To recap since it's been a while, we announced in July that we would be doing some design revisions on our main character based on issues that became apparent during the development process. It was great to see all the community comments voicing approval over the intended direction--even with the tiny preview we gave. Now, as I recently tweeted, Tuttle's overhaul is finally complete!

Only the most observant and devoted fans are likely to know that today is the 2-year anniversary of Tuttle's Legendary Travels going live on the web, but Blyka and I have been painfully aware and hoping to have something big for the occasion. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, we've just been too busy to manage anything grand. However, setting a more realistic goal I was able to bring together a new model in recent days.

Hopefully you all remember the winning entry for the Malt Island Sub-Gate entrance, designed by avallon1! Now you can check it out in the model gallery. It seemed a good choice for today, bringing forth another event winner and an early-game asset to boot. Unfortunately you can't really appreciate it in its full glory just yet, but it ought to look incredible in-game with the surrounding landscape in place and especially at night when the reaverbot eye glows and rotates to act as a lighthouse. We hope you all keep sticking with the project and look forward to seeing it then!

While Blyka has been busy grabbing what time he can to enhance TLT on the technical side, it's my job to keep things moving graphically with new models and whatnot. This post is more about the whatnot. Back when the project first started, we were pretty much newbies in the realm of 3D game creation. Some of the decisions we made at the time have needed revisiting, the latest of which is the execution of the graphical style.

Rather than keep you in suspense while I outline the ins and outs of the decision, I'm just going to say it up front.
Tuttle's Legendary Travels is shifting from hand-shaded textures to dynamic toon/cel shading!
Visually we should be able to stay pretty true to our established style with this change, so you don't have to worry about the game suddenly looking totally different. The development advantages are numerous though, so if you're interested in how this benefits the project, read on.

Sometimes you just have to say to heck with project priority and work on what grabs you, and that's what I did tonight. Hopefully you all recognize this reaverbot, one of the winners from Event #05, designed by score.

I don't expect I'll get around to modeling this big guy for a while, but I wanted to build a rough version for now so that I could rig it and get a feel for how it's unique body structure is going to move and look when animated. Once I had it put together I decided to go ahead and make a quick video to share. Hope you all enjoy!

Grabbing bits of time whenever I could this past week, I worked hard to see the Sirocco model to completion before 2013 came to an end. I succeeded, but I didn't have time to share it here on the site yesterday. Ah well, it gets the new year off on the right foot, I suppose.
 

As most of you following the project already know, Sirocco is one of the two lead air pirates Tuttle will be encountering throughout the course of the game, so having her model done is a momentous occasion! Head to the Model Gallery to see her in full 3D.