Anime, cosplay and jewelry

Been a busy couple of months here at Skyride Studios.  Some exciting new announcements:

First off, Anime.  Not sure how many of you watch or are interested in anime, but today we have locked down the final letter of intent for casting our video game.  Although we don't want to announce quite yet who we have until contracts are signed, we do have some of the biggest names in american anime voice acting.  (10 to be exact) and we can't wait to let everyone know who they are.

Secondly, cosplay.  Since our voice actors are from the anime world, we want to add some things to our video game that other companies have yet to do.  Cosplay.  We hired a fashion designer (the incredible Lisa Bryne) to put together a outfit based on our Lielah character:

And this is the result of a month of crafting, sewing and fittings:

We are proud of the efforts of everyone involved in making this concept art a reality.

And last but not least is jewelry.  If you notice in that last photo, the necklace being worn isn't just any run of the mill necklace.  It was custom made by Jenny Ming Tu.  It's a locket that opens up with a USB drive inside pre-loaded with a copy of the game.  Best part of all for people who aren't fond of necklaces?  It also has the ability to turn into a bracelet and will be available as a special boxset once the game is released.

Why are we doing all this you may ask?  We are testing out some of our marketing strategies before hand, so if you like what we are doing or have questions, feel free to email us at: will@skyridestudios.com and we'd love to hear your feedback.

Other than that, keep an eye out later this month for details about our cast members.  See you later, screen slavers.

Main Character

So in the stream of important news lately (Supermoons and water on mars), we at Skyride Studios, would also like to share our own big news.  You may have seen images of this man around:

His name is Epios and he is the main character for our video game (City of Rain).   After three years of searching for a character modeler, we found one that is not only amazing at his job, but does what he says he'll do and sticks to the blueprints.  Without further ado, here is the untextured  3d modeled version of Epios:

The level of detail makes me start at him for long periods of time and once he is textured, I can't wait to plug him into the game and start moving his around.  Congrats to both our concept artist Leandro and our character modeler Imran for bringing this character to life in ways I never thought possible.  Humbling to have such professionals on our crew.

Also, as a side bonus, here's a young version of our main Villain, Scythe:

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

100% sure I've completed 50%

What's that?  I haven't posted for 2 weeks and you miss me.  Don't worry loyal minions, I haven't strangled myself quite yet.

In the past two weeks I've been getting calls for my day job while also modeling buildings.  Here's what I got so far:

A good start to a awesome city.  Here's some more to wet your whistle:

I even took some night time shots with temporary lights.  Don't say I never gave you nothin':

Even though these buildings are in the level now, all of them still need to be textured and tweaked to look juuuuussssstttt right.  I should be done with modeling these by the end of the month.  By the first of the year they all should be textured with signs (hopefully) and a lot of the assets starting to be placed around.

So was it worth the wait? Yeah, I know it was.  You're welcome. 

Building #1 Done-ish

Hello again.  How have you been?  Me, myself?  I've been a bit out of sorts.  Good news, My first fully modeled and textured building is done and has been created it in 3DS Max.  Here is a pic:

Not bad for my first custom model.  Each wall is has custom textures on it even though you can't see them too good in this picture and over 36 different textures on this building.  Brick, cement, wood, metal,  blah blah blah you get the picture... pun intended.

This was meant to be a rough starting ground which would be heavily tweaked once brought into the game engine, however when I exported it, the exporter said it can only allow 30 textures on one material.  I tried playing around to be "cheat" the exporter into letting me have all my 36 textures but for some reason, I can't get it to work.  Maybe cause I spent all day doing textures and it's now 1:30am and my brain stopped working about 2 hours ago.

In other news we officially have a hard deadline for this cinematic project.  We must be completed before early july because we plan on presenting it (for it's premeire) at the 2013 Anime Expo in Los Angeles.  The day we present it, we will also have a link on this website to the youtube video so all you people in the UK, Russia, Germany and everywhere else that reads this blog can take a look at it.  The video should have a custom theme song made my our very own talented composer Luis Zavala, along with awesome animation, mo-cap and camera angles.  We are hoping for the outcome to come close to something like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSXyztq_0uM

Only, you know....better... cause we rock. *Cough*