DISCLAIMER: All Scrapmageddon images are W.I.P. and heavily subject to change, NOT representative of the final product.

Consider this devlog a sort of less successful sequel to Tedious Topology. In this post, I'll be going over my process for modeling and texturing the POIs you will find in Scrapmageddon. It's been an arduous journey to say the least.

Introducing Scrapmageddon's first POI, Benny's Burgers:

This is definitely something that will need to be iterated upon. I'm not quite happy with how it looks and I can't figure out exactly why. I think for my next attempt I'm going to try adding some more detail to the model itself and rely less on the textures. I expected buildings to be much easier to model than organic objects, but it turns out it's quite the opposite in my experience. I believe some of my shortcomings are due to a lack of a good reference. With an organic model it's easy to put your reference images in, box it out, add the details, and sculpt the rest. But with a static cubic object with several rooms, it's a little less simple, and I think I'm going to need to use a bit more brainpower to not only create a better final result, but also work more efficiently, as this whole thing has taken far too long, even with the generous constraints I've given myself.

The model itself was pretty straightforward, put a couple cubes together and cut some shapes out and most of the work was finished. But when it was all finished I realized it was time to texture. I knew substance paint probably was not going to work great for this kind of model but I tried it anyways and I think the textures don't look terrible, but the whole thing looks a little too cube-y and uninteresting. At least now I have two points to work on when I create future models; add more details when modeling, and improve my texturing workflow.

Aside from all that, I've been blocking out the map layout and I think it's looking turning out alright so far.

The demo will be played in a much smaller area of the overall map, but you'll have plenty of places to explore and find any resources you'll need. I've been trying to think of more ways to make exploration more interesting, with daytime patrols being one obstacle you'll face. Additionally, some areas will require a tool or other item to access, giving incentive for you to return to those areas once you've made more progress. Generally speaking, the further you get from the center of the map (your base) the more dangerous the environment will be. This means not only stronger patrols, but also more hazards. Not to mention going all the way to the edge of the map means getting back home will take more time.

Resources will respawn after several days, so that you don't run out of what you need (some items can only be obtained from exploring POIs, especially some cooking resources), but also you aren't revisiting the same place every day to get the same thing over and over. POIs will have resources that make sense, for an example, a computer store would have electronic components, while a hardware store would have wood.

POIs in Scrapmageddon will be fairly spread out, with some small groups scattered here and there. So if you want to visit several places in one day, and get back to your base before hell lets loose, then you'll need to kick it into high gear. Luckily, I do plan on adding some equipment to make traversing the map a bit easier. To be clear, I do NOT plan on adding drivable vehicles at this point as that would be a huge headache for many different reasons, although it could possibly be something I look into post-release. Don't forget that you can create meals before you set out to explore, giving yourself some stat boosts.

It's been a tiring past couple of weeks and the devlogs have been getting less "short and sweet" and more "shorter and not-very-sweet" so in an effort to continue delivering meaningful content, I may either delay the next devlog, or try to find something new to write about. Either way, I'll be using this next week to improve my workflow and hopefully start cranking some of these models out at a better pace. Anyways, I've got to go, I think the alliteration police are after me.

Thanks for reading, see you all in the next one

- BlueJay