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Dev: pestibug
Position: character / level modeler and concept / texture artist
To all things cute and cuddly and innocent, don’t read this blog… (Ye be warned!)
WARNING:This 11th blog features a one time only viewable picture for your safety. Trying to hack this safety mechanism will result in: Your computer exploding, or, your brain exploding.
We’re going back in time, yes, hold on, it’s a rough ride.
Wow, the special effects must’ve cost a ton, just look at this crazy stuff!
We’re in some sort of tunnel, made out of swirling colorful nebulas. We see models flash by on our sides. Strange thing is, as we look at them we seem them being broken down before our very eyes!
Look, there’s the Oracle temple, all textured, but in an instant it changes into a un textured model, then raw polygons, one by one these disappear until nothing but wires and vertices is left. After that nothing is all that remains.
It happens so fast we think it’s a trick of the eyes but no!
A shardship comes into view and the same happens. From beautiful production ready model to nothingness. We’re actually seeing the creation of Spellborn in reverse.
We seem to be slowing down now, more and more models pass us, enemies, wildlife, all facing the same fate, oblivion.
Even slower now, we can make out sounds, yes, there seems to be a cacophony of voices in the background.
‘Deadlines… Crashed again why don’t we… What’s up with this pc?... Verts… Animation too short…’
Strange sentences that mean little too us. Models still pass us by, but they become less and less, blurry images seem to take their place instead. Wow, this is almost like that movie: The Time machine.
Eventually, as we slide to a stop one of the blurry images swallows us whole…
It seems we’re at the old SIL headquarters, and apparently we’re about to witnessing a discussion. This must be the place and time when it happened. Let’s sit back and see what happens when our eyes have settled down.
‘Pesti, dude. You’re pretty weird and stuff, we need you on this one.’ Some voice coming from a blurry shape.
‘Okay, what is it about? (And ‘m not weird, just different, that’s what my mom always said…)’ Says a second blurry shape which slowly solidifies into a human.
There’s the sound of paper being shoved around, the clicking of keyboards and murmur of more people in the background.
‘Well, you know. The thing is… We need something cute.’ Says the second figure. There’s a slight gasp as a response.
‘…Cute? Did I hear that right? Cute! How can I do cute! I can’t do that! That’s against my artistic ethics. Argh no, impossible! Give it to that Naj-Treb guy, he just finished making crates! Damn, I need a lie down now.’ We see Pesti about to turn around and stagger off, eyes twitching.
‘Hold on, hold on. Now you know we would never ask for you to do anything cute unless we have a good reason. And you might like this reason very much so hear me out.’
‘It better be good…’
‘It is. See what we want is something so cute, so cuddly, so amazingly innocent and helpless it’ll get on your nerves. Not right away of course! No, no, the first one will have people go about how cute and lovable the lil’ bugger is. The second and third time it gets less and the fourth time would actually be a good time for people to snap and just kill them because they get on their nerves.
We want people do dream about them. To wake up in the middle of the night, finding they’ve driven a broadsword 2 meters trough the wall in their sleep. Now, we have a concept done by Chris Watson, this will get you started.’
There is a long silence, and only the keenest of ears could possibly pick up the slight grinding sound of the incredibly complex brain of Pesti working out all this information.
Eyeing the concept, then the figure opposite of him, back to the concept again. Indeed a very cute little bugger is starting at him from the paper.
It’s cute enough to go in the game as is, but with just some extra magic… That little extra…
Sweat beads start to form on the brow of the other figure, he plays it cool, but you can see this is the moment he dreaded. It’s all or nothing, this is where gets decided if Spellborn will have cute critters or not. Oh the tension!
‘Soooo… What you are saying is I have to make something so horribly cute and innocent it kind of drives people into a killing spree?’
A gulp sounds as the man swallows, ‘Yes, that’s exactly what we figured. Who can make something so deviously and cleverly disguised to look cute, but in fact be a means to make people turn into raving blood lusting maniacs. Umm, within the game of course, so don’t get too wild with it.
We don’t want no real life drama’s.'
‘Oh, that’s a shame, but yes. Yes I can do this. Very clever, cute… Maniac tendencies… Oh yes. I will do it! This will be the crown of my work! Not the Oracle temple, not the Shardship or even the shard exteriors, but this!’
Well, now we can wait for what happens, or just fast forward a day and see what the result is. Our younger readers might better not read on (certainly not without parental guidance anyways).
‘And? Did you do it Pesti? Do we have something cute for the game?’
Turning on his ominous creaking desk chair (well, we never had oil in the office.) Pesti beams with pride. Eyes slightly rolling in their sockets.
‘Yes, yes I did! And how smooth it went. At first I thought it was too much for me. It was all fluffy yes, it was all cute, yes that too. But not what I envisioned it to be.
But eventually it came to me. And behold the fruits of my labor! The child my mind has spawned!’
‘Oh my God… Pesti, I sometimes wonder where you came from. And I’m not talking about a country but what planet dude. This is… Amazing. Oh sweet merciful… This is, oh yes, this is exactly what we wanted. I think I already feel a slight urge to kick it but I kinda feel bad about it.’
A laugh coarse and smoky sounds triumphantly’ ‘Yes! Precisely the reaction I wanted to achieve!’
‘Pesti, this is amazing. Okay, okay this is what we’ll do. We’ll show this in the internal mail to everyone. Then after that we back up the file a couple of times, put it on the separate server, have the backup tapes send off to various countries and have ‘em encrypted, locked in a safe, in a container and sunk to the bottom of seas and lakes or buried.
We’ll show this only once to people, the mail will have to autodestruct. Because we can’t have people looking at it more then once and then deciding they better delete the mother file to kill the root of this evil cuteness!’
We fast forward, leaving Pesti to whatever other things only his amazingly strange mind can conceive and move closer to today. Actually we’re just a few weeks from today where we meet a mind that can equal Pesti’s in its own unique way. Now the more faithful followers might think Naj-Treb is about to enter the picture, but no.
We see Freeze, looking at the model. ‘Hmmm, there’s no real name for this lil’ cute guy. That won’t do. No won’t do at all. Lets see..’
A long silence follows where we can see him mouth the names as they pass by before his eyes. Then he smiles… I don’t know if we like that smile, but it is there, and unsettling or not, we will have to take it as it is. ‘Hoppies’ he says and renames the file…
Behold, Pesti’s horrible fruits of his labor! Insanity in fluffy form.
(Editorial note from Pesti. So, I screwed it up, I swear I came up with the idea, but alas I did not. Matter of fact Chris Watson did the concept and in fact it was a really, really good concept and nothing had to be changed or added. But, by the time this was figured out the whole blog was already written and done with. Thus, conception credit goes to Mr. Watson! *hugs Watson*)
Music: Sneaker pimps, Prodigy, Einsturzende Neubauten |
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