Morren forest clearcut! | Posted by Zetto | 10.13.08

Over the past week, ive been hard at work decorating tyruss isle to perfection and bringing Coran to life, aside from that ive started on a brand new zone, the zone past Ishara that will extend all the way past keyo. This will become a very important zone since players will drastically increase in level here. The zone should be full of quests and little spots to explore. Perhaps the biggest endeavor ive taken on this week is an entire rework of the morren forest. So much has changed since I first made that zone that the forest is in need of a *clearcut*. Im going to recreate all the trees and foliage to better fit with our latest progress. Shots of the redone forest arent far away. On a more subtle note, I changed my worklog avatar, whoo! Zetto

Coran Modeling | Posted by ggg123 | 10.10.08

My focus recently has been on getting the models for Coran village completed and ready to go. Along with tweaking some of the new environmental code in the editor, I have been plugging away at some complex models that will form the layered shape of Coran, bridging between a multi-tiered land settlement and a small section of platforms based over the water much like Tyruss. Two of the most important models, the city base model and the temple, have been completed. This leaves the water-based portion of the base and the lighthouse left to be modeled. I hope to get this done in the next few days on my long weekend. Attached is a quick render of the main walkway for Coran featuring the temple positioned on the raised center platform. The finished town will extend outwards towards the point of view of the camera in this shot, and will be almost double the size of what you can see here.

Finishing touches | Posted by Zetto | 09.30.08

Hi everyone, since my last worklog, ive put a fair bit of time into the other side of Tyruss isle. The terrain and foliage is basically done. Now all I need is for GGG to finish up some models for Coran and model the Tyruss ruins. Once thats done, Tyruss will be mostly complete. From there we begin the lengthy process of bringing all the NPCs and mobs to life. Since that part of the editor isnt exactly ready yet, the next step would be to move on to the town of ishara and then the zone between ishara and doma crossing. In fact, ive started doing a bit of work on that zone. Its gonna be tough to make everything fit properly but Ill make it work! :) In the past few hours, ive been working on touching up some of the textures around Tyruss isle. Some of the textures tiled a bit too much, and some of the terrain textures needed tweaking. I think I basically got everything looking pretty good. The wood texture in tyruss city (the one used on the docks and the building walls) still tiles a bit too much, but its quite a bit better now. I leave you now with a screenshot I took while working on the wood texture. The red bits are numbers showing me what boards in the texture are causing it to tile.

Docks, boats, bloom and more! | Posted by Zetto | 09.22.08

The Tyruss exterior model placement is nearing completion. My main focus today was mainly on brushing up the foliage around the town and on the docks. Since the inclusion of our new postprocessing library (see GGG\'s worklog before this one) ive been very motivated to work on this zone. Everything looks so much better with that wonderful fantasy *fuzzy glow*. Tyruss was looking a little too gloomy before but these new effects really kicked it up. So far we havent shown any screenshots of the other side of tyruss isle, where coran and the ruins reside. Ive been slowly chipping away at that area as well, its hard to match the care and quality put into the area around tyruss city but were really putting extra effort into Tyruss since this will be players first impression of our game. We want it to be a good one. Im hoping that we move onto Coran soon so you guys can get a view of the other side of the island!

Postprocessing and Water | Posted by ggg123 | 09.21.08

Recently I have been working on integrating the newest version of our postprocessing effects library into the editor. This new version has some very impressive features, like refractive and reflective water, bloom filters, and literally hundreds of different kinds of blurring effects. The bloom filter will be used over the majority of the game world, so I have posted a couple of screenshots in the media viewer showing off the look. The refraction effect added to the water looks great, and comes with little impact to the frame rate. Most of the new effects like blurring will only be used in the client for things like combat effects, so you will not get to see them until you are actually in the game. Attached is a screenshot of the bloom filter at work in the editor in the Tyruss zone. As always, your feedback is appreciated, so let us know what you think by posting in the forums.

Tyruss city shaping up | Posted by Zetto | 09.10.08

Short worklog today, Ive been working away steadily on tyruss city, and its really starting to take form. I think ive basically got the dock system worked out. Those of you who took part in the torque alpha will find the design similar to the past, however the inn has been moved away from the residential area and the houses are a much more believable size now. Finally a version of tyruss with a good water effect, damn does it look good. GGG did a great job on the new house designs and im hoping to do them justice with some well placed foliage. It shouldnt be too much longer until we have some good solid screenshots, but for now I leave you with an in-progress screen. Enjoy! ~Zetto

Tyruss Models | Posted by ggg123 | 09.09.08

Hey folks, I have been working on modeling the buildings and town architecture for Tyruss recently, and most of it has actually been finished and sent over to Zetto who is starting to assemble the town already. A couple of main buildings still remain to be finished up, like the inn and the guard tower, but the docks, platforms, and a couple houses have already been done. Something I will be working on soon on the programming front of development is our terrain system in the game client. We plan to split the terrain into several square segments for LOD purposes, which requires a quick (hopefully) little function to split it up on export. All in all, I will be coding a couple little things to hopefully make connections between my custom editor and the modded client more efficient and powerful. But that comes after Tyruss. I am pretty happy with how the models are turning out. I think after doing the same few starting zones over our numerous unpublished drafts as well as a couple of somewhat polished beta and alpha releases I have finally developed a unique and appealing style for the models in the starting zones. The shot I attached today is an exploded view of the layers of the standard tyruss house model. These are the building blocks I use to construct the houses and other town architecture. Enjoy!

Tyruss Isle in construction! | Posted by Zetto | 09.08.08

New worklog system! whoooo! Right now I am working extensively on the new Tyruss zone. The new tyruss isle is much larger than the last one and should feel a lot less cramped. I made certian that I designed the island in such a way that it will make better use of a square terrain than the old ones. Before there was much more wasted area. Wilderness and open plains are very easy to make and we may as well give players as much room to explore as possible. Weve also learned some important lessons about new player areas from our torque alpha and the biggest alteration weve made to the general flow is that I decided to move the level 1-10 ramp out from the main walkway. This means that higher level characters wont have to deal with the nusance of low level characters grinding for those first few levels, nor will they have to fight level 1 beetles when simply passing through. Over time we have basically refined the construction of Tyruss isle down to an art, and this version should be the last one we ever have to deal with. Im trying to put that little extra bit of polish to the area since it will be the first place players will end up, and a first impression is a lasting one. With that said, im also trying to be conservative on the heavy foliage since this will be a high traffic area. Im almost certain that I will have to tweak the island a few times down the road, but for now its looking damn good. My main focus right now is in the level 1-10 area, before the caves. GGG is working on modeling the town itself and as soon as thats done ill be hard at work in there setting up the bustling port town. We are using a similar dock design as in the past, but there will also be some houses down on ground level around the town. All in all, im thinking this is going to be one sweet looking area. A taste of the past combined with our excellent foliage and effect systems should make this visually appealing to new and seasoned fans alike. I hope you all like Tyruss as much as I like making it. Zetto

New Worklog System | Posted by ggg123 | 09.06.08

I have just finished programming this new page that Zetto and I will be using to post our worklogs from now on, making them more accessible to the public than the old forum method. For worklogs posted before today, check the old forum threads. As for what I have been working on with regards to the game, most of the Tyruss Caves zone has been completed, and I am starting to work together with Zetto to get more done on the main Tyruss Isle zone. I have attached a development screenshot of the Tyruss Caves, mostly just to show off the image attachment system on this new worklog page. Both Zetto and I will always attach an image whenever we post here, so check back every time you see that a new worklog has been posted to make sure you get to see all the insider shots!