mdgunn

yeah....the png is there for you to load up as a texture that other programs can use to position UV's. Path in repo is forth/Materials/Simple/low_poly_palette.png Not sure exactly what you want to do. I have 3D Coat but sadly I've not really got my head into it very much if you have any specific requirements.

and another.... https://store.steampowered.com/app/363950/Windscape/

Material was missing from repo for low poly texture so added.

How about starting with something like a meteor shower or something. This may help introduce a strange energy source into the game which may help bridge the sci-fi and fantasy realms a bit. One or more of the meteors crashes into a temple/pyramid/tomb/mysterious structure you wake up but maybe it's not clear if you come from a casket/tomb/crypt/pod/experiment or if you fell with the meteor. Maybe there also the shell of the meteor with equipment in it or it's a pod shaped crystalline vessel or something. After that you need to get out of the crash structure. Maybe some of the other inhabitants are energised and alive from the mysterious energy of the crash so some simple enemies, could be humanoid, creature or mechanical. Could be guardian creatures/robots of the structure. Maybe it's not just a standard crypt but something more complex...I suppose a lot like the cauldrons from Horizon Zero dawn. Could be traps or simple climb mechanics, collapsed or collapsing walls or floors. Could lead into a cave like section that someone wanted to do. Initially the interior and/or cave sections should be super short for a concept, maybe 2 or 3 brush based rooms connected with short corridors and some ramps or simple stair cases. And few more section for the cave bit before getting out onto the surface of an island (or land if the islands split later). I have tried before to put together brush based constructions sets before so I might put this together maybe in an early form if people think we may have some brush based sections. Some people are probably quite quick at putting together levels just in a 3D program but I think brushes will allow more people to have a try at putting levels together along with some more useful colours in the simple library. Might put together a library folder for colours pulled from the low poly palette so these can be dropped on brushes.

Might try to figure out an lower poly variant but this was shows the initial intended design. As with some others this is quite sci-fi and perhaps less future fantasy. Could be changed as we finalise a clearer concept of what the shapes of our future fantasy are. (Cubic, spherical etc).

Might find it easiest to catch you at the weekend. I'll pop into Discord when not at work etc..

Not that happy with these yet just quick work in progress items to improve later.

Happy to retheme these if people feel we are too sci-fi on any of these and need a different more mysterious/magical direction. Added to repo

Sounded quite intriguing. Interesting stuff.

The guardian is us right? Destroying yourself.....that's a biggie. I think if you go there there'd probably have to be something personal to attach to (loved one, kid etc.) as the world is kinda hard to attach to. Maybe, just thinking about movies really, though they stick maybe to close to standard story lines too.

In Blender have a UV/Image window on one side (left) and a 3D window (on the right). Do the following: select the object Tab into edit mode CTRL-A to select all or select the faces, or click select the faces you want to assign a colour to. Press U to unwrap and select Unwrap Scale down the unwrapped faces which will appear in the UV/Image window a few times so they are really small and fit within the coloured square of the colour you want the faces to have. You also need to make sure you have the 3D view in material view and you need to create a material with an image map of the UV image texture. This bit can be confusing if you are not familiar with materials but if you mess around in the texture tab and material tab you should figure out how to do it. The image in the UV image window you load from the low poly one in Material/Simple . When you export your model you will probably need to set the material in Leadwerks again on the model as I think it will not have selected the shared one in Material/Simple but instead expects to see it in the same folder as the export. That confusion might be a bit confusing. If so I can probably catch you on Discord, though I may be at work. Not sure on your timezone.

If we're going with wizard then I hope he captures something like the essence of this.... and really as little as possible of the essence of this.... Still I'm sure anything will be cool.

Added a palette material we could share across objects to get a uniform colour scheme (which could be changed in an instance) and would reduce draw calls, reduce memory usage and increase render speed (I believe). Also updated the tree slightly and now using this palette.

I will do some props I think. I guess we are still going low poly. Some of my models were low poly but not 'low poly' style so I think I'll try head back more into low poly style. I have put a palette texture that could be used for low poly models in the simple material folder. If we all used this where possible then we could switch the entire palette of all related objects very quickly and easily and also I think it would reduce draw calls and texture memory usage. I still had some ideas for island creation and texturing I might try out. If you GameCreator are trying to make a playable island then I will not try to worry if it is playable but more focus on if we can generate quickly and mostly automatically with minimal hand-crafting. Here's the low poly palette in use in Blender.

How you going to do the island? Going to just go CSG for now?

More test assets. Not finals, would probably remodel according to theme. These are less overtly sci-fi. Just playing around trying with some themes to see if a style appears, and if certain shapes might be more or less future fantasy, traditional fantasy or sci-fi. Added to repo.

Another test prop. I realise theme may change but I am messing in Blender anyway so though I'd add it. Added to repo for now.

Added extra test prop. Could be converted or redone in alternate theme style.

Did a simple robot head. Could instead be a golem head or something if different setting. Just another test prop. Added to repo in models/robots.

Yeah, good point. Would be good to be fun even if you made it.

Another couple of island tests. This a purposefully artificially rounded one with some unnaturally regular structures underneath and hidden entrance.

As far as sci-fi fantasy possibilities. I would also include into this steampunk and alternate histories. For example World War Robot, Steam Boy etc, as well as thousands of years in the future. Far future suggest possibilities for more magic like settings approaching traditional fantasy. Numenera I think is supposed to be millions years in the future but the planet has had 9 successive civilizations with the current one having access to tech but not necessarily the means to produce all of it (essentially rare classic RPG weapons/magic). The main point would be that the environment could be various settings that could exhibit a mix of history, fantasy and sci-fi in whatever way we can agree on. The Numenera type of setting means low complexity (low poly) buildings (e.g. stone/concrete/future plastic or alloy) are quite reasonable but high tech/magic items can exist but might be something you hold in your hand. A useful benefit here is that if you can create a small sphere in 3D then you can call it whatever weapon/item you want and have it do anything. Whose to say it just cause we can't model good stuff .... I'm sure some of us can. Whatever the type of settings (steampunk alternate history or far-future) I saw it being somewhat post-apocalyptic but 'in a good way'. The bad stuff has mostly passed but threats exist (tech may wake up - weapons may be active - buildings may collapse etc.). This means there is a backdrop of civilisation and history to create a setting but we don't have to populate it make it functional or even fully complete (half a structure might have got blown up or never finished). This is why I see some sort of future fantasy as giving us a lot of scope from something historical through to something approaching traditional RPG, whilst perhaps avoiding some of the cliches.

i was thinking that if we could split game into mini-game like I was saying (with 1 or a few key mechanics), e.g. between island flight, cave section, island exploration etc. then we may be able to have enough sections that everyone can effectively own this section. Others can input to other peoples but each person can effectively own something and have majority say on the direction. We may still need to be able to collectively vote or decide if we as a whole think something needs to be done a certain way. At some future point we may have some tricky time tying different things together but I hope that if we minimise mechanics and don't duplicate this is at least more practical. If we minimise mechanics and prototype early then we may be able to know that a different mini-game offers something we could use later while working on other things (e.g. inventory or AI).

Yeah sounds like you're on similar lines. EDIT: Many OLD/fantasy things can be similar to sci-fi things so it may appeal to people if they see the possibilities. For example a robot and golem can be almost the same thing and you could model just a turret head as a maze hazard and it doesn't have to even look human or be a complete thing. Creature like things (human or animal) gives something in the world that suggest life and backstory even if it doesn't even move or be a complete thing. If they are also mechanical and not pretending to be exactly a real thing then this gives us some options to reduce work (e.g. make a sound effect for a cat like thing, or make just half of it). Old tech may reactivate or have defensive measures protecting something of importance. Could be just a hovering orb which would be much easier to create and have minimal animation and minimal AI but be within theme rather than having to be a dumb zombie because decent AI would likely be a major time sink and probably have flaws. Maybe when our bad robot orb AI messes up at least part of you might imagine it's malfunctioned due to age and not just dev skill Many sci-fi or ancient constructions (e.g. medieval or stone-age) are often traditionally gemetric and simple in construction. You can have simple constructions like a glowing obelisk or disc-like portal gate or some simple structure for a flight machine. Sci-fi or stone age tech often very geometric.The great thing is that they in a 'future fantasy' (not sure what the right term is really) setting OLD stuff is also the NEW STUFF. The mysterious tech stuff of hidden magical power. One thing to mention is that usually this magic stuff should ideally have some explainable scientific effect, for example e.g. anti-grav is the reason things levitate rather than 'cause magic says so'. So maybe you spray a cloud of metal eating nano robots rather than you 'magically summon a metal armour devouring slime cube from some ethereal realm'. It isn't necessary to stick to this scientific explanation approach but I think it's a nice way to have magic and power without having to basically lean HARD on tired RPG tropes. Not saying traditional RPG is bad but I do think there are so many games that just tread out the same old thing in some shallow world. "OK so the wizard has a fire spell and an ice spell, check. OK guys wizard is done. Game 50% complete." At the same time I'll be happy if we get ANYTHING solid working but I'd like to avoid some cliches on the way if we can.

Yeah I realise all this massive dump of stuff probably makes it seem like we try to make a crazy ambitious game, but really I mention so many touch points so we can each try to find just a few things to bring to the table but ultimately keep everything as stripped back as possible and focused on a few specific things. Games like ICO and Journey still took ages to make, and realistically we can't expect to make something anything like any of them but by focusing on games that at least are more stripped back we have a better chance than trying to make something than with many, many mechanics that are ultimately probably unsatisfying and shallow. I suppose many people also hate Journey and ICO type games but hopefully they can get a feel for things from the pictures and can identify with some of the other references. Not suggesting we try to replicate Journey or ICO and I'm definitely NOT suggesting we try to put everything from all of these games into one UBER GAME (mwahahahaa!). Hopefully the images in PInterest and posted above have at least one or 2 things people can identify with but also have a general coherence that we could use to as the foundation for a theme which is not too generic. I suppose many of the images could be said to be very 'cliched' but I hope not so cliched as your typical fantasy or sci-fi. Hopefully by pulling aspects out of multiple sources the end result is less cliched than if we just try to think of some 'new cool story'. I imagine that on later reflection the 'new cool story' may end up more full of cliches than drawing inspiration from numerous proven interesting sources.... ...unless of course one or more of us have a published track record of publishing genuinely original and ground breaking literature or ideas (if there is such a thing)? I'm old and grumpy, comes with the territory! I welcome others to put together an inspiration board. Don't want to force my concept on others but AM very keen to try to find a way to keep things stripped back yet practical for numerous people to find something they can identify with and contribute to.