What’s up guys! In this update, we thought we’d give you a look at what we’ve been working on over the past month as we head toward release of the full game. While we are not releasing any new playable features, we would like to share some of the more interesting things we’ve been working on.
Photogrammetry scans
In preparation for implementing character customization, last week we scanned multiple clothing and accessory items at a studio in Los Angeles. This process involves taking shots of items on a rig of over 100 DSLR cameras which are then processed into 3 dimensional digital objects for use in the game which will fit and bend with the character as it animates.
Once completed you will be able to mix and match to create different looks for your character. Now that the data has been scanned there are a series of steps to process the photos of the objects and turn them into game ready assets.
Check out the scanning rig we used with our friends Human Engine in West LA:
Here’s an example of what one scan looks like after the first step of processing to turn 100 hi-res images into a surface in 3D space:
Motion Capture Preparation
We’re in the planning stages of another motion capture session, to further improve and refine the gameplay animations to be smoother and more realistic. This process involves setting up a grid of motion-sensing cameras and recording skaters performing tricks so that we can capture parts of the movements for use in the game.
We are again partnering with Sawmill Studios in Vancouver who captured our assets for Early Access.
See some pictures from our original shoot here:
Skaters wear suits covered with the famous mocap "ping pong balls" to track movement:
Our famous Early Access character suiting up:
A challenge with motion capturing skateboarding is that it requires quite a large area and flooring that has the right hardness and amount of grip to pull off clean flat-ground tricks.
Our friends up at Sawmill have scouted a suitable space in Eastside Vancouver and we're looking to lock in a shoot in the coming weeks.
Once we have captured the animations we need we will begin the rebuild of the animation system. Skater XL is the first skating game ever where the board is driven by fine-grain player control and natural movement at all times as opposed to using pre-made animations for each move and trick.
While giving what we feel is responsive and satisfying gameplay, this presents a great challenge in creating our character animation system, as the game doesn't know what the player is going to do ahead of time.
We had to invent a very unique system to animate the character and there were a lot of challenges in building the first version of it. We learned a huge amount going through the process for Early Access and think we can make some significant improvements on this second run, especially now that we can incorporate our learnings into the next round of mocap.
Grabs
We have implemented an initial system for grabs that we have been testing internally. In the spirit of Skater XL our focus has been on giving the player a feeling of control and responsiveness and allowing them to style their moves any way they like.
We feel this early version of grabs achieves this goal and feels amazingly fun. We plan to have a testing round with our group of beta testers soon and hope to release the system in a future update.
Skater XL x The Nine Club Experience Video Part Contest
The contest is now closed for submissions, and the winner will be announced on the May 1st episode of The Nine Club Experience. We got over 100 entries, and we were blown away by the talent, creativity and hard work that everyone put into their parts. Thank you as always to the map makers, modders, and players for making this contest a huge success!