Zombie RPG

[Architex]

A pic of the cemetary with added fog

[zknack]

Looking pretty good thus far Architex :-)


Have you considered generating normals & specular for the textures?

I think once you do that it'll pop amazingly well :-)

I'd also consider beveling a couple of the edges on the crosses in the graveyard,
just to help draw away from the sharpness of the edges?

If you'd like a couple of models for examples, I'd be willing.

Also, if you need help generating a normal map for the ground texture in the graveyard/on
the tombstones, let me know.

[Architex]

Thatnks for the tips!  Yeah, Im just going to add bumps and stuff when the world is more complete, not that hard to do.  I like to get the hard things done first in each task I need to complete.  The only thing I wouldn't mind having is some character template, but I'm not pressuring anyone with that.  Gekido is working on something that will help me out a ton.  I recently made an axe, today sometime I'm going to replace that with the knife weapon, just because I looks so cool.  Possibly I might make a bat as well. 

Things that are relatively easy to do are being pushed aside until I have the other things locked down.  For example, I'm thinking of using post-processing to use film grain in the game or might fiddle around with the other neat special fx, but that's not necessary for now while I'm building the game and testing it.  It might make it slower for all I know. 

Also coming up on the project agenda I feel the need to put a farm in the level.  One of those neighborhood houses look great for a farm house, so that's one thing out of the way.  But now, today, since it's so beautiful outside, I am going to see if I could go out and take pictures of some corn crops somewhere.  I'll probably have to drive a bit of ways, but it'll be a nice trip.   

[Squat]

I think the graveyard will come together once there's a creepy fence, some dead trees and maybe a tomb or two. I too could probably whip up some pretty decent tombstones rather quickly if you ever need it. That kind of thing is just fun all around, especially when you get to what it's gonna say on it...muhahhaha. Here's my favorite of all time:

"But he had the right of way"

[Squat]

I thought about another additional idea towards the notion of having day and night be different levels of action and danger. If you had civilians in your game, when it reached a certain time of day, they could all path to their houses and basically get off the streets at night. You could have them say something just before they leave and have it be sort of a massive movement of simple pathing. Once they get to their house, you could merely have them disappear (like Oblivian and Fallout) and the door be locked until morning. That would add a really huge and noticable tension to the world and would be rather simple to instruct the game to do it, especially if your civilians are basically props. Of course, this is only gonna work if you plan on civilians...which I think you should considering the game's scope and theme.

I kinda imagined it like this: You're in a town and there's people around, doing basically nothing. Maybe selling or something. You're in the middle of the street when you hear some horrible howling or screaching ambient sounds and then you see people running in all directions and disappearing. A couple minutes later and hordes of crap shows up all over the place and it's go time whether you're ready for it or not.

One may fear that the game will be boring during the day. You can have dungeons full of enemies at any time and there's nothing saying that night-creatures have to be the only threat. Other people, day zombies, zombie wolves...etc. You could just have night unleash particular types of enemies that may be more fearsome and it could be as minor or as major a part of the game's design as you want. Subtle is good, but balls out works too.

[Architex]

I also have my concept artwork that I want the zombies head to look like, and yes that IS my face in there, lol:

I'd have to say this is probably one of the best photo-manipulations I've done. 

[Squat]

now those are some scary eyebrows

[Architex]

haha, thanks squat, Im most likely going to use this image as a texture map for the head. 

[gekido]

My personal 'ideal zombie game' would have 2 modes:

1) barricade / defend

2) exploration

Essentially the characters could explore, find food, weapons etc during the day, and then at night, would have to barricade themselves inside a building or safe zone and defend themselves against waves of zombies.

Sorta like that will smith movie i guess.

A big piece of the 'day cycle' would be rebuilding your defenses that were wrecked the previous night, finding additional resources / ammunition etc

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THEN, throw in a destination or 'final goal' into the mix - so the player doesn't just stay in a single location for the entire game, but has an incentive to move from safe zone to safe zone in small 'bounds'...basically the day would consist of:

1) leave current safe zone, pack up whatever gear / etc that you have
2) move through area, scavenging for replacement gear / supplies
3) find new safe zone, build defensive perimeter
4) survive the night
5) rinse, repeat

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[pixel_legolas]

cool idea gekido, I am going to steal it totally

[Architex]

Whew!  It's been awhile.  As you may or may not know everybody, I am doing a massive change on the level.  I made a tester exe and ran the application of the previous world.  Unfortunately, the application runs soooo dang slow, I think my computer almost blue screened.  SO....Nooo Im NOT giving up, no.  THAT would be too easy.  I'm just going to have to shrink the world a bit.  The game obviously wont be as large as I first imagined.  However, this new idea will be a bit more memorable.