A Night In Kyosaka

Good news!  Skyride Studios has started work on a new visual novel game! "A Night In Kyosaka".

Our production pipeline will go as follows: Demo--Funding--Full game-- Release.

Our goal will be to premiere our finished game at 2021 Anime Expo along with a booth in Artist Alley where we will sell physical copies of the game.  (More on that as the game progresses)

This game will be very different than Neon Tide was as we are implementing a more interactive approach along with fully voiced and animated 2D, hand-drawn characters.  Since our hiatus, after launching Neon Tide, we have been working hard figuring out gameplay mechanics while creating a story we think a lot of you will be interested in.

We will showcase those ideas throughout the coming year and a half of production.  Until then, stay safe and healthy and we will be back again soon!

Models, Music and Mischief.

Hello and welcome back....wait....we're back...not you.  Welcome back us!

Lots to talk about so let's jump right in:

Models:
We're trying something new here at Skyride Studios.....more videos,  That's right, you read correctly unless you can't read then obviously you didn't.  We are going to start adding more videos of behind the scenes stuff just for you.

Up first is this timelapse we'd like to share.  After we model our buildings, we then go and add textures to the buildings, add collision proxies so that you can't run through the walls and then apply it in-game and tweak the textures until they look like whatever we set out to make them look like, I.E. concrete, glass, wood,etc.

 To do these last two steps it took us a hour and a half for just one building (City of Rain has something like 90-100 buildings) and in a attempt to keep you from watching the whole 90 minutes, we sped up the footage to 2 mins and 30 seconds. (You're welcome).  We also added a new unheard track to the timelapse so you can enjoy some music while it goes.  So here's that:




In the future expect to see these types of videos from our composer Luis and our concept artist Leandro.  These talented SOB's are still working on those videos for you as we speak...or type...or whatever.

In addition to exteriors we are also working on interiors.  Here's a screenshot of reference art and the final in-game art:

There will be final tweaks later on but the first run looks pretty good we have to admit.


In other news, I don't know how many of you went/knew about it/missed it but the amazing Los Angeles GameSoundCon happened this week and Skyride Studios sent Luis to attend.  Crazy enough the event sold out this year.  Over 300 composers/sound designers attended and Luis came back with mountains of knowledge and smiles.  Here are a few pictures he took of the event:

If anything the experience has made us want to work even harder on the game and we can't wait to attend next year.  If you end up attending the next one, hit us up at: will@skyridestudios.com and let us know.  We'd love to meet up and hang out.

As a final note, I wanted to share some of Leandro's concept art (still a work in progress).  After we completed Willow we moved on to Willows counterpart Winter.   Winter is the brains to Willow's brawn.  We first started with a few variations.

We then move on to a rough, refined draft:

And then finally the detailed finalized version we then give to our character modeler:

This time around we even gave a detailed version of his gadgets and toys:

After Winter was complete we started work on our first female character (Lielah).  Lielah is Epios's sister and the whole reason Epios goes to Rain is to look for her. (She's been kidnapped and it's your job to find out where and by who).  We chose #3, #4 and #6 as different costumes she'll have on throughout the game depending on what's happening within the story.

Just the other day Leandro sent me the rough draft of #6 Lielah:

Probably by the end of the month or so this character's concept will be completed and we will move on to the next which I'm hoping will be Metis.  Metis is one of my personal favorites and here's a little sneak peak at his description:

  

Hope that was worth the wait.  Hopefully we will be updating more frequently as we get closer to the end of the year.  Thanks for everyone's kind words and support.  It means a lot to us and please spread the word if you like what you see.  Talk care, talk soon.

An Irrational Blizzard

Wow! What a crazy couple of weeks for Skyride Studios!  We have a lot to share, so let's get started!

Firstly, we'd like to welcome our first outside hire, Rico Cilliers to our team:

Apart from being a kick butt Character Designer, Rico is working with us all the way from South Africa and we here at Skyride Studios couldn't be happier. Here are some still shots of his amazing work:

You can check out more of his work on his blog here:  http://rico-computer-art.blogspot.com/

We've also received some great offers from some friends of mine in the video game industry.  One has reached out to a programmer who worked for the company Irrational Games (creators of Bioshock and Bioshock Infinity) in hopes of getting them or someone they know on board our game to help out.  

And if it couldn't get any better, a close friend of mine who works at Blizzard (creators of Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo, etc) has offered additional assistance in the search for crew members.  

This not only completely humbles my composer and I, but makes us work extra hard at continuing onward.  As of right now, we are still searching for programmers or additional people interested in helping with the game.  You can work from anywhere in the world and at a pace that you feel fits best.  If you are interested, email me at will@skyridestudios.com and I'll make sure to get back to you one way or another.  

In closing, I'll leave you with a screen shot of some building I just added lighting and bumpmaps to.  Later Screen Slavers.

Graveyards and Gardens

Well hello again.  Sorry for the long wait, it's been a crazy month (as always).  You're probably itching to know what's been new, so here's what I got for ya: (keep in mind all of the photo's have not been altered.  It's all in game screen caps, the only thing I added was the Skyride logo.)

So I wanted to start from the beginning and get the feel of the game set up the best I could.  I drew inspiration from games like the new Tomb Raider game which has GREAT production design.  All these really pretty sections of the game you see as you go through the level.  So I did my best to try to capture that kind of feel: (really, if you haven't played the game, go rent it. It's masterful.)

Tomb Raider:

City of Rain:

In the story, someone dies (I don't want to give away who) and the main character takes their body up on a hill that overlooks Rain.  This is the spot where he buries that body:

Notice how I'm not trying to give away where the location is. :-p

Also somewhere on the hill is a cemetery I've been working on.  It's still a work in progress but I'll show you a sneak peak of what it looks like at night:

I've just started today on it, so give it another week and I should be done.  I'm slowly working my way back to the city.
1. Because these small area's are super important and need to get done
and
2. Because I have SO many more buildings to texture and I don't want to do them. (^_^)

If pictures aren't your thing, you can always watch this gameplay video of the intro and park area I had made a few days ago.  Bonus is the music track will be in the game and has been composed by my talented composer L.A.Z.

The park you will see is actually inside of the city and is about 75% done.  I have to add a few more special spots here and there but you'll get the idea.  It's suppose to look abandoned and forgotten with overgrowing trees.  Watch it in HD for great detail.  

Enjoy:

Well, that's all I got for now.  If you like what you see, I'd love to hear about it.  Or even if you don't.  Also, I'm currently looking for someone who'd be interested in character design/animation/implementation.  If you or someone you know would like to work on this video game with me, shoot me a email at: will@skyridestudios.com and we'll talk.  Thanks a lot.  Later, Screen Slavers.

Abandoned Park

Gutentag, Skyride Studios has been super busy as of late and we couldn't be happier.  Here's a few things to catch you up on our development process:

Last week we worked on the beginning of a park you will explore in the middle of the game.  This park is hidden and surrounded by buildings.  The only way to get in, is to go through a old abandoned building.  Here's a few screen caps of the park so far:

Since this park will be visited at night time, we've added a bunch of christmas lights through the walkway to guide you along your way.  There's even a old rusted playground to go play on.....IF YOU DARE.  MUHAHAHHAHAHAHAH *cough cough*


We've also added a video up on the youtube's so you can check out some of the beginning gameplay of the game.  Everything is still a work in progress and rest assured that the final version will be much more pretty.  This was a test to basically figure out some coding on daylight changing/ text helpers and checkpoints.  Check it out here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO0rgFkWCbk

Other than that, Skyride has also been working on a super secret project that we aren't allowed to announce yet, but once we are, we will be glad to share it with all of you.

Have a great night and I'll chat with you later, Screen Slavers.

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.

Dark city alleyway

So I've been playing around with some props lately, trying to put detail into the city and get it ready for characters.  The first area I decided to play around with was one of the alleyways between two buildings.  After some fun production design and lighting, here's a first pass on what it looks like:

Obviously there is still a lot of work to do but I am pretty happy with the result.  Next I will decorate a shop in one of the buildings and see how that turns out.

Later crazies.

Lost a day...kinda

So today my goal was to learn how to make all my props and custom buildings physical.

Not like that you pervs.....

Basically put, all my buildings at the moment are like ghosts.  You can walk right through them without a problem.  You can even shoot a missile at them and watch as it blows up the hill behind them.  (Ignore the creepily professional floating house in the background)

Soooo I watched a tutorial on how to make it so that they are solid objects that you can collide into and shoot at.  After watching the video I said "Simple."  I should've known better.

Here is a link in case you want to try it out:   https://vimeo.com/35828945

Just kidding.  Here's the real link:  http://eat3d.com/free/cryengine_3dsmax

For some reason, now matter what I did, I couldn't get the Proxies (which make the building solid) working on my level.  Even after all the steps I took and followed to the note, my buildings still remained walk-through-able.

When I went into the test level (the level that comes with the game engine) and put my buildings in there, they worked just as they were suppose to.  I thought for sure I had accidently clicked or didn't click the wrong/right setting but after hours of looking around I couldn't find much.  I thought "Well, maybe it's a bug on my level.  I guess I'll just have to make a new one."  But even when I had started to make my new City of Rain level I quickly tested the building again and it worked.  I said "F&%^ THIS!" and went back into my old level.  I remembered reading something about how the tree's in the level were messing up another guys proxies so I deleted all the tree's and guess what....now the buildings work and take damage:

I'm just glad I didn't have to start all over on another level because if I added back those tree's without knowing they were the cause of the problem, I'd probably run outside and punch a midget.

So all in all I lost a day to this little project.  The of many I assume.....

City Complete

So yesterday I just finished texturing my last building for the main road.  Here are pics of the 13 remaining buildings:

I can't begin to describe how awesome it is to have my default character run around town.  All the small squares in the front of the buildings will be shops along with street vendors, shoppers, gangs, strip clubs, casinos, etc.

My next step is to start adding props and people into the city, so first I will start laying down roads, trees, streetlights, vendor carts, etc.  Then after that, I'll take a small break to learn Autodesk Mudbox so I can start creating my own people to inhabit into the city.

In total there are 25 buildings that I made from scratch and textured.  I total, from learning the programs til now, this has taken me ~3 months to achieve.  (5 if you include the time I had to take off to pay the bills)

I'm expecting characters to take me another 2-3 to complete with props taking about 1-2 months in addition.

That leaves me with 4 months to complete animation and recording of the video for release in November to be pitched at the American Film Market.

So far I'm on track as long as my day job doesn't eat up too much free time this year.