The Legend of Dekkane
Community Forums/Showcase/The Legend of Dekkane
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| Hello fellow blitz users! My name is Zetto and ive been a long time lurker on these forums. However, myself and my team have been hard at work on our project known as The Legend of Dekkane. The Legend of Dekkane is an indie MMORPG project that has been in construction for over 4 years now. I think its time that we unveiled our work to the Blitz community. TLoD Is programmed in blitz3d, and utilizes its directX7 rendering platform. With the help of some great libraries available to the blitz community, I think we've managed to create a visually appealing product. TLoD is still very early in development, but our design and story is well documented, and can be viewed at our website, www.legendofdekkane.com. From now on I plan to keep this thread updated with our latest screenshots. These screenshots showcase Tyruss island. Tyruss is the starting island where players learn the basics of the game in a non-linear tutorial. Upon the completion of the main quest on the island, players are able to move on to the continent of Itsumo.     I hope our project helps showcase what the Blitz3d renderer is capable of. Crits and Comments are appreciated! Zetto |
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| Are you still in the design stage (story, quests, levels/regions, engine/base, etc)? Looks good! |
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| Looks pretty good. You say that it has been in development for four years? Interesting, that, because the screen shots appear to be empty map models. |
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| @Plash - Our design documents are completed as well as the writing for all the "major" quests. However, minor sidequests are developed as we create the zones. Specific characters are not all planned, only characters that are vital to the main story. So I guess the answer is Yes and No. The engine is almost completed, the server and client are still in a rough state. @justluke - Over the past four years alot has happened. This specific toolset has been in development for approximately 9 months. However, the project was initially conceptualized in 2004. At this point our main focus is worldbuilding, thus why the zones you see are empty maps. At this time we have completed 3 zones and are currently working on two. The world will be over 50 zones by the time its done. Recently ive added Coran Village to Tyruss Isle. Here is a screenshot of one of the main village entrances. In this shot you can see the banner for Coran, the stone texture used throughout the village and a lighthouse in the distance. Once our particle system is in place there will be a flame burning in the tower. Coran is approximately 50% completed.  If you want to learn more about our world, visit the website at www.legendofdekkane.com. Zetto |
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| It looks amazing, especially for DX7. I tend to agree, though the zones are well thought out and well designed, nothings there yet? Do you plan on having 50 zones before an alpha/beta? Seems a bit far into the future for 4 years with 3 zones. Don't take my advice, but I suggest throwing out 5-10 zones with full content and then having a closed-beta/alpha. Looks great still! Please don't stop the development like most do! |
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| Looks Awesome! I thouroughly look forward to where you take this game. Just don't make it too average. Try to throw in some really unique stuff! Good luck to you, The Mighty WERDNA(Lord Of Darkness) |
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| @WERDNA - Thanks! Trust me, we have plenty of unique features in store :) @Xzider - Thats exactly what we intend to do! Keep in mind that the engine and these 5 zones have been made in a 9 month period, Now that the editor is stable and has *most* of the features we need, some of the team can continue on worldbuilding while others work on fleshing out the client and server. Perhaps I worded my response poorly, The final game will be made up of ~50 zones, the initial closed test will have 5 or 6 full zones. Those 4 years were essentially spent learning the ropes and ensuring we had the skills necessary to succeed, and trust me, I have no intention of stopping. If I wasn't fully dedicated to this project we would have quit long ago. Zetto |
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| Looks good! Lets see some characters or monsters... |
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| Now that you mention it, I should probably post some images you guys haven't seen. This is a concept for our male character model by Greg Breault  Some of the weapons that will be available ingame  Some random items  WARNING! these shots are ANCIENT and are only being used to show some of our assets. Most of them will NOT appear as seen here in the final game!       Rest assured, we have a fairly large repository of mobs, monsters, etc. Most of them require new textures to bring them up to the expected quality or some form of alteration for use in our new engine (we used torque at one point and some of the models will need to be converted from that). I will post screenshots of them ingame as soon as their ready. Zetto |
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| "It looks amazing, especially for DX7." Wouldn't it look the same in dx8,9 or 10? ;) |
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| @MGE - not really. With a diffrent renderer I could use real shaders, more polygons (probably), normal+parallax+spec maps and anti-aliasing (in my screenshots I kind of "cheat" by forcing AA via the nvidia control panel!). Not to mention I could get rid of the damn fishbowl! Zetto |
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| Do you have a 3d model of the male character so that we can compare it with the concept art? |
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| @Zetto - True. But I meant, a texture is a texture, would look the same regardless. :) |
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| @MGE - True, for the most part it would look similar no matter what dx version. @JustLuke - Working on that ATM :) |
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| Looks neat. Good luck with it. |
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| This looks terribly exciting. |
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| Wow I'm impressed. |
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| Thanks for the comments guys. Almost all the base models for Coran are now placed, I think the town turned out pretty good! Coran is a town built by Aisean worshipers, so it only makes sense that bright and plentiful foliage populate the village  In this shot you can see the home of Daytus Coran, the towns mayor and founder, in the background  A view of the Coran temple, home to many monks and a gathering place for the town  These structures can be seen in Daytus' courtyard, I think they look pretty cool :)  c&c welcome, Zetto |
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| Where are all the NPC's was there a war or something? :) Would be nice to see a screen with some NPC's moving around :) |
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| Some of the artwork is fine - some of it needs work. In your last post, first image - the textured wall on the left; the tiling of the texture is very visible and looks bad. And also, the textures on the fence are all over the shop (more visible in image 2). I also think you've taken the term 'low poly' to the extreme, as a lot of the structures look extremely primitive in construction. I think you could generally get away with that if the textures were better, but nearly all of them are far too low resolution. The other thing is the sky. Can't make up my mind if you're trying to use a bloom filter or something, but its way too blurry. The first round of screenshots look good, but you've kind of ruined it with that second batch, imho. |
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| I don't think that it is necessarily too low poly. For me, it is the dreary colour scheme and lighting, and the poor quality textures that spoil these screen shots. With a larger variety of better, higher-resolution textures, more careful UV mapping, and with a more vibrant and interesting colour pallet (less grey and pastels) they would be much improved. Even with the current boxy models, it might look like an enhanced Everquest (the original), which is no bad thing. Zetto, I recommend that you take a look at the original Everquest and also World of Warcraft for pointers on how decent textures and lighting can be used to enhance the visual fidelity of a low-polygon scene. You might also like to examine the modelling techniques that the WOW modellers use lend character to the WOW environments. |
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I don't think it is too low-poly; however the full-stone arch is somewhat odd. Each arch section (non vertical/horizontal) need to be a single block of stone - this will overcome the angular design - you can't have those sections built from small bricks. Remember that point with low poly stuff - the smaller the bricks, the more odd it will look. Of course it depends on his development PC and also the NPC's he is going to populate it with. Visually it is overall good - but nothing special |
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| Very cool stuff! As mentioned already you have major texture alignment problems. Nothing that can't be tweaked of course. Just try not to get too ahead of things in midst of all the excitement of bringing your world to life! |
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Heres an example of the difference detail texturing/ correctlighting can make... (limited obviously as this is an edit of an engine render) I was on my lunch break and reading this thread, so I had nothing better to do then touch up your picture! The game sounds like an exciting project. Hope you keep at it! |
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| Thanks for the comments, first of all, these towns are supposed to look kinda depressing, the world is at war and this part of the world was hit especially hard since tyruss isle is essentially a port. Since world trade became scarce the people here have a hard enough time feeding their families, never mind maintaining their homes. Of course this is all world lore that you have no idea about from simply viewing the screenshots. I agree that some of the texture mapping is a bit off, as a small team taking on such a huge endeavor we have to make some sacrifices, but ill talk with the lead artist, ggg123, and see if we can fix some of the maps up. I know the one wood texture tiles WAY too much, ive tried to fix it multiple times and it will probably be replaced in the near future. In regards to the arch, I agree that it doesn't make sense as-is. Ill see what can be done. Thanks for the comments, I really appreciate constructive criticism. Zetto |
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Here's a preliminary screenshot of the new Tyruss ruins. We've been experimenting with lightbeams in caves and other enclosed spaces and I think they turned out fairly well in here. Tell us what you think! Zetto |
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| i think the columns or what ever they are could use some ivy, seeing as its a wet coastal area. it would also add an extra bit of depth to the scene. other than that, its awesome. the whole project is very impressive. |
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| or at least a bit of greenery, that ruin could have been built yesterday |
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| The scene itself is still WIP and the foliage was not completed when the shot was taken. Ill post a new shot when everything is finished, I just wanted to get some opinions on the lightbeams. The centerpiece of the ruins isn't even in the scene yet! Zetto |
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| The beams of light are very atmospheric but the screenshot suffers from the same problems as your previous ones - it looks far too pale and washed out. It needs more contrast in general, and it needs less pastel coloured textures and a shadow map with deeper, sharper shadows in particular. I'd scatter some chunks of rubble around if I were you. Maybe add some stalactites and stalagmites. Regarding foliage, heed the advice that others have given you but remember that not many plants thrive in gloomy subterranean environments. Clusters of mushrooms and patches of glowing lichen might work well. Remember: there's a difference between a location being conceptually dreary and aesthetically dreary. The former can (and in your case, should) be expressed in an aesthetically pleasing way, and this is what you need to work on improving. Pretty vague, I know, but I hope that you understand what I'm trying to tell you. |
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| I know exactly what you mean and I intend on doing many of the things you mentioned (rubble, foliage around light, etc), the scene simply is not completed and the shot was intended to show the lightbeam. Ive already improved the ambient and bloom lighting and it looks better already. I should have the scene finished tonite and ill post a new shot, thanks for the comments in the meantime! Zetto |
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| heh.. BLOOD DEKOMEN - LEGACY DEKKANE - or maybe not ;) looks quite good - a little low poly maybe - got a nice atmosphere though :) goodluck ;) |
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| Zetto, Looks fantastic. Can't wait to try a demo. TreeParty is looking good in there. |
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| Thanks, I edited all the tp textures and converted them to .dds. I think we'll take a crack at making some of our own trunks soon for the next major forest! Zetto |
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Here's a few new screenshots of the Tyruss ruins. The door at the far end of the ruins will be the entrance to an extensive interior zone were players will complete their final task before being allowed to leave Tyruss isle.   Zetto |
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| Wow, very impressive! If, or when, you have some, please post some in-game video footage. I'm very interested in this game! Keep up the good work! |
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| Any plans for shadows? Shadows would bring these shots completely to life. |
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| Thanks guys, we plan to integrate sswift's shadow system (our animated models are .b3d) and that library does have a static shadow system, were gonna see what we can do with it. As for video, its not far off yet. As soon as we have some live footage ill be sure to post it! Zetto |
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| Sun rays look great, how did you achieve that effect? |
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| Thanks, the sunbeams use an alpha texture with additive blending. The sunbeams in this particular scene were custom made for the roof, but in most cases sunbeams will be made of two quads in an x. Zetto |
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| Looking good. |
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| Looks good - though too much of the same texture everywhere. ? |
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| Thanks for the comments guys, occasionally it seems like we reuse textures too much, this is mostly because we're two guys making an MMO. Resources and time are limited, but it is also because the two towns on the island were made by the same people using the same materials, and this new bandit camp was made by piecing together scraps scavenged from both towns. In a way it makes sense, and rest assured the entire game world won't use the same textures, but for Tyruss isle this is how its gonna be. Anyways, I got a few shots of the tyruss bandit camp. Its a small community of people dedicated to terrorizing Tyruss and Coran, stealing everything from food to valuable heirlooms. As guards from all around Tyruss isle move off to the northern ruins, the threat from these bandits is on the rise.    Zetto |
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| *ahhem* Are those trees from Oblivion? |
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| I think they are Treeparty models. Oblivion trees look a lot better...I wish Swampdonkey would add new trees as he promised :( |
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| Yes, they are treeparty trees with modified leaf textures. We're probably going to make some of our own trees fairly soon, but the default ones work for now. Zetto |
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After some serious work we finally got our particle system working! Here's a cool shot of a campfire blazing in the Tyruss bandit camp. Zetto |
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| Is it just me, or are all screenschots Zetto posted broken? I can´t even see one of them. |
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| They're showing up fine for me; Firefox 3.0.3. |
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| Lui try this website... http://www.legendofdekkane.com/ wow looks impressive. :) Is this going to be free or a monthly payment kind of game? I will almost definitely buy it. |
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| The website doesn´t work for me either... Two weeks ago, all the pictures and the website were working... I tried it with Firefox 3.0.3/ IE 8 (shame) / Opera 9.62 and Safari 3.1.2 but with none of them it works... Also with deactivated firewall it doesn´t work ô0 |
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| hmmm... maybe the country you live in is blocking it for some reason |
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| All the pictures and the website work fine for me, the server is located in texas i believe. Thanks for the comments guys! Zetto |
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| Zetto... Is this going to be free or a monthly payment? |
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| Sorry nate, missed your question there. Its going to have a low monthly payment so we can keep the servers running, but there will also be a unlimited time demo of the first few zones. We gotta make money somehow! Zetto |
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| Really nice work Zetto....you have thrown a lot together over the past little while. Just a tip with lighting, ramp down the Ambient light to below 30% and see if that helps with the contrast as it's just a little washed out an murky, but looks like a game you and you buddies have spent a lot of thought on....well done |
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| Very impressive work. I like the feel of the postprocess effects in the screen shots as they give that fantasy type effect. I think it gives the game a unique feel about it, and I can't wait to see it in motion. The fire looks great also, can I ask what particle system you are using? |
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| The graphics look great, Zetto. Kind of reminds me of Morrowwind. You say that it has been in development for four years! L3DT has only been out for maybe 1 or 2 years. So what did you use to create the maps. How many people are on your team? How long did it take you to create each map? The code! Is it done primarily in blitz, or do you use some third-party toolset? Look forward to hearing from you? |
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| Thanks for the comments everyone! All the lighting isn't final, the ambient was set up before we had bloom, so ill play with it a bit, thanks ThermO. We are using Particle Candy for the particles, Its a good enough system that we figured we may as well not re-invent the wheel. The maps were made in our own custom editor completely by hand, no procedural generation here. Our team is quite small (3 people plus 3rd party work when required). Tyruss isle took a fair bit of time to complete, but it is not a fair assessment since the tools were being developed at the same time. The code is all in Blitz3d using some external libraries available to the Blitz community. Here are a few screenshots of our latest effect, waterfalls. This waterfall is a test of a bunch of new features, namely, prop refraction, animated textures, and bump mapping, as well as new particle emitter techniques. With a careful combination of all these features, some sneaky object placement and a sprinkle of some secret artistic spices, we can get a super nice looking water effect for waterfalls with almost no fps hit, as it draws off the rendering already being done for the main water plane.    We have a couple locations planned to put waterfalls into the actual game zones, so stay tuned for that update in the future. Zetto |
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| Thanks again Zetto, I noticed that you and several others on the forums spend a lot of time releasing photos and other materials on the forums. Do you worry about other people stealing your ideas! Four years is a lot of time to spend on a project without getting some kind of rewards for it, like customer support or something! Besides that, is there some kind of benefit on doing this sort of thing while the game is being worked on. |
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| more or less its free publicity, if by posting a few screenshots on the internet we can manage to get together a fanbase the work is well worth it. Its also great to get feedback on what you're working on, more than once suggestions i've gotten on forums after posting screenshots have helped me improve something in the scene, that advice is very valuable. Of course if you release screenshots before the game is ready, you run the risk of getting a bad reputation, but I believe our game looks good enough at this point that we can release media without worrying about disappointing people who would otherwise be customers. Zetto |
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| No doubt on a large project such as this it is good to get some encouragement too ;) |
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| This looks like the most promising project i've ever seen on these forums, nice work! |
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| Yes. VERY nice work :) :) :) |
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| Screenshot 1 (waterfall)....nice reflections! Perhaps you should show it animated on Youtube? |
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| Any updates on this project! |
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| looks like king's quest the 3D one. |
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| i hate waterfall zones. They are realy hard to create or they are unplayable (does not make fun). There is a easy way for creating a cool waterfall zone: You should make ~4 layers (bottom to top) and use varius cool stunning bridges. The last thing you need are holes (the player must go into the waterfall!). :) The bridges are linked with the waterfalls (in front: left & right positionized waterfalls). The holes makes possible to switch the layer ("stair" :D). In every hole the player should do a little "sokoban" adventure (moving rocks or so) :D Hm.. procedualy you can make a waterfall zone with 100 holes & 100 sokoban levels :D |
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