While I’m in a posting frenzy, here’s my new brand…
Matching website to come… when I can be arsed…
p.s. hard job coming up with a (hopefully) quirky company name. Bit of a random choice in the end, but I enjoyed this site for stiring up some whacky ideas…
Good sense prevailed, and I didn’t go with “Conundrum of the Blunt Carrot”.
Hi all.
I’m glad to say I’ve finally submitted Air Legends for peer review for inclusion in the Xbox 360 Community Games marketplace.
It’s surprising just how long all the little finishing tasks take just to get a game submitted. I’ve just spent the best part of a day doing really unsatisfying stuff…
It’s all worth it now though. Fingers crossed it makes it through Peer-review smoothly. If you are a Creators Club member, please do head over and peer review it (loads of new goodies you won’t have seen before). Thanks in advance!
Prayers answered – the Softimage|XSI Mod Tool has now been updated with a commercial-use license, the condition being that you must have a Premium Creators Club Membership. FANTASTIC!
Check out the announcement here.
So there’s a new version to download called Mod Tool Pro. I’ve not seen any word on what the differences may be. Looking forward to installing and taking it for a spin.
Also, with regards to my previous post, it seems I may have a slight case of premature celebration. Word on the street is that while New Zealand, Australia & Singapore will at last be open for publishing games – this does not necessarily mean consumers in those countries will see the new marketplace on December 15th.
Still, exciting news for me personally as a “creator”, but it seems the wait for consumers will continue.
Title says it all really.
Kotaku reports that from December 15th 2008 the region restriction that prevent New Zealand, Australia & Singapore consumers from enjoying the new Community Games Marketplace will be gone!
Even better, XNA game creators, such as myself, will at last be able to have their games published on the Xbox 360.
Fantastic news – I’m so stoked. To celebrate, here’s a sneak peak at a tasty addition I’ve been cooking up…
Recently I discovered that the “foundation” edition is no longer available. The next edition is simply not even close to being affordable – we’re talking thousands of dollars. (approx. $5k NZD)
Frustrating. Y’see when Softimage partnered with Microsoft for XNA and gave us the superb XSI Mod Tool for FREE it came with a non-commercial-use license. Not a problem, I thought – the “Foundation” edition was nicely priced and I figured a worthy investment when I was ready.
Hidden away in a Dream-build-play winners announcement was this…
…Softimage is now building on their relationship with XNA by offering a special version of the free Mod Tool for commercial use by Creators Club Members. GarageGames is releasing a brand new 3D editor for their Torque X3D game engine. Both the engine and the new 3D editor will be completely free to all Creators Club members….
I had already been remodeling my stuff in Blender, but perhaps I don’t need to now? Until I see an “official” announcement I guess I’ll continue remodeling just to be safe.
Speaking of which, here’s where I’m at…
The Tempest is a faster than both the Spitfire & BF109. And it’s rate of turn will be close to the Spitfire’s.
The next planes I plan to add will be the german FW-190, and American P-51 “Mustang”.
With the Dream Build Play entry complete and the results due any day, I thought I’d look at adding a couple more flyable Aircraft choices.
After all, the XNA 3.0 & the Community Games marketplace is coming soon, so might as well be ready for that.
There are more important things I should probably focus on (like getting ready for trial mode), but the temptation to add more planes was too much. Especially when I spotted a 3D World Magazine full of tutorials on how to model vehicles.
In particular there’s a great tutorial on modeling a Hawker Tempest Mk V. BRILLIANT! I’ve always fancied having one of those in “Air Legends” so I had a crack at it.
Here’s a peak at my progress so far…
After my previous hack ‘n slash efforts at 3D modeling it was nice to finally learn some of the right ways of doing things, terminology etc…
I also broke with tradition a little. Instead of making up “stubby” version blueprints (front/side/top images) and modeling from there, I modeled off the real blueprints and stubbified it direct in 3D. I reckon it was definitely easier and the end result is certainly a more accurate representation of the real plane.
Here is the change list and screenshots of my final Dream Build Play entry. Note: as per my last post, this version is not available for download yet, but you may have been lucky enough to get the 360 version during Creators Club Peer review.
or download a higher quality version here (right-click > save as…)
I mentioned in my last post about “Air Legends” no longer being a work-in-progress. That doesn’t mean I’m no longer enhancing it. It just means it’s no longer the proof of concept quality I’ve gladly shared over the last 2 years since I began.
The version still available freely here on my blog, is comparitively speaking a dogs breakfast, next to what I entered in the Dream Build Play competition.
That of course leaves me a bit torn up. I’d dearly love to show off the result of my efforts over the last 2 months – and boy it was quite an effort! On the other hand it’s time to put my poorly fitting business hat on and at least consider the publishing side.
So for now, I’ll keep the latest builds to myself. If you’d like to get in touch with me directly, please email me on sharky.games@gmail.com. In the meantime donations are certainly an option!
Shortly, I will post with some screenshots and change log of what went into the Dream Build Play entry, plus some Windows only enhancements. Stay tuned…
With Air Legends work-in-progress phase now over, and the might-as-well-go-commercial-phase beginning, I plan to get blogging again.
The first thing that comes to mind is this…
I don’t know why I’m so lucky, but I’m reminded once again at just how freak’n clever some of my closest friends are!
Great friends, who are far more talented than myself to be brutally honest.
Take, Martin Kay who composed and performed the original music in Air Legends. I just love it to bits. Despite hearing it thousands of times while developing & testing the game, it still isn’t old for me. I catch both myself, and my kids (expert play testers I might add) humming/whistling the main theme after any time playing the game. That has to be a good sign, right?
By the way, Martin’s profession is far from musical. Music is a hobby/passion, much like creating the game has been for me. The main theme is called “March of the Victorious”. He also did the gameplay theme which is deliberately more subtle & sombre. I think it brilliantly captures tone you’d expect when in battle.
I’m elated at how the music turned out. It is exactly what I wanted. Reminisent of the good ol’ war movie themes my dad would play in the car when I was a kid.
Then there’s Jeff Harris. Jeff was one of a few friends that helped me test the balance of the “Air Legends” gameplay. But check out what he’s been up to in his spare time! Lately he’s been tinkering in a little XNA. He’s started building and blogging about his XNA game that uses the 1994 DOS game “Need For Speed” data files (tracks, models, textures etc…).
I’ve seen some early gameplay and was totally in awe of how much he’s achieved so quickly, not to mention how good such an old game could look with newer tech behind it!
He hasn’t put any screenshots up of his version yet – but rest assured I will keep hassling him till he does. Definately a project/blog to keep an eye on.
Check out Jeff’s NFS XNA remake at Phobos Labs
And It’d be plain wrong to not mention the talent in the XNA community as well. Some truly stunning games emerged from the shadows for the Dream Build Play contest.
Videos of them can be found here (click, then search for “dream build play”)
Shameless self promotion but…
I’ve been interviewed for NZGamer.com.
w00t!!!
p.s. I’ve been going BIG GUNS lately to prep Air Legends for the Dream-Build-Play contest entry. Expect a considerably more polished version real soon, with some spanking new game play features, and loads of improvements.
