End of Year Stretch

So, things aren't happening in the way that I expected them to this month. Not that anything usually does. This time it's nothing really bad, just that things will be switched around a bit. Starting off:

Desert: It's been pushed back. The holiday rush has proven to take a toll on all three of us involved (Me, Jake, and Joe). It's not certain how much time everyone can devote to this project while our jobs all take a firm grasp on our throats, so I'm kind of playing it by ear. I'm hoping that me and Jake can have a concept fleshed out by the beginning of the year, and then the more detailed sketches can come by mid January, which is when I hope to start on full production. It's a whole month behind where I thought I would be, but I don't think that's terribly bad, considering that I wasted a whole year on the TF2 project. Here's how the process goes in my head:

1) Me and Jake decide on a general concept. Stuff like where the setting is, the story behind it, a general discussion on how it looks. Not too grounded on details yet. Rough sketches from Jake will accompany this.

2) Me and Jake solidify what we want, and then him and Joe start sketching more detailed stuff, but still probably nothing too insanely detailed. I guess it kind of depends. I'm basically gonna take what I can get. If it's all super detailed, great. If not, I'll fill in the blanks.

3) I start on full production. I will probably work myself like a beast and hope that it gets done by mid March.

In the meantime, I'll be reworking Chernobyl and the laser gun. So, as you can see, I switched the order in which I'm doing things. I have roughly one month of having nothing really big to do with the desert project, so it gives me time to rework the other stuff, and if I'm feeling lucky, maybe I'll even get to rework the website.

Here's a sample of what I've done so far (right) compared to how it looked before (left). I think you'll see quite a difference.

Seriously though, it's like comparing the PS2 to the PS3. No comparison. Richer colors, better composition, better details, better materials, everything. It's mainly thanks to Unreal's new SDK (software development kit) that they released. After the gun was done, I did some relearning on my unreal editor skills, when I stumbled upon some information that said that Epic Games released their full version of the development tools they used to create Gears of War and Unreal Tournament. Naturally, I replaced my crappy version with it, and viola! More creative options! The big one is their new lighting system, called lightmass. It simulates how the lights in your scene interact with surfaces. It simulates how light bounces around, and bleeds colors onto each other, etc. All kinds of stuff that makes it look more realistically lit. Also, I redid the texturing on the ground, moving objects closer together, and completely revamped the medical lamp. Then, I added in some high contrast in Photoshop, which accurately represents how it will look when I run a contrast filter for the video.

And also, the Global Game Jam is coming up again. Hopefully, it will be alot better than last year's, which those of you that read my facebook stories will know, is pretty easy to accomplish.
It's at the end of January, so I'll keep you posted on any developments.