July Update!
almost 8 years ago
– Tue, Jul 05, 2016 at 06:35:58 PM
Hey Woodlings!
July is here! The month of July brings us days like our Independence Day (‘murica), Cow Appreciation Day (for those of you lucky enough to have Chick-fil-A), and VIDEO GAME DAY!!, but more importantly, MORE DEADWOOD UPDATES! In this update we have some really fun gifs and images showing off more of Knot’s animations, Keeper’s Outpost, New market assets, and A little bit of Giggle Piggles.
Knot’s Animation
When we left off last month, we had just introduced you to a newer character named Knot. We are still working on his animations, but in the meantime, here are some of the poses that we’ll be animating soon.
Knot's Poses
* Top Left: Vomit
* Top Right: Stand
* Bottom: Charge
Keeper’s Outpost
We’d like to introduce Keeper’s Outpost: the lookout for the Meadbud/Leafton. This area is home to Radley, the Keeper. Here’s a little more info on Radley, the Keeper, and his Outpost.
Some think of him as an old woodling that has lost a couple of marbles in his head because of his endless yaking and warnings about a curse, but he is just an old woodling that takes pride in his job as The Keeper. Inside he hopes that the curse is a myth like all the others, but he’ll be ready for the worse.
The textures wood be there but we haven’t applied them yet so that’s why you see the interesting rainbow colors on the Outpost itself.
Keeper's Outpost
Market Assets
We’ve taken a pretty extensive pass at the Market assets as a whole this month. Here are the newest models from this area:
Market Assets
Jiggle Piggles
We haven’t shown this in the Log yet, or much in our Kickstarter updates, but we wanted to give this decoy it’s 15 minutes of fame. If you’ve seen in our game trailers and Kickstarter campaign, you’ll know that you can capture pigs and put a harness on them to lure away the Deadwood as a decoy. Jiggle Piggles is the result. We wanted to combine the craftiness of Lathe and the vast resources of his surroundings to create an effective decoy.
Jiggle Piggle
The Log
So far our take at blogging hasn’t gone so bad! "The Log" (clever right?) is our way of plugging you into the development of Deadwood on a much more consistent basis. These micro blogs will give you a small window into what we're working on everyday. Check it out here!
Twitch Team Stream Tuesday
We had an awesome time on Twitch Stream Tuesday today. Thanks to everyone who came. Remember to tune in the first Tuesday of every month on twitch and check out what we are working on for Deadwood! Feel free to ask any questions... we love talking about movies *hint hint*.
Steamroller Out!
June Update!
almost 8 years ago
– Tue, Jun 07, 2016 at 11:53:03 PM
Hey Woodlings!
June is upon us! This month gives us days like Flag Day, National Splurge Day (a.k.a. “Treat Yo Self Day”), and Father’s Day, but more importantly, MORE DEADWOOD UPDATES! In this update we have some really fun gifs showing off the last of Splinter’s animations, some new texturing, new Cedar Wharf models, and a New Character!
Splinter’s Animation
When we left off last month, we were just about finished with Splinter’s animations. We can officially say that we are done with his animations for now!
Splinter's Death
Textures
Lately, Adam has been taking a few rough passes at Splinter’s Texture to try and get the log rolling on that. It still needs some work but we’re excited to marry the textures and the animation to create a great enemy for the game.
Rough Splinter Texture
Deadwood takes place where there are a lot of different materials in the environment. These textures can be found in the depths of the Obrig Forest, to the city streets of Leafton. Here are just a few of the textures you’ll see:
Cedar Wharf Models
We’ve taken a pretty extensive pass at Cedar Wharf as a whole this month. Here are the newest models from this new area:
New Character!
We haven’t even shown this guy in the Log yet but some of you may have seen this character in one of our more recent Twitch Streams. As for this character’s personality, it is very goofy in his movements. He is quite lazy and prefers to not move his arms if he doesn't have too. His Strengths are that he is very strong. He can charge through most traps, decoys and some barricades. Its weaknesses are that it has a longer recovery time and is also the slowest deadwood. Please welcome, Knot!
Knot's Run
The Log
So far our take at blogging hasn’t gone so bad! "The Log" (clever right?) is our way of plugging you into the development of Deadwood on a much more consistent basis. These micro blogs will give you a small window into what we're working on everyday. Check it out here!
Twitch Stream Tuesday
We had an awesome time on Twitch Stream Tuesday today. Thanks to everyone who came. Remember to tune in the first Tuesday of every month on twitch and check out what we are working on for Deadwood! Feel free to ask any questions... we love talking about movies *hint hint*.
Steamroller Out!
May Update!
almost 8 years ago
– Tue, May 03, 2016 at 05:29:05 PM
Hello Woodlings!
May is upon us! This month gives us days like “May the 4th”, Cinco de Mayo, and Memorial Day, but most importantly, MORE DEADWOOD UPDATES! In this update we have some really fun Gifs showing off Defense assets, Scavenge assets, Environment assets, Textures, and more Splinter animations!
Defense Assets
Not that we’ve taken a break from Meadbud, but we’ve been focusing on creating some great looking assets this month! The new assets are in and they are really starting to shape up!
Starting with the one you see first, we have an asset we call “Spikey Leaves” which, if the enemies aren’t careful, can do some serious damage.
Then there’s the “Trip Line” which is a favorite defense for some of the team members here in the studio. Enemies beware of this wretched trap!
Lastly we have the “Trojan Bogie” which is a wind-up defense mechanism that detours enemies away.
Scavenge & Environment Assets
As you roam along the paths in Deadwood, you’ll be able to scavenge a multitude of different items that can help you on your quest to success.
Pick theses goody bags up and reap the rewards!
When exploring the fields of Leafton, you’ll happen upon quite a few of these Plows that our modeling team has been working hard on!
Splinter's Animations
Splinter is looking as creepy… and fun… as always! :)
Splinter's Run Stop
Splinter's Spawn
Splinter's Walk Right
Splinter's Hit
Splinter's Body Swipe
Splinter's Knock Back
The Log
So far our take at blogging hasn’t gone so bad! "The Log" is our way of plugging you into the development of Deadwood on a much more consistent basis. These micro blogs will give you a small window into what we're working on everyday. Check it out here!
We had an awesome time on Twitch Stream Tuesday today. Thanks to everyone who came. Remember to tune in the first Tuesday of every month on twitch and check out what we are working on for Deadwood! Feel free to ask any questions... we love talking about movies *hint hint.
Pre-Alpha Update
We were really looking forward to sending out the Pre-Alpha build in April, but we've been been dealing with a few gnarly bugs. Please be patient with us as we try to fix them and we'll keep you posted on the progress.
Steamroller Out!
April Update!
about 8 years ago
– Tue, Apr 05, 2016 at 07:43:40 PM
Hello Woodlings!
Spring is in the air! The birds are singing, the sun is shining, and the Deadwood are coming! In this update we have some really fun gifs showing off Meadbud, grass, lighting, and Splinter animations!
Meadbud Area
The team has been focusing on the Meadbud Area of Knottington Country. This is the area you begin your adventure. It's just a pleasant walk from Leafton (Lathes hometown). In the last update we mentioned how hard we've been working on achieving a look we like with grass. Below you can see it implemented into the Meadbud area! We also took some time to improve the look of the cliffs, knolls, lighting, and overall general asset layout. There's still a ways to go, but things are moving along well.
Day/Night Cycle
Since we are focusing on the look development in this area we took some time to do an iteration on lighting. It's not final but we are working towards something better than what was in the Kickstarter.
Day Night Cycle
Grass
I know we've been talking about Grass a lot, but... CHECK THIS OUT! We now have the power to CHANGE THE GRASS TO ANY COLOR WE WANT MUHAHAHAHAHA! Our programmers have put a lot of hours into making the grass for Deadwood unique, with a lot of art driven control, and optimized performance.
Splinter's Animations
Splinter has also been making progress and let me say, he's looking pretty creepy... in a fun way :)
We're happy to announce that starting today we are kicking off a new section of our website. It's called "The Log" (clever right?) and it's our way of plugging you into the development of Deadwood on a much more consistent basis. These micro blogs will give you a small window into what we're working on everyday. Check out the first post here!
We had an awesome time on Twitch Stream Tuesday today. Thanks to everyone who came. Remember to tune in the first Tuesday of every month on twitch and check out what we are working on for Deadwood! Feel free to ask any questions... we love talking about movies *hint hint.
Pre-Alpha Update
We continue to work hard on getting something decent to put in your guys hands regarding a pre-alpha. If you signed up for the pre-alpha, be sure to keep a close eye on your inbox this month. We're excited about sharing this early build with our most hardcore fans!
New Steamroller Team Photo
Top Left: Chris, Wesley, Amanda, Adam, Lily, Keith, Gary. Bottom Left: Mark, James, and Jalil.
Steamroller Out!
March Update
about 8 years ago
– Wed, Mar 02, 2016 at 06:35:41 PM
Happy March Woodlings,
Wow, it's already March! Hope everyone is excited for GDC! Steamroller Studios will be attending this year, but not alone. There are many Indie Developers here in Central Florida that meet monthly to share and talk about what we are currently working on.
Instead of us all going individually or as teams, we are all attending together. Giving developers big and small an opportunity to showcase their game at GDC! :D
Deadwood Updates
Steamroller has been focusing on developing the look of the Leafton Area of the map. We've been experimenting with new styles of cliff walls, as well as grass. We also have been putting a lot of time into implementing Splinter into the game.
Grass Journey
The real struggle with making great looking grass for Deadwood: The Forgotten Curse is trying to make it look AWESOME from a top-down angle. Other games that have nice looking grass have the advantage of being third or first person, typically seen from a low angle. Because grass is just a bunch of cards, this looks great from that angle. But as soon as you move the camera overhead, everything falls apart. Seriously, look down at your feet in any AAA game and you'll see the grass doesn't look great. So this became our own personal mission to be the guys to figure out how to pull this off.
So after a lot of trail and error, we final got the below image. Which we immediately thought... "hey, we may be able to mold this into something that we can work with!"
A few iterations later, we got this...
Then low and behold...
We created super fluff, "I want to roll in it" grass! This gif above is showcasing how the edges will fall off when laying out spots and clumps of grass. We are now currently working on optimizing it so that we can lay it out.
Splinter Animations
The Animators have been having a lot of fun lately with animating this creepy lurker Deadwood known as Splinter. Here's are a couple of cycles we've completed..
Pre-Alpha Build
We've had a few people ask about the Pre-Alpha build for Deadwood that we promised back in October. Back then we announced that we would be pushing the timeline to adopt a better workflow style. You were all very kind and understanding towards our situation and we absolutely appreciate the flexibility. It's March now and we still haven't delivered. We are very sorry about this, but we want to explain why...
The team is still working very hard on Deadwood, but it's only about half of the team. The other half is working on contract work that pays the bills so we can keep the lights on. (Check out some of what we've been up to here.) Basically we're making money so we can immediately put all of that money into Deadwood and make it as great as we possibly can. The bad news with doing it this way is that it has slowed down production a bit. The Good news is that it means we are in complete control of the project, and because we're self reliant, there's no danger of running out of money and having to close it all down. It's become both our savior and our curse. But as we continue to grow our contracting side, we are able to put more and more resources into Deadwood production. So while things are slower now, the idea is that over the coming months we'll actually be expanding the Deadwood team.
As far as our progress on the Pre-Alpha. We are actually ahead of the game in some areas from a development standpoint. But we have a few areas that we're trying to bring up before we release. Our goal is to give you a small polished area of Deadwood where you can be fully engaged in Deadwood game play and story... we are getting there, but we're not satisfied yet. So the plan now is to release the Pre-Alpha in April and we're excited to have you guys involved at this early stage. Stay tuned for more info soon!
