Level Design

Screenshot extravaganza!

There is a small group that has had access to development builds of Ground Branch for a while now. About a month ago we gave them permission to post screenshots and videos from the build(s) in the forum. Unfortunately, if you don’t frequent the forums then you may have missed them. So we thought we would gather some of the best ones and make them official. Special thanks go out to those that are posting media, but specifically to forum members Psychomorph and DetCord for the images shown here.

Some of this will be available in the Tech Preview, but all of it, and more, is in the Operator Edition dev builds. Everything is still on track and we are working hard to get the last few bits fixed up in the build as well as some logistical items for launching this thing sorted out. Enjoy!

A few shots of a player in various postures and environments.

Weapon and environment effects that actually affect gameplay. Flashbangs will leave a lingering smoke in the room that may make visibility difficult. Environment fog and smoke effects conceal players.

Some environment shots

Rain and lightning. Its subtle, but notice how the rain drops are dark and pick up glints of light reflecting form them…..

Various night time shots. Lighting and environment will play a big role in Ground Branch.

Welcome to 2015

Characters, Customization, Gameplay, Level Design, Programming, Website

If you are still with us, and why wouldn’t you be…. welcome to 2015 with BlackFoot Studios! We have a feeling its going to be a really great year around here so we hope you keep hanging on and enjoy the ride. It’s going to start gaining some speed here soon. 😉

John starting working on the official Ground Branch Steam store page today! That is actually a pretty important milestone as it signals the start of moving into more of a public phase for Ground Branch. On that note, we are looking for some professional (either actual experience or work quality) to help out on the graphics side of things for the page. It’s going to be important to start off with a professional appearance so I’d like to do it right. If you think you would be able to help for reduced rates or even barter a bit, let us know as soon as you can.

We have also got around to setting up a public bug tracker so people can help out by submitting bugs once the demos are available. That is getting tested out by a private group as I type this.

On the game side of things Kris has been busting ass with getting things stable and features more completely implemented. He has also got the first pass of character and weapon configurations in and working. This includes the in game UI and saving/loading out actual constructed configs.

On the art side the existing training maps have received one more pass for visuals and some more detailing work. John has also started working on the main demo map that will be used to show off various gameplay features to get people interested in the upcoming Early Access. Sort of a ‘try before you buy’ for the Early Access. It’s a reworked version of the warehouse map that was shown in the UE3 screenshots and videos. We will use this map as a “proving ground” for gameplay types and features throughout development.

So we hope everyone had a great holiday and safe New Year. It’s time to get back to work!

John & Kris

Somethings coming and here is a preview

Level Design

So we are getting pretty close to releasing something public….. No really!

We plan to release a sort of tech demo in the next few weeks to serve a couple of purposes. First is to allow us to figure out the “packaging” process for a public release and to make sure we can deliver a public build that works. UE4 is a lot different than UE3 in many ways so there is a lot of learning on our part still. Secondly is to get an idea of performance characteristics with various performance settings and to see how an area with specific design characteristics works on various machines.

To be clear, this is not Ground Branch the game. There is no “game” in this release. It is a small purpose built area that shows off the density of map design, foliage density, lighting setups and various effects. You can walk around and shoot a weapon, but there is no purpose or “mission”.

Here is a screen from the editor of part of the area:

We really want to have solid and playable releases for Ground Branch. This is the first step in getting there and an actual playable build….. and that isn’t to far away. 🙂

Team Rooms

Customization, Gameplay, Level Design

I know we seem to be going slow (We are 🙂 ), but I thought I’d show something I’ve been working on lately….. Ground Branch will use the concept of a ‘Team Room’ as a place to start the game from. It is here where you will customize your gear, set up missions, receive and go over intel as well as hang out with teammates before, during and after MP and co-op missions. There will also be oppurtunities to customize your Team Room as well.

One part of your Team Room is the Operations Room that is shown here. This is where the Intel/Mission magic happens and every one of these monitors/screens will be interactive for various purposes. This is a clean unaltered screen grab from the editor and I’m sure you can get an idea of what some things do just by looking around. 😉

We are using an HTML/JavaScript based UI system for the interactive screens so there are some really unique possibilities we are exploring.

We know the pace is slow… much slower than we would like, but we are still here and still committed to Ground Branch!

-John

Rain down on me

Gameplay, Level Design, Programming

While we were sorting out some programming/middleware issues I thought I’d start working out some of the weather systems for Ground Branch. We are starting off with rain but will will also be adding in snow as well.

Of course, it goes without saying, but this is all early work that will definitely get better as we go. The most exciting thing to me is everything in our game effects gameplay. It might be subtle at times, but nothing is in there just for “fluff”. Playing in a heavy rain map will alter your strategy from a bright sunny day version. Its just not for show.

At the moment this is all settings inside the map, but I would like to transition it to more of a realtime solution. We’ll see how that goes……..

We know development can be slow, but hang in there. It will all be worth it eventually. 🙂

-John

Screenshot extravaganza!

Welcome to 2015

Somethings coming and here is a preview

Team Rooms

Rain down on me

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