Game and cinematic development. news - Universe Alliance

BlackHeart Games

Something we want to become fond of is posting our progress to others to get their opinions. This article will do just that. I hope you enjoy much of what we have to show. There are many large obstacles ahead of us, and we are definitely excited to begin showing some of our more serious motives. That is exactly what this article will be about. Our long term goals. Enjoy.

Game and cinematic development.
- Cinematic direction & development
- Developing all our game assets
- Software and technology
Cinematics and our plan...

When we first started talking about developing the game we did not even fathom the idea of developing cinematics along with it. I think like a lot of cases similar to us we found we had little to offer up in the sense to movie like game video. We are still so very new to what we are doing as a team, but separately we seem to be able to achieve very decent if not amazing things. Cinematics will play a very large role in the fantasy that is Universe Alliance.

There is a lot of concept and idea being thrown around about how we should approach this. As a team of primarily artists we can find it hard to agree on something because our desires outweigh all that we agree upon.

In short time we came to the conclusion we want to make the cinematic world, and space that the player will inhabit a very beautiful, and stunning delight. We want to craft the cinematics in a very realistic, yet fantasized way. So we utilize our time to come up with better and better ways to work around our road blocks to use 2D, 3D Animated, and Engine animated cinematics. - (Refer to Software at the bottom of this article.)

Of course these are all 3D cinematics. These only demonstrate our current plans and concepts for cinematic styles for planets such as our beloved mother earth. There is a deeper much more thorough way we want to incorporate cinematics.

These will include engine cinematics. This refers to the current technology we use to create the game. We also have plans for a large portion of story to be told through a mini series crafted in both 3D and 2D animation with secondary animation done in our current engine technology to give a better feel for all grounds of the game. It's in game look, it's cinematics feel for both 2D, 3D, and game play. We want both players and onlookers to be able to experience much of the story.

If a mini series based off of the game does start development. It will be presented later on. Though we do have plans to start developing something along the lines.

Really in short our ultimate plan is to create a wide collection of multimedia that will allow people to experience the story of Universe Alliance either by experiencing the game, or watching the many planned cinematic style movies.

Developing our game assets...
We have been lucky I think to get some truly talented people on our team. Not all people on our team can easily create things that would be considered visual delights, but they have strong ideas, and stronger ambitions to present those ideas. When we work together those people who are not at the moment capable of producing detailed and creative forms of work will always pass on their concepts and ideas to those who are capable of creating exactly what they want. That I think really helps us. Being able to produce near 100% accurate assets such as 3D models off of just a few descriptions from the individual who originally thought whatever it is up.

Many of the individuals we have are very talented. I think we are lucky to have the team we do. I personally look forward to what they produce. We want to find uses for everything that is produced. Multi-functional uses for things like concept and other things like video, and imagery.

Software and technology...
Initially when we started the Universe Alliance project we were completely unsure on what we wanted to use. Eventually it became apparent that the way we were organized at the time, it would not really be us who chose the software and technologies we use, but they that choose us.

Proudly we do say that we have been using the UDK. Along with other software's.

It seemed that the more people who joined our team were Maya users. The UA project is not officialy grounded to one location so the technologies we use are based solely off of the creative ability of the individuals and the programs they use.

Up until now everything has been done using Photo shop and Auto desk Maya. All of our current artists and content developers use Maya. For the moment we accept Maya as apart of our art pipeline and in time may become our main source for creation for both in game content, and cinematic content.

The UDK as we were told supports in game cut scene editors. This will be used to help provide a feel for the games realtime play, and cinematic touch.

Image of the earth in Maya (Related to current planet renders.)

Far beyond our own universe is a parallel but ominously similar existence. You can experience all the good and bad of this universe. You will realize how small you are when you are faced with something you can not defeat. Expect a dark and treacherous journey through space and time.

All content is for presentation use only. It does not reflect in game, or finished material.