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Greetings minions!

Our blog’s been a little lazy here unfortunately, so I’ll strike it with an insightfully intriguing post on the Rooks Keeps character content pipeline. I won’t go into the specifics of actually creating the content, rather focussing on the work inside UnrealEd. This doesn’t include the rather large coding side of things either; it’s simply the content side of things. That’s somehting for another section entirely.

So, let’s start at the beginning then.
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Firstly, we design the character, followed by the concept art for it. DC does the concept art and modeling for the character, then the UV’s and then renders up all the required maps that I will need for texturing (Normal, Ambient-Occlusion, Cavity and Wireframe). Once texturing concludes, I’ll do the rig and create the required animations, sounds and anything else specific to the character (such as masks).
Once all the work outside of UE is finshed, it’s time to get it all ready for the game. And that’s the stuff I’ll list and explain here.
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-Meshes:
The characters are made up of several meshes, and also require other objects for various gore and FX related purposes.

• Character  [The actual character mesh/rig]
• Weapons  [The weapon(s) and other attachments that the character holds in their hands]
• Head  [This is a character specific head gib used for gore]
• Gibs  [These are a global set of gibs used for all characters. These include both flesh and metal pieces]

-Textures: [Often a character has more than one material slot]
The character requires a fair number of textures, which includes the usual Diffuse/Specular/Normal set and extras such as masks and emissive maps. The textures (primarily the masks) will often have various color channels dedicated to specific material functions, which will be listed here as “RGBA=”.

• Diffuse  [This is the characters primary color map and sets the overall look of the character]  [A=OpacityMask]
• Specular  [This sets the 'shininess' of the character texture]
• Normal  [The normal map appears to add extra detail to the mesh, by performing some voodoo magic]
• Emissive  [This map indicates areas of the texture that are unaffected by lighting, and is often used to make areas glow]
• MaterialMask  [We use this texture to set various properties on the characters material, such as reflection intensity, specular power and others]  [R=Reflection G=SpecularPower B=Fresnel A=DetailNormal]
• Color Mask  [This mask indicates which areas of the character can be colored by the in-game color chooser. It also sets where blood appears]  [R=PrimaryColor G=SecondaryColor B=WeaponBlood A=SprayBlood]
• Gore Mask  [The gore mask indicates specific areas used by the gore system]  [R=Decapitation G=FootBlood B=InjuryBlood]
• Footsteps  [These are bloody footstep textures used as decals when a character walks through a blood pool]
• Head Gibs  [The textures used by the head gib meshes]
• Gibs  [Gib textures]
• Decals  [Blood decals used for various gore requirements, such as spatters, explosions, pools and drips]
• Particles  [These are the textures used by the various particle systems, including gore and weapon effects]

-Animations:

• Walk
• Run
• Charge  [A walking sequence used when a piece is in combat with another]
• Idle
• Idle one-shots  [Idle sequences to break up the otherwise looping idle animation]
• Blocking
• Quick Attacks
• Slow Attacks
• Parry: Left / Right / Up / Down  [Each piece requires a parry sequence in each basic direction]
• Quick Attacks Parried  [These sequences are used when the attack of the character is parried by the enemy]
• Slow Attacks Parried  [These sequences are used when the attack of the character is parried by the enemy]
• Death: Stab / Slash / Decapitated / Fried
• Pain
• Dodge

-Sounds:

• Pain[Beasts]
• Effort[Beasts]  [Used when the character attacks and performs some other movements]
• Die[Beasts]
• Impacts  [These are sounds of weapons successfully hitting characters. They come in both flesh and metal variants]
• Footsteps  [These include various foot types on various surface types]
• Swing Weapon  [Played when weapons are swung]
• Attacks  [Character attack sounds. Right now, these are used by the Bishops of both sides]
• Parry Attack  [The sound played by the attackers weapon when it is parried]
• Enemy Parry  [Played by the victims weapon when it successfully parries an attack]
• Weapons on ground  [Played by weapons left by dead players as they are moved around]
• Corpse Impacts  [Sounds of dead bodies been moved around by other players]
• Blood Splats  [When blood hits a surface]
• Decapitation  [The joyous sound of a head leaving it's owner]
• Gibs  [Gib impacts with surfaces]
• Heads  [Decapitated head impacts with surfaces]
• Explosion  [When a character explodes]

-FX:
-Particles

• Gore Slash
• Gore Stab
• Gore Smash
• Gore Decap
• Gore Explode
• Gib Trails  [Blood particles flicking off flying bits]
• Weapon Impacts  [Played when weapons parry]
• Weapon Drips  [Blood drips from bloody weapons]
• Weapon Trails  [Trails left by weapons swinging through the air]
• Attacks  [Effects used by certain attacks, such as the Bishop fire and lighting]

-Decals

• Blood Pools
• Blood Splats
• Blood Footsteps
• Gib Impacts
• Blood Explosion

-Other/Miscellaneous: These are some of the other, equally important, elements that need to be added:

Material
The primary material/shader of all characters. This blends all the character textures and masks into the final shader that is applied to the meshes.

Material Instances
These are instances of the main character material that simply change variables from it’s parent.

AnimTree
The ‘AnimTree’ handles most animation functionallity, animation blending, and is used for other features such as: Shrinking head bones for decapitation and Foot placement IK.

Physics Asset
The Physics asset is used for Ragdoll physics and other physics based calculations and collisions.

Mesh LOD’s
The main character mesh also requires 3 extra LOD’s to improve performance when required. These can, fortunately, be generated inside UE.

Sockets
Sockets are locations placed on meshes that are referenced by code.

• Neck [Spawns a head stump mesh when decapitated]
• HeadGore [Gore particle spray upon decapitation]
• Three Weapon Edges [These are used by weapon FX trails, referenced by animation notifies]
• Weapon Sockets [Held weapons]

Notifies
Notifies set events during animation sequences, such as when to play trails left by weapons as they swing and when to play footstep sounds.

Cloth
Physics calculated cloth objects, such as the cloaks on the King and Queen of the ‘Knights’ faction.

Physics Material
Physics materials set various properties on meshes and physics objects.

SoundCues
Sounds Cues are used to blend together various sounds, tweak volumes, attenuation and other audio properties. Almost all sounds played are SoundCues.

Map Based Environment/Reflection-maps
We’ve added support to character materials, that allows them to search for map-specific reflection maps.
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Whew! And that’s that for now! As you can see, a lot of work goes into each character piece, and this doesn’t include the actual content creation and coding for them.

I trust you found this insightful, useful or an otherwise educational experience. If, on the other hand, you were bored stiff and angry by the end of it.. Hahaha! Sucker!

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Greetings everyone!

I’ve not shown much of my own work here on the blog, but today I decided to render up some of the animations I’ve been doing for the Beast side in Rooks Keep.

These Beasts were much quicker for me than the ‘Knights’ side i’d already done. The Knights were the first real character anims i’d ever done (with the exception of some sequences for Crucible UT3). I had to get the hang of some of the more advanced rigging aspects, requirements for the engine and the game itself, and then finally tackle the animations themselves.

To start off with, here is the Pawn from the Beasts in action. You can see the walking(forward), parrying at various angles and some quick attacks on display here. Each piece in the game thus far, requires about 30 separate sequences for the combat system to look proper neat

And here is the Beasts Bishop doing his thing. Similar to the Pawn, he features moving(forward), parrying (which will probably also include some neat FX down the line) and some attacks.

I’ll post more short videos in the coming weeks, and try to document more of the goings on on my side

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Greetings everyone!

I’ve been working recently on some more maps for Rooks Keep, and I do have plenty of ideas that I think would cool to see, but only a few can be made. I’ll go over the progress so far here, starting with our first map that we’ve used for all our screenshots up until now.

Courtyard:

I’ve added some new foliage and changed the trees in the Courtyard this time. There are a few passes we need to do still, but it’s nearly done. Every now and then, i’ll update it with some new features, textures or details, especially with each new UDK release.

Forest:

Forests are cool! Right? Well, i’ve wanted to add one to Rooks Keep since the early stages, so i finally got around to it. Save for some mesh work (on the trees and cliff’s), it’s mostly done. I’ve created some foliage and trees to add to improve the forests, so those will go in soon.

Fields:

This map i created just this morning basically. I created some trees and textures last night, then just this morning created some more textures, imported the meshes, and then made the map. I really like how it turned out for just a couple hours work. There are a bunch of improvements i need to make, but i’m pleased that the idea for the setting works well!

Crypt:

This started more of an exercise in theme than a map idea. But the way it turned out was awesome, so i turned it into a playable environment. Made some dead trees, grabbed the gravestones from The Crucible, and added them all into the place, and here we are!

RedYard:

I’ve wanted to create an environment like this for a while, the red sky, the weird lighting. It took about a day to get the bulk of it made, then a bit of the next day to polish it up a bit. I’ve got to work on the sky a bit, because the orange sun doesn’t match the blue sunlight quite yet

Keep:

Just another map I whipped up quickly with the batch of meshes from the Courtyard. As usual i need to go over it with some more polish, but it’s another map

Anyway, i’ll be working on more maps as the game surges forwards, so stick around!

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It’s a dark, gloomy night, and more unsettling secrets are escaping the confines of Rooks Keep.

Perhaps you thought Rooks Keep was just Chess with some fancy moving pieces and gore?
Well, we’re pleased to squash those fears (or dreams) and introduce the other side of Rooks Keep, the fighting game! It will indeed feature an expansive, interactive combat mode, where players will take direct control of the pieces and fight in pitched battles for victory.


In a variety of game-modes players can battle through fights with interactive combat, using quick and slow attacks, parrying, dodging and counter-attacks to out-maneuver the enemy. Players will be able to engage in this fighting game during standard Chess, or simply play with traditional rules. The attacker will still have an advantage, but a skilled fighter may actually fight back against the attacker and if victorious, the opposition loses their piece.

Rooks Keep will offer a selection of game-modes, including, Arena, Chess and Tournament modes to test your fighting prowess and more. We’ll be sure to detail the various modes in due course.

So there it is! And just to be clear, Rooks Keep will feature traditional Chess, various fighting game modes, Chess with fighting and more. It’s more of a strategy/fighting game hybrid inspired by Chess and set in gothic universe.

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Hello minions!

Today, in the first proper ‘Trash from the Past’ insight, we will look at something called “ShadowMoon”. This was a strategy game we were planning back in 2001. We went so far as to develop 250+ fully skinned and animated units, 50+ buildings, HUD, and even began sounds. Unfortunately, we didn’t have an engine or anything. We just made all this stuff, with basically no direction. So, from about mid 2001, to early 2002, we made all this content for ShadowMoon. So without further ado, here is a look at some of the stuff:

Important note: The screenshots were made in Photoshop, in an attempt to make what would look like a screenshot. We took shots of the units and objects from the angles, and then pasted them over a mock terrain and added some FX:

The alien race, the Gronkyt’s, take on the medieval Ancients:


The mysterious Dark Hunters battle it out with the Pirates:

In the game, players could choose one of six races. There were three futuristic, and three ancient factions:

UHA: A race of humans from the future, possessing advanced technology.
Jorgon: An advanced alien race of robotic and organic structure.
Gronkyt: The old squishy aliens, which came in large numbers.
Ancients: Medieval humans possessing rudimentary magical abilities.
Pirates: Vicious sea-faring pirates with a taste for crude implants.
Dark Hunters: A race of forest dwelling creatures with strong magical abilities.

The brutal Gronkyt’s try to fight off an attack from the UHA:


A skirmish erupts between the robotic Jorgon and the Dark Hunters:


The noble Ancients encounter a force of barbaric Pirates:


A detachment of UHA troops tries to get the better of a force of Dark Hunters:

So that’s it for the first of the series. Keep checking in for more insight into our past efforts, including more on ShadowMoon.

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Greetings mortals!

So now that we have a nice shiny blog, I got to thinking; what about some of our old stuff? We’ve been making mods and even games *shudders*, since the mid-to-late 90′s. So in this particular line of news, we shall dig into our; Trash from the Past!

We will be updating this series with various bits of useless information on our old, often really old, works of… art.

So stay tuned for more from the RuneStorm archives.

Oh, and by the way. The above image was actually going to be used for piles of trash in the trunks of the cars from The Crucible’s RoadRage gametype. Sadly this sainted idea never made it into the final release, but there you are.

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