My Country, My Name - Part I
by Alexandre Ribeiro de Sa · 09/17/2010 (7:10 am) · 12 comments
This is my first post about the our new game development here in TorquePowered.com blog.
In this blog I'll try to say a little about our research to try to find the best way to prepare all the characters from our game.
First I'll give a very small intro about our game, you will can find much more info in our blog later, but "My Country, My Name" is a 2D platform action game for PC and MAC where two team each one with 2 to 4 players need to control a small squad team to take a oil rig control.
Now about the art, all the art and animation was done using something very like a traditional animation, yes, old-style animation, with no bones, no 3D just pictures... We did this in our alpha release to test the gameplay, and the result was amazing! But, we have a small (or big) problem, we are a small studio, all the animation was done by just one guy, and this take lots of time! And to finish, our time isn't big... Ok, we need to find a easy way to do this job but we didn't like to lose the hand made animation style quality...
So, in the beginning of this week I'm was doing some tests with the TGB and I've got some small limitations, the same limitations from the first alpha release, and I think the biggest was mount the weapons in the sprite animation, the true is, I didn't have found a good way to do that without doing some modification in the core, and this is a problem, you remember about the "no time". And a nice solution was, "hey, let's use 3D shapes!" I've done some tests, and YES! Can I use mount nodes :D :D :D this is very good and can save so many time!!!
And here start the fun past! How convert a 2D picture to 3D but we like to keep the 2D style?!
First get a vector character and "destroy" everything in small parts... Probably I almost killed the animator when I said that xD hahaha
But, the job was done, now, find how to create the 2D character in a 3D software.
If you have any idea about 3D modeling you know what we did ;)
BUT! Was too ease, we got a very big problem, was the documentation how to prepare the 3D model for T2D was very weak, to make the model export we was need to read so many different tutorials and wikis to try to complete all the holes but we did! We exported with success a "2D" character from a 3D software! :D (We will write about that in T2D wiki later ;D)
(Here one test, one problem was, how to arrange the Z-Sort)
Now, we did, and next week we will start the character class and test some animations, so, next week I'll write the second part of this small blog serie ;)
If you like to know more about our game, visit our blog and follow our twitter ;)
All the best!!! :D
In this blog I'll try to say a little about our research to try to find the best way to prepare all the characters from our game.
First I'll give a very small intro about our game, you will can find much more info in our blog later, but "My Country, My Name" is a 2D platform action game for PC and MAC where two team each one with 2 to 4 players need to control a small squad team to take a oil rig control.
Now about the art, all the art and animation was done using something very like a traditional animation, yes, old-style animation, with no bones, no 3D just pictures... We did this in our alpha release to test the gameplay, and the result was amazing! But, we have a small (or big) problem, we are a small studio, all the animation was done by just one guy, and this take lots of time! And to finish, our time isn't big... Ok, we need to find a easy way to do this job but we didn't like to lose the hand made animation style quality...
So, in the beginning of this week I'm was doing some tests with the TGB and I've got some small limitations, the same limitations from the first alpha release, and I think the biggest was mount the weapons in the sprite animation, the true is, I didn't have found a good way to do that without doing some modification in the core, and this is a problem, you remember about the "no time". And a nice solution was, "hey, let's use 3D shapes!" I've done some tests, and YES! Can I use mount nodes :D :D :D this is very good and can save so many time!!!
And here start the fun past! How convert a 2D picture to 3D but we like to keep the 2D style?!
First get a vector character and "destroy" everything in small parts... Probably I almost killed the animator when I said that xD hahaha
But, the job was done, now, find how to create the 2D character in a 3D software.
If you have any idea about 3D modeling you know what we did ;)
BUT! Was too ease, we got a very big problem, was the documentation how to prepare the 3D model for T2D was very weak, to make the model export we was need to read so many different tutorials and wikis to try to complete all the holes but we did! We exported with success a "2D" character from a 3D software! :D (We will write about that in T2D wiki later ;D)
(Here one test, one problem was, how to arrange the Z-Sort)
Now, we did, and next week we will start the character class and test some animations, so, next week I'll write the second part of this small blog serie ;)
If you like to know more about our game, visit our blog and follow our twitter ;)
All the best!!! :D
About the author
now with an iPod :D
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#2
I like the art style. It really stands out for me. Looking good.
- Dave
09/17/2010 (2:34 pm)
Greetings!I like the art style. It really stands out for me. Looking good.
- Dave
#3
@David: Thanks, we like to develop something different, not just another 2D Anime Style game :)
09/18/2010 (1:17 am)
@Daniel: Thanks, this video is from the alpha version, the next version is much better ;)@David: Thanks, we like to develop something different, not just another 2D Anime Style game :)
#4
09/18/2010 (10:41 am)
Very interesting art style, look forward to seeing more in future :) 
#6
Small note: The plan was write something about the characters in the next post, but I think I'll post about network with RakNet... :)
09/20/2010 (7:41 pm)
@Leroy and Rene: Thanks :D :D :DSmall note: The plan was write something about the characters in the next post, but I think I'll post about network with RakNet... :)
#7
09/21/2010 (5:05 pm)
Congrats, the art is really great. Our team also were looking for some animation by parts possibility in T2D for our unannounced project. And we found this scrip resource - http://www.torquepowered.com/community/resources/view/8660. We actually didn't tried it yet to tell if it works, but it seems just exactly what you need and without any 3D animations export headaches. Anyway, good luck with your project :)
#8
You are using something like this in your game?!
Will be great if they add some way to set the pivot position in the new T2D... This is a very easy way to solve this problem with no use of 3D objects :)
In this sample you can see how great a feature like this is... :D
09/24/2010 (10:17 pm)
Hey Valentine, this is a very nice sample.You are using something like this in your game?!
Will be great if they add some way to set the pivot position in the new T2D... This is a very easy way to solve this problem with no use of 3D objects :)
In this sample you can see how great a feature like this is... :D
#9
09/26/2010 (5:12 pm)
Nope, we didn't try any animation by part system yet, because we are still in preproduction stage with our new project. But after some discussions, we decided that it will be easier for as to do animations in our game the way you did it. So we eagerly awaiting you tutorials in T2D. :)
#10
For the final, we will need to compile a custom 3DSMAX exporter plugin build.
10/05/2010 (4:38 pm)
@Valentine the problem was much more hard to solve than we expected, I'll write our current (but not final) solution today in a new post.For the final, we will need to compile a custom 3DSMAX exporter plugin build.
#11
10/19/2010 (6:09 pm)
Tnx, we will definitely wait for you post before starting any animation work.
#12
This is sad but we didn't know the Torque future yet, but this is the industry, even the Ubisoft Brazil had the same problem, but we hope everything got solved asap :(
Thats why I'm doing the posts in my blog, if it become offline :(
So, if someone like to keep in contact, here my skype --> alexandre-vortexgamestudios
All the best!!!
12/16/2010 (1:12 pm)
Hello everyone, I did a post about it at our devblog at blogs.vortexgamestudios.com.br/mycountrymyname :)This is sad but we didn't know the Torque future yet, but this is the industry, even the Ubisoft Brazil had the same problem, but we hope everything got solved asap :(
Thats why I'm doing the posts in my blog, if it become offline :(
So, if someone like to keep in contact, here my skype --> alexandre-vortexgamestudios
All the best!!!
Torque Owner D Fasel
Game 3D