Blog for Leathel Grody at GarageGames.com

Foundations of Hope pre-Alpha 2.0

Leathel Grody — 2008-05-23T14:39:25+00:00

Game Name: Foundations of Hope Online
Technology: TGE + Torque MMO Kit
Genre: Christian Fantasy MMORPG
Company: Lethal Games Corporation
Game Website: Foundations of Hope Online

FoHO pre-Alpha 2.0

I haven't been posting any screenshots or updates, mainly because I have been too busy. A month ago I opened up what I call my pre-Alpha to a very small group. It is nothing like the end game, but it is something for some of the kids to run around and check things out while I add code or zones. They have kept me busy finding things for me to fix unfortunately. It has been good though. There have been many things that worked in Single Player, but didn't work or crashed the Online Game. So better to find them now before I go to a real Alpha or Beta.

Besides that I spent a week trying to get the code all caught up. I spent a few days trying to add all the code changes that Prairie Games has been adding to MoM and finally opted to try out Talentraspel's patches. Everything I wanted to add(isFacing, immediate relogging, death animations) was already being added to the kit. Trying to keep up with all the code changes was keeping me from doing the art assets. When you are a one-man team, time is limited. Using Talentraspel's new patch system got me caught up on the code side quickly and I have been able to move on to getting more zones put out. It also is a whole cheaper than bring somebody on my staff to do such activities.

Currently I have only implemented five of the 20+ zones so a ton more work to do. Even with those five zones, I am only throwing out critter spawns all over. I haven't had time to create quests or work anything into the story plot of the game. But still the testers have been having fun. My 4 year old son and 11 year old daughter have been two of my biggest testers. They have been really enjoying "Daddy's Game".

Although I could have had some type of demo ready for the MyDream Contest, it would have not been anything similar to the final game so I opted not to supply one. I have atleast another 6 months before I am probably close maybe an actual Alpha version. That doesn't even count a whole bunch of stuff I need to do to tie my website system into the games database.

So here is my patch list of what all has happened the last month.

Foundations of Hope Online Pre-Alpha Patch List

Pre-Alpha 2.0 5-20-2008
-Major updates!
-Major amounts of background coding updates(server and client side).
-Removed moving stops casting(for now anyways).
-Added death animations.
-Two files download in patcher.
-Character is saved on log out.
-Immediate login can now be done(used to wait 2 minutes).
-Deleting character now requires you to type in their name.
-New Public Name accounts will e-mail password instead of giving it instantly.
-Quit option closes program totally.
-Flying mobs now have glide animation.
-When Feign death and flying, character will fall to ground.
-Readded random spawn names to critters(for now).
-Added Encyclopedia

Pre-Alpha 1.13 5-17-2008
-Lowered Disciple Paul in Detroit SW zone to Level 30

Pre-Alpha 1.12 5-14-2008
-Implemented that you must be facing target for melee combat.
-Implemented that you must be facing target for ranged combat.
-Implemented that you must be facing targe for spells.
-Can backstab up to 10 levels higher above own.
-To backstab you must be behind target.

Pre-Alpha 1.11 5-13-2008
-Fixed going through wall problem!!!
-Implemented that you cannot cast and move at the same time in Single Player.
-Implemented backward and swim backward speed 1/2 speed.
-Lowered speed when moving sideways
-Implemented /walk on and /walk off

Pre-Alpha 1.10 5-12-2008
-Added ability to restrict items by gender.
-Added Female Special Forces and Paladin armor
-Removed random loot. Hopefully you won't get weapons from animals.

Pre-Alpha 1.9 5-6-2008
-Made Realm versus Realm default.
-Made RvR happen if you zone.
-Made PvE only an option if you die and are bound in the same zone.

Pre-Alpha 1.8 5-5-2008
-added /respawn incase you get stuck

Pre-Alpha 1.7 5-5-2008
-Added Mackinac back in. +20 Critters on bridge(North of Great Wall)
-Added Human Heavy Armor Vendor in Mackinac
-Added The Troit Spiritual Warfare Realm(see Disciple Peter in The Troit).

Pre-Alpha 1.6 4-30-2008
-Added Bindstone markers
-Changed Troll Chieftan to Level 30. Removed from The Troit
-Added Scouts to Great Wall zone
-Added Saurian Vendors to Great Wall zone
-Added Human Light Armor Vendor to The Troit
-Added Human Medium Armor Vendor to The Great Wall

Pre-Alpha 1.5 4-28-2008
-Removed zoom mouse function. Was crashing zones.

Pre-Alpha 1.4 4-26-2008
-Made Guard Trevor and Mellion level 30
-Added The Great Wall and The Bayou zones(follow path South West of The Troit)
-Nothing in The Great Wall zone just head south
-The Bayou has critters level 10+ and above.

Pre-Alpha 1.3 4-23-2008
-Made Wolves Level 3

Pre-Alpha 1.2 4-22-2008
-E-mail(new accounts and lost password) setup
-Added Bow Vendor
-Removed Food and Drink from Wolves and Bears
-Added Chef Ramsey to buy food and drink(at the inn)
-Added Innkeeper Dora(at the inn)
-Added Banker Eliza(at the inn)
-Added Disciple Peter(Disciple Spells)

Pre-Alpha 1.1 4-19-2008
- Online Working
- Replaced Mysticism with Spirituality
- Removed a specific sword from Weapons Vendor
-------------------------
Here are some screenshots that have not been posted here. Ah, what we would do without content packs.

This is the beginning of the Mackinac Bridge. The model is actually the 3D-Diggers's Brooklyn Bridge, but it is a good place holder. Hopefully the Bridge will be a capture the flag location if that ever gets worked out.

Mackinac Bridge(kind of)

Grand Canyon

The Bayous

The Troit's Spiritual Warfare Realm

Foundations of Hope: Some AFX

Leathel Grody — 2008-01-31T14:12:51+00:00

Game Name: Foundations of Hope Online
Technology: TGE + Torque MMO Kit
Genre: Christian Fantasy MMORPG
Company: Lethal Games Corporation
Game Website: Foundations of Hope Online

Well I was hoping my AFX blog would have some cool new spells and special effects, but well, it doesn't. I will go back and modify and create my own effects at a later time, but most of my time was going through the current AFX scripts and splitting it up into elements that would not kill the frame rates of a MMORPG and that would work with the PG MMOKIT. The kit does not use AFX like base TGE does and the effects need to be split into a casting, projectile, and target(end) phase. This required alot of timing changes. Not huge work, just time consuming to start game, modify, start game, modify, until I was finally happy with the timing of events. All in all, I had an absolute blast(pun included) with it. The special effects are probably my favorite part so far of the game development.

Add in the Explosion Pack and even more fun.

I developed many different combos, but FRAPS would kill my machine and cause some very jerky movies. So these are the ones I could get some good movies of.

These are all higher level type spells. The frame rates would drop 10-15 during the casting and explosion, so really wouldn't want everybody doing these all the time.

Example 1:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTqm4SPbjYc

Example 2:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHWHbOQW1ek

Example 3:
Not much with Example 3. In my book series the lizard species is able to create the illusion that they are actually humans. I wanted to show my players how this has been incorporated into the game. It is going to make some fun PvP :)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz6bQVlsSl4

Foundations of Hope - A Year in Review[Image Warning]

Leathel Grody — 2007-12-30T17:04:46+00:00

Game Name: Foundations of Hope Online
Technology: TGE + Torque MMO Kit
Genre: Christian Fantasy MMORPG
Company: Lethal Games Corporation
Game Website: Foundations of Hope Online

Background:
The Foundations of Hope Online is the online game based on my Christian Young Adult Fantasy book series and is being marketed as a Christian Fantasy MMORPG.

Goal:
To create a Christian acceptable game that can be played and accepted by both mainstream and Christian players.

Foundations of Hope Online a year in review. To look back at what has transpired over the past year helps to look at what has been achieved in the overall picture of things. I am usually focused on tasks day-to-day or week-to-week. In the beginning of this year I was still using RealmCrafter, but decided to switch over to use PG's MMOKit instead. I had never touched Torque before. So all my RC Models had to be scrapped and I had to learn the adventure in modeling for Torque. Using fragMOTION, UU3D, and Milkshape is quite an adventure without any tutorials, but I finally figured jumps and hurdles and the process works great.

Then I had to move on and learn about Torque's terrain and .dif formats. I finally began to understand the Torque editor. It always cool for things to finally click and what once was a puzzle of choices becomes an understanding. I have come to the conclusion that for now I will have to rely on .dif content packs. I just have not had time to sit down and work with Constructor enough. Hopefully I will be able to replace buildings later, but for now that is not an option to make the DreamGames Contest deadline.

Next I moved into trying to understand the massive amount of python involved in the MMOKit. I probably have touched on only 25% of what is there. I just take it in bits as per what I am working on. Server, Spells, NPCs, etc... Each little bit teaches me to add to the big picture.

Currently, I have been working on the special effects. MoM uses small portions of AFX and I have been learning how to implement more. I have had to break apart each AFX script into bits to work properly for an MMO and to work with the MMOKit. I have it working and have an understanding of the process so I am pretty pleased. I wished I could say I have made major changes so the effects do not look so AFXish, but I am not there yet. As a non-coder I am just happy to have everything working. I will probably spend the next couple weeks still working on the special effects. I am having a blast with the stuff. I have not figured out how I will "Christianize" them and not look dorky. Most effects will be left the same, others will need to be modified. My January post will show videos of what I have accomplished with AFX.

So besides the game I wrote and released Book Two of the Foundations of Hope Trilogy this year. I wished I could say it did tremendously well and I was on the New York Times Bestseller list, but well, that is far from the case. So besides being a one man team for the Foundations of Hope Online, I am an author, publisher, work a full time job, father of four(6 months, 2 years, 4 years, 11 years). I also do all my own website design for my multiple websites and a couple others. So pretty much all my game development has to be worked around diaper changing and after the kids go to bed. I try to sneak in 15 minutes here and there if the kids are off somewhere else. My wife has been patient. My nights of TV watching must entail me working on the game as we watch our shows. When she asked what I will do after the game was done, I said "Work on another game". Her response, "I don't think so." I do have another game planned after FoHO. FoHO better pay for itself and the time lost or else I doubt that game will come to life.

Will I make the DreamGames deadline? It will be close to have a demo ready. I still have to model some more characters, I have only two partial zones created, no quests, no npc's. Should be an interesting next couple months.

So for a year in review, I will post some screens of the year. I just implemented a new Media area at the FoHO website if interested in more.

www.foundationsofhope.com/screenshots.php

Spiritual Warfare Critters:

Dragons:

Humans:

Saurians:

GUI Examples

Unfinished Scenes:

Testing Combat:

AFX Testing:

Foundations of Hope: Some GUIs

Leathel Grody — 2007-11-25T20:00:50+00:00

Game Name: Foundations of Hope Online
Technology: TGE + Torque MMO Kit
Genre: Christian Fantasy MMORPG
Company: Lethal Games Corporation
Game Website: Foundations of Hope Online

Well the last couple months have been pretty productive. Still working on the Milestone 2 section of learning zone, terrain and .dif creation. October I got a few zones created and learned alot. What once was a mysterious interface, I am understanding rather well. I still need to modify a bunch so will post zone pics once I get everything completed.

In November I decided to setup and learn the server portion of the PG MMO Kit so I might have a few people start walking around these new zones of mine. Going through the process only increased my appreciation of how much Prairie Games released to the community. But at last I was successful and had a working server, patching, and chat system up and going. This led me down a new path that I should modify the guis if I want anybody logging in. So the last two weeks I have been learning and modifying the non-ingame screens to look more FoundationofHopish instead of MoMish. Having a couple years of graphics from the book series helped out. It came to me to use the website template in game so it tied the website and game together. I also like the template because of the book which tied the game being from a book series. The only problem is that this was a purchased web template and I have not yet figured out what the creator created themselves and what was swiped. The original template did have a few images from Blizzard and were removed, but if you see any others that are from there or somewhere else, let me know. If I get time I will most likely remove all the images with my own just to be safe, but one step at a time.

Next I have to figure out how to modify the ingame guis. PG did a good job, so it will be challenging to somehow make it better or atleast different looking. Then back to creating those zones this all started from.

But for now, here are the current pregame screens:

Foundations of Hope - The Timeline

Leathel Grody — 2007-09-30T13:05:52+00:00

Game Name: Foundations of Hope Online
Technology: TGE + Torque MMO Kit
Genre: Christian Fantasy MMORPG
Company: Lethal Games Corporation
Game Website: Foundations of Hope Online

My first blog without screenshots. Ugh. Hopefully it is still worthy :)

I have been meaning to post my scheduled timeline and since I have no screenshots, it is the best time to do so. The timeline is based on completing the game within one year for the MyDreamGame contest. It is very nice to have a schedule to see when I must reach certain milestones. It keeps me on focus. Although the timeline for Milestone 1 has passed, I do have most of the characters created. I work on the last few here and there as I work on Milestone 2.

Milestone 2 is totally new terrain(pun included) for me. I have never touched the Torque Mission editor, so creating terrains and modifying them was intimidating at first. Then there is the whole brushed-based modelling that is a totally different creature than what I am used to. I am trying to learn the different programs and the process of how to do the modelling. I keep coming back to Constructor, so it will probably be the program I end up using.

But on the other hand, I do own a few content packs, so I most likely will fill a considerable amount of the world with those. I do want to learn to model with Constructor, but there are tempting times to just use content packs fully.

Then there is the Torque terrains. I have come along way in the last few weeks, but there is so much more to learn :-)

Anyways, as part of Milestone 2 it was in my plan to learn all this new stuff. You cannot really give much screenshots on that. Thankfully next month should not be a problem to have some screenshots of not only players, but of a populated world. I look forward to that.

--------------------------
Contest Start Date: 4/1/2007
Length of contest: 12 months
Contest End Date: Midnight EST on April 31st, 2008.

Milestone 1: Create all playable characters and have atleast three texture outfits each.
July is my Saurian month, and August will be my dragon modeling month. In between modelling I also want to:
#1) Learn how to script new playable races and classes.
#2) Learn to script new critters.
#3) Start modifying the client GUI to look more "Foundations of Hope-ish".

So hopefully at the end of August I will hit Milestone 1.

Milestone 2: Learn and start creating zones and dif formats for Torque and the Torque MMO Kit. The goal will to model enough buildings, furniture, etc... for 10+ zones in 4 months. That should put me around the end of November for Milestone 2.

Other goals:
#1) Continue to modify the client gui
#2) Start modifying the spell system and special effects.

Milestone 3: Start creating NPCs, quests, items, and learn more of the python scripting which MoM uses for its backend. I am allotting 3 months so that will be the end of February.

Other goals:
#1) Finish any incomplete side goals from previous milestones.

Milestone 4: Only March and April left to finalize everything. I will need to encrypt my models and not yet sure if I will need to C++ source yet or not. I am not a programmer so it shall be interesting. The final months will pretty much be to edit/test and finish any loose ends that I might have missed in the previous milestones. I am sure I will be off on dates for my goals so extra time will definitely be needed.

The final game is planned to be launched July 2008. I will add a few more characters and zones that the MyDream contest version will not have.

Foundations of Hope: The Dragons!

Leathel Grody — 2007-08-23T02:24:14+00:00

Game Name: Foundations of Hope Online
Technology: TGE + Torque MMO Kit
Genre: Christian Fantasy MMORPG
Company: Lethal Games Corporation
Game Website: Foundations of Hope Online

The dragons are here! It has been a fun adventure getting the dragons modelled and learning how to get them flying in the game. Finishing the dragons brings me closer to the first milestone. I just have to finish a few characters I ran out of time in the months past and Milestone 1 will be achieved. I can't wait! Next month I will start working toward Milestone 2 which is to create the buildings and zones. I have not touched learning how to create a .dif so it shall be quite a new adventure. But then again, 5 months ago I did not know how to model a character for Torque either.

The dragons in the Foundations of Hope books and game play a major role in the storyline. Book Two: Into the Darkness begins to explain just how much the dragons are involved in the storyline. Book Two opens up the storyline up that there are actually three realms fighting against each other. Humans, Saurians(lizard creatures), and the dragons. Using the Torque MMO Kit works out nicely since it is already setup for three realms. So this will provided three PvP realms in the PvP zones.

I have not totally decided exactly how it will happen but once a human or Saurian player reaches a certain level, finishes a specific quest, etc. they will be able to start playing as a dragon. I have the option to use the MoM's monster template systems, but not totally sure yet if that is the direction I want to go.

When a player begins as a dragon they will start out as a newborn hatchling. They will have the option of choosing between different colors.The dragons will have quests and be a playable character just like any other class, the quests will just need to be modified to fit a dragon. As the the hatchling levels it will grow into the next and larger mesh, the Dragonling. This will continue on until a player reaches as a Dragon Adult.

The mesh changing is as follows:

Level 0-5: Hatchling
Level 6-10: Dragonling
Level 11-15: Larger Dragonling
Level 16-20: Teenager Dragon
Level 21+: Adult Dragon

Flying has been implemented as a skill. A baby hatchling will have limited flight and as the dragon grows in flying skill the duration of flight will increase and the skill reuse time will decrease.

Won't the dragons overpower the humans and Saurians since they have the ability to fly? In the series, dragons have actually split apart. There are some that are helping the humans and Saurians, and there are those that have stayed independent(playable characters) that are out to destroy both humans and Saurians. The dragons that have chosen to join forces with either humans or Saurians will be represented as mountable dragons. So as a human or Saurian levels they will also receive a quest or pet(unsure yet) that will give them a dragon mount. This will allow the humans and Saurians to fly and battle against the independent dragons.

The dragon meshes have been split into the six different sections using the MoM material system. They are head, body, neck, legs, feet, tail. This will allow me to create armor that is equipable for each of these sections. There are four different dragon meshes that will be used: hatchling, dragonling, adult, adult mounted. The nice part is that each of these meshes derive from the mountable dragon mesh. So the dragon body meshes(mounted, adult, dragonling, hatchling) can all use the same body texture. The hatchling and dragonling meshes are just using a different head texture.

I only focused on one texture to give a good comparison of each of the different levels. Plus it was quicker to not have to do another texture set. The dragon is based on the Daz3d Millenium2 dragon. It is used to illustrate many of the chapters of the series so it ties the books with the game. If you have not read any of the other posts, I do have Daz3d's permission to do so. The mounted adult dragon has the most polys at 2500 polys.

These images will give an example of the different sizes as a player grows in levels and changes meshes.

Hatchling:

Dragonling:

Larger Dragonling:

Dragon Teen:

Dragon Adult:

Other screenshots:

Adult Mountable Dragon:

Adult Dragon Idle:

Adult Dragon Flying:

Dragon Hatchling:

Here are my first tries at doing videos. The music and zone is from the base Torque MMO Kit. As stated, next month I start to learn to do zones and .difs.

Adult Dragon Video

Dragon Hatchling Video

Foundations of Hope - The Saurians Part I

Leathel Grody — 2007-07-24T03:04:58+00:00

Game Name: Foundations of Hope Online
Technology: TGE + MoM Kit
Genre: Christian Fantasy MMORPG
Company: Lethal Games Corporation
Game Website: Foundations of Hope Online

I was hoping to have more of the Saurians completed, but the referral system and life have kept me too busy. In the series, the Saurians are a race of lizard creatures that have always lived within the Earth. The sunstorms that have destroyed the humans' technology are now destroying the Saurians' technological advanced underground cities. Within the the Foundations of Hope game, players will be able to choose between playing the humans, Saurians, or dragons. The game will be half PvE and Realm vs Realm.

There are more Saurian classes with female versions of each that will come in a later post once completed.

Male Saurian Soldier:

Male Saurian Troll:
The Saurian Troll will stand about 8ft tall. I cannot wait to play one of these guys. I have included a couple different texture looks. The arms and stomach can be bare or armored, I just liked the bare look for the screenshots.

The dragons are coming next month!

Foundations of Hope - The Referral System

Leathel Grody — 2007-07-17T02:15:48+00:00

Game Name: Foundations of Hope Online
Technology: TGE + MoM Kit
Genre: Christian Fantasy MMORPG
Company: Lethal Games Corporation
Game Website: Foundations of Hope Online

I decided to take a break from modelling and finally tried implementing a referral system that I have been really wanting to do. What I thought would take a couple days, has taken a couple weeks. We also had a new baby boy three weeks ago, so a bunch of time has been there as well.

But finally the referral system is completed and I am pretty pleased with the results. The long journey was very educational in that it took me into php territories that I had never been to. Definitely alot of knowledge I will be able to use later.

The Foundations of Hope website is built on top of an osCommerce base. The forums are phpBB but it is tied into osCommerce so that there is only one login. So what I ended up having to do was splice together an osCommerce referral system and phpBB referral system so they both worked in conjuction with each other. Wow. What a task. There were even a couple times I ended up doing a "I did it " dance after spending a couple days stuck on certain parts. Thankfully my office is in the basement and nobody was able to witness this horendous sight.

So what I ended up having is a Referral Center in the forums that a user can use to send out referral e-mails and see stats of who they have referred and who is the top referrer at the site. When a friend creates a new account and enters the referrer's e-mail address, both phpBB and osCommerce will pull that information. Although I am still undecided on the payment system of the game, my current idea is to have a monthly charge for those players that want to play over 20 hours per month. Although it sounds odd, I want to reward those players that do not lose focus on real life. 20 hours will give them time to play, but not feel like they 'have' to play because they are paying a monthly fee.

So even though there might be a monthly charge for those players that want to play more than 20 hours, it is low enough that I am trying to offer ways for players to not have to pay. Players will receive 10% worth of reward points in the store from sales of people they have referred. I am rounding everything up, so a minimum is 1 point for any sale over $0.00. I am also going to offer referral points for other curricular activities. The whole point of the referral system is to help market the books and game. So I plan on creating book/game brochures and giving referral points to players that take the brochure to libraries. I plan to have contests, and other fun activities on ways to also recieve store points that can be used toward purchasing the unlimited online game play or even toward books, or anything else I might have in the store. So why even have a monthly charge? To have the users help market the game. People are more likely to do a little marketing if they will get something in real world cash value out of it. As most here know, as an indie, you have to be creative in marketing methods.

For the forums, what I have setup is that when a user signs up, the person that referred them will receive forum cash. I have a forum store(not yet visible) that I will bring out later so that users can purchase clothes and accessories for their avatars.

And hopefully, once I get further into the MoM technology, I will be able to make it that a user will receive in game cash for referring friends. The goal is to hit the users at multiple levels(real world, in game, forums) so no matter what their primary interest, they have a reason for referring people to the website.

The store part of the website has always been hidden, but now I have opened it up and also have it linked to PayPal. That was a small, but nice task to finally get achieved as well. I have been wanting away to sell personal signed books for those interested. Now I can. I also have the full version of the eBook now available for download in the store for free for people to test out the store. Again more marketing. Read the eBook, and hopefully people will have an understanding and want to play the game.

This unfortunately cut two weeks into my modelling time. I have to finish up two more Saurian(Lizard Creature) models by the end of July to stay on my projected modelling goal dates, then next month get ready for the dragons! Somewhere in there, my next website addition will be to implement a Help Desk ticketing system for the game. Whoosh, no time to sleep.

Foundations of Hope: Spiritual Warfare

Leathel Grody — 2007-06-18T01:29:08+00:00

Game Name: Foundations of Hope Online
Technology: TGE + MoM Kit
Genre: Christian Fantasy MMORPG
Company: Lethal Games Corporation
Game Website: Foundations of Hope Online

As stated in my original blog, The Foundations of Hope is a Christian MMORPG, or at least it can be considered Christian-acceptable. The goal is to create a game that can be played by both mainstream gamers and by Christians and neither side be offended. All the character classes that can be chosen have the option of never really getting into any religious aspects, that is except for the Paladins(Warriors of God). It is clearly stated that gamers should stay away from the Paladin class if they do not want to deal with any Christian aspects. A portion of the quests in the Foundations of Hope game will be very class-specific quests. The Special Forces will have their secret missions, soldiers will have quests dealing with the army, and Paladins will deal with these spiritual warfare creatures that no one else will ever see or know about. So if you never play the Paladin class, you will never have to deal with these creatures.

Why class specific? Although not part of the spiritual warfare discussion I figured I would explain. The Foundations of Hope series is based in a futuristic Earth that has been put into medieval-like state because of sun storms that continuous flood the Earth. So although a fantasy game and series, I really try and keep things as real and scientific as possible. In the real world, the Special Forces would not be doing secret missions with other armed branches, etc... So to keep things real, there will be general quests that all can participate in, but there will also class specific quests that each class must bond together and fulfill by themselves as if they were really doing the job of the character they were playing. The Spiritual Warfare stuff definitely depart from my personal scientific views and from my scientific approach to the game, but it sure makes some interesting critters for the Paladins to face.

The Foundations of Hope is a game of war. The physical war between the humans, Saurians(Lizard Creatures), and the Dragons. All classes have to deal with this physical war. But the Paladins have another battle they must deal with. The Paladins have vowed to search out evil and destroy it. I have Paladins in my book series, but I do not ever dwell on anything dealing with what they actually do. I only hint and that is about it. The Paladins are provided "Gifts" by God(healing, etc.) that come into play in the series, and many of their other Gifts will be used when they start battling these creatures in the game.

It was actually something I really had to think about whether putting the Spiritual Warfare realm into the game was business smart. Could Christians, and for that matter mainstream gamers, really handle it? The overwhelming consensus is "Bring it on!". Each class will have a separate storyline(quests) that also are part of the main game storyline. So the tricky part is to somehow incorporate the spiritual warfare storyline into the physical world storyline.

So as you look at the screenshots you will start to get any idea that although the Foundations of Hope game can be considered Christian, it is going to be far from a light-hearted, make-you-feel-good, game you would expect. Nor will it be a "preachy" game. My goal is to create a serious and raw game, that no matter whether Christian or non-Christian, the game play will be so hardcore they really will not care. The way Paladins will deal with these creatures is by using "blessed" weapons and by using the Gifts provided by them by God(not magic, therefore Christian-acceptable). I personally am interested to see how I will modify AFX to provide the special effects for these Gifts.

As the screenshots go down, they are going from a medium level critter down to a higher levels(don't know what I will use for low level yet). As the Paladin advance, they will deal with these critters that have skin texture. But the higher they advance they will encounter more evil creatures that have a more fire and lava style texture. This is to signify these creatures are closer to the "lake of fire".

For my July GG post, I plan on a focus of the Saurian(Lizard Creature) characters that players will be able to play so lookout for that. I am burnt out on the whole spiritual warfare modeling. Watching Sci-Fi's Ghost Hunters and modeling these characters at the same time makes for some restless sleep.

Also as promised from my previous post, here is the process I use for using Milkshape, fragMOTION, and Ultimate Unwrap3D to model, texture, animate and get into the Torque DTS format. It is only the process, not the how to use the programs. Hope it helps somebody.

Tutorial

As previously stated in the last blog, although the characters are not actual Daz characters, I have been given permissions to create similar low poly looking models so that the illustrations in the book series match the game.

Paladins:
Male Paladin Screenshot1
Male Paladin Screenshot2
Male Paladin Screenshot3
Female Paladin Screenshot1
Female Paladin Screenshot2
Female Paladin Screenshot3

Critter screenshots are taken from ShowTool Pro.

Spiritual Warfare Critters
Demon1 Screenshot1
Demon1 Screenshot2
Demon1 Screenshot3
Hellhound Screenshot1
Hellhound Screenshot2
Lava Troll Screenshot1
Lava Troll Screenshot2
Lava Troll Screenshot3
Demon2 Screenshot1
Demon2 Screenshot2
Fire Dragon Screenshot1
Fire Dragon Screenshot2

Foundations of Hope - The Special Forces

Leathel Grody — 2007-05-21T17:19:25+00:00

I was hoping to have more done for my second month post of the MyDreams contest, but life got more busier than usual. If anything, I must say this month has been educational. I had never modelled for Torque so I had to learn from scratch how to get models animated using .dsq files and exported properly for Torque. My modelling and texturing programs are Milkshape, fragMOTION, and Ultimate Unwrap3D. I do not know if there is an easier way, but for me, I had to learn a little dance and throw in a spin, in order to get everything to work properly. I do not know if there is a tutorial somewhere, but I have been asked to create one, so I will start working on that. I will post a link to that tutorial in my June blog update.

For now, I would like to introduce my first Torque models using the MoM material system.

Special Forces:

Some may recognize the models as being similar to Daz3d models. That is well, because they are very similar. Every chapter of The Foundations of Hope Trilogy is illustrated using Daz3d models and in order to keep a true crossover between books and game, the game models are being based off the Daz3d models. So a Special Forces or Paladin illustrated in the book will look very similar in the game. Of course the game models are not the actual Daz3d models(way too high poly). But I have been given special permission by Daz3d to make similar models and use rendered textures in order to achieve this goal.

I already have the Female Paladin completed and working on the male Paladin. So June I will post the Paladins and some Spiritual Warfare critters they will face as well as a link to my tutorial.