Beta Review & Fire Particles

I figured I 'd go ahead and post some pics showing where our game looks right now. This should make it easier for everyone to provide feedback on the game's look even if they haven't been able to play it recently.

The first pic is of our main menu:

 

The next pic is of the giant cloud that we're currently using for our ground plane. It's about 5 times larger than the original cloud model and its main purpose is to make it easier for the players to know where the ground is and to provide a reference point.

  

    The next pic is of our newly implemented flame ring particle effect that Kyle added yesterday. This should help to demonstrate how we plan on using our fire particles.

 

    As you can see, the structure of the flame consists of rings that are increased in scale as they move away from the origin. Kyle tells me that his particle system can support particles with multiple frames of animation. Going from there, we're hoping that our artists can use the base template that will be provided below and create a more stylized flame ring with multiple frames of animation (however many they choose), each frame in their own .png texture file with 64x64 dimensions. As you can see, the images support transparencies, so feel free to fill the interior of the rings with fire as well. We can experiment to see what looks good.


    Here's another pic showing how the flame ring looks when the dragon is moving sideways (in the case of this picture, to the right). The ring trails behind a little to create a more dynamic feel.

Here's the base template for the fire ring particle:

 Later today, I'll post some of the feedback we've been receiving from our playtest sessions, as well as some suggestions as to how to improve the visual consistency of the game as a whole. Hope you guys enjoyed the pics and like where the game is going so far. If you have an opinion regarding anything you see here, leave a comment.