Jagged Alliance: Flashback Kickstarter Update #25, $301,066 and Counting

The team at Full Control has to raise more or less $50,000 in 34 hours to conclude the Jagged Alliance: Flashback Kickstarter campaign successfully, so don’t be surprised to see so many updates from them lately. Speaking of updates, the point of this newspost is to cover update #25, which deals with assets and modding.

Sampling ahead:

Personally I must say that I hope that we can create every 3D model in the game by ourselves. Some people asked us to buy model packs available on the internet. But honestly: I’m not a fan of what. Why, you may ask. The reason is that if we make it all in house that also means every 3D model in the game can be created in a way that allows it to be reused for artwork and can be set up in a way that is easy to edit and change if needed. Andif the situation requires that. So if we want to make a dirtier and worn down version of a weapon, we can do it in a matter of minutes. A weapon bought online may not give that sort of edit ability.

Alright. Let’s continue. Here is the high polygon version of the RPG7 that is used to “bake” light information onto the low polygon version in the game which is the basis of all textures. It can also be used to generate normal maps if needed.

Every detail in this model is actually made separately. If you look closely you can see some of the physical details in this model were modeled separately. The reason for this is that when we bake the light or normal details into an image file every part of an object has the potential of being edited quick by any artist once it is in Photoshop. Texture variations can be made in a few minutes.

After we bake our light maps and potentially normals we will apply different colors to each individual part of the model…

After this we bake something we call a selection map, which within Photoshop looks like this:

And within Photoshop there is a way you can make a selection based on a color. So let’s say you want to make an RPG7 with a gold plated round,you can just select the colors that make up the rounds parts, on the UV map, go to the layer with the colors and quickly change it from green to gold. Re-save as a new texture and Viola! Now you have a pimping new Gold Plated RPG. So if you make your own versions of weapons and characters, it will be very easy for you to change the color, surface and look of every 3D model.