A daunting task ahead of us

I spent the day yesterday trying to get an overview of the amount of content work we have ahead of us, and I must admit, once I had checked the few things that were done off of the list, I felt a bit bummed. On the art side, we have a lot left to do. (Note that all rooms are not even featured in this list, (!!!))

On top of this backdrop list, we have a another bizarrely long  list for characters and animations that, to say the least, is a bit intimidating. Fortunately for us, this is the stuff we love to do. It may look like slow progress in the big picture, but here at our workstations, pixels and polygons are being slapped in place by the second, and I’m happy to report that what we have so far is looking very promising.

Shader experiments

Today we have been working on translating our 2D low-res characters into 3D. In the prototype of JD there are roughly 18 characters, so it may take some time before all the models are polished and ready for animation. The second part of the day we spent doing shader experiments. Everything is still work in progress but this first test confirms that we are on the right path and that a little bit of polish should be all that’s needed to take it all the way.

Character modelling begins

I’m happy to say that me and Henrik have spent the entire day getting down and dirty with actual character 3d modeling for the Journey Down, and it’s moving along nicely!

Seen to the left is “Bozi”, one of the two goons causing all the trouble for Bwana and his crew. We figured we should start the 3d transition with the minor characters first, to really get the hang of it before we start getting rough on the main cast.

Hopefully we will be able to show off some real renders soon!