Tears of a Dragon - Official Blog

New font for small texts: ToaD_medieval

GuieA_7 — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 12:52:00 +0100

We need a new font for small texts, because the font I've created for ToaD looks fine for big texts (like titles), but is not very readable for small resolutions. So I've spend _lots_ of time creating a new one (thanks to the X-Mas holidays !!). I've used the last Inkscape version (0.47), and FontForge. Inkscape can now export svg fonts, which FontForge can open. The workflow is not perfect at all, but is better than the old one (creating a svg file for each glyph).
Creating a font is a long work : lots of glyphs (with lots of constraints on vector paths), kerning, ligature... I hope this font is fine, because I won't create a new font anytime soon !

1 week, 1 creature : the troll.

GuieA_7 — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:56:00 +0100

No need to present this creature : it is strong, tough and can regenerate itself.

For now, there are only 16 creatures ; so it's the end of this series of posts. 16 creatures are enough to develop the gameplay : others ones will be created latter, when the gameplay is OK.

1 week, 1 creature : the zombbit..

GuieA_7 — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:29:00 +0100

Happy new year folks !!

Zombbit = zombie + rabbit
I don't know if it's a real dead rabbit ; it looks more like a stuffed rabbit. But who cares ?! :) It jump on its enemies with its huge knife. Like zombies (and stuffed toys !), it doesn't like fire, but it is not afraid of blades.

X-Mas gift : in game video ! woot !

GuieA_7 — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:12:00 +0100

No creature this week but a video showing current state of development (in fact the video is some weeks aged).

Merry X-Mas !!

Tears of the dragon - in game 1

1 week, 1 creature : the hellworm.

GuieA_7 — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 13:45:00 +0100

A terrifying creature came from darkness : a worm ! It launches its darkness spells with its hypnotic dance. Its enemy is the dragonfry (because it's a creature of light of course).

1 week, 1 creature : the chaos knight.

GuieA_7 — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:00:00 +0100

A true living tank ! Very slow but very strong, he is a soldier who can be trusted.

New versions for Blender and Inkscape

GuieA_7 — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 13:50:00 +0100

In the same week, Inkscape 0.47 and Blender 2.50 alpha 0 are released. Woot !
The new Blender seems really great ; I have to rewrite my scripts for it.
The new Inkscape is cool too. Years ago, I created a font for ToaD with Gimp, Inkscape and FontForge. The new Inkscape is better to create font : I'll try this by creating a second font for ToaD. Here the old ToaD font :

Small review of version 0.1

GuieA_7 — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:20:00 +0100

Lawrence Azzoug, a friend of mine, has written a small review of the version 0.1 (in french). Cool, it works on other computer than ours ! :)
It's just here.

1 week, 1 creature : the sword devil.

GuieA_7 — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:13:00 +0100

His best friend is his sword.He lives to fight against the strongest possible enemies. In short, a formidable soldier !

1 week, 1 creature : the beholder.

GuieA_7 — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:12:00 +0100

The beholder is a flying creature with an enormous and demonic eye. It is very fast of course, but not very resistant. Its eye can see lots of things that other creatures can't see, like magic traps for example. Beholders can also launch some spells belonging to the air element.

Here you can see the beholder in our new resource viewer ; there are all its animations on the left.

Demonstration of a beholder spells : the tornado.

1 week, 1 creature : the dragonfry.

GuieA_7 — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:16:00 +0100

It's a small, pink and winged creature which looks stupid ! But it's also a real living weapon, because it can spit a powerful light ray. Try to keep your dragonfry alive, and it will destroy your worst enemies.

I think that this goblin will die soon !

1 week, 1 creature : the kawaisaurus.

GuieA_7 — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:11:00 +0100

The Kawaisaurus is small, stupid and weak lizard, but which can launch healing spell. It is very fast too (good to run away !).

This time two in-game screenshots : In the first, a Kawaisaurus launches its spell, in the second a Goblin is healed.

1 week, 1 creature : the carniflex.

GuieA_7 — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:25:00 +0200

The carniflex is actually a carnivorous plant which can move. It can bit of course, but also use plant magic, like make grow a plant tentacle. It will have the power to regenerate by planting in the ground.

This time I've also made a render with the subsurf (subdivision surface) modifier activated in Blender ; I hope we'll have in the future a shader than can do the same thing in real-time, in order to have scalable textures and models.

1 week, 1 creature : the goblin.

GuieA_7 — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 11:40:00 +0200

The goblin is a classical monster in the fantasy universes. It lives in group, it is not very strong and it doesn't know magic ; so it's the perfect basic soldier for an army, in order to be used as cannon fodder.

1 week, 1 creature : the pigoceros.

GuieA_7 — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:51:00 +0200

The pigoceros is the unlikely combination of a unicorn and a pig. For now it can only hit with its huge horn. But in the future it can throw lightning too, and another creature can ride it. Oh, it has a very bad temper !!

UV unwrap for vector textured models

GuieA_7 — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:33:00 +0200

Creating beautiful textures is difficult. Creating beautiful vector textures has more constraints. So if you want to texturize a 3D model with a vector texture successfully, you must UV-unwrap your model in this way. We've seen that in order to have seamless texture, horizontal/vertical lines are important. But they are important to decrease aliasing effect too (because these lines will never be aliased however zoomed they are).

Here I unwrap a pot with the normal LCSM algorithm (angle based version) :

The borders which have to be seamless are circled in red ; it will be very difficult to create a correct and beautiful texture with this UV map. It would be better to have an UV map which looks like a grid, like that :

With this simple model, you can use 'Cylinder from view' UV calculation (U key in edit mode). With more complex model, it's not always possible ; you have to use the 'Weld/Align' tool (W key in UV/Image editor). I have written a python script which can help you for this job : UV tool script.
With an UV map like that, you can use the drawing methods we've seen (Seamless vector texture (I) and Seamless vector texture (II)) and it will be generally easier to create a beautiful texture. Even if the quads (and triangles) of the UV map are stretched, this deformation won't be visible :

It this example, I've drawn blurred horizontal lines. And even the blue pattern is seamless. Cell shaded result :

1 week, 1 creature : the triton.

GuieA_7 — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:02:00 +0200

In The ToaD universe, the triton is a kind of anthropomorphic frog. So it's a good creature to introduce water magic in the game ; indeed the triton can already spit bubbles on its enemies. But it's not a wizard, it's a soldier with special powers. It has a trident, and it could hit with its tongue too. It will be a good versatile fighter in an army.

1 week, 1 creature : the molegister.

GuieA_7 — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:35:00 +0200

One of the most interesting feature of ToaD is the possibility to deform the ground. So I've decided to create a monster which can use this possibility : I needed an earth wizard. What animal would be the best to control the earth element : a mole of course !

The molegister can summon a stone arm. It opens a lot of strategic possibilities.

Seamless vector texture with Inkscape (II)

GuieA_7 — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:36:00 +0200

The last time, we've seen how we can duplicate and move objects in order to draw seamless textures, ready to be mapped on a 3D plane for example. When you duplicate border objects, these object can use all the features of vector graphics : circle, box, Bezier curves, gradients, gaussian blur. But there is another way to draw perfectly seamless vector textures without duplication.The secret is using only vertical and horizontal lines. In Inkscape, press the Control key with the pen tool (Shift+F6) to draw horizontal or vertical straight lines. You can use rectangles instead of the straight lines.

Using only vertical/horizontal straight lines would be very frustrating for an artist. Fortunately we can draw more complex things.

1) Only the borders matter : so you can deform your objects in the middle of the picture.

2) You can use gradients ; but they must be only horizontal and vertical (once again, use the Control key with the gradient controllers). For example, if your object crosses the right and left borders, your gradient has to be vertical (or if the gradient is horizontal, the start color and the end color have to be the same).

3) You can add a blur effect on your horizontal/vertical lines/rectangles. Beware, an object with a blur has to be larger than the page : the parts of the object out of the page must be larger than the blur range.

Of course, all this tips work also with a sub-part of a complex texture which is UV-mapped on a part of a 3D model.

1 week, 1 creature : the scorpion.

GuieA_7 — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:36:00 +0200

A 'cute' monster with an enormous claw, a solid shell, and which can walk on walls and poison its enemies. I think this creature can be strategically interesting. Its big eye is important to make this creature sympathetic.