Hi!

Currently we're working on a video trailer for the game. It will be finished and posted later this week.

Until then, stay tuned!

Pictures of our progress 02

Hi, I'm Geril. I'll just post a few pictures again so you can see how the project's going. You can expect more of these posts regularly.

Since my English isn't very good, Lussy's translating and putting all the posts together.

Have a nice day!

Short post: Writing system

Hi, I'm Lussy.

In this really small post, I'd like to talk about another thing we're planning on putting in the game: a writing system. Since creating a whole language for the game would take way too much time, we decided to only create a writing system. I'm the one who's working on it, because I love learning and studying languages.

There's going to be two versions of this system; a simpler version that almost everyone can learn (although the analphabetism rate is high in the game's world), and a more complex version, used only by a few well-educated people.

The simple version is based on the Latin and the Korean alphabet, and it's quite easy to figure out. The complex version is inspired by the Korean, Japanese and Chinese writing systems. If you look at these examples, you can see why the simpler one is more well-known among the people of this wild, dangerous world:

When creating each character, I first start with something complex, and I write it down by hand hundreds of times, so in the end it becomes something that comes naturally, and isn't tedious to write down.

You can be sure that it is going to play a part in the game. If someone takes the time and trouble to try and decrypt the characters, they might unveil in-game secrets.

That's about it for this post. Since it is so short, I didn't want to bother our proofreader, Maffy with it (by the way, Maffy, THANK YOU). I guess you already figured out that we are Hungarians, so our English isn't perfect. Sorry about that.
Have a nice day!

Tutorial: Making "cheap" grass, from Blender to UDK

Magyar verzió

Hi, I'm Geril, and in this tutorial I'm going to show you how to make a static environment object in a step by step tutorial using Blender and the UDK. In this case the object is a patch of grass.

First, we need a mask. A mask is a black and white image on which white means visible, and black means invisible. The image should have no grey, only black and white. The one I'm using is 512*512 pixels. (Unreal 3 only recognizes binary numbers for resolution. So: 64*64, 128*128, 256*256, 512*512, 1024*1024, 2048*2048)
Other than the mask, you also need a diffuse texture that shows on the surface of the grass. Right now I'm using one that isn't an actual grass texture, but of course it's better to create your own or select one from the UDK's files.

Open up Blender (v2.63 is what I'm using). In the 3d view the first thing you see is a cube that Blender loads on startup. We don't need this cube so you can delete it. The basic controls are: middle mouse button for rotating the view, and shift + middle mouse button for moving the camera.

Load your texture in the UV/Image editor section. In the 3D view, add a simple plane: ADD/MESH/PLANE. From this point on, we're going to edit the plane in edit mode. 

Press Tab to enter edit mode.

Let's rotate the plane 90 degrees on the X axis.

To do this precisely, press R, X and then type 90, otherwise just use the 3D rotate manipulator.

After this is done, we'll unwrap the UV of the plane on the texture. Just select all the vertices (with shift you can multi-select), the press U and then Unwrap. Since the plane is really simple, its UV won't be too complicated.

The plane needs to be a little lower on the Z axis, so let's move it. Select all vertices, then press G to grab it. If you press Z after G, the plane will only move on the Z axis. Also, holding down CTRL whilst moving the plane will make it move according to the grid, and shift will slow the movement down. Make it so that the plane is a little under the X and Y axes, so it won't float over the ground.


Unless the player has no chance to go near it or look at it from different angles, a single plane doesn't make our grass believable at all, so let's duplicate this plane.
Select it and press Shift + D, then rotate it 90 degrees on the Z axis. You can repeat this step if you want a more detailed patch of grass, and you can even use different masks for each plane.

Now you should subdivide your object, so that it doesn't stay flat and you can change its shape a bit.
Select all, press W and subdivide. After this, you can make adjustments to the UV by moving its vertices (G key).
It's important to note that while Blender uses one-sided faces by default, in the Unreal Engine 3 it's easy to set it to two-sided faces.

You need to add at least one material to the object. You need more if you used more than one masks. In that case, you have to assign a different material to every plane that has a different mask.

The current size of the grass would be tiny in the UDK, so let's make it about 20 times as big. Select all and press S, then type 20. Afterwards you want to adjust the placing because it most likely isn't in the right place.

Now we need to name the object. In 3D view, on the right sidebar, open Item and type in the name (replacing the default name "Plane").

 The only thing left to do in Blender is exporting. Exit edit mode (Tab), then select File>Export, and Autodesk FBX. In the left sidebar, check the "Selected Objects" box, and make sure that only the "Mesh" button is selected underneath. Name the file and export it to the desired location. 

Start the UDK. After closing the Welcome window, look at the Content Browser. In the lower left corner of it, click import. Find your exported FBX file, the mask(s), and the diffuse texture (if you made one), and open them.

If you already have a package, use that, if you don't, create one now and import your files. Grouping is also useful. The UDK is able to import the used textures from the FBX file, but I recommend you import them seperately, because depending on your version, it can cause errors.
The UDK may warn you that the FBX version is outdated, but this doesn't matter with static meshes. After the importing, find your files in the Content Browser, right click on the mask texture, and click "Create New Material". Name it, and after creating, open it.

In the Material Editor, you can see your mask in a box, and you can move the box around by holding CTRL and dragging it. Let's put it beside the Opacity Mask node, and connect the mask's black colored node to the Opacity Mask's node. In the properties section under Material, set Blend Mode from Opaque to Masked, then the Lighting Model to NonDirectional, then check the box below that says "Two Side". We only need a diffuse texture now. Put your own, or your selected one over the mask, and connect its black colored node into the Diffuse node. Save (the green check on the upper left) and close the window.

Let's open our static mesh, in the right sidebar open LODInfo, and look for 0. Elements 0. Material. Switch to the content browser and select the material we just made. Back in the StaticMesh Editor, click the green arrow next to the Material to assign it to the mesh.
If you've done all these steps correctly, the mesh is now complete and usable, you can rotate it with the right mouse button and zoom in and out with the left mouse button.

As the last step, let's drag and drop the static mesh from the Content Browser into the level. Pressing the space bar, you can manipulate the mesh. In the level you can move with WASD and the left and right mouse button.

Of course this is a really basic object. The grass used in our game, for example, is also influenced by the wind. This works based on the material. In the Unreal Engine 3 there are tons of possibilities, and in later posts I'd like to share some of the ones I discovered and learned.

I'm happy to answer any questions in the comment section. I'm also open for any requests you might have.

Have a nice day!

Pictures of our progress

Hi,

Since we haven't written too much about our game's world in the previous posts, we'll now share some pics. 

Everything shown on the pics is still under development, and not final.
(In the meantime, we're working on a tutorial. We hope to post that too, as soon as possible.)