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The Road to the Trilogy - Easier Character Assets

 Hello. C J here. I’ve been thinking about the ongoing video game project I’m in the middle of and I’ve refined my ideas for it a lot. First up, I’ve done some research into Unreal Engine asset design and I’ve found an easier way to make the character assets I need. I found an option in the documentation called Attach Actor to Component. With everything I found on the forums it allows you to take a 3D model of an item and stick it onto a character 3D model at a specific location. Like giving a generic NPC skeleton a sword and then another of them an axe and another a staff.

This saves me some work. This means I can attach and remove armour, heads, tails and weapons in real time from a single character model. Modular clothing would work with this. I already know how to make the items I need out of the starter shapes and recoloured versions of the starter materials. These combined together can easily make armour components, clothing and weapons. Then I can stick them onto the default player model, the mannequin, along with a custom made anthro head to dictate the species. All of this I will then be selling.

The level maps are similarly resolving into simple patterns. I’m making sets of floor panels in a variety of materials in rectangles. I’m then making standardized wall panels that I can stick on the edges of these. The floor panels lock together and can create building interiors as well as grassland, lakes and forests including hills and cliffs. The walls then just need to be put around a building’s floor and given some internal furniture and a roof. I’ve proofread the list of furniture items I need so that’s done as well. All of this is now a set of known steps.

I need the overall plan for what I what it all to look like and now that I have my easier art style I can do some concept art. It will take a lot of time to do this much art but I now know that anything I can draw in art I can make. From everything I’ve read this is all feasible and won’t really require work or code to do. Everything I make will be for sale as well, probably for quite cheap considering the speed I can make it all at once I have the concept art done.

Now that I’ve got that massive amount of planning done, um, what do I do with my time? I’ve been in full time video game planning mode for like five years. Where did the world go? Like, nom nom isn’t an internet meme anymore, philosophraptor like retired or something and I the Hobbit movies actually came out and can be purchased. I’ve been busy and I didn’t notice the media industry kind of ran itself into the ground. Where are the cool movies? Okay. I guess it’s back to watching anime.

There aren’t AAA video games anymore. That might be a good thing. They were mostly cash grabs. I am reliably finding really, amazingly good games on the Android store for free these days. Three that look promising are Amikin Survival, Eternium and Geshin Impact. I haven’t played all three yet and I am not in any way paid to mention them. They just have nice images of actual gameplay. So anime and Android games. I don’t know what else to do with my time. I’ll get onto that concept art then.

C J Mcpherson

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