Holiday Project

[D.Turtle]

Definitely one of the lettered ones (A-D). If I absolutely had to choose one I'd go with D.

C is too cluttered and I like the glowing obelisk - shows that its nost just for eye-candy.

With A and B, the bird in the foreground (that is the backdrop for the name of the game) is simply too hard too see. I was wondering what the jagged dark stuff at the bottom was supposed to represent until I recognized the bird outline.

[Starglider]

How big of an image are people going to see when they page through the game library?

Either the same size (resolution) as here, somewhat smaller, or somewhat larger, depending on whether their TV is 720p, 480i or 1080p. Note that most devs don't really care about 480i though, most internet-connected Xboxs are attached to a HD TV.

[Zixinus]

I'd go for D. The bit about combining the bird for showing that it's driven by a human and have the title on its wings. It makes it less cluttered.
Though, I'm confused about the pylon-thing.

[Starglider]

Though, I'm confused about the pylon-thing.

It's one of the towers from the tower defence aspect of the story mode. As long as 'confused' is 'curious and want to find out' that's ok.

[Zixinus]

Confused as in "is that thing a good thing or a bad thing? Is it something those blob-things made or is it supposed to be a defense against them?"

[Hawkwings]

It's different enough (in art style) from the blob thingies that I wouldn't think it was created by them. Bonus points for you if your character's clothing, or tattoos, plus the art style in general, matched that of the obelisks.

[Starglider]

I had toyed with the idea of implementing heat haze but it was unreasonably difficult to get working with adequate performance on the Xbox. However then I saw another developer on the Penny Arcade forums XNA thread implement it, and it became ABSOLUTELY MANDATORY that I find a way to get it working.



Not terribly noticeable in a static screenshot but I think it's a worthwhile addition when seen live. I might now do that distortion wave effect that everyone and their dog's FPS these days uses to add punch to explosions. Also, OH NOES I HAVE BECOME GEORGE BROUSSARD.

After that I was pretty much on a pointless graphical flourish binge. I also put shading on the HUD status bars due to one of my testers complaining that they looked ugly, and I put animated sun rays behind the title text and faint sparkles on the tagline :

[Starglider]

Not much progress in the last week due to a combination of illness and commercial workload. I did fix bird shadows, which have been broken since Feburary 2010 (the right image has a reflection and a shadow).



Due to rather limited shader power on the Xbox I am using somewhat fake shadows, which consist of projecting the bird geometry onto a flat plane created by averaging and interpolating the landscape gradients around the center of the shadow. Blending into shadowed areas is fully accurate on land but approximated on water, basically because I'm already using the alpha channel to do single pass refraction + reflection. If I ever do a PC release maybe I'll implement pixel-accurate soft shadows. The current implementation suffices for the key gameplay role of judging altitude when landing, plus basic suspension of disbelief.

[Starglider]

Progress on Windhaven is still very slow at the moment due to a lot of commercial AI work. Here is a procedurally generated irregular rock with bump mapping and glowing cracks, for the hawk character's 'meteor storm' power attack. I need to replicate this a dozen times, implement random hover/flocking, do appropriate summon, destroy and launch effects, collision detection, impact effects, sounds, charge control logic etc.

[Starglider]

Designing part of the low-res terrain mesh for F/A-18 AGGRESSOR; constructed the old-fashioned way (no auto-tesselation, texture maps or height maps) for retro feel;



Although I will probably cheat a bit for the high-res meshes, since unlike a real early 90s flight sim I don't have a couple of man-months to spend just designing terrain. The main terrain detail area will be 40 km by 30 km.

[Sarevok]

Height maps ? I thought you were generating the islands via procedural techniques ?

[Starglider]

Height maps ? I thought you were generating the islands via procedural techniques ?

This is for the other game I am making, which I posted screenshots for a while back. It is based on the 1988 game F/A-18 Interceptor, which is set in the San Francisco bay area.

Windhaven does actually use height maps, but those height maps are generated using fractals at run time.

[Sarevok]

My bad.

Best of luck with both of your game projects.

[Starglider]

Final drafts for the Windhaven cover art :



The one on the left is the original from the artist, the one on the right is the same thing with some colour tweaks by me, is the later an improvement?

A pretty radical change from the original design, at least it can no longer be accused of 'looking like a typical JRPG'

[Sarevok]

Now I am not art person but the coverart does not match the bright, colorful look of the game. Heck some might even call it "grimdark".

[Starglider]

Now I am not art person but the coverart does not match the bright, colorful look of the game. Heck some might even call it "grimdark".

Well, I could desaturate all the colours to brown/grey and put three layers of grit texture on everything if you think it will help sales...

[Zixinus]

I donnu. Maybe try to brighten up the sky behind (perhaps using brighter colours), thus giving more emphasis on the creature and how "unnatural" they are?

[Starglider]

Charging the meteor swarm attack :



Will do the rubble and spark effects for meteor impacts next.

[Melchior]

Just a piece of advice on typographical cohesiveness: you should probably make the "Windhaven" element in the title screen look like the lettering on the cover. Also, three completely different fonts? The subtitle can probably stay (with some manual fixing of the ligatures), but the title and the lower stuff should be different weights of the same typeface (maybe Univers?). I would also avoid the textured filling for both title and subtitle (maybe 100% alpha white for both or at least the title?).
(I hope to not sound too annoying; I apologize, in that case)

[Sarevok]

Starglider have you made any plans about when you will release the game ? And without breaking confidentiality any hints about whether publishers showed interest in picking this up ?

[Starglider]

Just a piece of advice on typographical cohesiveness: you should probably make the "Windhaven" element in the title screen look like the lettering on the cover.

I will try and harmonise this before release, but it is a low development priority at the moment. I'm not too bothered as the logotype is something most players will exactly once (before they learn to mash start as soon as the loading screen disappears); a single font is used for all menus and HUD text after that.

I would also avoid the textured filling for both title and subtitle (maybe 100% alpha white for both or at least the title?).

The textured filling would be kind of pointless if it was static, but it has a subtle layered animation which I think looks cool.

Starglider have you made any plans about when you will release the game ? And without breaking confidentiality any hints about whether publishers showed interest in picking this up ?

I submitted it to Microsoft to be an XNA Arcade game but they turned it down. I might submitt it to Steam after I've done and Xbox Live Indie Games release.

[Starglider]

A chunk of terrain from F/A-18 Aggressor :



This is about one quarter of the area of the world that has terrain detail. You can fly as far as you want beyond that, but it's just blank sea/land. You can see the top part of San Francisco bay at the bottom, although I took a lot of artistic license with the topography.

[Sarevok]

I submitted it to Microsoft to be an XNA Arcade game but they turned it down. I might submitt it to Steam after I've done and Xbox Live Indie Games release.

Don't lose hope. Plenty of good games started out of Xbox Live Indie.

Hope to see Windhaven featured on Steam someday.

[Starglider]

Concept for the title screen for F/A-18 AGGRESSOR;



compared to the classic Amiga game that inspired it;



Also some more storyboard art for Windhaven;

[Starglider]

Did the trails for the meteor storm attack (they look cartoony in these stills but ok when animated), also the fading rubble for when you try and fire meteors before they are completely summoned;



I am definitely going to use that mid-2000s stereotype distortion wave effect for the meteor impacts, to add some visual punch at long distances.

Also completed the low-res terrain mesh for F/A-18 AGGRESSOR;