Some may have thought so but the project is not dead :P. We are busy and working hard behind the scenes to get our heads around the short story for this game. We don't just want pretty graphics, we are aiming for something that will give everyone a great experience and story is a huge part of this. For anyone that ever tried to write a cool, short and fulfilling story before you know that there are a lot of iterations and that it takes a lot of time to get it right.
We are approaching the project in a blend between storyboards and walk through this way we can kind of read the game as a comic and in a short glance see if the story is working on a meta and micro level (and also see all the animations we are going to need). It's much easier to iterate in this stage than to change stuff when full fledged animations and characters have already been made and you need to cut stuff.
Here is a blurry image because we don't want to spoil any of this stuff:P
The environment was designed beforehand so we could get a good sense of what this world is like and tell our story within the borders of that world.
Next to that we've also been painting a lot more and a new member joined our team, a character concept artist that will be doing the remaining characters so our character modeler can focus on modelling.
I've postponed the video a bit because I want to combine it with another announcement we'll be making in the future.
Some may have thought so but the project is not dead :P. We are busy and working hard behind the scenes to get our heads around the short story for this game. We don't just want pretty graphics, we are aiming for something that will give everyone a great experience and story is a huge part of this. For anyone that ever tried to write a cool, short and fulfilling story before you know that there are a lot of iterations and that it takes a lot of time to get it right.
Thanks for posting the initial work, very inspirational. I'm super stoked, can't wait to see what comes of this.
Its awesome little concepts like that, that make me want to drop what I am doing and model. Nice and compact, and I love that you have adapted a new workflow style, it elevates your work!
I gotta say, I'd buy the game if all it provided me with was a place this beautiful to explore. Just walk around, look at things, maybe chat with the locals a bit, sit down on a meadow and watch the clouds.
After a rather lengthy summer break (it was great weather in western Europe) we are back on track on this project, so expect a little more activity from now on . Let's start of with these character concepts for 3 of the main characters in Pingo.
@sonelliot, Yes I always like to do little sketches to get my head around an environment, sometimes I only need one sketch when I got the idea already in my head, other time I need a lot of sketches to see what I like. Sketching is a lot faster than trying to figure stuff out in 3D especially for environments with a lot of "noise" like that kitchen.
WIP of the 3D version of a concept I showed a long while ago:
Last time I told you that we were going to make this into a little game project, by now we got out design and story fleshed out and the programmer started working on some code as well.
In the meantime I've been doing a lot of sketches and also started fiddling around with a blockout for the main area in the game. We are hoping to have a couple of uniquely styles areas (cave/interiors/exteriors) that all connect to this. I won't spoil anything more in terms of design though:P.
When I get this blockout cleaned and mapped I'll start the painting process that I will also record so you guys can look at my workflow.
Enough talk, the images:
What you're seeing are screengrabs from maya with a baked 2k lightmap as placeholder for now.
*the room on the previous page is actually located in the little tower you see in this blockout but there will be something telescopy soon although we won't go for the huge telescope in the painting.
We will also be sharing some character art in the near future
I really loved the way block this out--- extra extra thumbs up! *** liked, subscribed***
So.. Ehm, Finally an update after almost a year :P. Around a year ago we went into the last crunchmode on our project at my fulltime job so I didn't have the energy to work on Poku at home anymore.
After that I changed the team around a bit more and we are now a very select few covering everything we need (and also much more manageable). We've been working hard again the last few months so..
I am proud to announce a new teaser trailer for the project (which is now called "Poku") =D
Great to see this back up and running, I was following the progress last year and was disappointed to see it stop. Love the style and cannot wait to see more updates!
Wow love your stuff! It looks amazing. How did you go about doing your lighting? You mentioned it has 2k lightmaps but you have some dynamic leaf shadows too, are they animated somehow?
It's amazing, I love the style, it's really beautiful! I'd love to see a new secret of mana done this way! Would you mind working for square-enix imposing your style?
Thanks a lot guys =D Breakdowns will come but I'm not going to promise anything like I did last time xD
@Hatred: Yes, more of less @Cirle of Friends: Yeah I've had a lot of time to experiment and really wanted realtime shadows, got them working although it costs a bit more performance and memory, The shadows and light are layered now so we paint both wherever we want. Which also gives us some very cool options for special effects and puzzles hehe And we can blend between painted shadows and realtime shadows like this(and very specifically optimize if we keep the light direction static while your progressing through the game:
(The left shadow border is painted, the cube is casting realtime shadows)
Replies
Double the awesome.
We are approaching the project in a blend between storyboards and walk through this way we can kind of read the game as a comic and in a short glance see if the story is working on a meta and micro level (and also see all the animations we are going to need). It's much easier to iterate in this stage than to change stuff when full fledged animations and characters have already been made and you need to cut stuff.
Here is a blurry image because we don't want to spoil any of this stuff:P
The environment was designed beforehand so we could get a good sense of what this world is like and tell our story within the borders of that world.
Next to that we've also been painting a lot more and a new member joined our team, a character concept artist that will be doing the remaining characters so our character modeler can focus on modelling.
I've postponed the video a bit because I want to combine it with another announcement we'll be making in the future.
Cheers
Thanks for posting the initial work, very inspirational. I'm super stoked, can't wait to see what comes of this.
I gotta say, I'd buy the game if all it provided me with was a place this beautiful to explore. Just walk around, look at things, maybe chat with the locals a bit, sit down on a meadow and watch the clouds.
WIP of the 3D version of a concept I showed a long while ago:
This is how it looks in Unity at the moment
I really loved the way block this out--- extra extra thumbs up! *** liked, subscribed***
After that I changed the team around a bit more and we are now a very select few covering everything we need (and also much more manageable). We've been working hard again the last few months so..
I am proud to announce a new teaser trailer for the project (which is now called "Poku") =D
Be sure to follow the new fb page for updates: https://www.facebook.com/pokugame
[ame="
Keep up the good work!
looks amazing!
so you use unlit material and paint in light and shadows on diffuse?
Looking forward to it! And all of da breakdowns which will hopefully follow!
@Hatred: Yes, more of less
@Cirle of Friends: Yeah I've had a lot of time to experiment and really wanted realtime shadows, got them working although it costs a bit more performance and memory, The shadows and light are layered now so we paint both wherever we want. Which also gives us some very cool options for special effects and puzzles hehe
(The left shadow border is painted, the cube is casting realtime shadows)