Mini Men

SyaPed

Hey guys, I don't want to clutter up the "Watcha workin' on" thread so I'll dump all my mini men here.

They're intended for a short video mockup of a lil game I have floating around in my head. Not much more than vague overall ideas at the moment though.

For those who wanted to know how I made them it's nothing special. Just some lowpoly models flat shaded like this...

Wahlgren

zomg. Iphone game! Now! Need extra help!? ;D

I love it. Tell us more about the game.

larolaro

Absolutely love this stuff! I'd love to play a little mini strategy game with units of these lil guys haha.

Steve Schulze

Working really nicely SyaPed. Impressive stuff. I'm guessing an XCom style game based on your UI mockup, right?

SyaPed

Cheers guys! You're on the money game wise, a little mini strategy x-com'esque thing. Basic premise is you control a team of space junk scavengers and compete against other teams for the sweet nuggets of "junk" on the ship while dealing with the neutral bugs that infest the ships.

pior

any chance to see those gifs at full speed ? They look slomo here. But Im browsing on Safari hence that might be just asking for trouble

Looking great!!!

Neox

Not slomo here, and have to agree lovely stuff, very effective art wise. Really really cool.

Mr_Drayton

Oh, they are really great-looking! :O I love them. That heavy mech is fantastic!
Will it be for iPhone or PC (or whatever)? I'd like to play it so much!

kodde

I want to play this game already, love this genre.

Ben Apuna

Very nice! Those animations are great.

I want to play

Spatz

wow this looking really cool ...make me wanna play right now!...

i want to see more...

Edit > i forgot to say i would really love to see a little more innovativ new style userinterface i think its better than that you sketched out arleady...

Gallows

Really digging the style and can't wait for more updates. Glad to see a lot of pre-planning is going into this, I can almost guarantee this will end well.

Firebert

that is pure awesome... interface idea looks like a good start... thick colors, solid animation, and overall simplicity that just make this look like pure fun. keep it up!

deadpixl

Ahaha, such a cool style.

hobodactyl

Inspiration boners! Very nice! Show us moooooooore!!

EDIT: OHMUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

DarthNater

Hey if you ever want to port this to Android, give me a buzz. I would love to play this! I would program it for you HAHA

Mr_Drayton

A simple idea blasted in my mind: if you remove the antialias and maybe apply a 1px dark border (but not black!), the style will turn in something really pixel-artish!

ENODMI

Wow! The characters read really well so small. :thumbup:

Envelope

so awesome!

Acumen

oh man, just yesterday i was watching "Nausica

Uly

holy shit these are cool.
they read really well man, be nice to see more game mockup shots. : )
(good anims too)

cadyw

love it. great presentation, excellent modeling, animation, coloring.......well done! is it maybe a little high poly for the teeny size of it all?

flatHead

Great stuff. Less is more, indeed!

SyaPed

Wow thanks for all the support guys, I'm not the only one who loves nostalgic little mini men!

Pior - I'm not sure what's up with gifs and different browsers, it plays right for me in Firefox but slow in Explorer

Mr Daytona - If it ever happened then PC first, but I'm not really thinking that far ahead. To get something on iPhone or XBLA would be awesome though.

I'm thinking of playing around with the look too, borders and putting the animation on doubles, see how it looks. I do like the flat colour on colour look it has now though.

Spatz - Cheers man Haha the UI was just a 5 second scribble of a generic rts layout. I've thought of doing more but I'm not sure what's needed in the UI and what's not so I'm holding off for now.

Firebert - Thanks man! Those are the key things I want to keep overall for the art and gameplay.

Hobodactyl & Acumen - Haha you guys are onto me with the Ohmu! I love the Nausicaa setting, one of my favourite movies. I may change my bugs though if it smells too ripoffy.

Darthnater - Thanks man! It'll be awesome if it gets to that stage.

Cadyw - Thanks Originally I didn't have this in mind for those models so yeah they're a bit overpoly, if it ever got to game stage I'd optimize everything.

More mockups, animations and randomness on the way

hobodactyl

I don't think the bugs seem rip-offy, it's just cool inspiration

Fieldscarecrow

Wow this is soooo cool!!!!

Are there gonna be any bosses?

Harry

SO SICK MAN
SO SICK

edit: now i'll try to make myself useful.

I'd be worried, if i were you, about the different guys (light, medium and heavy i take it) being discernable at the target res. First thing i think i'd be doing is removing the "collar" from the light and medium guys, maybe giving light guy an open faced helmet or even just a patrol cap or something... stuff like that to differentiate them more

SyaPed

Fieldscarecrow - Bosses...I like it! Especially as it's not really the type of game to typically have bosses.

Harry - Thanks When I modeled them I didn't actually have classes in mind, even though they did come out looking like a light, medium and heavy. It was just for some variation so they didn't look too uniform, I can also swap body parts for more variety. But you're right, if they are to be classes I'd have to make changes so they could be differentiated easily.

SyaPed

Nothing real new, just rigged the other guys and tried an alternate colour scheme. Hopefully I can do more on the weekend.

kaptainkernals

I much prefer the orange and cream colouring. But this is looking seriously awesome, can't wait to see more.

I can also see this turning into a Cannon Fodder - esque type of game.

Harry

orange and cream looks way more "space" m8

DrunkShaman

shoot!! Amazing work!

EDIT: I'd also dig the orange and off-white (cream) texture on the model.

deadpixl

I like the Orange and Cream version as well, it kind of reminds me of Steam's UI.

Noors

i like it but i wish their silhouettes weren't so similar.

LEViATHAN

I think the ending of the shooting animation could be smoothed out some more.

madmuffin

I agree with that the silhouettes could use a little work, considering how small they are it's hard to reliably see the minor differences between each character. Maybe try giving them certain parts more exaggerated, like an overlarge backpack, boots, or cuffs?

Loving what I see so far though, if this were a game I'd play it. I am curious how you turn your models into such tiny sprite arts while still retaining most of the detail, and how much of it is straight render and how much, if any, is drawn after? Such as the gunfire, shell casing, and shadow?

MikeF

looking great, reminds me of crusader. Defenintely agree about the silhouettes tho, the only thing i could notice that was different were the sizes of the shoulder pads

SyaPed

Hey guys, yeah the variations came out pretty hard to notice didn't they. Will have to do something about that.

I'm definitely keeping the orange and cream for the core team, I've always had a thing for that colour scheme. But other teams running around would need their own colours. It'd be cool if players could create their own colour scheme ingame.

madmuffin - So far everything is straight render. I just try to keep the detailing to what can be picked up that small.

kaptainkernals

Well for colours, what you could do is keep the main portion of the body a neutral themed colour - like cream or some variation - light grey etc.

And then bring in strong colours in the shoulder area - orange, then a blue, red, green, anything appropriate.

But own colour scheme would be awesome.

Rojo

Damn, this looks awesome.

Will the environment color palette offer much variety? I think the orange only looks better because the backdrop is complementing it more.

killingpeople

Awesome - fuck iPhone, I want a pc version.

Ferg

LOVING these guys... full on mini squad combat game (hey x-com, how ya doin?) would be epic

SyaPed

Tim - I'm still to play around with the environment but I'm going to keep the palette pretty tight and muted, so the characters and objects pop out more.

kp - Thanks ;D If anything happened pc would def be first

SyaPed

Thanks Ferg! Yes think x-com but a little faster paced and streamlined.

I have an old game in my head that has a look a lot like I'm trying to mimic. You had to get to the top of a tower and each stage was a level of the tower and would take up the screen. There would be obstacles and traps to get through. I have D Tower in my head for some reason... Anyone know what I'm talking about?

Harry

i'm thinking fallout tactics plus space.
you should make objects of x height which guys can support heavier weapons on

also, animations for leaning around a corner and supporting weapon on the edge of the wall.

i could see some really sick shit coming out of such a design. With a grid based environment you could quite easilly represent realistic overpressure from explosions, backblast from shoulder launchers, absolutely heaps of awesome shit. Pursue this.

edit: oh and ideas for the silhouette - if the guys do end up being light-medium-heavy, id say you could make the leg armour of the lighter guy a lot less bulky, they all have pretty much the same leg mass, and for a more agile unit it looks weird. he'd look cool running around on needly little legs

kite

super cool characters! they remind me a bit of flashback/another world. How are you planning to treat the environment art?

Anuxinamoon

Wow even I want to play this game. Its sounds totally cool and I love those little guys. Its like I almost want to pick them up and put them in a matchbox with my pet earwigg!

aesir

so how far are you plannin on taking this? A fully animated game mock? Finding a coder?

SyaPed

Harry - Yeap, I'd love to add lots of fun little details like that. As long as it doesn't detract from the fun pickup and play feel.

kite - Thanks! Flashback, loved that game! What I have in mind for the environment isn't far from that first mockup, simple geometric shapes and some small detailing. I'm going to mess with it tonight.

Anuxinamoon - Haha I'm glad it gives you that feel, I always love the little infantry dudes in games.

aesir - Just an animated mock for now, see what happens after that.

SubPablo

aaawesome! Love the animations

SyaPed

Playing around with the environment