Sunday: March 16th

Current News

This week's update was from our Art Director, Petalstorm, and showcased some awesome artwork by some of our newest artists. You can view that update at:

http://cityoftitans.com/content/art-our-new-artists

Also, as some of you may have noticed - our blog url has changed! We've switched from the old 'tppdevblog' moniker to 'city-of-titans' - and I totally forgot to announce that change. My bad. Won't happen again. I promise.

Forum Posts
http://cityoftitans.com/forum/famous-ray%E2%80%99s-original-pie-shop-open-business
How have I not linked to this RP thread before? Shame on me! Thread by GhostHack

http://cityoftitans.com/forum/superhero-parenting
Thread by HellsBouncer, but address the topic of being a superhero and parenting.

http://cityoftitans.com/forum/grayson-tower-villain-based-open-rp
An awesome villain RP thread, by RottenLuck.

Ask-A-Dev

Visit: http://tinyurl.com/askadev to submit your question!

From: jcheraz
For :Gameplay
"Newer games are going with fewer toolbars and power clickables. Levels provide updates and expansions to existing powers, rather than new powers. Will you follow suit?"

Felix, Systems Analyst: We plan to provide a fairly dynamic experience. In some cases you will be able to choose "meta powers" that affect your other powers rather than just add a new clickable. However, in keeping with our overall design intent, many of the later powers will be situational, rather than just obviously better. It is our intent that your early powers will remain useful throughout the game.

From: Dimma
For: Gameplay
"Would you consider power rating score for characters? It could assist with PVE balancing and be used by players in PVP to determine an opponents relative power."

Felix, Systems Analyst: We will not provide a power rating score for characters. We feel that the inclusion of such a feature would be toxic to the overall cooperative nature of the game. However, we acknowledge that there will be "gating" down the road in endgame content, where a certain amount of endgame progress is required to participate in certain content.

From Around the Web

What the what? Wireless Electricity?
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/14/tech/innovation/wireless-electricity/index.html

A 3D capturing camera? I want one. Nao.
http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/14/more-project-tango-specs-revealed-showing-two-wide-angle-and-one-depth-sensing-camera/

Also, a 1001 movie clips you need to see before you die.

The Big Game

The Big Game
An Article by Sports Reporter Joe “Monster Hands” Manassas




The Big Game is here! No, you aren’t going to see the familiar Blue, White and Gold of the Captains’ jerseys on the field. You aren’t going to see the gold toothed grin of Captain Corsair, our venerable and beloved mascot as he pumps up the crowd for the team, dueling the coach with his foam sword and doing his inimitable victory dance. You aren’t going to see the lovely Wenchettes flipping their pom poms and performing acrobatics the likes of which you have never seen, between super-expensive, weird tv commercials.




Why not? Well, as always, if you want to know, talk to the Hands...

No one new to Titan City can miss the fact that our team is beloved. Tricorn hats, old school lunchboxes shaped like treasure chests, fancy boots; the team is not hurting on the money front, the merchandise sells like, well, Captain Cakes (just a hint of orange flavor to fight off the scurvy. Yarr). Those same newcomers always do a double take when they see the numbers. How do we pack Titan Colosseum (newly refurbished with a retractable dome, ready for us to host the Big Game here) every week when we have a losing record?




Because it’s our team, that’s why! And we love our team. How can we not love the plucky underdogs who work so hard training in the offseason, give so much to the community, and then go out and give it their all? They’re like family, especially Alan Capulet, the beloved coach. They’re all Titan City fixtures, and they’re all good, clean kids. Even if they never win, we’re happy to have people like this in our fair city.

Which is just as well, because - and this is the deal, sports fans - Titan City isn’t allowed to win. If the Captains win, then “obviously” it’s because someone on the team is a super, or they’re doping with some new superscience drug (conveniently impossible to detect or disprove), or someone’s using mind control on the referees or whatever. We’ve heard it all before. We hear it every time the Captains make the playoffs. Mike Thorkulson rushed 18,400 yards in 2007, and it was chased off the team because breaking a record meant he was ‘obviously’ superhuman. Then New York’s Shane Smith ran 18,427 the next year, but that was a crowning jewel of human achievement. It never ends, folks.




Our boys are clean. Super clean. Squeaky clean. Heck, I even got investigated when I was on the team because of the size of my hands! Ladies, the Hands are here to tell you. I’m no mutant, just a freak. Ever since the Incident, the Captains have watched their food and their training regimen, but that cloud of suspicion always rises every time we get close to the playoffs, and I have been on that field folks; it does affect how you play.

Yes, I mentioned the Incident. We all remember 2005, although none of us want to talk about it. The season’s over for us, so what’s the harm? One guy ever gets his hands on the super-drug Chaser, thinking it will give him an edge. Then a hard tackle makes him belch fire all over a linebacker. Sure, it was shameful. I’m not going to say it was right. But it was one guy, one time, and now that cloud is going to haunt us forever? I say bull.

Titan City may have more super types per capita by far than any other city in the world because of our lax laws on supers. We may have a lot of super science and magic. But if there is one thing Titan City knows, it is that you can’t have the mask and cape crew do everything for you. Some things are best handled by good old regular guy know-how and guts. And one of those things is Football!

Mark my words. Supers are getting to be more and more populous worldwide. One of these days, one of the big teams is going to have their Incident. Maybe that will make everyone start letting a little bit of the super onto their pro teams. Maybe that will make everyone work as hard as our Captains do to be spotless. But either way, some day, as they say, the playing field will be even.

Never give up hope, Captains Fans! We are going to have our day in the sun! We are going to see Captain Corsair dance under the goalposts! We are going to host the Big Game some day, and we are going to win! And we all know why!

Say it with me, as you read this on your phones and on your laptops! Say it with me as you read the paper on the bus stops and in the barber shops! Let this city ring with the chorus! Anyone can make it in Titan City!

That’s all from me this year on the Big Game, folks. As always, if anyone asks, the Hands went that-a-way.

Would you like to take a survey?

Here it is, ladies and gentlemen.

This very Friday, we're sending our first Kickstarter Survey out. We made it ourselves. Well, with some help from a commercial shopping cart.

Now, if you didn't have a Perk level that contained an add-on, like the ones that contained the Phoenix Pet, or if you didn't put in extra money for an add-on, before the Kickstarter ended, you're not going to get this survey. That's All Your Base or above.

We want to make this very clear. We're only picking out the digital add-ons and purchasing the physical ones, in this survey. We're not asking you for the information we need to make the digital add-ons or perks work. That'll be for a second survey, once we're much closer to completion.

And there is a limited time to complete this survey. It'll be in the letter. End of February. Why? Because we have to order the T-Shirts and so on, and we're doing it in bulk, and we have to put the order in at some point.

I know, so many of you want to buy more, and we love you for it. But there's two things. First, of course, we need to have a functioning web store. We don't, yet, mostly because our coders have been focusing on our engine. Secondly, we kind of want to be sure we're going to have some product for you before we start going back to pitching for more money. Much as we want to roll around in it, swim in it, toss it up and let it hit us on the head... sorry, went a little Carl Barks there.

Keep an eye on your spam filters, okay? If you don't get the email by Monday, and you think you should, again, message us, we'll check the list. We know exactly how much money we got from each and every one of you.

This update is going to be mostly the same as the letter for the survey, except that'll have your user name and password in it. It can't have your amount of credit, that'll be in a second email. If you have a problem with the survey, we're listening. Just message us here, or send an email to ksperks@missingworldsmedia.com

Okay, instructions starting below. Ready?

Welcome to the City of Titans Perks Survey!

This is our first survey, but it's not going to be our last.

Today, we're just taking care of figuring out exactly what you bought, including the T-Shirt sizes.

We're going to order the physical perks, but taking care of the digital perks will wait till we're ready to put them in the game.

(But remember, we do want to get all these hats and shirts ordered, so spend your credit before Feb 28th, 2013!)

Your login ID is the e-mail address where you got this email.

Your new password is: ******

Just click on http://perks.cityoftitans.com/ and you'll see this screen:


Log in, and you'll see this screen


You'll notice there's a reminder in the middle, about how some pledge levels got perks thrown in. If you were one of those people, we've added the credit value to your cart as well. To remind you, it's the following:

People who pledged All Your Base and above get a T-Shirt, Lanyard, and Mousepad as well as the Phoenix Pet. ($80 total). People who pledged I Know A Guy and above get that, plus an Instant Sidekick ($110, total).

People who pledged Fashionista and above get Iconic, Everything is Better in Plaid, It Must Be A Sign, as well ($610 total).

You're not limited to those choices, though. You've got credit, spend it however you wish.

Go and click on the link on the right (The arrow in the picture's pointing at it), and go shopping.

Selected everything you want? (Don't forget, if you choose a shirt, you can choose your size)

You've filled up your cart?


Follow the arrow and go to Checkout.

You'll see your address.


You can also put in any special comments you want at the bottom about shipping. Only shipping related comments there, please.

Check to make sure it's right, that's where we're shipping everything!

Then go to the next screen. This is where you actually spend the money. You can also put in any special comments you want at the bottom. Remember, we're just finding out what digital perks you bought. We'll send a second survey later for more information about the details.


Notice your total is listed, and your total balance is listed. Click on 'Continue Checkout' to spend that money!

Step Three of Three! Time to make sure your address is right, what you ordered is the right size and right quantity, and any special shipping instructions are in. Everything gets free shipping, we baked that into the cost of the products.


See that 'Confirm The Order' button? Click it when you're ready.

Okay, final screen. This one shows you everything went through, your order number, and if you have any credit remaining. If you share this computer, be sure to log off when you're done.


For help with any of our online services, please email our special Perks address. KSPerks@missingworldsmedia.com . We're waiting and watching!

Sincerely,

Warcabbit, Shard, and the City of Titans Family.

There's no sense wasting time.

While we were waiting for the licenses, there's no reason we couldn't do a little work. Buying a piece of software is easy. Buying enough for an art department requires a contract, and support, and maintenance fees... and the world shuts down during the holiday season. So, we got our artists demo versions of the programs we're using, to do some training back in December.

We will be using Maya and 3DStudio, but most of our work is going to be done using Houdini, by SideFX. Houdini's mostly known for their movie work. They were part of the solution for Pacific Rim, The Wolverine, and Man of Steel, but they're also aggressively marketing themselves towards the video game industry. Assassin's Creed: Black Flag, for example, used them in the toolchain.

Serious tools for serious work.

One of our artists, AngelWolf, has been keeping a log of his adventures with Houdini. I thought we'd share some of it with you.

- Warcabbit

----------

Hi, everyone. I'm AngelWolf and I've been working on rigging a model for the Avatar Builder. While we were waiting for many of our purchases to go through over the hectic holidays, I began playing with the free Apprentice version of Houdini, a powerful 3D production suite that we will be using to do a lot of the work that the game needs. The process begins with an orthographic drawing of a character:









This is Andy, one of the templates our 2D team uses to draw different costumes. As you can see, the drawing is of a front, back, side, and top view of the character. What I do is cut the image down into smaller pieces and set them up as reference images in the software. I then use a technique known as box modeling to fit 3D geometry into the shape of the reference image, and poof, we have a 3D model:







But a model by itself is just a statue. In order to make it move naturally, it needs a skeleton, similar to this one:




This is called a rig and to make it work, you need to match up the various joints inside the body of the character:



With everything in place, you can then create proxy geometry, which breaks the model up into smaller pieces so it's easier to animate. Here, I use cutting rings to surround the various parts of the body:



And the result is a bunch of color coded geometry with gaps in between, making it very easy to animate:



At this point, we are nearly there. With the push of a button, Houdini takes the skeleton and the mesh, and combines them into two more things:

1: An animation rig, which allows an animator to move the character by moving the bones around.
2: A deform rig which controls how much of the model moves with each bone. Both are pretty complex so I will cover them both in future updates.
Goodbye for now.

Ayooooah!

----------

Now, Angelwolf isn't the only person working on this. We've got all kinds of projects going on. Here's a little preview of the next subject we're going to try to cover.



It's a start. These things have learning curves. Steep ones. But once we master them, oh, the places we'll go.

This sword was made by DeathSheep... on pretty much a whim, as he got home from work one day.

I asked him about what he had to do to make it, and he said, "Probably half of the time spent on that -- from roughly 6pm to about 8:30 or so -- was simply figuring out the right set of places to access several of the tools. Tool learning curve. That sword, while not ideal, would probably be entirely sufficient for the game with one fix (There's a weird normal for one surface, it keeps trying to invert itself.) and then arranging the textures for the hilt and guard. The blade, as you can see, is already shiny metal."

"The technique I probably should have used would have had the benefit of letting you define a 'spine' curve for the blade and go anywhere from flat to scimitar to kris, although to really do kris would probably require adjusting the logic to be able to build a dual-edged blade."

"But is a little more advanced, and I knew I could knock this one out with just the utterly, utterly basic geometry fusing. And 15-20 minutes of "sitting and thinking" time to figure out the geometry."

That's when I challenged him to make a teddy bear with between two and sixty four legs.

He actually took it seriously.

"Bah. More trouble than it would be worth, it is a squoodgy shape which means metaballs which means having to muck about with the kernel and density functions to get it to behave reasonably when they're packed that tightly."

I gotta tell you folks, I love working with everyone on this project. They're all completely insane, but in a very productive way.

Coming soon... The Big Game... and the Survey.

And a Cabbie New Year

Heeeeey, fancy meetin' you here! How're ya-- whoa! Careful there, pal. Here, lemme help ya in. Boy, am I glad you called me. An' you'll be glad too - I got bottles of water in the mid compartment there, an that switch right there is for the seat warmer. Yer welcome.

Yeah, it gets pretty cold in the winter here in Titan City. Doesn't really stop most people. Heck, in Downtown you can go walking from building to building without ever goin' outside, thanks to the skywalks an' such, so why would anyone slow down? Never stops people from tryin' new things, though.

I remember one year, durrin' a pretty bad blizzard, a bunch of mad science guys got together an' did a contest to see who could do the best job a keepin' the city streets clear a' snow. So all night there were giant robots an' laser-plows an' puddles of gray goop an' all sortsa werid stuff, runnin' around, cleanin' the roads an' sometimes fightin' each other over choice pilups. It was insane! But then, what do you expect from mad science guys?

The streets were clear, tho. An' I swear they were cleaner than they'd been before. I was workin' that night an' didn't even have my tires slip the whole time.

Oh, sure, we've had some funny happenings. I mean, hey, it's New Years, any city's gonna have some crazy stuff happens. Ours just tends to be bigger'n louder.

One year, we had a monster came out of the water, hadda be thirty stories tall, headed for the fireworks display an' then started torchin' things. There was a big fight of course, but in the end it turns out it was just tryin' to communicate. Get this - the poor thing fell in love with City Hall! Thought the fireworks was the buildin' comin' onta him. They fixed his vision somehow, an the guy was so disappointed. Blubbered for hours, loud enough everyone could hear 'im.

What? Oh, yeah, big monsters happen sometimes around here. Don't worry, all homeowner's insurance for the area is good for monster attacks by law, and they usually don't cause as much commotion as you'd expect.

Anyway, one a' my favorite stories of the season is when Hexbane was goin' around the town stealin' presents kids'd gotten on Christmas. See, Hexbane, he's this guy that collects cursed stuff. Nobody knows why, but he just can't get enough of it. Well, that year some jerk'd been passing out toys an' games with bad mojo on 'em for the holidays, an' they were startin' to take effect on the kids. Hexbane can't just do nothin' straight, tho, oh no. He's charmin' enough he could probably just tell them what's up and get it done, but instead he goes an' breaks into people's houses to collect the toys, leavin' stylishly cut-open windows in his wake.

So Anthem gets wind of this, an' even tho she's supposed to be takin' th' day off she goes after 'im, because that's what she does. She an' Hexbane have history, see. They fight, an' it's always pretty spectacular to see those two fight, lemme tell ya, they just go tearin' across the city. Hexbane keeps causin' problems to distract her, or I dunno, maybe he just does it to watch her fix 'em, but this goes on a while and then he finally jukes when he should've swerved or somethin' and she grabs holda him. Delivers one helluva lecture, an' let me tell you, when Anthem shouts everybody hears it. She thought he was just doin' his usual stealin', didn't know he was doin' those kids a solid by takin' away the toys. But she does him one better.

See, Hexbane's rich. Like, serious old money rich. So she grabs the guy an' they go buy some new toys - on his dime, natch- an’ she drags ‘im around th’ town collectin' the rest of the toys, and visitin' the people he'd taken the ones he already had from. An' they give the kids all new toys to replace what they'd lost. Clean a’ bad juju, a’course. She even got him to pay for the window repairs, too. All outta pocket.

After that she gave the guy another browbeatin' an' then let 'im go with a warning. He took it in stride. What's his hangup? I dunno man, he just likes to be stylish.

I got a million a' these, tho. Like, this one time there was... ah... uh... ... no.

Nossir, you ain't seein' a forty foot tall guy standin' naked as a jaybird in the middle of the road. An' he ain't shoutin' nothin' 'bout not puttin' his pants on 'till he gets some respect.

I, uh, I think we got someone else needs a ride home, tho. Oh, an’ the seatback in frontaya has barf bags. Y’know. Just in case.

What? Oh, sure. Yeah, it’s possible to drive places without runnin’ inta supers in this town. ...I mean, normally. On New Year’s Eve? Nnnnnot so much.