Dungeon Master Forum

Aside from a little story outlining, Dungeon Shock hasn't seen any progress in the last several weeks for a variety of reasons (ranging from school to stress to depression to ADD to just plain, wholesome, good ol' fashioned laziness). But last night I had an inspiring dream, or at least I think it was a dream. To be honest, I don't know where the idea came from. I just know I woke up with this vision, and I had to share it with DM fans. Hopefully some of you were also LEGO fans at some point in your lives (I still am) so you'll appreciate it as much as I do.

LEGO Master concept (55 KB) — LDraw/MLCAD + 3ds max/mr3.4

I am 80 percent ready to pursue this once finals are out of the way. The real challenge is figuring out how to imitate most of the monsters using LEGO parts.

EDIT: Scratch that. I am 99.9 percent ready.

Nooooooooo!!! I'm getting a 'problem loading page' return, and I need to see this.

LEGO DM? You betcha!

I'm 31 years old, and if I still had any LEGO I'd be playing with it, shamelessly. Everyone loves LEGO

Yeah, I bought a lego Scout Walker for no good reaso na few years back

And yeah, this page isn't loading

Not loading for me either .

We have to wait for America to wake up now. Cursed timezones

Problem solved. Had to register the new IP. Sorry about that. Normally I check it every few weeks out of habit; this time I simply forgot because it hadn't changed in so long (and it's not supposed to change at all, but that's how ISP's work these days).

Oh man, that's absolutely ace

Rofl cool .

dementially great!

Here's an updated concept render to better capture the atmosphere I'm hoping to achieve (plus it also forced me to build some corridors, which gives me a head start).

LEGO Master concept 2 (45 KB) — perspective correct!

The end result wouldn't have all these nice object reflections and shadows and whatnot — though I'd keep most of the ambient ones — but I think the biggest boon of using LEGO is the wide variety of accessories your party can equip. Seriously, have you seen all the weapons and armor they've made? Anyway, that's what really inspired me.

I haven't found a good torch substitute yet — the one in this picture is a light saber hilt — and the LEGO fire part is way too big to mount on a wall sconce (which is why I used atmospheric flame; I like it better anyway, though the fire in this picture it isn't nearly bright enough). I may have to model my own "unofficial torch" from scratch.

Needless to say, Dungeon Shock has been put on hiatus. I should be able to come back to it once the engine is complete and I'm all LEGO'd out. My first project will be to duplicate several floors of the DM dungeon so I can get the mechanics in place. Then I'll try something original.

In the distant future, it should be possible to do a true 3-D version, but I'm not even putting that on my to-do list at this point. One mind-racking project at a time.

Lol, so cute! Who's a cute lil skeleton - that's right, you are! Izziwizzzi wizzi OW! Bad skeleton

Umm, or in other words that looks really cool! I think the torches look good too. INteresting to see if you have an idea for the dragon..

Man, now this would be awesome -- combining my two most favourite games ever.

Well, there is a LEGO dragon, but it hasn't been completely modeled yet. I don't know why, but the existing certified dragon parts don't even show up in the online parts tracker. I'll have to wing it. Fortunately, the area I'm using for each cell is at least 8x8 and possibly more, so there'll be plenty of room to work with. I'll just have to make the ceilings higher.

After seven months of silence, I've begun planning workflow and asset management . . . heavy emphasis on the word "begun." Most of the work I've ever done has been proof-of-concept. It'll be an interesting challenge finally applying this experience to practice! Anyway, here are a couple character renders I did to inspire myself (and perhaps garner some more interest):

Armor comparison (42 KB)

Death knight concept (30 KB)

Again, these were built using MLCAD and the library of prefab LDraw parts — I didn't model any parts myself — converted with 3DWin and Deep Exploration, and assembled/rendered in 3ds max, using mental ray 3.4 and a post effect for bloom (took some tweaking). The materials are my work, part of a photographic LEGO plastics library I've gradually been putting together. And yes, this is what I intend the game to look like.

I'm also in the process of laying down some game mechanics, and I'm thinking this may turn out to be less of a DM clone and more of a pure adventure game, but with a smaller DM-style viewport. It's hard to say anything for sure at this point. I want to keep the project as simple as possible and focus on graphics for the time being.

Oh man, this could be really fun! I'm drooling at the prospect!

Oh, those graphics look really cute!
I love it

Is it going to be pre-rendered (that is, essentially 2D) or are you going to actually use the models in the game itself and go for full 3D?

It'll all be pre-rendered. Here are a couple more samples:

Skeletal warrior and wizard (45 KB)

Pirate captain and archer (47 KB)

I'll work on a different lighting/background setup so it's more dungeon-esque. White is great for showing off the models but won't suit the theme. I intend to use shots like these for inventory pictures.

Rofl I love the peg leg on the pirate .

This is VERY cool, Tom.

Please continue along the -savouring hallucinogenic dungeon fungi- route

This does look really cool.

Nice job.

Would they have plastic walking sounds when moving?

Thanks. Sound effects will consist of whatever I have available. I'm not too worried about that right now. What I'm trying to figure out his how to render separate parts in such a way that I can mix and match without the colors and shadows looking wrong. The lighting bleeds, see, which adds extra realism. Anyway, I'm thinking I may have to tone it down a bit to maintain sanity. But it was always the concept that inspired me, not the graphics. I was hoping I might capture the best of both worlds. We'll see.

Got bored with 3-D programming — actually, programming support classes — so I messed around with LEGO DM a bit more. I think I finally have a good spacing for the party layout. I put together a corridor tile with some 'indicator' plates on the ground for where characters and items will go. Here's a head-on view:

Party time (70 KB)

This basically gives each character a 6x6 working area, which should be just enough to fit the longer weapons (you can see I tested with a spear, but there are bigger polearms), and another 12x4 area where you can drop items on the ground in front of you.

Please note that the perspective in this shot isn't 'DM-accurate' because I optimized the camera position for viewing the party, rather than looking out from the party.

You can also see I found a solid technique for creating seams between bricks. My former technique was to scale each part around its own pivot. The problem with that was, each part would be a different size. The difference was subtle but often noticeable. Recently I stumbled upon the Push modifier, which uniformly pushes geometry inward/outward without (much) distortion. Feed it a negative value and you get seams.

I also started working on an inventory design. Here's my first draft:

Inventory Panel (xx KB)

Last, I wanna thank you guys for your positive feedback. It gives me incentive to push forward.

Wooo hooo, he he! This is looking great, and a good spin on a DM clone. Have you built all the character and item models yourself? They are spot on replicas! Awesome!

Woo that's really cool...I'm interested to see what Lego rats and stuff look like .

Holy Crap those pictures are cool! Man, if I was rich I would buy every set of Lego ever released! Do you buy each piece of Lego you want to have in the game?

I'd sort of assumed he was drawing them himself in some kind of 3D arty program...

You're half right.

This weekend is Rhapsody in Green, which is an annual summer festival where I live, so I'll probably not get any work done . . . as if I ever really get any work done. I am looking forward to doing some animations, especially death scenes.