We did it! Thanks #UnrealEngine with the awesome Epic Games Awards..

Epic Games Awards $75,000 in Unreal Dev Grants. https://t.co/iNk3IpWgw0 #UE4 pic.twitter.com/6t0W4ok97s

— Unreal Engine (@UnrealEngine) July 12, 2016

Here is the current EVERSPACE Kickstarter update written by our CEO Michael...

cheers Malte

Update #21 

Apr 6 2016

EGX Rezzed | Alpha Deployment | End of Crowdfunding | New Game Content | First VR Support

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 45 likes

Greetings Pilots,

Thanks to our friends from ID@Xbox we have the chance to demo the latest version of EVERSPACE on PC and X1 in public at a major games event for the first time ever. We will be at the ID@Xbox area on the Xbox booth at EGX Rezzed in London from Thursday, April 7 until Saturday, April 9. We are looking forward to meet some of you guys face-to-face and will handover the gamepad or mouse and keyboard so you enter the cockpit yourself!

Alpha Version Distribution Through Steam

As the deployment of the Alpha version is getting closer, we would like to share some more info with you. At the end of this month we will send out emails to all Alpha backers with a personalized key to download the Alpha version via Steam. While we understand that some of you guys may prefer to get the Alpha via GOG, we decided to go with Steam as it is the best solution for us from a technical point of view. Also, as all eligible Alpha backers have paid a premium price we want to make sure the Alpha version does not get shared like crazy. We know it’s gonna happen sooner or later, but still. Nothing has changed about the release of the final version of EVERSPACE through Steam and GOG, though.

Last Chance to get Alpha or Beta Access

After careful consideration we decided to cease the crowdfunding when the Alpha version will ship at the end of April. Steam doesn’t allow us to sell any copies whatsoever once we use their system to distribute game copies (which makes perfect sense from a platform owner point of view). On the other hand, we refrain from selling Alpha versions through Steam as this would mean going through Early Access officially whereas the game is far from ready for that. Furthermore, it would dilute the value of every Alpha and Beta access you guys got through Kickstarter or our website and of course we continue to appreciate your early commitment very much.

New Environment FX In The Alpha

Now, with the extra month that we decided to give ourselves we will not only improve the balancing and the gamepad controls. We will also have some new content and features in the Alpha. For instance, there will be dense fog in some areas which can dramatically decrease your visibility, having a huge impact on the gameplay. This makes your upgradeable onboard sensors even more precious. #

Onboard sensors provide much needed intel when visibility is poor.

Speaking of sensors, in EVERSPACE there are a number of ship components that can take damage all the way to complete malfunction. You can see the state of each system in your HUD but we added some pretty visual FX, too as you can see in the screenshots below.

Too bad if your sensors got hit when the tough gets going.

More Boom, Beams and Bullets

We stocked up your weapon arsenal for the Alpha and now have 16 primary weapons based on 8 different classes, so two weapons per class. These classes are: Pulse laser, beam laser, Gatling gun, fusion blaster, flak cannon, shock laser, and thermo gun. You will find these weapons in loot crates, enemy remains or in the form of blueprints.

Lots of crates to loot. It may come at a price, though.

Talking about blueprints: You can use special ones to mod your weapons, thus altering energy consumption, damage, range or other stats. We will add more and even fancier mods in the future.

An upgraded beam laser at work.

Clever And Busy Minions

In terms of further gameplay content we are currently working on implementing two new types of drones. Outlaw facilities will be protected by clever combat drones. They feature two states: In scan mode they are hard to spot as they are small in size with little radar signature but they will have their evil long-range eyes on you. Once having discovered you, they will go into attack mode and cover you in a fierce bullet storm with their six-barrel Gatling gun. Best advice: don’t get spotted and take them out as fast as possible!

Outlaw drone concept art.

Unlike the Outlaw model, the Terran mining drones don’t have any aggressive behavior. They are the hardworking backbone of the lucrative mining business in EVERSPACE. Due to scattered and vast asteroid fields it needs millions of those bustling minions to bring precious resources to the mining facilities where ore and other mineral deposits are being processed. The mining drones may seem to be easy prey, but be careful. They communicate amongst each other. It is just a short-ranged signal but things can turn nasty quickly. If the signal of being attacked trickles down to the defense system of the mining facility you might find yourself dealing with turrets launching homing missiles at you.

Mining drone concept art.

Advanced Collision Physics

Often in space games there is lots of space, literally. While this is true in reality, for EVERSPACE we decided to put things closer together to create more tension and generally reduce the time to get from one point of interest to another. We take this even further as you can fly through large mining facilities or even inside of hollow asteroids where precious loot can be found.

Exploring a spacious mining facility between humongous ice asteroids.

To give this a meaningful reward/risk mechanic the collision physics in EVERSPACE will give you proper feedback if and how much damage your ship takes when colliding with obstacles of different sizes like space junk, asteroids, other ships all the way to facilities and larger celestial objects.

When sparks fly you got too close!

Basic VR Support For Oculus Rift

Lastly, we managed to get some basic VR support for the Oculus Rift into the Alpha version. We don’t have any HUD implemented in VR, yet and things are still a bit rough around the edges. For a first VR trip in EVERSPACE we think it’s pretty cool, though. Find out for yourself if you’ve got a Rift (we will provide more details about the required software specs soon)!

Well, that’s it for now. Take care and if you spread the word one more time to get anybody on board who is interested to get Alpha or Beta access before the crowdfundig is over that will be much appreciated by all of us.

Cheers,

Michael

With a few hours left.. The campaign has been very successful and i would like to thank everybody who has shared, just looked at or even pledged EVERSPACE

-cheers, Malde 

We are on KICKSTARTER!
Please consider pledging!

.. #reddit #imgur are awesome..

EXCLUSIVE IMGUR ALBUM

I just backed EVERSPACE on @Kickstarter http://t.co/00zTByw3RO

— Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) August 11, 2015

I just backed EVERSPACE on @Kickstarter http://t.co/uzK8RKITk1 The visuals are stunning...definitely worth a look.

— Brian Fargo (@BrianFargo) August 9, 2015

Je viens de soutenir le projet EVERSPACE sur Kickstarter http://t.co/PlzonJmr5R

— Simon Wasselin (@SimonWasselin) August 9, 2015

#Everspace KS is maybe the best KS pitch I think I've seen in years. I want this game, bad. https://t.co/0StfU7tjL0

— Leeeee Perry (@MrLeePerry) August 8, 2015

Just backed Everspace: https://t.co/oonnzBlTvx

— Harvey Smith (@Harvey1966) August 9, 2015

 The Kickstarter for @everspace_game is live - whoo hoo! http://t.co/1eB9PaTb6K
— Unreal Engine (@UnrealEngine) August 6, 2015

... Great news everyone!...

Indie studio @Rockfishgames released their space shooter Everspace on Greenlight! See it here: http://t.co/vbex92kWS4 pic.twitter.com/R01SwcMe22

— Unreal Engine (@UnrealEngine) July 25, 2015

We are on Greenlight!

Please vote us up !

Hi there peeps.. (if there´s actually somebody reading this, then i salute you *have a cookie* chap!)
Im kinda busy working at my current studio. (There will be something to talk/show very soon) woo!

But meanwhile i decided to make a full blown scifi hardsurface environment in unreal4.
Starting today.. this will be my *offwork* portfolio piece i´ll be working on for the next few months.

So here is a starter door/wall that will be used as a module.. Nothing special but a good starting point to give you guys an idea which artstyle ill go for.. I used Tor Fricks portfolio pieces as a reference.. nothing better than learning from the gods of the industry.. god speed! A few walls will be next..

BLADE RUNNER music tribute

I tweaked a few pads in fl9 and found a certain sound that made me remeber Blade runner.
So i tried something similar as a tribute.. Of course im not a musician or somebody who does
this often. I only enjoy the creativity of music and the fun that comes with it.. and thats that.

Feel free to use this, if you want. Disclaimer is in the decription.
cheers

Created the music and video in about 2h .. and the theme was "recorded" on my laptop keyboard in on go D:

GOBLIN

So here are some sculpts of my first character with zbrush..

And I gotta admit its fun.. I really would love to push the clothes and add a bunch of awesome things to it.. but again am running out of time and it needs to be done soon. Maybe i´ll revisit this ´happy fella´ after retopo and texturing again to push him into a portfolio piece.. (Current status took me 4 days)

Some Zbrush sculpts:

Some cavity shots to see more detail:

I´ll be back with retopo and textures in 2 days... till then! gotta long retopo night about to start... cheers -M

------------

UPDATE:

I finished the retopo of the whole character and cloth in one long ~17k tris day!

Gotta lay down 3:17am is way to late (: *crunsh*

Some max wires and the lp body with DECIMATED highpoly normal bake.

Final hps will ensure a normal bake with more detail:

tomorow.. or today to be more precise ill unwrap cloth, bake and start texturing both!

Selfnote: Dont forget the eyes and hair !

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UPDATE:
Finally, the lowpoly wrap and bakes are done!
Lets get to the fun part.. jeez im starting to like character modeling and all that comes with it :-)

Lowpoly with normal and ao bake

-----------

UPDATE:
I´m going to take a break from texturing for just a moment. I guess this is a good time to show current work in progress of the textures. Needs hair though:

---------

UPDATE: 
And with some hair:

Hi its me! Has been some time since i last posted stuff that i am working on.. I´m counting the last days as a student here in Berlin, ready to start a new chapter of my life, meanwhile pushing and creating more content for my portfolio and to get better, faster, stronger.. in my workflow!

I have been working on a little environment scene for UE4, which is Al Khazneh one of the world´s most magnificent ancient megastructures! But even more important, an environment scene that was seen in the popular Indianer Jones and the Last Crusade. So i knew i had to put something in there that connected these two. Maybe you can figure it out yourself by looking at the ingame shots?

Here is the lowpoly scene in Max

Model build to make use of a lot of tileable textures

Highpoly sculpts (+tileable)

Some lowpoly renderings

Professor Henry Walton Jones, Sr:
December 12, 1872 - 1951


I´ll add textur samples tomorrow.. #n8

Alright so i had the urge to build a "visual prototype" which is a description i heard watching a unreal 4 demonstration about Level Design. The basic idea behind it, is to create something as close as possible to a finished look, and maybe even gameplay or UI movement, as an artist. You do this to figure out if a certain look or feel is accomplished, so you or a coder can iterate from there. Basically splitting the effort to get somewhere without having the coder to work on stuff he´d throw away afterwards.

Since I'm not a coder and wouldn't know how to script a menu ingame i decided to create an environment for a mobile/tablet menu in UE4 which was inspired by TRIALS Frontier menu, then animate a few very basic "UI" movements and backgrounds, capture it and add final UI movements to get an idea where it was going.

After setting up the camera and making a high res screenshot from the ingame scene i added the last UI in Photoshop so i could export them onto the actual clip and animate them too. The Layout for the buttons and final visual prototyp looked something like this:

Layout in Photoshop

BTS and textures:

(Note that the goal were dif only textures with pre baked lightning for performance on mobile)

It was fun to actually get away from trying to be as realistic as possible in all aspects. Whether it was modeling, texturing or shading it in the required look but just to be more open to color, shape and ideas in general. I really like the idea of learning proper mobile low performance modeling and comic mood/handpainted texturing while still achieving the high standard you want.

Maybe the next goal for a similar project is a little environment scene with the same comic mood including a character that is animated and interacts with the environment. Maybe a few very basic particle effects for a cutscene. But thats for another time...