Hello

[Holy_Diver]

I meant to suggest before modeling the snake helmet to match the snake monster. It might have an extra appendage on its head (or maybe I'm imagining that) but anyway it would make the item fit more snuggly into the already existing Som asset set / add character. So like if you found in an area populated by those snakes you'd have a good idea how it was fashioned. If it's just meant to be a metal helmet in a decorative style well then back to the drawing board.

About in game portraits. It would probably look best assuming the portraits are meant to be "photo realistic" if you just took a screenshot of your in game models. If the portraits are of characters not in the game go ahead and make models for the characters anyway that matches the style of the game. I'm not the ultimate authority in these matters by any means but to do otherwise tends to make games appear even more amateur than they may be. Even if the portraits were perfect reproductions of oil paintings or whatever you have in mind, in a universe populated by low poly abstract eyeless denizens it looks tacky to break out of that esthetic unless you're really going for a matte painting kind of effect (probably not applicable to Som)

@ML: Not sure what is going on with the grass pieces but just wanted to remind everyone the existing outdoor set really has problems where the enemy/npcs feets meet the ground. That is the ground and even stone walk way pieces are well above actual foot level. I hope you make use of the outdoor set because it could really use some additional pieces to fill it out and I hope at some point you'd be willing to volunteer to do that. You seem to have a knack and what needs to be done is really trivial compared to the stuff you're doing I think.

[Madison Lastrega]

Thank you sir, ....I think, I really feel that with the severe limatation of Som's engine the trival stuff, adds to it's beauty, or something like that........I will donate all my map parts when they are completly organized... And as always I am ‎  willing to do what I can to make Som more fun and pretty for the masses, well..Mass.....Errr ,......um ‎  The few of us left..........Hell, Todd , Tom, Myself ,YOU, Verdite, and Kilroy. Better for us anyway Damn it ........ ...... Take care.......ML

[Verdite]

Nice work Joe!

At present i am not focusing on high poly materials and setups in my game. I'm focusing almost entirely on gameplay. Thats the focal point. Quests, items and story are my main factors in this game at least, i want to give a fresh take on SoM / KF style games.
To be fair the games we are creating will be mostly free. I dont have any aspirations to create a game that looks or feels like its been made on a high budget. ‎ 

I'm pressed to find time to compile everything as it is, nevermind worrying about graphics! But thanks, i appreciate the thought. My portraits will probably be taken from fantasy websites or my own artwork.

I've my customs, and they arent as easy to place as you'd imagine, i have to consider the players average level, the monsters damage, etc etc, and then find a suitable (hiding) place to put them, to make things interesting and challenging.

Another thing. I'm willing to share alot of what i've done, but i want it to go to SoM enthusiasts, and beginners, so they wont be put off being creative. I didnt give up easily on SoM, but alot would, because to get what you want using a one man team can be exhaustive and seriously time consuming, even if you know what you are doing. I'd like to give a leverage to people who simply dont have enough time / need more advice on creativity.

[dmpdesign]

"I've my customs, and they arent as easy to place as you'd imagine, i have to consider the players average level, the monsters damage, etc etc, and then find a suitable (hiding) place to put them, to make things interesting and challenging."

The longer your game the harder this becomes...exponentially. ‎  I struggled for a few months trying to round out my game, and it still needed alot of work when it was released. ‎  That and it was difficult trying to amke a relatively open environment yet limit your ability to find overpowered gear dependant on where you went.

If i can offer any assistance in numbers for equipment/stats let me know.

[Madison Lastrega]

Hey Guys, been busy, and look for changes to www.fallenbytheway.com this week, I am revamping my site to reflect my changes....and working on a new mytrosia links ....... to ben, Remember story is great, gameplay is vital, but ‎  eye candy in 2010 IS A MUST.Even if it is simple as better textures, or using better software to make your models.....Or even simple bump maps.... Even gamesbuiding for dummies says so. The following is a quote from thier book...........
Using old technology
We're not all millionaires, but using old technology and old ways doesn't pay. Try to keep up-to-date as much as possible. Even if you can't afford to get the latest C/C++ compiler or the best 3-D modeler, at least you know that they exist. Maybe you can ask the company for a demo version or an evaluation unit. However, all excuses aside, game development is a high-tech business, and you have to be as up-to-date as possible."



Read more: https://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/a...z0os9EBrS9
That being said WE ARE ALL using an old engine so there is only so much we can do, however I told you that by using blender you can make way better models and have better basic feel for you SoM based game.The advice worked right so by taking a few extra minutes and adding 24 bit textures instead of 256 color ones, adding "bumps" to your models... it makes the best use of old tech, to intice NEW players to want to play our games...... However you roll your way, I roll mine....your customs look great the way they are so if that works for you, then roll with them...Trust me when I knew FBTW was going to be way subpar on the SoM engine I killed it as an som game.....and used all my months of work to construct another game, I feel that I made the right choice, after all FBTW is for my brother and best freind whom commited suicide, so it has to rock even if it takes years to complete, however my love for SoM , has made me want to use all that I have invested in it, and use the skills and TOOLS I learn for other projects... I write this because, I feel that you are questioning my "gameplay" and saying that "your game might look good but but will it play or have a good story" ‎  rest assured I have spent as much time comming up with my story and unique ideas as I have my pretty models, so much, that it is why it takes so long, I am a one man team as well... And I am making a web site to support my games as well, and I have a wife 3 kids, and a 45 plus a week job......... soccor practice, and I still put 6 hours a day to my SoM.... so don't tell me about , time.. One last thing to quote "Tom Hanks" in the Movie "A Leauge of thier own"..........When the co owner of the team came to him and said"Did you have to scatch your balls' for the last hour of the game?"..Tom, Looked up and said...."Anything worth doing, is worth doing right"............Nuff said....................ML

[Verdite]

Dont get me wrong i'm not trying to say your story is weak or anything. I'm not competing against anyone ‎  i just wanna share my stories and ideas. I was relating my experiences and difficulties to yours.

Well this will be my first game and i'm trying to make it look at tidy as possible.

[Verdite]

I need help animating in metasequoia, i cant seem to find any method yet.
I've tried messing with the lattice to no avail.

Cheers

[Madison Lastrega]

Hey Ben, How are you my friend?, Anyway Meta has not the ability to do animations, how ever, Blender, can animate ALMOST as good as any pricy software out there:) All you gotta do is import you Meta made stuff as objects in to blender, and then use the "GAME" mode, that is your animation mod, for blender, VERY confusing at first, but go to www.blender.org, for wonderful tutorials and plenty 'o You-Tube links.... I have made several short animations using it, the only problem is RE setting up your textures....... An easy trick for this is to put all the models you want to animate in a seperate folder.....and be sure that you put the textures used in this folder as well and blender should locate them and should look as they did in Meta...The timeline works very simular to max so if you have ever played with 3dmax or any simular software then figuring out how to set it should be easy..if not you tube my friend, the next college of the world "you-tube"......Hope this helps...... Remember .....www.blender.org........ good luck and take care:)

[Holy_Diver]

Even gamesbuiding for dummies says so. The following is a quote from thier book...........
Using old technology
We're not all millionaires, but using old technology and old ways doesn't pay. Try to keep up-to-date as much as possible. Even if you can't afford to get the latest C/C++ compiler or the best 3-D modeler, at least you know that they exist. Maybe you can ask the company for a demo version or an evaluation unit. However, all excuses aside, game development is a high-tech business, and you have to be as up-to-date as possible."

I'm going to have to assume the title of the book is supposed to be read literally. If on the other hand your target demo is not "dummies" whatever esthetic/technology/paradigm you choose for conveying what it is you want to say is utterly of no importance. It's only what you do with that which matters. There are 100s of completely state of the art games produced every year not worth cleaning your toilet with. If the game industry knew how to consistently produce decent games it would have at least 10x its share of affluent people's disposable incomes and most people who grew up with video games would probably never leave the house. But the game industry can't make a decent game if it threw everything it had at it. Therefore all it takes to out do the entire game industry in all it's brilliance is to be able to make one half way decent game from beginning to end that is fun to play.

I play/love PC-88 games. Whether it's music, movies, games (thank god books are immune to technology) I can pull out a f***ing graph that will show you that quality is inversely proportional to technology. Not because technology is bad, but because people are stupid (don't know how to effectively use the technology they have / crave more of it anyway)

Besides I have a feeling, if you held up the revenue from all the new PS3 games available on the PSN (in Japan at least) versus the classic PSOne and PC-Engine games, you'd see that the PS3 games are probably not holding a candle. And people can emulate that stuff if they want but I bet they buy more of it than the new (state of the art) games anyway.

PS: I forgot how posting with IE8 was such a chore. I think I'm going to try to upgrade to SMF2.0 when I get a chance. If that fixes it I will advise Todd to do the same. I saw a forum running SMF2.0 with the old 1.0 theme anyway, which is what I fear most losing.

[Verdite]

Thanks Joe, i had a strong feeling that i should use blender for anims, but seeing ask im using Meta, i cant export my file to blender so *takes a breath* i have to either register for the full version or simply restart in blender, which would be having a giraffe as most my work is meta based.

Anyone alright for no anims on npcs? ‎ 

I agree diver, i dont give the majority of games on the PS3 a second look, most of them are so watery. The greatest games were the simpler, more fun and entertaining ones. I can say that i much prefer pac man to alot of the complex, time consuming pressure games that are churned out each month.

Alot of the games now are dark and dingy, with little to no sustenance. What happened to atmosphere and interest? All recent games revolve around being top, or seeing how many people you can shoot in the head.

Strangely, i feel much more satisfied after playing tekken 3 as opposed to the recent tekken 6. Thats just an example, by the way. And take kings field 1 (that we recieved; not the japanese one) so much more interesting and much fresher than demon souls for example. I would choose kings field over demons souls any day, as the intentions and design for kings field tramples on DS in my opinion.