Gigantic Game

[The Mighty Gerbil]

So I am actually mildly interested in a game after a long while.

http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/n70e0j/gigantic-overview-trailer
http://www.gogigantic.com/

Generally speaking most of the games I am interested in have some concept that I've daydreamed about using in one of my game ideas. The art style is near a place I've wanted to see for a while. A cell shaded look, no outlines, and an exaggeration on on the characters without being overtly childish. Like TF2 but more dynamic in the style it allows and less textures. Honestly my idea involved using mainly solid colors, and this is more textured, but it's close enough.

It also looks like they are trying for some combos in the character abilities. Again it's something I wanted to see more of. I've long thought Valve should have made more combos like puff/sting/Pyros etc. Limiting a character to only a few abilities makes them easy to pick up and use. While making those few abilities combine in multiple ways creates depth in gameplay without making it cumbersome. It doesn't look like the developers will flesh it out fully but they've made a little effort (gives me more ideas if they don't ).

I'm not sold yet on the moba-ish game play, even if it's not a pure moba, but we will see how it turns out.

Apparently the lead designer for Guild Wars and Starcraft is heading it up but he's made forgettable things too. Does anyone know anything about the company's morals etc.? Some of the text mentions demons but I could not find a synopsis of the game's back story. EDIT: Confirmed it will be F2P.

Anyway it won't keep me away from TF2 but I signed up to try out the alpha, IDK if I'll get in though.

...and yes it's pretty. I've always held spending all your time making high res textures for Call of Duty's bathrooms is wasteful if you don't get the overarching design right.

 

[Patriot]

I like the art style. I'm not sure about the 5v5 combat. I like blending in with more people that way the blame is spread across more people if you lose.

 

[The Mighty Gerbil]

Query Patriot. I know in Blender animation you can rig and animate or use vertex groups to animate. Are they combining the techniques to produce the type of animation in this game? As an example in one part the dragon boss guardian moves while it's chest simultaneously changes it shape distending. Like if you were animating a snake's movement would you rig and animate it to slither and then use vertex groups to alter it's body shape at the same time or is there another technique in play?

 

[Patriot]

Query Patriot. I know in Blender animation you can rig and animate or use vertex groups to animate. Are they combining the techniques to produce the type of animation in this game? As an example in one part the dragon boss guardian moves while it's chest simultaneously changes it shape distending. Like if you were animating a snake's movement would you rig and animate it to slither and then use vertex groups to alter it's body shape at the same time or is there another technique in play?

It's difficult to say for sure as different programs have different features. They might have linked the shape changes to the bone movement or (more likely) they kept it a separate animator handle so they would have more direct control over it.

For instance, if I am working out the movement of the shoulder of a character the shape needs to adjust a bit as the shoulder moves up or down. I wouldn't need to handle that separately because the shape changes would always be linked to the movement of the bones so I would place a "driver" on the bone movement that triggered the shape movement. However, in the case of an expanding chest or belly I might want to disassociate it from bone movements because then I could use it for breathing or death throes or some other kind of movement. Then I would control that shape key with either the slider or an unrelated bone that does nothing but adjust that shape.

Does that answer your question?

 

[The Mighty Gerbil]

Does that answer your question?

Pretty much. I'm going to have to learn Blender animation at some point (I hope XD) and was curious. I haven't done anything but static models as yet though.

 

[Patriot]

Pretty much. I'm going to have to learn Blender animation at some point (I hope XD) and was curious. I haven't done anything but static models as yet though.

Animation is relatively easy and straightforward although very time consuming. It's rigging the models that takes so long and is tedious. Creating the blendshapes (as blender calls them) would be part of the rigging process.

I think I burned myself out with the Otus project. . .I haven't touched Blender since (although I've kept up on the latest news).

 

[Tek7]

Looks fantastic, but I don't have much interest in free-to-play 5v5 MOBAs (though SMITE can be fun with friends).

I'll probably pick it up if it picks up traction with ToJ folks, but skip it otherwise.

But it does look purdy!

 

[The Mighty Gerbil]

I'll let you guys know if it's decent if I get in the alpha. That's assuming there is no NDA (EDIT: though there is one video of gameplay I found on youtube) and I actually get in. Was supposed to be pretty packed since they dropped the video on gametrailers. I'm probably a sucker for certain art styles but there are so few I consider good it's not a problem.