Vapourware Project Silkworm (from a indie)

A game (art game) is but not one map it is a journey across many.
A quest in action for a answer that beacons in the flowing mystery of her form.
The quest of the environment artist.

 

Apexeon

hey bro, what assets do you use to create these kind of backgrounds? and how does the process look like?

 

To make a great map will require a deep knowledge and understanding of your tools and how to apply them (learn to love your tools err erm). Nothing will beat just raw passion and a lot of failed attempts. Well there is no failure only time and learning. True failure is a missed opportunity to understand your motives, to learn and to grow your knowledge/skill/art. If you get angry or frustrated then you must look at your motives.

If your in this for the money I advise mobile game development as they make buckets of cash for doing next to nothing.
I work extreme hours to make next to nothing $ wise .

All the assets are built by me or modified from my data base of models (about 98% are hand built, Grass and tree were purchased for $20).I scratch build a map in about 2-4 hours.

There are no lightwave work flow youtube video's for making a Infinity engine maps to my knowledge.
In about 2-3 weeks I might have enough spare time to do a work flow video.

About 70% of textures in the scene below are from lightwaves built in procedural textures.
The other textures I need I just download from free texture sites on the web (digital photo's of dirt and rocks etc).
Also I just take some photos with a digital camera for dirt, rock, brick etc...



I am about to start another map in 20 minutes.

The current work flow is.

10-20 minutes on concept art for the scene.
Modeler 2 hour
Scene Editor. 1 hour.

Probably for a high quality scene.
10-20 minutes concept art.
Modeler 4 hours
Scene Editor 4 hours.

Concept art or reference material.





Into the modeller to make the mesh.



Texture and light.

 

Thanks man!

So, have to be at least
-a concept artist
-a 3d modeller
-a level designer

did you study any of this?

and are there any useful videos explaining how to make isometric/prerendered/infinity engine/etc backgrounds?

 

No self taught hobby of mine. I am self taught and have about 5 lightwave books riding shotgun with me.

I tried to find some videos but I have not found one related to making these RPG maps.
But there are a lot of non related ones that you can learn tips and tricks from.
I study the maps of the Infinity engine games by looking at them.

This video is excellent it improved my rocks and started me node editing.



You will also need the Bible (PST book).

 

I could do a more in depth work flow but I just picked up this boot leg copy of Flappy birds.
Fraakkk and I thought wine was addictive !!!

 

Thanks for the answers man!

The thing is I always wanted to create or at lest try to create something like this, but have no idea where to start. The only things I've managed to find were the tile-based isometric art tutorials, but that's not the thing I really enjoy.

 

Hold on till my long service in 3 weeks I hope.
If my paid work plays ball .

 

When you go kickstarter, please consider adding a stretch goal to release some of these maps that won't make it into the game, or so.

 

No problem. I will discuss the pitch and potential goals here before any movement on that front.
Your going to at least see 12 characters on the screen and me walking people through a few turns of the game
before the pitch. I want to make sure I get the message across so people can get a clear understanding of what $12 is going to buy them.

It should all click when I walk people through the gameplay flow over a few turns.

Vision documents are for wimps.
Full alpha art profile or no cigar.

 

Don't get too excited I did a lot of the hard yakka back in 2012.
But I have a soft spot for the lava. If you have played Master of magic this my friends is
the chaos node (Silkworm it is a primal energy node). If you choose heavy elemental magic
this node will aid you in your quest.

Its not a full build from the ground up but this matches the concept art and my vision for the mana node.

 

This is the top of one of the 12 towers in the game.
If you remember the towers in Master of Magic they acted as a portal between worlds and had powerful items in them.

Work in progress/concept.

 

Who are you and who do you serve.

 

I'm just curious: are you also mapping the walkable terrain when you build a map, or are you leaving that for later?

 

Desert scene.
Astral plane fix up.
Red wine.

 

Its on the to do list along with clone Flappy birds to make some real money.

Build it and they will come (the rest of the development team).
Seeing is believing.

 

The textures and lighting look gorgeous! Can't wait to see some video.
Oh and I also agree with the 'cut maps' kickstarter goal when you reach that point

 

About 60 % won't meet the cut.

 

the tiling of the ground texture of your last screenshot is too obvious. one can notice the repetitive pattern. you should re-work the texture and paint out all the details which leap to the eye at first glance. then alpha blend a couple of textures together and create interesting spots to view at. the same goes for the small rocks - they are copy/pasted all over the floor without the slightest change of angle, size or color.
there's also some nasty texture stretching happening at the slopes and sides of your cliff. seems to be caused through bad uv mapping. you should also cover the harsh angle between the cliff props and your ground floor as best as you can. just clutter some rocks of different size around those areas and it will look way more natural. while i'll like the lighting you could probably tone down the shadows. they're way too sharp.
last but not least in almost every screenshot you postet the armored guy (pc?) and the ground texture are flowing into each other. a constant struggle to find the party tires the eyes.

 

Apexeon

Man, is there anything to read about the setting/story/lore of your game?

 

Its based on Xcom. You will build a base at the start of the game and conduct missions with a elite team of mages to secure power points on the planet/fight/research/build.
Also in the design plan it has features from Master of Magic as well.

 

Agree with all your points.
The next batch of maps should fix a lot of the problems.
I have decided to move away from the 1 map a day plan.

 

As I've said before, your map renders are damn pretty and looking better all the time. From an art perspective it's a great portfolio piece.

I do have some questions/notes though.

• Have you given any thought to gameplay in these? That is, objectives and missions, encounter design with enemies, gameplay flow, NPCs, pacing, etc.?
• Similarly, many of these areas look kinda non-practical from a design perspective. For example, I see a lot of long straight corridors with a few turns and alcoves. I see a lot of use of symmetry in order to make these look pretty but not really with respect to level design.
  
• Where are all the interactive objects and visual clutter in the levels? They're very cool and creative but do not look remotely lived-in.
• Some areas are a bit strange perspective-wise. Here it looks like the camera angle for the foreground and background are totally different, for instance.
  
• I notice a lot of environment reuse. It seems like you are taking the same base objects and changing backgrounds a bit. Any plans to work on this?

Not trying to put you down, I just can't help but feel that there is a lot of cool art here but I'm not really sure how the game part fits in. Part of me wants to say you need to have the gameplay details worked out in-engine before you start spending months making visual content, considering you might have to change it all significantly afterwards.