Looking Back at Neon Tide

As we get closer to the end of the year we like to reflect on the progress we have made with our visual novel game.  Here's a few shots we like best:















There's obviously a lot more than just those, but we can't spoil everything for you, now can we? Haha.

If you've been wondering what the mystery counter on our front page is counting down to (www.skyridestudios.com) it's counting down to the day we start our kickstarter for this game. 

Unlike most kickstarters, we aren't promising that our game will be finished in a year or two.  We will only need 4 months to finish it off once the kickstarter is over.  If you donate to our kickstarter, you'll have the game a full month before we release it anywhere else. Sounds like a good deal, yeah?

More details of that to come in 2019.  Right now we are on auto as we crank out the rest of the story and finish off the music. 

Happy Halloween as you probably won't hear from us til sometime after.

-end transmission-

Cyberpunk Visual Novel

Hey all, I know it's been awhile.  We've been off the radar cause we have been making our Visual Novel, "Neon Tide."  Comes out next year for PC, MAC, Android, IOS and will be on Steam, GOG, Itch.io and Humble Bundle.  Keep an eye out and we will post more info here as it gets closer.  You can also follow us on twitter and instagram to see some cool images or chat with us.

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/skyridestudios
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/skyridestudios/

We have some exciting updates to share and we will have a playable demo as well for you to check out.

That's all for now.  -end transmisson-

The man in the mask

Every step we take, get's this guy closer and closer into the game and I love it.

Currently finishing off the face as well as fixing some of the small issues we have with the model, then it's off to start animating him.  Can't wait, Imran really impressed me so far with this detailed model.

Once we get him running around with some custom animations, I'll throw up another video.

Other than that, sadly not a lot more to update with.  Catch you later Screen Slavers.

Main Character Part 2

Hey all, just wanted to give a small update on the game.  We are still going strong with all pistons firing.  Here's the newest (almost finished textured) version of Epios, the character you will be playing as in the game:

He's pretty close to being finished, the hair and head are the last we are working on.  We just hired a character rigger/ animator onto our team to help out making Epios come to life so keep an eye out for some animation video's coming soon.

The whole main street is still on track to being done by the end of the year as we will be finishing up the sound track early 2016 and then integrating sound design/music into the game engine with our animations.

A lot of down time has been spent watching tutorials about how to integrate these next steps as efficiently as possible and I'm looking forward to what the new year brings.  

Until next time, Screen Slavers.

Malice in Wonderbread

Lately we were inspired by the game "Hitman Absolution" (which if you haven't played it, you're missing out).  Inside one of the levels are a bunch of hippies that have this AMAZING black light bathroom/massage area:

It's a little hard to see here but if you play the game, you'll roam around it for a hour like we did.  ANYWAYS!  We wanted to see if Cryengine 3 could handle a black light looking room as well so we tested it out and bingo, totally, so we started carving away at a black light business and came up with the idea to make it Alice in Wonderland themed.  Knowing that Disney has a HUGE copyright on this story we checked around and even though Disney's version and images are copyrighted, Lewis Carroll's illustrations in the book aren't (because they are over 100 years old past copyright law).  So that's what we used in the level along with some of our own custom fan made, Alice inspired artwork.  Check it out in this video!

   


Pretty cool, yeah?  Let us know what you think in the comment section!

In the details.

Lately we've been working on making the city feel like a city.  Lights, telephone poles, sewers, alleyways, they all make the feel of the game come to life. That's where the quality comes from and being that we only have one person, ME, doing the modeling for the game, it's hard to get all the quality I want into the world without worrying about or fixing something else that needs my immediate attention.

I say all of that to say, I recently re-worked a final version of a shop I had done back in 2013 called "Garden of Weeden."  It's one of the many shops in the game and will probably be one of the more comical pieces.  Here's a side by side comparison of of the version of the shop, not much longer than 2 years ago, and the one today:

I hope at the end of the project, when all is said and done, that it really feels like a game made by a big studio.  The style, quality and details, even though they won't be AAA in scope, will at least give off the feeling that this could've been made by one.

I'm doing my best to make sure everyone gets to play this game as soon as possible.

Sludge, sweets and sewers

Hello and welcome back.  We've been in the background continuing to work on the game and it's finally starting to come together.  More bigger news later this month.  For now, lets start with the alleys:

Lately I've been hard at work making every single prop in order to make this town feel like a town.  Cardboard boxes, crates, pipes, stairs, trash cans, etc.  You name it, I modeled it.....and lit it....and added animation to it........you get the idea.


We here at Skyride like the "Hands off" approach when it comes to gameplay.  We will set up areas with specific treasures to find, but we don't want to have to blatantly point out where you need to go next.  Characters and props will help lead the way.  One of the cool concepts we are going to do incorporate are posters in the city like this:

Even those these posters won't be moving, they will be plastered around town and will "magically" change their image depending on where you need to go next.  So incase you ever get lost or can't seen to figure out what to do next, all you'll have to do is track down a poster and you'll get a good hint.  This hint is what you'll get when you first arrive in the city and need to get a place to live while you are here.

RainChecks are the in-game currency you use to buy things.  You will not need to buy fake money with your credit card, because this game is a non pay-to-win game and we feel like if you bought the game, we don't need anymore cash from you. (You're welcome.)


Another big idea we've been bouncing around are the idea of sewers.  Since it's a city of Rain, there sewer system should be large and vast.  We didn't want to make this game about living in the sewer and hiding with the mole people because we want to force the player to interact with the people in the city.  So to meet in the middle, we hid a secret underground room somewhere in the level (no, we aren't telling you where and good luck finding it) and as a bonus we put someone special living inside that room.  Take a look:

We might add some special weapons or a loot of money or something cool in this room later, but for now, it's just a sewer room.


So that basically wraps up the latest on our end.  Hopefully you start to get an idea of the feeling of the game as well as how some of the gameplay might be.  Keep an eye out this month for big news about our characters and we will see you next time screen slavers.

Dionysus and Diligence.

Hello all.  Welcome back. Today we are going to discuss new updates:

First off is badass concept art again by Leandro.  This is Lady Lynn's son Dionysus (and looking quite dapper):

If you look closely you'll see something on him that is super special.  I'll give you a moment to look.

Times up.

On his coat there is a logo of sorts.  This, which will have a larger picture soon, is the family crest for lady lynn and her entire family.  (Lady Lynn's drawing will be updated soon with that crest as well.)

Next up is the main street itself.  I've been working a lot on getting the town set up and making it feel like people could live there.  Here's the interior of the night time fishing shop "Luna Tuna."

This is where you will probably buy and sell items as well as maybe craft a weapon to use against your attackers.  Everything in Rain is a weapon.

Here is the Crimson Castle.  A bar next to Luna Tuna where you can sit and enjoy a drink while listening to whispers of people plotting to rob you:

The city is slowly growing life and soon every nook and cranny will be filled with fun areas to explore, hide and gather information.

In addition to this, we also have a new video of a ladder system we created for the game as well as a fishing boat with sails.  Take a look and let us know what you think! (No, seriously, no one ever comments.  Be the first.)

Lady Lynn and Lag.

Hello one and all.  Sorry for the delay in updates but to be honest, we've all taken a light break at the beginning of the year, regrouped, reassessed and are now back on track working harder than ever.

Lets start off with concept art, since it's pretty amazing.  We have a new character concepted out and they are kinda a big deal.  This character literally owns the entire city in which our story takes place and they were one of the very first character I came up with while writing the story.  I'm proud to introduce, Lady Lynn:

Some interesting facts about her are she's a widow and one of the richest people in the world.  Her wealth is everlasting and her late husband and her decided they wanted to build a Utopian like city where people could live in peace.  After her husbands untimely accident, she became grief stricken and locked herself away in her mansion, abandoning the city to gamblers, druggies, prostitutes, murders, hackers, etc.  

I'm excited to see her come to life as well as so many of the other characters.  Which brings me to me next topic: the city coming to life.

Here is the latest screen grab from out game.  I've recently started adding props into the world and it's scary how much it grows as the world begins to come together.  Check it out:

If you can't tell, I've added barrels, sconces, a sign and a lot of fishing net around this quaint little fishing shop.

Here I've added a small fishing dock and lantern.  I'll add more fishing nets, rope, boats next.  (this was just added a few minutes ago.)

The other additions that might go even more unnoticed is the lighting.  Recently Cryengine has updated their lighting engine which meant all the work I had done making the world look pretty had changed and looked terrible.  I had to go in and pretty much start from scratch finding out that reflections such as the rain on the ground being my most hardest to light.  If not done correctly, the lighting looked really bad.  I'm happy with the new outcome and can't wait to show you more as I add more along.

Hope this small post was worth the wait.  Check back in with us soon for some more music, concept art, and additions!

Logo's, Leandro and Lady Lynn

Hello again!  Even though progress might seem slow after reading this post, we have never had more work done all at the same time and we keep on striving through.  So here we go:


As you may have already been able to tell from this blog, we have a new logo:

Our amazing concept artist Leandro used to be/is a fantastic graphic designer and helped us come up with this new bad boy.  We love it and can't wait to start plastering it on our screenshots/website/etc.

Leandro's also been able to concept out our very first locked character for City of Rain.  Meet Willow:

(did you notice the new logo.  Yeah we know, it rocks!)  Later on in the game you will be fighting this insanely huge man.  I think the main character only comes up to his waist height.  When that happens, he will throw off his coat and look like this:

Obviously it goes without saying that Leandro did a outstanding job and we should all give him compliments and check out more of his work on his deviant art page:  http://slipled.deviantart.com/


Lady Lynn's Mansion:

A little back-story about Lady Lynn before we get started is that she is the wealthiest person in the city and it was her money that actually financed the creation of Rain the city as well.

I'm pretty excited to announce that Lady Lynn's mansion is complete (minus furniture and other set dressings) so here's a few pics:

This is outside the main gate where you will enter at.  Currently as you walk up to the gate, the gate opens and lets you climb the stairs up.

Once you enter the front, you are greeted by double staircases and massive chandeliers.  The walls and ceiling are cool because they reflect this gold design that shines as you move around.

In the center of the building is a courtyard.  I made hedges (my first vegetation models) and planted some flowers and unique plants that you'll only be able to see at Lady Lynn's.

So that about wraps up this new entry.  By the next we should have Willow 3D modeled and I will give you a step by step breakdown on how we transfer these ideas from script, to concept, to 3D model to finish product.  So stay tuned Screen Slavers and have a lovely weekend.

Carts, Cloth and Concepts

Well hello everyone.  Been a super busy time since the last post.   We've had some great progress on the game and I have a few screenshots I'd like to share with you.  First up is carts.

It took me a little bit of hunting down but I finally found a workflow for creating cloth.  This was excellent news because I made a food vendor cart and I wanted it to have a cloth top.  So I worked some CryEngine magic and BAM:

What's awesome is as soon as you start the game, the cloth sways and moves with the wind.  I'll be uploading a video later once I get further along with more props.  For the cart I also tested out making a life-like lightbulb. I didn't want just a glowing orb, I wanted a clear, shiny outside and glowing filament on the inside. Like a normal lightbulb.  Not sure if I like it better or not, but it defiantly adds a certain something.

Next, after the cart I wanted to add more cloth.  The best place was a mansion I created for the game where I could add some curtains.   Sadly, the mansion wasn't textured yet so I spent a few days texturing it so I could add in some amazingly huge curtains in front of the windows.  Here's a look at how it turned out:

Granted the building still needs a LOT done before it's finished, but it was fun to push the curtains around with the character and watch them sway and move.  I also added some cool shiny textures in the wall which I think add a nice rich feeling to the place.  Colors and everything aren't locked in yet but it's enough to get you a idea.

While all this fun was going on, I got our first concept drawing from Leandro.  He had just finished reading the script and wanted to draw out how he saw the main character Epios.  This is what he came up with: (click image to view bigger)

I showed them around the team and we all really loved them.  We are currently tweaking a couple of them and narrowing down the choices to ones we think will fit the story best.  

So that's our quick little update.  Hope you've enjoyed it and we can't wait to share what else we are working on.  See you later.

City of Rain Music

Recently my composer has finished mixing and master our first song which is a ambient track that will play when you are exploring around the city.  Here is a short video showing the pre-alpha visuals along with part of the song:

COR Music from City of Rain on Vimeo.

We are both continuing to work hard on the video game and I will have new updates before the end of the year.  Have a great 11/12/13!

Watch out for the Zombies.

Minus the zombies...cause there are no zombies.

It's been awhile, I know.  You probably thought, "Why does this guy never update his blog anymore.  He probably stopped working on the game."


WRONG!

Quite the opposite.  I haven't updated cause I wanted some progress to show for it.

You may remember, back in april, a post mentioning THIS about trying to make abandoned looking buildings....well...here is a little side by side comparison for you:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

And here is a slightly closer look:

Lots of detail went into these guys and there is still a whole street to finish.  Here's a closer look so you can see the detail a bit better:

There is even a hidden walkway in one of these buildings that has some graffiti in it that looks like this:

In the story, this city was made with decaying manufactured materials so when it rains, the buildings are slowly falling apart.  There will be other little hints and secret things to find in the level as I plan to have a bunch of hidden places to explore and see during side quests.

Well, that's it for now, I have about 11 more of these buildings to finish off before the street is done, and that's a lot of photoshop work.  Hope you've enjoyed this little piece and look for me again hopefully before the end of the month!

Mansion

What's that you ask?  Where I have I been for almost a month?  Only modeling this crazy mansion.  This will be the mansion where the owner of the city lives.  Just a little shack.  Allow me to walk you through.

Here's the front of the mansion (see that tiny doorway in the front, that's about the size your character will be):

Once you walk in, you get this view (interior isn't complete):

From upstairs it looks like this:

In the middle of the building is a outside courtyard (this is looking down from the roof:

And finally in the back of the mansion where there will be a lush garden:

So as you can tell, I've spent a fair amount of time on the details, adapting about 12-15 pictures of actual mansions with features I liked.  The inside shouldn't take me too much longer, and then I will add chandeliers, huge fireplaces, etc.  Really "Citizen Kane" the hell out of the building.  

If you don't know what Citizen Kane is, it's a movie.  Go watch it.

City of Lights

Here are a few images from the status of the project.  I have probably about 4 more buildings to create before I can start getting into the design of the city and also work on the textures of the buildings.   Enjoy.

Quick update

As the title states, this is just a quick update on the progress of the city I've been modeling for the game.  Take a peek:

I've completed 4 streets of buildings and have about 2 more streets to complete.  The main street branches off into many alleyways with twists and turns and slowly bottlenecks as you get further to the outskirts leaving only certain openings for passage.  Since most of the exploring will probably take place around the main street, I fully plan on allowing the player to go anywhere in the city they want.  Only certain buildings will have explore-able interiors but there will be plenty to explore on the outside of the buildings as well.

I'm very excited to continue on and once I get a playable Alpha version of the game up and running, I'll have sign ups on the skyride studios website so people can enter to play and test out the alpha for me, giving feedback and so on.

Well, that's all for now.

Street of dispair

Finally finished modeling half the street and the main park area for the run down side of town.  This was a pain cause of the fine detail's I had to incorporate into the modeling.  Take a look:

Once textured, this should start looking pretty sweet.  Hope you enjoy.

I'm a model

Good day to the lot of you.  As the title tells, I've been modeling lately, as you can see here:

However, in all seriousness, I've been doing a lot of modeling lately and as much as I enjoy it, it's also making me get super excited about the game.  So, even though these aren't textured yet, here are some of the new buildings that I am making for the "run down" side of town: 

Even though they don't look it let, I will be modifying these buildings to have more cracks/holes/broken windows/etc and once I add the texturing I plan on doing, there will be stains, discolored walls, etc added on top of them along with weeds and dying plants.  

So stay tuned for more as I get these streets filled, I will then go back, texture and add proxies to hopefully the remaining builds left in the level so that I can then start playing around with the world.

See you later screen slavers.