3DWings of Saint Nazaire (Game Art) Large Images!

Howard Day

Hey, guys! I haven't been around here in any substantial way in a while! Anyhow, So a little history; I had been working on a Pixel-arty side scroller game about a year ago. All the work I had for this game was stored on an external hard drive, with only intermittent manual backups. one day, that drive fell off of my laptop, and hit the floor while data was being read - instant headcrash. I lost all the work I had done. After I was done freaking out, and had gone through the final stages of mourning, I decided to start a new side project, rather than try and re-do all the art that I had already done. This is that project. It's called DeadSilent, and the goal is to neatly blend two older genres of game I used to enjoy a great deal: The Adventure game, and the Space Simulator. My buddy Jan Simon, who I've worked on projects with before, agreed to help out. We're going for a streamlined extension of the AGS ( http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/ ) system with a custom module for the spaceflight portions. We're using the old Lucasarts adventure games as a reference, and the first two Wing Commander games for the spaceflight module. That means we'll be using sprites for the various spaceships, prerendered from high-red 3d models.
The working resolution of the game will be 640x400, in most cases it will be magnified to 2x.

In the universe, there are three major human factions, mostly working together against an alien invasion. They are the Luyten's Star (which has just been overrun by invading fleets of squiddy aliens) Procyon (Absorbing the vast majority of the refugees from the occupied systems), and the Colonists of Ross 614; the planet of Goldilocks ( who are financing the military expansion of the Proxxies, and have very little in the way of standing defenses themselves).
Not much is known about the aliens - only that they are numerically superior, mostly technologically similar to the human navies, and that they are water-breathers.

Here's a mock up of one of the cinematics from the intro...


Here are a couple of rooms from the AGS part, these take place on the LSC Borneo; immediately after it was almost destroyed in a space battle.




Here are some shots from the spaceflight side of the game:
Cockpit, for the Copperhead

Some special FX -

Some of the fighters:



And some of the capital ships:
Borneo, the exteriors of the AGS portions above, in cleanpristine and battledamaged versions:


Other remaining support ships from the decimated LSC navy you'll run into on missions:



And from the PSN Navy, the ship you will spend the game flying from:



So there! Major art dump. I'll be posting more later, but for the most part - I'm looking for critique on all of this - does it look consistent? Looking at it now...I think I'm going to re-do some of the markings and coloration on the fighters and transport to be more along the lines of the capital ships. Any comments at all, really! Next post will have some of the alien ships on display.
Enjoy!

IRML

I was looking at an old thread of yours the other day, and some of the WIP images had changed to what looked like a cockpit view of a ship flying over some pixelly mountains, it looked really cool, old school but detailed looking, was that anything to do with this?

Howard Day

Indeed it does! I believe these are the shots to which you refer?






Those are indeed the test shots for a later, ground based, level in the game. There will be several of these.
Good eye, IRML!

Coolhand

wow thats fantastic work, that cockpit in particular is great... Those colour schemes are pure Foss too. Sorry to hear you lost you work, i'd have liked to play your game, i'm working on something similar - ish with a friend, great fun painting pixels.

floodcasso2

hey howard! Long time no see! Great work as usual

Oh btw, what ever happened to that Wing Commander game you were working on? That looked pretty awesome as well!

salsa

Nice. How did you do the engine effects?

IRML

Howard Day wrote: »

I believe these are the shots to which you refer?

Those are indeed the test shots for a later, ground based, level in the game. There will be several of these.
Good eye, IRML!

yeah those were the ones, they look brilliant

so will this game be a proper published release then? I'm already interested in it

Howard Day

Coolhand: Thanks, man! I'd love to get a look at your pixelly side project.

floodcasso2: Indeed! Talk about a blast from the past! How have you been, sir? It's been... years, I think. The WC game has... well, at best it's on hiatus, and it's far more likely to be dead. Unfortunately so. I'm focusing on this in the meantime.

salsa: Thanks. When you say engine effects, do you mean on the fighters? or the cap ships? Either way it's similar...a gradient ramp mapped to the X axis, in the self-illumination slot. I can post some examples if you'd like?

EDIT: IRML: Heh, thanks. Well, we're looking to release a demo/first chapter by April next year... It will most likely be free, with maybe a donations link for those who would wish to help out. That deadline is pretty conservative - I'd say on the art side we're close to 75% of the way there already, and I've been working on this on and off for around a year already. I have mostly cinematics and Cockpit UI left to do, with just a few characters for the AGS portions outstanding.

floodcasso2

it has been years indeed! I've been well. Too busy with the photography business and homeownership to do as much modeling as I'd like to anymore, but I'm still around here once in a while. Sorry to hear it's dead. It looked like it had a lot of promise. Looking forward very much to this game as well though!

salsa

Howard Day wrote: »

Coolhand:
salsa: Thanks. When you say engine effects, do you mean on the fighters? or the cap ships? Either way it's similar...a gradient ramp mapped to the X axis, in the self-illumination slot. I can post some examples if you'd like?

Thanks, and if you don't mind, that's be awesome. (learning MAX right now, going to try and see if I can do panel lines with splines.

Capt Dave

Cool stuff!

Howard Day

Floodcasso2: Cool. Good luck with the photography business!

salsa: http://www.hedfiles.net/engineexample.zip Good luck. It's missing maps but should work for your uses.

Thanks, Capt Dave!

madmatt

Seems to be a masterpiece!!!

Bye

Coolhand

Howard Day wrote: »

Coolhand: Thanks, man! I'd love to get a look at your pixelly side project.

Its a long way off from being a game but it'll be available on pc and xbox as an indy title (developed using XNA) When the time comes I'll be sure to send you a copy for either platform if you're interested.:)

Knight26

Arrgh a new Howard project and I can't see it at work, curse you AF internet, curse you!!!

Armondikov

Looks exciting. I miss the old point-and-click stuff and combining that with old-skool X-Wing or Wing Commander is a great idea.

Comco

Fancy seeing you around these parts again, Howard.

Great to see what you've been working on mate. Your work is always inspiring, in terms of design and quality. The ships and environments look brilliant. The only ship that stands out as being a little inconsistent with the others is the Class-B Destroyer. And then, only for fact that the texturing on the front of the ship is quite plain compared to some of the other ships, with just a white and red stripe. Maybe some yellow/black/grey markings could break up that area a little.

BTW, I love the homage to the Tiger's Claw on the Borneo.

I'd definitely pay money to play this.

And please tell me we'll be shooting baddies down those sweet corridors...

Melak

Cool to see the ship with the glowing bay again. Even has it's own fleet of spin-offs now
Very cool work

A bit of an off topic question, but do you still have any pictures or the animation you did of your Mars orbit transfer vehicle?
That was some very nice work, which I wouldn't mind looking at again , and someone was looking for that here recently.

Comco

If you haven't already, Howard, you need to put all these clips up on a Youtube channel. I remember some great clips of your Star Wars republic ship blasting away with ion cannons or something along those lines, too. :cool:

Starship

Welcome back old beam!
Looks dammed cool my friend! The shape and painting of those ships makes me remember the old TTA books too (good times...).

kippa

I like the colour scheme, for some reason it remains me of the comic 2000AD.

lennier1

Sweet!
Another Howard Day project and even an homage to the good old times of gaming.

Haturod

Howard Day wrote: »

Coolhand: Thanks, man! I'd love to get a look at your pixelly side project.

floodcasso2: Indeed! Talk about a blast from the past! How have you been, sir? It's been... years, I think. The WC game has... well, at best it's on hiatus, and it's far more likely to be dead. Unfortunately so. I'm focusing on this in the meantime.

salsa: Thanks. When you say engine effects, do you mean on the fighters? or the cap ships? Either way it's similar...a gradient ramp mapped to the X axis, in the self-illumination slot. I can post some examples if you'd like?

EDIT: IRML: Heh, thanks. Well, we're looking to release a demo/first chapter by April next year... It will most likely be free, with maybe a donations link for those who would wish to help out. That deadline is pretty conservative - I'd say on the art side we're close to 75% of the way there already, and I've been working on this on and off for around a year already. I have mostly cinematics and Cockpit UI left to do, with just a few characters for the AGS portions outstanding.

Would this WC game be Vegastrike? If so, did you visit a certain IRC channel owned by someone who shared your first name? If so, I know who you are And you might remember me

Sukhoi_Flagon

some absolutley awesome work there howard! really like the designs there, and the interior shots have some real atmosphere! keep it coming!

Dimitriy

This is beyond awesome. This is pro

We want to see more. Moar, we say!

BolianAdmiral

Freaking awesome... I love the nod to the Homeworld look.

Schimpfy

Knight26 wrote: »

Arrgh a new Howard project and I can't see it at work, curse you AF internet, curse you!!!

I'm sitting here on my awesome AF computer thinking the exact same thing.

Coota0

Juvat wrote: »

I'm sitting here on my awesome AF computer thinking the exact same thing.

Army internet is much more cooperative, I can even go to Youtube.

Howard Day

madmatt: Thanks, man! I'm glad you like it.
Coolhand:That sounds great... I'm definitely interested.
Knight26: Hehe, hopefully you've gotten a chance to see it by now - but for the future, I can post attachments, if that helps?
Armondikov: Yes! I am nothing if not a huge fan of retro games... I've got a sort of obsession. :P
Comco: Yep, good to be back. I'm glad you like what you see...And I agree with the crit of the Class B - I'll definitely be tweaking that one to be a bit more broken up... And I'm glad you like the Claw Homage, I am particularly fond of that old bird. And, no - there won't be any combat in those corridors - those are from the very beginning of the game - there's a lot of puzzle solving, and lots of story, but not much combat or action. Later, there definitely will be, though.
Melak: Thanks.. I loved that ship, and I'm tickled I get to make more. And yes, I do!
http://www.hedfiles.net/clarke/Final.mov (be warned, it's huge)
Comco: Yeah, probably a good idea - If I can track them down, that is. :P
Starship: Thanks. I love those old TTA books - they were definitely an inspiration!
kippa: Hmm.. Interesting. Can't say I've looked at those...ever.
lennier1: Awww, yeah! I hope I can get this one out there!
Haturod: Ummm...No, the WC game was Pioneer - Here's a link to the forum: http://www.crius.net/zone/forumdisplay.php?f=28
And It's no mystery who I am - That's my real name.
Sukhoi_Flagon: Cool, I'm glad you like it! Some of the later corridors will be less beat up - It'll be a challenge to maintain that atmosphere.
Dimitriy: Your wish, My command.
BolianAdmiral: Thanks! Definitely another influence dear to my heart!
Juvat: Curse you, AF!

Okay, more art! I'd like to introduce you to the enemies in the game - Not really come up with a name for them yet, but here are 4 main opponents you'll be facing...I'm working on a 5th now, and there will be at least one more bomber/ranged enemy. I then have to do the mid-sized and capital ships. Some of you might recognize some of these from previous 3d efforts...They are definitely favorites of mine.





And some related Alien FX:


Still more to come, when I finish the next fighter, and some more effects as well...

Enjoy!

IRML

animated PNGs? interesting, I've not seen that done before

Melak

Heh, nice to see these aliens getting some more screentime as well

And thanks for the link