>Here's a link to a hi-res video

Here's some video snippets of the underwater enviroment and game controls.

because we're aiming at current gaming pc's but in an online enviroment as well , we want to keep filesize low, so the enviroment features a selected amount of normal map shaders on the base enviroment. In an extension of this optimisation, all foliage, fish (now only a shark), lightbeams etc etc are spawned as a relatively simple placement and spawning script, iterating over a selection of spawnable items.

There's no particle effects in the video , but these and other sfx will be added later. Als the Submarine itself is not using any dynamic lighting, to optimise the scene, we chose to keep the submarine static, because its also physically always within the same lightcone, (it being the source of most lights in the world) We're also hard at work to create a large selection of spawn-able foliage, such as brain corals, spunges, and other deep-sea flora.

Deep sea Corals? When we think of lush coral based ecosystems we always tend to think of warm shallow tropical settings, but did you know there's large coral systems in the deep atlantic, apparantly the colder streams of the north atlantic are very rich in foodsources, allowing corals to grow much much deeper, where as tropical waters tend to be poor in nutrients, requiring coral to seek nurishment close to the surface.

here's a link to the story

Character implementation

After some tweaks the character has been merged with the enviroment

here's a little preview from the engine

Character building

This is an update of the main character, Valerie Toulé. The model is now complete. After some additional optimizing she will be composed of 5500 triangles. This picture shows how the character is build up before it is taken into the virtools engine.



On the left is the low poly mesh without any maps applied. In the middle is the mesh with opacity and normal maps applied. The normal map was made by rendering a high poly model sculpted in Zbrush to the texture of the low poly model. The model on the right is the mesh with opacity, normal and diffuse texture maps applied. The diffuse map was painted in Photoshop.

After this the model will be rigged and animated in 3ds Max. Valerie will be exported to the Virtools 5 engine and made playable by our resident Virtools wizard.

Next up: The bad guy!

Anatomy of an enviroment

As the subsurface game is a submarine adventure, it wouldn't be complete without a loading bay. Part of the surface ship supporting the expedition the loading bay is where the player gets introduced to the story and the characters, as well as the main interface for starting the gameplay.

It will serve as a brief exploratory space and enviroment to showcase the virtools 5.0 character animation features.

Just to showcase how easily the scene has been accomplished inside the engine, here are a few steps of implementation

step 1 : importing the model. This image is of the bare model including only vertex colors for a base shading, and as a base for future shaders (ambient occlusion etc etc)

step 2 : Adding lightmaps. Basically this is a static scene, there will be caustics (more on that further on), but the general area can be lit with a static lightmap generated in this case from 3Dstudio Max.

step 3: Detail. Due to the speed of production and the online requirements we forego explicit lighting on the detail and interactive objects, this also serves to shows you can combine many techniques to get an overall result. In this case the details receive vertex coloring to light them from the same solution as the lightmap. The waterplane in the bassin receives a virtools standard water shader with some reflection effects.

step 4 : Postprocessing. As this particular doesn't have a HDR solution (time limits prohibit this), its more an example of how to combine effects and techniques to achieve a certain artistic result.

We've add some bloom post processing to enhance the lighting and get a decent amount of glare to expose the sunlight coming from the deck opening. Also as it features a water bassin or moonpool we figured it would require some form of caustic on the ceiling and ambient area's of the pool. For this we're projecting a video of waves on those area's, which gives the illusion of reflection of light on the water surfaces.

Subsurface -why is this blog is so interesting to us?

Hi everyone!
I'll be once in a while writing a few minor comments on this blog, but I first wanted to explain the context.
Our friends from Little Chicken are extremely talented, some of you already knew that. We thought we should ask them to regularly post screenshots and updates on their project, because they're working at the speed of light and we'd like to follow globally what's going on. But more importantly, the challenge they face is rather huge: building a great game in just a few weeks, visually stunning. We believe 3DVIA Virtools core strengths are about speed and creativity, without concessions on quality and an extremely fast creative loop. Looking forward to reading your reactions as they make progress, eventually discard wrong avenues, have to deal with our last minutes requests etc. Let's see what comes out of it :)
Good luck guys!
Virgile

Character Art

I've started modelling the main character Valerie Toulé. I've included a shot of the model in progress, and a frontal sketch of the character. While her proportions will remain the same, she will be less retro compared to the initial concept art. We have to adjust her for a more modern setting, with less focus on the retro parts. The model will be made with 3d studio max and we'll add detailing for the normal map.

My role in this project and in Little Chicken in general is make and to oversee the art. So I'll post more shots as this model, and the others develop. Enjoy the show!

First steps of the model, made in 3ds Studio Max.



The frontal sketch of the model used as modelling reference.

Weird sea creatures

http://www.purpleslinky.com/Trivia/Science/Zoology-Nine-Newest-Discovered-Sea-Creatures.138954

David Attenboroughs Deep Blue

Check this excellent documentary about life under in ocean:

"Deep Blue" from the "Blue Planet" series

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xinHyne7SYg

Concept Art kickoff

The start of any production is as import as any other phase, and has the potential to define the endproduct more than any other.

In a rapid production cycle we like to hit the floor running, this means visualising game and setting ideas as early as possible. Offcourse the old sayings are all true, visuals will explain more than words, especially in a visual medium. But besides getting people involved it also can halp to do rapid sketches as part of the brainstorming phase, extending it past early discussions and keeping the progress fresh in the minds of the team.

Here's a few samples of concept art for Subsurface, you can already see the different art styles influencing gameplay ideas.





The first is a retro look made by our Art lead, co-founder, and concept artist extraordinaire Yannis bolman.




Here's another made by myself as a fast sketch, with a very different approach.



Already you can see the different approaches. In future posts we hope you'll get a good idea how the concept art lead to the final design.




Just some inspiration snippets

• Jules Verne book covers .
• The abyss (offcourse!) (watch the movie and listen to the excellent sound effects as well)
• Crazy guys remaking the disney classic 20.000 leagues under the sea
• It seems we'r not the first to get inspired
• You'll be sure to see some of these critters in the final game
  

Subsurface development starts

Welcome to the subsurface game development blog.

Subsurface as you may have guessed is a deep-sea submersible game developed by Little Chicken Game Company exclusively for promotion of the Virtools 5.0 game development enviroment.

With a hard GDC 2009 Deadline, this blog will follow the rapid design and development up to and beyond the GDC2009 where it will be showcased by the good people of 3Dvia/virtools.

We hope we can give the readers here some insights into developing with the new virtools 5.0 enviroment as well as showcase some rapid development practises. And off course share as much concept art, gameplay video's and prototypes as possible.

Hope you will enjoy our posts.
Tomas Sala on behalf of the Little Chicken Game Company