Tamarrion Update

Due to lack of time and experience there are some issues with Tamarrion's model, mainly her shoulders. There is something that never got quite right with the skinning and the bare one is looking weird which I mentioned in my previous post where I attempted some fixing.

It turned out that the problem was bigger than first anticipated and we finally were told where the problems were coming from. Not only was it due to the skinning and A-pose, but the typology not being organic enough and following the muscle structure.

This means that to fix her I need to redraw the typology, rotate her arms up a bit, adjust the rig slightly before shaping the armpit and finally redoing the skinning and at least part of the textures. I started with redoing the typology today and have at least started to get somewhere with the front of the shoulder.

Of course that led to new problems as Max decided to have a party with the skinning layer and left Tamarrion as a complete mess. I was hoping to use the skinning just to rotate her arms but I might just have to give that thought up.

We have a lot to do and a lot to think of as a dissonance is occurring between the characters and environments and we have found several issues that need to be addressed. I am just glad that we have found them so early on and not later.

Problems

Today has been a marvellous day of setbacks. Apart from successfully adding some widgets to our blog the day has been full of nothing but problems.

I have been looking at updating Tamarrion's model to fix her shoulders but there have been problems with the length of the arms, shaping the shoulders, the rig and the skinning. That means pretty much everything.

Without having found any solutions yet I am a least aware of a great deal of issues now and I'll leave you with some pretty pictures of todays adventures with Tamarrion!

Boss Sneak Peek

So this is yet another sneak peek, this time it is not of Tamarrion but the new boss character that she will be fighting in a near future.

I have been working on this character while doing other school and Tamarrion related assignments for a few weeks now and she is starting to come to life. I started working on a base mesh in Max over the weekend and today I finished sculpting her upper body in Z-Brush. There is still a lot to do, but I just wanted to post a little update to show what i have been working on.

If you want to know more about Tamarrion just visit our facebook page or our website that is now up and running!
https://www.facebook.com/tamarrion
http://tamarriongame.com/

Sneak Peek Update

A while ago I posted a sneak peek of the new Tamarrion painting that I have been working on. It is starting to come together now and part of it will be found on our websites as a header. I just need to finish it off and perhaps spend just as much time on a background, but with other assignments as well it will have to take its time.

Those of you who have been watching my stream have followed me almost up until this step, but here is what it is looking like right now, the biggest difference from last stream being that I have reworked the sword quite a lot.

You can read more about Tamarrion on our facebook page and our Devblog, we are also working on a landing page although at the moment it is only possible to sign up and there is very little information yet.

Flat Colour Assignment

This week's 2D assignment was to colour the line art we produced last week, only using colour blocks. It has been quite a challenge actually since we were forbidden to use lighting and only allowed to work with colour blocks as my entire scene is covered in snow. I might work some more on it before doing lighting next week, but this is how it turned out.

School Visit

When left a day early to go to DreamHack Sthlm since we were asked by another team if we wanted to come with when they visited a school in Stockholm to talk a little about what we do at university and what it is like to study at a higher level. We did not know exactly what to do or why exactly we were there but we just went with it.

After one guy from the other team had a presentation  about studying at Game we set up our games to let the students play during their break. They were a bit shy and mostly watched but a few of them dared to actually test. =)

One student playing Tamarrion

When their break was up they got to present their game concepts that they are working on to us which meant that for the first time ever, after being the one standing up there being roasted for two years, it was now my turn to do the roasting. It was strange at first and we were very cautious as we did not know how hard to be on the poor students, but we had a lot of fun and after a few presentations we started to get into it, asking more and more questions.

Waiting for the first pitch to start

When that was up I was suddenly standing in front of everyone to show one of our pitches for Tamarrion, completely unprepared and not having a clue what to do or say. I went through slide by slide, telling them what we bring up, how we choose to place things in order and why, luckily I felt completely confident in not knowing what I was doing and it went really well and fluid.

Here is me trying to think of what to say

It was definitely a different experience being on the other end for a change and I found it hard to think of good things to ask, would have been good to have a pen and paper to take notes, but it was so much fun.


Pictures belong to LBS Stockholm
https://www.facebook.com/lbsstockholm

Back from DreamHack

The team just got back from DreamHack Sthlm, it has been a long weekend and we were all pretty exhausted. Although we had to share our space with another team, giving us only half of the time to show Tamarrion, and that the expo area was so small, we did have a really good time and we got to see some people really enjoying our game.

Comments that we got were, for instance, that they liked the character design and she looks cool and if the game was available to buy somewhere because it was really fun to play. The feedback we got from those who had the chance to play shows us that there is an interest in the game that we are developing.

Our Lead Designer playing in our booth

Many people did find the game extremely hard, some even thought too hard although they were playing at the beginner level. Some enjoyed it anyway, or because of it being that hard, and some figured out how to play instantly, knowing this kind of games, and moved on to normal difficulty. these last two groups are exactly the people that we are looking for as our target market. In a way you could say that this trip to DreamHack, as well as the GGC earlier this year, is proof that our target audience exists and that they actually like our game.

Up in the expo area of DHSthlm

There were a lot of things that could have been better with this trip, but in the end we had a lot of fun and we got to show at least to a few people that we exist.