IP Incubator Club Thread 2013: Bi-Week-002: April 22-May 5- 2013

#41

Ah, now I understand what you were talking about Chris and I agree. If the goal of your project is to make sales, considering options for a global reach is absolutely something that should be considered. Language would probably be the easiest thing to implement on almost any project (subtitles, dubs, etc…) in order to give a project a global reach because you never know what region might find your project and absolutely love it.

I was at a mobile game development meetup here and some guys released a game and completely by surprise discovered they made 80% of their profits from China. They weren’t even considering those markets at all when they released… imagine if they had put the effort in to translate their game before they did!

I think, from these comments, perhaps it would be valuable for each project creator to clearly state their goals when posting. Something as simple as, “I intend to release a game targeted at North American audiences, and I would like to earn a livable salary from these sales”. This way people can help suggest things in the appropriate context.

#42

CONCEPT NAME: HYPERREALITY ENGINE

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
A hybrid real-time ray tracing rendering engine that uses ray tracing and rasterizing render techniques to deliver real-time performance of 3D scenes with animation.

STATUS NUMBER: 1

TEAM MEMBERS:(Voluntary)
Jules Bushell

START DATE
April 2012

ESTIMATED COMPLETION DATE : (Voluntary) -
April 2014 (?)

WIP THREAD:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthr…97&page=1&pp=15

WHAT WENT RIGHT THIS WEEK:

I’m working on producing a scene as a demo for the engine, that will also uncover areas of development where it might be deficient that I need to work on. The other well-known game engines have some very cool demos. Being a one man band and inexperienced on modelling and animation, I can’t compete with that.
Instead, I’m working on a scene the other engines I believe can’t do too well (not without considerable short cuts and introducing fakeness as a result).

This is the scene

A near future setting at night
An area in a city with a pedestrian path and road in between night clubs, pubs and strip joints on either side etc. The scene has a lot of shiny reflective surfaces and windows, refraction through frosted glass, with silhouettes of people inside. And plenty of neon lights from signs, spilling from windows, and ad projections etc.
Close –up through back window of a taxi, reveals a young girl wearing glasses carrying a bag, and hold on her whilst taxi pulls away. She has never been to a city before, arriving here for the first time, and is shocked at how garish and colourful everything is.
Zoom into extreme close-up on one of her wide open eyes. Depth of field kicks in to blur the background behind her. The scene in front that is off-screen (and hasn’t been seen yet) comes into focus on her glasses, revealing flashing lights, signs and moving flashing ad boards and more to reveal.
I’m working on texturing some of the city environment and I have already concept some of it in Photoshop, more to go. I’ve also digitally painted a realistic looking iris and pupil. Yet to do the eyeball and lashes.
Shading wise, I have no sub-surface scattering shader yet (to work on next); I want the light from behind her to seep through the edge of her face, as the camera zooms in.

WHAT WENT WRONG:
Nothing yet.

SHOW AND TELL:
Nothing new worthy to show yet (WIP).

So alls good, just a lot of work.

Jules

#43

YES! This is an important point.

Of course if Ballistic were here… then the goals are identical to the Amazon Video goals “Get picked up by the Host of the forum”.

But in the absence of that… yes, it’s better that the creators state clearly what they expect out of this… And that helps calibrate the feedback also. :slight_smile:

#44

Is this a:

  1. Standalone Rendering Engine
  2. A plug-in or additional feature to an existing 3D application
  3. A game engine-like total environment

Also, what advantages are you envisioning for Artists, Animators, and Directors?

#45

Hi,

It’s standalone engine as well as hopefully going to be a plug-in for e.g. Maya/3ds Max. Its currently partially compatible with 3ds Max data, being able to read in meshes, lights, cameras and materials, including some V-Ray materials.

I haven’t concerned myself too much with who would ultimately use something like this. For the moment, I want to try and render a quite complicated scene that has many cinematic elements. Being a ray tracer, it can handle, for example, tricky detail. Such as in my proposed demo; as the taxi drives away, of course have the obligatory reflections from the scene bouncing off the car paint.
I got a feeling a rasterizing engine would have to cheat and put in an environment map texture or do some screen space trickery. My engine would instead use ray traced reflections.
Also I’d like to put in a little bit of animation in the girl in the scene. My engine does read in FBX file format.

It maybe that a graphics card does not yet exist that has enough grunt to do hybrid ray tracing at real-time speed for a large complex scene. I’d like to find out, hence the work on a demo scene.

Jules

#46

Hi Everyone,

We had a very big day today, and a very important one for us too. (I updated my first post to reflect our news). Today we released our IP on the AppStore, Blaster X HD. It was a very long and hard road for us to get to this point, and we are very excited. I have been a member of this community for a very long time and I wanted this to be one of the first places to share the news. Thank you to all who have supported us and would like to support us in the future. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I am posting at the point we are now, and will back-track to show how we got here, once things settle down a bit. :slight_smile:

Currently, we are sitting at #2 in two different charts for New Paid Apps on the AppStore.

GAME NAME: Blaster X HD
COMPANY: 2GMG LLC (2 Guys Making Games)

DIRECT LINK TO GAME/APP: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/blaster-x-hd/id615851024?ls=1&mt=8

FOLLOW US ON: Facebook - www.facebook.com/2GMGames
Twitter - www.twitter.com/2GMGames

STATUS NUMBER: 2

TEAM MEMBERS: 2
Rudy Gjurkovic: Co-Founder
Joshua Chapman: Co-Founder

START DATE: End of 2010
COMPLETION DATE: 5-1-2013 (Today)

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
Blaster X HD is a arcade style game that was developed for ALL generations of iPad and iPad Mini. It is currently on sale at 99cents for 2 days, as our way of saying “Thank You” to all of our early supporters.

Below is what was used for our Apple Description:

Immerse yourself in Over 400 levels of non-stop gameplay, as you Blast your way through 9 Diverse Worlds of pure Mental Addiction in one of iPad’s largest titles. Blaster X HD is our release title at 2GMG (2 Guys Making Games) and we are proud to say that we are 100% Independent and made of just 2 guys who have a passion for creating fun and enjoyable games that offer a TON of content. We have given it our all in our first title and below is a breakdown of what Blaster X HD has to offer!

Blaster X HD - Exclusively for all generations of iPad and iPad Mini

Game Features

OVER 400 LEVELS OF MENTAL ADDICTION
Test your reflexes and wit, as you conquer Over 400 Levels with tons of content. From Casual Players to the more Advanced Completionists, come prepared as you will be wrapped up in hours of gameplay.

GAMEPLAY ELEMENTS
Launch your Blaster by pulling your finger back and let it fly! Manipulate and guide your Blaster, as you blast your way through the Orbs to clear each level! Absorb the Orbs’ energy, as that is the power source for your Blaster - so grab them all!
(Non-violent gameplay, suitable for all ages.)

9 DIVERSE WORLDS
Immerse yourself in all 9 Worlds of Blaster X HD. Each World carries different gameplay attributes and elements - not just a different color scheme. Whether it is the “proving grounds” of Basics, to the most difficult Sonoma, there are plenty of options and variety to test any skill level and age. (9 Worlds: Arena, Basics, Carbon, District, Horizon, Qore, Reactor, Sky, and Sonoma)

FLUID CONTROL
Fling, manipulate, and guide your Blaster at anytime, leaving you in total control with our unique Fluid Control System.

STUNNING VISUALS
Enjoy the eye-candy of our blistering graphics - everything is created for High Definition (HD) Resolution.

UNLOCKABLES
Everything in Blaster X HD can be unlocked using no gimmicks, no ads or IAPs to move gameplay along. Unlock Worlds, Levels, and Blasters with just good-old game time investment.

LEADERBOARDS
Want to show the World your skills? You can. Post your High Scores for all your favorite levels and see where you rank among the World’s best.

UNIQUE ICON SYSTEM
Most every menu in our User Interface offers an Identifying Icon for selectable options, making sure that even if it is not your native language you can understand and have fun while you play.

100% INDEPENDENT GAME DEVELOPER
We are just 2 guys who have a passion for creating great games - no publisher, no funding, just all on our own.

We would like to give a big “Thank You” to all of our supporters and fans along the way, who have given us the push to release our first title Blaster X HD at 2GMG. We will try our very best to continue to bring innovative games that offer a lot of content, while listening to our fans in what they are looking for in fun and great games. Thanks Again!

WHAT WENT RIGHT:
We passed through Apple’s approval process with flying colors. Blaster X HD is currently at the #2 spot on two different Apple Charts. Everything is going smoothly so far - just a lot of marketing to do now.

WHAT WENT WRONG:
A typo that we found right in our Apple marketing screenshot, but I was able to fix it right before we went to “In Review” status. Visibility can be tough, so we are hoping the rest of the launch week turns out good.

SHOW AND TELL:

Our Company Logo and Image that is used in-game:

Our Banner Image for Facebook:

A Screenshot Showing an Image from our intro Movie to Blaster X HD:

In-Game shot showing off World Horizon and our Fluid Control System:

A Montage of all of the Worlds Inside Blaster X HD:

Showing off some visuals of World District. The entire game is created at HD Resolution:

A Split-Shot of World Sky and World Reactor - Gameplay, Leaderboards, Unlockables and more!

And Finally, a link to our Teaser Trailer: (Sorry about the Facebook compression quality)
https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/photo.php?v=10201065904595556&set=vb.311372838982843&type=2&theater

Thank you to everyone who would like to support us or pass the news along. Also, a big Thank You to CGTalk and the people responsible for this IP section, especially Roberto. I will be more than happy to answer any questions.

Thanks!

#47

Great work on this project!
I was wondering what we can do to help. I think part of the incubator should be to help promote each other. I’ll tell as many as I know.

#48 
GAME NAME: Blaster X HD
 COMPANY: 2GMG LLC (2 Guys Making Games)

Congratulations to the 2 Guys Making Games :slight_smile:
I was trying to look for a gameplay footage but can’t find one. Where can I see it?

#49

Congratulations to the 2 Guys Making Games I was trying to look for a gameplay footage but can’t find one. Where can I see it?

He is so right. We need to see gameplay. That is the best way to promote it. I mean your stuff has a lot of pretty colors and looks polished but very limited. What does the game look and play like?

#50

Hi banman7 and redCigarette,

Thanks for the reply guys. The gameplay footage is something we do not have as of yet. I guess that was something we overlooked while trying to get the game out…I should probably chalk it up to “Things That Went Wrong” section on here. We are currently looking into and working on making a gameplay video.

Out of curiousity, does anyone know of any really good iPad video capture programs?

We hope to have that completed soon, but in the meantime we updated our Apple Description explaining the gameplay better. (I will make the correction to my previous post as well)

Blaster X HD: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/blaster-x-hd/id615851024?ls=1&mt=8

Thanks,
Rudy

#51

Hi Guys,

In the meantime, while we are getting our gameplay footage together, some people also suggested that we should make our Teaser Trailer more visible. Today, I added our Teaser Trailer to YouTube and Vimeo. I think this will help in our visibilty rather than just having the Teaser only in our Facebook album.

//youtu.be/Vr-zg0m_EE8

https://vimeo.com/65319647

Gameplay Footage - Montage

//youtu.be/shML-DNUD48

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shML-DNUD48

Thanks,
Rudy

Blaster X HD: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/blaster-x-hd/id615851024?ls=1&mt=8

www.facebook.com/2GMGames
www.twitter.com/2GMGames

#52

There are several options for capturing gameplay video according to this http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/forum/topic/22882. The simplest method is setting up a camera over the ipad and playing it from there. If you don’t like having hands obscuring the view, other options include using airplay to display on another device and capping it from there, or playing the game on the mac dev iOS emulator. The thread mentions using other apps such as the iOS native Camera app or the Reflector app, third party solutions such as everyplay and kamcord.

To embed streaming videos on CGTalk, you use the [ youtube ] [ /youtube ] and [ vimeo ] [ /vimeo ] tags (without the spaces inside the braces). In your case, it should look like this: [ youtube ]Vr-zg0m_EE8[ /youtube ] and [ vimeo ]65319647[ /vimeo ]

#53

Blaster X looks really nice and its getting good reviews so far. Good luck to you guys!

For the video capture, would it be possible to play the game on emulator and capture from the computer interface?

#54

Thanks guys for the ideas and help with embedding the Teaser Trailer. We are trying out some options right now and hope to have something out soon. :slight_smile:

#55

Hey ya’ll just wanted to give you a little show and tell and update of my series

I am the Antagonist.

1st things first.

Name Change: The mixed media project is now officially called " I LOVE KAIJU"

Show and Tell: Here are some pictures of the stories characters

Here is a back to back of the 2

Please tell me what you think.

Working on storyboard and animatics soon.

Think of the story as a Fantasy style quest done by giant Kaiju’s for their portion of the story.

#56

Hi Banman7,

I like your character designs and especially the style that you present them in. Almost has a little bit of “watercolor” look and feel to it. I am looking forward to seeing the animatics too. It would be neat to start to get a feeling on how the character’s behave and move. Keep up the nice work!

#57

Hey banman7, what are you planning to do with these characters? Do you have a rough story you could tell us, even a few sentences would be great. Just trying to get an idea of what direction you are planning to go with these guys. Interesting character design, by the way.

#58

Guys lets move this discussion to a new thread…

IP Incubator Club Thread 2013: Bi-Week-003: May 6-19- 2013

#59

moved to new posting

Hey banman7, what are you planning to do with these characters? Do you have a rough story you could tell us, even a few sentences would be great. Just trying to get an idea of what direction you are planning to go with these guys. Interesting character design, by the way.

#60

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.