9/16/15 UPDATE
Hello everyone,
Wow. A lot of really amazing feedback here for “”. It’s tremendously gratifying to hear the goodwill from the the community members who have posted publicly and contacted us privately to wish us their best. Thank you. Thank you so much. It means an awful lot to us.
The big thing we’ve been discussing lately in the team is how exactly to get Omaha Beach to look exactly as it does. A big sticking point for us since the beginning has been to make this the most true to life authentic World 2 experience that has ever been created. This is going to be achieved through the incorporation of two new technological breakthroughs.
The first of these is by making sure “” is designed from the ground up with VR in mind. Although we have nothing to announce in regards to specifics right now we believe that it is vital for us to design this game from the ground up with VR in mind so that anyone who steps into the game world feels as if they’ve stepped into the boots of the soldiers who fought on those bloody beaches nearly half a century ago. To that effect we’re going to be launching the game with a True-First Person system that will allow players to see their hands, legs, boots, and arms as they trek through Nazi-occupied France and make the experience of playing “” even more immersive.
The second is by incorporating photogrammetry into our workflow. This has been a long conversation and in the end its something we’ve decided has to happen if we’re going to live up to what we hope to achieve. For those that don’t know or haven’t heard about photogrammetry I’d suggest reading this article from the developers of Ethan Carter about the process: Visual Revolution of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter – The Astronauts.
The plan right now is to practice the photogrammetry process for the next 90 days to get a good sense of the workflow before and I hop on a plane to Normandy. Part of what we hope to achieve is recreating a 1:1 simulation of Omaha Beach that is as close to 100% accurate to the day the Normandy Invasions took place. It shouldn’t be close. It should be the same dang thing. We want to be able to experience what it was like landing on the beachhead and see exactly what the soldiers saw that day. In order to achieve this we need photogrammetry. It will allow to us to get the entire beach terrain translated into meshes that we can use to provide the most realistic example of the D-Day landings ever created.
That isn’t to say there aren’t any wrenches waiting in the works. In order to capture the entire coastline we’re going to need to purchase drones and learn to fly them. Because the cliffs and bluffs are so close to the water simply wading out into the ocean isn’t going to work. Instead we’ll have to attach our cameras to the drones and take pictures of the coastline so we can convert them into 3D models and get them in the game. This of course will require time and money. Both issues that we’re working to resolve right now.
The upside is that apart from the ocean side cliffs where we’ll need to use drones, everything else should be easily incorporated into the game. For example we’ll be able to get a very good representation of the beach rocks you see in the image above in the game. Not only that but the trees, weeds, flowers, and landmarks of Normandy will all be captured as well during our eventual trip out there. If anyone knows of any cool spots we should spot by that might be hard to find and would act as cool sights in the game please don’t hesitate to send us a PM. Our budget is limited so we’re probably only going to be able to make a single trip out there. We’re also holding casual negotiations with someone who is more experienced in combining photogrammetry with drone technology and if we’re able to knock out a deal with them maybe they can go instead of us. If an agreement isn’t reach, we’ll be the ones heading out there instead.
Lastly here are some updates on some assets that we’re developing at the moment. We’ll have another update for you next week when our multiplayer servers should be running. Take it easy guys!
TIGER
HAWKINS MINE
LUGER
Pixel Perfect Polygons