Revelation- biblical based but expected to be pretty grim

[arttorney]

The biblical book of Revelation (KJV) is the public domain source of the text of my next project. (I am considering making a first person shooter of sorts using Blender or maybe I can make some sort of hybrid game.) I don't know for sure the direction that will be best for this, though I decided it would probably be pretty offensive to the Christian community if I put in adult content. There is quite a bit of warfare and fantasy elements such as a dragon, mounted swordsmen etc. I am very open to criticism and comments. That's the point of posting works in progress as far as I am concerned. If I do this by myself it will probably take about six months to create all the assets described in the text and make a Ren'Py game. If I go Blender game engine, add a few months for rigging/skinning everything for animation and figuring out what to do with the subject matter as far as game play goes.

I have already completed inputting all the text and creating the menus for navigation.

[Hazel-Bun]

Hmm so is there a focus on the Bible or is it just a back drop for your story? I only ask because I'd be very excited to play a Chrsitian based VN, but if not, that's fine too. I just want to go in with the right mind set Especially with Revelations as that's a pretty hard book to follow with all it's imagery and such.

I'll be keeping an eye on this regardless and will give my thoughts on your other VN (one if my favorite short stories) later!

[arttorney]

Currently the text is the exact biblical text. The concept had been to make it KN style with some animations of certain visually compelling scenes such as the star Wormwood falling out of the sky to splash down. I had figured on sticking to tasteful art for things such as the dragon waiting for the woman to give birth so it could eat the baby.

I had considered putting the players ability to choose in there so they might end up among the saved or unsaved as the case may be, but the various points of view would make for an awful lot of art and therefore huge download. I figure everybody pretty much knows how this one ends so perhaps the primary value to be mined out of the project is to put modern illustrations to the verses.

I have a penchant for science fiction looking art, so the flying scorpion tailed things might be helicopters or drones or something. Off to work now.

[Caveat Lector]

I think this has really awesome potential. Do you have any art excerpts you can show us?

[arttorney]

Thank you both for expressing interest. It will help to keep me motivated. Besides these splash pages and menu pages I don't have anything just yet. Based on my tools and skill level the easiest things to crank out relatively quickly would probably be the environments, followed by the props like "two edged sword," the book with the seals, or the seven vials.

To show further development of the game I can do some environments in the coming days. That seascape with the clouds and words only took about an hour and a half or so.

A flaming brimstone pit won't take long, but something busy like the city of Babylon might consume a few days free time. I'll try to make an environment such as the pit later this evening, or perhaps a still image of Wormwood falling.
The below verse I could probably do this evening; minus the Angel sprite. The "blood" part I would depict in the next verse when I am showing the sea creatures dying. This evening I would be showing the mountain just before impact.

And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;

[Fenrir34]

I don't get it. Could you just explain a little bit more about the game and what you are trying to make from it
I get the basics but is this really going to be a fantasy?

[arttorney]

Basically, I am just going to take the words from the King James version of the biblical Book of Revelation and turn them into a Ren'Py game. For the quote in my last post (which came from Revelation chapter eight, verse eight) I am going to use Blender to model a big old chunk of mountain, stick a flame asset onto it that I have already prepared for something else, and then show it about to fall into a sea that I will create with Vue 9 Complete.

Some things, such as the Death horseman and his pale horse I may make look like zombie creatures.

In the part where the star known as Wormwood is falling I will probably animate the star falling into a river and insert that video as an .ogg file. I am thinking about making an animation for the part where an unclean frog spirit comes out of the mouth of the seven headed dragon. I think that will probably look rather cool.

The below guys from Revelation 9:17, maybe I will render as an army of flamethrower tanks having decorative lions painted on their fronts. I haven't decided yet.

And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.

[Fenrir34]

Basically, I am just going to take the words from the King James version of the biblical Book of Revelation and turn them into a Ren'Py game. For the quote in my last post (which came from Revelation chapter I am going to use Blender to model a big old chunk of mountain, stick a flame asset onto it that I have already prepared for something else, and then show it about to fall into a sea that I will create with Vue 9 Complete.

Some things, such as the Death horseman and his pale horse I may make look like zombie creatures.

In the part where the star known as Wormwood is falling I will probably animate the star falling into a river and insert that video as an .ogg file. I am thinking about making an animation for the part where an unclean frog spirit comes out of the mouth of the seven headed dragon which I think will probably look rather cool.

The below guys from Revelation 9:17, maybe I will render as an army of flamethrower tanks. I haven't decided yet.

And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.

That is kind of cool. So it's a Fantasy Story that revolves around the bible, or Revelations?

[arttorney]

I guess that is the way to look at it. I am not changing the words, but instead drawing them as they may look if all that stuff were to happen tomorrow.

[Fenrir34]

I guess that is the way to look at it. I am not changing the words, but instead drawing them as they may look if all that stuff were to happen tomorrow.

So it's like what you did wit The Cask of Amontillado game. (Played it by the way and enjoyed it)

[arttorney]

Thank you.

Yes, except this time I will probably go with 3D art which is faster for me and easier to animate. I am thinking about voice acting the words, and I am going to have menu navigation at the end of every chapter. I am thinking about putting a dictionary button so you can look up strange words like "jacinth" or "Patmos" whenever you run across one.

[Fenrir34]

Thank you.

Yes, except this time I will probably go with 3D art which is faster for me and easier to animate. I am thinking about voice acting the words, and I am going to have menu navigation at the end of every chapter. I am thinking about putting a dictionary button so you can look up strange words like "jacinth" or "Patmos" whenever you run across one.

Oh okay. Cool. In this game with learn more about the Bible just liked we learn something about Edgar Allen Poe

You put your own idea's into something that's already made. Cool once again and great imagination

[arttorney]

This took about two and a half hours fiddling around. I may re-work this image because certain things didn't work for me as I had hoped. Still, It gives an idea of what I had in mind for this panel.

Below is my edit to make that vapor trail look better and to distinguish the shape of it from how Wormwood will look. This mountain is "cast" into the sea while Wormwood will "fall" from the sky.

[arttorney]

Here is another panel I have prepared this morning.

Here is a start to a plague-vial and lid I made with the lathe tool in Art of Illusion. I'll tweak these meshes in Blender to make it plausible the lid nests in the mouth of the vial. I tried a trumpet but it crashed the boolean tool of the Art of Illusion on my small computer. I'll make a better trumpet with OpenSCAD on my big computer. I could then make it curve around like a ram's horn or something. This is shown with just the generic clay texture. I can make it clear or silver or whatever.

vial and lid.png (20.04 KiB) Viewed 2406 times

A couple more images and I could present the prologue section as a playable demo.

[arttorney]

OK. About four or five panels before the alpha and omega verse is a verse about people being blessed because they read [the scriptures]. John of Patmos says something like "He who reads" but I am trying to be diverse and inclusive. These are WIPS of me making a 21 year old asian woman as the "he who reads" mentioned in the verses. (Much of the rest of the prologue to Revelation goes on about the seven churches of Asia).

I have made a prop "room" using Sweethome3D but it imported to Blender as really enormous. My Makehuman figure could be scaled up to that size, but the new problem is that I now must configure the Blender camera, apparently. I think it thinks she is bigger than those giant stone kings at the Argonath and it only wants to render stuff within a certain depth of field. By making Blender powerful they also made it a pain in the ass. So it goes. At least she's fully rigged and clothed. I figured out the rigging with my Montresor and Fortunato models, but something was wrong about clothing and hair. I made their clothing and Montresor's hair as Blender models. This woman is wearing a rigged Makehuman dress. (Essentially I could animate her and her clothing would follow along with her and do what she does.)

The situation isn't perfect. I gave her nylons too, but her legs seemed to show through the nylons here and there if she is too toned. Apparently the nylons were designed for figures of average or below muscle tone by whomever designed the "nylons" object. I took her nylons back off. (There were vinyl thigh boots as an available option but I didn't think they were going to work in a scene where she is supposed to be reading the Bible in her room with great interest.) (Honestly, I didn't really realize how big those breasts would render out when I made her. Janey Mack!!! At least maybe I should make them sag a little bit more due to gravity.)

Anyway, if I can get this drawing of her sitting over there reading finished, and some kind of image about the "seven churches of Asia" then I will be able to prepare a demo for folks to read. The soundtrack is largely in place, but you can't post pictures of a soundtrack.

Now that's a little more like it. I need to pose her onto the chair and make a little Kindle for her to read (so people can see why she doesn't have books in her bookcases). I might see if I can change the color of her dress to something that matches the color scheme of the game better; something in a cornflower or lavender color.