One year!

One year!

One year ago, I started to work as a freelance artist here, in the GG community. Whish me an happy birthday!



So, what's going on?

Well, I just finish a 2 months mission working on a very secret project, and I just start a one month mission working on ... a secret project. Did I mention the secret project I working on 3 months ago? :)
As Jeff Tunnell said in his last blog entry, I'm in the category of the "Full Time Developers, Supplemented by *secret* Contracts". More news about those secret projects when it will rich a public status.
Non secret projects? Yes! Hopefully, I have something to show.

Call of Dooty
I'm working with Tim for a little funny TGB game. Tim asked me to prepare a few characters and the backgrounds of the game. You can trust me, it's a real pleasure ... I love my job :)





Shelled!
Joshua proposes me to help for the level design of Shelled!

A cartonish univers, well that's a mission for me! But, it was a difficult job because when you make the level design of a game, you have to test your work, and Shelled! is a little bit ... addictive! Several times, I was totally distracted, and after one hour of testing the new hill between the mountain and the plateform, you have to admit you no longer test the game : you play it :)
My analyze is simple : a very good mix between action and strategy AND a very interesting learning curve that makes you better after each hour.
See you on the battlefields after the release ...




GG press
Maybe some of you noticed my shaman on the cover of "The Game Programmer's Guide to Torque" by E. Maurina?
I also work with Ed on the GUI and the art of the game includes in the book, and even if it's a very little participation, I must say that I'm very proud! the book is a success : once again, congrats Ed!





Character system (CS)
Last december, I started to work on the next frogames content pack. Working as a freelance don't let me a lot of time to work on my own projects, but after 6 months, hopefully, I can talk about details. The CS:warriors and commoners, will be a fantasy NPC pack, and I focused on diversity and modularity.
The pack is not finished, so I'm not going to talk about quantity, but about structure.
So, what will be the steps to create a character with the CS, and what options do you have?

#1 The character mesh. required
ok, that makes sens, you will have to choose a character mesh. Basically, there will be 3 different characters : normal, muscle and fat.

#2 head. required
choosing the head texture means more than just choosing a face. That also means choosing a skin color, decided if the character will have a scare, a pirate eye patch, a third eye... The CS will allow you to choose it in a library.

#3 body, hands, pants and feet. required
Those 4 textures will also be choosen in a library of more than 100 textures, to allow an important diversity

#4 hairs. optionnal
Each hairs object will exist in 5 different colors

#5 facial elements. optionnal
Facial elements are eyebrows, moustaches, bores, glasses...

#6 hat, helmets, shoulders, handed objects, back. optionnal
Of course, there is an objects library including swords, axes, shields, helmets, bears, forks, hammers, bags, hats, quivers ... and a lot more!

Now, your character is ready to enter your game.
A character will be able to use any of the 50 animations include in the pack. There is idle animations, emotes, actions, fighting animations, death animations ... all what you need to set up a entire world of adventure!

A few exemples of what can be achieved with the CS. Only the muscle mesh was used here.
Click here for a full size image





This pack is hudge! this is a LOT of work, and because I want to make it as most professional as I can, it takes a lot of time. As usual, don't ask "When?" or "How many?" :)

Thanks for reading
Christophe
www.frogames.net