Welcome to another edition of our Hearts of Oak progress articles!
Each week*, we will bring you a summary of the latest development news, including work-in-progress screenshots and in-game footage, along with a more in-depth look at featured content.
It's back to 3D modelling news this week, with more music and some great progress towards the first playable release...
Engine Development
- CryEngine Packager; Captain Murphy
No in-game footage in this video, but Captain Murphy explains the details of his new utility that will allow us to easily package the game files for release.
This brings us one step closer to the first public tech demo release, of which you'll hear more details soon!
3D Models
There are several sub-categories of 3D assets to cover here, so below we'll list various types of assets, what they're called and who made them.
Terrain
- Test Island; RobinPC
Here are some new shots of a test island that RobinPC is working on, and some comments to explain them:
RobinPC wrote: So I'm expanding the test island from Wedori and making the shores look a lot more realistic...
RobinPC wrote: But I also wanted to include a very thick scary jungle pathway all across the island for the player to explore in. In the picture you can see a part of that stuff happening...
So it's basically a work in progress jungle.
Ships
- HMS Shannon progress; Alex Connor
Alex has rebuilt this ship from the ground up, vastly increasing the amount of detail.
Weapons
- Axe concept art and models; SuperDurnius
This is a fantastic piece of concept art for various types of axes for the game:
And here's a work-in-progress model, featuring different handles and a holster:
Music
To give you a taste of what's to come, we're regularly showcasing an original track, produced by one of our talented composers.
This week we have a folk song produced by J. Cava, which could be played in taverns in the game.
Below is a link to the track, along with some comments from the composer.
J.Cava wrote: I began to think about pirates in the tavern drinking rum, playing, betting, fighting. Explaining cursed treasure stories and music playing underneath. I also looked for some pictures in Google to inspire.
I'm a musician who likes adventure stories, sword fights and the music of other eras. I like to collect instruments and use them in my recordings.
So in this piece I mix traditional/folk instruments and their corresponding midi. Such as mandolin, guitar, whistle, tabor, spoons(and drunken pirates chanting "Hey!!").
Stay tuned for more original music soon!
Vacancies
We still have a few high-priority vacancies that need to be filled to help us make further progress on the game:
- Character modellers (we still don't have any!)
- Other 3D artists
- User Interface artists
- Texture/shader artists
- Engine programmers/scripters
To apply to join the team, please head over to our Recruitment Forum and introduce yourself.
No formal qualifications are needed; you just need some free time and enthusiasm, though experience is helpful.
Please note: this project is non-commercial and so we are not offering payment to team members.
If you know someone else that might be able to help, please point them in our direction!
Remember, we're a volunteer community and we can't make this game happen without your help!
That's it for this week's progress; we'll have more updates for you soon!
Don't know what the Hearts of Oak project is? Take a look at our Frequently Asked Questions for more information.
*Please note that while we're aiming to post a new article each week, we can't always manage this, but we will post articles as regularly as we can!
GOOD WORK! :D
AWESOME WORK PEOPLE, keep it coming!
Wow impressing
keep up the good work, please.
In the field of character design/modelling? Do you already have designs for the characters ingame or would an applicant be required to concept them first? If that makes any sense.
Not much concepts yet... Tho, there is some historians that are gathering information on clothing styles and could assist with concept creation...
Coming up with concepts should not be a major issue; we have a fair few people who are gifted at artwork.
It does look great indeed. I've been waiting for a game in the likes of this for a long time. Looking forward to seeing more updates. By the way - nice axe.
hi. I would like to help.
I have little knowledge, but I have a lot of time and interest.
I want to learn and help.
I can?
You're welcome to join us at Piratesahoy.net
ooh maaan those lands!! pring me those (horizons) lands! awesome work! Have you guys seen the new pirate series Black Sails?? its quite good :D
If you were to switch to UE4, a lot of things would be way easier. Its an amazing engine, in every way superior to CE3. But hey, great work anyway! Those landscapes look amazing :)
We tried the previous release of UE, but ran into limitations that prevented us from adding the basic features that need to be in the game. If I recall, this was related mainly to UE not allowing us to have "dynamic weather updates".
Perhaps that has been addressed with UE4, but swapping engines for a second time would be a huge setback that we cannot afford. We are making progress now and we intend to keep that up!
UE4 has indeed adressed a lot of the UE3 issues. I personally am involved in a team developing a UE4 (ex-CE3) game, and since we switched to UE4 a few weeks back we have made more progress up until now than we ever had in half a year of CE3 development, simply because of how versatile and easy to use it is. But yeah I can understand that, if the progress is there it wouldnt be a smart move to change anymore. Looking forward to future updates!
Thanks! We will keep that in mind. Right now, continued progress is the most important. But who knows what the future will bring?
I'd like to reiterate that we're committed to CryEngine now, so although we appreciate your comments, we simply can't afford to switch engines again.
We'll have a playable demo ready soon, so people can experience our progress in CryEngine themselves.
This looks amazing! Keep it up!
I am a 3D Modeller and I mainly develop buildings for the ArmA community and ArmA Engine. If you need someone to develop buildings and you are interested please contact me CDO-Matt(at)kiestastudios(dot)com (1 man studio, enthusiast)
Your help would certainly be appreciated! Be sure to join us here: Piratesahoy.net