SALAMANDER ARMY
NazaSpongerockFerg

UPDATED WITH LATEST IMAGERY AND FLIM-FLAM
[let it be known that today was a great day, for it was the day ferg discovered the text formatting options]

Lament of the Darmonians in C Minor

The sky was blue and green, a perfect day on the planet Darmonius X. Suddently, there was a bright flash in the sky as an immense white ball appeared out of nowhere, seeming to hang in space. As the beings of Darmonius X watched in horror, the white glow slowly faded back to reveal a dark planet nearly filling the sky.

Within minutes, immense bolts of energy thousands of miles long began to arc between the two planets, as Darmonius began to rip itself apart. The dark planet continued to hang motionless in the sky, seemingly unaffected by the ravages of gravity that were quickly destroying Darmonius.

Few were able to make it to the evacuation ships amid the chaos of this sudden armageddon. As they watched in horror through their shuttle windows, their home continued its violent death. The famous Darmonian Spires crumbled and fell into rivers of magma as vast chasms tore open across the planet. Chunks of Darmonius larger than cities began to tear free and move towards the dark shape in the sky, which seemed to be devouring the remains of the once proud planet.

Mere hours later, the dark planet would vanish as quickly as it appeared, leaving only a loose cloud of debris floating through space, and a handful of planetless Darmonians.



Second shot concept:


Concept for the background elements:

Looking forward to the awesomesauce.

behold! thumbnails from Naza! There are many things going on in these thumbs... but I'm gonna hold off on the elaborate backstory filled with drama and intrigue until we choose the one to run with.

rough color concept, beginning proxy and shader work while the concept gets tightened up

Wow, these are great. The thumbs give a nice mood and composition to the scene and that color rough really pops. Can't wait to see this take shape in 3d.

Great comps and nice color. Little confusing though. Lookin' forward to mores

Great team name!

I'm still unsure whats going on in your concept but i'm looking forward to finding out!

second view thumbnail done, will post tightened up concepts later tonight. Also our bitchin logo that you are no doubt being intimidated by at this very moment (courtesy Spongerock). Hopefully have the first pass proxies and models up tomorrow.



We're gonna go with the upper right concept in this comp for the second beauty shot

This comment goes back to scope management... is it wise to do two beauty shots of an outdoor environment that do not incorporate the focal object? I'm guessing the tower of kick@ss is the focal point of the first shot... the second shot?

Also if you do something that is so open ended, you run the risk of not being able to frame the shot in an interesting way... wide open spaces with a lot of particles is also very expensive for a game environment... Unless you make it very flat and low res.

Could also run the risk of confusing the theme somewhat.

I really dig the thumbnails from naza.. the composition in them is much better than the composition you've chosen for your final beauty render.

Let's see some 3d though, for reals.

Generally a good idea/theme... interesting level of chaos going on as well.

I'm loving the sense of movement and mood here, looking forward to the kick ass that will surely follow

EDIT: Nice team logo too.

nfrrtycmplx: Thanks, yah we've been thinking about those points. The focal point of the second shot will be the ship(s) taking off and the launch platform. Hopefully we don't confuse the subject too much. We may also add some more busted up alien city architecture around on the planet surface as it gets destroyed by the lava. Probably going to be addressing the finer points of composition and layout in 3d, we've spent as much time concepting as we can, we really need to get rolling on the assets like... right now. Let us know what you think as we try and tighten up those points and make this thing a winner.

ben: thanks man, here's hopin we can do naza's awesome concept art justice in 3d.

here's some final concept action

Those concepts freakin' ROCK! yeahaa.)
good job guys.

friggin awesome...will be watchin

updated concept for first composition w/foreground spire thing. The platform in the second shot is on the backside of a tower, not visible in this one.

I think you've addressed a lot of the concerns that I had with the idea in these new paintings... Much clearer and easier to read.

updated tower design

hopefully by now you've started on the 3d? the designs aren't so different that you can't get started with blocking out the scene... doing some terrain/lighting tests and blocking in the structures in a loose format. once you get something like this that is so abstract in 3d... you'll be redesigning it again... and probably again. I suggest starting the modeling process and getting down to business.

Kick ass concept, it couldn't be more end-game'ish. I really like whats going on in the background.

wow so great.
please make ma a 1280x1024 screensaver!
wish you best luck.

thanks guys, passing out, will reply to comments in next post

It's very ambitious. I'm really looking forward to seeing this in 3d.

looks good ferg...kinda reminds me of starcraft zergs but lava kind

hot damn, that is awesome. wasn't really digging it till the tower was added. now it's epic sexy.

Much improved! Those foreground elements add immensely to the scene.

Hate to suggest this at this stage of the concept, but i think it might look cool if the horizon had the same curvature as the celestial body that's about to crash into the planet, as if the two were evenly sized. It'd look a little more spaced out and unearthly! Love the lightning bouncing between the two.

Thanks for the comments guys

crazyfingers: Ah but it shouldnt be just as curved, unless the camera was exactly half way between the two planets. Since the POV is from the surface of Darmonia, the horizon would be much flatter than that of the planet in the sky. Hooray for binocular vision!


Quick and dirty lava test... 4900 poly mesh, 512 textures. Super sloppy, just to test the workflow... should have a better shader test to show off soon. Real work start tonight. Spongerock is working his way through the proxy right now.