[WIP] Tombeaux - Historical Exploration Game

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Hello everyone! My name is Dave Beck, and I wanted to start a new thread about my WIP game, Tombeaux. I plan to update this regularly with info, imagery, and assets, in hopes of getting feedback from the unity community!

A bit more about Tombeaux: It is a first-person exploration game I am developing, set in a historically accurate 3D environment. This interactive experience investigates the convergence between cultures and the environment across a few hundred years of midwestern American history, taking place on a small section of the St. Croix River (which serves as part of the natural border between the states of Minnesota and Wisconsin). Through exploration, the player discovers new objects, environments, and narratives, all of which cause reflection upon our history and our future.

Tombeaux is meant to be a short, reflective experience, with core elements of the game focused on exploration, narrative, and learning about history. Traversing across different time periods, the player will have experiences with the natural environment, Ojibwe culture, and the logging industry (to name a few). The game is also inspired by the Hudson River School painting movement and historical American themes such as Manifest Destiny and environmentalism.

Unique Points about Tombeaux:
• Realistic exploratory world
• Historical narrative and events (w/ some historical fiction)
• Environment transforms in reaction to progress in game
• Game Audience: All ages, including non-gamers and gamers
• Gameplay: 15-30 minutes
• Focus Issues: The human nature to desire control, environmental awareness, and historical consequence
• Is an artistic experience & concept (ie: notgame/artgame)
• Made in Unity 5

I plan to release Tombeaux in early 2016

Links for Tombeaux:

• Dev Blog
• Twitter
• itch.io Site
• Steam Greenlight Concept Page

 

so, with no further ado, I thought I’d put up a post showing some of what I’ve been up to, in regards to modeling and texturing over the past few days. Note: nearly all of this is WIP, so certain textures and details are yet to come!

I’ll start with the cabin, where the player will frequently be returning to throughout the game. I modeled it in Maya and wanted to keep the exterior under 1,000 tris, all while trying to recreate a cabin similar to an authentic homesteader’s cabin. As you can see, most of the detail work is handled by the texture maps, since it has flat walls that don’t demand a high-detail geometry profile. Also, the player will not be able to walk around the entire cabin, so my focus was mainly on the front and sides of the structure. Soon, I plan to add a handle and hinges to the door, a stove-pipe on the roof and wooden boards nailed over the windows.


Base for Cabin Exterior in Maya (835 tris). Inset: reference image


Albedo & Normal Map for Cabin Exterior

I have also modeled a few outbuildings/objects for the cabin. The outhouse will sit in proximity to the main structure, and the lean-to will be found behind the cabin, as if it was a later addition to the home. I’ve created some barbed wire fencing as well, using albedo, normal, and transparency maps. Its design is based on the 1874 version by Joseph Glidden from DeKalb, IA (itwas the first barbed-wire patent awarded in the United States).


Outhouse in Maya (188 tris)


Lean-to in Maya (166 tris)


Barbed Wire Fencing. (lef: Glidden’s 1874 Patent, top right: Model showing textured and untextured versions in Maya, bottom right: Transparency map used for wires (black makes it invisible, white makes it visible).


Cabin, Outhouse, Lean-to, and Fencing in Unity (NOT scene from game, just set-up for showing models)

I’ve also steadily continued to create the rocks and cliffs that will be found in the game. As I talked about extensively before, the environment in which my game is set demands a great amount of focus on these geological creations. At this point, I’ve created one giant cliff (2K tris), two medium cliffs (1K tris each), and two large rocks (500 tris each). My goal is to have about double that regarding assets to choose from, in order to dress the river scene’s set so that it is both believable and not redundant.


Medium Cliff in Zbrush (top) & again selected amongst the other rocks/cliffs Maya (bottom)


5 Rocks/Cliffs, separated for demonstration in Unity

As seen above, to create objects with unique silhouettes (that can stand on their own as interesting pieces) is one challenge, but to also design it so that they work as a “team” in a modular fashion is a bit trickier. Below, I’ve duplicated and arranged the five rock/cliff models into a grouping to show what I mean. I will need to eventually line both sides of my river level with rock and cliff formations that have unique nooks and crannies, so as to create memorable images and moments for the player to stumble-upon during their experience. I’ve thrown in some trees from Speedtree as well, to provide scale and reference.


Modular cliff set-up (using 5 unique, instanced assets) (NOT scene from game, just set-up for showing models)


Modular cliff set-up (using 5 unique, instanced assets) (NOT scene from game, just set-up for showing models)

While I’m content with the modeling pipeline I’ve established for these rocks and cliffs, I still need to give a lot of attention to their texture maps. Currently, all of the geological forms share the same non-native, generic albedo texture, and while that is helpful for continuity, it becomes a bit boring when the player gets closer to the forms. In the coming months, I plan to return to the St. Croix River to shoot reference photography of the sandstone for the base rock textures. I’m also planning to add lichen and moss into the secondary albedo detail maps, in order to give more interest for close-up inspection. Finally, I plan to turn the specular highlight way down (unless the rocks are wet, of course, which some of them will be!), as I’ve cranked it up only to show the secondary normal detail map. When it comes time for set-dressing, I’ll also be interspersing natural growth throughout the cliffs, such as grasses, flowers, weeds, and even trees.


Cliff Detail – albedo and spec maps will be changing (NOT scene from game, just set-up for showing models)


Cliff Detail – albedo & spec maps will be changing (NOT scene from game, just set-up for showing models)

So, hopefully this helps you envision the world of Tombeaux just a bit more, as the objects (both natural and human-made) are beginning to take shape and make their way into the game engine! As always, I’d love any comments, questions, or constructive feedback.

 

This project sounds interesting and so far, looks great!

 

Looks great and as a former Midwesterner, it looks very authentic. Loved the reference to Dekalb and his barbed wire. I went to college in the town named after him. I also remember all the barbed wire accidents as a kid.

Can't wait to see your finished game.

 

thank you for the kind words from both Teila and IAmCraigSnedeker - very happy to hear the Dekalb barbed wire and the rest felt authentic!

 

interesting, will Watch this one

 

Dev update! (Original post can be found here: http://tombeauxgame.wordpress.com/2015/07/13/trees/)

As I've mentioned before, Tombeaux has a main narrator character who we hear reading journal entries throughout the game experience. But there is a group that I would argue upstages our narrator, and that (as you probably guessed by the title) is the trees. Before the St. Croix was a river of recreation for fishing, canoeing, and speedboating like it is now, it was a river of pine, acting as one of the nation's busiest highways for timber in the mid to late 1800's. During this time, non-logging boats were lucky to get up the river at all, due to the waterway being clogged full of floating logs (or even worse, a logjam that stopped everything in its path). Since the St. Croix directly connects with the Mississippi, and it had what seemed to be an unlimited supply of tall and straight trees growing along its edges, it was a resource ripe for the picking (or chopping...sorry).


L: group of Pinus strobus, R: distribution map of tree (images via wikipedia)
While Tombeaux is not entirely about the logging industry, it definitely does take the player on a journey to see what it might have been like both before and after the timber harvest. Because of this, I wanted to set the stage by creating an old growth forest, with the main silvan feature being that of Pinus strobus, or the eastern white pine. These old growth forests of white pines are nearly impossible to find now, as only 1% remain in North America due to logging in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This type of pine is the tallest tree found in the eastern (and northeastern/midwest) United States and Canada. With a mature white pine living well past 200 years old, reaching heights of well over 150 feet (while keeping a very straight trunk), and a diameter of 3-4 feet, they were particularly attractive to lumber barons.


Mood Board for reference
After doing some visual research, both online and in person (last post I wrote about my trip to northern Wisconsin, in which I did some bark texture reconnaissance), it was time to dive in to creating this giant beast of the forest, including the many iterations that it might take, such as sawed-off stumps, beaver-chewed stubs, and dead (needle-less) versions (both standing and downed). Additionally, I wanted to make sure I was creating an environment that felt both native and diverse, filled with other types of trees such as oak and birch. At a later date, I plan to return to the detail meshes and plants, to create native species such as wild celery (an underwater type of river weed/grass), wild rice, ferns, and wildflowers.


One iteration of an eastern white pine, inside SpeedTree
Once I compiled a small mood board, I set out to learn and use a new program that I had been itching to try, called SpeedTree. It is an industry standard tree and foliage creator for both movies and games, and now that it is naturally integrated into Unity 5 and Unreal 4, we will most likely continue to see a great deal of high quality natural environments in the coming years from both indies and AAA companies. One way to use their tech is by paying and downloading high-quality, pre-made tree assets from their store (but what's the fun in that?!). Another, more creative way is by paying a $19 per month subscription fee to use their modeling/creation software. As a point of reference, two months of paying for the software is actually cheaper than the $39 price tag for a single tree from their store!). Since it is my goal to create as much in my game as possible from scratch, I decided to download the software and start making assets myself.


2 Stumps and 1 Gnawed Beaver Tree in SpeedTree

Bare (Dead) White Pine in Speedtree w/ Bark Detail
Simply put, SpeedTree is my new favorite software. One can quickly and easily create natural assets for a game, using an intuitive, node-based interface that tries to mimic how a tree is naturally constructed. Starting with a trunk, and then adding elements such as roots, branches, and leaves provides for a very smooth workflow. Everything is highly customizable as well, with integrated wind effects, collision capsules, seamless branching, randomizers, break points for branches or trunks, and automatic billboard and LOD (level of detail) creation upon export to Unity. Once I created a base white pine tree, I was quickly able to create many iterations by simply removing leaves (bare tree) and breaking and capping trees (stumps). I didn't even use many of their features, and hope to dive deeper into the program when I use it to create plants and other detail foliage. Again, I can't say enough about how much this program has helped my environment-heavy project achieve a great look.


LOD transition feature in Unity (LOD 0 on left w/ 9K tris, LOD 2 on right w/ 2K tris)
Once you bring a SpeedTree asset into the Unity engine, it offers other great options for you to tweak. With the LOD's that were auto-created/exported by SpeedTree, you can adjust them to your liking in the engine, so that it seamlessly transfers to a billboard at the distance you set. I really like the fact that you can also drag and drop the trees into the scene as objects or prefabs. Since these also have the LOD settings, you could put a hero tree (a hi-poly, hi-detailed tree) in your scene without having to worry about relying on Unity's finnicky terrain. With that said, I painted most of my trees on the terrain, as it makes it much easier when you have a large amount of assets to place and randomize.


Here there be beavers...and downed trees...the perfect natural barrier!
Due to my game being on a river, it is important that I have some invisible walls that will stop the player from continuing up and down the river at their leisure. Implementing barriers correctly is tricky, as you don't want the barrier to scream "HEY, I'M AN INVISIBLE WALL PUT THERE BY A GAME DESIGNER WHO DIDN'T REALLY CARE ABOUT YOUR IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE THAT MUCH!" (sorry, it is one of my biggest pet-peeves in games). While natural-looking barriers are great, you also don't want it to be mistaken for just another stick or bush in the game that one thinks they can walk over. I try to put some purpose behind the walls when possible, which is where things like downed trees, beaver dams, and beaver-gnawed stubs come in to play (plus, it's always a great way to show off some of your hard work in a more up-close view!).


The view from directly outside the cabin door
While the exterior river scene is hardly complete, I'm happy with the progress I've made in the past few days on the tree elements. So far, I've created and placed four iterations of the white pine, three of the birch, and two of the oak. Additionally, I have three white pine stumps, three gnawed-beaver stubs, and three downed trees. Once I give the same attention to the plants and detail rocks (they are all currently the low-quality placeholder plants that Unity provides), spend some time on the lighting (it is just a single real-time directional light w/ default skybox at the moment), and add some environmental effects like haze and fog, the river will hopefully start to look more like it did 200 years ago.


Looking up to the cabin from the river (underneath a couple towering pinus strobus)

 

Beautiful! Love what you did with the modeler. It is a great tool.

 

Dev update! (Original post can be found here: https://tombeauxgame.wordpress.com/2015/08/30/plants/)


Various plants filling in as groundcover in Tombeaux

Last month, I posted about the importance of trees (namely, the White Pine) in my game. The trees are essentially characters in my game, with a focus on their historic, environmental, and commercial value. I'd like to follow-up with a sister post, about some of the smaller foliage elements - the supporting actors - that are scattered around the river scenes of Tombeaux.


A scientist from the St. Croix Watershed Research Station, playtesting Tombeaux (photo courtesy Greg Seitz)

I once again returned to the source - the river - to get the evidence I would need. Through consultation with scientists at the Science Museum of Minnesota's St. Croix Watershed Research Station and a trip out on to the St. Croix, I spent a mid-August day doing some field research that would help me refine my focus (I was also able to get some valuable playtesting time in to the trip).


Foliage in Tombeaux

There are a myriad of common plants one might find in a variety of natural settings (around the world), whether they be prairies, forests, or rivers. As examples, daisies, queen anne's lace, cattails, ferns, knapweed, various grasses, and mushrooms are found (and easily recognized) by people around the country, and sometimes world. Plants like these are also native to the St. Croix region, and thus necessary elements to my game, providing the "filler" that I am looking for regarding ground cover around the river. Just as with the trees, I used a fantastic program called Speedtree to create all of my plants. In a few cases, I was able to employ and modify the template of a plant they had already created. But in most cases I found that it was necessary to strip down the structure of a plant to create a new, unique looking species that would fit my specific needs.


Photo of Wild Celery

In addition to the common plants mentioned above, there were a few unique plants that I knew I would need to create and represent well in the game, due to either their history or their "prolific-ness" on the river. Regarding the latter, wild celery (Vallisneria americana) is in fact a frequently found piece of vegetation around the country and world, but also very unique to the St. Croix. It's a type of "tape grass" found in freshwater environs and is commonly sought after by waterfowl; it has a beautiful movement as it flows with the underwater currents. When one is on the St. Croix, the plant seems to be everywhere - serving as both the bane of the fisherman's motor and also dinner for a duck.


Wild Celery (and fish!) in a shallow river area of Tombeaux

I wanted to be sure to represent this plant - even if in a subtle way - in Tombeaux. Making it in Speedtree was somewhat easy - I first created a simple grass cluster, and applied a subtle amount of force to the mesh, which resulted in a wavy feature that seemed to fit well with the natural flow of wild celery. When a slow, weak wind force was applied, it gave the look of a grass moving underwater.


Using Speedtree - Wild Rice (Top), Wild Celery (Bottom Left), & Queen Anne's Lace (Bottom Right)

The second unique plant was a bit trickier. Northern Wild Rice (Zizania palustris) is a well-known upper-Midwest staple, especially in its final form on the dinner table (it is not actually a form of rice, but a grass with grains growing from it). This plant is particularly important to Tombeaux, due to its historical significance in the Ojibwe culture (both in the past and still today). The harvesting and preparation of wild rice is an art in itself, implementing a series of tools and extremely involved processes, including the use of canoes, knockers (large wooden sticks that remove the grain without damaging the plant), and winnowing baskets that are made from birch bark.


Photo of Wild Rice

When the St. Croix and surrounding tributaries were completely flooded due to logging (with both high water and the presence of logs), the wild rice began to dwindle. With a spiritual, cultural, and economic way of life for such a large population disappearing, it foretold of what was to come with land and rights also going by the wayside. My use of the plant in Tombeaux thus has both historical and environmental intentions, hoping that it catches the eye and interest of a player to learn more.


Drawing of Wild Rice Harvest by S. Eastman

Due to it growing so thick in a natural environment, I wanted to make the wall of wild rice exactly that - a thick collection that swayed in the wind, not allowing the player to navigate beyond its edge. In the game, I'll have various tools and canoes nearby, to provide the story of this important part in Ojibwe culture to the player to observe and consider. Using photos from wild rice plants, I applied textures and wind properties to the plants in Speedtree, to give them as real a representation of the actual plant as possible.


A thick wall of wild rice in Tombeaux

I hope this brief glimpse into some of the "supporting actors" of Tombeaux's environment has helped you gain a better understanding for both the process and the meaning behind their creation.


Looking past the cattails at a beaver dam in Tombeaux

 

Wow, this is just amazing. I love your Speedtree plants and thanks for sharing your process. The beaver damn is beautiful! I remember taking students to a see a beaver damn in southern Illinois.

Love those rocks too!

 

inspirationnal, very nice

 

Thanks for the comments and compliments, Teila! Much appreciated!

 

New Website & Teaser Trailer for Tombeaux!

As the late-October daylight hours become increasingly shorter, it seems that the frequency of my blog posts have an opposite effect. The school/work year at University of Wisconsin-Stout is now in full gear, and my chances to set aside time to post - or even contribute to Tombeaux - have become rarer and rarer.

But last week was a very busy week for both me and the game! In the period of about five days, I launched the Tombeaux website, released a teaser trailer, and gave a presentation to the IGDA Chapter in the Twin Cities.

For the actual website of the game, I've been working closely with my former student, Keith Catalano. Keith is a talented 3D artist in his own right, but also works full time as a interactive designer at Clockwork Media. I hired him to help with the development of Tombeaux's site, as well as aid a bit on the identity of the title treatment and logo in the game.


Main Page of Tombeaux Site, with title treatment
Working over the past few months, Keith has done a fantastic job in designing a site that feels fresh, informative and simple. I'm extremely happy with the result of the site, and the type treatment and logo hits the exact amount of subtle yet unique balance I was looking for in the game's identity. I invite you to jump over to www.tombeauxgame.com at some point soon, to see the great job he's done.


Screenshots of Tombeaux's Website

Before I could make the site live, I wanted to have a teaser trailer ready for viewers to discover nested on the page. I was going for a very simple and short experience that incorporate a glimpse of the river scene at night (as experienced by the player at the beginning of the game) and a few shots of the cabin interior. After recording the gameplay with the awesome, open-source software that is OBS, I brought it into Adobe Premiere. I then overlaid the video with a snippet of the score being composed by Joseph Fear and a selection of narration by the main character in the game (voiced by Steve Alm, who is reciting one of my favorite passages by Thoreau, from Walden). I'm happy with how the teaser ended up, and plan to release a few more teasers in the next few months.

First Teaser Trailer for Tombeaux

Finally, I had an opportunity to present the progress and research I've made on the game thus far to my local IGDA Chapter last Wednesday. The IGDA Twin Cities Chapter meets on the 2nd Wednesday of every month at The Nerdery, a software design and development company located in Bloomington, MN. It was a great experience to be able to talk about the project to such a large group of peers in the game development industry, and received some great feedback on the game as well. I look forward to continuing to participate in future meet-ups for playtest opportunities and conversations.


IGDA Twin Cities Logo
Overall, it was quite a busy week for Tombeaux and myself, which resulted in more than one late or all-nighter to get things done on time! It's now again time to hunker down and model more assets, so that I can perhaps have another new teaser to share with you at some point in the coming month or two!​

 

This entry, as well as other media and blog posts, can be found at: http://www.tombeauxgame.com/


A Few of the Historical Supporting Characters from Tombeaux
While a picture might be worth a thousand words, I have a feeling that a thousand words spoken by the right person - someone who possesses the talent and training to properly deliver a line - is worth even more.

Tombeaux is somewhat heavy on narrated dialogue. It delivers a large portion of its story through a single main narrator that we hear throughout the game. But just as crucial to that single voice are the musings delivered in the form of short dialogue snippets by the sixteen different historically accurate supporting narrators. I spent a large part of last spring and early summer refining these characters and the lines that they would speak.


Historical Supporting Character Bios
Just as with a film or book, one cannot necessarily just sit down and begin writing dialogue for a character. It was important to me that these individuals were well-researched and authentic. Additionally, I wanted to make sure to have a small bio (with supporting imagery) for each character, so that I (and eventually, the actors) could more easily get into the heads of these people. In the case of well-known historical figures (like President Thomas Jefferson, who we hear reading one of his letters in my game), this was easy. I could fill in his name, age, gender, ethnicity, and even the year of the event/dialogue with a simple internet search. From additional research, I could also supply the bio with his educational background, speaking dialect/style, home, and occupation. Because I have placed these characters in the game as supporting observations and narrative (it is not required of the player to listen to their statements), their role acts to fill in holes left by the main narration, adding a level of depth for the particular player who wants to learn more. To support this, I've also assigned each individual bio with specific emotional states and themes that they would be representing in Tombeaux.


Quote by Oscar Knapp, Steamboat Captain
While my main character is more opinionated and collaged from multiple facts, writings, and quotes (representing one voice of collective America), the supporting characters are either actual figures from history or a representation of a figure one would find in that era. For instance, I have people like Frederick Weyerhauser the lumber baron and the Ojibwe Chief Great Buffalo (Kechewaishe) speaking in my game. These are historical figures - icons - speaking in the game with either real things they said, or a collection of quotes and facts that were associated directlly with them.


Quote by Kristina Nilsson, Swedish Homesteader
But in the case of many view points I wanted to represent in the game, it was very hard to find documentation on both a person and a specific quote. I often times had to find a word-for-word quote by an unnamed person and attribute it to the name of another person from that time period. For instance, James Johnston the lumberjack or Kristina Nilsson the Swedish homesteader did not have specific quotes attributed to them in history. Instead, I combined various quotes and facts from that period in order to craft lines that would have most likely been spoken by that person (or a similar person). Essentially, while some of the narrated lines were pure non-fiction, I had no choice but to dive into "creative nonfiction" for some characters, through historical research and inventiveness.


Matthew Carlson
Once I had the lines written, it was time to start recording them for the game. While I recorded all the lines myself first, that was obviously only as a placeholder. Luckily, one of my closest friends, Matthew Carlson, is an actor and writer. In addition to having years of experience on stage and a graduate degree from NYU, he's been focusing a lot of his current work on screenwriting. Not only was Matt able to lend his voice talents for one character, but he gave my script a much-needed overhaul, bringing it to a level of polish I could never have achieved alone.

Listen: Dialogue by the lumberjack James Johnston (voiced by Matthew Carlson)

And, as if that wasn't enough, he also offered to act as unofficial "casting director" for me, helping me to find the other 15 voice actors for the game. Before I knew it, he had reached out to his acting friends, and received affirmative responses from nearly every person he asked.


Some of the voice actors from Tombeaux
The result has been amazing, as now my game is filled with a who's who list of Broadway and IMDB, including Nicholas Carriere as Thomas Jefferson, Ray Baker as Frederick Weyerhauser, Gretchen Hall as a Swedish homesteader, and Kate MacCluggage as a park ranger (to just name a few!). Again, I have my good friend Matt to thank for helping Tombeaux's narrative and voice talent ratchet from "amateur" up to "professional" in a series of a few months.

Listen: Dialogue by Thomas Jefferson (voiced by Nicholas Carriere) reading a letter from 1803

While the ideal situation is to record the lines in a outfitted studio, my voice actors were literally spread across the country from LA to NY. Since each of them only had a single 30-60 second line to record, we relied on earbud mics as the recording tech for the first run-through. After bringing the emailed files in to the free audio editing program, Audacity, I made some adjustments that followed a quick workflow tutorial that I found online. These adjustments allowed all of the tracks to sound relatively similar, and resulted in a fairly sufficient quality that I could bring in to the game. Once I overlayed the tracks on top of the game's background sound effects and Joseph Fear's musical score, they fit perfectly. The dialogue and recordings have proven to be the perfect addition to Tombeaux's dedication to authenticity and excellence, and I have over a dozen people to thank for that (especially my friend, Matt)!

Tombeaux is a historical interactive experience being released in 2016. Visit http://www.tombeauxgame.com/ for more details, imagery, and information.

Special thanks to all of my current voice actors: Steve Alm, Mike Ojibway, Chris Bolan, Nicholas Carriere, Lesley Shires, Brian Slaten, Rob Eli, Ray Baker, Matthew Carlson, Kevin Crouch, Gretchen Hall, Ben Graney, Max Santucci, Kate MacCluggage, and Ken Roht.​