Creating Blue River Canyon with Brian Lockett (Part One)

First of three videos covering my workflow for making a simple mid-poly "green canyon," using Blender and limited settings in World Machine 2.  Since I'm using Blender and since World Machine 2 has a free Basic Edition, anyone can try what I show here.  I used a mouse in this just to show it can be done.  All assets in the corresponding source files are released under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0.  And the second video is in production.  Just thought I'd share it here, since it will be game-related by the third video, where we convert this terrain usable as a game scene for the Unity game engine.

- Brian

Updates In A Nutshell

It's been far too long since my last update, but never fear--I haven't stopped a thing about my production with this game.  It's been an interesting few past months for me personally, to say the least.  I didn't intend to stay away from my blog and development for so long, but hey, some things in life just can't be helped.

Anyways, here's a briefing of updates, since I don't want to spend a whole lot of time with the updates here:

• I'm working on a three-part series tutorial on creating a canyon with Blender and World Machine 2.  I've completed the first video.  (I'll post the video here after this post.)
• Cyka is still in active production, but due to being such a big project and until I get a reliable dev team assembled, it's taken a back seat to a smaller project.  Now my main focus is a small indie game called Se\/er.
• I didn't make the 2013 IGF deadline this time, but I'm sure aiming for 2014 IGF.
• From now on, I'm going with a "underpromise, overdeliver" philosophy with my updates.  Simple and short.

See you next time.

- Brian

Working to enter demo into 2013 IGF

Processing...

The title's pretty self-explanatory--I'm working on the Cyka demo to enter it in the upcoming 2013 Indie Games Festival.  That's actually why I've been kinda silent lately--I've haven't had time to update my blog like I should.  I've got a lot of work ahead to do in just a comparatively short time to meet the IGF deadline, but I've got a lot of work done, too.  I don't have time to make snapshots or comfortable enough producing a half-working demo just yet.  I still plan to release one as soon as I can, though.  My plans keep changing (well, life keeps changing them for me), but hey, life goes on.  Later.

- Brian

Technical difficulties @_@

Not an actual picture of my situation...yet.

It's been a crazy past month, but I've finally got my computer back to seemingly functional order.  It got infected by some kind of malware that even Malwarebytes couldn't even detect. It took me about a month of trying to search through all my files to detect the problem, and eventually, I just had to save what I could to an external hard drive, start my computer all over again, and re-install all my programs and settings.   And yes, it takes a month to do that!  One frustrating month.

Anyways, even though my computer's crashed twice since I've done this complete re-install of everything (and I'm not quite sure as to the exact nature of those crashes yet--whether they're related to my previous problem or something else completely coincidental), I think it's working well enough to resume my work here again.  Right off the back, I can show you some of the assets I've been creating, and in a very cool way.  (I've been waiting a while to finally use this--just click on the cube icons to start the interactive viewers.)



Here's another one (one I've had for a while now).



Expect more of these.  Play around with them.  Have a blast.  (Also expect some web browser applications posted here soon enough.)

Onward to other news:

• My new website for my game assets and custom assets division for PolyKhrome, Powerhouse Game Assets, is now open to previewing, though it's still in development and being updated.  This will help PolyKhrome generate revenue to go towards the game development, and, well, until the Kickstarter is started.
• I'm still building my team, and it's just a matter of finding time to organize that time.
• I'm organizing my Cyka assets to throw together a demo, to whet some appetites out there.  That's still going well, and pretty soon (for the millionth time, I know), I'm drawing closer to my goal of a Cyka Kickstarter.
• I'm working on a side game project designed to be a casual game--again, for revenue.  But it's still fun.  And it'll be some reduced in scope and size and of a different style of gameplay than Cyka.  A little refresher to cleanse my palette of Cyka from time to time.

Anyways, thanks for hanging with me, and for the 1,000+ views thus far (and think--I haven't even promoted this site very much yet!).

- Brian

Update: Good progress (with one setback), Linux and OUYA

Powerhouse is almost finished!

Hey, folks.  It's been a while, but it's been quite a busy while for PolyKhrome.  I've got a lot of assets created for the Cyka demo, some development video of me making these assets almost ready to share, and I've got some of the basic framework for the gameplay up and going, and I will show them...as soon as I can remove the vicious malware that's plaguing my computer.  -__-" {Of course!}

Yep, my PC's sick.  I'm writing this post with my netbook, which thankfully I still have, and all of my files seems to be okay on my infected computer (that is, when I can log in long enough to see them before the computer totally freezes up).  I'm running every reliable malware scanner I can find.  As I've got over 800 GB worth of occupied hard drive to deep-scan through, and my computer begins to freeze up after about 30 minutes or so, it's taking a while to do this via a series of smaller custom scans.  Anyways, when this minor setback is over, I'll compile my work done so far and post up a preview demo of, well, my demo.  Demo of a demo.  Funny.

But that's not all I've been doing all month of July--I've also been working on the Powerhouse Game Assets website, which is relocating and almost ready for business.  The picture above is from my tiny netbook, so it's truncated a bit there.  Selling game assets will greatly help with Cyka development (some people make up to $100K a year selling assets!), so it's been a top priority for me, as well as this demo.

Some other good news is that since Steam will be supporting Linux pretty soon, expect Cyka: Steamed Edition for Linux as well as Windows and Mac.  Also, I'm involved in a couple other side projects, including a Community Game project being lead by Peripheral Games (my iOS game idea won the contest they were holding), working on the development of a game clothes creator program, as well as producing a fan-created animation for my previous engagement of Operation Moogle--all of which I'm using to bring more attention to Cyka.

Cyka will come to OUYA.

And finally, I thought about it for a while, and I finally decided that PolyKhrome will put Cyka on the Android-based OUYA when the game is finished by next year, even with some exclusive content.  It's a risky console to support, but it's something I think might be worth the chance (and for $99, the price of that chance isn't too bad at all).  I still have some questions about OUYA, like how are they going to promote creative quality games away from an inevitable sea of mediocre unambitious games and shovelware.  But, in any case, Linux fans are really growing in buying indie games right now, over 43,000 OUYA owners will be looking for games next year, and PolyKhrome really can't afford to miss this sweet opportunity, as risky as it might be.  In fact, I am confident Cyka can be a big hit on OUYA--if it lives up to its potential.

Anyways, just wanted to check back here, just to let you all know that the game's development is still alive and well.  So stay with me, folks--we're progressing.  ;-)  (And I do mean a "we" pretty soon--I've got some prospect developers for Team PolyKhrome.)

- Brian

Update: What I'm doing right now?

Right now, I'm working on a larger demo that will feature three distinct terrain maps, with each one to specifically-tailored to showcase three of the most distinct and important aspects of the game.

Just for this demo, they run like different stages to select, though in the game, they'll be traversable seamlessly across one continuous world of terrains.  Each map in the final game will represent only a single region on a single continent.  For the demo, one map will specifically showcase the battle engine aspect, one will showcase the environment exploration aspect, and the last will show the resource-collecting/stronghold building aspect of the game.

Each of these will be important aspects that are stressed about this game, as this game will not only be a preview to those interested in seeing the biggest aspects of this game in action, but also as my biggest accompaniment to our Kickstarter (I feel that a mere video for this game is simply not enough--you need a good demo).

So far, I'd say it's about the demo is about 40% done, and I'm looking to get about 60 to 70% done by this time next week. Most of everything is not textured yet (I leave texturing last). Production will pick up in the next two weeks, as I work hard towards a checkpoint and as I'll be recruiting helpers pretty soon.

I'll confess that, though I have good experience in making games, everyday I grow from this process. This is indeed a learning process, as well as time to explore. Some things are second nature to me, while some other things are a whole new experience for me. Some things I'm finding I need to invent, as they're simply not out there, such as developing my blue grid in the game to conform to the form of the uneven terrain--that takes some problem-solving to think out.

I'm also preparing to employ my other service Powerhouse Game Assets next week. This is good, as I really want to get that rolling, too. If assets are sold, they'll be that much more help towards the production of Cyka.

It's not easy to be the director, the designer, the artist, the developer, the producer, all while striving to be the financier, being my own teacher about new things and being the promoter all at the same time, but it sure is one interesting experience, though one I'd be glad to share with other future PolyKhrome developers.

I have more to share later, but that's it for now.

- Brian

I just fixed my Wacom!

Succeeeeess!

Don't know how or why it worked, but I fooled around with my Wacom tablet some more and tried someone's "whodathunk" suggestion for getting it to work again and I got it working again.  I don't know if the fix will last or not, but I don't really care--it's working for now, and now I can paint my textures easier again!  This fix saves about $200-$300 for a new one.  Anyways, back to full speed with production!