June and July Progress

This post is going to serve as an update for the Patreon found at this link here.

So, I know things have fallen behind a bit, and I haven't been getting that many updates out like I should have been. The reasons are related to supporting a loved one. I won't go over the personal issues here, but I will talk about what has been done in the past few months and I will provide screenshots of what I can.

I'll start with some behind the scenes stuff. A lot of work that has gone on in the last few months has been stuff I can't really talk about too much. This being because it is all story sensitive information. The before mentioned loved one I've been helping about has offered to help out with the project. She sees the passion I have for game development and is just as passionate as I am. She was recently, before running into the complications, trying to develop her own game and decided to put it on the shelf as a result of the complications. She is an amazing story writer who understands all the ins and outs of what makes a story interesting, she is an amazing artist, and she has experience with technical computer work. Once things slow down in our lives, I'm sure I'll be posting some amazing concept art that she makes.

Out of the creepy and spooky shadows that shroud our story to protect it, I've mainly been doing some model work. All of this work has gotten me much more comfortable with the tools that I am using; especially Substance Painter, which is a beast if you don't know how to use it. It works wonders in material and texture creation as can be seen below.

The first hand-painted 3D model to be imported into the game. The lower dirty half of the model is intended to be underground. It extends underground so much to compensate for terrain height variances.

This is a screenshot showing the fence model being used in game. This view is from in the editor.

Next, I worked on a chest model. This model will be used to test containers and storage in the game. It's got its own problems, and will only be used in the preAlpha map because of them. Below are some screenshots of the model. I learned a lot in creating this model and in painting realistic textures. My main focus on this model was the metal. I figured out how and where to apply different types of wear. As you can see, this model has a thin and spotty layer of rust covering it's metal parts. The rust blocks out the reflections of the metal underneath, as to does the "tarnish" layer I painted on it.

A view of the chest model inside of Substance Painter.

The chest model as it appears in the engine. This too, is from the editor window.

One of the last models I've been working on, I'm relatively proud of and am looking to see how it turns out. It is the biggest model I have ever worked on. Because of it's scale and importance, I've imported it into the editor to check proportions and to get another view on it while I work. The model is Elara's house. I think the proportions of the house are nice; not too roomy, and not too cramped. I'm very happy that it imported so well. There are a few things to fix on it, but this is all in development. It was only loaded into the editor to see how it would look from the player's view.

The basic floor plan of Elara's house, as seen from inside of Blender. Each gray square on the ground is one square meter.

Elara's home, visualized with a roof and placeholder support pillars.

A view of Elara's home from in-game. Note that the house is elevated off of the ground to the floor inside would be flat.

This is an animated .gif that shows the internals of Elara's home, from her point of view.

I've also been working on a few easter egg things here and there, but we don't need to worry about that... It really hasn't distracted from work on the game all too much. It has helped with understanding materials and textures more than anything else really.

"spek.exe"; "I'm feeling lucky."

Dark Times...

This is more of a personal update to explain what has been going on in my life and why progress on Vilous: Soldier of the North seems to have stopped. Just to clarify, although it has slowed, it has not stopped.

Without going too into detail on personal matters, some of my loved ones in my life have been going though a tremendously difficult time, and I've dedicated as much time as I could to keeping them safe and of healthy mind. I will always put the ones I love ahead of my hobbies. It seems like it's only getting worse and worse, with no reprieve in sight. Thankfully though, we've gotten just that and the past few days are much more upbeat than the past few months. We still have a long, two year battle ahead of us, but with any luck, we'll get everything we're fighting for and we'll be happy together once again in the big stupid family we should be.

To anyone who is concerning themselves and involving themselves with this matter in a positive way, I'd like to graciously thank you. It has been really hard on all of us and any support, be it even kind words, go farther than you could imagine.

Regarding game development stuff, I'll get a few updates out before the month of July is over; updates to cover what has happened in June too.

Thank you for your support and understanding.

Touch fuzzy, get dizzy

NeoFur get!

This is the first NeoFur asset we created for V:SotN

I've briefly spoken about this tool with my discord server. NeoFur is an amazing tool that has been designed by Neoglyphic Studios for use with Unreal Engine 4. This outstanding technology will allow us to render dynamic, shaded fur, feathers, and fibers on our models in game, in real time.

NeoFur works by using a shading technique called "shells and fins". Basically, fur strands are generated from the geometry of the mesh that they're applied to. The direction and flow, as well as the growth length can be changed in different ways by the use of growth meshes, morph targets, and masks. It's easiest to visualize this technique by thinking of the fur strands as a stack of wafers that come off of the model and have a favored direction for the stack to lean. From really up close, this technique really doesn't look too good if you can see all the shells. If done correctly though, from a respectable distance, the outcome is astonishing!

A close up view of our first fur asset. Notice how you can't see the individual shells.

The fur length has been exaggerated and shell counts reduced for what would be recommended to better show how the "shell shading" technique works. Fur is 10 units long in this example and only has ~15 shells.

Mentioned earlier, what makes this tool even more impressive is that the fur strands that are rendered are also dynamic! This means that gravity affects each strand, and the character's movement can dynamically alter the positioning of each fur strand. If that wasn't enough for simulation, the fur is also affected by wind and radial force actors in Unreal Engine 4!

A .gif of simulated fur physics.

As far as detailed rendering goes, fur stands are also able to receive and cast shadows, which adds a whole new layer of depth to the fur. Not only can individual strands cast and receive shadows, but other advanced shading techniques like rim lighting, ambient occlusion, and advanced specular techniques can easily be implemented. Below, you can see the difference between casting and receiving self shadows (left), compared to not receiving self shadows (right).

Self and world shadow casting example using different colored light sources.

All of these previous images have been test images that were generated by using the tool in our PreAlpha map. If you'd like to get access to NeoFur, check out NeoFur on Neoglyphic's website. If you're on the edge of deciding if you want to buy it or not, you can visit that link and download a demo project that shows off all of NeoFur's features and even shows off some content examples.

A collection of NeoFur assets that are shown off in their demo project.

I'm really looking forward to getting character models in game and actually adding some realistic fur to them!

Progress Update for May, 2016

Check out our monthly progress update for the month of May, 2016.

This update covers some impressive advances in the field of artificial intelligence development for our game, Vilous: Soldier of the North. The video covers how the AI can see, how they hear things, how they make choices, how they guess and think, and how they can communicate with one another.

Highlighted in this video are also some things like a tool that I created to help keep track of the changes that are being made in the engine, as well as particle effect updates, and what is going on with character models and motion capture.

PFG on Blogger

Project Freelance Games on Blogger

We now have a blog on blogger! This service seems a little more flexible and user friendly when it comes to certain things like organizing different pages on the blog and post formatting. We are also able to keep track of page views and where people are viewing the pages from! Our Tumblr blog will still be maintained, but will be much more laid back with more personal updates, appose to this blog that aims to more objective in it's updates. Go check out the Tumblr blog here!

This blog will hopefully serve as a more professional, and sort of "hub" blog for all future game development done by Project Freelance Games. The current project can be found in the navbar near the blog header. Later, when we move on to other games, that title will likely be moved to something similar to an archive section, and the new game will take it's place on the navbar.

There is also a section on the navbar that will point users to where they can purchase games that have been made and where they can donate if they want to support our development.

I look forward to getting some updates on here.

And as always; Indie devs, lead the way.