Been a while since the last update on CotW's status, so here's a few nuggets of info to break the silence. The majority of you probably know by now of the setbacks the team has had due to RL issues and whatnot. After a long two weeks of working my ass off, I'm slowly easing into it and getting back to work on the art assets. However, I'm going to be shifting gears a bit and start work on the new tattoos, which I haven't really been working on a whole lot since I shelved the Tribal Tattoos overlays plugin a while back. Here's a quick run-down of the new game plan.

The Sculpt Works

Over the past few months, I have learned quite a bit over creating meshes and textures from scratch while working on original content for Call of the Wild. If any of you know what is involved in creating a mesh from scratch, you'll know what a BITCH it is to optimize hi-poly models for use in the actual game. Baking the normals is a painstakingly long process; it's deceptively difficult, as there are a multitude of things that can go wrong within the process itself and cause the final normal map to become wonky or distorted later down the line. There are quite a few design concepts for things like piercings, jewelry, and some of the "clothing" which will be added by our little mod here. Most of them are very much a WIP, so I don't have a whole lot to show for yet. Creating new textures, by far, is the most time-consuming aspect of the entire process. Unfortunately, I'm a little burned out with model-making because of these things. Overall, I think I've learned more about 3DS Max in the past few weeks than in the past few months. To avoid completely killing my creative drive, I've decided to take a brief break with the 3D art assets.

The Ink Works

Tattoos are something I've been putting off for a while now. Since I've been "entertained" figuring out how to properly UV Map a mesh, there hasn't been a whole lot done in this particular area. Every now and then I see a potential tattoo design somewhere on the intarwebz and I quickly draw a crude sketch or jot down the details for use later, but that's probably as far as the work has gone up to now. As mentioned before, creating textures is a very delicate process (if you want to get it down right, that is) and tattoos are not so different in that aspect. Given the incredible amount of detail and the sheer complexity of some designs I have thought up, tattoos are going to be significantly slower to produce than say sculpting a mesh or adapting it for the bodies we plan on supporting. However, the total time spent making a set of tattoos is expected to be less than that of a full-blown texture for a new mesh. As of now, there are plans to create two sets of tattoos per subschool of Primal Magic (8 sets in total). Ideally, each set will be an original design in order to distinguish it from the other within the same school. There is a very gameplay-driven reason for this, but more on another entry as we're still fleshing this out.

The Framework

With the first iteration of the framework essentially completed, Frostbrand has taken to giving it a thorough revision and enhancement of its various core functions such as the way it handles and controls Primal Energy modifiers during spell casting. There's more to it than that, but I don't really know the specifics, or better yet, understand the more complex functions Phoenix & Frostbrand have integrated into it. While this may cause the first alpha version to be delayed a bit more, in the long run it will save the scripting team a lot of time and headaches trying to figure out how to build upon it later down the line. It's best to do this sort of housekeeping now than wait until the crap is spewing out the framework's ass and mouth. Currently, the second iteration framework is in the works. There is no ETA on it, but it is expected to be completed somewhere within the month.

Q&A Session

Q: "Johnny, Johnny! You said there would be a playable version by the end of the summer! Summer is almost over, bro!"

A: That's true, and I apologize for the inaccurate statement. Unfortunately, we've been running into issues which are out of our control such as RL crises. Also, please understand that like any other hobby, we tend to work on CotW on our spare time and when the mood strikes is to. Both which we have been lacking in for the past few days, sadly.

Q: "Okay, fine. But when will the first alpha be available then?"

A: Again, this depends on whether we run into more hurdles in RL. At this point, we can't really say much other than perhaps by the end of the year, or early Q1 of 2015. This is all just speculation based on the progress we've made so far and is bound to change if we run into a progress streak or another cockblock down the road.

Q: "So wait.. I see Frostbrand is on the team roster again. Didn't he drop out a while back?"

A: Yes, and no. He did drop the team briefly while he sorted out a pressing issue in his daily life. Initially, we didn't know if he was going to be back or not, but here he is today! However, he's working on the code part-time when he has time.

Q: "Yo, Johnny wtf man? Do you even mesh bro? Where r teh shiniez?!!?"

A: The one-million-dollar question, eh? Although I've been pretty busy in the past two weeks, I have found a little bit of downtime to work on some new stuff for Call of the Wild. See below for a few more gold nuggets from Johnny's Vault.

Q: "Johnny, Johnny! What are the new tattoos going to look like?"

A: Ah, another prudent question! In accordance with a previous post I made somewhere, they will likely all be tribal in design. Meaning they will remain almost exclusively abstract, but may contain slight hints from what they were inspired by. In all likeliness, expect to see things like fauna and/or flora incorporated into the design. It's a little hard to explain right, but I think you'll see once the first few sets are rolled out.

Q: "Dafuq? I didn't ask dis chit! Stop putting words in my mouth, yo!"

A: Don't like it? Too bad! All jokes aside, most of these questions are based off of what I get PM'd over. I strongly encourage everyone to leave their questions as a comment in each update from now on. If there are enough questions, I will try to answer them as best I can in the following update. Got shit to lay on me? Give it to me. I have an open-door policy on this kind of feedback as well. Questions don't have to necessarily be about CotW, although I'd prefer that they are.

Johnny's Vault of Goodies

And the part of the update that most of you have probably been waiting for! The usual rules apply, as always. Stuff shown is all WIP and assume it to be NSFW.

Exhibit A

Here is the bracelet design base for the Allure school's first set of jewelry. Pictured in its various stages of progress. I'm still a bit in the air on where I want to take the concept, but I have a few ideas I want to play around with. The plan was to make these into an entire set of armlets, bracelets, and anklets. Perhaps there's more I could do with them.. It still needs to be UV mapped and the normals need to be baked, sadly. Hopefully I can get to that soon.

Exhibit B

These claws aren't mine. I forgot where I found them exactly, but figured they could be useful for the Ferocity school somehow. Not entirely sure what bonuses or abilities they will grant yet. I've also tailored them to fit the feet to add an extra touch of viciousness the Ferocity school needs. The claw mesh itself isn't the best. At one point or another, I will have to retouch it or begin anew from scratch. In these pics they're seen in red because.. well, why the fuck not? With a simple retexture, they could potentially find a place within CotW.

Exhibit C

This picture is a bit old (as you can tell by the smaller resolution), but I felt it would be appropriate to share. One of my earlier design concepts I had thought of for the Ferocity or Elemental schools. If I remember correctly, this particular set had a lot of warping issues around the breast areas. Even UNP's UV Map isn't flawless, unfortunately, but still a whole world better than CBBE's. It is probable that I might scrap this design entirely in favor of a new one I've thought of recently.