News Update #5 18/04/09

Today's update brings us to the following:

My internet. FUCKING SUCKS!

excuse my language. but honest to god. the past week ive lost my internet entirely TWICE... no internet at all to my house. How the hell can I get things done like this?? Anyhoo... proper news now.

Halo

I am learning the ways of the Forger and makings maps on Halo with the knowledge on how to merge objects and how to make objects float making you scream "it's a floater!"
poo jokes aside This is fairly important knowledge if you wish to be a forger for the Halo machinima (videos) which I am working on. Making sets mainly.

OSPRO

The donation button, I think, is not yet working properly.. I think there may be some flaws to it so I am slowly working on that. I'm trying to finish this "to do" list on paypal but I need a bank statement/receipt to get some things put on and I can't be bothered going to the bank to ask for one even though it's right next to the shop and I was there today.
Video production is going slowly right now. For one I have not yet come into contact with the first and second place contesters from my competition on RuneScape but I have spoken to the first place over msn. And my god I'm getting tired of hearing The Pretender over and over and over.
But I'd ecourage all of you who are part of the OSPRO RuneScape area to go over to the forum (SCROLL DOWN) and give me some ideas for lines although I'm trying my best to do it all myself while my internet vanishes...

RuneScape

Not much in RuneScape. During the more recent day of absence from my internet there has been a Development Diary news update for the Fairy Area Improvement. Here is what was written on this particular D.D.

"Hi guys, I’m Mod Joe, RuneScape’s Art Director, and I’d like to give a rough overview of one of our graphical improvement projects. This will hopefully give you insight into how we choose projects for improvements and also take you through the different art departments that will then produce the final game assets. In this first part, I’ll talk about the concept stage. In the second part, we’ll go through modelling of game assets, such as creatures and scenery, then, in the third part, we will give you an overview of what it takes to bring things to life through the animation process.

The art team works very closely with the rest of the content developers, and when I heard that Mod Ingrid had been given the final part of the Fairy Tale trilogy to start briefing, my initial reaction was that we’ve gotta improve that area first. Zanaris itself had already undergone one graphical improvement a few years ago, but I think it’s important not to understate how much both the engine and our tools have changed since then. Many years ago, when I first started at Jagex, the art team size was only three artists (!) and we did everything (modelling, animation, mapping, etc) ourselves. Now, in 2009, we have a team of sixteen very talented artists who all specialise in one of three areas: 2D concept artwork, 3D modelling or animation. In the first part of this diary, I’d like to take you through the first stage: the concept stage...

Originally, Zanaris was just a standard brown dungeon. I recall we overhauled it to look a little ‘bluer’ a few years ago, but it never really looked as ‘magical’ as it could.


Screenshots of Zanaris as it was in 2004, and how it looked after the 'bluer' rework in 2006

There is also the issue that the fairy race itself could be improved, both in terms of modelling and animation. Back three years ago we had limited time, artists and tools, but now that we have our specialist artists and a much-improved game engine, we have a greater degree of flexibility in how we create the different areas of the game.

Given that a new quest was to take place in Zanaris, we decided to give the area a total rework, both in terms of the fairy race themselves and their environment. Once we knew this, I spoke to one of our concept artists, Mod GG, to get some ideas on what we could do.

One of our goals in the concept stage is getting the balance right between ideas that are unique, but which are also immediately recognisable for players who are new to the game. When we looked at the original fairies, one of the first issues we had was that they were way too small - you can’t see them very well and they don't have enough definition. The first thing that Mod GG did was to sketch a new fairy character that had a much better silhouette and which would be much more ‘readable’ as a fairy.


Variations on the new look for fairies, using the Fairy Queen as a basis

In terms of the fairies' houses we knew that we wanted them to stay pretty tree-based and close to nature. We experimented with a few different ideas and, at one point in the concept stage, we investigated making the fairies more insect-like, with more emphasis on quick-beating wings and fly-like eye clusters instead of the traditional human eyes. This is something that was echoed in the brown, wax-like tree in the image below; as you can see, it’s more of a nest than an actual home. Given the types of furniture that would also have to be designed (and given the back-history of the fairy culture), we decided not to go down this route, which is why, in the end, we wanted to go with something relatively traditional.


Concept art of fairy tree-houses

I’ll leave you with our final mood image for Zanaris. As you can see, it's nice, bright and colourful, which we feel is definitely right for the area of game the fairies live in. Tune in next time to see how we approach modelling.


'Mood' artwork for the redesigned Zanaris

Should you have any questions about anything mentioned in this diary, or other aspects of the game that you feel would benefit from a graphical improvement, then by all means post them on the forums. I’ll do my best to answer them.

Mod Joe
Art Director, RuneScape Graphics"

Thanks for reading and see you next time
~Osborne1992~