During today’s Live Dev Hangout, we chatted about the Achievements in Shroud of the Avatar!
Forum member Kaimuki was awesome enough to make a Synopsis of the video.You can check it our here!
Updates
Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! (Did We Happen To Mention “Thank You?”)
Wow! Words can’t adequately express how overwhelmed we are with the incredible outpouring of support and dedication that all of you gave to the Shroud of the Avatar Kickstarter campaign, and to all of us on the SotA Team! Because of your incredible support, we raised a total of $2.03M, double our original goal!
We were totally amazed by how many stretch goals we blew past in our final 24 hours! We began Saturday morning at the $1.5M stretch goal, and were really, really hoping for some miracle to get us to the magical $1.8M stretch goal (yeah, along with all of you, we really want Tracy Hickman’s prequel novel, plus all the other cool stuff in the $1.6M & $1.7M stretch goals)!
Quite honestly, with only 24 hours to raise almost $300,000 we felt the $1.8M stretch goal was out of reach. Boy, were we wrong! You guys showed us the incredible power of community! Reading through all of your comments going into the final stretch, the relentless cheering, challenging, shout-outs and sharing, it was apparent that all of you created the rocket fuel that caused the pledges to explode like nothing we could have imagined! You not only drove us to the unexpected $1.8M stretch goal, but your infectious enthusiasm propelled us past the $1.9M stretch goal, and with less than an hour before the end of our campaign…because of all of you…we pushed past the $2M stretch goal!
We couldn’t have gotten this far without you, and together we will continue this incredible journey! We have learned so much from you about what this game should become, and we very much look forward to continuing that interaction, so please continue to discuss your ideas with us on our official site at ShroudOfTheAvatar.com! We’ll have regular updates and information for friends old and new. You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter, or tweet us with #LBSOTA to keep the conversation alive!
Together, we will craft Shroud of the Avatar to be a truly unique, amazing, and FUN gaming experience!
For anyone who missed the final moments of our 24-hour, Kickstarter Live Dev Cam, here it is, forever archived for your enjoyment!
Grace Period & Kickstarter Integration
There were many people that were unable to get their pledges processed correctly when the Kickstarter campaign closed on Sunday morning. We are extending a one-week grace period allowing people to make pledges for the same Kickstarter tiers on our SotA website. This grace period ends at end-of-day on Sunday, April 14.
Kickstarter Backers can Purchase/Upgrade Pledges at Initial Prices for One Year!
We took a cue from our buds over at Star Citizen and decided that those who pledged during our initial campaign (at $25 First Responder tier and above) can purchase further tiers, or upgrade existing ones, at the same price they were available during the Kickstarter campaign, thru April 7, 2014 (pending availability of limited tiers)! WooHoo!
New Tiers, Add-Ons, and the Layaway Plan!
We are currently designing the new tiers for brand new backers, and should have those available by end-of-day Sunday, April 14th, at the conclusion of our current one-week grace period. It is our intention for all Kickstarter backers to be able to purchase/upgrade to both the previous tiers (pending availability of limited tiers), and the new tiers, whereas new backers after April 14th will only have access to the new tiers.
We are just about ready to go live with a new version of our web store that includes add-ons that all backers can add to their pledges. Keep an eye out for that sometime later this week, or early next week.
Also, we received many requests by people that wanted to purchase the more expensive tiers but couldn’t afford to pay it all at once. We are working on a plan that will allow monthly payments towards tier purchases. The total cost of a tier paid for monthly may be higher than paying all at once, but we’re still working out the details. You’ll hear more about this in a future update.
Kickstarter Integration
We have begun work on getting all the information from your Kickstarter accounts integrated into our SotA website, allowing you to see your account information all in one place at ShroudoftheAvatar.com. Once that is completed, we’ll send out a notice to all of you asking you to register at our website (if you haven’t already done so) and include information about how to confirm your Kickstarter account information so we can link it to your SotA account. This process will take several weeks, so we appreciate your patience.
You don’t have to wait for us to complete this integration before you upgrade your pledge. You can go to ShroudoftheAvatar.com right now, create an account, and make a pledge. Once we integrate your Kickstarter account information, we’ll combine your Kickstarter pledge with your SotA website pledge.
Are You Having Problems with Amazon Payments?
If Amazon Payments is having trouble processing your payment, please feel free to go to our website at ShroudoftheAvatar.com and make your pledge there using Paypal or Credit Card. If you continue to have problems, please contact us at: community@portalarium.com.
How to Contact us for Support or Questions
If you are having any problems with your pledge or have any questions, please contact us at: community@portalarium.com.
Life After Kickstarter!
Our immediate tasks are to get everyone’s Kickstarter accounts integrated with our system, allowing for upgrades and new pledges. And to get the new tiers defined for new backers after the grace period ends April 14. Plus we need to help everyone that had difficulties with their pledges getting processed correctly through Kickstarter or Amazon.
We are also working to expand the functionality of our Chat and Forums, plus the addition of the Developer’s blog/chat/forums. And the Dev team is formalizing the backlog of project features/tasks/milestones based on how much money we’ve raised and the stretch goals we reached. Expect another update from us later this week outlining more information about future tiers, add-ons, and project development plans!
From all of us on the SotA Team, a Heartfelt Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!
Developer Insights ~ Art Time with Stephen Daniele
For today’s Dev Hangout, we brought back (by popular request) our very own, very talented Stephen Daniele. Get a first look at some early Shroud of the Avatar concepts as he creates them LIVE while you watch.
Developer Insight – Rivers!
Hello everyone! My name is Loren and I am one of our engineers. One of the two things I have been working on recently is adding support for rivers on the overland map and while they are not 100% complete, I figured I would throw together a write up showing how they work. What follows are screen shots of the various stages of development for these as well as technical descriptions for what I am doing.
BEWARE, TECHNICAL THINGS FOLLOW!
So to start we have a picture of the current lower right corner of the map and this will be the area I focus on. The fog of war is hidden to help with the screen shots.
The first phase of adding rivers was getting the data graphed for where rivers flow. In our map system rivers follow the edges of tiles as opposed to roads which move through the middle. As you can see by the coloring we have two different river systems that empty out into the bay to the south. The graph was traversed from the ocean inwards to compute how far each segment is from the ocean and we darken them to represent this distance.
Now that the graphs are ready the next step was to create a system where the nodes of the river are slightly more smoothed out. I knew that eventually I would need to use some kind of spline to create the organic shape of the river so I needed to get a base set of control points to work with. At this stage you can see the control points splitting at branches and that they follow a smoothed path as opposed to the jagged structure of the hexes.
After looking at a couple of the commonly used spline systems for games I settled on using Bezier splines for the rivers. They provide the control we need and are simple to implement. At this point I added randomization to the control point locations since the original positions were too sterile and am now drawing each spline as it follows the river flow. For those familiar with Bezier splines (or paths) in art software you know that they have control handles for each node (or knot). I compute these handles in a downstream fashion to ensure the water follows a more natural erosion pattern.
The next step was computing a mesh off of the spline. I am only showing the left mesh for the moment to help contrast how the original source data looks. This mesh will be used in the computation of the composite height maps used for each terrain render tile. At this point though the tributaries do not start small, nor does the river empty out into the ocean. That said, you can see how they merge and I feel that they look fairly organic while still informing the player about the location of the hex edges.
There we go. As you can see the rivers now properly start small and grow and there is also now a small river delta reaching out into the ocean. I did some more twiddling with the start, mid-point, and exit sizes to get a feel for how big the river should be in the scale of our world.
It was then time to write a shader to output the height map data necessary for creating the composite maps. Using data I embedded in the mesh I use the cos function to compute an approximate height map with some tapering in the tributary sources. The rivers are currently the only elements in the overland using procedural height maps and have a few variables exposed to tweak how they affect the world. Importantly, as you get closer to the edge of a river it begins to defer to the height maps it is overlaying so we don’t just wash out their detail.
And rivers! The final work phase was to add the rivers to the registered data for the render system and to use them when creating the render tiles. There was a ton of tweaking at this point to the size of the created mesh, the depths the river worked at, and in how its height map played with the others. At this point I am pretty happy with the results but there are a few things left to do such as cleaning up the tributary starts, making it so that vegetation does not spawn on the rivers, and adding some customization to the water flowing in the river.
I hope you enjoyed this write up even though it is technical. We are having fun making this game and are happy to have you guys be a part of it!
Art, Unity and Emotes!
New Concept Art from Stephen Daniele
Wickedness, danger and adventure. A hero faces these challenges and overcomes! However, a world filled with darkness and malevolence needs contrast, a place worth fighting for. A sanctuary from the darkness where a hero finds peace.
You can download the full sized image over at the Shroud of the Avatar Media Gallery!
Two Ways YOU Can Leave YOUR Mark in Shroud of the Avatar!
With Shroud of the Avatar, our team is breaking new ground in crowdsourcing art through the Unity Asset store AND the crowd sharing of assets to help build a powerful community! During the prototyping phases of SotA we found the Unity asset store immensely valuable. After seeing how the use of informal crowd sourced art and code from the Unity store enhanced our team’s velocity during prototyping, we decided it was time to take the next step and formalize the process.
We want our players to have a hand in creating content for the game. Our plan is to put out calls for art on a bi-weekly basis and then take submissions over the two weeks following the call for art. To help artists better understand how to create their pieces for SotA, a full art style guide will be published on our website, a SotA asset starter pack will be added to the Unity store before the first calls for art, and a detailed description or concept art for the piece we’re in need of will also be included for each new call.
If any submission is selected for use in Shroud of the Avatar, we will not only pay the artist four times the Unity store price for it, but you will also be rewarded in-game with appropriate trophies, or in some cases, a statue version of your art for display.We will also announce the winning art on our website and include it in our art blog with full credits to the maker and include them in the credits of the final game. And you continue to own the rights to your work, allowing for you to sell your piece in the Unity store, where it will include a “Shroud of the Avatar Approved” art banner.
For quality pieces that are not accepted, we will provide constructive feedback from our veteran art staff to help with future submissions.
Our next goal is targeted at our Developer Level Backers ($400) or higher, and is the addition of monthly Unity asset packs that include a variety of SotA in-game art assets! While the SotA Unity art packs won’t include 100% of our assets, it will include the majority of our non-quest related elements as well as some code systems. This will only include assets created within Portalarium, and not user submitted assets.
The assets will be useable and royalty free in any project the backer is directly involved in and will only carry the requirement that Portalarium is listed in the credits! Our goal is to get professional game assets in the hands of our most ravenous fans and indie game developers.
For indie game developers or small game teams, this gives them access to a stream of top quality fantasy content for their own creations. For the super fans out there, they can use the assets with the free or paid versions of Unity to make their own fan applications! Fans who are developers can also submit their own scenes created with the assets for use in the final game! Look for more details on the scene submission process and rewards after our Kickstarter ends!
We look forward to even more collaborative initiatives from Portalarium and “Developer” level benefits in the coming months!
Developer Vblog on the Emote System in Shroud of the Avatar
Chris Spears, Technical Director of Shroud of the Avatar, talks a bit about the Emote Mastery System in Shroud of the Avatar.
Shroud of the Avatar Dev Hangout 4.3.13
Did you miss our Live SotA Developer Hangout? No worries! You can watch it right here.