Welcome to a work in progress

Adlib is a mixed multimedia Exam project made by a guy just getting by who can’t ration his passion. Watch the master piece, mediocrity or undefinable monstrosity unfold before your eyes with infrequent updates on a behind the scenes look at the amatuer videogame development process.

[adlib-dev]

So a quick update on the model. I’m finished off all the main part of the mesh (minus the wings so far now and put them together. Next up comes the UV cutting and then texture painting + rigging. Megalo Mix Megalo Rex’s model should be done by next week and then sending him off for animation.

When he’s in the game it should be ready to send out a demo for you guys to try out

[adlib-dev]

I wanted to do more updates on the process of modeling the monster but this will have to do. I’ve finished all the main parts of Megalo-Mix Megalo-Rex (except the wings but I’ll only need those for phase 2 of the boss fight) and now working to just connect them

I’m going to keep them separated as parts and then just parent them to the armature just to see if I like that approach better than the way I rigged Libby.

Just to keep this blog somewhat informative and interesting. I’ll add a little tidbit of each part.

Head

This is probably the most detailed part of the model. I had to do each piece individually before sticking them together and by that I mean I made the top of the head, made the jaw, made the piece that looks like it’s connecting the jaw, made the horns, made the bottom teeth, made the top, made all the mechanical details and then  jury rigged them together.

Shell

In all honesty this was probably the hardest part of the model because of the line that goes all the way around the shell. Sure I could’ve just painted it on but that wouldn’t have been as nice.

Legs

First parts I worked on and strangely the easiest. Need to massively cut down the polygon count of them as they take up most of the space.

Hands

Strangely enough these have been easier to make than normal hands

Tail

The top of the tail was easy. Putting spikes on the ball was the hard part. I “cheated” and just used the mirror function on all axis to save time.

Cannon

The only part of the character design I’m taking liberties with as I’m looking into coding it to always follow the player. I’m keeping the base somewhat-sphere just to make it more believable to rotate around. Reused the mechanical parts of the legs to make them.

After this is all done I’m starting on UV mapping and painting him which is my least favorite part but I’ll keep you all posted.

[adlib-dev]

Gonna be a bit of a flood today kids. Lost a couple of updates I made that were already meant to be on the blog so I’m going to have to start them over from scratch.

So reintroducing Libby Aka the Fabulous Adlib an Act-Droid with dreams and aspirations and more human qualities than anyone would like. Overdosed on passion but next to no drive (gear shift or otherwise) to meet it. 

Here’s some character designs for Libby’s comic book counterpart (made by the talented @supersoftly ) made to show off more of her unbridled slacker side. We’re drawing a line in the sand and separating Libby the actress from Adlib the character but no matter what she does, she’s still a ray of sunshine in a world of neon.

Below her we’ve got her manager/sponsor Seppukuma (Kuma to friends and also designed by @supersoftly ).

For the bare bear backstory that he has, he’s the representative and animatronic mascot of a life insurance company aimed at children which sponsors “Monster Hunter: Adlib” (that’s the game). He’s most well known for his PG/13 commercials where he keeps “accidentally” getting destroyed. It could happen to anyone. Don’t worry another model is just dumped seconds later from an enigmatic pipe from the sky.

He’s a pragmatic “soul” and a struggling alcoholic who’s tired of dying but wouldn’t wish his job on anybody else. He also has tattoo stitched on his bear bottom that says “Smackeral” (ala Winnie the Pooh)

[adlib-dev]

To keep the theme of infrequency with this blog. Here’s another random update.

What do you get when you throw a bunch of dinosaurs in a blender with a pinch of Cajun Mayhem and some nuclear weaponry for spice? A cannibally cretaceous cosmopolitan with bite that’ll leave you limping.

His name’s MegaloMix-MegaloRex. He ‘s the only enemy in the game who lets out a bunch of well pronounced yet equally unpredictable attacks.  Treat it like it’s 1989, learn his patterns and kick his ass.

So here’s the monster design got commissioned for the games main and only antagonist. “MegaloMix MegaloRex” a hodgepodge of dinosaur parts crafted together to look like your average Monster of the week.

The concept art was commisioned by @menacing-marshmallow

What I’m currently focusing on is modeling this monstrosity, kicking ass and working on the main script for the Adlib comic.

[adlib-dev]

So to start off the actual dev posts we’ll begin with our main character.

This is the Lydia B+ known as “Libby +” by her (very few) friends and “Adlib” across Japan. An Android Actress who’s the current lead of the reality TV show “Monster Hunter Adlib” where everything is staged and the rules don’t matter.

First Pic is her “Work in Progress” in-game model made by me (Ad-Dev). I did everything except her hands which I got from sketchfab user scribbletoad (source).

Fun Fact: It took me  5 hours over the course of 3 days of modeling just hands by myself until I gave up.

Her initial character design was commissioned by the awesome yufei (http://www.yu-fei.com/) earlier this year.

Pictures 2 through 4 are her initial unrigged, untextured model from earlier this year and Picture 5 is her initial armature mock-up completed through Mixamo.

[adlib-dev]

Welcome to the Adlib Dev Blog

Hey everybody, I’m Jason but for the sake of moniker’s you can call me “Ad-dev.”

So this a blog dedicated to my end of year exam project for my digital art’s degree. I am using it to illustrate my process thus far and going forward to make recording my work a little bit easier.

But it’s also to show off, ya know? If you don’t take a little bit of pride in your work, you won’t put in a little bit of effort. So I put in a lot of misplaced pride for the right amount of futile effort.

“That’s all well and good ‘Ad-Dev’ but what is the project?”

Adlib, as a project is a bunch of things:

First and most importantly, it’s a game. A combination of Xtreme Sport titles (like Jetset Radio) and stylish hack-y, slash-y, monster mash-y action (Think Monster Hunter). More a proof of concept than anything. The Player goes through a single choreographed Boss battle where they’ll need to Attack a Giant monster while grinding, dashing and jumping around a large city-scape to get to him.

It’s a short comic book that accompanies the game. A slice of sci-fi life story that details everything that leads up to the game’s final showdown. It’s a whole world of work but comic book writing is something I’m equally passionate about as game development so, on my conscience, I can’t NOT do it.

Lastly, it’s me trying my hand as a “director” of sorts for this project. I set it out to leave my comfort zone and collaborate with different people from around the world to simulate what it will be like to work on personal projects in the industry. I’ve commissioned/gotten help from a lot of different artists, animators and programmers and I’m still looking for more to make Adlib as great as possible.

“So what are you doing for the project?”

I am the writer, director, producer, head progammer, level designer, sound designer, voice actor, UI designer etc. etc. for Adlib. Everything else? Done by a bunch of amazing and talented people I’ve conned into helping through pleading, bribery and general flirtation.

“And one more time, this Blog is for...?”

Showing off all work that goes into Adlib from everyone involved as well as displaying some of my hot messes that you can learn from without having to go through them yourself.