Cool. So, do you mostly use After Effects for your day job or is there other software you implement too?
Thanks for asking curtisrshideler - Yup after effects (do you use it too?) I got started as a Flash Designer, and Flash was so versatile i was using it for everything, mostly interactive stuff but video too. In fact my first videos were actually generating the motion in realtime in flash. It was very complex. Then one day i was like "you know im making animations, why not try one in after effects?" so i did and it worked great. I'm in the process of restructuring my day job (well, its just me) to focus on Branding for startups and animation (kinetic Type and otherwise). As I get older (i'm 42) i am realizing the benefits of focusing on your strengths and making sure you have time for relaxation as well. I really love my day job because I get to be creative, and i learn so much from working on games that gets put into my job and vice versa. I am very lucky. But making games is very hard for very little money. I am working hard hoping that i will be able to make a living from BrightRidge and the upcoming games. It seems to be mostly about exposure, which I have very little of, so i am trying to spread the word and learn about marketing to. Probably the most difficult part is trying to think like a marketer when i want to think like an artist. I mean, i would give it away for free if i could But ive been doing that for over a decade and now i need to make sure i build in some support if i want to keep creating and sharing worlds (which I do
Yeah, I'm a video producer/editor for a company as well as freelancing on the side. We're utilizing After Effects as well as many other Adobe apps like PS, PP, AI, etc. I also use Final Cut and Cinema 4D. Really would love to get into coding for games, but after I leave the office and my computers, I have so many games that I want to play! I support those I like and have way more games than time to play them. If I had a larger budget, I'd love to help produce indie games, but Kickstarter is as far as I've come. Anyway, love the clean animations. Day job looks as fun as mine! But knowing the time it takes to create, it makes me all the more impressed you code games in your spare time!
You made that AMA ad? Great job, I really like it! (and I despise like 99+% of the - few - adds I see on TV, in newspapers, hear on the radio, etc. ) . Very clear and catchy, instead of noisy and overloaded. Hah, my girlfriend is the Adobe person, I'm more from the "a text editor is enough for a lot my work" corner She was really into Flash, too. Where I always despised it, except for some very narrow and specialised areas (e.g. I've seen some great training software that was made in Flash; would have been a lot more work and more difficult with something else). And thanks a lot for keeping us updated! I appreciate that very much, especially because I know firsthand how much hard work this is. I work as a very specialised techie, and writing good updates for (non-techie) customers is not as easy as it looks. Good news about the Unity update. Please don't feel rushed by us here wanting to see your new content yesterday Testing and such takes a lot of time, and at least I find it very draining; definitely not something I do willy-nilly, if I want to do it right. Perfectly understandable if you disappear from the rader for a good while. At least I will be waiting faithfully for any new stuff coming from your corner of the world Oh yes, and best of luck for the Android/Mac/PC ports!
Whoopsie, almost forgot to comment on the Doonpillar screenshots. Gorgeous as always, and I really want to know what this huge dragon is all about Fun fact: the part with the "sandstorm boundary" was already done in 1995, in Ravenloft:Stone Prophet; without the great graphics, naturally. And the setting itself is even older, starting in 1990.
Thanks! That's really cool that you have fun with your work too. It sounds interesting, like you do something a bit different each time, and it's very creative which keeps things interesting. The thing that motivates me to make time for making games is that I love to do it. if it wasnt a true passion i dont think id have the motivation to work two jobs That's great that youve touched Kickstarter. I cant seem to find time for all the promotion that these games need, and just working with it at all is a big achievement. Yeah, sometimes i think "ill stop making games and just play them" - im knee deep in assassins creed unity right now. I set myself a goal of 4 games i want to finish in my life, and im halfway through two of them but i had to streamline my goals this way if im going to accomplish it. I have Adobe Creative cloud and work a lot in Illustrator. I never really got into Photoshop, i come from a web first background so im still a big Fireworks user even though they discontinued it. Sometimes i envy PS users - it seems like it produces such crisp art, you know every software has different anti aliasing and general workflow, its like the DNA of the software shows up a bit in the work it produces.
Thanks! Clean and clear is my style - i like to simplify things as much as possible and like flat, graphic iconic looks. My goal in my games is to eventually remove all language and rely only on universal icons, but it's very tricky and its a goal in progress I loved flash but i think you are right about it. It was a resource hog and proprietary. Thats why i moved all my work to Unity and HTML5 - html5 is that "all you need is a text editor" stiff youre talking about and a great way to reach so many people. And unity's web player is what attracted me to it in teh first place, and now it exports almost anywhere which is a HUGE incentive. Its proprietary too but open, and it uses a heavily typed javascript as one of the programming language, which I like. Anyways Unity 4.6.1 came out just a few minutes ago and im going to download it. If all goes well it should include the bug fix and I can finally after more that 1 year update Im very excited.
Cool I checked it out, pretty good graphics for the time. And it looks like a good setting. Ravenloft...is that related to D&D ravenloft with the vampires? We used to play that when we were kids. I actually jut bought the new D&D fifth edition Players Handbook, Dungeon masters guide and Monster Manual, and after more than a decade of not being interested in D&D they are back with great books and rules filled with great artwork which is very inspiring. Any Dracozid would be offended to be called a Dragon Nikemus Noos - Historian 1873 Dracozids are the Dragons of Nimia. DoonPillar was once a lush forested area that was transformed relatively recently into desert by the power of the Tower. Dracozids have retreated east to Nur-Ela, a large dense forest region north of Visigo. This is the kind of background information Ive been adding to my ne Nimian Legends 2.0 map BTW the green arrow in the image below points to the location of BrightRidge on the Nimian Continent (just west of the Open Coast, which you can visit in Nimian Legends : BrightRidge game)
I may not always post but I read everything in this thread, absolutely love the technical aspect, even if I have no clue at the time what it means. This game holds a special place on my iPad! Can't wait for your other games to continue the exploration!
That means a lot to me Woodrith. It's cool to know people are reading these things even if they don't say anything. It's like the more we put out onto the internet the more we can spread and share ideas anytime I'm very excited about the new version of Unity 4.6.1 because of this line: iOS: Disable tree billboard mipmaps; mipmap generation was causing hiccups. This is the fix for the bug that has kept me using an old version of Unity for the last year. Now I'll be able to add things like app rotation, targeting iphone 6 and eventually Metal too It's encouraging because the game design is a lot (A LOT) of work, but i can feel the world coming together as a coherent whole. I'm keeping at it
Re: Ravenloft. Yup, that not's only related, but plays in the Ravenloft setting. They made 3 games in it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravenloft#Video_games As much as I despise (A)D&D as a rule system, some of their settings - like Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Drow/Underdark, Spelljammer - are excellent and quite entertaining. UPDATE: Drow, almost forgot. If you like them, see if you can get the 6 "War of the Spiderqueen" books (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Spider_Queen) somewhere. Flatout the best AD&D fiction I ever read, and even can play with the big boys like Wagner or Moorcock. Written from a Drow perspective, they are very different than your average cookie-cutter goodie-two-shoes hero-saves-the-world stuff. Lots of backstabbing, intrigue and all the grimdark general nastiness you'd expect from those charming fellows I still need to get the sequel series, see if they are as good. Dracozid? Naah... that sounds too much like "pesticide" Can't come up with a better name right away, though.
Was able to get a new iPhone 6 and download this game. Awesome job, protopop! I'm just gonna leave this here: Google cardboard
Thanks Turk! I'm so glad you got to play it, on iPhone 6 it's pretty smooth You can even increase it to high resolution in the game settings. Google Cardboard - that's so funny you mention that its such a great idea. Ill bet if Unity doesn't have that api yet it will soon, i'm going to look into it.
You're welcome! Cardboard would be a perfect fit for a game like this. The exploration of the game world would just be incredible in a VR setting! I'd say it'd certainly be a showcase game for what can be accomplished by a passionate indie developer and a piece of cardboard.
Spirit of Spring Happy new year, everybody! Got a nice game suggestion for everyone here, not to mention some potential inspiration for our good Protopop : Spirits of Spring. It's currently on sale even, for a low 90c , and worth every penny. Very nice and non-violent storytelling, but still with a more mature theme and presentation. It would be right at home in Nimian Legends: the visual style reminded me a lot of what Robert does with Brightridge. And this kind of storytelling wouldbe perfectly at home there. I recommend to play it in one go. Only took me a few hours, and added to the immersion quite nicely.
This could be interesting for you as well, a new model store, aiming at indies: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=252267 http://www.asset4indie.com/products.html They don't have much (yet), maybe 2 dozen; but some of the models look like they'd fit right in with Nimian, e.g. the old books or the quest scroll set.
Thanks Nullzone, and Happy New year to you too Or Bonne Annee as we say in Quebec. I'm downloading Spirits of Spring now. im glad you mentioned it. I'd seen it but didnt make the move to get it so I appreciate the push. It looks beautiful and i think you're right about the themes being very BrightRidge like. I need to check out more of these games. A lot of upcoming ones like RIME and more all have beautiful art direction and non violent themes which is where i want to continue to go with BrightRidge.
Cool - i really like his art style - the fawn is kind of creepy and realistic at the same time. I'm going to try some of these out
While I await Unity 5 and/or Unity 4 Metal i've been working on the Nimian Legends Omnipedia - a collection of people and places from the Nimian Universe - online soon
Nullzone that was a great recommendation. I bought SPirits of Spring and finished it the other night. It's beautiful and a compact little world with a great message and real heart. I recommend people try it: Spirits of Spring https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/spirits-of-spring/id854601878?mt=8 They're also from Montreal which is where I'm from, so that was an added surprise I really like the non violent approach. In fact there is some of what you could maybe describe as violent actions in the game, but when you take them i felt really bad about it. The music is also excellent. Thanks for the scoop
