Match made in heaven

Some of the Photoshop wizards over at Eurogamer made this sweet little mash-up image with Morton and Meatboy for a recent article. And boy, don't they look good together?

They look so happy, so tranquil! Can you hear the slow jam playing in the background? Or the sound of Morton tapping his little feet to the rhythm? I swear, any second now they'll burst into song. Their voices will be as clear as a crystal gently washed by spring dew.

If you want to read said article – which we recommend since it's really good – you can find it here:

Eurogamer's The Dream Machine interview

Hug the universe!

Through an awesome stroke of good fortune, we've been nominated for an award in the 3rd indiePub developers' contest! We feel deeply honored and look forward to going to the ceremony at GDC Online in Austin, TX in the beginning of October.

If you plan on attending, swing by the IndiePub booth and hang out with us a bit. Erik is the tall blond fellow with the shifty gaze. Anders is the short, brown haired biker/outlaw type standing next to him.

Aside from answering questions about The Dream Machine, we both enjoy dancing slowly and amorously for money.

We also enjoy it when people buy us drinks.

Hell Week Survived 2

We just pulled through another crunch period to get Chapter 2 finished. It wasn't as grueling as the last one, but working around the clock for extended periods of time does leave you drained and whimpering. The good news is however that sitting on our hard drives right now is a feature complete, fully playable version of Chapter 2.

Sure, it's still a bit rough and buggy in places, but for an early playable it's also surprisingly solid.

In the coming week we'll play test the crap out of it, before turning our full attention to Chapters 3 & 4. We will need some help with the testing, so if you feel like helping us out, don't be shy to give us a shout in the comments section or on our Facebook page. It won't be an open beta like Chapter 1 was (there's only a limited amount of beta keys), but if you're willing to play the game a couple of times and try to break it in whatever way you can, you're A-OK in our books.

In other – slightly related – news, the voting for the IndiePub competition is now over. We hope we win, because it would help us a lot. But, more than that, we hope you had a chance to play some of the entered games!

And if you're wondering why Erik hasn't written in a while, it's due to the fact that he just became a father.

Cheers,

 – a

IndiePub Competition

Just a quick heads-up about our latest progress. Some of the assets are starting to come online as you can see from the screenshot above, and they look stunning to say the least!

We're sure most of you agree.

But we also got the impression that some of you aren't quite as thrilled about our decision to turn the game into a standard, run-of-the-mill shooter – and now we'd like to give you guys a chance to change our minds!

If you go the IndiePub Competition page and vote for your favorite game, along with a runner-up, we promise not to redesign the game, but instead keep it a pure point'n'click love fest, like god intended.

The New Deal

If you're wondering why the game is taking so long, it's basically down to the fact that we just recently decided to completely overhaul the design and make a straight first person shooter out of it instead. 

After studying the numbers, it turns out that that is the most lucrative genre nowadays, and who are we to argue with good business interests? Let's milk this teet dry, before hopping on the next money printing train! Who cares if we beat the market to a pulp with bland same-y action clones?

So here it is: the new story revealed!

The plot now revolves around a futuristic space marine, named Cutter Blade, sent on a mission to shot everything that moves. You have undergone years of psycho-chemical conditioning and rigorous training in order to be able to masturbate pure fury out of the nozzle of any weapon on earth! These are desperate times, you see, the Orks are attacking, and the only thing standing between the planet and its imminent destruction – is you.

Also, our online multiplayer component features a soon-to-be-industry-standard "Pay Per Bullet"-micro transaction system™! If you're really accurate with your head shots, you don't have to pay as much as your noob friends. Hell yeah!


Homophobic, racist and gender based slurs all give you discounts to the price. The more you spew – the less you pay! With a sweet "Sailor Talk"-achievement™ awarded to the most vitriolic tongue on the server!

We will also have an unlockable mode that turns the Orks into zombies or nazis! Or perhaps a spicy combination of the two – the Nazi Zombie! "Coming back from the dead to ethnically cleanse the living!" Man, this game just writes itself! Give us another day or two and we'll be able to cram ninjas and pirates into this bad boy as well!

So what plastic peripheral will be required to play, you ask? The answer is as simple as it is brilliant: every last one! 3D-glasses are a given! The full Rockband™ instrument lineup! A Wiimote™ plus the WiiFit board, used during the aerobics mini-game! A Singstar™ mic (or equivalent headset) used for shouting expletives at opponents! The PlayStation™ Move! And lastly a Kinect™ camera, so you can force your child to pretend getting face-licked by the Nazi Zombies! Cringeworthy moments of fun for the whole family!

Rest assured that the game will end on a hugely unsatisfying cliffhanger, so we can hook you into buying DLC extensions for the rest of your life. It's all part of the experience! Who needs closure when you can be spoon fed irrelevant exposition that "deepens" the "story"?

Are you as excited as we are?! Let's give it up for Cutter Blade!

The Early Days

The idea of building a game out of clay and cardboard came from Erik. I was very skeptical at first, knowing the highly iterative nature of game development. Having to build static sets would force me to pre-plan far more than I was used to, which I didn't feel comfortable doing.

But Erik persisted and, in order to convince me, whipped up these four test environments more or less overnight – painted and all.

As you can see, a lot has happened since then. We don't use primary colors in the way Erik did in some of these tests, instead opting for a more muted desaturated color scheme. And our shape language ended up being much more straight and angular. 

But for a brief proof-of-concept I thought they where damn charming, and after seeing what could be done, I jumped on board. So this is actually the embryo to The Dream Machine.

At this stage, Erik was working as the Producer for various commercials in Gothenburg and I was hired as an Art Director for a games studio in Malmö. Neither of us was very happy about our work situations and saw this project as a chance to get back to the early days, when we worked out of sheer mad determination and passion.

Based on these rough tests and a story treatment, we managed to acquire some money in order to produce a proof-of-concept demo. And the rest, as they naggingly like to say, is history.

And since I'm in a nagging mood: don't forget, the open BETA testing for chapter 1 is still running. If you'd like to participate, just go to http://www.thedreammachine.se/game.html and click the pink "Beta Sign-up" button. That'll give you full, instant access to the first chapter.

We hope you enjoy playing the game!

Cheers,

 - a

Second Beta Crunch

Erik just put the final touches on our most ambitious build to date, and it's glorious. We wish we could show you more, but we don't want to spoil it.

We're still working hard on the gameplay for Chapter 2 and assets for coming attractions. I guess you could say we've entered crunch to get the second chapter feature complete.

The open BETA testing for chapter 1 is still running. If you'd like to participate, just go to http://www.thedreammachine.se/game.html and click the pink "Beta Sign-up" button. That'll give you full, instant access to the first chapter.

In the interest of full disclosure, we have a system running discreetly in the background, that registers statistics for how many players actually solve any given puzzle in the game. If we note that we have a significant drop anywhere, we can add clues or re-think the problem entirely. We want the game to be challenging, but if we lose 30% of our players on one puzzle, we have to do something about it.

We also note different interactions the player attempts, that we didn't think of. If enough people try to use, say, the baby oil with the apartment key, we go in and write a response for that. Our hope is that, in the end, every possible interaction will have a proper response, instead of the boring default "That doesn't seem to work".

So even if you don't take the time to send us detailed bug rapports, you are in fact helping us make the game better just by playing.

And we thank you for that.

Cheers,

 - a

BETA testers wanted!

We've been accepting BETA testers for a while now, but it just dawned on me that we'd never made any sort of official announcement about it. I apologize for that, and a bunch of other, non-related stuff.

I guess I'm in an apologetic mood.

First and foremost, I want to apologize to my father for having laughed derisively at the issue of The Phantom he bought me when I was about ten years old. I was heavily into Lucky Luke and Asterix at the time, and The Phantom -- although I knew fully well was his favorite childhood comics hero -- just seemed a bit "meh" to me. I'm sorry about that. Laughing at someones heartfelt gift is never OK. And I've learned to accept gifts more gracefully since then.

There are more things I'd like to get off my chest, but time is running out and I need to get going.

If you'd like to participate in the BETA testing of Chapter 1, just go to http://www.thedreammachine.se/game.html and click the pink "Beta Sign-up" button. When you login in, you'll get full, instant access to the first chapter of the game.

I hope you'll enjoy it. And don't be shy to tell us if you don't.

Cheers,

 - a

New trailer!

We just released another trailer for your viewing pleasure! We mainly produced it to give you something to do while you're waiting for Victor to return from that strange, unearthly dimension.

It contains some material lifted straight out of Chapter 2, so if you want your playing experience to be 100% unspoiled, you might want to watch with one or both eyes closed.

As with our last trailer, music was again provided by one of the most chill dudes we've ever met: the stupendously great Anthony Lledo.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH!

Cheers,

 - a

All kinds of great!

We've been sending out some of our leftover masks to friends around the world, and this photo is the first to return to us. We are hoping more will show up in the coming weeks.

We also got some attention from IndieGames.com recently (here). It's not much new if you've already seen the Game Reactor interview, but its still appreciated.

An as always, join our Facebook group. It's all kinds of great!

Cheers,

 - a

Have you seen this man?

Victor just sent us an alarming SMS: From what we can gather, he's managed to get himself stuck in some kind of freaky twilight realm, halfway between Super Mario Galaxy, Tetris and German Expressionism. Apparently, the laws of physics in this place are fickle at best, and he doubts that the commute system – if he could manage to find a bus stop – would be on schedule.

The indigenous population doesn't seem to offer much help either. If you have any words of advice on how he could get out of there or how he might befriend the locals, please submit them in the comments section bellow. He also mentions that he only had an egg salad sandwich for lunch, so any recommendations for a clean, reasonably priced vegetarian restaurant would be greatly appreciated.

This alerts us to the fact that the game's tentative May release date might be in jeopardy. So until our leading man returns, the game will have to be indeterminately on hold.

We'll try to keep you posted as this situation unfolds. Our thoughts right now go out to his family.

Cheers,

- a

PS: Proper authorities have been notified.

Thank you Nordic Game!

 

We just got back from the Nordic Game conference, which was an utter blast! Lots of great people and interesting seminars (which we unfortunately didn't have much time to attend). Huge thanks to the brilliant Nordic Game crew, who made it all happen!

People seemed to enjoy our little booth, which we took great care in making as cozy and inviting as we could.

The entire first chapter was proudly on display, for those who wanted to try the game out for themselves. We also edited a new trailer for the conference, which we'll post here shortly. Aside from being better than the first one, it shows some teasing morsels from Chapter 2...

We also brought a set from the game, so people could see what these bad boys actually look like.

We get a lot of blank stares when we try to explain that we actually build the game by hand out of clay and cardboard, so having this diorama to show people really helped!

If you look carefully, you'll notice that some of the props are slightly out of scale with the others. That's because achieving the level of detail we want on such a small scale requires the fingers of an elf. In this case the Victrola and the desk lamp are built to twice the scale and have to be reduced in Photoshop afterwards.

Erik also made this beautiful display of (nearly) all the characters in the game. They're all made out of clay, which is then painted by hand before the computer wizardry takes over.

As we mentioned in an earlier post, this gives them the distinct hand made look we were going for: retaining all the little beautiful imperfections that comes for free when you do something by hand.

We also managed to get some generous press coverage for the game, from various sources. Having worked on this game for over a year – mainly from our homes – seeing it on display in magazines like Game Reactor feels beyond surreal.

Hopefully some more will crop up as the week progresses. We'll add those as we find them. Drop us a line if you've seen one we haven't.

• Eurogamer preview (Swedish)

• Gamereactor summary (English)

• Stray Dog Strut preview (English)

• Gamasutra (English)

• To round things off, this ilomilo post sums it up pretty well

This just in:

• A video interview with Game Reactor

All in all, we had stupendously fun at the Nordic Game conference, and hope we can return for future iterations. We are humbled by the effort it takes to make something like this happen, and would like to thank everybody involved once again (especially Emma, whom we secretly love).

All photos courtesy of the brilliant Oscar Wemmert!

Cheers,

  – a

Production & Co

I just found a slew of photos we took during the early months of production. If memory serves, most of these images are from early 2009. Erik had just secured some funds for a proof-of-concept game/movie mix project and I had just resigned from my job. That's basically how it all started.

Since we already had an adventure game engine up and running, we figured why settle for a proof-of-concept demo? Why not just take the money and launch full scale production straight away?

Since we knew we wanted to build the game by hand to a large extent, we set up shop at Erik's former business partner, Mikael Lindblom, in his stop motion studio at Dockhus Animation.




This is Mikael working hard on one of the games basement locations. This precise location has changed quite a lot since then, so don't worry, we're not spoiling anything for you.

This is basically how we set up most of our locations: three walls and a floor. No point in putting in a ceiling since it would not be seen by the player – and would also make lighting the set very difficult.

Setting up shop at an existing stop motion studio had the advantage of most of the equipment already being in place. Having to buy lights/rigs/dimmers/cameras/etc. would quickly have eaten up the entire budget. (Film grade lights are worth their weight in gold.)

I spent most of the early days writing the design document for Chapters 1 & 2. This was made extra nerve-wracking since Erik and Mikael where already hard at work building sets – usually faster than I could write the scenes. Any drastic changes and the whole set would have to be re-worked after the fact.

To a large extent we circumvented a lot of potential problems by setting the game in an apartment building. This way, Erik and Mikael could start building rooms by the functions they where supposed to have (a kitchen, a toilet etc.) and start working in the details once I knew specifically what the room needed to contain for gameplay purposes.

This turned out surprisingly well, even though we had to retrace our steps on some of the sets.

The characters also started out in a similarly vague fashion. In our early discussions they where basically ciphers, reduced to one or two characteristics: "shady old man", "disabled black guy" etc. Then we started fleshing them out once the process demanded it.

The handsome young fella behind the clay figurine is Erik by the way.

This is one of my favorite sets in the entire game: The dead tree.

This photo was taken over a year ago. Yeah, we have been working on this project for more than a year now. What started out as a proof-of-concept demo evolved into... something else.

In less than a month we'll be releasing the first Chapter for you to try out. We're getting ready to send our baby out into the real world.

And we're dying to hear what you think...

Cheers,

 - a

New Preview!

Our friend Bryson just posted a nice little preview about the game over at his blog. Check out what he thinks of the game here: The Dream Machine Preview

(The image above is from his brilliantly charming game LUV Tank.)

Nordic Game Conference

We'll be displaying the game at the Nordic Game Conference. If you plan to attend, don't hesitate stopping by for a demo of the game. Ample piles of clay will be available, so you can get down and dirty - and perhaps find your inner child again.

Erik's the tall blond guy with glasses. Tickle him and he'll tell you all his secrets. Anders is the short, shifty looking fellow who'll make a grab for your purse (or murse) once you turn your back.

Both enjoy it when people buy them drinks.

http://nordicgame.com/

Autistic Revelations

I put some extra effort into some of the The Dream Machine: Chapter 2 props. I build them 50% larger so they look nice for the required close-ups. We have a general rule of thumb when creating a TDM set: 70% of the stuff should look great by itself, but give the remaining 30% that extra polish and attention to detail.

I can't talk too much about the purpose of this strange contraption, but it will crop up in Chapter 2, and will be even more important in Chapters 3 and 4. The base for the dial is made out of a Swedish 1 krona coin. I'm not entirely satisfied with the above paint and design. I'll await Anders' final decision.

On a related note: I curse the day we decided to go all the way creating a game made entirely out of clay and dirt. I have... unhealthy dreams of simple vector graphics and lovely 3D objects dancing in front of me.

But remember, whatever they tell you in school: having autistic tendencies can be a resourceful trait later in life...

And, please join us on Facebook

Stay tuned folks,

 - Erik

Easter Promises

The Easter Bunny brought me this peculiar egg the other day.  Hope you enjoy it...

 Happy Easter!
-Erik and Anders

Meet Mr Morton

As we mentioned in a previous post, the game takes place in a quiet, unassuming apartment building. In the game, you play as Victor Neff, who just moved to a new city with his pregnant wife.

A realtor service put them in contact with an elderly gentleman, named Felix Morton, who owned an apartment estate with a vacant flat. After very cursory inquiries, Mr Morton decided they could have the flat - and that, as they say, was that.

Mr Morton enjoys listening to moody jazz on an old cone grammophone and goes through a pack of Gauloises Brunes a day.

He also has something to hide.

Super Mover Galaxy

Hi folks,

I just found this gorgeous mock-up that our 3D Animation Anders Dahlström did late last year. It's a slightly tweaked version of the mover who's helping Victor and Alicia get settled in their new flat. He looks reliable, doesn't he? What could possibly go wrong with a guy like that moving your furniture?

Production on the game has started picking up pace again after a small hurdle, and we're currently accepting beta testers, if you'd like to participate.

Stay tuned for more information on where to sign-up.

Cheers,

 - a

Jay Is Games Nomination

The Dream Machine-Demo is nominated in the Jay Is Games "Best of 2009" competition. Swing by and vote if you feel like it. You'll find the nominated games here.

Love.

Join the Facebook group!

Another way to keep updated with the project is to join our Facebook group. You'll find it here: The Dream Machine

I'm pretty happy about 2010 so far. Got some laundry done yesterday. Just found a recipe for a nice casserole that I'm considering making later today. On the minus side, I'm running a bit of a cold and Sweden is freakishly chilly and dark this time of the year.

How about your 2010?

Napalm Sticks to Kids

Like Erik said in his previous post: it's that time of the year where we collectively lean back in our comfortable easy chairs, and try to look back at past events in an attempt to gauge if we were beneficially or detrimentally affected by them. And what better way to do this than in the easy-to-digest form of a Top 5 list?

So without further ado, here is my highly subjective list of "The Top 5 Adventure Games that Affected Me the Most".

Monkey Island 1 & 2
These games are principally the reason why I'm making games today. I've yet to see a better marriage between story and gameplay than these two games, one feeding the other in subtle non-intrusive ways.

And no, I don't care much for the sequels. I think they misunderstood just about every aspect of why the first two games were great. Sure, they are funny and enjoyable games, but in Monkey Island 1 & 2 there is always a lining of darkness undermining the humor, making the experience strangely unsettling in a brilliant way.

Sanitarium
It's easy to overlook Sanitarium: it wasn't marketed much and was overshadowed by Tim Schafer's magnum opus Grim Fandango, released the same year. And sure, it's a flawed master piece: the control scheme is very annoying at times, but it still contains some of the most haunting scenes I've ever come across in games. Playing hide and seek with deformed children at the beginning of the game; haunting a young grieving couple as the ghost of their recently departed daughter; the agonized screams of other patients being caught in the burning mental institution. Clearly designed by a very morbid person -- and all the better for it!

Loom
Not widely included among the LucasArts' Top 5 but possibly the game that left me feeling the most drained and depressed upon completion. And I mean that in a good way, like the empty feeling you get after completing a huge undertaking. Also contains moments of somber, poignant brilliance, like when you come across the body of a young smith apprentice whom you've "accidentally" killed, seeing his ghost rise to confront you about what you did.

Also -- and this is a side note -- what happened to the "audio drama" tapes that you could listen to while installing the game? It was a great way to set the stage before actually playing. I miss those days...

A scan of Datormagazin's review here (in Swedish). And whoever is behind this great site (with magazine scans from the 80's and 90's), you have my deepest thanks!

Another World (known as Out of This World in the US)
While technically more "action-adventure" than straight-up "adventure", this is one of my favorite games of all-time, and certainly another example of games that leave you emotionally drained upon completion (in a good way).

I include this on the list as I couldn't decide which of the Delphine Software adventure games I consider the best. I consider them each a flawed masterpiece: the beautiful (but pixel huntingly frustrating) Future Wars; the great spy adventure (minus the useless action sequences) Operation Stealth; and the intriguing murder mystery Cruise for a Corpse. Another World is the only one I still feel awed by. Especially considering that it was all basically done by one freakishly talented guy.

Space Quest III
This isn't the best adventure game out there. While highly entertaining in that trademark sadistic Sierra way, it kind of felt like a waste of great potential. The whole narrative was a bit of an inside joke; the arcade moments aren't all that great; and once out in free space, you'd discover that there was only like three planets to go to (each of them pretty shallow experience-wise).

Still, I didn't hesitate putting it on the list. Why you ask? Well, during a vacation with my family in 1990, I unwisely only brought one piece of reading material with me: a copy of the Swedish game magazine Datormagazin, containing Göran Fröjdh's glowing 5 out of 5 review of Space Quest III. For two weeks I obsessively stared at the featured pictures of space bars and lava planets, imagining all the adventures that could be had there.

A few years later, when I finally got to try it out at a friend's place, it unsurprisingly failed to live up to my expectations. But for me, during those two weeks in Germany -- free to imagine whatever I wanted -- it was the best game ever.

I hope you have a terrific time celebrating the new year.

Cheers,

- a

Yet another list at the end of the Year

Dear friends!
Since we´re moving into a new decade I couldn´t resist posting a list of my top 5 games that I´ve spent the most time with for the past 10 yrs. Some of the games mentioned are just so darn good that I have to play them over and over again while others´s just a good excuse to kill some time while commuting, just before bedtime, etc etc...

So here goes:

5. Theif II (PC)
4. Half Life 2 and the following trilogy (PC)
3. Resident Evil 4 (NGC)
2. Final fantasy Tactics A2 (NDS)
And finally the charming but not necessarily brilliant as my no. 1
1. Advance Wars 2: Blach hole rising (GBA) I don´t dare to count the hours I´ve spent with AW 2 it would be a... shocking sum.

Honorary mention: Perfect Dark, Counter Strike Zero/Source, Zelda Windwaker, Halo 1-2 and Fable.

You have a list for us?? Come on and post it...

Bye for now.
-Erik

Merry christmas & Happy Holiday!

Just wanted to wish you all a very merry christmas! We've made this special X-mas version of Victor just for you.

Next year will be exciting indeed. In January we'll be able to give you a launch date for the first episode of TDM (hooray). During the coming months we'll be quite occupied with the development of the remaining episodes of TDM thanks to the money awarded to us from Nordic game (see previous post). So stay tuned folks, the adventure continues.

And again: Thanks for your thoughts and comments so far.

Y'all have a nice holiday. See you next year.

-Erik and Anders

The Dream Machine awarded funds!

If you're following the blog, you'll be happy to know that the outstanding people at Nordic Game awarded us funds to continue development of the game. This really helps out a lot and gives us the financial stamina to keep making this game the whole-hog full-blast unforgettable experience it deserves to be.

You can read all about it HERE.

These last few days, we've mostly been working on engine updates, and since code makes for boring visuals, I'll post an image of my work station in stead. The picture was taken over a year ago, so it doesn't look exactly like this. But as far as writing and coding the game, this is pretty much where it happens.

Again, big thanks to Nordic Game for helping us out!

A New Life in a New Town

Though we want you to discover the story for yourself, we can at least give you a brief idea of the backstory and setting for the game.

In the game, you play as Victor Neff, a guy who's just moved to the big city with his wife, Alicia. They used to live in a smaller town, but with the economic recession, job opportunities started to dry up and with a baby on the way they really couldn't risk unemployment.

Though caring and outgoing, Victor isn't exactly an ambitious guy. Up until now he's led a pretty comfortable life. He's long nurtured a dream about making a name for himself in the music industry, but aside from buying a guitar and learning a few chords, he hasn't actively tried to pursue it. While waiting for the "timing" to be right, he's been working in the office of a company manufacturing farming equipment. A job he got since the boss was a friend of his parents.

Lately the company has been having financial difficulties, and when Victor got an advance notice about his department possibly getting axed, he and Alicia decided to move to a new city -- with better prospects -- and start life anew.

The game begins the morning after they arrived to their new home. While trying to get settled in, they soon discover that all is not as it seems in the quiet, unassuming apartment building...

Character generation

Finalizing the design of the character was only the beginning of the process of getting the characters into the game. After Erik had built and painted the finished clay figurine, the characters had to be processed through quite an array of steps before you could actually interact with them.

In order to transpose the nice hand painted texture onto a 3D mesh, we photographed each character from a number of different angles.

From these reference pictures our modeler, Anders Dahlström, created a 3D approximation of the figurine, using a composite of the various photographs as a texture map to wrap around the mesh.

With a complete model, he could then start animating the character. Since we largely plan on distributing the game online, file size budgets forced us to be quite restrictive when it came to animation. Basically each character had a still pose, a walk cycle (double step), an interaction animation and a pick up animation. That's it. These then had to be rendered from 5-8 different camera angles depending on how symmetrical the character design was.

Victor's little funky brush hair made him completely asymmetrical and therefore we had to render him from 8 different angles, but for most other characters 5 proved sufficient.

Since the characters have to travel through a large number of different lighting conditions, we had to experiment quite a lot with how to blend the different render passes. In the end we settled on the four layers you can see above, but starting out we had a few more. They're each blended with the underlying layer in unique ways, and finding the right way to mix them required a lot of trial and error.

To help us out with this, we posed the different variations in a number of different lighting conditions to see which one worked best generally. Just glancing at them they look very similar, but if you study them carefully you start to notice subtle differences in how they're lit.

Compositing them together required a combination of After Effects work and Photoshop. We used After Effects to blend the different layers and crop the images as tightly as possible.

Sometimes the rendering left some edge artifacts, but that could easily be removed with a Photoshop batch process that also reduced the characters to their final size.

Once all the rendering work had been completed we moved on to the exceedingly boring phase of editing all the 300 separate images (for each character), before chopping them up into the 8x4 animation slots we use in the game. But once all this was done and the actor system took control, seeing them walk around and interact in the game was a pure joy and we soon forgot how trite and laborious the journey to get them this far had been.

Cheers,

- a

PS: I'm not entirely up to speed with 3D lingua franca. If you spot an error in the post, don't hesitate to point it out in a comment and I'll stare at it sternly until it goes away.