Milestone Update #2 news

Welcome to Milestone Update #2!

Last week, we took you through a look into the humble beginnings of Naruto: Naiteki Kensei with our first official Milestone Update in the series of our Milestone Updates! As we continue with our glimpse of the past, we look back at the first progress we had for the project!

Chapter 2: First Progress

With our first outline design for the project, we had high hopes and a great vision. Imagining how fun it would be to walk on walls! Or how fun it would be to combo in techniques mid-air, then rush in for a deadly melee combo!

Before starting anything, we had to make sure we were organized very well. One of the first stickies included our Outline as well as our Outline Progress Thread. Within the Outline Progress Thread, we kept a check-off list of all the tasks that were to be completed. Each team member would mark off what task they would be doing so there wouldn't be any overlapping, and would mark it complete when completed. Here's a little taste to what it looked like.

First wrote:
CODING RYOKEEN; SANDSTORM

1.1 Stamina System []

1.2 Chakra System []

1.3 Movement System []
Dashing []
Jumping [X] RYO
* Double Jump [X] RYO
* Wall jump [X] RYO
Focus Chakra []
* Wall running []
* Water walking []

1.8 HUD []
Cel-Shading [X] RYO
Hires Tga Support for Maps[X] RYO

MODELS SV; CLIPSE; KAMA; SVEN; TRYFORCE

Naruto [] SVEN
Girl Naruto []
Sasuke [] SV
Sakura [] CLIPSE
Kunai Holster & Shuriken Pouch [X] SV
Kunais [X] SV
Shirukens [X] SV
Smoke Bombs []
Exploding Tags []
Wooden Log [X] SV

MAPS KONG; DJ

nnk_prelimenary [] KONG

SOUNDS SV

Weapons
Kunai throw [X]
Kunai hit [X]
Shuriken throw [X]
Shuriken hit []
Smoke bomb throw []
Smoke bomb setoff []
Exploding Tag stick []
Exploding Tag setoff []
Metal Clash (2) [X]

Also from the very start, we made it a point in quality to keep everything as consistant as possible.

Super wrote: I thought about modeled features on our char models, and I thought we should aim at being consistent, so the characters wont look too different when modeled by different artists.

What I mean is, hands should be reused, headbands (if any details are in at all), Kunai holster and Shuriken bag, feet, inner mouth and so on.
I'm not saying it out of lazyness or anything, it's just cause I love being consistent with projects like these ;P

I also think we should have the hands with 3 fingers. 2 fingers attached, another 2 attached and a thumb.
That will allow us some good seal animation work without over doing it with the polycount.

Thoughts on the matter?

This standard carried on to our hud design, character select design, even to our own forum design! If you notice, much of the same art style has been used in every aspect of NNK. We wanted to make this project as high-quality as possible.

Here are also a few miscellaneous models created by SV at the start of the project.

Also an inside look to our Naruto model, made by Sven Da Man. Fixed up by SV, and latered skinned by Kama.

And Sasuke. SV started on a Sasuke model, however, Sven also started on one as well. Sven's Sasuke head was used, while SV created the body.

And here's some WIP shots from Eclipse's Sakura.

Some shots of our WIP hud designs. The first two pictures show the quick early layouts Kong created.

Later on, Davidhalo helped out on the design adding a scroll to the top. SV finalized the design and polished it up nice and shiny.

SV also pumped out our very first set of sounds, which later he provided for the rest. SV really works very hard for the success of this project. Without him, we would have never reached our current project status.

Super wrote: Yeah, I know it's not really my area but I couldnt resist so dont hurt meh x_x

Xxx

Some sound effects
Hope you like, I just had to xD

Ryokeen started pumping out features, such as cellshading, weather system, double jumping, wall jumping, water walking, and many other features. It's amazing the incredibly difficult features Ryo was able to do at the beginning of NNK.

Here is also a few screenshots of very old WIP maps from Kong.

These old map pictures don't do justice to what we have ingame now. We have found different work-arounds, as well as the talent of our coders, we've been able to push our maps to the next level on the Half-Life engine.

If you have noticed as well, the Naruto and Sasuke model are Naruto Ninja Chronicle's. Previously, Kong was apart of that team as a level designer, but due to dissatisfaction with the progress and some teammates, Naruto Naiteki Kensei was born. Both projects are produced by totally seperate team members and are not in anyway related. Note the Naruto and Sasuke model were created by Randy/Movento and were used as placeholders. Much appreciation goes out to them for we were able to use them till our models were complete. Much credit goes to them. Here are a few more ingame shots we had.

After making this much progress, we were able to move to this nice website we have now. From there on, more people joined, and progress just kept on booming!

Next Week! Chapter 3: Public Revealing

One of our previous programmer Tom is currently working on an iPhone game for We Heart Games Inc. He is working on the company's first game called Face Race, the first camera-based party game for the iPhone. If you'd like to support one of the developers here's one way!

Don't forget, for early access to NNK, head over HERE. Good luck with creating some awesome custom content!

Signing off

- NNK Team