Neyyah News

Hello Neyyah adventurers! Hope you've all had a wonderful weekend :) Beautiful hot weather here in England currently (I adore the heat! Bit too much for some). I have been able to work productively over the last little while since coming out of the darker side of covid.

My main focus has been work on backdrops for the characters which will be appearing in the game. These are coming along very nicely, and although I don't want to share all of them, I will reveal a snippet from one of the new backdrop environments:



As well as the backdrops, a lot of work has been going on outside of environment design in the engine itself: implementing the water animations. And there's a lot of them! Here's a link to my most recent dev log which delves into various aspects of the process behind extracting the mask from the prerendered image, using Sqirlz Water Reflections to get the right amount of rippling animation (depending on the player's perspective of the scene), and how I then bring these animations into Visionaire Studio 5 as a series of frames, overlaying the scene.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Adding water animations to the still scenes enables them to come alive, and along with sound FX (which is something I have already delved into and sits within the current build) really adds a new dimension to the game world.

Here is an example of one of the water masks for a scene set up at a very high perspective, looking out across the ocean:


Here is the original rendered scene, which this mask was extracted from ...


Even the smallest little details have to be extracted for the mask - such as part of the railing scene at the bottom of the scene. Otherwise, it ends up swirling and rippling all over the place, becoming entwined with the ocean. Sometimes, with grassy areas, this can be unavoidable, but works for an almost underwater foliage effect!

Here is a more intricate water mask, with a lot more going on in the scene ...


Extracting elements such as grass is a lot harder, and is usually achieved in clumps. While I could create black and white masks within Blender, it would require opening all node files and applying the same proceedure, which takes time in its self (probably more time than just quickly running over the scenes with the quick selection tool within Photoshop). Fortunately, other scenes have been set up with cameras in a much easier way, which will enable me to skip the Photoshop mask extraction and go straight into Sqirlz.

Here is the original scene:


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I have put together a couple of gifs which show Neyyah's water in action!


Water can be enabled and disabled within the game too via options!


I put this in place, as a throw back to Riven, but also to enable the game to run faster on less powerful machines! Most of Neyyah's scenes will have water animations, as there's A LOT of ocean in Neyyah!

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Sqirlz Water Reflections is a cute piece of software, enabling me to get some cool water effects for Neyyah. Here is an example of the software in action with a scene I'm currently working on for water animations ...


Sqirlz requires settings to be altered in relation to the player's view and perspective!


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Once Sqirlz has generated the animated sequence, I can bring this into Visionaire Studio 5 as an overlay. Here is an example of one of the ocean sequences applied to a scene within VS 5!


Within Visionaire, I can also adjust the fps of the animation, and whether it should play backwards or forwards, or loop infinitely!


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I really enjoy the process of adding water animations to the game world. While it can be very time consuming, it's very rewarding seeing the results come to life. Again, later sets have been set up in a much less counter productive way, and will have water animations generated a lot faster!

Thanks for stepping within this dev portal! Safe travels back, and stay tuned for the next dev log! Looking at exploring my recent adventures in Cornwall - collecting sound effects, textures, environmental art references, and much more!

Here's a teaser ...


- Aaron Gwynaire / Defy Reality Entertainment

Hello everyone! It's been a while!

While I was away in Western Australia, I managed to write up an update on concept art. Since being back in England, I unfortunately got hit with covid, and haven't been as productive as I would have hoped. However, the last couple or so days haven't been too bad, enabling me to keep working on the game!

Recent developments / backdrop design

The above scene has been a fun environment to create! I would like to go into more detail into the process behind setting up an interior like this over on my Patreon sometime soon. You can also check out my last dev log on Youtube, before I travelled out to Australia, which focussed on setting up lighting for this scene (in it's early stages of design):

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

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While I develop this interior, I have also been equipping the Neyyah build with new scenes to explore within Visionaire Studio 5.

Screenshot from Visionaire Studio 5

The particular scene I'm focussing on is an environment which I had originally finished back in 2018, and was also featured in a couple of test build playthroughs available here:

Neyyah - Demo Walkthrough / Test Build 26.11.18:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Neyyah - 'Felitsu Island Walkway' Test Build 21 05 21
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

You can already see an evolution in this scene between the two videos. However, I decided to push it even further. A lot further. Neyyah's story had developed and strengthened, and also having worked on Neyyah for so long, I had built up skills in which to work more effitiently and effectively. Neyyah's aesthetic was a lot more cemmented than it was back in 2018! I only started using Blender in July 2018, and Felitsu Island Walkway (now Felitsu Island Fuel Station) had only been completed by late 2018.


So, changes were made! Here's a few examples:

Before:

After:


Before:

After:



Before:

After:


Hope you enjoyed this update! There are a couple of other locations which will be going through 'ground=up' revamp to fit in with Neyyah's more current updated world style and look. Be sure to check out my Patreon for more in depth detailed BTS content, as well as updates on - as mentioned previously - the recent backdrop scene I am developing, plus a new upcoming 4th Year Neyyah Dev Anniversary Patreon Special I'll be announcing very soon too! Explore more over on www.patreon.com/defyrealityentertainment.

Thanks for continuing to support and follow the evolving world of Neyyah!
I'm really excited to share this world with you :)

- Aaron Gwynaire / Defy Reality Entertainment

Hello Neyyah adventurers! I am currently holidaying in Australia, so have not been so active on social media as I normally am. While I do not have access to my main computers, and the normal flow of work I undergo for Neyyah’s dev pipeline, I thought I would share some concept art I created for a game I was developing before Neyyah.

Water colour concept art

This scene was created for a game project I had started before Neyyah’s game dev commenced in July 2018. The game was called Beyond and helped give shape to Neyyah. You can find out more about this transition in my Adventure Gamers review here: https://adventuregamers.com/articles/view/a-secretive-world-called-neyyah. This particular article goes further into my inspirations and influences as a game developer, as well as looking at Neyyah too: https://adventuregamers.com/articles/view/a-secretive-world-called-neyyah.

Further concept art developments

I had a lot of ideas around this time for various locations for the game, Beyond. Some of these locations stretched out into inspiring the look for Neyyah, too. Concept art around June 2018 consisted a lot of pens sketches and a few acrylic / water colour paintings at the time. These were developed at a time before 3D modelling really took a hold of my journey back into game development, before I ventured into Blender and I was still using Anim8or. Until this point, I wasn’t creating anything in 3D. It was all sketch work and it was a very different creative process compared to how Neyyah is developed now.

My old studio set up - showing some beginnings in 3D modelling, using Anim8or.

Basic 3D models created in Anim8or … starting to piece together a basic scene for the game

It had been a while since I had re-entered the world of 3D modelling, and I believed Anim8or would be the go-to tool for creating my game worlds, having had prior knowledge of this tool throughout my teens. However, I am so glad I moved onto Blender when I did.

Concept art created for my 2011 game project, Portals: Journey to the Pearl Islands.

It’s been great returning to the concept art I had created for Beyond. Seeing the large water colour piece reminds me of some of the final art pieces I have created for my patreon page: specials to celebrate certain milestones in Neyyah’s development. I have a special coming out soon, to celebrate Neyyah’s 4th Year Dev Anniversary. More about this will be posted on socials soon. Feel free to check out my patreon at www.patreon.com/defyrealityentertainment :)

Thanks for tuning in guys! Til next time!
I am currently on holiday but will be returning to my regular dev schedule from next week!

- Aaron Gwynaire / Defy Reality Entertainment

Hello everyone! Hope everyone's keeping well, wherever you may be in the world!

Through the portal, here in Neyyah, lots of developments are taking place - working on backdrops for the characters which will feature in Neyyah! These backdrops are for live action actors, which will be filmed against green screens!

Current work in progress

Finished backdrop

One of the last things I needed to create for this scene was the terrain which sits in the background. Very early on, I realised that terrain would be a great element to fill out the scene, which was otherwise quite flat - with a wide expansive ocean surrounding the mechanical contraption the player is faced with here.

One of the original 'blocking' test renders, minus the terrain

Terrain added - basic models

Although the terrain is quite far away, the detail shouldn't just stop at the foreground! Maybe the terrains are explorable, maybe they're not. However, adding the right amount of detail will enable the whole scene feel whole - and more realistic, too!

Render preview work mode / solid state Open GL work mode within Blender

While I add details such as flora, extra rocks to the terrain, I like to see how this effects the rendered view, which is why I take out the terrains from the rest of the scene, and add them to a brand new scene, so I can render preview things and model things much faster!

Closer view on the Open GL Solid state view in Blender

As you can see, within Blender, I can view various windows to create the world of Neyyah. Usually, I have a render preview, maybe two open GL views, a shader node view and a UV texture map view. However, UV view tends to run things down quite a bit ... This could be due to the size of textures being used! However, sometime I like to keep things a bit more simple, as shown above. I can jump to the detail of what I'm creating! While the render preview shot shows the camera view in which the terrains will be seen upon this particular backdrop scene, I can adjust my view in the open GL view to add the flora and rocks as neccessary, and focuss more on the effects seen in the render preview view.

Editing in Photoshop!

Of course, Photoshop takes over a lot of the time! This is where I can bring more life to the 'windows' into Neyyah! Sometimes I use action sets I already have for other areas of the game, whether that be interior or exterior actions, but now and again, I have to start from scratch! This is what I did for this particular backdrop :)

Feel free to check out the dev log I created a few months ago, exploring my work flow in Photoshop!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Thanks for tuning in guys! :)
- Aaron Gwynaire / Defy Reality Entertainment

Hey everyone! All Neyyah adventurers, far and wide! I bring to you an artefact from the realms of Visionaire Studio 5! Dusting it off, it reveals this week's dev log on how I incorporate some new renders into the Visionaire Studio 5 game engine.

And it's a creepy corridor!

Not saying much more than that, but it's confined, small and I thought it would be great to bring this to a news update! I am still working constantly in Blender right now, building the Neyyah world, but now and again I'll be jumping into the engine to bring new scenes to life, which is always exciting, and as you will see from this dev log, doesn't always take very long, either!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

I'm not wanting to reveal too much of a particular scene I might be adding to the engine, but it's fun being able to talk through the process required to make the game interactive in the screen-to-screen point n click style!



A lot of the time, adding new scenes into the game is a fairly straight forward process: it just requires the duplication of certain nodes, replacing the images in those nodes, and maybe the cursors, too! These need to match the navigation the player may want to interact with. The hotspots on each image contain this data!



The harder, trickier parts are where animations are involved, which react to certain conditions, which might be either true or false. This is when a particular image may be drastically different to say a basic left or right turn! Here's a good example, where various conditions are set for this scene for a variety of different hotspots!



Going back to the cursors used in Neyyah, there are a nice variety, and they built up over time, too. In this old test build gameplay you will see a generic set of cursors which I believe came with a demo game template from the Visionaire Studio 5 website: [previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]. They were animated in some cases, which I acted upon from feedback relating to the animations being to distracting. I found this to be true, and preferred the more static, classic Myst / Riven approach! For me, this principle has actually worked in terms of the UI, as well. I feel the best formula for Neyyah is bringing its world, its art, the main screen, to the forefront, and having everything else simple and easy. The menu for Neyyah pops down on ESC. The menu screens are black / partially transparent, and this goes for the inventory UI too!

Pop down menu! The inventory item screen - the transparency enables the player to still feel as though they are in the game world, retaining immersion!

The cursors have changed over time. Here are some and new designs!:

an old design for the default cursor
an old forward cursor

current turn left-forward cursor
Current default cursor - stands out the best against the main game graphics The 90 degree turn right cursor The 180 degree turn right cursor

The different cursors create a nice variety in the actions you can implement within the screen to screen point n click style environment. Unlike with Riven, the cursor changes a lot more, so the player should always be aware on what they can and can't interact with!

Thanks for tuning in, everyone! See you all in the next dev news portal!

- Aaron Gwynaire / Defy Reality Entertainment