More Savage Empire Stuff

[Scythifuge]

My girlfriend (who isn't a gamer) insisted that I post an image of these trees. These trees will appear around the Avatar's house in the beginning of the game and in the temperate rainforest region of the Barako in Eodon. Of course, they are to be considered WIPs. You can see the WIP pine needle tiles.



Also on display is a seamless grass/dirt tileset, as well as WIPs of Triolo and a Myrmidex drone. The Fabozz statue is something that I drew some time ago. Let me know what you think!

[Jaesun]

They look great!

[Scythifuge]

Thanks! I have a beefier, more humanoid looking Myrmidex warrior, or possibly the king. I don't know if I'll use it or not. It looks like a mutated comic character, hehe!

[Sir Klaus Dragon]

They are superb !

[Scythifuge]

Thank you!

[Skutarth (not logged in)]

Fantastic work. My only suggestion is to tone down the bright highlights of the grass tiles. They draw attention away from foreground objects a bit too much.

[Scythifuge]

Thanks Skutarth!

I will consider the suggestion about the grass. I was attempting to go with the brightness of the original game, though I have a couple of variations which I will test and tweak when I build a test island. I am definitely trying to color things to give off the tropical, temperate, and volcanic looks without having colors bleed together or clash.

The ground beneath the canopy won't have as much grass and will be darker due to the lack of sunlight.

[Scythifuge]

There is a new screenshot at the facebook page showing the new butterflies, and stacked waterfall "walls".

[Scythifuge]

Early stage frames of a giant wasp, monkey, and a large ursus spelaeus (cave bear). The bat is nearly finished and will be around 16+ frames.



The U7 bat has single handed and two-handed combat frames, which I don't understand...

This is the screen with the butterflies:



There will be variations of the butterflies, and possibly a larger one. It seems that while I read about prehistoric life and extinct creatures, I see that we have living, mini-relatives of larger extinct fauna. Perhaps extinction is the wrong term for some animals, but rather DNA mutation and adaption have resulted in smaller animals. Well, I am no geneticist and thus probably do not know what I am talking about, though it is fun to think about such things!

[andar_b]

My understanding is that in some prehistoric times, oxygen levels were higher in the atmosphere. The theory is that allowed larger insects in general, I believe.

[Andrea B Previtera]

Super-superb. They way you preserve U7' graphics style is just amazing. Congratulations both on your skills and the great effort.

[Scythifuge]

andar -

That is interesting about the oxygen level, I'm going to read up on that. I am inspired by the giant insects from Peter Jackson's King Kong. Since Eodon is essentially a magic, moonstone created nature preserve, and new fossils are discovered all of the time, certain liberties can be taken with flora and fauna design.

Andrea -

Thank you very much! It took me a lot of practice and examining of the style. I still consider myself an amateur, though some things happen quicker these days. The bear was drawn in an hour or two, but needs some work and shading plus the other frames!

I'm working on some "tricks" so that players can wade through water, and attempting to create hills by using settings that U7 and E.S, provide, hopefully I'll have something to show soon!

[Scythifuge]

Wading through water (its transparent so you can see the grass):


And a deinonychus:

[Scythifuge]

Ooops, I wish we could edit posts! HERE is the deinonychus:

[andar_b]

very cool

[Jaesun]

Nice job on the deinonychus, Scythifuge! Looks great!!

[Scythifuge]

Thank you! It was supposed to be a part of the other post with the water tiles, but I accidentally clicked the wrong image link.

It will be awhile before I can complete all of the frames for it, unless an animator/frame artists helps out!

[Scythifuge]

Tents, cots, munition cans, & other stuff on the way...

[Scythifuge]

Some new stuff:



I am showing the bamboo from my very first screenshots from way back to what the final version will look like. I can hardly believe how much time has passed! I really believe that I have become a better pixel artist over time. I wish that I could practice more than I get to.

Last night, I drew the pitcher plants. The bigger one isn't modeled after anything real, though some of my plants will be original due to "extinction". I don't know how to mess with usecode, though I want the pitcher plants to open and close when clicked, and possibly have an insect fly in and trigger the closing animation. I also drew the smaller flower, and the other flower was drawn a few weeks ago, though I added leaves last night. The orchid was drawn from scratch though is inspired by the original.

The ammo crate is pretty much finished. I am unsure about the shotgun shell box at the moment. The cot is one a a few versions.

I am also experimenting with custom brushes for new trees and other foliage.

[Paulon]

Definite improvement in the bamboo. Though the original doesn't look bad if you were going for a more cartoonish style closer to the original SE than to U7.

[Scythifuge]

Thank you, Paulon! The trick has been to have a mixture of the cartoonish S.E. style with the serious U7 style, while trying to be as original as I can manage. The idea, back in 2006, was to be more like the original. Nowadays, I am going for detail. The old bamboo seemed very flat and bright, and the new bamboo seems to me to have proper color and texture.

I must say that I find it difficult to research plants and render them in such low resolutions. Being that Eodon is full of extinct flora and fauna, I am going to use artistic license to create plants that seem tropical to me, whether or not they ever existed.