[WIP] Sci-Fi Project- Various Shots

I've been working on a character editor for my current game. In the process of adding skin layers and styles and thought I'd post a shot of progress for that section (skin details) so far. The other buttons at the top (Body and Head) change the sliders in the slider box to morph sliders for shaping the character's physical attributes.

 

Nice, so you can morph different parts of the body too? e.g. shrink/fatten the limbs and facial features?

 

Thank you!

Yup, there are whole sections with morph sliders for body and head. The main character shape is androgynous, so each of the shapes you see the bodies\heads in on these shots was created with the sliders. Here's a shot showing the "Head Shape" section, and you can see how different sliders add up to the shape I got (some sliders in use aren't showing since they're scrolled off screen). There are weight sliders in the body section so you can go all the way from super thin to super fat. Muscular definition, etc.

 

Looking good, but what's the game about?

 

Looking really good 0ny! Keep at it!

 

Thanks! It's an adult-rated sci-fi RPG. I don't usually say much about it here in the forum due to it being NSFW.

Thank you!

 

Very impressive Ony.
Great looking shaders as well - especially the fur shader.

Keep on posting please. This is something worth following.

 

Super cool, thanks @theANMATOR2b, glad you like it. I'll post a few more shots soon.

 

Decided to put a whole new menu system into the game. Instead of the mishmash of menus we have now they will be consolidated into one main menu with options for graphics, audio, etc.

The background behind the menu is a full 3D animated scene so graphics settings can be tweaked and the player can see exactly how the visuals are affected with their choices. This is a still shot of the scene but in the game it has particle animations for windblown debris, mist, dust, etc.I'll show a shot later with the menu UI on top of it all, once I get that part completed. I'm still adding little details here and there to the scene as well.

EDITED: Updated image further down in the thread.

 

Looks awesome.

 

Thanks! Working on the menu UI as we speak. Enjoying the process.

 

That looks amazing!

 

Thank you! After this next update I finally get to start incorporating the actual RPG stuff, so we're super excited about that. It's a long road but a fun one.

 

Wow sweet.. Looking forward to more updates. P.S you can't beat me, it's not allowed.

 

Thank you!

I bought Scion today and changed out all the image effects. Definitely wow for Scion. It's awesome. I'll post a shot soon when I finish up the menu items.

 

Very beautiful Ony.
This is looking like a possible award nominee.
Kind of reminds me of Mass Effect, in a good way.

 

Aw, thank you! That's quite a compliment.

 

Updated main menu shot. Replaced all camera effects with Scion (which is awesome).

I'll post a GIF of this all in motion once I get it recorded. It looks slightly washed out in this image because there is a bunch of swirly whirly particle debris, snow flurries, and smoke in the scene and I just happened to catch a smoke cloud right in front of the camera. The camera dollies back when the scene starts, ending up here where it is in the shot. The scene color grading also goes from warmer to colder as time passes, within about three minutes. Snow drifts start picking up, the dirt and markings on the lens get bolder, etc.

EDITED: Updated image further down in the thread.

 

Hmm, I have to admit preferred it Scion Free..

 

For a still shot, I absolutely agree. I was a little sad to lose the purplish tones and clarity.

In motion it's a total different story. The original in motion seemed "video-gamey" and the new one in motion seems more "filmic". Hard to capture the look in a still frame. If it was a still shot in the menu I'd stick with the original since it's more sort of sci-fi painting looking, but with the camera dolly, particles, handheld camera shake, color changes, etc. going on in the menu I've got to go with the more filmic style. Fits the ultimate vision of the game better, too.

 

Yeah I get you, exactly the same in our game.. Not sure why, but it looks great in motion and looks rubbish in stills??

Looking forward to seeing what's next.

 

That looks like a quality game I cant believe they wouldnt allow it on steam .

 

We're working on it. It's been available in early release form for a while with just the sex parts in (because that got the most people to try it out, hah!) but we're just now getting into putting the RPG elements in. It's been a long haul and it's not quite ready for prime time yet as far as the RPG stuff goes, but there is a fully functioning and usable sex system in there.

Once we get the RPG stuff in and fairly wrapped up we'll think about Steam and ways to get it on there. At first glance right now it's basically a sci-fi sex simulation, but that's only really a small part of the whole, and we can't wait to move further and reveal the true core and meaning of the game so people can see that. Gotta hook 'em with the sexiness first, though, haha.

 

Well they do say sex sells....

 

Interesting!
To few adult games out there thats not just crappy sex-sims.
Care to share a few details about the game, how it will play and whats all about? : )

 

The environmental graphics and ambiance - if represented by the image above is definitely a hook that will draw attention. Especially if you push the point that this as a small indie team creation imo.

 

looks nice. cracker name

 

Well one of our most successful games was actually called "Sex Sim" haha, so yeah we have experience in that realm, most definitely. This game is different, though. It definitely has sex, but it's not the main focus or the sole reason for playing. It's just a (small, but important) part of the whole.

We're very much into surreal, paranoid, psychological, philosophical sci-fi (Philip K. Dick, Brazil, Sunshine, etc.) and not so much into more action-style sci-fi (Star Wars, Star Trek, etc.) so the underlying story-line and messages will be a little deeper than it might at first appear they will be. A lot of it will be sort of hidden behind a facade of action and distraction (sex, combat, etc.), but that's all part of the larger idea.

Since the game is a work in progress, the theme will gradually present itself over time, which is both good and bad. We have to cater to the people who are here from the beginning, and offer them a good quality experience through the whole development period, while at the same time we have to make sure the game stands on its own for once we finish and wrap it up.

The plan was to release the sex portion of the game first, as almost an "arcade-ish" type thing. It got interest and helped get funding rolling, and it plays an important role in the arc and theme of the story-line.

If we can pull off what we're aiming for, then that will be awesome. If, not, then at least we can say we gave it our best shot.

We're definitely a small team. Just the two of us. Hopefully our graphics and style can help convey what we're going for in the end. A project like this will sink or swim on the feelings and mood it evokes, so we're being super careful every step of the way to introduce themes and moods as smoothly as possible.

Thank you.

---------

Thanks for the comments, everyone!

 

Ok I'm closing in on the final look for the opening sequence. Again it's a still shot from a moving image so it's not as clear as it is actually in-game.

After reading some comments here and taking a fresh look at things I toned down the "coldness" and particles and lens flare and craziness a bit to help keep things a little more clear.

Changed the position of the sun to get better pools of warm and cool colors. Added moons (they move, slowly). Also added the smoke, sparks, and flames because this ship just crashed within the past 4 hours or so and parts are still burning. The ship in the sky in the background takes off if you want on the menu screen for about two minutes.

Hopefully wrapping this up soon and moving on!

 

Now that's looking tasty..!

 

Wow, looks very nice. Maybe I preffer in the first scene you posted the sun. I don't know how to descrive it but is more "brilliant", isn't it? Anyway, i like it

 

Sooo, when can we see the moving version? : D

 

I was trying to put together a gifv last night but it was still too large. Might make a regular video later today so I'll post that if I get a chance.

 

Yeah it's more dominant in the first image but it didn't fit the time of day or mood we're going for. Plus with the smoke now from the smoldering parts, it's filtering through that.

 

Damn, @Ony. That landscape looks nuts. Can't wait to see it in motion.

Also curious to see cat-people and robots "in motion" as well.

 

It occurred to me one day that our characters aren't sexy enough. They have no oomph. No pizzazz. They don't really pop. They're serviceable and look "good" but they don't look awesome, and that was a problem.

So, in addition to the massive workload we're already under, we decided to give our existing characters a makeover. Revamped textures, new shaders, sexier body shapes. The process will be, like everything else in this game, a work in progress, but so far things are looking much better than before. All new characters will then follow that lead.

While thinking about the new character look, we decided to create an all new character named "Cali Cali GunGun". She'll be an exclusive limited edition character. We're actually putting out the notice later today for a sort of Cali pre-order type thing, and then she'll be out and released for the game in November, but only to people who get her during the special.

Anyway... we've pretty much finished her up, so here's Cali...

 

Awesome.
Is that in-game hair?
Care to share overall poly count?
Textures are perfect and shaders are also.

Looks like you might be using one look at point target for her eyes. Her left eye seems to be looking slightly too far to the right.
One other small comment, her skin seems to be all one shade, though this might be on purpose a stylistic choice.

Please tell me these are custom created characters - not a manipulated character from any character generator.
This is what great custom character design looks like.

 

Thats one great char! Will keep my eyes out for the preorder thing : p

Edit: Btw, is this thread the place to be for updates, or are you posting somewhere else to?

 

Wow. She is hot! Very nicely done.

 

Sorry to take so long to update this thread! I've been working on the new update (including Cal Cali) and sort of forgot I'd posted this.

The original shots of Cali Cali I posted above weren't in-game, no, since I was still working on her. Here's an in-game shot:



Poly count in this game is skewed from other games, due to the nature of the characters. We can get away with a lot more polys since there are only ever a few characters on screen at once, mostly just two. Every character is modeled fully nude with high details, and their outfits are separate so they can easily be removed. With all of her clothes on she's just over 200,000 polys.

I use Daz 3D (licensed) figures for my base androgynous model, and then use morphs from Daz plus custom morphs I make myself to create each character. The skin, eye, and hair textures are original (not from Daz).

Thank you.

Thanks! I try to keep this thread updated but we also post updates (more frequently) on our Patreon page.

Thank you thank you. Glad you like her.

So yup she's more indicative of the way new characters will look in the game, plus we're doing the full makeover to the older characters I mentioned up above. Almost ready with this new update that has the new look. Busting my butt to get it done!

 

Nice work so far! I'm usually not a fan of erotic-oriented games, but this look and sound promising. looken forward to see how The rpg part etc. Turn out

(do excuse my random capital letters, my phones auto-correct thingie is rusning wild)

 

@Ony

Cool, so the game has been released? As Kona says tell us a bit more about it and the RPG elements ..

 

Thank you!

Yes it's been out since January, in sort of "early access" state, which was something new we tried to see how it went. The game doesn't make a whole lot of money right now. A few thousand a month. Much less than we'd expected based on our previous games. On the one hand it's nice to have some funding coming in while we continue working on it, and on the other hand it's not enough to justify the long hours I've been putting in. I need to spend less time working on it and more time marketing it, and I'm slowly making that transition.

The RPG elements will start to be developed further when we reach a higher milestone limit on Patreon but for now they're on the back burner. We hope to have character dialog and "missions" where you can explore space, collect things, find new characters to do stuff with, fight through derelict spacecraft, get loot, etc. The game's going to have to be making more than it does now before we can start in on that.

We're mainly focused on making it sexier right now. It's first and foremost an erotic experience, and over the past few months we took a good look at it and determined where it could improve, so that's what we've been working on. For instance, the characters that are in the game currently (in the downloadable version) look good, but they also don't look really that sexy, so we've done major changes to them. The lighting and color is also sort of dim, so that's been upgraded. This next update (hopefully out this month barring anything crazy happening) has all new character looks, a new intro, new menus, hairstyles for the editor, etc. We polished it up a lot and I've mainly been focused on that. All of the shots in this thread are from this new update, except for the character editor shots I kicked the thread off with, which are from the currently available version.

You can find out more and download the current free version here if you like. NSFW, 18+ click, be aware.

 

Been a long while since I've updated this thread.

This project represents the first game we've released as "early access", with the idea that if it did well enough and reached a certain sales level we'd then move fully ahead with the RPG mode.

The main focus to start with has been on the "Glimmer Deck" mode, which is basically a virtual representation of a future virtual "entertainment" machine (meta!). Most of our previously released in-house games were of the same variety so we knew we had a ready user-base going into it, which is why we chose to start with the "Glimmer Deck" module and not the full RPG.

Sales-wise we have done fair but a lot less than we'd expected compared to our previous games, and we haven't reached the levels we'd hoped for to start in earnest with the RPG mode, but we're going ahead with it anyway. We knew by taking a chance with a niche genre (sci fi sex) we'd be taking a gamble. Just the way the cookie crumbles.

The "Glimmer Deck" module took roughly three months to build and get ready enough for early access release, which was in January 2015. We've been working on it since, adding various options and characters.

Future Plans:

So, here we are, a year and a half after release, and we're still putting finishing touches on the Glimmer Deck module. I'll continue to do updates, including a new one coming out this month. The RPG is in the early development phase right now and we'll have exciting news about that soon. My partner will be team lead on that project, and I will be slowly transitioning over to a new game while still adding updates to the Glimmer Deck.

So yes, I've got my new game project in planning stages now. Woo! I'll start another WIP thread here in the forum for that. Another gamble, another risk, another crazy project. But hey, it's what I do. It's what I love (despite my occasional complaints of "I'm DONE!!").

Anyway... here's a shot of a new exclusive Glimmer Deck character, Rei. She's on the left, standing next to Mars.

I'm off for now. Thanks for watching!

 

I personally think that adding RPG elements would make this game a whole lot more interesting. There are lot of games with sex in it on the market, but few games that also has some real substance to them. This would really help it standout, at least thats what i think : )

 

Well it's been a few years now and I figure I'll post a bit more about this game. We never did end up making the RPG mode as user interest just wasn't high enough.

We've updated a few things here and there, and pretty much consider the game "complete" at this point. It continues to sell well on itch.io, but on Patreon we put the project on hold for about six months and lost a lot of patrons. That's the nature of Patreon. Things are starting to pick up again with news of our new game, so we'll see how that goes. Anyway I keep thinking of writing a post-mortem at some point so I might do that.

Figure I'll close off this thread with the latest video I made to show off the Character Editor in the game. I wanted to work on a new short song so I thought it would be nice to do that to a video of the game. So, here you go. Thanks for checking out my thread.

 

Fixed that for ya.

Thanks for sharing Ony. I noticed when changing the shape/size of the face the eyes didn't "track" with the eye opening. Did you perform some type of transform offset with the eyes after the shape/size selection was made/finalized by the player? If so - did that effect the animation on the bone any, or maybe you used morphs? Any info you can give on the eye setup with an edited face shape/size I'd be interested in reading about.

BTW - awesome song!

 

Possibly true, yeah. Every time we mentioned getting into the RPG stuff, most of the comments were something about the sex mode. Hardly anyone seemed interested in us actually pursuing the RPG mode, aside from some grumbles when we announced that we couldn't do it. Patreon is a pretty weird setup for game making, to be honest. The patrons want frequent updates, but a lot of things in game dev take way longer to get working than most patrons understand. So, taking 3 months to get even the basic beginnings of an RPG mode going just doesn't sit well with a lot of people. Definitely a challenge to figure out how to properly keep developing whilst also keeping people excited about each build and update.

Yup, there's a set of "eyeball fix" sliders in the menu where you can set the position, height, and scale of the eyes. The eyeballs are separate objects attached to the eye bones, so the system keeps track of their attributes and those get added to the character info.

Awesome, thank you! Glad you liked it.

 

I'd love to read that!

Nice! Was that made with the analog synth you've posted a photo of recently? I really like those two darker sounding synth tracks on your youtube channel!
Can you recommend a forum for composers, that is sort of comparable to how the polycount forum for 3D art is? Do you know what I mean?
The two most recent things I was interested in making are "black metal" and "martial industrial". For the first I've found some useful videos but have concluded that the people who make that kind of music are just not into talking with others on forums about how to make that kind of stuff. And for the "martial industrial" stuff I've found... absolutely nothing.

Looking at it from the outside I always feel like Patreon supports "people", but not "products". Or at least not products that take really long to make and can't be sensibly released in tiny chunks of regular frequency.

 

I'll share the link here if I get it done.

Super cool, thanks! Glad you like it. That song didn't actually use the Deluge I posted, but it did use some of my other synths. I actually put the Deluge away in the closet for a little while to de-clutter a bit to help me get to know some other gear a little better.

Song-wise, if you are into the darker electronic stuff, I'd like to offer a link to my I had to Kill project. You might perhaps enjoy it.

I've been looking for something like that, myself. Gearslutz is pretty cool, and the synth/drum machine group on Facebook is also good if you're primarily into that kind of thing. As far as strictly being composing or production oriented, there's always the "We are the Music Makers" subreddit, but that also tends to veer fairly heavily into electronic music as well.

Ah, yeah, there are some genres that are pretty difficult to find any discussion about, for sure. I make a lot of 80s style synth pop and can't really find many people to talk to about that. Most people these days are making EDM or DJing, and conversations tend to mostly be about those two things.

As far as industrial goes, I'm a long time fan of several industrial genres, including martial. There's an industrial music subreddit I am in, but it's not super busy, sadly. There is some discussion about making it in there, though, if you're starved for related conversation.

That seems to be the case with a lot of makers on Patreon, where people support them for just doing what they do, but in the case of game development, I find, even reading other developers comment sections, the patrons are more about paying money for a particular game and wanting to steer the game in the direction they want it to go.

It's difficult to make proper decisions in that kind of environment, without second guessing everything because the patrons might get upset. So yeah, when it comes to games, it seems most patrons (not all!) are more about the product than the people.