August’s Producer’s Letter
Greetings Pantheon Fans,
Last month we mentioned two major focal points of this year. The first being the 247 play mode we’ll be rolling out to our testers in a few weeks and the second being our attention to art. Today we want to talk a little more on art.
We have opted to shift our in-game art direction to address several needs:
Performance – We have run into difficulty with the former art performing well on even the beefiest of machines. We have made progress on this front but ultimately determined we could get better gains by a shift in style.
Speed of Development – The shift speeds up the art pipeline substantially. What would sometimes take weeks now can take days, or in some cases, hours.
Sustainability – With the new art direction, we feel confident we can achieve our long-term goals with an indie-sized development team. It is not only faster, but more affordable.
Marketability – One of the top comments we routinely receive from the public is how the game looks old or unappealing. This is an opportunity to reach a broader, more contemporary audience.
So how would we define the new style? It’s a painted look that retains Pantheon’s grit. We have included a few works-in-progress shots below to give you an idea of where we’re going. Later in September, we will bring you a full video presentation of the new art and more in-game samples. It will outline how the art direction benefits development. We will also be updating this website to reflect the new art around the same time.
If you are looking for the calendar, not to worry, we are still nailing down some dates and will have that available in the next few days. For now, let’s dive into what the team’s been up to since our last Producer’s Letter.
- Added new Gadai camp models
- Added new crafting station models
- Added Snake and Cobra models
- Added new dead Elkhorn trees and stumps
- Added new bat
- Added new leather armor
- Added new chain armor
- Added new standard plate armor
- Added new basic robe
- Implemented more Combat animations
- Implemented new stealth animations
- Implemented new player locomotion animations
- Implemented griffin animations
- Added more harvestable plants: Flame Lily and Cat Tails.
- Concept art for the Fire beetle completed
- Concept art for the Skeleton completed
- Concept art for the Hornet completed
- Concept art for the Bear completed
- Concept art for the Boar completed
- Concept art for the Fox completed
- Tower chamber modeled
- Added new terrain ground textures
- Added new terrain grass
- Added new bushes
- Added new undead ruins models
- Added loot crate models
- Completed new cave kit
- Improved corpse loot
- Improved quest/objective system
- Began work on music and sound effects
- Added footstep detection of surface type
- Availia conversion to new art nearly complete. All buildings are now complete
- New quests and objectives designed and data entry started
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