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Character Matters


Josh

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I'm pleased to say our very first character pack DLC is now available on Steam.

 

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Originally, my plan was to just license third-party model packs and sell them on Steam, ready-to-use with Leadwerks. However, once I started acquiring content I ran into some problems.

  • The selection of usable character packs out there are pretty lacking, when you start examining them closely.
  • Artists often just wanted to sell "raw models" and were not interested in the final steps to make an item truly game-ready, like physics and scripting.
  • Models sourced from different artists lacked cohesion in detail, quality, and art direction.
  • Artists wanted to charge much higher prices than I thought was optimal.

 

However, Leadwerks DLC sales are now high enough that we can produce our own exclusive content for you. The cost of producing the zombie models and animations was $3500. At a price of $29.99, and after Steam's 30% of sales, we need to sell just 166 copies of this pack to break even and start making a profit. If we can break even, that means I can effectively "turn on" content production and start bringing lots more model packs to you for use with Leadwerks.

 

Because our content comes from only a few artists, with each artist working on one area (characters, animation, and environment) that means Leadwerks original content will have a visual consistency you can't get by buying models from different sources.

 

I do have plans for selling third-party content in the Leadwerks Workshop, but game characters are the hardest item to produce, and I think we need to take responsibility for making sure these are done right.

 

I hope you enjoy the pack, and I am looking forward to bringing you more.

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What future packs do you think you will be assembling? Characters are probably the hardest for users to obtain and make look right in the game. If other character packs come in the future, will they rely on the AI script that is already used or will there be the possibility of more detailed scripts coming with them?

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The current monster AI script is obviously only good for melee attack monsters, so zombies were a good choice. I'm considering a pack of soldiers next. This will be more difficult because it requires more animations, weapons, and new scripting for AI.

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Yeah, I realized I would rather have some consistent sets of similar themed material, so I am going to focus on modern-day stuff right now. I think sci-fi and medieval packs should be added, but there needs to be a plan to get weapons / enemies / props out at the same time.

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