Common Aztez Art Questions Answered!
We get these questions a LOT:
- Is Aztez 2d or 3d?
- How do you outline your assets in black?
- What shader are you using to create your look?
- Why make a game in this style?
1. Is Aztez 2d or 3d?
Aztez is indeed fully 3d! That's why it works with the Oculus. Our characters are skinned skeletal meshes with 3d animations. The only 2d assets we use are in effects.
2. How Do You Outline Your Assets In Black?
Anatomy Of A Successful Attack (2.0)
On this 13th of October in the year of our wargod 2015 (may we all bleed for Huitzil), I have updated this piece of educational content to reflect the insights gained since I created the original demo in 2012. Unfortunately, webplayer content is pretty busted on all browsers but Firefox, and it won't work there for long. In lieu of sweet webplayer content, I've got these download links for PC, Mac, and Linux.
Download Windows / Download OSX / Download Linux
For those of you unfamiliar with this piece of content, it is an interactive demo I built to showcase the proper elements of a successful looking/sounding/feeling attack. I so frequently reference these elements when speaking to other developers or providing feedback to clients, so I use this to better communicates the important ideas. The key concept is that an attack's feel derives completely from:
- The character animations.
- The visual effects.
- The sound effects.
All of these elements are just children of those 3 things. From a development point of view, I highly advise advancing these items together to perceive the improvement of the attack in a motivating way.
Behind the Scenes: Aztez Development Environment
Who The?!
Hey everyone! I'm Matthew, the technical half of Team Colorblind. Most of my posts on the blog will be technical things--behind the scenes work on the game, including implementation details on how we're accomplishing Aztez's beat-em-up gameplay in Unity. To start things off, I thought I'd do an overview of our entire setup:
The Office
Ben and I worked together when I ran Flashbang Studios (most of our output is still online at Blurst.com, if you're curious). There are a lot of virtual indie teams out there--and more power to them for making it work!--but Ben and I work best in person. We've tried the coffee shop thing, the work-from-home thing, and co-working spaces. For us, paying to have our own private space is absolutely worth it. Rent is pretty cheap in Phoenix; we pay under $400 for a private office with power/Internet included, a shared conference room, and a shared break room with fridge. Our office neighbors are mostly 1-to-2 person shops like accountants, lawyers, etc.
We're pretty well tucked away from the world in here! Security is a nice side benefit, too: The outer doors are passcoded, and we hold the keys to our inner door.
We're actually in the same building that Flashbang used to be in, which is awesome (shout outs to Solo Cafe)!
