Smiers

Neirda · Post by **Neirda** » Fri Oct 26, 2007 2:46 am

Although it should not be considered as a real project, I wanted to introduce you to some of my graphical works wih Irrlicht.

It is originally planned to be an online community game. Not a MMOG, just a kind of improved chat.
It would be composed of 4 different environnements : desert, forest, snowy plain, and a seaside mountain. Every player may chose its environnement and be a resident in it. With small cities in each "map", the interesting point would be that people can create guilds and get housing, clothing and various advantages acording to different elements such as the size of their guild, or their position inside this guild. They could also elect a leader who could have more powers such as defining relationships towards other residents.
Basically, the main and only point is that is is up to players to get more or less powers. Human factor would be the key of everything.

This is a very quick draw, I actually have a lot of ideas for features to make this project (somehow I can't call that a game) really funny, but there is no point to detail.

Though it is going very slowly because I have really few time to work on it. Whatever, that is not really my ambition, I just want to keep having fun with designing, and I just told you so that you can have a quick background of what I am doing.
I am now working on creating graphics, keeping this idea as a possible final step for what I do, may it ever be achieved or not. Hope you can enjoy the few screenshots I am able to give you now :

Here is real-time renders of the Forest world using Irrlicht,

Here, two Artworks presenting the Forest-style city.

Here is an Artwork of the Desert city, I drawed this long ago but decided to use it for the project.

Here is some very early developpement of the Desert. Just introducing some vegetation.

Hope you will enjoy watching as much as I enjoy making. I am opened to any comment/suggestion for improvements.

Please remember that I only do that for fun and have no big ambition about it.

Neirda

anandh · Post by **anandh** » Fri Oct 26, 2007 3:34 am

Hi Neirda,
Overall concept was nice.
Wow Amazing Art Work.
How is the performance?

Zeuss · Post by **Zeuss** » Fri Oct 26, 2007 4:03 am

That looks really good Neirda. With some good lighting that will look fantastic.

Like anandh said, what kinda of performance are you getting, and what kind of machine are you running it on as well as the rough triangle count for the scenes being drawn?

Me and my housemate had a similar idea, of a pub social game, where it is just a town centre with lots of pubs and mini games within them (like darts, pool, bowling, card games etc).

The main thing with projects is so long as its rewarding, interesting and fun for you, thats all tha matters.

Neirda · Post by **Neirda** » Fri Oct 26, 2007 4:34 am

Thanks all !
I am working on my HP laptop, average performances
AMD Turion64 2 x 1Ghz
2GB RAM
Geforce Go7200
Microsoft Windows Vista 32bits
Nothing so exciting

I will check the polycount and FPS later, but so far I never experienced any framerate drop, even when I tried to duplicate 15 times some of my most complex meshes for testing.

rogerborg · Post by **rogerborg** » Fri Oct 26, 2007 9:56 am

Beautiful! Thanks for sharing those images with us, and the very best of luck with it.

Virion · Post by **Virion** » Fri Oct 26, 2007 11:02 am

awesome!

fmx · Post by **fmx** » Fri Oct 26, 2007 6:47 pm

awesome it is

its looking really peachy in Irrlicht, and your CGs are quite impressive.
you've sure got some talent to make it look as good as it does.

I would image that the poly-count is relatively low, but its just how damn good your art/texturing is which makes it feel so professional.

Best of luck with the project Neirda!

Midnight · Post by **Midnight** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 8:53 am

Monochrome wrote:the graphics and concept are great. too bad its a faggot game.

lol how come I could never get away with being that harsh?

the graphics are reminiscent of WoW.. I agree the concept is odd.

I gather this is a bit like SL with a twist.

Please remember that I only do that for fun and have no big ambition about it.

that's just wise but don't expect you won't get flame/bashed about it anyways.. it's nice artwork IDK if it was worth your overwhelming desire to show us but regardless it looks decent and you seem proud.

that's a good sign. good luck!'

I'm thinking it looks like you ate to many fly amantha mushrooms in oblivion and this is the hallucinations that followed.

Neirda · Post by **Neirda** » Mon Oct 29, 2007 12:46 am

I have no problem with being blamed. If I was not ready for that I wouldn't have shown it on a public board. Anyway, for now I am OK with critics given and I quite agree.

Do not forget that the concept is not an important point for now. However, I know how bad the reputation of online game are now. I just wanted to introduce an attempt for new mechanisms. Basically what I want is replace leveling, or money (talking about SL) with socialization talent. If I had enough programming skill I'd like to introduce adventures that would put the kingdoms in competition with each other, but for now I just keep it very simple.

The graphics are quite low-poly and colourful, I knew I would be compared to WoW and I won't deny it. For my defense I would say that it was also my style before I knew WoW (And to be perfectly honnest, I take the risk to be bullied to death I know but I quite like the work made by designers on this game, considering the engine they had to work on). But also that it makes me able to display a lot of meshes in a scene with keeping good performances. It would not be possible otherwise.
I think the ending results will differ from WoW anyway as I plan to use ground foliages a lot. Any other advice on this purpose is welcome.
As for inside scenes, I plan to keep it colourful to but much more detailed as the performances won't be a big problem.

Thanks again to all.

Neirda · Post by **Neirda** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 8:24 am

Here are two new screenshots, introducing the desert city.

Virion · Post by **Virion** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 10:35 am

*thumbs*
the progress is fast.

Nadro · Post by **Nadro** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 5:25 pm

It's look great:) Good work Neirda;)

fmx · Post by **fmx** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 7:36 pm

wow, its looking really impressive so far.

maybe you could add bump-mapping to bring out the stonework a littlebit?

Monochrome · Post by **Monochrome** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 3:15 pm

This is really getting nifty. Make sure you improve that concept though. The current layout seems to able to support a series of decent concepts, from RPGs, hack n slashes and mmorpgs.

Midnight · Post by **Midnight** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 3:31 pm

I don't think online games have a bad reputation at all.
I think it's just overly ambitious projects and people.

on another note there is far too much yellow for this to be any good. I feel like I'm staring at the sun with fishing glasses.

models look good but the yellow saturation makes it ugly to me.

also the z scaling looks completely distorted idk if you wanted that low poly WoW look but I think it's crap.

good to see someone doing something though.