In House Character Development
by BrokeAss Games · 10/29/2006 (4:34 am) · 13 comments
Wow, seems like forever since I've posted anything.
My little team of newbs is growing up.
2 of my team members and I have been working on some new characters for Ruin Online (www.brokeassgames.com).
Here is a rough video of some of the work.
Triangle Count: Around 4K.
The work is nearly complete and yes, those fingers are animating. :)
We have 35 finished animations (standard Torque Orc anims plus a couple for eye candy) and more are being made everyday.
The skeleton is a custom BVH compatible rig w/ 8 mount points, skis, cam and all the goodies.
We're adding jaw bones later this week for speech.
Biped is a great format but we felt BVH needed a chance for games too, and 3DSMax was beyond our budget.
The Cubix characters have carried us a long way and are a great asset to any team lacking a character dev team.
We are still using Cubix characters in our live online demo.
The new characters will be patched into Ruin Online Nov. 15th.
It just goes to show, decent game characters can be made on a small budget if you're willing to put in some elbow grease.
Ari (Lead Developer @ BrokeAss Games)
*Special Thanks:
Jondo
Moe
Ashtara
Mr. Bones
Rex (Your work was a valuable learning aid.)
My little team of newbs is growing up.
2 of my team members and I have been working on some new characters for Ruin Online (www.brokeassgames.com).
Here is a rough video of some of the work.
Triangle Count: Around 4K.
The work is nearly complete and yes, those fingers are animating. :)
We have 35 finished animations (standard Torque Orc anims plus a couple for eye candy) and more are being made everyday.
The skeleton is a custom BVH compatible rig w/ 8 mount points, skis, cam and all the goodies.
We're adding jaw bones later this week for speech.
Biped is a great format but we felt BVH needed a chance for games too, and 3DSMax was beyond our budget.
The Cubix characters have carried us a long way and are a great asset to any team lacking a character dev team.
We are still using Cubix characters in our live online demo.
The new characters will be patched into Ruin Online Nov. 15th.
It just goes to show, decent game characters can be made on a small budget if you're willing to put in some elbow grease.
Ari (Lead Developer @ BrokeAss Games)
*Special Thanks:
Jondo
Moe
Ashtara
Mr. Bones
Rex (Your work was a valuable learning aid.)
About the author
http://www.youtube.com/user/BrokeAssGames
#2
10/29/2006 (9:42 am)
Awesome. i love the animation breakdance. was that motion captured? or manually done? and the vehicles look great too
#3
10/29/2006 (11:10 am)
It looks good, I like your animation. The character needs something to wear other than his "diaper" though, hehe. Also the crossbow thing is a bit comical, being so enormous and the way he twirls that around with one hand. 
#4
you'll get that joke in a couple months.
10/29/2006 (1:39 pm)
hey, it's Hugh Jackman in The Fountain.you'll get that joke in a couple months.
#5
10/30/2006 (3:22 am)
@T Squared: Some of the anims are done by hand, some are mocap. The kata is totally mocap. 
#6
Thanks.
PS: I didn't realize you are a 'neighbor' of sorts; Willits[if we're talking the same city] isn't that far away from the Bay Area...We visit Ft. Bragg/Noyo Harbor quite often and use the route 20 from Willits sometimes.
10/30/2006 (6:24 am)
You are welcome, Ari. I'm glad that I could be of some help with anything I've published in my discoveries DTS/DSQ & various modelling programs. For me, just the 'learning process' of accomplishing something undone before; is pretty much reward enough, credits of any kind are a nice bonus, ;). Thanks.
PS: I didn't realize you are a 'neighbor' of sorts; Willits[if we're talking the same city] isn't that far away from the Bay Area...We visit Ft. Bragg/Noyo Harbor quite often and use the route 20 from Willits sometimes.
#7
Yeah, credit was due. :)
Woah, hey neighbor!
I was born where you visit.
At one time or another our entire team has lived/worked in the bay area too.
Maybe we'll meet up for a roast some day.
10/30/2006 (6:46 am)
@Rex:Yeah, credit was due. :)
Woah, hey neighbor!
I was born where you visit.
At one time or another our entire team has lived/worked in the bay area too.
Maybe we'll meet up for a roast some day.
#8
10/30/2006 (8:42 am)
Good work Ari as usual. Just one note, GET SOME CLOTHING ON THAT GUY! ;)
#9
I do have one kind of off topic question, just for my own knowledge of the idie world, I was looking at your list of updates on your site and it seemed like a pretty good amount almost daily for a long stretch there and it made me wonder do you all still have other jobs or have you found a way to fund your indie project so you can focus on it?
10/30/2006 (9:58 am)
Project looks very nice so far, checked out a lot of the screenshots. I would say it gives me hope that I could one day make a succesfull indie project if it wasn't for the fact I read the part where you said you were pretty much all professional programmers ;-).I do have one kind of off topic question, just for my own knowledge of the idie world, I was looking at your list of updates on your site and it seemed like a pretty good amount almost daily for a long stretch there and it made me wonder do you all still have other jobs or have you found a way to fund your indie project so you can focus on it?
#10
10/30/2006 (10:10 am)
@J Sears - Ari is a vampire and doesn't require sleep.
#12
@J Sears: I'm a network admin, and I work from home alot.
@All: Thx for the feedback. :)
Here's some more screenies of work in progress:
*Screenshots were taken in MilkShape.
**The weapons are from third party packs.
10/31/2006 (1:58 pm)
@Jonathon: There's no such thing as vampires. It's just a co-incidence that nobody sees me till the sun goes down.@J Sears: I'm a network admin, and I work from home alot.
@All: Thx for the feedback. :)
Here's some more screenies of work in progress:
*Screenshots were taken in MilkShape.
**The weapons are from third party packs.
#13
10/31/2006 (2:09 pm)
We are releasing the male and female as a Torque character pack w/ source art soon. 
Torque Owner BrokeAss Games
BrokeAss Games
We tried to keep everything as "stock" as possible (except the skeleton) during character development.
Ari