This week we learn of the upcoming Equinox event, read about the man behind V&H's music, and read player and developer interviews!
Coming soon: Equinox!
That’s right, it’s just a matter of days now until the Equinox event zone, in all its scorching, blazing glory, descends upon the Seven Realms. The Oases of Anuk’Amon, with its vast dunes of sand, royal blue skies, deadly Pharaohs, and so many other exotic delights, is soon to arrive.
You can expect new outfits, new toys, new pets, and increased danger! Tick-tock…
Have you ever wondered about the music in Villagers & Heroes? Where do so many of those gentle acoustic melodies, or entrancing symphonic pieces come from that so uniquely match the personalities of the zones in our game?
His name is Kevin MacLeod, and for several years now V&H has been fortunate enough to be able to incorporate countless pieces of this incredibly talented musician’s work into the game. (Close to 100 tracks, in fact, within Villagers & Heroes, are all Kevin’s!)
How did Mad Otter come to be so lucky? Like so many others, we owe it all to this musician, who, because of his utter distaste for the current copyright system, decided to distribute all of his original music free of charge to any and all who might desire to use it on his website: Incompetech.com.
He asks only for credit, nothing else. The result? Artists, filmmakers, game devs, web entrepreneurs, You Tube video makers, and the list goes on and on, are all able to create their own projects and see their visions fulfilled with genuinely beautiful music, and without having to go through a series of often insurmountable hurdles to do so.
Kevin is a hero in the world of independent arts, so much so, that a feature documentary film is currently being made about him, the funding for which came from Kickstarter — many of the donors themselves, having been those who had utilized Kevin’s music for their own projects in the past. (Royalty Free: The Music of Kevin Macleod)
And it’s not just struggling indie artists who appreciate Kevin’s work. Acclaimed film director Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, The Departed) was so impressed with Kevin’s music that he featured it in his 2011 film, Hugo.
Villagers & Heroes owes an enormous debt to this talented musician. Thank you, Kevin MacLeod!
You can also listen to Kevin’s music (for free) at: https://soundcloud.com/kevin-9-1
V&H Player: Rhea
View the full issue to read the entire interview with our Rhea, one of our dedicated players!
Creating Outfits
Outfits! How exactly do they come into being? How do our artists take an image in their heads and transform it into the colorful attire your toons are wearing today? Fortunately, our very own Mad Otter artist, Ryan, is here today to describe the process she goes through when designing and implementing character outfits in the game.
Ryan:
The first thing I do is think about what is being asked of me. For the Reborn starter outfits, for example, the main guideline was that they needed to look good, but couldn’t look like high level gear. I also wanted the gear to make sense – the fabric and design used should be simplistic and/or have a reasonable backstory. Then I start by brainstorming. I pull out fantasy books, look for inspiration on-line, ask the Otters for their thoughts, etc. Once a few ideas begin to form, I begin drafting (sketching) them down by hand in a sketchbook.
As soon as I have nailed down a design that I am happy with, the next step is to grab the texture files, open them up in Photoshop, and start digitally painting. Most of the time, I get the basic shape drawn in, and then I bring it into my Max file where I can view it on the 3D model. It’s a back and forth process. Working on the textures. Saving out the file. Viewing it on the model, and then making adjustments based on what I see until I’m satisfied. This can take a long time, and I tend to explore other possibilities. Sometimes an error or doodle that I do for fun, leads to the finalized version I keep.
Once I’m happy with the texture, I bring it in-game to see how it looks. Rarely does it look great on the first try, though sometimes it does. Often, I find that the game drains a lot of the color and detail I put into my work. It is pretty disappointing at times when I can’t figure out a way to make those details pop out realistically.
I also have to keep in mind both the female and male versions of the outfit at the same time. I want the outfits to match as closely as I can possibly get, so if I am working on a male outfit and went through a process that I know will be hard to recreate later, I’ll switch over to the female and redo what I had done while it is fresh in my mind.
The Warrior starter outfits were the easiest, and the most fun to do. (Assassin was pretty fun, too! As well as the Ice Wizard.) But for the warrior, I only had to make some slight adjustments to the original design, and once that was done everything flowed together very smoothly, and I was ready to tackle the other classes! It did set a standard for the rest of the outfits, so some designs had to be revised to look stronger.
Fire Wizard, on the other hand, was probably the hardest outfit for me. I had drafted down a soot covered robe, but I thought of taking it a step further and made the outfit smolder with embers. It drove me nuts. I desperately wanted fire, to make it seem like this outfit was burning due to a mistake the low level Wizard caused. However, it wasn’t reading well and the outfit looked much abused. It wasn’t a nice starting outfit…so Chris pulled me from my madness and I made the nice simple red robe you see now.
View the full issue to keep reading this segment on how outfits are created in the game!