   I2B-RPG Team needs Art Work. Ideal for portfolio exposure
Into The BlackGreetings, we are currently in need of artists to join our progressing game project. This is a great opportunity to increase the exposure of your talent for our website visitors who often review our art gallery. For Artists who remain for a good while in the project, we have arranged a scheme to further increase your exposure for being helpful and enthusiastic.   C++ object oriented programmers are also required to continue with   work on graphics code within our engine. The tasks   are not huge in scale but are a bit advanced for the average programmer; so   good experience of design patterns will come handy. You can read some more about   the project below; and there is always room for other programmers and artists   in our team.  Please visit our website at: www.i2black.comThere you will find downloads, documents, a blog, status reports, a gallery and more interesting information.Team:  I2B  Team   (Consists of ET-Games; the name of the group who started the project & Thunder-Power  LTD; a group of proffesional programmers who teamed up to run the project)Purpose of the game.Take command as Captain of your own ship in one of four unique human factions  as part of the intriguing galaxy within Into The Black (I2B). Each faction  has their complete story to explore. Rise up from the lower ranks, increasing  experience and wealth as you encounter varied and compelling challenges. Explore  the limits of your skill against adversaries ranging from ferocious to bizarre  to diabolical. Choose your ship, your crew, configure your weapons and equipment,  and launch into your adventure. Make money, preserve peace, impress your friends,  and explore the depths of space in the spacecraft that you've customized to  perfection.You make the decisions, so make the right ones. What kind of Captain will  command your ship? Select your Captain's personality to suit your style. Crew  members each bring their own unique contribution to their stations as well.  Find the right ship and modify it with enhanced equipment and weapons. Harness  new technologies to equip or sell. Set your course and see what the next system  holds. This is no mindless shooter. Save the Galaxy your way. Take Command.HistoryThe StoryThe year is 2104 - Fifty years after most of humanity has fled Earth after  the sudden and withering attack of the Black Ship and its forces seeking to  overthrow the UN. Many groups have been launched into the galactic wilderness  seeking security and distance from the early anarchic groups. The haphazard  nature of mass wormhole travel from Earth has scattered many thousands of individuals  into clusters around the Galaxy. Factions are established in galactic regions  for the purpose of protection, order and preservation of reasonable living  conditions. The UN changes and expands its jurisdiction beyond earth, but seeks to restore  it. Three other factions also stand out as having great authority and power;  The Galactic Task Force who fight against rebellion and terror. The Nebeucus  Space Police, formed to restore order in the notorious crime filled region  of Nebeucus. Also, the New Order who seek to expand, explore and control new  regions. The opposing factions are large in number, rebellion and crime is  on the increase. The big four have much work to do, new tactics need to be  formed, space crews trained, spacecraft built, technology acquired and alliances  established to help improve the worlds. Consequently, the opposing factions  are also planning and are hard at work...The ProjectThe Into The Black project, code named ‘Spacecraft' has been under  way for over two years; from just a few paragraphs of game design and a few  lines of code; to a huge game plan and collaborative team project with a fictional  series and tens of thousands of lines of code. The joining of Thunder-Power  Software LTD and ETGames has led to progressive online development for the  game and we look forward to its completion as much as the players will. Thunder-Power  has the software design and development experience to take the game to all  necessary levels; ETG aim to design and create a enjoyable and challenging  game using talented volunteers and special creative tools.Game DocumentDownload Pending OneInformationInto The Black is designed to bring favourable elements seen in modern online  role playing games and classical space flight games into one viable Indie-Game. Game ExperienceInto The Black challenges the thinking and spaceflight control skills of players  using Role Playing structure, based on a series of stories. Play as a captain  of a space crew in one of four factions. Hire and train special crew member's  onboard ship. Acquire technology to enhance your equipment and weaponry. Customize  your ship to your needs and obtain required materials and resources to enhance  it. Enter solo or multiplayer battle scenarios where every skill point, device,  hit point and crew member counts.   Game EngineInto The Black will run on a sprite based engine, using 3D rendered scenery  along with hand drawn characters. Most of the game takes place on a parallax  layered top view play area.CharactersEstablish an online character profile that represents you within the game  world and an online lobby. Choose interesting personality traits ideal for  your playing style. Improve your characters skills, experience and qualifications  to help rise up in ranks. Outplay your friends or team up with them to challenge  the AI.CombatI2B will contain two ways of attacking; automatic and manual. This will give  players more options in combat compared to RPGs and MMORPGs that only feature  automatic  click and fire. With cheaper manual fire weapons, the players  must manoeuvre and aim towards a target themselves, allowing players to use  skill as well as strategy. Expensive automatic weapons are vital for long range  attacks, forcing the players to earn resources well and to choose their weapons  wisely.Unit skills such as attack, defense and range play a vital part in your battles;  and are dependant on how well you tweak your character, the crew and the spacecraft.  Keep your crew motivated to avoid poor performance, by winning more battles  and developing desirable traits in the captain. Choose between a large array  of weapons, force fields and devices based on your technology to aid your advancement  in the game.SettingThe game is set in the 22nd century, starting from the year 2104. The pseudo-futuristic  sci-fi environment contains galaxies and regions filled with conflicts, organized  crime, special forces, creatures, security bases, space stations, planets,  meteors, minerals, faction head quarters and mother ships.Music and SoundOur general music features cyberpunk or futuristic dance. Designated music  will use a larger range of genres that best suite each scene (from exciting  to chilling) & faction (from minor cyber-gangs to major regional nations)  that they are created for. Our sound will be in stereo format using OGG compressed  music & sound files.TechnologyOur engine is built with C++ and the .Net Framework. The game will operate  on the Windows Platform using PNG graphic files, OGG sound files and AVI movie  files.Target:   There are a large number of targets in this project that are geared towards  completing and promoting the game, enhancing the engine, developing new features  and planning post-development tasks; such as developing a success marketing  strategy. Compensation:This is a voluntary project offering no pay; but we may at times earn profit from releases and merchandise that are shared according to our arrangements. This is excellent for people who want to gain reasonable working experience, additional learning and exposure withour websites and finished product. Talent needed:The support currently needed in the team includes C++ Programming, 3D Modelling,  Bitmap Texture Production, Web Design, UI Design, Map Design, Character Art  & UVMapping. Even if you only have 3 hours spare each  week for this project, there are many tasks here for you.  Curently no music composing or sound engineering is required. C++ Programming Tasks:    The project currently requires general programming, tools programming, game   programming, network programming and engine & graphics programming; consisting  of 'large' and 'small' tasks. General Programming Requirements:There are a large number of requirements in the current stage of general programming,  consisting mostly of coding interface controls like edit boxes and the creation  of general actions (functions) to assist the games creation. An example of  a general programming task would be to produce an action that removes an entity  (object) from the scene (program/game environment); another task would involve  coding the caret (character insertion mark) within an edit box.Urgent areas that need general code include glyphs (images & controls)  & object actions (like moving, loading, unloading, hiding and showing entities,  glyphs and scenes).Tools Programming Requirements: There are a number of tools we need developed to produce the game. Small tools that require work include a battle calculator that simple simulates  attacks using the battle forumula for me and the level designers to use to  determine who is likely to win battles out of two units. A Spacecraft editor  is needed for artists to simple test how bitmap ships will look with various  attachments such as weapons and wing upgrades mounted on them (in layers of  bitmaps). More tools are required than these at a later time (such as a semi-transparent  PNG file saver DLL for my map builder, sprite previewer for the animators etc).  Tools I that have been started include the Sprite & Map Editor.Game Programming Requirements: This area of code is currently being started as most of its requirments start  in future stages, such as the games mechanics and AI. However, minor tasks  that need attention now include the detection of layer clicks (the clicking  of entities in the maps parallax layered content). Network Programming Requirements:This is to be  a multiplayer game, to be run on a users PC as a server, who  manually or automatically invites other players into his game map. This area  of work has yet to be fully planned and any assistance with designing and planning  the network features would be most helpful. Those who would like to contrinute  network code can also volunteer to help plan this aspect with myself (game  designer) and the coders.Engine & Graphics Programming Requirements:The engine & graphics programming requirements require Open GL and Direct  X programming experience. Current tasks that need attention include the refinement  of the graphics API; improving its error handling, fully implementing Direct  X support for alternative game settings for people who have trouble with our  Open GL acceleration and improving the performance of the engine which has  minor issues with sprite smoothness as you might spot out on the engine demo.There are a number of new ideas for features to be added to the engine all  the time, so programmers who make themselves available for engine programming  can expect new tasks to come in frequently.Apply For Programming3D Modelling Tasks : 3D models are required to be rendered to a bitmap for the game  sprites (animated game entities) or for use with textures and animation. We  require modellers to be able to come up with their own 3D interpetation of  a text description of an object, since we are very short of artists, no one  will sketch reference art for you at present. To join you can spend as little  as 3 hours with the project each week doing something simple like making weapon  projectiles and meteors; or many more hours doing more interesting stuff to  add to your portfolio like spacecraft and detailed scenery. It doesn't really  matter whether you use 3D Studio Max or Milkshape 3D, as long as they meet  the given specification and can be converted to OBJ files for backup and enhancementin other programs.Basic  Modelling Requirements:Prefabs need to be created including girders, pipe work, wires, metal surfaces,  vents, satellite dishes, guns, turrents, packages, devices, symbols, interface  elements, particle elements for particle effects, planets, meteors, rocks,  mountains, railings, pathways, cameras, space structures and more. These are  small models on their own but on a whole they are all necessary for so  many different in-game purposes.Whether you want to contribute all or just one of these models in the next  week, still volunteer.Creative Modelling Requirements: Skilled modellers with more than the usual spare time for this project can  take the lead role in designing and modelling the game entities. Including  the spacecraft, weapons, mountable devices and detailed scenery. When I mention  creative modelling, this requires you to come up with your own ideas. We have  a few people involved with designing the game; but not enough man power to  design the models.You can volunteer to work on map scenery; mostly consisting of outspace ship  stations and power stations, you will work closely with the lead artist discussing  how certain spacebases and scenery will look in a meeting. Then the artist  can produce a rough sketch for you to model or you would come up with your  own interpretation of the discussed requirement.Volunteers who wish to focus on game entities like spacecraft and devices  would also have a discussion with  the lead artist prior to designing  the required entitity based on the specification given.Texture Modelling Requirements: We often use 3D models to render textures, if you are capable of producing   metal  and plastic surfaces for circuitry, space bases, spacecraft, interface  elements and gadgets; there is a great need for a library of textures for   many uses. We will need you to render an arial/side view of your surface with  minimal shadows for an artist to manipulate into a seamless texture (if neccessary)If you are not very good with painting or producing shaders for your textures  then you can just produce bumpmaps  (black and white surface) that someone  else can paint or shade digitally. A supply of the image and its model file  is required.Animation Requirements:Animation is a time consuming job in this project and requires a large amount  of spare time. Animation jobs includes particle effects for explosions, laser  beams, energy clouds etc. Other jobs  include the rotation of  radar satellites, camera rotations, weapon sequences, indicators, interface  elements and more. These sequences will need to be exported to individual PNG  frames (or TGA/TIFF/PSD if PNG export is not available) Apply For 3D modelling Art Tasks :   We require artists to produce a few or large quantity of textures for use with    our 3D models, characters based on their specifications, designs for space    bases and structures for use in level design and interface elements such    as symbols and message screens. Artists who prefer to work on paper can freely    volunteer for mostly concept art, digital artists can do concept art but    there is a need in this area of experiese for texture art and character portraitpainting.   Producer:Chris Tate  Lead Software Architect:Mokhtar M. Khorshid  Lead Artist:Vangelis Drosos  Artists:Oskari Mäkimattila  Chris Tate  Programmers:Michael Saad  Jonas Kaulakis  John Alway  Jason Rogers  Khaled Hafez  Dustin Watson  John Nabil  Game Designers & Writers:Eli Owens  Chris Tate  Sound Engineer & Composer:Dan Reynolds  Modellers:Mahmoud Kasdi  Eli Owens  Chris Tate  Vangelis Drosos  Past Contributors:Chris Gilbert (Consultant)  Ben L (Programmer)  Hamsta (Artist)  Mohamed Baki (Artist)  Henrique Amaral (Programmer)  Tommy Bergquist (Programmer)Website:www.i2black.comFeedback:Constructive[Edited by - DrSizzla on December 25, 2008 6:57:38 PM]
  Bump   ;  This looks EXCELLENT!Keep up the great work!Nathan;  Thanks   ;  Did this game used to be called Spacecrafts?  I remember applying for the music job like 2 years ago, but for some reason I never followed up.  In hindsight I greatly regret it, this looks awesome.   ;  Please note we recently experienced problems with the programming application form; please resend or email me if you applied within the past week.Arglebargle: Yeah this is Spacecraft; it was renamed to fit the story more, after a 3 hour debate on MSN.   ;  We don't have much of an art team yet, but there are plenty of programmers now; although there is room for a network programmer and any programmers wanting to help out with tools and special effects. For more details on programming send an enquiry through: http://i2b.etgames.org/recruitment/Forms/enquiry/enquiry.htm or email me (c__d__t@hotmail.com)   