LightShrew

I’ve decided to attempt the biggest project I’ve ever done. I’m going to make a 3D Action/Platformer game. I know this is too big for one person to do, but I have to see what I can come up with. GDC (Game developer’s conference) is in 6 months. I think I can at least get a good demo level done by then. I want to try to be open about development, as I think that will help keep me motivated to keep pushing. I work a full time job, and I have a couple other projects outside of work. I think I can put 20 hours a week into my game though.

I don’t want to reveal too much of the story yet, as I want to get a little more going before I reveal what the game is about. I can say that the game will revolve heavily around light. As both for visuals, and as a gameplay mechanic.

I think it would be fun to be open about the development. I think I will turn my blog into more of a dev blog. Yet, I also want to have a thread here in the blender forums as well so I can hopefully get some feedback on my models, textures, and animations. I can see my normal blog being more big picture stuff, while this thread will be more technical in relation to the art side.

Here is a quick sculpt of my main Shrew character that I busted out yesterday.

Right now I’m trying to retopo him. The idea here is to get something workable so that I can do game testing. Later, I will most likely remodel this character once I really nail down the look, and see what changes I need to make to allow all his abilities and animations to look good.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]400162[/ATTACH]
I will probably make his face more neutral, as I intend on animating his facial expressions. I like his little smile, but it might be better as an animation over a neutral base expression.


I bet I am going to have a problem with his legs area. He mainly walks upright, yet I want his fast run to be on all fours. So he needs to look good as both a biped, and a quadruped.

The arms, I will most likely put in a T pose. Here the topology connecting his shoulder is bad, and is definitely going to be redone.

I really like your modeling :slight_smile:

Great Sculpt, that little guy looks like a charming character.:wink:

Wow! Looks great! :smiley:

Thanks guys!

Some stuff came up this past week that kept me away from doing work on any projects. Anyways, today I was able to finish up retopology, as well as test out flashlight eyes in Unity. I’m going to need to figure out a good way to show the light beam.

tomorrow I plan to rig this character, and put on some basic animations.


Just finished painting weights so I can pose him. Next is to actually set up the rig.

I finished the rig. I noticed that sometimes the constraints look out of place, then once I move the timeframe, they snap back to where they supposed to be. This happens in Unity as well as Sketchfab.

Look at the animation “RunFast” You see that his back snaps. This doesn’t happen in Blender.

LightShrew Test animations by bryantenorio on Sketchfab

He’s cute for sure. Shrews are one of my favorite animals. Congrats on your progress.

Thank you Mir. I think I’m going to redesign him later and probably make him fatter to look, more shrew like. Everyone I show this too thinks he’s a rat. haha The problem is that there are so many different types of Shrews, and they all look different. My favorite is the elephant Shrew. Only, they aren’t actual shrews, but rather closer to Ant Eaters. They are really cute.

Before I do any redisigning, I’m first trying to prototype the game to get it working to a point where I can then just start loading it with content.

Here is a test I threw together in Unity last week.

I showed this to some friends, and they suggested I see how it looks in Unreal, since I’m going to have so many lighting effects. Another friend also told me that Unreal 4 has a good visual scripting, so I can get things working without even touching code. I’m not opposed to programming. I just want my stuff on screen! haha

I’m off the next 2 days, so I’m doing Unreal Engine 4 tutorials to see if I can learn it, and then I will see how things look in there. I hope I can get this stuff done soon so I can focus on content and making things look pretty.

I’m partial to the elephant shrew too. it’s all about the nose lol. Looks terrific in the last video. can’t wait to see more

I love their noses too. Thanks Mir. I think I’m going to put off actual game stuff until I get more content and the look down more. I think that might be more important for now.

Here’s some concept art.

Here is a quick sculpt of the new Shrew Style.

Damn. It’s been a month without an update. I just moved, so I was dealing with that stuff in most of my time. Not a good enough excuse. I need to keep going, and not slack off.

Some more concept art.



Here I retopoed the new Shrew model. I did a preliminary texture paint. I think I want to paint him so he looks good set to shadeless this way he will still have detail in the dark. I’m thinking that maybe if I hand paint the texture like normal, yet I don’t paint in any highlights. I will use a spec map for them. I also need to consider if I want to give him normal maps, and if so, how detailed should I make them?

WIP Elephant Shrew by bryantenorio on Sketchfab

I changed the main bad guys in the game to be owls instead of snakes. Now I’m stressing out over modeling it correctly to allow a good rig for animating. I need his wings to fold up nicely. rigging bird wings are really hard. Especially for a game where I have to be conservative on resources. While retopoing, I totally forgot about allowing his neck to rotate drastically. Maybe if I have his head be a separate mesh, and hide the fact with a bunch of feathers?


One month later, I rigged the owl. I did manage to get his wings folding up nicely. I basically had to model his wings smaller, to look like a real bird without feathers. Then I put 10 sets of feathers (1 big 1 miedium, and 2 small ones at the top) 3 on each wing bone, and a 10th one at the tip. I put bones in them individually. For now I just animated using the deform bones. It gets the job done for a standin. I will rig it up better later with better animations, and then I will show how I did it. I also started working on the environment.

I started working with Thunder Egg Concepts for the coding. So now I only have to worry about the graphics.

Here is a short 30 second video of the old shrew running around in the environment and being attacked by the owl.

There is still a lot of work to be done on the environment, in addition to rigging and animating the new shrew model.

2 months until GDC, I need to decide now what the demo is going to consist of, and spend the rest of the time making it happen.
I’m really liking how this is turning out, yet there is still so much to be improved.

I re uploaded the video with an added fence.

This week I’m going to be riggng the new shrew character. He is finished being weight painted. Next is to set up controls.

Rigged the new Shrew model. Still needs work on his texture.


I wish I had time for this stuff lately. Please keep working on this. It’s fantastic! I can’t believe you’re making such leaps and bounds in it. Looks great, absolutely great, like a commercial real project, getting to look more polished

The concept art looks great! As do the models, they look so cute! I really love the animation and how you’ve put everything together from the models to the game engine. Really good stuff.

Thanks guys! This is probably the longest I’ve worked on a project actually. Well, maybe its on par from an old short I did back in school with a few classmates. I hate to say this, but I simply have not been as disciplined as I had hoped. Not just in art, but life in general. I want instant gratification, and am impatient. I take the easy way out, and as a result, I don’t do what it is that I know that I need to be doing. This is affecting me in all areas of life, The game included. I’m going off on a tangent there. I am happy with the progress I am making, yet I know I can do so much better. I just need to get over myself.

When I compare what I have to the Yooka-Laylee footage from the Kickstarter last summer (which is the inspiration behind this entire project) I am hopeful.

What I currently have is still very far away from the quality of this video, but again I am one person working on this part time. Only recently Since December did I get a 2nd team member. So, not bad for 4 months part time with 1 to 2 people in my opinion.

There are still 7 weeks left before we go to GDC. I know we can make this look great! After GDC we will decide if we will keep this simply a demo, or if we will really make this a game and work on it until completion.

I really hope that it turns out well, and people show interest. I haven’t mentioned the story much in this thread (to be honest I’m still working on it. I’m just focusing on the demo for now) What parts I do have finalized in the story is something that I really want to say.

I’m going off on a tangent again. Anyways, thanks for the replies guys! Also, any and all criticism is not only welcome, but encouraged!

We got the new elephant shrew character in game!