John's Technical Ramblings

John here, ready to update on the technical side for those who are interested.

Before we dive in, I'd like to let you all know we are going to be showcasing the game at UC Irvine in Irvine, Califronia this Saturday at 4:00 PM (the 6th floor of Bren Hall) for the annual IEEE GameSIG competition we entered last year. We are simply presenting the game on the floor this year, so if you are in the area stop on by and say hello!

In the weeks following kickstarter (and after a long rest period - whew) we have really stepped up our production and have made plans to take us all the way into the rest of development. Organization has been a huge focus for us these past few weeks. Many of you probably already know or have heard this, but I'll say it again - Organize your work, especially if you are working with others! I wouldn't say we were too terribly unorganized prior to our cleanup this week, but every mislabeled asset adds up, and it is extremely frustrating to lose time and work due to organization issues. It may seem trivial at first, but man, does it add up quickly.

I'll save the beauty shots for James's post, but I'm happy to report that the Rainforest environment made possible by Kickstarter is underway, and is coming along quite nicely. I finally set apart some time to hone in on my foliage modeling skills, and am pleased with the results.

We are using a variety of tech to get the the end result you'll see in James's post. We are certainly taking advantage of the PC's power of rendering higher res texture's than you see on consoles - this is especially important with the Rift right around the corner. Our pipeline contains a "2k or bust" clause, where we render a 2048 x 2048 texture for every asset and reduce it accordingly, ensuring a vastly detailed world to experience. We are trying our best to make a visually stunning game while holding a maintainable stream of production, and with our new pipelines and guidelines I think we are arriving on a solution.

I'm happy with the way these fruit turned out, especially due to my "quick" method of box modeling - no sculpting required. The displacement modifier is rapidly becoming my best friend in creating organic structures and foliage.

That's all for today. Tune in next week for some take aways from our time at Irvine, and meet us there if you can!