Sketchbook: Zetheros
Hi there!
After getting a bit of industry experience, I thought I'd like to make the transition & expand my skillset from an artist to that of a more well-rounded game developer; to both fill gaps in my skillset and to help turn this industry around for the better.
This Sketchbook will be dedicated to the project I'll be working on. I'd like to try to update this thread once every Wednesday with my progress. If you have questions, comments or critique, feel free to post them in this thread or send me a message, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.
There is some nudity and there will likely be some gore or similar themes in this thread, so be forewarned!
If you'd like to see more than just the weekly updates posted here, you can watch me work live on Youtube or join the Project Nova Discord.
Project Nova Overview
The Players, persons of unknown races and origins, arrive in chains, packed like cattle in the cramped, cold & plague-ridden confines of leviathan slave ships. Destined to foreign masters in a foreign land, and when deemed useless - destined to die.
The stacked hovels and congested alleys of the cities in Project Nova are overcrowded with those affluent or influential enough to live under protection. Those incapable of affording rising living expenses are exiled or mercilessly exploited. Obtaining residency as an outsider is nigh impossible.
Outside, the inhospitable expanses between strongholds and outposts ruled by warlords are treacherous; colonies of flesh-eating termites, poisonous briars, tar pits, lava flows and roaming packs of deranged cannibals are among the lesser of dangers.
The lands change with the time of day, season, and weather, influencing gameplay from animal migrations, availability of food, diseases and suitable attire. Players will want to construct their mech and band together for any hope of survival in the lawless wilds and wastelands.
Genre
Third-person MechBuilding/Survival/Shooter/MMO. If a MMO is truly out of reach, Project Nova will use peer-to-peer connections & lobby matchmaking.
Artstyle
Standard PBR, taking inspiration from Elden Ring, Monster Hunter World, Warhammer 40k, Destiny 2, Morrowind, Howl's Moving Castle, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Dune, Star Wars, Conan the Barbarian, The Dark Elf Trilogy, Final Fantasy, and much, much more.
Gameplay
Project Nova's gameplay will be quite similar to many other games; kill things, get loot, use that loot to get stronger, all while immersed in a sizable, handcrafted and detailed - but not needlessly massive island.
Platform & Other Details
Project Nova will be for PC, developed in Unreal Engine and published to Steam. Cross-platform support is desirable. Project Nova will not be released in China and similar countries with histories of frivolous extraterritorial censorship. These details may change over time with changes in technology, politics, or other unforeseen circumstances.
Current priorities, in no particular order
-races assets & character customization system
-basic gameplay systems, including; equipment, combat, inventories, crafting, mech building
-learn C++, build rudimentary MMO functionality; (account creation, payment systems, ticketing & gamemaster systems). translate gameplay systems to server-authoritative multiplayer
-network & multiplayer gameplay tests
-AI systems for testing and bugfixing
-DDoS mitigation & network security, server hardening, robust & extensive goldselling, aimhack & botting preventative designs and measures
-website, auction house / trading integration
Developer Notes
My goal is to create a genuinely fun MMO that respects a player's time commitment, while learning from the successes and mistakes I've seen from the studios that make the games I've played over the years. To this end, I am maintaining a living doctrine to which I will adhere, as outlined below:
- Project Nova will not use predatory monetization strategies. This includes, but is not limited to the following; Lootboxes & gacha (gambling), removal or 'vaulting' of paid-for content / FOMO (fear of missing out; exclusivity & artificial scarcity), dark patterns (e.g; having to click an unsubscribe button twice), paid early access, P2W (pay to win). Project Nova will either be F2P (free to play) with an ethical cash shop and battle passes similar to Path of Exile or Warframe, or a full-priced game with subscription and paid expansion packs.
The reason for this being some of your players will be so inspired by your game that they will, with hard work and dedication, become game developers in the future, and will likely make up a good portion of your pool of potential hires. Treating players with respect will ensure that you treat your future employees with respect.
- I will not use crowdfunding or donations to fund the development of Project Nova, or accept offers of volunteer or unpaid work, revenue share, or partner with a publisher. Any work done up to version 1.0 will be by myself, or appropriately compensated for.
If Project Nova is not self-sufficient; (does not generate several million USD in yearly gross revenue; the cost of maintaining a small dedicated team's salaries, raises, taxes & benefits, and to build up company coffers) - then Project Nova does not deserve to exist as a company of more than one. Crowdfunding & donations would be a drop in the bucket and is not worth pursuing. Having volunteers or workers with rev-share can get messy, especially early on with no established documentation, infrastructure, or the accountability and professionalism that comes with salaries. Money is a powerful tool, but it's not the right tool for Project Nova at this time.
- I am acutely aware of game industry problems that hold us back from our true potential; ranging from 'softer' issues like how stubbornness, fear, ignorance, egotism and nepotism affects decision-making and creates chilling effects, to much more serious issues such as workplace sexual harassment & pay discrepancies. I will use both passive & active measures to deter the bad and foster the good in all of us. This extends to any potential outsourced talent working with me.
- Great games are built with patience, understanding, nuance, deliberation, and, when possible, clear communication with the player base. This will apply to every aspect of the development of Project Nova, from art to balance patches.
- If I hire artists, the art tests will be paid or nonexistent, as I value people's time. Applications I receive will receive a timely response, and will not be 'ghosted'. The same level of basic courtesy will be extended to the other fields of game development.
- No stack ranking or other silly, narcissistic, middle management shenanigans. Might as well sell off your company to Microsoft at that point, lmfao
- If the game is successful to the point where I am able to form a company and employ others, it will never become public. I will maintain majority ownership until I am physically or mentally incapable of doing so, and I will not transfer ownership of my intellectual property or any future company I may own to a party that does not care for the well-being of the games industry, its workers & its customers.
- The best kind of leader for a game development company is a benevolent king; one that rules with assertion and absolute authority, but with compassion, empathy, and an open mind. E.g; not threatening to have an employee killed, staying grounded and alert to consumer demands and opinions, and having the confidence to do what’s right.
- Over-promising and under-delivering is a hallmark of half-baked games. I will not market or 'hype' the development of this game. Marketing, if any, will be worked on when the game is ready for players. In this respect, there is no deadline for version 1.0. However, there is also no fail state for this project excluding physical and/or mental inability.
- Any art generated by AI or assisted by AI will be noted. No substantially unaltered AI generations will be present in any public versions of Project Nova.
Replies
I've actually been working on this project for about half a year now, though much of that time has been learning the ins and outs of UE. Currently I have an inventory system working, and have delved into replication for multiplayer. The inventory system is multiplayer compatible, and currently allows item transfers between the player inventory, containers, and the equipment system. It is a simple grid inventory with arrays and inventory slots.
For now, I'm pleased I was able to get so far. Multiplayer and inventory are the only major hurdles for me personally, in making a game. The rest should prove relatively easier.
There are future plans to improve QoL by implementing a sort algorithm for Alphabetical, ItemClass, Weight, SellPrice, and similar variable-based sorting. Much of what you see is placeholder.
The priority for this week is improving the human basemesh to allow for cleaner UV layout, modular character heads and armour, and dismemberment.
Old (left). Still needs work on the legs and arms imo
thinking about adding black draconic/demonic scales to the arms and legs, cuz it looks too similar to morrowind dunmer. Guess I'm going hand-painted for the artstyle? Texture size is 256px for the entire model. There's still some UV space left over for doodads like piercings, earrings, hair ornaments, etc. Hair obvs still needs work, belly button might be a bit low
butt
Last week was productive. I've replaced the base UE manniquin with the female vampire basemesh. Earlier I said that dismemberment was a priority, but I'm kicking that can down the road in liu of making the male base mesh, armour and weapons, and animations. Additionally, a lot of time was spent world building and writing notes in my master document.
Equipment slots now detect item class. Before you could, for example, slot apples as a helmet item instead of a consumable.
Progress on the male basemesh is quite straightforward, but making hair look good is hard work and takes time. The male basemesh shares the same UV map as the female one.
I did get around to painting in the scales for the female basemesh, but I'm holding off on polish work until I get a firm grasp on the modular armour and dismemberment systems. There may be crucial UV or geometric edits I'd need to make, and perfecting art only to have to redo it later due to technical reasons would be an unnecessary time sink.
Lastly some closeups of some hair improvements, again not final due to technical uncertainties.
Last week I started prototyping a new race and, more importantly, began designing a character creation interface.
Mandibles open, revealing two sets of inner appendages, which I believe are called 'maxilla', but I'll be doing more research as well as cleaning up and optimizing the mesh over time. One of the more important design facets of building new races is that they all have to be armour compatible, so that a human helmet will fit on this race's head.
This is the prototype of the character creation screen. The player character will be displayed in the middle. Show/hide armour, as well as randomize race and name are planned. It's a lot of info crammed into one page, so I'll take steps to make it less confusing, though personally I think it flows quite well.
I've also been getting a hang of ChatGPT, and have been using it to generate filler text, as well as suggest ideas I may have not thought of. Icons are simple 16px textures that I make in photoshop for placeholder.
Something I'll need to keep in mind is scope. 8 face types, 8 hair types, 8 'flair' (piercings, earrings, similar detail). This is 240 unique textures and/or meshes.
Have a great week!
Have a great week!
All races have morph maps to their opposite sex as well as to the human female basemesh so that they all inherit the same weight map, which will save me a lot of time, alongside animation retargeting.
Have a great week!
Have a great week!
Have a great week!
Excited to see more of this
Anatomy is not really my forte, but I'll give it a fair go. There's still a lot of work to be done. The male basemesh will go faster, as once I'm done sculpting the female basemesh, all of the musculature can transfer. All I have to do is alter the lowest subdiv.
While working on this, I've become more appreciative of the works I've seen made by other artists, as well as subdiv workflow and zmodeler. People who sculpt muscles have their work cut out for them, and people who sculpt anatomy well are special.
Have a great week!
Other than hair, I keep seeing areas on the basemesh that could be improved, but for now I'm going to move on and work on the human male basemesh or possibly another race. I'll come back later to correct any mistakes or improve anatomy.
Have a great week!
Here's a few generations that I thought were interesting.
Have a great week!
Have a great week!
I'll be working on this while learning my way around blender for this week.
Have a great week!
I must say despite trying to cram all of this in one week - the plugin is insanely powerful, and blender is useful to have. If I went with any other method I probably would've given up and went with stylized helmet hair.
Here is what my master document looks like after bringing it in from Google Docs; a bit like a neural network. Each node is a separate component of Project Nova, sometimes branching off into more nodes; e.g, Races > Humans, Vampires, Abyssals, and so on. Since memory is not perfect and mine is no exception, I've also made a satellite node cluster specifically for technical notes on the software I use, along with essentially a 'dump tab' (PoE reference) for spur-of-the-moment ideas, which I will later read and filter.
Have a great week!
Have a great week!
The lore behind the infested is pretty interesting imo, so I'll share some.
Essentially the Infested are a race of intelligent, sentient, parasitic worms that have a society with a complex hierarchical structure. When a host becomes parascitized they are not only infested with the worms themselves, but are also injected with a cocktail of symbiotic fungi, bacteria, and viruses; carefully curated and weaponized diseases the worms carry in their guts. Tools, to rapidly modify their host's body.
Have a great week!
Down the line I'll have to work on proportions and make things less human across the races, and make them stand out individually, but while still keeping certain dimensions the same for gameplay reasons; like necessitating hands being roughly the same for holding guns (like Warframe), and bodies being roughly the same size for possible PvP reasons (like Destiny 2). All the while being able to wear armour that will be morphed to their respective proportions.
Have a great week!
Have a great week!
Have a great week!
The carriage will be built of wood, so I spent a lot of time making sure the construction made sense, and the undercarriage - which still needs a lot of work - is of metal construction. The distal phalanges will be made of carbon steel in lieu of leaf springs for a smoother ride.
Have a great week!
Have a great week!
I've now set up the meshes like they would be in UE5 with locators in place of UE's sockets. I've also gone with modular walls + pillars, instead of just modular walls. It just looks better and is cleaner. A workflow of sorts is being established; there are now some measurements and parameters to adhere to when making interior assets, which will likely be expanded upon in the future.
Have a great week!
Overall I'm satisfied with these changes; interiors feel (and are) more spacious horizontally with mostly useless space eliminated overhead.
Have a great week!
One of the workstations available is scribing & artificing, but the creation and use of magical and mechanical apparati has close ties to ancient slumbering deities as well as the factions system, so I spent a decent amount of time worldbuilding.
Have a great week!
Human anatomy is really difficult to get right and is a lot of hard work, slaving over minutiae and proportions measuring in the milimeters. I still consider myself more of an armour artist, but I think the skill 'bar' for anatomy is attainable if a make a couple more of these.
I was originally not going to sculpt the bits & bobs to keep things less NSFW, but I realized that they are crucial landmarks in sculpting, and without them as visual guides it can be more difficult to sculpt certain areas. That said, characters in Project Nova likely will be part of the never nude squad, with undergarments glued to their crotches for all eternity.
Reference is more important than I thought in regards to human faces; a lot of changes over time are noticeable with the face in the image below, that's largely due to me switching back and forth between several refs. I think I'm starting to gain a foothold here however; starting to form those neuron connections that allow me to 'see' commonalities behind certain facial structures, shapes and proportions that people deem attractive. This will help me sculpt faces and bodies faster in the future.
In short, while I have a grasp on how a human body looks ecorche-style, I'm starting to develop an understanding on how to take that structural knowledge and 'stylize' it to what we know as beauty.
TBH might still need a few weeks until it gets to a point where I think is acceptable, mostly because I'm learning all of this as I sculpt, but it's nice looking back on the progress made as I go.
Have a great week!
To do:
Have a great week!
Have a great week!
Blocked out the undergarments of the abyssal race.
Hand drew all of the leathery, scale-y details here, and I feel like I accomplished the aesthetic I was after. Still needs alphas and more sculpting to polish the detail.
A whole day was also spent worldbuilding and expanding the internal wikia.
Have a great week!
Have a great week!
More work was done on the infested race. It's a particularly detailed one, and having undergone a redesign, it's taking a bit longer than usual.
Have a great week!
Have a great week!
Have a great week!
In 10 months I have:
-Designed and worked on modular mechs, their general shape, appearance, size, function and background world lore.
Side note, I'll be uploading the Sketchbook images elsewhere and linking them in this thread to save polycount some server space. This will also allow me to post larger images.
Have a great week!
Have a great week!
Note to self; don't retopo > project hipoly detail until you've nailed the silhouette or you're gonna have to do it again
Have a great week!
Oh yea, I also found this massive fucking lobster that I can clean up and use.