These are some screenshots from my game-in-progress: Guess What, You're Dead! The game seamlessly combines sprite graphics (taken from recorded video, at 30fps) with reasonably nice 3D environments.
In these shots, you can see the mix of sprite enemies (and fire), video-based weapons, and a 3D level. The lighting in the game is fully dynamic, with nearly all lights casting full shadows. I have recently added in a subtle SSAO effect which adds significant detail to unlit areas, while avoiding black borders around objects. Several fullscreen effects are currently in use, such as a camera-based motion blur (doesn't take into account the velocities of moving objects), radial blur (when you're injured), and the SSAO mentioned above.
I have been working on this game in my spare time for about a year. The assets are primarily my own creation, with help from my brother, although I think I have gotten a few textures from other sources. The game is built on Microsoft's XNA framework, and is written by me mostly from the ground up (except for Farseer Physics Engine, which I use for collision detection and such).
There is a downloadable demo of the game available on my website. Also, I have created several videos throughout development, viewable on my Youtube channel.
Click here to view the iotd
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Guess What, You're Dead
this is the best thing i've seen posted on gamedev in the long time! love the animated sprites!
only critisicm: the "enemies" should be taller.. the player seems to be twice the size.
only critisicm: the "enemies" should be taller.. the player seems to be twice the size.
Author
this is the best thing i've seen posted on gamedev in the long time! love the animated sprites!
only critisicm: the "enemies" should be taller.. the player seems to be twice the size.
Thanks Vexator! That's probably a very good point. The heights are randomized, but they do tend to be on the short side...
This is so awsomly trashy... I don't know what to take from it. But honestly I prefeer this style over people trying to be HD and failing.
Bwahahahaha! This is great! Really!
The graphics (exspecially of the second "monster") remind me very much of a TV series we have in Germany, "Ijon Tichy" (based on the homonymous character featuring in a bunch of short stories by Stanis?aw Lem)!
Since the series was made by some film college students (I think) with a very small budget, practically everything normally found in a student's appartment is used in the episodes as stage props, starting form door knobs, over cooking pots to vacuum cleaners. Very similar to your snorkel, featuring as a weapon of mass destruction.
Though it is trashy, it has its own, distinct visual style! I really look forward to the finished project!
The graphics (exspecially of the second "monster") remind me very much of a TV series we have in Germany, "Ijon Tichy" (based on the homonymous character featuring in a bunch of short stories by Stanis?aw Lem)!
Since the series was made by some film college students (I think) with a very small budget, practically everything normally found in a student's appartment is used in the episodes as stage props, starting form door knobs, over cooking pots to vacuum cleaners. Very similar to your snorkel, featuring as a weapon of mass destruction.
Though it is trashy, it has its own, distinct visual style! I really look forward to the finished project!
I concur with Vexator, this is easily the most original thing I've seen on Gamedev in years! I love the style (this is what DNF should have been!). If someone is going to comment on the sloppy chroma keying; I think it only adds to the style. Kudos!
I'm wondering, are the shadows of the sprites just sprites facing the light source? It seems to work great anyway.
Just a wild suggestion: I wonder if it would be feasible to use a kinect to record the sprites with depth information? Turn that into a tangent space normal map, even if crude, it might give you more visually consistent integration with the lighting system. And with parallax effect on enemy sprites it could give good enough 'in-betweens' to make the transitions between sprite viewing angles more seamless.
I'm wondering, are the shadows of the sprites just sprites facing the light source? It seems to work great anyway.
Just a wild suggestion: I wonder if it would be feasible to use a kinect to record the sprites with depth information? Turn that into a tangent space normal map, even if crude, it might give you more visually consistent integration with the lighting system. And with parallax effect on enemy sprites it could give good enough 'in-betweens' to make the transitions between sprite viewing angles more seamless.
Author
Thanks everyone for the comments!
The shadows cast by the sprites are the sprite from the light's point of view, so if there's a light to his right, then the shadow will show him from the side. So it's really about as correct as I can possibly get it with just 8-direction sprites :-) Also, I did my best to line up the animations for each direction so that, for example, the left foot comes down on the same frame for all directions, which makes it work nicely too.
The idea with the Kinect is actually quite interesting. I don't have a Kinect right now, but have thought about getting one even just to play around with. The downsides would be that I'd have to re-record the characters and split out the animations again. As far as lighting goes, I might also have to get a better light setup in my bluescreen "studio" (chunk of cloth on the wall in my basement) to reduce the amount of lighting info that's baked into the sprites. Having that depth info could be pretty cool though (and might help with removing the background from the characters, although a larger chunk of cloth would help too)
Just outta curiosity, did anyone try playing it, and did it run reasonably well?
I'm wondering, are the shadows of the sprites just sprites facing the light source? It seems to work great anyway.
The shadows cast by the sprites are the sprite from the light's point of view, so if there's a light to his right, then the shadow will show him from the side. So it's really about as correct as I can possibly get it with just 8-direction sprites :-) Also, I did my best to line up the animations for each direction so that, for example, the left foot comes down on the same frame for all directions, which makes it work nicely too.
Just a wild suggestion: I wonder if it would be feasible to use a kinect to record the sprites with depth information? Turn that into a tangent space normal map, even if crude, it might give you more visually consistent integration with the lighting system. And with parallax effect on enemy sprites it could give good enough 'in-betweens' to make the transitions between sprite viewing angles more seamless.
The idea with the Kinect is actually quite interesting. I don't have a Kinect right now, but have thought about getting one even just to play around with. The downsides would be that I'd have to re-record the characters and split out the animations again. As far as lighting goes, I might also have to get a better light setup in my bluescreen "studio" (chunk of cloth on the wall in my basement) to reduce the amount of lighting info that's baked into the sprites. Having that depth info could be pretty cool though (and might help with removing the background from the characters, although a larger chunk of cloth would help too)
Just outta curiosity, did anyone try playing it, and did it run reasonably well?
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