Star Wars - Redemption ( FanMade Project )
(Main Menu from the v2.8 build)
Note : Project's updates won't always be at the top of it, so when an update come, scroll to explore what's new !
"Star Wars - Redemption" is the temporary title I've found for a fan made project inspired mostly by the clone wars TV series and, of course, Star Wars universe. At the beginning it was just about a Jedi in a clone outfit and the more I spend time on it, the more new stuff is added to this base concept. I'll add all things about it here, it's the project's main page. But you may see individual assets on separated projects if you want 
As it's a fan project I don't spend the time I'd want on it, the evolution will be chaotic in terms of regularity ^^ Sorry in advance !
The project may take place between Ep2 & Ep5 or more, I'm not done yet with the story.
I work on it mostly alone and got some good help from :
- Thomas Chaumel, who is the animator behind most of the cool moving characters & objects in Redemption (I do animation as well but…let's say I'm at a smaller level of XP ^^")
- Anthony Daneluzzi for a few yet precise Tech Art parts. He taught me about mask dithering and without that I won't have that much foliage in Lumberia 
- Fantin Gislette, Thibaut Hunckler, Laurent Dessart, Alexandre Cheremtieff for the blueprint part
Des Bisous ! ♥
Note : you can follow the project's evolution on artstation : https://www.artstation.com/vexod14/blog (WIP, step-by-step...etc )
Finished stuff often goes there : https://www.artstation.com/artwork/gO4Pm (for wallpapers etc, better head over here than the blog)
And of course, constructive criticism is always appreciated
Disclaimer : https://www.artstation.com/vexod14/blog/GYLq/star-wars-redemption-disclaimer
Replies
Another one, I really like making things fly high in the sky
Also, a trailer can be done with really subtle sound effects, with the "less is more" in mind, maybe just a few notes of a theme that I could compose, I don't know. Yet I need to stay focused on what needs to be done, I'll worry about this with legit & important questions when time comes
A really special shot to me, as it was one where my friend & mate Thomas Chaumel helped me a lot with precise feedbacks all the time. I've learned new animation tricks thanks to him, which helped me so much bringing Mevenn to what I had in mind for her attitude, leadership and acting (even if that's still really short ^^)
Big update !
So, here we are. The demo is finally available in its very first public version !
Please take the time to read the following lines :
- The demo is given for free, all you need to do is to register here on artstation, go to my store here : https://artstn.co/m/y138n and pick the demo. If you want to share the demo to a friend, please share the link to the free product instead of copying files on a USB key, it helps me having an idea of how many players tested it (it should also help reporting bugs later on, tracking who gets what...etc. Thanks in advance)
I wish you will enjoy exploring this little project !
- Since it's "inspired by" star wars (but not only), you may reckognize environments, starfighters, destroyers...etc. Yet I didn't want to stick to existing designs at a "fanatic"-precision, so you may notice differences between official designs and those from Redemption
- The demo comes in a v1.0, meaning we plan to add some more stuff to it in the near future. Yet a demo is a demo, not a AAA game. We will polish unfinished things, fix as many bugs as we can, add what's missing today regarding our ToDo-List, but it will stop there. Please refrain from making feature requests, we won't add them. Bugs can be reported here and we will see how many we could fix for a last version.
- The game should run fine on most configs, if you experience any lag, please go in options, set a different game quality ("screenpercentage" doesn't work yet) and launch a level (this will apply new settings). The game runs smoothly on a 2080 RTX with a i7 9th Gen & 8GB of RAM so if you've got this (or better) it's good ! By default game quality is set to Epic, the "Ultra" mode is here for "Cinematic" quality, but is visually not this better, only sharp trained eyes will seea difference.
)
- At the moment, the game only offers to explore levels & collect little flying creatures called "ForceGhosts". To finish a level, you need to find them all and reach the end trigger box.
-Trigger boxes aren't always placed at the end of a level, since some levels have a "loop" flow, but every time the box is on the biggest "Exit door" of the level (not necessary a door visually...but I guess you've got it
This first public release is here to thank all of the fans of the project who have been waiting patiently for this, as well as a simple tribute to the fantastic & inspiring StarWars universe.
I don't know what I would be today if this Far far away Galaxy didn't exist. It's something that is part of me, of a lot of people, and I wish this addition will serve at its best the most of us !
Here is the game cover, you have the file amongst some more in the final folder if you want to change for fresh wallpapers
Also it's funny but here's the Cover in akeytsu ^^ Yep. It's a great tool to do a lot of things +D
Also, what a better opportunity than this one to refresh some old artworks?
With the release of this demo, we've made a Trailer. And it's almost as heavy as making the game, it involves especially a different approach of animation, since you're making shots and not realtime game cycles, it's okay to have a bad pose when you turn around, the superior rule is to take care or arcs, posings, motion through frames. Bend your characters if you need to make them follow strong arcs, don't be affraid of breaking their arms & legs. Well. Here's that trailer:
That's all for today, now I'll go take some sleep before well deserved holidays
Des Bisous ♥
Little new guy added to the cast
Each skin variant painted as usual with our beloved 3D-Coat ♥ Yet I didn't follow completely the original designs (as you might have noticed, I like to take some artistic freedom when it comes to fan art ;))
I've also rigged/skinned/animated it through akeytsu, it was super simple (it's just about a big pelvis, no bend, two limited arms...but it was interesting to bring some life to this =))
The model is available on both artstation & flippednormals, simply search for "vexod14" once there
Rendered using Marmoset Toolbag 4.03, modeled with 3dsMax
I also did a new posing for the artstation thumbnail of Mevenn, sinci now she holds two lightsabers and has evolved in terms of posing, I thought it was the good moment to refresh it :
In the meantime, I'm working hard to bring out more content in SWR, the demo made great impression so far over all the fandom, but it wasn't accomplished as I envisioned it.
Cheers guys !
Cool stuff you have, gratz ^^
Huge Congrats 🙂
Massive effort with everything involved in bringing this project through too fruition, although I sense there's more to come...
@sacboi You're extremely right ^^ There's a lot more to come, and the next months will be probably the most challenging I'll ever know about this cool project (the final version is coming slowly since august 2021, with tons of improvement & fixes...but man, there's still so much left to be done ^^")
Here's some progress I've done recently :
That's another unplanned part of the project. I've made the Jedi archives on Coruscant (my favourite level I guess as it's really into SW's mood), and decided to make statues, starting from sculpts. But, well, I thought these statues could also be NPC (if possible, that's a point I have to discuss with Thibaut, my programmer friend helping on the project. If not they'll just act as dead corpses but I'd really, really, really love to see them fighting clones alongside Mevenn. The result could be really cool =))
Wow, this is an incredible project! Thanks for sharing so much of your process, it's truly inspiring!
I love the exaggeration in the anims and the environment art and texturing is just beautiful!
Looking forward to seeing more!
Thanks ! I'm always happy to bring some help to the table =D
Here are some more progress on Jedi assets :
(last one is my personnal favorite =))
Some updates on the Jedi character "generator" I'm making (well, not a super deep one, just something I can quickly mess with. Not every species will be there, like Twi'lek or Togruta, even if I'd love to make an Ahsoka-like or an Ayala Secura, I simply don't have time to make each one of them, not now ^^"
I made these screenshots directly on 3DCoat (sorry for the strange FOV...damn these shots angles sucks), you can expect some refinements in the final version of course (like alpha pass on cloth/hair), here are a few versions I've came up with after a very few tweaks ;)
Voilà voilà, des bisous ♥
Hi there =)
So I've finished these characters and made a few renders, just to see roughly what's possible to do with 3 outfits, 9 boots, 5 beards (important !), 1 TwiLek (Super Important), Zabraks, 5 hilts, various skin tones and both male & female variants...and damn. That delivers a lot of possibilities, it's so coool ! I can legitimately lights up tons of lighsabers with unique characters behind, it's freaking cool !
You can view these on artstation : https://www.artstation.com/artwork/OmxKZg
Des Bisous ♥
Just made a quick lineup with Mevenn. I love the geonosis mood with lightsabers ^^ It's a rough paintover of course ;)
Hello la compagnie !
I've pushed an update on the state of the project here : https://www.artstation.com/blogs/vexod14/49Xj/star-wars-redemption-work-in-progress-18
Here is what's new compared to what I already shown here
So, some new levels, in terms of pure art. Just cause I wanted to bring on more levels now I've defined a solid way to produce them =) (And you probably don't know my penchant for making overkill details & stuff no one but me will notice x)) New levels added consists in :
Jedi Temple on Coruscant, and LucreHulk's corridors. I've also added a lot of new things on existing levels, but I prefer keeping this under the hood and let you dicover it through the next version of the demo =)
First level is showing magnificent blue holobooks, one of the high places of Order 66. I found cool to create this interior environment,it was like playing the sims except you can craft everything you want. I learnt a lot while making this, especially on the texturing process. Making env. Art is definitely a technical problem to solve first, making sure your shaders meets most requirements, having the good texture palette (that's how I see an atlas, just a painter's color palette. Offering enough texel density & surfaces when covering most of the room).I initiated this level last year for just a single shot of the trailer, keep in mind that I simply wanted to show like... a wall behind Mevenn, and perhaps a balcony and a sculpted bust. I ended up making the whole place. It's always like that, I plan a little thing, then I add a lot over the first idea. Pfew !
I started off with a simple shape to kinda mimic the good old battlefront 2 level from Pandemic Studios, just to have a starting point for servers blocs. Then I brought a box around them and started to build some things. I wanted to bring the player close to the server towers in confined clusters, that's why you see a 1st floor. And this was only a starting point made roughly at the end of the day. Next was about to be much more exciting and it brings the Archives level to another pleasing state of nostalgia exploration. Archives was already good as is and "Servers Room" was only meant to be a bonus, for when I will have time to build it... and I finally added this to the level in nearly a little week of work (put apart the Jedi Statue sculpts ^^)
Statues are completely using the Jedi characters assets I made before them, but they are static and uses only a single UVSet without mirroring/overlapps, since I wanted to control completely the surface and avoid unwanted "butterflies" patterns. There came a wonderful tool of 3DCoat : UVs. Cool point is they are synced with paint layers, so if you rearrange them, 3DCoat will automatically bake old texcoord to new one for each layer. It's awesome how it saves a lot of time ! This way I could simply repack my textures per statue, reduce drawcalls and improve the final look while keeping normalmap/AO baked data =) It's wonderful ! An important point to keep in mind when doing this is to avoid to rotate or flip UV islands, else you will break the bake of your normalmaps (it's obvious if you know how normalmap works but, well, a simple tips just in case =))
Just because "pourquoi pas ?" =D Simply the Roughness render pass. These clones look terrific !
Star Wars - Redemption is an overgrown original idea. (You can note that somewhere ; In French I would say "c'est une idée originale qui n'arrête pas de partir trop loin". Haha)
Next environment is the "Lucrehulk's Corridors", giving the demo a deeper Prelogy mood. I loved crafting this level, as it's the first memory I have of the entire Star Wars franchise. Yep. I didn't start with A New Hope but with Phantom Menace, the first shots over Naboo, Qui-Gon Jinn & Obi-Wan slicing BattleDroïds with John Williams music to emphasize the whole thing...this has rapidly become a strong good memory.
In case you wonder, yes, I love both trilogies but the prelogy is definitely my favourite one for dozens of reasons (if you want to discuss this...let's go in the comments ^^")
So here is a little glimpse at the last assets I did for the level, but it's globally the same routine : Roughly lay out ideas in 3dsmax with a quick blockout, test "Lego" pieces and see if it feels right, then start the pipeline...
Make a texture palette, model assets, unwrap, integrate. Done
Except here I wanted to refine a technique I used on Lumberia Assets : make use of a second UVmap to add dirt over the base surface. This greatly helps selling the asset as part of its world and not just a 3D asset with tiling stuff everywhere.
Making big environments of course you will use tiles a lot, but it's better if you can hide them as much as possible. One solution would be to make everything by hand on a 8K map, pretty un-optimized and not the best time saver...another is to mix UVs to actually texture your asset, using fewer maps. Like really fewer. It's also way faster than painting 8K maps per asset of course ;)
I keep this for really important props and characters, but tiles are textured the same way : by hand. Smartmaterials are a base, just a base. It's up to you to take your best brushes and give these automated texture a better & more personnal look ;)
The diff with how I approached this technique on Lumberia is on details put into the dirtmap. Lumberia has a shy paint look, I wasn't completely sure of the direction I wanted to take, and I had only straight dirt gradients. A lot of variants, colors...etc, but here what really helped me is I decided to add circular and rectangular dirt shapes, and when you have domes, boxes and curved areas, this rapidly becomes helpful. Else it simply requires more vertices on the geometry, just to support a second UVmap...I don't like it, especially if I can avoid it.
Here's the comparison of with and without this "Dirt" effect :
Looks better, right ?
Now here's how it looks once polished :
As always I used akeytsu to rig/skin/pose the characters, I continue to encourage every animator to get their hands on it. Please note that akeytsu is going to have a free version soon, so you should be able to mess with all the rigs I did in their very best conditions =) Also yes, these Jedis are about to come on my stores aslike Mevenn, clones, and any fan-arts : under limited/standard & editorial licenses only (no-commercial. Still cool for your personnal training and offers wider actor choices for anim challenges ;))
Two little tips about skinning though =) I don't remember if I've said this somewhere else, but : use QUADS. But only for skinning, else it's simply a non-sense (especially when you rely on normalmap bakes), always remember geometry is made of triangles, not quads. Quad mesh facilitates skinning for a simple reason : smooth algorithms. When you smooth a vertex weight, you basically ask the software to look at nearby vertices weights and lean towards their values, this way you'll reduce the gap between them and reach a smoother joint influence through your mesh. Nearby vertices are defined by connected face, using a quad you preserve edgeloops & flow, so your texture remains nice when deformed. If you smooth a triangulated mesh, things can rapidly become bad. But don't worry, you can of course skin roughly your triangulated model, then transfer skin on a remeshed model to fix weavy weights, and transfer back to your tri-mesh =) No need to have the best flow ever, just quads and a model at least as dense as the final one, also no UVs needed here, as we only need it to support skinning data ;)
Second tips : use "global" retopo to ensure smooth connection between cloth parts/layers. Here I had to keep the cloth bands following the Pelvis/Stomach/Spine/Torso, so I used a global mesh underneath to copy/paste skinweights, then I removed influences from shoulders and gave them to extra cloth joints. Just so I can adjust these parts if needed and avoid them to always depends on arm-cloth. If the jedi is in a relaxed pose, then I need to keep the shoulder cloth up =)
Also, as I wanted to have modular possibilities on my character like changing the length of the sleeves, their meshes needed to be split out of the main body part. Thanks to the same global mesh I could transfer the connected area weights and avoid having ugly seam when deforming each sleeves =)
Finally, if you look closer you can see meshes only has one side. This simply helps keeping final mesh thickness because I'll source a single vertex for two targets, so both will end up with the same weights and reduce drastically front/backfaces overlaps fights
Isn't she beautiful with these skinweights ? Fun fact : twilek version wasn't planned at all. It was... (guess what ?)
A bonus. Hohoho =) But a really good one, that's my favorite version of the female Jedi Knight ♥
That's all for now folks =)
Des Bisous ♥
Dude! you ever sleep 🤓
"c'est une idée originale qui n'arrête pas de partir trop loin" - well yeah, that's really what passion does for you 👍️
Haha ^^" Honestly last days were chaotic in terms of awaken/asleep phases, I hope to find back a decent balance as soon as i'll be done with this demo ^^"
that's some serious sweat equity. cool to see ambitious passion projects like these, nice work you've guys done with this.
wow ! amazing work here !
lil' update on the clopne troopers phase 2 : they now have theor commanders properley set up and ready for a solid Order 66 =D
High/Lowpoly, Uvs done with 3dsMax
Rig/Skin/Anim done with Akeytsu
All textures done with 3D-Coat (+Curvature bake), 4K UVset for clone armor & Arc trooper stuff, 2K for DC15S & DC15A, 1K for DC17 handblasters
Bake done with Marmoset Toolbag 4 (IDMap/NormalMap/AO)
lighting/renders done with Marmoset Toolbag 4
Hello Force users !
Here's my take on the N-1 Starfighter, made for the fan project Star Wars - Redemption of course. This one was quite challenging because of its excellent design shapes (to me it's THE one), it was also a real pleasure as always when doing fan art, but especially this one because you can use colors you rarely mix up together (that fresh & rusted yellow...♥)
I didn't model the cockpit because for the demo it was overkill, but that's something I'd like to do one day. References on the lower part near foot pedals are quite hard to find though ^^"
I made it with :
- 3dsMax (Higl/Low/UVs)
- 3DCoat ( Handpaint PBR textures)
- Akeytsu ( Rig/skin/anim)
- Marmoset (Normal/AO Bake/Still & solo renders)
- Unreal Engine 4 (rendering/integration/VFX/blueprint controls...etc)
Hope you'll enjoy this as much as I do =)
Full post here : https://www.artstation.com/artwork/NGzq6q
Hi there !
Here's a few news from the project. I've brought on some upgrade to existing levels =)
First of all, Geonosis :
Probably the most boring level (well, there is no vegetation, it's all full of sand, it lacks of life...) in short, I had to improve it !
And as last summer I had quickly put a little piece of concept for a kind of abyss with pipes and everything, I started to work on it… almost since August 2021. I know. A year is a long time. But I didn't get stuck on the blank page syndrome, no, I skillfully left it aside for months (haha, chef's trick!), the time for it to infuse in my head, to find something coherent, an angle of attack. And it was solved in two or three evenings (the longest part was to get started, I took out pieces that I thought were vital, good ideas but impossible to do at the moment because of lack of time…and it came out fine!) The extension is not huge, but it offers a small supplement rather nice to explore, it remains a "small" map ^^
The biggest piece being...the Temple of Lumberia. Finally!
For the record, I've been doing graphic research on this temple since 2018, I even went through a Kappla-based construction haha ^^" Pretty early on, I imagined a Temple in Lumberia, kind of like an Indiana Jones or Tomb Raider/Uncharted version. But in the Star Wars universe. It was a technical headache from the start. How was I going to texture a set that big? Without the repetition of textures or big pixels? Making scenery this big for a game takes patience, and a lot of research. If I didn't do it at the time, it's because I lacked knowledge on how to create backgrounds for video games. So yes, I had done some for various projects, and it turned out very well, but I had never considered doing such a colossal block, and for a long time well, I left it aside. I had the temple in the distance, well, a draft, a test. But I didn't know where to start. And in the end, it just clicked after I dropped the server room into the archives. No need to do tons of textures, just aim for colors that work well, stay subtle too. Because from a distance, it didn't have to be a bunch of pixels. I also had an idea that motivated me last year; "flower" pillars. Even if it's not quite what I had in mind, this point allowed me to give a soul to these places, and I think it was what was missing to know how to develop the rest of the temple.
Another important point: the architecture. I wanted it to look like a cathedral, but without any Catholic connotation or anything, just a cathedral with long pillars and an impressive vault. And even if I had to do it, to start with a mix with a triangular pyramid. I like it, because a triangle is an elementary shape and when you walk around it, chaotic. It's less obvious than with a square or rectangular base, and this chaos brings mystery to the setting. Why did the Lumberians do this? How could they find their way around? What was their culture in this remote corner of the galaxy? Who lit all those candles? (haha. Well, that's me. I already found it strange in Diablo, but it's still great for the atmosphere).
Lumberia has been a fantastic playground for creating enchanted places, and I think I could take it much further if I ever work on it again later. It's a bit of a magical planet where you can have deep time gaps, and where the omnipresent nature is full of dreams. And there are mushrooms that jump around, that's my favorite part =D
Ow and, we've made a second trailer. The update is now available to everyone as with the first version =)
Below are all the bugfixes and improvements compared to the public release of 2021 :
Star Wars - Redemption Demo 2.0 - Update list
GENERAL
- Removal of triggerboxes at the end of the level, you can change level whenever you want (pause menu), it will keep your progress in finding ForceGhosts
- Added KillZVolumes in some levels (if you fall, you die)
- Added gamepad support
- Added support for versions prior to DirectX12 (did not work on older PCs). Note that sometimes an error message may be displayed at launch, it is often the intro video playback that crashes, the game starts anyway (be patient). If the game doesn't start however, no need to insist!
- Added basic interaction with vegetation
- Updates to some shader parameters, such as the management of the depth of field blur pass now included in the global pass
- Addition of some new functions to some shaders
- Slight refinement of the lighting to better match indoor scenes
- Fixed a bug that forced the game to switch back to windowed mode when changing levels
- Replacement of phase 1 clones by phase 2 clones in the level "Coruscant - Space", it was not connected with episode 3 (but you didn't see anything so I'm doing fine ;))
- Added an English version of the artbook, the translation can sometimes be imperfect (it is not my mother tongue and I am not a great literary. Don't expect Shakespeare). The original artbook is of course the French version, so if in doubt, do not translate it from English
- Optimization of shaders, especially in terms of transparency management
- Slight improvement of the rendering, especially on the bloom/glow level (lightsaber glows +)
- Fixed a crash caused by landscapes at startup and preventing some levels from starting
- Optimization of all assets with systematic LOD (level of detail), both for the scenery and the characters
- Optimization of VFX, in particular to erase them from the rendering when they are beyond a certain distance from the player
- Refined vegetation and environment shaders, to reduce visual noise and enhance the painting/watercolor look from a certain distance from the player
- Added Orbs & Healing Sources. These green globes will give you back some health points if you catch them after defeating an enemy, the healing sources are much more powerful and give you back all your health points, they will reappear once consumed after a delay of 30 seconds and are available directly in some areas of the level (often close to a tough negotiation area)
MEVENN
- Added a new "Jedi Master" outfit
- Added a new hairstyle to match this new outfit
- Added new idle animations that trigger if the player does nothing for a while
- Added an IK function on the feet to better anchor Mevenn in the background. This function is not 100% perfect, but it improves the immersion
- Added a dash (allows fast movement and attack). Works on the ground/air in the direction of travel. Combined with the jump, the dash allows you to rise in the air furiously, like a certain Palpatine
(For the record, this is a welcome bug, in fact it added so much to the gamefeel that we kept it!)
- Added an active parry mode that allows to send back enemy shots coming from the front. However, the parry is not to be used at any time, because after one second, it becomes random and costs more energy. A delay is necessary to recharge the energy bar and once it is at zero, any parry becomes random even with good timing. So use it sparingly! You can combine it with the dash and the jump
- Refined the two existing attack animations and added a third one
- Refined existing animations, especially for the face and hands
- Added death (if you get shot too much or jump into the void, you're done!)
- Adjustment of the shadows generated by the lightsaber blades
- Fixed the jump that didn't work properly in case of a shortened jump
- Adjustment of the jump animation to make it feel more like a jump
- Adjustment of the fall animation
- Added swimming. You can now explore underwater (it's still pretty average, we agree, but it's better than walking underwater. Mevenn is powerful, but not that powerful)
- Added visual & sound feedback on Mevenn's steps according to the materials she moves on and her speed of movement
- Added the characteristic hum of lightsabers, depending on its operating state (on/off)
FORCEGHOSTS
- Fixed a bug that moved the actor's position slightly in the game, making it sometimes inaccessible
- Added an anim/stationary mode for more accurate placement on small platforms
- Adjusted the VFX of the capture and the heart of the dragonflies
- Adjustment of the hitbox to capture them
- Added "flying" dragonflies, with a bigger hitbox because you have to collect them during some jumps
- Added a function to keep track of the total number of dragonflies captured throughout the game
- It is no longer necessary to capture all of them to trigger the end of a level. It is now up to the player to decide when to change location
- Added randomization in the movement of the dragonflies, which gives them a more natural feel
- Depending on the number captured, increases the critical hit chance. A critical hit inflicts more damage, but does not necessarily kill a hit
- Once all captured, they unlock a bonus level
- Added a shortcut to reveal the position of the remaining Forceghosts via a blue halo (kind of like the "you're heating up/you're cooling down" in the Easter Egg Shrine). That said, it's not all-encompassing and it's relatively unobtrusive, so you'll have to keep an eye on the Force, young padawans
UNITS RX-DX
- Added these cute little astromechs, including Mevenn's "R7-D3". RX-DX means that you can technically develop any of those numbers (R2-D5, R3-D1, R4-D6...etc), and except R2-D2 they are all "inpirations of...", so not 100% accurate but they have 100% their "SWR" artistic touch
JEDIS KNIGHTS
- Added Jedis with random visual variations (Male/Female, Twilek/Zabrak/Human, skin color, outfit color, boot types, different lightsaber handles (there are 5 in total, and all are new! Inspired by the Prelogy designs), blade colors...etc)
ENEMIES
- Added Battledroid B1, Clone Trooper/ARC Trooper Phase 2 as enemies in the different levels
- Added spawn points, allowing to generate enemies to shoot to let off some steam in the training room.
- Enemies live in the distance, as soon as the player approaches, they open fire. The number of ammunition to start with is variable, an enemy can eventually reload before shooting but it is very rare. Beware, each enemy has variable reload times, ammunition and rate of fire
- Killing an enemy sometimes generates a life globe. The bigger it is, the more life points it gives back. If your life bar is full, then you can simply push it around in the level, but it will disappear after 5 seconds. We don't play with food
- Enemies reappear after a certain time. The easier the enemy is to defeat, the faster it will come back. Count one to two minutes for the weakest and up to 6 minutes for the toughest
- Some enemies are to be taken particularly seriously, they are elites and are more robust/dangerous than others. You will often find them leading a squad. For Phase 2 ARC Troopers, there are many skin variants and 3 attacker variants; dual blasters (very fast shooting, close quarters, good HP), classic blaster (medium shooting, medium range), and assault rifle (long range shooting, large magazine, good rate of fire, less HP than other ARC troopers, but more than basic clones)
- Enemies have several reappearance rules, and will only tend to reinforce the presence of ever more elites on the map. Clones can reappear in their opposite basic form (if they are Blaster class, they can reappear as BlasterRifle and vice versa) as well as in one of the 3 ARC trooper types (Blaster, BlasterRifle and Handblasters), which gives a 75% chance to reappear as an ARC trooper. ARC Troopers can reappear as any of the 5 available classes (60% chance to remain as an ARC trooper). Droids have a 20% chance to reappear as a Droid Commander, which can only reappear in its own class (100% chance)
UI
- Added the trailer's cinematic intro
- Added skippable videos and an auto play function after a few seconds of doing nothing in the menu
- Added the BONUS section, with cool artworks inside (which you can find in the "Wallpapers" folder)
- Refinement of the CREDITS, with notably those dedicated to the Trailer but also to Thibaut Hunckler and Laurent Dessart, who helped on the blueprint and gamedesign part of the project
- Added shortcuts to display/hide the UI and enable a more stretched, cinematic framing
- Updated shortcuts, shown in the controls menu
- Added translations of the game in French, English. You can change the language in the options at any time and the game saves the choice for the following sessions
- Refined the level menu, in particular to have stable animations of the previews
- Fixed a bug that prevented the display of more than 100 ForceGhosts from behaving normally
- Added 3 difficulty levels : Padawan (almost unstoppable and 25% critical hit chance from the start), Jedi Knight (balanced, you start at 10% critical hit chance, you have enough health points to hold on, but not enough to have to be vigilant in battle), and Jedi Master (You start at 1% critical hit chance, you have few health points, enemies take more damage and shoot faster, they are less likely to offer you a healing orb when they die)
- Added a slider to adjust the gamma (from 1 to 4 and set to 2.2 by default)
- Fixed a bug that prevented the render scale slider from working properly (set to 100% by default, minimum 25% and maximum 150%. Be careful with small configurations, do not set it higher than 100%. Reducing the value allows you to gain a few fps at the cost of a more blurred rendering)
- Fixed a bug that made the UI disappear when loading sub-menus controls/options during the game
- Fixed global graphic settings buttons, now the rendering changes when you click on them. Be careful with small configs, don't select the Ultra mode if your machine is not solid. The game will launch in the most appropriate mode anyway
- Added controls to make nice screenshots (camera position, focal length blur, viewing angle, display of basic composition rules (Tiers, diagonals and Golden Number spiral))
- Adjustments to allow the display on +large resolutions (21/9)
TRAINING ROOM
- Added a spawner (and therefore enemies). You can stay as long as you want in this level, the goal is just to let off steam on piles of junk
LUMBERIA - TEMPLE
- Fixed collision bugs
- Added a timer to regenerate unstable platforms (about 15s of reappearance time)
- Added the famous Temple of the Ancients
- Added new areas to explore
- changed the starting point, with a bit more narrative (but nothing crazy) and verticality
- Added Champiduses, flying mushrooms. Some hover, some go up and down, and some allow you to do a little trampoline!
- Added enemies. The level is located some time after order 66
- Adjustment of the level design to better guide the player and avoid the little tricksters who pass where they should not
- Revision of the cliff texture for a handpainted look instead of a procedural one
- Added variable weather
LUMBERIAN - RUINS
- Fix collision bugs
- Adjusted the level design to better guide the player
- Added a new area
GEONOSIS - CANYON
- Fix collision bugs
- Added a new area
- Added enemies
CORUSCANT - SPACE
- Fixed emissives that sometimes appeared white for no reason
- Added a new area corresponding to the one used for the "Overwatch Highlight Intro" video (hosted by Thomas Chaumel. You can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/IX3CnJAnh_M
CORUSCANT - TEMPLE
- Added level
- Added new areas, it's invention inspired/based on the design of the Archives, it's not canon nor legend, the goal is that we feel the atmosphere of these places
- Added new types of lights allowing a more beautiful immersion through the various points of passage of the level
LUCREHULK - CORRIDORS
- Added level
- Creation of an underground maintenance corridor to vary the atmosphere a bit
BONUS LEVELS
- Addition of several levels in addition to the basic ones
- Unlocked once all the dragonflies have been collected in the other levels ;)
Very super clip. Not only the animation showcase, but the short itself is top class!
Thanks =) Below is a full walkthrough the game demo, don't watch it if you don't want to be spoiled and experience it for yourself ;)
Also, since that video I made a few last adjustments, Last, because I decided to stop working on it. This is not due to any C&D, don't worry ^^ I just wanted to achieve certain goals and now that's done, so, well, I stop here. Maybe I'll start another dev cycle on it later, maybe not, I don't know, I'll focus on something else than dev of the game (this could be some characters fan-arts, paintings, or probably just the scenario since it doesn't demand a lot more than brainstorm around fantastic ideas =P)
So ! Here are all the new things & fixed bugs since the showcase video :
- Blaster shots no longer collides with each other (this could prevent parry to send back a shot well blocked but cancelled by an opposite one)
- Enemies can now shoot you up & down. So each level has become quite dangerous now you can no longer escape through jumps
- when they die, enemies/Jedi knights no longer leaves a hidden capsule on the ground. This was preventing AI to find its navigation path
- Jedi Knights has more life than before (+33%)
- when you or a Jedi knight hit or parry a shot to an enemy, the target now gives a proper hit feedback (hand animated instead of simulated)
And here are all the fixes and new additions I made since the release of the 2.0 in late July 2022 :
- Added the Jedi Purge bonus level, reachable only if you die in the bonus levels section
- Added Audio settings (Music, voice, ambient, SFX sound layers can be adjusted at will)
- Added pause menu>controls when you're in a starfighter level, so you can learn how to pilot this thing
- Made the UI On/Off persistent (but only per game session). Useful if you want to play without having to remove the UI before making screenshots every time you change a level
- Fixed a "red" door could open while she should remain closed in lucrehulk
- Fixed Vertex paint, was too black on some updated models of both Training Room's walls
- Fixed stairs and nearby models that weren't properly welded in both training rooms
- Fixed Jedi as they could receive decals from the environment
- Fixed a few of the UI translation (French) was issued
- Fixed a few walls that were having no collision in Lumberian Dungeon (bonus level)
- In Lumberia Dungeon, some areas of the ceiling were open and that has been fixed too
- You could still be able to fall down in space if you walked near the Venator hangar force field and stayed static while falling. Now you'll die if you jump into space
- Modified Jedi numbers in levels (generally increased), so you can see them more often and fight alongside them
- Modified Navigation mesh on some areas, so the AI can navigate easier through these pathways
- Modified 501st Clones so now they can spawn in the intermediate sections of the vent tunnels (Jedi Archives)
- Optimized Lights in the Venator hangar level (this issue was causing a huge drop of fps)
All these fixes are now in the available public version ;)
I'm done with everything (I hope I hope I hope ^^"). So since the last release, here are a few new things :
- Added new Main Menu (with a supercool music I wanted initially on the V2 trailer ^^ btw if you want to know a music title in the game, I've listed everything in the credits section, you can find them on popular music streaming apps, I recommend you audio network if you never looked at it, it's a fantastic place to find the perfect music for your project =))
- Improved the default idle of Mevenn (so she looks less...uh, obviously looping in the menu ? haha
- Improved backgrounds of Geonosis, Venator Hangars & Venator 66 by adding a few starfighters having fun far far away + minor fixes in galaxy sky holes
- Added random starting points if and only if you've reached the endgame (else it would've broken player's first exploration experience)
Now I should not spend much more time on the demo, maybe I'll work back on the scenario then, or maybe even not, I don't know ^^" I wish you the most pleasant time in this little game demo =)
Hello there !
I've added a few things since the last update :)
- Turrets added on big star destroyers, they mostly try aiming the closest enemy battleships. Player can only destroy lucrehulk's turrets, as it's purely visual there is no big destroyer explosion (yet you'll feel the impress there are some big booms everywhere ;)) As usual, the rig/skin/anim is completely made on akeytsu
- Code has been partly optimized, in order to avoid CPU overhead, a lot of code logic now run through independent loops when objects spawns (mostly for flying levels actors)
- Added better self-destruct sounds so you can hear plasma blasts dying near you when you fly under heavy shots
- Added lights to the biggest explosions in space combat (destroyers blasts & player's missiles), this to bring more immersive surfaces
- Optimized a few of the VFX used for explosions, so you can have more at the same time at a cheaper cost
- Added random spawn to flying maps, since levels offers tons of places to have magnificent fights. To reach a new point quicker than flying on it, just to restart the level and you'll have a chance to spawn elsewhere 🙂
- Fixed Jedi Purge heavy FPS drop (was due to volumetric clouds in the sky, they are now simple 2D clouds, effect remains the same but costs much less to process
- Revised all flying levels "battle strategic placements" of star destroyers. Mostly so you can see them sending all their firepower to their enemies ^^ Also adjusted spawn of starfighters AI
- Reworked the projectile's logic of the player's starfighter, so they no longer keep existing after a collision. Also the code is now optimised through loops instead of using event tick (that was a bit bad for performances)
There's still some bugs & strange behaviours, but as is it's extremely satisfying to mess with ^^
Awesome gameplay and visuals. One thing I would suggest is to make the capital ships move. That was something that I wished the spaceships of the first battlefront 2 did. They could just orbit around each other.
That would be interesting indeed ! But may require some rework on how turret aims (currently I've made a pattern that is kinda "locked" at beginplay). Also I fear perfs might suffer a bit from moving these gigantic destroyers =X But you're right, this would be awesome to have one day, I'll add it to my to-do list, just in case I dive in SWR dev again ;)
Hello there !
Here's a video on what the v2.5 of the demo brings new to the gameplay. It's mostly focused on Mevenn's controls so you can feel a more "fury" version of the character (which is how I think of her since a few years now). I hope this will help !
Please find all the update's details here :
Patch note SWR 2.5 :
- Added Jump recover anim/code, depends on player's speed
- Fixed a bug preventing jump repeat to cut jump start animation
- Reworked Dash logic, so it responds better to player's input & design choices
- Added a Air-to-Ground attack, offers another way to bring devastating attacks
- Modified max dezoom amount (800 to 1000)
- Added a "Force Order 66" option (in menu/pause/GameOver UI menus). Activating this will skip Order 66 timer on Training Room & Coruscant space, so you can dive in combat directly
- Fixed bad Mevenn's posing in the ARC-170 driver seat
- Adjusted v3 look of Phase 2 ARC Trooper
- Adjusted rig of Phase 2 ARC Troopers so they can use LOD systems. Generated LOD, so they are less performance hungry
- Fixed the "Air-to-ground" attack transition to swimming movement mode (was missing)
- [Lumberia Temple] Adjusted the "two-lakes" Cave exit "rock table" visual stability
- [Lumberia Temple] Adjusted all bushes, so they can block player and projectiles, and then adjusted some of them to keep the platforming good to explore
- [Lumberia Temple] Refined level art of the "return to level pathway" on the beginning of the level (near the first group of clones)
- [Lumberia Temple] Added random Time of day (on this map only, may change later, but I think it won't benefit to other environments as it does for Lumberia Temple) and adjusted lighting/Post-process to remain consistent throughout whole day & night
- [Lumberia Temple] Refined lighting points (so the map looks also cool at nighttime)
- [Lumberia Temple] Added more VFX of "lightbulbs" when there are grass packs with glowing seeds
- [Lumberia Temple] Added more areas where Mevenn's footsteps triggers lightbulbs (mostly visible in caves)
- [Lumberia Temple] Fixed an odd-looking rift mesh on the first staircase near default player start
- [Lumberia Temple] Closed a remaining hole near the v1 player start and on the rift near the first river we can cross
- [Lumberia Temple] Fixed a huge drop of FPS when facing the Temple by temporarily disabling cinematic graphic mode, so at the moment Ultra=Epic, I'll see if/how I can overcome the issue which has to deal with distance culling on particle systems being uncapped for cinematic mode
- [Jedi Archives] : fixed spawn logic of Jedi Knights (they were never unloaded, causing an imbalance in faction placements), fixed also the "sewers" Clones spawn logic, so they could spawn more evenly through the pipes
- Added DLSS support (nVidia RTX cards only). You can disable it in the options if you want. It's on by default
- Added VFX trigger on jump end animations (especially visible on Geonosis/Lumberia environments)
- Fixed a bug of a curious sphere being visible in main menu
- Fixed some over-decimation issues on Detla-E Starfighter, so the interior control board looks better
- Added Diablo 1 Potions Easter eggs in Lumberia Dungeon level
- Modified HealOrbs in Lumberia Dungeon level, so they represent more clearly the Easter egg
- Added more movement to HealOrbs
- Fixed HealOrbs collision offset issue
- Improved transparent glass shader
- Improved hit feedback on enemies with a real push when they get hit in addition to the animation
- Fixed anim logic on hit feedback, so this doesn't glitch anymore
- Modified the tree/bush leaves, so they look more "fluffy-esque"
- Revamped Oak tree's trunk/branches model & textures, so they look definitely stylized
- Fixed jump_end anim bug that kept on playing the static recover when you start running again too quickly after it
- Fixed jump_end logic that was preventing player to attack during the animation
- Fixed a bug where multiple Mevenn models were visible on speederbikes
- Fixed a bug in anim of hit feedback on enemies where an additional impact offset was still there
- Improved Camera path interaction to reduce "jump-zooms"
- Fixed camera collision on enemy death
- Fixed issue with collisions on bushes that were triggering too many decals and particle systems
- Added more persistent parameters through sessions (using SWRSaveGame.sav file), like : Difficulty mode, DLSS, Force Order 66, Full Elite Mode, Resolution (needs DLSS off in order to work), Gamma, Saber VFX, Audio settings & UI mode ON/OFF. This way, you don't need to adjust the game every time you launch it
- Adjusted Emissive to react better with eye-adaptation
- Fixed a bug where Mevenn could capture the same ForceGhosts several times, resulting in a graphical issue
- Added volumetric lights on ForceGhosts, with shadows so it brings a better immersion
- Adjusted ForceGhosts looks so they look more skeleton-ish
- Added effects when gathering a ForceGhost and dimmed the glow effect when gathering a HealOrb or a ForceGhost
- Added lighting & burst VFX to all StarDestroyer's reactors
- Adjusted Delta-E missile's trails/self-destruct VFX
- Adjusted Aeten II lighting
- Improved planet shader to give a better result of light/shadow transition
- Added a few options for color vision deficiency support (Normal (Default, use it if your vision is OK), Deuteranope (Green weak/blind), Protanope (Red weak/blind), Tritanope (Blue weak/blind))
- Fixed tiling problems on Geonosis background textures/materials
- Fixed a bug that prevents Forceghost to follow Mevenn during the capture animation
- Improved Destroyers turret projectile's impact VFX to look more volumetric
- Added a reset button near Gamma, Resolution, and each Audio settings, so you can quickly recover default values
- Added Auto-parry 360° to the attack air-2-ground, all projectiles will be parried in random directions except if player toggles parry (only facing projectiles will be sent back to opponents)
- Added Auto-parry to both dash attacks, facing projectiles will be parried in random directions except if player toggles parry (only facing projectiles will be sent back to opponents)
- Restored Bubble VFX during swimming mode
- Added lightbulbs VFX in Lumberia ruins
Des Bisous ♥
I have to say I'm a lot more in blueprint than before and it's freakin' cool how much this expands the vision one can have when crafting an asset. I'm also more relieved on this project, I rush less, and I appreciate more what I do (not sure if these are the best word to express how I feel about the project, it's simply better for my health in general haha ^^)
The "Clean armor", needed some dirt, to fit the art direction I established for this project. Objects needs to look like they've endured combats, they should look worn, used, scratched, and all of this by hand (don't use a smartmaterial for that, you'll always make a better job yourself These usage marks can tell stories themselves if you place them well)
Mevenn in all her glory !
New Haircut for the Phoenix armor skin (first image is a quick render of the sculpt version in marmoset, second on is the finished asset with textures)
I've also used various posing from idles, some of them makes Mevenn shine more than others
The UI has been refined to be clearer to read, it was notably issued when displayed over bright areas. Internally, the code has been slightly optimized and how UI is managed is better organized.
Main Menu (I've adjusted the lighting of the main menu and Mevenn's posing. She looks cooler holding her helmet) :
Audio Settings :
Now you can mute any channel at a single click. Settings saved at any modification, so when you restart, if there's no music, then there's no music
Options (during pause in a level) :
There you can see 2 new settings : the "Renforts" (stands for "Reinforcements" in French). First one allows you to modulate the number of allies, second is for enemies. Allies stands only for Jedi Knights, and they are actually more performance hungry than enemies AI, so use it carefully. It's affecting the game once you've collected 250 ForceGhosts. On most cases, you'll need to restart level to apply new settings
And this, paired with spawn dales, can makes a really solid training for our Jedi (spoiler : I did not pass this trial, too hard for me, but maybe you'll succeed !). As always, please be reasonable, if your PC starts lagging at a certain point, don't generate more units and make a good use of these sliders, as it saves performance to have less units to manage
Oh and of course you can decide to remove enemies if you just want to explore the levels peaceuly
New clone ARC troopers units are coming up ! Please welcome the "Z-6" troopers =D (Well, sorry for that name. I didn't find a better one ^^")
The dash has been improved with a subtle FOV modulation through distance. This gives a smoother feeling on it. Also, depending on how many ForceGhosts you captured, the dash goes more or less further, once you've got them all, Mevenn is almost like a death eater =D
And you can also choose to remove the jetpack or not, giving Mevenn a thinner silhouette. Please note that you no longer need to remove the helm if you change outfit, the choice is now kept across changes
New areas to visit on Lumberia - Temple :
Near the edge of the map, after the circle of stones, lies an old tomb...and more Clones Troopers to kill
Then, if you observe the temple from the outside, you may notice that a new path has been added for you to reach a new floor
One thing to nottice on how I build things for this project : I reuse a LOT of times a carefully crafted asset. It's really important to do things smart if you want to maintain a cool visual accross a hell lot of assets. So here I present you my best friend for wooden structures : the lone plank
TorchFlames now have a more stylized look :
Also new to explore in Geonosian Caves :
There are new corridors, a small arena, Jedi knights that can support your efforts against more BattleDroids ! These corridors were a great way to try and mix up different areas, the cold corridors of the Lucrehulk with the warm sand of Geonosis. This idea is not new of course, and is a little tribute to the great Republic Commando oppening level where you get to dive inside Geonosis canyons, so much you barely see any sunlight. I loved the experience back then, so, yeah, another tribute to other great projects !
Please find below a list of all the updated/fixed/added features of the 2.6
[Level - Main Menu] :
- Restored TwiLek (disappeared in latest 2.5 update for some reason)
- Adjusted animation (Mevenn)
- Adjusted composition & lighting
[Level - Training Room] :
- Changed how spawner works : now you can chose between 1, 2, 3, or 4 enemies to spawn, depending on the glowing dale you walk (please keep being aware of your PC capabilities : don't spawn a lot of droïds if your PC can't handle it, you should gradually see this of course, just keep an eye on your framerate
)
- Added visual feedback on spawn dale and where a Battledroid gets spawned, also they now appear folded, then deploy to get into their previous animation logic, like in the Phantom Menace.
- Internally optimized the code logic so we can quickly decide how many units to spawn per dale
- Adjusted spawn positions on training room spawn in order to reduce crowd clusters and let units find their path more easily
[Level - Geonosis Canyon] :
- Adjusted default outfit to Clean armor
- Doubled up Jedi & B1 BattleDroids on start area
- Added an elevator just after the BattleDroids vs Jedi intense fighting place, so you can now traverse back and forth the whole level
[Level - Lucrehulk] :
- Adjusted default outfit to 414th armor
[Level - Lumberia Temple] :
- Added new spawn points in the Temple's first floor, some in the forest around too, near new areas to visit. Currently how the spawn works makes the area where you drop fully safe, but this may change in the future
- Added new staircases models notably in the first level inside of the Temple
- Adjusted fog color (was too purple-ish and didn't match well the mood)
- Added new paintings for Lumberia canvas you may find inside old temple areas
- Fixed major drawcalls issues on Lumberia Temple, especially visible when in Ultra graphic settings
- Added new areas to visit in Ancient Temple of Lumberia (you'll have to climb on a hidden pathway)
- Added a lot more Forceghosts on Lumberia Temple, as new areas were added to explore
- Added cobwebs
- Added big degradation to some parts of the temple (mainly pillars), where we now have growing trees. This ages the Temple a bit more, since it's supposed to be a very, very ancient place
[BONUS Level - Lumberian Dungeon] :
- Added cobwebs
- Adjusted Jedi spawn
- Started the addition of a new zone, which will explore paths one level down
[BONUS Level - Geonosian Caves]
- Added new rooms to explore, with a Lucrehulk blend & a new little arena with a few Jedi Knights against many droïds
[Mevenn] :
- Fixed logic behind Helmet/Hood toggle on/off. Now, if you turn it off, then switch to another outfit, the helm/hood won't show back magicaly. Also if visibility is on and you decide to switch to off, you will no longer need to hit the shortcut twice.
- Fixed a logic routine that didn't always switch off light if lightsaber was off
- Changed where that auto-light/sound routine runs in code, as well as saber impacts, so it no longer runs on event tick but on a separate loop logic fired when necessary (this was too much hungry on resources)
- Fixed how increase/decrease lighting works so it also consider light attenuation radius
- Optimized how often "Depth of Field" blur was called (was on tick, now the routine is called once and just regularly tested in paralell)
- Changed Mevenn's half-shaved hairstyle for a more natural/elegant/detailed one
- Changed Max. critical chance up to 90%
- Changed rule to unlock all the bonus levels, now if you have captured up to 150 Forceghosts, you'll unlock these levels
- Changed rule to unlock the "Reinforcements" multiplier bonus, now if you have captured up to 250 Forceghosts, you'll unlock this bonus. This affects both enemies & allies and can now be adjusted in options (restart level to apply new settings)
- Changed rule to unlock the "random start spawn" bonus, now if you have captured up to 350 Forceghosts, you'll unlock this feature
- Added a new rule to increase base damage (from 2 to 10), and critical damage (from 10 to 40) based on total captured ForceGhosts. You can collect up to 501 of them. Please note that there's a strange display bug that doesn't always keep up with the exact current count, in case of any doubt, just restart the level ; this will refresh the counter
- Based on this new rule, a Dash distance multiplier is applied (from 0.5 to 1.5)
- Added new variant for the Jedi outfit : Novice (Numpad 5)
- Added a shortcut to shot/hide Jetpack when in clone outfit (Numpad 7)
- Added a slight FOV change when dashing, to immerse more into the action
- Adjusted the surfacing look of the "Clean Armor" suit, to get the same level of dirtiness than what we have on basic Clone Troopers
- Adjusted Helmet LOD, as it appeared lowpoly too fast
- Raised Life (Easy=1500 (was 1000);Normal=45(was 30);Hard=20(was 10))
[Jedi Knights] :
- Optimized animations
- Added lights to lightsabers, matching their actual blade color. This makes Them more visible in dark areas (Archives, Dungeon...etc)
- Reduced blade lengths
- Added a HealOrb drop if the Jedi was a strong one (they last longer and has a slightly greater light radius)
[Clone Troopers Phase I] :
- Optimized animations
- Updated idle animations, notably on Geonosis
[Clone Troopers Phase II] :
- Optimized animations
- Added a new logic to add a backpack or a Jetpack or nothing at all in order to bring more diversity to ARC troopers
- Added a new Clone ARC Trooper class, the "RotaryBlaster Z-6". These are the most difficult to overcome, but also a rare unit at first spawn. Once killed, they won't randomly respawn as any clone unit, meaning a group of clones that respawns will gain more of these through each respawns and make the game more and more difficult if you stay in the same area for too long. They shot much faster but with less accurate precision and they have a lot more bullets per load, meaning they won't enter in a breakpoint of reloading as often as other kind of ARC troopers. Only an ARC trooper can respawn as a Rotary Blaster one.
[BattleDroid B1]
- Optimized animations
- Adjusted shot pace per unit (B1 Commanders and Security are more aggressive)
- Adjusted respawn as-elite chance, since B1 Commanders are more dangerous
[Additional features] :
- Added "voices" to jumpy mushrooms (First time I'm doing voice acting =P)
- Added a "ghosted" mode (Ctrl+Alt+G), this is mostly just to take environment screenshots without Mevenn (you'll still be visible to enemies so be careful when using this command. Also since it's a persistent mode, don't forget to switch back yourself to normal visibility
)
- Modified Mushrooms "OnCliff" so they look more alive and reacts when play jumps on them, which gives a better platforming feeling
- Restored the good behavior of flying forceghosts when catched, instead of sticking to Mevenn's torso movements (which resluted as jaggy motionpaths)
- Added new AI spawn logic (simple "doors" that will keep trying to generate new units if below maximum unit count). Also these spawners works only if player is far, so you should rarely see them actually generate their units
- Added a new settings that allows you to modulate the number of ennemies & allies brought in game by global generators (does also affect new spawners/training room spawners, but not space level spawners that currently looks quite balanced as is). You can choose between 0, 1, 2, 3, or even 4. You can change these parameters while playing in a level, in the options sub-menu. And so yes, if you just want to explore without any enemy, now you can
- Added Mute buttons in audio settings, near the reset button. This mutes the current channel, but the game saves the fine-tuned setting so when you unmute later, you'll retrieve the same value you setted earlier. Reset button actually resets that "memorized" value to 1 (=100% of the audio channel)
- Added a filter for ship homing missiles to avoid allies starfighters
- Starfighters Generators now have a dynamic spawn limit that changes regularly, in order to vary the density of a battlefield
- Added collisions (and death) in flying mode. Keep out diving inside star destroyer's geometry ! Death is fired if you collide too many times in a row, I've tried to get something still cool to pilot but ending the flight if player does to many bad tricks (spin is still allowed. It's a good one after all !). Pay attention to VFX of damage (bursts of flames), if you can see them, you're about to crash if you keep bumping on surfaces
[General BugFixes] :
- Fixed an issue in flying menu>options that was preventing player to reset value on resolution/gamma sliders
- Fixed a bug where access to Audio settings led to discard any previously changed options
- Fixed some sound issues with concurrency settings
- Fixed an issue on respawn transforms that sometimes could cause unit to use an unwanted orient
- Fixed an issue preventing player to get a healorb if the Orb has already been overlapped by another actor than the player
- Fixed curious glitch issue on mushrooms on cliff by simplifying their shader
[General Improvements/Adjustments] :
- Improved VFX of Torch flames
- Improved VFX of steaming gas
- Raised HealOrbs healing range (Min=9 (was 6);Max=18 (was 12))
- Raised HealSources (healing=1500 (was 1000))
- Adjusted all enemies shot rythm. Most of the Elites shoot a bit faster, normal units shoot slower, most units now have a more random delay between shots
- Each reload delays has been increased, this offers player a better window frame to move and slay enemies
- Adjusted sparks/glowing halo VFX to make them look more volumetric at a cheaper cost
- Adjusted translation ENG/FR to new features
- UI has been slightly adjusted to better handle window scaling to different ratios and be more easy to read over bright levels
- Adjusted UI so if you're playing into a bonus level you no longer see the dragonfly counter in the top left corner
- Optimized how units spawns (no longer a big block of 90 units at once, this saves performance)
- Changed the spawn logic in space battles, now the starfighter you pilot hosts units generators (one for allies, another for enemies), starfighters spawns always near you so you can fight anywhere in space
- Changed respawn logic, it's no longer hosted in enemies dead corpses and resolves several issues (pathfinding, collisions, performance costs...etc)
- Adjusted light spawn distance on projectiles and lightsaber blades to reduce performance costs
- Optimized all Starfighters animations so they are now using only 30 keys per second instead of 50 (up to 60 sometimes)
That's all folks !
Des Bisous ♥ , et que la Force soit avec vous !
A new update of my fan project Star Wars - Redemption is here, and this 2.7 brings new cool things to the demo.
Improved lighting on Mevenn, this goes from a very simple thing (to the point I don't get why I didn't make it earlier). Simply put a spotlight dedicated only to light Mevenn in her blueprint. Without specular intensity from that spot, it acts as a skylight, but only affects a desired area so you can bring the player attention to the torso/head, more than the heels (even if Mevenn's heels are badass ^^"). The cool point is it still adds a little specular reflection only in Mevenn's eyes, that was definitely missing :
I've also added more starfighters to pilot, and made them playable in every flying-levels (so you can fly in N-1 over Coruscant or save Naboo's blockade into a Tie-Fighter...makes no sense but it's fun ^^")
To build these, I opted for a pretty optimized texturing/UVing. First of all, they both use the same following texture set :
Lots of stacking, but also meticulous use of triangle direction. When going low poly that's something to take care of, else you might have some distortion (as seen above on some parts of the wings. I fixed that right after this screenshot x)). Also, at first I just made them as enemies to fight for a new spaceship you can pilot (see next images), so the super low-poly cockpit was legit. But well. I couldn't resist to make it also a playable version and in player's view it was a bit too low-poly compared to other ships. A little subdiv on the sphere & cylinders and we're good to go !
Also new here, the XT-3400. It's a big cargo I wanted to make playable for a dear friend of mine, Aurélien Baarsch. He designed/modeled the ship, I then put textures and joints on it and integrated the whole thing into the demo. It's part of a cool side-project he craft and this is kind of a link between it and SWR. Aurélien was my art mentor 11 years ago and I still discuss with him, to get valuable feedback on both art and star wars universe mistake I could make when creating the story of my fan-project. This ship was a way to collaborate once more together and see if the alchemy still works after a decade. And hell yeah, it certainly does
Here's a quick breakdown on the texturing/level art process (I skip all the UV part, not super fun to watch, trust me ^^")
The idea was to remain as close as possible to the colorscheme designed by Aurélien, I baked all colors into a first pass texture, then I applied manually dirt over all the surface as I do with all SWR assets. The idea is to fill a layer with a dark/muddy color, roughness at 100% & metalness at 0%, then create a mask layer (in 3DCoat, any layer can serve as a mask without necessary having to be near the controled layer. Bonus thing : it can affect several layers at once. In case you didn't already knew it : I love texturing in 3DCoat ^^)
Lots of pieces. Yup. But the result speaks for itself ! (I also like to place lights everywhere, in Marmoset Toolbag I feel like I'm painting with spotlight colors, that light gizmo is really a thing every software should have, it's so practical !)
Then I wanted to add a dedicated level. I thought a sort of space-station that "repairs" Venators under the early Empire era would be interesting. So I started to design this big station :
At first I wanted to have like big bridges all around the docking area of each destroyer, but I ended up thinking it was a bit too much noise, plus I wanted to mess with the circular hole formed by several piles of these buildings. Just to fly inside. I do a lot of things in this project just because "it's cool, why not ?" A simple yet very motivational philosophy
In order to texture all this bloc, I made a tileable texture (all done in 3DCoat, I should make a tutorial one day to achieve this, 3DCoat has really efficient tools to craft such assets). Idea was to have lots of panels of course, but at various density. Also you can see that some parts are kinda "scorched shells", this is cool to make the structure look not perfect, unfinished like if the empire had rushed those (of course I could have made these uncomplete parts in solid meshes, but this might be for another round ^^")
(I really like this bottom view !)
I also added a new "piled shroom" into the blue cave on Lumberia Temple :
And last but not least, clone troopers now have "Dark Forces" troopers. They're same as elites, but more robust & painful. If you encounter one and kill him, he will inevitably respawn a few minutes later as a Dark Forces trooper. This means levels gradually tends to spawn only these troops the more you survive in them ^^
Please find below a list of all the updated/fixed/added features :
Star Wars - Redemption | Update Log v2.7
[General]
- Adjusted texture/shader of stellar systems (space background) to get closer than what we see in films (less "dots" and more "stars")
- Optimized UVSets (Max. 2 per asset instead of 3) and removed all auto-generated lightmap UVs, this improves perfs mostly on : Lucrehulk/Geonosis/Lumberia/Archives/JediPurge levels
- Optimized lights in general (now limited by distance to the camera)
- Enhanced shadows on space fighting levels
- Added a new batallion, the "DarkForces". You'll recognize them by several points : they have much more life, more bullets, faster shot and faster projectiles, as an easter egg to the old Battlefront 2 from 2005 they shot purple-ish blasts, they also have a unique armor designed exclusively for ARC troopers, they are dark deep blue with strong red yet subtle warpaints, and their visor is alike Clone Commando and in fact quite close to those of Crossair new team members in the badbatch. They won't appear often, but if you find one, prepare your best moves as they won't be easy to take down
- Removed the need of captured Forceghosts to unlock bonus levels and reinforcements sliders. This allows to feel a little better difficulty at the beginning, and makes Forceghosts a more important thing to collect as they'll be the only way to increase Mevenn's stats
- Improved glowing Mushrooms on Lumberia environments so they look a bit more magical and carry their own dynamic lighting (it now follows them when they jump near you)
- Fixed a bug where Ennemy/ally units could still spawn from a certain type of spawners if their factor was put down to zero
- Fixed a bug where unit spawn limit could be overriden, leading to potential performance issue
- Added enemies to KillZVolume allowed victims, so when you throw a clone into space he dies
- Adjusted little mushrooms models so they appear less sharp and more smooth and cute
- Fixed all "boxes" issues (collisions were broken/not working, it's a compromise, you can't slash them like in the 1st public release of the demo, but you no longer "enters" in them so they clearly acts as covers)
- Fixed a bug where difficulty was going down to Padawan each time you restart/launch a level, ignoring the desired difficulty mode
- Added sounds to StarDestroyer's reactors, so it's more immersive when you fly by
- Added lights to muzzle flash emitters so you see better when someone is actually shooting
- Refined bridge grids models on Geonosis Canyons, Jedi Temple (servers room) and Venator 66/Hangars
- Added new wallpapers
- Adjusted planet shaders, so now the emissive has some life in it (glowing city lights)
- Added HDR support, if you have an HDR compatible screen the game colors should look a bit better
- Adjusted stars in flying backgrounds, less dense, but brighter ones
- Reduced turret's life to give a better feedback when shooting at them
[UI/UX]
- Changed UI title "Star Wars - Redemption" for a phoenix logo to better suit art direction (notably on Mevenn/414th clone troopers phase II armor warpaint patterns)
- Updated game credits with Aurélien Baarsch (XT-3400 LightFreighter designer/modeler)
- Added gamepad Support in all menus, use left stick to move mouse cursor, press A to validate a button
- Added "Back to Menu" and "Exit" buttons to the GameOver Menu
- Added difficulty modes and reinforcements sliders to the GameOver menu, now you can directly adjust your next session from there instead of having to go back to main menu or options, tweak and relaunch current level
- Added a new "Starfighter" entry in both Main menu/Pause menu (flying only), in order to let the player opt for the favourite starfighter to pilot everywhere, once picked, you can decide to either go in bonus levels and play levels at will or restart to apply changes (last option only available in play mode of course)
- Reworked some level preview images to better reflect what level actually offers, i.e since space flight is now accessible with any starfighter, having them in the preview is no longer relevant
- Unified options/Levels/Bonus Levels panels of the UI so everything is adjustable at anytime, independently from the current game mode
- Added a UI to flying mode so you can see your life and shields state and better estimate your starfighter damages (shields are not in use at the moment, but in case of future implementation the UI is there)
- Added Bloom slider to modulate how much you want it into the renderer (can save performances)
- Added a "Depth Blur" check-box in case you want to cut it from renderer (can save performances)
- Added a "Motion Blur" check-box so you can remove it from render pass (can save performances)
- Reduced delay to navigate through menu panels (was at 0.5s, although I liked the effect it wasn't subtle at all, I changed it to 0.1s, so you still "feel" it, but don't be frustrated to wait half a second. After all : devil is in the details, right ?)
- Added a "Back" button in pause menu to facilitate the switch back to game, especially with a gamepad
- Added UI icons over enemies in flight mode to better identify them. More specifically, when you fire missiles at them, the locked enemy will be briefly emphasized. You can turn it off if you turn off the UI (Numpad *)
- Added visual feedback on selected difficulty, selected starfighter, and selected language.
- Added version number in the options menu ( green text, bottom right near langage settings)
- Added a slider to adjust the delay after which the camera will start rotating on its own
- Internally reworked level names to reflect those used in the UI
- Added new saved settings accross sessions/levels : Camera offset, Camera Zoom amount, Camera FOV (can be activated if you need it, off by default).
- Added lightsaber's intensity/color as a persistent tweak through games, should you love to look as a Sith, you'll now keep that red blade
You can revert to default color at anytime using Left Ctrl + Numpad 0 (command list has been updated)
- Regrouped check-boxes in the option pannel
- Added an "Auto-Thirds" option, this will place the camera on left or right of the character, so you can forsee what's ahead of you. This also gives a better look to the game
- Added a "Force Motion Blur" option for flying levels, so you can decide to have it on or off independently from the global motion blur checkbox
- Added tooltips for options, simply hover a text to see an enriched description of what it does. Not every text has it of course, like for example the button "French" which obviously turns the game in french
- Added a "Master" slider in audio settings so you can quickly turn on/off/adjust the volume of the game without switching back to windows soundmix settings
[Mevenn]
- Added a light specifically for Mevenn so she looks better in dark places and always has a little specular point in her eyes
- Adjusted min/max camera FOV (min=10 (was 15) ; max=120 (was 100))
- Adjusted max camera dezoom (1500 (was 1000))
- Increased footstep sound volume
- Added an auto-follow feature to the camera and a reset camera button (right thumbstick button/middle-mouse button), this eases the control especially for gamepad players. You can disable it in the options
- Fixed a bug where after a dash the parry was no longer working if player was parrying before dashing
- Changed the dash-to-ground vector for a clean 90° down so player no longer accidentaly falls down into the void
- Fixed a bug where the dash-to-ground could appear after a quick jump if triggered shortly before landing
- Fixed a bug where Mevenn could be partially hidden on every respawn if you activated the "ghost player" mode (Ctrl+Alt+G)
- Fixed the rule of thirds overlay so it displays an equally 9-splited screen
- Added VFX "puffs" & sounds on jump start to bring a better jump feel
- Adjusted the eyelid makeup accross all 3 different faces
- Added a passive camera rotate after 15s (default value), so you can see the environment around. Only moving/look around can exit it. Default value can be edited in options
- Added SFX, VFX, and footsteps triggers to some idles that were missing it
- Added a boost to the emissive of the blades if you increase their lights (Numpad + ; Numpad -)
- Added max jump-hold time to capabilities that can increase depending on ForceGhosts you have captured (was at 0.3s, now you start at 0.3s and reach 0.4s at max)
- Boosted the blade emissive default power
- Fixed LOD of the helmet that was still popping too early
- Changed the way the auto-focus is computed, now it will always keep Mevenn's face neat no matter the zoom distance. Since it's not called every frame, you may nottice some jaggy/blurry pixels artifacts when changing the camera view distance, but only when this occurs and that's quite subtle
- Changed the way the camera offset works, now taking account of collisions. You can also add an offset to the camera target, which is the Mevenn by default, using the same "I,J,K,L" shortcuts but with "Ctrl" (so to offset the camera target up, use "Ctrl+I" and so on)
- Added an option to get an automated camera offset based on player movement, placing Mevenn near thirds to achieve a better image composing without the need to play with I,J,K,L while playing. Please note that these shortcuts still works and that this "Auto-Thirds" option can be tunred off at any time in the Options pannel
[Clone Troopers - Phase II]
- Adjusted Jedpack roughness/Specular textures
[ForceGhosts]
- Boosted emissive
- Boosted collect sound
- Added a chance to also heal the player when spawned, you can see that some has a more powerful halo than the others, they'll heal you the same way a heal orb do but they'll be there only once, when captured, these "healing" sources will no longer be available (this helps you sustain in some cases when you start a fresh savegame
)
- excluded the mesh from the lighting render pass, as it uses only additive shaders. Also disabled their shadow-cast parameter
[Starfighters]
- Added XT-3400 LightFreighter, designed & modeled by Aurélien Baarsch (a good friend of mine). This one stands as a driveable ship over the new space Level called "Space Station". You can also walk around it in Lumberia Temple level (somewhere deep in the forest)
- Added TIE fighter, TIE interceptor, and Vulture droid as driveable spacecrafts
- Changed the logic of surrounding starfighter spawn, now they're dependent to levels instead of game modes
- Extended the firing projectiles logic (Blasters & Rockets), so starfighters can be set internally to fire up to 4 each (Try the vulture or the TIE-Interceptor
)
- Changed where starfighters spawns to a much further position so you should see lots of them more rapidly and dive always towards dogfight places
- Fixed a bug where starfighters could go back in non-deployed mode while using a loop blast attack (space bar)
- Changed input to bank starfighter to R/L shoulder (R1/L1 for PS controler or RB/LB for XBox Gamepad), having them on the right thumbstick was problematic to access blaster shots/missiles while adjusting flight trajectory
- Added a new SFX to Delta-E principal blaster shots and changed lasers from green to blue
- Changed the way you fire missiles. Now, you fire them when you release the input. You can increase the distance before homing target as well as its life span by holding down the input, this way you can adjust your combat tactics depending on the target distance
- Removed delay on fire missile so it better responds your commands (delay between shots are still there, else it would be overpowered)
- Fixed letterbox cinematic mode (Numpad /)
[Jedi Knights]
- Added more details to the texture of Twi'Lek Lekkus
- Added a Green variant for the Twi'Lek
[Space Station]
- Added new flying level
- Added "Imperial" version of Venators in this Level
- Added TIE Fighters & TIE-Interceptors to stand as enemies
[Space Naboo]
- Fixed a missing collider on a Lucrehulk, preventing player from crashing on it
[Jedi Purge]
- Changed level entry to a regular bonus one (no longer hidden after the death menu)
[Geonosis Canyons]
- Fixed a camera collision with clones shooting near the beginning of the level
- Fixed a bug where you could jump in the sky
- Fixed a bug where player could escape out of bounds near the 414th clone squad
- Boosted BattleDroids B1 you face at the default start of the level (arena outpath)
- Fixed Bloom scale and exposure compensation to calm down the overshiny look of lasers
[Geonosian Caves]
- Adjusted lights fading distance
[Lucrehulk]
- Adjusted lights fading distance
[Venator Hangars]
- Added a few turret shot VFX/SFX to feel the battle of Coruscant from the interior
- Fixed a collision bug on the ARC-170
- Fixed Bloom scale and exposure compensation to calm down the overshiny look of lasers
[Venator 66]
- Reworked the transparent glass shader (more refraction/dirt)
- Fixed Bloom scale and exposure compensation to calm down the overshiny look of lasers
[Lumberia Temple]
- Fixed a triangle hole in the big cave 3D model
- Improved Oak Trees (more organic, more logical breaks in branch directions)
- Raised lighting during darkest moods/nights
- Added another kind of cute jumpy mushroom that can only be found in the hidden blue cave
- Added a new path to reach high caveats in the "two-lakes" cave
- Redistributed parts of the existing ForceGhosts to new areas
- Added more furniture in the hidden cave with the ForceTree, to make it looke like an old abandonned place
- Added a "permanent" healing potion in the hidden cave. Drink and be refreshed
- Adjusted color grading
- Adjusted the lighting of mushrooms on cliff/candles/chandeliers so they can cast more or less shadows and/or emit more or less light in some case
[Lumberia Dungeon]
- Adjusted the lighting of candles/chandeliers, so they can cast shadows and bring a more mysterious mood to the rooms
- Adjusted the ligthing of the force tree chamber, now having more subtle shadows and shadowcast only if necessary.
[Main Menu]
- Added a random start time of day (not evolving, just a random one) set between 6:00 AM & 7:00 AM (where the lighting still looks fine and scene reads well with it)
- Adjusted color grading
May the Force be with you, des Bisous ♥
Cosmetics. Yep. Let's talk about them for Star Wars - Redemption.
First of all don't worry, I don't plan on going in a "modern" way to incorporate everything from other universes inside the project. The goal remains consistent with Mevenn's story/character and aims just to give more options to vary her look, not all options
I won't add a "vader" suit if it's never justified in the scenario for example (and at the moment that's not planed haha). She's a Jedi and a Lumberian, she likes to wear stuff like her troopers to stay close to them and boost their mental on battle front. Lumberia is the magical part of her own world, so every time I explore new ideas of hairstyles, warpaints, armors/outfits in this fashion I like to add some Vikings, medieval-fantasy elements to it. Lumberia has a long story of old battles where it was not about Jedi, Sith and Troopers of any kind but battle-mages, knights, revived skeletons and obscure use of long forgotten Force powers. It's kind of a "lord of the rings" planet within the galaxy of star wars in my mind (but also Sacred, Dragon age...and a zest of Rayman (if you know, know you're the best to me
And at most, I made the "Ancient Lumberian Armors", thinking of all the old armors that served the great warrior of ancient and dark times, (I like to think about Arkaine's Valor Armor from Diablo 1, it feels very old and tells a thing about the world you walk into centuries after). There are close to the one worn by Mevenn's ancestor "Sevwyrenn", when she had to survive and defeat the biggest threat of her time. She was a Force user but not a Jedi and was one with all of the Lumberian "magic living elements", so I made a mix of traditional medieval stuff and forest foliage from Lumberia. It's actually a fun part I really liked, to design this armor knowing all the lore I wanted to pour into it
Not sure I'll turn each of them into a playable set, but they are all very interesting to model and I'm already seeing Mevenn wearing them especially in Lumberia or Geonosis (natural landscapes might suits better to these kinda "mystical" armors)
Big change : now all the look can be edited through a dedicated interface, the "Cosmetics". You can access it when in a ground-level, no matter if you're in combat, this might look odd but you won't die while equiping your favorite armor
The following attribute can now be edited :
- Hairstyle : more options, and now desynchronized from outfit, so you can make more mixes. I've reworked/optimized every old ones from scratch and they're all dynamically simulated in game
- Haircolor : Most are regular tones, but yes you have some vibrant colors. I kept it consistent with other parameters, though, so no super saturated pink or flashy greenscreen. Fun fact, I actually use a flashy green screen color in 3dsmax to define collision/sim meshes ^^" But they stay hidden in the game so it's okay)
- Eyebrow value : Use it to get darker or brighter eyebrow, even at max they'll remain a bit darker than the hairstyle to keep consistency
- Face Marks : change Mevenn's tatoos, I made a "scary face" just for fun, but this slider is mostly here to manage tatoos ^^
- Iris color : Various tones for the eyes, I've split them in 2 tones everytime, one for dark area, the other for bright part. As for the hairstyle color I'm just using a minimalistic texture, literally on pixel per tone
- Iris intensity : if you want those "sith" eyes ^^ It can also bring dark tones to "normal" value like the dark blue eye. Basically this adds emissive to the iris
- Outfit : Change stuff here
- "+ -" : helps to see face closer
- checkboxes are here to equip/unequip Jetpack/Cape/Helmet, and decide to use default Mevenn looks per-level (as they are linked to her own story)
Here's how it looks in game :
I'd like to dive a little on those hairstyles, as I found a way to make them that is - I think - quite efficient and design friendly.
First, I work them all in ZBrush. I have a little bust on which I can draw my hairstrands.
I follow a few design rules :
- use 5 sides strands
- crease along these 5 sides, if needed to pinch some parts of the hairstyle, just add an edgeloop and pinch it
- maintain a lowpoly/SubD logic (using Dynamic Subdiv, sub lvl at 2 or 3, crease at 2)
- strands must have no point tips and remain UV-able as simple cylinders
- there should be rhythm in strands. No duplicates, of course you can clone them but always rework strands so you don't end up with a "3D feel".
- think about volume
- add a few tiny strands to either turn them as braided hairs or simply give the illusion of deeply detailed model
- UV them all in the same start/end direction, since we will rely on gradients
- Hair "color" should be multiplied with a real color later in unreal so hair textures should be grayscale. And rely on the same gradient values
SO ! HOW DO WE START ?
Haha, like this :
This hairstyle was not meant to be one of those I designed back in 2015/2016, but just serve as a crash-test. I wasn't sure at this point if my method would work (but I was like 70% sure haha)
The idea, as I told before, was to have cylinder-shaped strands. In ZBrush, I use mostly the curvetube brush with a brush modifier at 5 (for my 5 sides), and adapt the curve intensity/size based on another curve in stroke>curve menu. Yep. Lots of curves for curvy hair haha (sorry for the joke). I then need to add crease along my 5-sides edgeloops using the ZModeler and preview the result using the Dynamic Subdiv. It's a wonderful tool that keeps your filesize super tiny and your end-topology super clean, with simple yet great controls over your design, since you'll manipulate a pretty lowpoly mesh. SubD adepts know that power pretty well
Keep in mind that in the screenshots I show you here I intentionally cranked up the subdiv levels, but I only use a single iteration, it's easier to cleanup later in 3dsmax
Another way if you don't want to manually crease all these edgeloops (which I can understand), is to manually create the curve profile using an insert mesh with creases. It's basically a cylinder. Cool thing it it will be much closer to UVs part of the process, but I personally prefer to manipulate my start/end strands using pointy tips, this kinda feels better to manipulate.
Once in 3dsMax, I do the following : if I used curvetube brush in ZBrush, first, I'd need to remove both the start & end pointy tips of each strand. Since I use 5 sides, the only vertices connected to 5 are the start/end ones and fortunately, in 3dsmax you can select them quickly with the selection part of the graphite toolbar. Then, no matter the brush I used, I'd need to simplify the polycount of my strands, since I've subdivided them once, I can select one edge per strand on flat areas, perform a dot edgeloop and remove them (make sure to also remove vertices, remove edge in 3dsmax can be used in two different ways and you don't want to keep vertices here)
Then I crafted a quick UV layout in photoshop, I like to do that to plan out where I'll put what, it's a very "env.art" approach, but I thought like, why not try it out ? And I was also ecstatic to try out a new plugin : UV Zone Layout. I'm not affiliated with its creator (JokerMartini, if you don't know about him he's a high-quality plugin-maker for 3dsmax) . Seriously consider trying this one if you regularly deal with texture atlases in 3dsmax.
How it works is super simple : you create UVs squares/rectangles where you'll need to apply parts of your atlas texture, you send them to the plugin and save it as a template. You can also create these zones directly in the plugin window, but I much prefer the other way, it simply fits best my workflow, of course it's cool to have multiple choices.
Every time you'll restart 3dsmax you'll need to reload it, but it's safe and saved on your disk and can be used on any desired scene (maybe having a dropdown with user presets could be nice, but that's really just a detail). Then, when you're done with unwrapping UVs for your haircut like here, select island and just click on the desired UV zone : and boom. You can of course decide how you want to fit the island, like with a desktop wallpaper. It's really that simple and you can move on
UVs looks like a big mess, but it's just tons of strands overlapped on precise areas, this way they'll get the good normalmap data, gradient color...etc
And here's the result, note that the hair part remains grey so I can use it as a lerp mask (or product, depends on how far you need to push the colors, mult will limit to a single hue, lerp offers to mess with 2, like start violet, end in red/orange
Here's the result in marmoset toolbag of the very first test I made. And it was very encouraging ! I notticed a few things that said, like some start points being too transparent and some strands requiring a bit more polys to keep a nice shape roundness. The texture normal rely on a bake of two very simple shapes : a 5 sided cylinder with clean rounded edges by a SubD, and a braided hair. I baked the first on a 5-sided low-poly cylonder, and the braid on a 64 sides cyl. so the bake remain as clean as if baked on a plane, making it reliable for a wide kind of meshes, be it 5-sides or 12-sides, or even fully modeled after the braided hair texture. The only requirement is the surface needs to be clean, with normals unified. You can perform a normal transfer with the script NoorsNormalsThief, from a basic cylinder to the final one no matter the topology, the shading result will match perfectly
Now I'm okay with the workflow, why not rework the existing hairstyles ? Let's start with the very first one I ever made for Mevenn, too symmetrical & blocky, quite hard to animate and let's not talk about its UV haha. I was a young game artist ^^"
So again, first step is to draw strands, get a nice hairflow into ZBrush, to maintain the original idea but give it a fresh spin. I tried to add various types of jewels to replace her green stripes in ZBrush but well, none really worked, often because too complex. I did that later in 3dsmax, simply by taking some parts of strands, cut, extract, bevel and add a few loops, nothing more
Also a little piece I needed to add for each haircut was a cloth proxy mesh. This allows for simpler cloth computing, and since it's a one sided, simple mesh, it won't mess up the final haircut :)Another important thing was to have a haircap for haircuts that could simulate drastic changes and show part of Mevenn's skinhead, this visually fix the stuff at an acceptable cost. I can also decide for each haircut which polygons will rely on the cloth sim and which won't, based on material IDs
Here's a comparison before and after the rework :
Another new cool addition is the exponential height fog on Geonosis levels, mostly visible in Geonosis Canyon, this adds much more depth to the whole level. I also toned down the sky so it appears a bit darker and gives a more dramatic mood than before. See below some screen comparisons between 2.7 and 2.8 :
Also a new (and still very WIP) addition : the Jedi Purge level. I'm reworking it from ground zero, at first I wanted to just add coruscant surroundings and a part of the Jedi Temple's big walls around the initially quite flat level, but I took it more seriously and decided to make a level that reminds more parts of the Temple than just a few collumns, the idea is still to make Clones versus Jedis, in a outrageous number of participants haha (I try to keep it smooth even if you go on 4x enemies/allies reinforcements). So here you can see some places of the level, it's all WIP, almost not textured because I still work on the level design itself to get the best flow I can, as well as gorgeous points of view. That's a thing that came more naturally for Lumberia & Geonosis, as Rocks and trees offers natural design arcs and flows while here, I have to control a lot more the architecture. But honestly, I really enjoy that part ! Plus here for the blocking, I'm using intensively the smart extrude recently introduced in 3dsmax (I heard maya has it as well. Don't know which of their devs built the idea first, or if it's from an external tech artist, but this perso deserves a lot of love for what it brought to the modeling toolset. Making precise design cuts have never been easier in 3dsmax and it's actually still pretty neat)
And to finish this blog post about WIP stuff, here are a few animations I made on Mevenn (this little "flying dance" was more for fun than a final idle I would put in the game. I son't know haha, tell me, would you like to have it one day in the demo ? I'm genuinely curious)
Exploring new possibilities with eye look at, crafted very simply with IK & space switching, all in akeytsu
And, well. If you want to know how to add a look at constrain for your character's eyes in akeytsu, I've made a tutorial about that (don't worry, it's pretty simple and yes, it can apply to most rigs, like I can't see actually where it would not apply ^^) :
So I'm using the exact same brush logic to do all my hairstrands. I say "logic" because I've found two methods to get the same result, it depends on my mood I guess haha. So here it is :
- Get the curvetube brush
- turn down the brushmodifier to 5, so you'll have 5 sides instead of a bazilion
- add a profile to your curve in the stroke panel, I personally prefer having a big root, then a bigger inbetween close to the root, and slowly go down to a fine tip. But that's just a middle setting that fits most strands starting shape, often I use the inflate on their end, depending on the flow I want to have
- I add a first stroke on a bald head, then split the strand and the bald head and work from the strand subtool
- from here, I adjust the strand with the move brush (using a screenspace pivot for the brush from the picker submenu, this makes move brush less random in my opinion. I also prefer working with AccuCurve on for move since this can give me pointy tips and spikes that helps sharp out the design)
- then I draw a new strand, switch to the move brush...and repeat !
- to preview the result, I activate the Dynamic Subdiv. And to get sharp borders, I simply add creases over edgeloops using the ZModeler
- I often just clone strands I find cool and rework the clone, this can save some time especially on the creasing part of the process
The alternative I use sometime is a brush with a custom curve profile, where I added creases on each side. This also removes the need to delete tip points for UVs, at the cost of having a wavy sudivided end and a harder preview of both roots and strand ends, honestly I prefer going with the curvetube brush, removing tips is not that hard and takes a few seconds, and I like to have a clear picture of the end result ^^
You're welcome !
I'm making only these two since others shares more or less the same visual language and features
The workflow was fairly simple : start from low poly+creases with dynamic subdiv on. Apply subdivs only if manual sculpt is necessary to bring details (mostly on cloth wrinkles). Then for lowpoly I think I'll mostly reuse what I've made here as topo looks cool on most pieces, only the body/thight clothings might be worthy of a retopo.
I reworked the base body of Mevenn to help shaping out more outfits as the previous one I did was back in 2012...with like, a few months of ZBrush experience in my brain ^^" So proportions, sculpt smoothness, polygroups, sharpness of shapes were in demand of a "little" overhaul. For the face though I tried a more childish one, more "round" especially on her cheeks but not sure it's a good upgrade for Mevenn, I kinda like her face as she is now in the game so this one won't probably end up being integrated.
Last but not least, if you're interested in seeing the texturing process I use on 3D-Coat, I'll be streaming that (once I'll be done with lowpoly models & bakes) on my twitch channel : https://www.twitch.tv/vexod14/
Don't hesitate to keep that link somewhere and follow if you want (nothing fancy, I'm not actively streaming, I just like to share what I create from time to time
Thank you for the kind words, I'm slowly moving on these days on SWR due to several projects, I just wanted to make another hairstyle this time as it's quite quick to craft (it's like 90% sculpt, 5% cleaning topology, 5% UVs). Below are some toolbag's renders of the...well, hairstyle head I guess ^^"
ZBrush sculpt : here I keep blobby splines for braided hair meshes, since it's all applied later through normal map I focus more on volume, adding a slightly different color value helps me foreseeing the end result