Update #77: Art in Alpha

[Messier-31]

WONDERFUL!

 

Although that round hut on the beach is going to be taken by the sea anytime soon

[IndiraLightfoot]

Starwars: I reckon that the rock is limestone, and that kind of odd formations is well within the scope of limestone by the sea.

 

Messier-31: You can say that again!   The same goes for that entire camp, with the fire place and the lot. If the frothing sea is anything to go by, it wouldn't even be there anymore in 24 hours. Most cultures, throughout history, have built even simpler huts and sporadic camps farther up from the shoreline. Possible exceptions are participants in Survivor and a few Western tourist villages in the last fifty years.

[Jajo]

 

Programming is nearing feature complete. We are tracking to be feature complete in a couple of weeks. This means that we are feature locked and most of the programming team will be diverted into bug fixing, feature polish, demos, etc.

Did dynamic cloth and hair end up making it in?

 

 

I second this question.

There may be another forum like in it for You, mr. Adler, so think carefully about the answer.

[Prometheus]

and who is xaurips and anamfath?

An Anamfath is a leader of  a glanfathan tribe.

source

 

The Aedyr Empire is a hereditary monarchy. The Dyrwood is an elective monarchy. Readceras was a theocratic dictatorship and is now an ecclesiastic dictatorship. The Vailian Republics are a confederation of sovereign republics with ducs who are elected by powerful (usually wealthy) city councils called the consuagli asegia ("councils of the siege"). Eír Glanfath is a confederation of tribes, each run by an anamfath ("soul prince") and advised by a council of raoithe ("wise ones").

 

Most common folk live in rural areas and survive through subsistence agriculture and related activities (e.g. wool production). Dyrwoodans have a strong sense of nationalism due to the revolution but highly value personal independence. Glanfathans have an extremely strong sense of community between their tribes and think of the entire forest of Eír Glanfath as being their responsibility to protect.

Edited April 30, 2014 by Prometheus

[JFSOCC]

 

The art looks lovely, I just wish there were more of it.

 

What's the general status of the game right now? Is everything at alpha yet?

 

We are in our Alpha phase right now.

 

We are currently going through all of our previously created areas and revising anything that we think needs more work - both art and design.

 

Programming is nearing feature complete. We are tracking to be feature complete in a couple of weeks. This means that we are feature locked and most of the programming team will be diverted into bug fixing, feature polish, demos, etc.

 

Narrative will have a full pass done in a few weeks, as well. We are almost completely finished with the first pass on our crit path narrative.

 

Audio and VFX are still a ways off and won't be finished until July or August. They come onto the project later than the other teams because they require that content exists in a locked down form before they can do their work.

 

Character Art is working on creature variants, armor variants, and other miscellaneous items. Soon they will be adding in unique armors and weapons. Also, they will be creating head and hair variants in the next few weeks.

 

Animation is finishing up the last remaining A priority tasks and is moving on to some of our B priority animations (special attacks and whatnot).

 

UI/Concept Art has most of the UI in at an Alpha level. Kaz is finishing up things like Scripted Interaction slides and special UI screens. Also, he has a ton of portraits and areas to paint in the near future.

 

Production is figuring out project finalization, localization, Kickstarter rewards, convention plans, expansion planning, and a ton of other small things.

 

this information is very interesting. Sharing this might even beat regular updates. (though by a small margin ) When you got something to show, could you please show some of your animation work? I know there was an animation update, but that left me underwhelmed.

 

I love the last image btw, I always love it if the world I'm in feels slightly otherworldly, and that blue-lit cave looks beautiful!

[Monte Carlo]

All very pretty an' all, but the update is meh. The level and quality of these increasingly spartan updates is what I'd expect from a usual developer / publisher title not a Kickstarter. In fact, what the hell do we really know about the plot, for example?

 

In any project you get milestone updates with substantial detail. Not necessarily spoilers but something more substantial than this.

 

Don't get me wrong, occasionally a decent update drops onto the mat, and fair play to Sawyer his are usually very good. But I'm disappointed, overall.

[sesobebo]

In fact, what the hell do we really know about the plot, for example?

i'm glad there's been nothing revealed about the plot. i hope it stays that way.

[Sensuki]

There's an NDA on anything to do with the story including the plot and themes. The only thing we know is it has something to do with the Pillars of Adra, the player witnesses a supernatural event in the prologue and that one of the themes probably has something to do with factional "racism" or something along those lines.

 

The information that Brandon Adler disclosed in the thread would have been nice if it was in the actual update as well. But it does indicate "hey we're kinda busy right now"

Edited April 30, 2014 by Sensuki

[Bavarian]

I love the areas. They scream "Explore me now!" :D

 

The armors... they do look fine but... kind of very down to earth for such a high fantasy game.

 

edit:

*ponders* no fancy badges for paypal backers?

 

I'm not fond of the overly done armor and weapons. I instantly think WoW, which is fine for their style, but not here.  And I understand you're not saying they should go to the WoW style but that just pops into my head as the other option.  The style here looks great IMO.

[AbsurdKibbles]

It all looks fantastic! Can't wait to see more...

[Sarex]

Is that the general art direction of the armors, or are there going to be armors with a high fantasy look?

[Sandro G Meier]

These armor looks nice, I hope in game it will look more shinning.  And the compass looks amazing!

[Gyges]

That's probably some of the best 2D environment art I've ever seen. Armor looks great too but will there be unique looks to unique pieces?

 

Also, although I'm not certain this is the topic for it, will unique gear be quickly replaced by more common gear a few "levels" above? Its just a bit of an annoying mechanic that seem to have crept in from arpgs.

[IndiraLightfoot]

I hope in game it will look more shinning.

And here I am, hoping for them to get a bit more shoddy and less shiny.

[rjshae]

 

 

Anslog's Compass.

This piece looks especially great.

 

The shadows are in the opposite orientation from what we've seen before in outdoor shots. I wonder if that means they will be dynamic during the day?

[BAdler]

Looking good. By the way, did the areas shown in the update already get a paint-over pass or is it going to be done later in development? Also, the beach looks great. IIRC Josh said the team was still looking into ways to make the characters stick out less from the environment, any development on that front? To be honest, I was pretty okay with how they looked in the teaser, but it'd be cool to know if there's been further progress (or not).

These areas have not had a paintover yet. We want to lockdown all of the geometry before we do any of that. We should be starting the paintover process in a few weeks if everything goes well.

 

As for characters blending into the environment, Adam has been hard at work coming up with a solution. Maybe we can convince him to do an update about it.

[BAdler]

 

Programming is nearing feature complete. We are tracking to be feature complete in a couple of weeks. This means that we are feature locked and most of the programming team will be diverted into bug fixing, feature polish, demos, etc.

Did dynamic cloth and hair end up making it in?

 

We do have dynamic cloth, but we are probably not going to do dynamic hair.

[BAdler]

Starwars: I reckon that the rock is limestone, and that kind of odd formations is well within the scope of limestone by the sea.

 

Messier-31: You can say that again!   The same goes for that entire camp, with the fire place and the lot. If the frothing sea is anything to go by, it wouldn't even be there anymore in 24 hours. Most cultures, throughout history, have built even simpler huts and sporadic camps farther up from the shoreline. Possible exceptions are participants in Survivor and a few Western tourist villages in the last fifty years.

It's a xaurip hut... they aren't the smartest creatures.

[Ineth]

 

Golf claps. 

But don't need narrative done before programming?

No way, man! Maybe for amateur-gramming. These are pros. u_u

 

 

Okay, seriously though, I think the programming there is feature programming. Finishing the narrative might involve further dialogue implementation and content tweaks/additions, but it doesn't seem like it's really feature additions.

 

I guess one is "programming", the other "scripting"...

[Sensuki]

As for characters blending into the environment, Adam has been hard at work coming up with a solution. Maybe we can convince him to do an update about it.

Yes please.

[BAdler]

 

In fact, what the hell do we really know about the plot, for example?

i'm glad there's been nothing revealed about the plot. i hope it stays that way.

 

We are deliberately trying to avoid talking about the plot very much. We love talking about the world, but we don't want to spoil any surprises.

[forgottenlor]

I love the areas. They scream "Explore me now!" :D

 

The armors... they do look fine but... kind of very down to earth for such a high fantasy game.

 

edit:

*ponders* no fancy badges for paypal backers?

Hmm. I payed with Paypal and got one.

[Nonek]

 

 

In fact, what the hell do we really know about the plot, for example?

i'm glad there's been nothing revealed about the plot. i hope it stays that way.

 

We are deliberately trying to avoid talking about the plot very much. We love talking about the world, but we don't want to spoil any surprises.

 

 

A very wise choice in my own humble opinion, one of the strengths of Obsidian is the unexpected places that the plot may wander into and the great confrontations that arise, Marburg, Atris, Myrkul etcetera.

 

Personally i'm very glad that they've chosen armours that actually do their job rather than the unusable and pointlessly encumbering spiky versions we see in all too many games, or even worse the ceremonial pieces used for combat that some designers favour.

[BAdler]

 

 

Golf claps. 

But don't need narrative done before programming?

No way, man! Maybe for amateur-gramming. These are pros. u_u

 

 

Okay, seriously though, I think the programming there is feature programming. Finishing the narrative might involve further dialogue implementation and content tweaks/additions, but it doesn't seem like it's really feature additions.

 

I guess one is "programming", the other "scripting"...

 

Avoiding the side discussion... every project is different. There isn't one specific way that a project has to be done to be successful. As it relates to Eternity (and other Obsidian games) we will continue writing until we are localization locked. Even when we are loc locked, we will still do a bit of writing in areas if we feel it is absolutely necessary.

 

Normally we would be farther along in our writing, but, as with everything else, sometimes there are things out of your control. Our narrative designers came onto the project later than expected, but they are making really great progress. It isn't an ideal situation, but it has worked out for us.

[Beholder]

This is greaaaatttt work !! I really like the 'realistic' feeling of the game, i am glad to see armors actually do look like armors. I'm eager to see it 'alive'

.As an hardcore fan of infinity engine games, this is the game i look forward the most.Keep up the good work and thank you for the explanations on progression and schedule ! I apologize for my barbaric english.