2D game (with 3D models walking on top of a 2D landscape), as such it will be locked to a fixed angle.

Haha! Good sh-... stuff.

That was a great update thanks!

Great update, hope further ones go into even more details.

 

Also, 3ds Max is better than XSI and Maya!

Amazing post. Loved the information and the humor! Keep these kinds of post coming (and if possible, have Rob do every update from now on).

 

+1 for medicine ball easter egg

Edited December 5, 2012 by Madbunny

Awesome update! I really like the barbarian and the fat wizard, oh and Rob's wacky brand of humor.

 

I've backed a lot of Kickstarter campaigns and I can say that Obsidian is doing BY FAR the best job of delivering meaty, insightful, interesting updates. Keep up the great work, folks.

Edited December 5, 2012 by Keyrock

One of the funniest updates... Keep up the great work!

"Prior to that he was building a basic set of traversal animations and getting them into the game. Crucial."

 

This is what came to mind haha.

 

Awesome update! I really like the barbarian and the fat wizard, oh and Rob's wacky brand of humor.

 

 

Those are orcs, right ? (I mean the barbarian and the wizard, not Rob )

Thanks for the update, was a great read!

 

I'm curious though, is the game intended to be viewed at a fixed perspective as with infinity engine games or will the camera orbit?

 

I'm looking at that tower model and noticing all the doors are accessible from "this side" of the model. I was just wondering if that's because this is the only side that will be visible or if this was the more interesting side to show.

Well of course they are all accessible from this side of the building; that's the only side you can see. Why would it be otherwise?

 

I am curious to find out how they will handle the visual representation of the back side of buildings. Will they do a whole building fade so we can see the otherwise obstructed characters? Or perhaps a transparent area surrounding each character? Will they leave the back side doors (and other active features) visible so we can access them? I do remember becoming frustrated with trying to open doors located on the back side of buildings, both in one of the BG series games and one particular scene in Divine Divinity. Hopefully they can come up with a nice solution.

Edited December 5, 2012 by rjshae

GAF is prone to exaggeration, but if the gist of it is that the art direction so far has proven to be uninspired, then I can't say I disagree. I understand that the devs are shooting for familiarity, but the concept art is indistinguishable from tons of other fantasy universes. I don't need super wacky, but I'm seriously hoping that they'll polish it up. It pales in comparison to titles such as Dark Souls and The Witcher 2 (titles that could be argued are set in a generic fantasy universe, but certainly recognizable at first glance), nevermind that so far, it doesn't even look on par to Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate or Skyrim. It's at least better than Oblivion, though.

 

Yeah, thats about it.

 

Which is why I really want to see some art from other artists too. Or at least more art in different styles. I understand that its early and all so I'm more than willing to give it some more time but I do hope that some of the designs get a little more life injected into them. I'm guessing by having more color and some actual backgrounds (like the one Dwarven ranger painting) would help impressions.

 

But even beyond that, I want the characters to have some character. You look at somebody like Iorveth in The Witcher 2 and his whole look tells a story, while looking fairly practical.Same with a lot of the designs in Dark Souls or even Skyrim, where the armor and clothing designs seem to reflect the culture and/or environment that the people/character is from. Now, maybe we just have to learn more about the world of Project Eternity to make those connections, so I'm more than willing to be patient.

 

Of course, I don't need or expect the in game models to be super detailed like The Witcher 2 or Dark Souls or Skyrim, since those details would mostly be wasted given the perspective of the game. But the actual art is super important for the final portraits of the characters.

 

Those are orcs, right ? (I mean the barbarian and the wizard, not Rob )

They're Aumaua. Their concept art is reminiscent of what D&D would call Half-Orcs, but we don't know too much about what the Aumaua will be like.

Can you make this game more childlike like baldur's gate where lines like "Do you wanna tell me a story about trollups and plug tails are popular? Please" , "go for the eyes boo, go for the eyes" are popular and not like witcher 2 stuffs like "saying something or did you just fart" or "piss off witcha" are popular

Which is why I really want to see some art from other artists too. Or at least more art in different styles. I understand that its early and all so I'm more than willing to give it some more time but I do hope that some of the designs get a little more life injected into them. I'm guessing by having more color and some actual backgrounds (like the one Dwarven ranger painting) would help impressions.

Only 14 posts, so I'm guessing this is a troll.

 

As it says on virtually every picture, the art is preliminary. They're looking at concepts, not art contests.

Edited December 5, 2012 by rjshae

Loving the the "Style direction" this game is going, nice one guys

Thanks for the frequent updates. Great stuff, hilarious read too.

No...I don't think we need a +3 medicine ball flail...

you're right, we don't "need" but it we "want" it

That was a sample of a larger map section. The viewscreen would be a much smaller window panning around that image. We are expecting to render maps that are up to 20k pixels wide, if the loading performance permits it.

I don't know about lefties, but I would like to develop different rigs for male and female characters.

 

Just out of curiosity, how does this compare to other Obsidian games like the Fallout series, ToEE, etc.