Myst Online: Uru Live

It has returned!!!

ZBrush WIP

I downloaded the ZBrush 30 day trial. This is the first thing I did with it. It's not complete and this isn't the highest subdivision level, mainly because Blender chokes when trying to load such a large file. Plus I had to use decimate on it to knock it down so I could get Blender to do anything beside show a slideshow while moving things around. The low mesh density is obvious around the eyes in the closeup. I'm still learning it and trying to figure out a proper workflow so hopefully, I'll get these problems worked out. I may have to buy more RAM and switch to Windows 7 64-bit for better performance.

Anyway, I wanted to see how ZBrush stacks up to various FLOSS sculpting-style modelling tools. There's no comparison, ZBrush blows them all away. I think I'm going to have lay down the cash for this application.

Zlythy Team

I was fortunate enough to stumble into a real live, experienced game programmer on deviantART! I guess dA is finally useful for something after all these years. His name is Steven Tomlinson and lives in the UK. I believe this is his first indie project however he's work on quite a few AAA games on all the major consoles for the last 15 years as well as PC. Most of his experience is with Windows. However, we are going to be using cross platform, open source componenets so it should be fairly easy to port to Mac and Linux. We are moving from Blender Game Engine to Ogre a proprietary 3d engine that Steven created. I will still be using Blender to create all my 3d assets. Other components we will be using are Bullet for physics and OIS for input. We still need to decide on the audio engine. Maybe OpenAL? I have no clue at this point.

I also have a guy doing some soundscaping. Mattias Häggström Gerdt from Sweden. Here's a demo track he did for me: Zlythy 1v2.mp3
Listen to his music and be sure to download his awesomely chill, free album "We Express Ourselves With T-Shirts" - http://anosou.com/

This is a big shift. I'm part of a team now. I've quickly gone from one guy to a three person team spread across Europe! This is really cool! :D

Caval - 6th World Screenshot

I'm still not completely happy with it but I need to move on to the next world.

Caval - 6th World Concept

Unlike the other levels up to this point, Caval is visually "open." Whereas the other worlds are swimming in fog and long shadows, Caval by contrast has virtually no haze at all. Unobstructed views will show an ocean seemingly visible all the way to the horizon. I've never done anything like this so I'm not sure how I'm going to accomplish it. I'm essentially making this up as I'm going along.

One of the things I wasn't paying to much attention to was the number of faces, though I knew I shouldn't have too many for performance reasons. At first they were all quads but I went back and knocked down the size of alot of the meshes and converted them to tris. I still don't know what the hell I'm doing, probably just making a mess. :D

Muusont Screenshot

New in-game screen:

From ZLYTHY

Trite But True

People that seek genuine-ness in art can spot a fake. It sounds trite but you do have to be true to your interests, feelings and inner senses. That is the only satisfaction if you desire to be a "hard core" artist. Now I'm not saying there's anything wrong with making a buck off your work but you need to ask yourself, "is this enough for me?" If the answer is "no," then you probably won't be very happy pursuing that path in the long run. Now if you can make a living doing what you love, that is the ideal, isn't it? Hell, as an artist, you're lucky if anyone even considers your art, let alone PAYS for it.

So I guess what I'm saying is that you shouldn't be afraid to do what you love. Wear your influences and your heart on your sleeve. If people laugh, hey, at least they noticed.

And remember, irony is for cowards.