The Hologram Devlog
I pondered long and hard about doing a video game based on my own scifi universe, and I could keep pondering about it, and about all the stuff that could go wrong, but life is short and if I'm to make my own philosophical space opera, I better do it while I'm still not batshit crazy.
I'll begin with pre-production, which at this point to me, means painting concepts like there is no tomorrow while I figure the details of the project. This project is named The Hologram. Another dimension to it is that I want to attract as much attention to my patreon as possible as a way to gain my own financial independence and so, later in the project, money will be necessary to complete work I'm not proficient in. So expect high resolution files, .psd and videos to be monetized, I will still obviously document my progress and share all I can here.
What can I say about this video game? it's mostly science fiction in a near future, it will have hard scifi elements but also really wonky stuff and the main system will be an space flight sim. Main inspirations are probably games like Freespace, Homeworld, and movies like 2001 and Interstellar.
So, let's get down to it.
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And here are my first wanderings. Spent hours looking at references of low earth orbit photos, iss and scifi works. Haven't had this kind of stuff just come out like that in ages. As I said, the state of human tech is near future. I will attempt to design ships with enough thrusters, no wide megalomaniac corridors, no super magical drives, civilian ships will be more flimsy, while military ships will be more armored/bulky. There will be 4 different races which will be put on some kind of technological evolution continuum. but first, the humans
Some small ship and props studies
I will definitely be making a stream and recording this month
Eventually Ill have to start painting all these, but meanwhile Im having fun
Also I havent been drawing because Ive been taking care of documentation a writing my ideas for the game, but I should get back to drawing soon.
I cant really show much of this at the moment, and its probably the one thing that will stay mostly hidden from the public at large. But it can be said that this game is going to stay away from a large exploration/mining/trading types. Ill go with mission>base>mission formula. Dont get me wrong, Id love to have a big open ended universe, but the old Freespace 2 type of game is a lot easier to make. The only problem is that games like that are not common anymore for being too limited, but I think that with enough graphics, immersive mechanics and a mature story, those limitations can be overcome and deliver a solid experience. Games nowadays are easier to make, but it is more difficult to attract the attention of the public because of the sheer number of games being made.
Finances is also a thing that worries me deeply and is whats keeping me up at night, but I believe Ill find more paid stuff to do (as always). The good news is that I feel my paintings have improved a lot on the last month (more than in the last year). This tutorial (Thanks Muzz) essentially talks about how to think in RGB instead of HSV, and this made it easier to apply much better all I know about color theory. Colors and values shift much more naturally now and its easier to focus on the creative side of the piece. I still feel I'm going with too much saturation, it makes everything look cartoonish, but all in all, Im pretty happy with these techniques at the moment.
I'll be moving to main character full illustrations next
Sent out hi-res pics to patrons, and, first alien to make an appearence on the [Working Title]. Kyrios is a mysterious figure and belongs to a very advanced civilization of aliens whose history was already ancient long before humans came into existence.
Some humans who were unfortunate to meet him asked "Which god are you?" and his repressed twisted laughter was the last thing they heard
I also remodelled www.thehologram.net (my art dump site) to accomodate this devblog and commission information
Thank you, very much appreciated
I have painted the other sketch for the human flight commander, Esther King. A Canadian war veteran, shes now in charge of the Rapid Response Force, a WSO Unit in charge of Peacekeeping.
I havent been recording my paintings because Ive been watching Space Battleship Yamato 2199 while I paint. It gets me a lot of inspiration and great ideas and totally recommend to scifi fans.
Ive been thinking about the spaceship window dilemma and I noticed some interesting things about ships with windows. They allow the pilot to be seen from the outside, potentially showing his face. That in the case of this game wouldnt make sense, because pilots will have a full helmet without glass parts, and thats not up for debate. Another thing is that sunlight is allowed to enter the cockpit and can cast shadows. I noticed this in Elite Dangerous, rotating a ship and see the light shine on the cockpit is really an interesting and immersive feeling.
Other things about the nature of the main character are up for decision, but its something that will impact heavily about everything. Anyway, I want to star prototyping the game, Unreal 4.9 is looking really bloody solid and I cant wait to put my hands on it again, but I also have tons of ideas for characters that Id love to paint, so much fun to be had, so little time.
I'm also looking for work, commissions included
It doesnt make much sense to hold back the identity of my IP, especially by obscuring it with a title as generic and bland as Working Title. So, the actual name for this project is The Hologram. Most of its universe was written almost a decade ago as novels, so no lack of lore here. The plot is being ret-conned and characters restructured because I wrote a convoluted plot while trying to figure out everything. That rarely produces good stories.
At the moment I have the basics of the story up to the end of the game which is usually the most difficult part in any kind of fictional creation. Now its time to let the stuff breathe, characters will soon bring themselves to life as soon as they are put in certain situations.
At the moment Im designing the main character, but will only show when finished. Patrons on Patreon are getting progress images.
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I also painted Europa, the Pleadean that engineered the humans in the solar system, she's one of the main characters
(Dextre from the Canadian Space Agency) How its done IRL
The thing is, empathy is necessary for a proper connection with the player, Im sure my robot can bend all his limbs backwards but he will have the basic proportions of a human being. The juri is still out on the head screen with emoticons, but its a nice idea I got from Chappie. It could very well be just a computer screen like TARS on Interstellar. Or maybe Im being too picky with this because my actual main characters during gameplay will be space ships and not people
Ill be sketching some characters of all the different factions next before going back to ships
You've some sweet tech design stuff, and I really like the scene in zero-g the most.
Concerning the aspect of designing something iconic yet functional, yes, it is a pain in the ass. But what I'd advise you to consider, is to come up with a design language in the first place, the will be consistent throught the body of your game universe.
See, it's exemplary in the robots sketch above. I personally like the first, leftmost design most - it feels iniform enough, comprised or materials and parts that run consistent through the design. The more the designs move to the right, the more they become sort of "junky", with things slapped on and not providing an aesthetically wholesome image.
Then again, take a look at the photo you posted. The shape is complex, but you can see patterns running through it, repeating parts and shapes, which tell us that this was manufactured by someone. If you research most "iconic" characters and objects in games and media in general, you will note, that they almost always have this thought-through consistency in their design.
So, what to do? Yes, robotic design can be both functional and humanoid - take Asimo, for example. Thing is, it should look manufactured, and not a product of a scrapeyard, so, look out for fleshing out a design language of yours.
That is probably because I spent hours on the first and the others were just quick tests to find new shapes
You can find materials in other media. Watch Space Odyssey, The Moon, Avatar - basically any big-budget acclaimed sci-fi movie and read the production materials on them, they're available on the net. I don't know if there are tutorials on that, but you can learn from observing the masters.
Just completed my painting of the reptilian commander, and sent out the hi res and process images to patrons. Stay tuned, because I’ll deal with unreal engine prototyping this month and I’ll share later what I learned in a video
This was fun to do, because difficulty was just around the curve. It got a bit frustrating when dealing with the multiple turret aiming, but I finally managed to get it right after learning that I had to convert the direction coordinates to local space with the InverseTransformDirection node.
Anyway, this little incursion happened because I feel a bit stuck in the main ship design and story design. The story is complete, but it doesn't pack the punch I want. It doesn't convey the wisdom, or the themes of humans as one organism and human cooperation I want to pass to the player. At the moment, things happen, there's certainly wonder and incredible events never seen before, but they would translate best to a linear game, and not a game where the player feels he's in control of his own story. In short, I want the player to feel that stuff happens to him, and that he influences the events, completely immerse him in the game.
In concept art I need to go back to ship design, maybe if I start with every other ship and then go back to the player's ship, I'll have some ideas then. But first of all, I have an idea for another character, Zeus to be precise, and I intend to do that first.