Friday, October 30, 2009

Zelda CDi Reviews

Hey guys, feel free to watch these brilliant Zelda CDi game reviews by the Angry Video Game Nerd. This guy is genius, and spends his money and time to show the rest of the world what we missed out on... some pretty horrible games. Before seeing these videos, I had no idea just how bad these games were... I feel much better about the Ballad project now, hahahaha!! I'm inspired to keep trying to make Ballad better and better. Go on, have a watch!




Engine Improvements

Ahoy there mateys!


Here's some behind the scene news, and it's quite good news indeed!


  • 3D collisions between player and enemy objects is now glitch free. Player and enemies no longer push each other through walls.
  • Enhanced attack-combo system. Fine-tuned battle engine allows multiple attack zones to be generated with a single attack at different times. This makes room for more complex attacks.
  • Enhanced model-to-player attaching. There are no longer any glitches that cause equipped weapons and other model parts to become out-of-sync with the character model's frames of animation.
  • Glitchless smooth transition in and out of Z target animations during and after attacks. Transition animations are now seamless and without glitches.
Woot? Also, on an unrelated note, I may be trying me hand at applying for jobs in game development companies in Australia... I'm also hoping to become involved with the independent game developers of Australia using my own original games in an exhibitions in an attempt to get noticed and hired by companies. Please forgive me if I don't work on Ballad of the Wind Fish for a while. Fan-games can not aid me in my career. If I can get a few of my original games out there, I may get that chance to make commercial games in the near future. Thanks for sticking around!

Cheers!
Jerrel

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Growing, Learning!

Hello folks!
Sorry for the lack of new screenshots. Work and classes has been hectic and I'm really hoping to leave my current casual job for something else... Just to post a few little details here, I've got some (gradually) great news!! Working on my little projects, I've been developing new animating and programming techniques, as well as designing better, more efficient physics engines and overall better game engines!! My work on the Resident Evil side project has allowed me to really get a feel for developing a stronger, more solid combat system.

What does this mean? It means I've been trying to improve myself more and more as a game developer. Am I any better than I was when I first started the Ballad of the Wind Fish project? Yes. Is it a big difference. Yes.

Anyway, I'll be spending what little downtime I have daydreaming about working for big video game companies, making awesome sequels to my favorite childhood games (Breath of Fire, Link's Awakening... har har har)... I'm really trying to develop new techniques to get that anime-style of 3D modeling for characters, and I'm really striving to get better and faster at character modeling and texturing. Since I've been studying Capcom's style of 3D character modeling and texturing, one might be able to say I've 'megamaned' some of their technique. I've been improving immensely with 3D modeling the past few weeks.

In the near future, I may be developing 3D models of the 8 heroes from the Breath of Fire game from the SNES. Why? Breath of Fire, hands down, is my most favorite game in the whole world, and it is the single game that inspired me to start develop games. Ever since I was a kid, I dreamed of making games like Breath of Fire... I'm hoping to develop the 3D models as an exercise to develop that commercial-quality, anime-like character model style. If I can master that a little further, I'll really know what I want to get out of Ballad of the Wind Fish.

I'm going to spend a few days developing a base traditional RPG engine; something solid, open ended, and can be used to create unique, good looking 3D RPGs without much difficult. I might even make this a "3D RPG maker"! Hahahaha. I'm also considering coding a 3D fighting game engine as well, which I might even release as a "3D Fighter Maker" for people to use. All good fun. There's so many possibilities! So little time!

I've also been improving my skills with HUDs and inventory menu interfaces...

So please bear with me, since the Ballad of the Wind Fish was simply a learning exercise to begin with anyway. I'm not yet a real pro game developer, but I'm trying to get there.

Cheers!
Jerrel

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

HDE - High Definition Environments


Hello hello!

Just to show you guys what I've been working on, I've posted two little screenshots of another WIP. Obviously, the character model is unfinished and untextured, and the room itself is missing objects and a little bit more moss, cement cracks and other atmospheric bits.

The screenshots depict a demo-game running on an adapted engine based off Ballad of The Wind Fish, as the game engine iself is built for use in almost any genre of 3rd person game. This demo game, dubbed Resident Evil : Abstraction, is also a sort of fun challenge for me to built a game engine that runs like a classic Resident Evil game (if there are any RE fans out there, let's year ya!). The game engine uses Real Time 3D (not prerendered), and makes use of cinematic, dramatic camera angles, darkness and environment detail to build a level of suspense and immersion.

What's so important about the screenshot, and why so random? Quite the contrary! I've been studying nex-gen games, and games with just particularly detailed graphics in general, such as Resident Evil Remake and Resident Evil 0. The past few days I've been developing techniques to produce High Definiton Environments, using high resolution textures with a high level of unique detail. Obviously, this takes more time and skill but produces more visually appealing environments.



Here's a video just to show a bit of in-game footage in the beta room. WIP of course. I've been working on it about four days now.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Study, Study, Study!


Hello everyone!

I've been studying a few different games lately, trying to understand how developers are doing 3D graphics and what not. After all, I myself am not a commercial console game developer by any stretch of the imagination, so my experience with making things real purdy is limited.

Images below depict Tales of Symphonia : Dawn of the New World for the Nintendo Wii. The game itself is quite pleasing to look at, and I've been studying the graphics, figuring out a way to duplicate the graphic quality and style. I have yet to decide to suspend the Ballad of the Wind Fish project for the reason that the project itself is still very useful to me as a developing game designer. Ballad of the Windfish allows to develop and refine new gaming/graphic technologies, techniques and engines.

Okay, so I've really been taken with the graphical style of ToS:DoTNW. Hopefully I can develop graphical skill to match commercial quality games. Also, on a somewhat related note, I've been studying Resident Evil 4 character models to better understand how developers make lolawesome models. I've come to the conclusion that the character models are developed using Awesome Sauce.


Hopefully BoTWF can look something like dat! ^
Cheerio!

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Baby Steps, But Steps Nonetheless

G'day folks! Thanks for hanging in there. This week I'll be posting new screenshots of the alter Tunics as well as Swords and Shield(s).

Again, I can't express enough how grateful and humbled I am by the support of everyone who has posted on this site.

I'm currently working on develop educational programs people with disabilities and computer games for and for the blind. I enjoy making games, and having a chance to help out a part of society that doesn't normally get to participate in the entertainment that everyone else gets to is an opportunity I don't want to miss.

I know this is extremely random and unrelated, but if you know someone who is blind who would like to play adventure or exploration computer games that only requiring hearing, then keep an eye out here at the blog. Who knows? I might write an audio based Zelda game for the visually impared! Of course we'll need Navi back to help guide our blind hero.

The realization came to me the other day that the featured demo here at the blog is only of a build a month and a half into development. How sad is that!? I wonder when the next demo will come out!

Thanks everyone!

Cheers!
Jerrel