The Blog, Ep. 04!

Hey Guys! Time for the latest in Dracon Interactive news, and the (curiously) continued animation blog!

So, i'll address the poorly animated elephant in the room. Last blog, i forgot about the post assessment one animation blogs, so I MAY have stated that the anim blogs had ended. My bad. Total my bad. These ones are more progress based, less factual, so...enjoy?

News first though.

I have been posting fairly regularly on Twitter (@DraconInt) about Project Dragon Lands MK - III. Yes, this is a thing. MK - II is sooooo 6 months ago. But seriously, this iteration of the Dragon Lands workflow has been the most successful so far, aesthetically and functionally.

Examples? I now actually have a target aesthetic! It's kind of a Diablo-ish dark medieval awesomeness. Not descriptive, I know but I am not the man to talk to about graphical terms. I have it in my head however, and heres a screenshot of my progress on the first level 'The Docks'!.

So, that's coming along well :) Aside from the aesthetics of this, I am also working hard on making every mechanic in this game perfect, from the camera, to the animations, to the chests.
For the current time I am focussing on a central mechanic that I am keeping secret (because it's awesome and I want to show you guys a working version to totally shock you into awesomeness). However, work continues on narrative as well, as it underpins this game in a big way.

Other than this?

Work on Hero Rising has been halted for the moment. Not abandoned, we are simply reaching the crux of my trimester where I can't juggle as much. Even Dragon Lands progress will slow. If you wish to see what I am working on at university, visit @PlayFatalCore on Twitter! It's pretty cool :)

That's all for basic news!

Now, for animation.
Progress has gone awesomely. The mesh looks awesome, the UV FINALLY figured itself out and the textures have too! My main stumbling blocks here were simple barricades of ignorance. Things like, not knowing how to set up controllers, not knowing the correct viewport settings, all that kind of stuff. All, in all, however, progress has been good!

I'm going to upload the finished render to YouTube when I'm done, then put the result on a blog here, so keep an eye out. I still want to add some stuff like lighting, and scene components, as well as altering an area of the animation. I had to shrink the roof of the chest to start the "empty chest" animation, and it looks janky AF, so I will be remedying that, either by changing or deleting that part of the animation.

Okay, thats it! thanks for listening guys, have a good one!

Peter Carey
Founder - Dracon Interactive