Hello everyone, here’s an update from Team Obsidian-Fire!

Even after our announcement that Project Light had been postponed, our creative minds have not been standing still. We will be starting a considerably smaller, yet equally as fun project related to our story. You will be hearing more from us in the next couple of days. As always our stuff is top secret and we’ll be letting out bits of information as time passes by.

Stay tuned for more, it might just come sooner than you think!

-Thomas / Arch

Dear community,

I regret to inform you that our project, unfortunately, has come to a standstill. This is mainly because of  most of our member had to focus on other projects aside from this one.

The project is archived and development may continue whether or not we get applications from people who are willing to join the team and remain for the duration of the development.

Please see the application form if you are a motivated, qualified individual who is interested in pushing this project forward. Until then, this project has been halted.

If there is any progress on the project, I will be sure to let you all know.  I’d also like to personally thank all of the fans that have been following our progress this entire time.

Arch
Project overview & community managing

Hello everyone, we’re back with a small, if not tiny, update.

It’s getting routine.

First of all sorry to keep you guys waiting still, we’re still working hard on our mod and hopefully we’ll be able to show it off soon. But of course, this is an ambitious project that needs a lot of manpower in order to get somewhere so we’ll be needing more members if we want to pull this off.

Currently, the only way to apply is by sending me an email. However, that’s about to change.. We’ve been working on an application form that will allow you to simply fill in the things what we need to know. It’s very easy to use and it shouldn’t take you longer than 10 minutes to complete it. After submitting your application, it will be forwarded to the appropriate members. Sometime later, you should get an update from me. -So if you feel like signing up, go for it!

- Click here to view the application form -

Campaign development.

I’d like to talk more about the campaign, however today I’ll leave you with one big ingame screenshot. Because as we all know, a picture says 1000 words. For the easily confused, it’s an overview of the Lost Woods.

Teaser 3: The Lost Woods HD

Well, hopefully we’ll get to see some new faces soon. It would certainly do us good to see some more talented people sign up!

-Arch
Project overview & community managing

Hello guys,

In a few hours I’ll start my trip to Leipzig. Well it’ll only take me about 12 hours to get there and without any sleep I’ll pretty much be dead by the time I get there.

Anyways, I promised you that those who want to meet me whilest I’m down there have the possibility to do so. You’ll be able to meet me either at VGL (20th of august)  or during the Game Convention (21st of august).

If you want to meet me during VGL:
I’ll be trying to sell my spare combitickets (They give you access to VGL and the Game Convention).  For about 34.60 euros each. They’re two category 3 tickets, so if anyone wants them.. Just talk to me when you see me. I’ll be wearing a black long-sleeved shirt, probably blue jeans and a black jacket. Seeing my best friend is coming to Leipzig as well, you’ll be able to spot me even better.. We have the same Final Fantasy inspired black jacket (Long story, don’t ask) .. I should be at the Arena by 6.00-6.30 PM.

For those who want to meet me during the Game Convention:
You’ll be able to spot me by the t-shirt that I’ll be wearing, it should have the our ‘Prophecies’ themed logo on the back.

Logo:

With that said, I’m going to get ready now.
Hope to see some of you there!

-Arch
Project overview & community managing

Edit: To all of those who showed up, I really had a great time meeting you all! -Arch

Hello again and welcome to update #7!

Yes, we have been gone for a while but we’re back now. We’ve been working hard on various things, which I will discuss with you in greater detail in just a bit. As usual, you will get some more information about the storyline and an update on our team’s status. For those of you who’re anxious about the teaser and scrolling through the page like a madman, let me tell you know it’s ‘still’ not here yet.

Seriously. What’s taking so long?

Loads of things have lead to delaying this teaser video several times now. At first it was because all of us were extremely with either school or work. You may, or may not know, that a lot of us do this in our spare time, but when there is none it’s pretty hard for us to actually do something. After we delayed the teaser, we started to get some more rough knockbacks. As some of our members got into some problems of their own, of course they could not work on the project under these circumstances, which I can completely understand.

But rejoice, last Saturday we had another one of our team meetings, where we obviously discussed nothing but the teaser. The way things look now is exactly like this. We need to get the environment done and add some animations, exactly in that order. Everything else has been completed. So now you know just exactly where we stand.

I know a lot of you are really anxious about seeing this teaser, but you’ll have to wait a bit longer than expected. I’d also like to say that there’s no need to continuously tell us that we should ‘get our act together’. We have put our act together, but it’s for our eyes only unless we truly believe the public’s ready to see it.

Project Light campaign

I have recently been working a lot on the storyline for Project Light and I feel like sharing some of the things I came up with. As you already know this Zelda experience will be much darker than the previous games. Why? –Remember the genocide bit?

As you may remember, Sorceress is one of the only survivors from the terrible fate that has come to her kingdom. Yes, that’s right there are more.

Along with her are a handful of soldiers, civilians and elite forces. Today I’ll be talking about one of them. I came up with his persona and back-story, while our new member Jessica (We just call her Jobi, and that’s how I’ll refer to her from now on) drew him. She’s currently coloring him now so we can’t provide you with a colored version. But I can show you this.

This is one of three character that will fight by your side, his name is Draxyz. Draxyz is one of two Archmages. He’s intelligent ,an excellent strategist, very powerful and optimistic. Even though his optimistic behavior will not do him any good during the attack on the kingdom, he always tries to hope for the best.

His fighting style is quite unique, instead of using blades he has two very rare magic artifacts which allows him to use ice and earth based attack. This process is done by channeling a special kind of magic through these artifacts. In case you’re wondering, the artifacts are strapped to his hands, through his armor.

Like I said before, Draxyz will be a character who will be fighting at your side from time to time. The artifacts play a very important role in the whole Sorceress storyline, seeing Draxyz only has two out of four artifacts. Who will hold the final two? Is he/she a good or bad guy? –Better yet, what if all four are fused..?

That’s it for the campaign part of the storyline, next week I’ll talk about the main adversary.. We might just be able to get some concept art done by then.. Stay tuned.

In-game

Lately we’ve been figuring out how to import custom animation from Maya 2008 into sandbox. I’m sure you all remember Mac, he’s our main character modeler, he has been working on several new enemies and animations. He’s been able to get the animations working for this guy, the bokoblin.

{vidavee id=”12126″ w=”320″ }

I have been working on some more Time of Day files that we will include in the teaser. But you can have a look at them now, we at least owe you that much. The screenshots include; Midnight, Sunrise, Noon (Vertical Panoramic shot) and sunset. Please note that this was taken on a test level and that this is not an actual level from the mod.

Obsidian-Fire status update!

New members

Over the past two months two new people have joined the team. Allow me to introduce them both to you.

First up is Marc, he’s an environmental artist. Marc is certainly used to modeling detailed environments as he’s the design VIZ Lead for an architecture firm. Be sure to expect some amazingly awesome renders of his work on the mod very soon.

Next up is Jobi, who I’ve mentioned earlier in this update. She’s another amazing concept artist, she’s a senior at high school. However, Jobi’s a very talented concept artist. Just have a look at her dA page and find out for yourself.

Updated website
If you go to our main portal page, or our blog, you’ll be able to have a look at our updated website. It features a custom theme made by yours truly. If you want to know the name of the theme, it’s ‘Prophecy’…

VGL & Leipzig Games Convention
I’ve decided to go on an completely insane journey all the way to Germany’s Leipzig. I travel a lot but this is completely different. I’ll be travelling for two full days in order to get there, so that should proof to be quite interesting. Anyways, I will be attending Video Games Live on the 20^th of august and the Leipzig Games Convention on the 21^st of august. Next week, I’ll talk about how you can meet up with me, if you wish of course.

Well guys, that about wraps it all up. Don’t worry about the teaser, it’ll definitely be released. When is the only question that remains. But as always, I’ll keep you posted.

-Arch
Project overview & Community managing

Hello everyone and welcome to a rather unfortunate update.
It’s been a while since I last wrote a weekly update and to tell you the truth it feels good to report to you guys again, unfortunately this update’s filled with drama. So let’s get to it.

Teaser Delayed.

Unfortunately we have to delay the teaser video. I’ll tell you exactly why and what we’re going to do next.

The majority of our members are too busy in their personal lives at the moment, mainly because school’s coming to an end or they just have a lot of work. So right now everyone’s really trying their very best to get back to work on the mod. Right now we have about 65% of the teaser complete, but it’s going to take some more time..

So at this rate I can’t honestly say just when we’re going to be able to finish it. My best guess would be the 19th of July.

Don’t worry, we’ll definitely finish it. Once everyone gets their things sorted out, we’ll be back in action in no time. I’ve still got a few interviews left to do with some experienced people, so once they join that should speed up the process even more.

I know there are a lot of people who’re really looking forward to this and I’m very sorry to disappoint them like this. We’ll try to get it done as fast as we possibly can and we’ll make it up to you.

Once again, sorry for the inconvenience.

7/13/2008 Update:
We’ll have another meeting with the team to discuss a deadline for the teaser. You’ll get an update on our status within two weeks from now. In case you’re wondering, no we haven’t stopped working on the teaser. We’ve actually been doing a lot of nifty stuff with the editor! But more about that in the next update (7/28/2008).

-Arch
Project overview & Community managing

Still going and working hard. We’ve almost completed all of our characters that we’re going to show in the teaser.

One more month guys, one more month..

-Arch

A big hello to all of those who’re still following our progress.
Just a little heads up from us..

We’re still going and progress is coming along nicely..

31st of May’s coming soon..

-Arch

Hello again to all of you and welcome to our final weekly update for April and May.

In today’s weekly update I’ll explain to you what our current plans are regarding our project and we’ll give you a heads up on our team’s status. In comparison to our previous weekly updates, this’ll be a shorter update.

Hibernation
We’re going silent until the 31^st of May. -Allow me to explain..

We’re releasing our teaser in a couple of weeks from now, hopefully on the 31^st of May. Now, as you all know we’re intending to keep much of our storyline a secret until that time comes.. Plus, seeing our teaser video contains a whole bunch of it, it would be rather stupid to give you all a weekly update without the update part of it all.

But, we will inform you on a weekly base whether or not we’re still going. We know that this might not compensate for 6 weekly updates, but at least it’s still something. We’ll still be around the forums and such, so if you feel like dropping a message, feel free to.

Once our teaser has been released, you’ll be given a nice amount of screenshots, renders and wallpapers.. And most rewarding of all, more information on our storyline..

Start counting down..

Project: Light Campaign
We wouldn’t leave you for 6 weeks without giving you some more details on our campaign.. So here we go! This week, I’ll talk about the plot, just a tiny bit.

The Triforce is one of the key objects in our campaign, once again a villain tries claim its wish granting power for him/herself. For the people that don’t know what the Triforce is, it’s a sacred golden relic that consists out of three separate parts. Once all three have been brought together the one who touches it can wish for whatever that person’s heart desires.

Our main villain in our campaign will try everything in his or her power to obtain it. The kingdom in which Sorceress lives is the first one to feel the devastating power of this new force. When you’re playing as her, re-living her memories before the destruction of the kingdom, you will witness the final few hours in which the kingdom is still standing.

There will also be some epic battles in which you will be forced to take part in, in order to make sure that the kingdom doesn’t get overrun. But ultimate,as I said before, Sorceress is the only survivor of an extermination, so we know how this battle turns out.. But does it mean that all of what she did was in vain..? –That’ll be up to you to decide..

Team Obsidian-Fire’s status update!
Coloniser has appeared!
Yes, once again we welcome a new member to the team. His name’s Jack aka Coloniser, you might remember him from the CG Zelda short movie called; “Dark Sage”. Coloniser’s job on our team will range from animating to modeling. If you’ve ever seen his Zelda movie, you’ll agree that he’s a very talented individual! –If you haven’t, go check it out here

The music team
Remember last weekly update? I promised I’d give you guys an update on who’ll be in charge of the music.. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to do that today. But, I’ll try to give you a small update as soon as we get things sorted out!

We’re still going!
We’re still looking for dedicated people who’d like to help us out. We’ve still got vacancies you can check out here. So if you know someone or you’d happen to be interested in helping us out, just drop me an email at thomasv-l@hotmail.com.

I know some people might actually be upset about this, but in the end.. It’ll be worth the wait.
Oh.. it’ll most definitely be worth the wait..

-Arch
Project overview & Community managing

Hello to all of you followers and newcomers, welcome to weekly update #5!

In today’s weekly update I’ll: talk to Matt, showcase Sorceress to you, answer some questions, give you another update on our team’s status and make an important announcement.. Yes, that’s quite a lot. –What can I say, I felt like typing.

Interview with Matthew Needler
I’ve interviewed Matt, you’ve all heard of him in our past weekly updates. But you haven’t seen much of him other than that neat Navi movie, which shows of some animations in Sandbox2. I thought it would be interesting for you all to know who he is and what he’s been up to lately.

Thomas:

So Matt, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Matt:

Okay, Well I’m the environmental artist on the team, I mainly make all the levels and I’m also taking up some of the animation on smaller ‘things’, that’s all I’ll say about this.

Well, me personally? I’ve 3D Modeled for a long time now, 4-5 years I guess now and I’ve worked on games such as Halo, Half-Life and Unreal. But that said, this team is nice, and refreshing…and I love Zelda, so…

Thomas:

You love Zelda? Which one of the games was your favorite?

Matt:

Personally, Ocarina of Time, it’s also the first 3D game I can remember playing as a kid. So it goes way back. I also loved Twilight Princess, which reworked and restyled from (in a little respect) from Ocarina, I also loved the ‘wolf’ sections in twilight such a unique game play element to add to the Zelda series.

Thomas:

So you’re the environmental artist, what’re you working on right now?

Matt:

Right now, working on making some high polygon (Crysis capable though) models for the mod. More importantly at the moment I’m working on a full 3D, ‘re-imagining’ of the Temple of Time, based quite allot from the Twilight Princess’s Temple of Time.

Thomas:

So would you say you’re creating Twilight Princess or Ocarina of Time?

Matt:

Neither, but taking aspects from both and ‘re-imagining’ them and putting them in the next generation, high definition game engine (CryEngine2). I would say that it looks a lot more like Twilight Princess, being the closer Zelda game to ‘High Definition’.

Thomas:

What will you be doing next, after you’ve the Temple of Time? Can you tell us or is it classified information?

Matt:

Well that’s ‘Top Secret’ but I can hint that it will be ‘close’ to the Temple of Time but far away…especially in time it’s self. Try figuring that one out when your drunk, fans!

Thomas:

Can you tell us what your plans are with animation? Any more new Navi animations coming up?

Matt:

You may see Navi appearing somewhere ‘New’ in a few months, does that mean we’ll be seeing a new ‘video’ of sorts in a few months you’ll have to wait and see ; ).

My plans for other animation? Well I hope we get a Biped Rigger on the team soon (anyone out there, it would be useful) I can animate loop able animations for the mod, so any character I’ll probably be animating.

Matt:

If we don’t get a rigger on the team, I’ll be hopefully sitting down and learning the rigging techniques for the CryEngine2.

Thomas:

We want footage, what’s up with that?

Matt:

Footage? In my world, words speak for much more then footage. I’m sure you’ll be seeing footage soon enough, and images…I mean we show images like every week so don’t gag for footage guys, and com’on you’ll see it soon enough.

Thomas :

Are you talking about the big media update?

Matt:

A big media update, I haven’t heard a thing about it…

<Walks off whistling>

Thomas:

*Shocked*

Matt:

Yes that was an answer

Thomas :

Thanks for answering some questions Matt!

That’s it for the little interview, I hope you’ve enjoyed it!

“In my world, words speak for much more then footage” – I loved that bit, however Matt’s agreed to release some, as he calls it, “extremely WIP” images.

Here’s the Temple of Time in HD.. More to come, really soon.

‘Sorceress’ is here.
Zeruda has provided us with the very first concept art of Sorceress. At first glance you can see there’s no sort of armor plating or chain mail visible. Well you’re wrong, we’re planning on making her sleeves and boots out of some sort of metal, so she can block attacks. Of course you can also use spells to block incoming attack.

Noticed the turban? That’s going to look pretty neat once we apply physics to it.. Combined with ninja like moves, that’ll just be fantastic.

Q&A
Twilight Hylian: I’ve heard that it take a super computer to run Crysis, what exactly are the system requirements?
That totally depends on which settings you’re planning to run it at. We’re creating our mod with optimization in mind, so we hope to see people with older computers run this game at a decent framerate. Here at the minimum requirements.

CPU: Athlon 64 3000+/Intel Pentium 4 at 2.8ghz
Graphics: Nvidia 6600/X800GTO (Shader Model 2.0)
RAM: 768Mb Windows XP – 1Gb on Windows Vista
HDD: 6GB of free space
Optical Drive: DVD
Software: DX9.0c with Windows XP

Cheesweasel: Surely running on the Crysis Engine means that Mac and Linux users just won’t be able to run the game?
That is correct. However, people with the new Intel Macs running OS X Leopard can use “Apple Bootcamp” to run either Windows XP or Vista. The process is pretty straight forward, just do whatever Bootcamp tells you to do. I still use the beta to launch Crysis on my Macbook pro and it works perfectly.

As for the Linux users, if your PC is powerful enough to run Crysis and you’re willing to install Windows alongside Linux, just to play this mod then continue reading. You should create a new partition and install either Windows XP or Vista on it, make sure that you use a tutorial when doing this.

Also, you should be prepared for the worst. You never know if something might go wrong, so backup your personal files before starting this process. Do keep in mind that you can’t destroy your PC/Mac in any way when doing this, in case you’re wondering..

Formula1: Got any plans for an online mode?
No, absolutely not at this stage. We could look into the possibility of having a Four Sword-ish multiplayer styled mode though.

Darkgun: Music plays a key role in a game, so will you have classic music or will you produce your own?
Check next week’s weekly update, we might just give you an update on that.

Darkgun: Will the perspective of the game be in First or Third person?
Just as in every other Zelda game, depending on your selected item the game will switch in-between.

Zackiz: Will it work with the 360 controller?
Crysis supports gamepads, so yes it will.

Swzocker: Zelda and Crysis=?
Is made out of win. Also, try thinking outside the box for a second. We’re trying to use CryEngine2, not Crysis.

That’s it for the Q&A section, keep those questions coming!

Team Obsidian-Fire’s status update!

Applications
I was surprised to see this many applications after posting update #4. I’m still processing them all and talking to the rest of the team about who we’ll hire. Don’t worry, I have the intention of answering all of your emails. It’ll take some time, but I’ll get through it just fine.

Zeruda has joined your party!
We’re very excited to welcome a new member on our team. I’d like to introduce you to Zeruda, our new concept artist. Zeruda’s definitely got experience as a concept artist, seeing she worked for SNK Playmore.

She’s also the webmaster of multiple websites hosted on the Knights of Hyrule network. Recently she added a brand new website, Final Smash.org . It’s much like an international player database for Super Smash Bros. Brawl. You can look up players from all around the world that are registered on it. It’s definitely worth checking it out as it’s pretty straight forward and easy to use. –Have a look, it’s pretty sweet.

Still hiring, yup.
We’re still looking for dedicated people who’d like to help out on our mod. Especially good texture artists animators and character riggers. We’ve still got other vacancies you can check out here. So if you know someone or you’d happen to be interested in helping us out, just send me an email at thomasv-l@hotmail.com.

Teaser video announcement
Finally, I’m able to announce that our teaser video’s production has started. If you want to know when, well we’re aiming at releasing it on the 31^st of May, so I can include it in the weekly update. On that day you can expect to see a load of screenshots, renders and wallpapers. It’s definitely something that we, and hopefully all of you, are looking forward to.

That wraps it up for this week, I’ll see you on Obsidian-Fire.net.

-Arch
Project overview & Community managing