I didn’t get any coding done this week for Ythmeven, but I did decide on an art direction.
On Thursday I saw a post on IndieDB about DAZ 3D software being free this month, I have been getting emails from Daz for years, but only had version 2.3 and the current version is 4. So I download Daz Studio, Bryce, and Hexagon. I intended to use Hexagon to model the spaceships with but didn’t make it far yet. Instead I started using Bryce, a program I hadn’t used before, and had a decent looking island with two trees on it within an hour. That was when I decided that I wanted the art to be a rendered landscape (rather than a photographic one) I also decided that I would change the background image in the game, depending on your location.
Saturday and today I have continued to learn Bryce, and have made eight renders that I am happy with. They will be available soon on a teaser website.
The following is a list of renders that will be used in the game.
Space: Starfield (empty space)
Space: Asteroid Field
Space: Nebula
Terrain: Desert
Terrain: Grassland
Terrain: Island
Terrain: Metropolis
The four terrains will be determined by what planet you are on. Depending on the type of planet it will produce more or less of a certain material.
I also created a character in Daz Studio, I’m not really sure what I will do with her yet, but I’m thinking she will introduce new players to the game. She will be a projection of a ships Artificial Intelligence as far as the story goes, so she will change outfits quite often.
Anyways meet Aurora:
While I was working on rendering Aurora how I intended I came to another decision. I want the game to use stereotypical characters from an old Sci-Fi movie, coupled with current day trends, hence an Anime styled character. The first renders of Aurora were with a more realistic model, but I switched to a stylized model after deciding on a direction.
This week I plan to catch up on coding, and get the turn/leveling system in, as well as the boring stuff I mentioned last time. I will also be launching the teaser website with the desktop backgrounds using the renders I mentioned above. With any luck I will also get a IndieDB page for Ythmeven up.
