Join us on the 14th episode of CGCast as we dive deep into the world of "Seed," a unique cel-shaded MMORPG where combat isn't the focus—instead, players engage in diplomacy, crafting, and survival within a towering sci-fi community. Thomas Kofoed, a modeler
on the game, shares insights into the creative process behind its distinctive art style inspired by the cartoon series Valerian. Expect discussions on the game's innovative non-combat gameplay, the technical challenges of cel-shading,
and the social dynamics that drive player interactions. With a beta launch just around the corner, this episode promises thrilling updates and behind-the-scenes looks at crafting massive environments and engaging narratives. Perfect for fans of immersive
social games and innovative RPG design.
Welcome everybody to the 14th episode of CGCast.
Today I have Thomas Kooft with me and he's working on the
game Seed,
which is a massive multiplayer online RPG,
which has an interesting twist because it's cel-shaded.
And today he'll talk a little bit about it with us
and his role as a modeler in it.
But before we start, Thomas, can you tell us a little bit
about yourself?
Sure, hi.
Well, I'm almost self-learned 3D Max.
I was introduced to 3D Max in 2001
I'm 33 years old
I got a daughter
That's my pride
I got a wife
She's also my pride
I have to say that
This is in public forum
I love snowboarding
I love Guinness
And I love gaming
That kind of wraps it up
Oh, basketball
I play three times a week
How did you get into 3D?
Well, I took a multimedia college, junior college thing
here in Denmark.
And just to see what the hell all this computer graphics
all about.
I'm an old graffiti painter back in my youth.
So I missed that, being artistic.
And then suddenly we were introduced to Flash and Illust
rator and all that crap.
And one day, November 11th, 2001, we were introduced to 3D
Max and I fell in love.
Oh, interesting.
I remember the date.
It was an evening group, self-study group.
It was not the real teacher.
Oh, cool.
So why did you choose to get into game art?
Well, I love playing games and I've just been so stupid
that I never thought of who's making it.
And why can't I be on a team that's making games before now
?
So it was just, I saw the game.
I mean, I saw 3D Max and I just said,
whoa, I want to do that.
And I knew straight away that I had to find an initiative,
what do you call it?
What?
Area, a small area, initiative.
Area.
Initiative.
Yeah.
High end, low end,
and even go further down in the low end.
Do I want to model? Do I want to animate?
And stuff like that.
And I'm not really into animating.
I love modeling.
It came rather naturally.
Cool. And how long did it take you to learn enough to get a
job?
Well, I worked almost three years, no pay,
for different demos here in Denmark
I was so lucky that they wanted me.
And it was a real good tutor I got.
My lead artists were very patient
and wanted to learn or teach me how to use 3D Max.
So I stayed.
I had Max one and a half year in school
and then I went straight out in the gaming business.
I mean, not real production, but still, it was a production
with an engine and programmers and a lead artist.
So I think that's why it went so fast.
Awesome. It sounds like you're very lucky.
Lucky and persistent and self-confident, I think.
Cool.
I wanted it.
Well, I guess if you wanted enough, you can get it.
Yeah. I don't want to sound like an Anan American.
because God blessed them.
But I think I followed my dream.
Awesome.
And so far, it's come true.
You never know.
But are you happy?
I'm so happy.
That's excellent.
As when we small talk at four,
I say every Sunday morning,
I look forward to go to job Monday morning.
I don't think there's a lot of people on this globe that
does that.
I doubt it.
So what's your role on the game Seed?
What do you do?
Modeling everything together with Nick, my colleague,
except character items and characters.
We have two people, two guys doing that.
Okay.
So, Aron, what's the poly limit for the objects,
for the environments and stuff like that?
Not really any.
I mean, of course, our own region.
Okay.
If it's a place where you're really intact
and it's a main area in this level,
we build it with a lot of polys.
Okay.
And the engine, that's a free engine, Cube.
I think it's English.
Yeah.
is very good to polish, but not so good with Alpha Channel.
The game is cel-shaded. Does that make modeling...
It's not.
It's not cel-shaded?
No, we do that our own way.
Okay.
Because it makes a lot of flaws, the cel-shader.
And it's not the look that we want.
All the characters are double characters.
Okay.
So we expand, scale it.
I can't remember, 2% or 5%.
Flip all the normals.
Yes.
And give it a total black material.
Ah, okay.
That's interesting.
So that's how you get the cool line effects on them.
Yeah.
So we do that on characters, and I think that's about it.
Else we just try to build everything with black outlines in
mind.
Okay.
So we do that with the texture.
That flipping thing, doesn't it add a lot to the engine?
It does.
That's why we like cube if we talk about polys.
Okay, cool.
I think we would crash every PlayStation with polys.
That's a cool idea how you did it.
I thought you had some shader on it.
Everybody does.
That's pretty neat.
Everybody.
I mean, every second day when I talk to people on forum and
stuff like that,
they thought it was so shaded.
Awesome.
So what else can you tell us about the game graphically?
Well, my lead artist is insane,
and he likes round objects.
Everything needs to be round.
it's
I don't know what's it called
in English
Linda and Valentin
just hold on
what's Linda and Valentin called?
Valerian
yeah
the cartoon
series
which is the main
inspiration source
okay
which series?
Valerian
I've never heard of it
I haven't seen it
well everything
everything is around
and alien
like alien
the movies
okay
but more organic
not so hostile
atmosphere
and his drawings
if you go to seed
thegame.com
you can see some of his drawings
that we use
for
for design
everything is around
bubbles
and cylinders and just insane.
And we have to do that.
We can't.
I don't think we ever use a cylinder under 10.
What do you call it?
Edges.
10 edges.
Yeah.
And that would be no-go on a PlayStation, I think.
Sometimes we use 12 or 14,
and then we get all the round shapes.
And it's a bloody pain to texture, to unwrap,
because we, of course, have to use square textures.
Okay.
Who does all the texturing and stuff like that?
We've got three guys doing that.
You're doing anything special for that, or it's just
standard stuff?
No, I unwrap my own locations.
Okay.
And if I do some objects, I unwrap them myself.
All right, cool.
So it's really, really neat to be in a small place
because I can follow my work almost to the end.
And I started vertex painting three months ago
and I've never done that before and I just love it.
What exactly is vertex painting?
You use, what do you call it?
You bake your scene in Max.
Okay.
With, I can't remember the name.
I use it every week.
and then you bake the light information in all the vertices
and then you transfer that to the vertex paint.
So you actually sit and paint all the vertices.
So we use that for fake shadows, highlights, all that kind
of stuff.
Interesting.
So does that mean will the game require...
Radiosity, that's what I call it.
Ah, radio, I thought about it.
Radio, yes.
Will the game require high system requirements?
No.
No?
No.
It's MIP map level.
That means that everybody does that, I think.
Okay.
We've got four or five different sizes of textures.
Okay.
So it searches your computer and see what can you get
and then cube use 256 or 128 or 512,
depending on your hardware.
Okay.
So have there been any challenges?
What's the hardest challenge you've had so far working?
Right now, the thing I'm working on right now
is what we call Canyon.
Okay.
It's from the center of the tower.
The tower where everybody's working and living is three
kilometers tall
and one and a half kilometers diameter.
Okay.
And from the center of the core to the outside,
I'm building a canyon that is moving through the tunnel as
a Grand Canyon.
Wow.
So it's very big.
It's at least 150 meters tall with all kinds of sci-fi tech
on the side.
And it's very big.
I haven't seen so many polys in one level.
So right now we want to see through down the alley.
So you get that feeling that it is humongous.
But we also have to be careful with the polys.
Okay.
and right now
I'm about to do the Pathfinder
so we can test it
the Pathfinder is for Cube
the engine to understand where you can walk
okay
so that's going to be very interesting
and we actually don't know how to do it
so it's trial and error
you went to the lab
well it's like
the first location
RingLab
it took us almost three months
the second level
took us
14 days
oh
big difference
because
we got the pipeline
done
alright awesome
so we knew
do that
and then
do A
B
C
D
and so forth
so
we look forward
to do
to do the second
location
because we knew
we would finish it
very
very fast
very quick
how much
how much of the game
is completed so far
I don't know
I don't know
what my
lead artist
art designer got
left in his head. I don't think
I've seen all the
drawings.
So actually, I don't know.
And you know, it's an online
game, so
that's also a good thing
to work on online games, because
if
there's not a CD, so you're not
unemployed
when the game is over.
That's a good thing.
You can just compile a new
patch and you're still in
job. It's still working.
Will the updates be free or
will they come out as expansion packs?
No, I mean, you just pay your fee,
your monthly fee, and all the
patches and expands are free.
Oh, that's awesome.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, we like to
keep the same path
and that I mean
that we want
to make
a special game
and we don't
I think 80%
of our power
in our house is
on the stories and the interaction
so the mission is
not mission A
and mission B is not
go kill
two thieves and three orcs
and mission C is
go kill four orcs
and seven thieves
I mean
there's different ways to make different missions
Can you give us an example
of how the gameplay is? How is it different
from other Massive Multiplayer
Online RPGs?
Well first of all it's a non-combat
Non-combat? Yep
and so far we haven't got any aliens
Oh
I think there's a lot of big studios
that would
hurry up and implement
laser gun and aliens
So
So what will make the game fun?
Diplomacy, backstabbing,
and not in the material way.
Building, repairing a community,
trying to survive,
because we will pound the tower endlessly
with storms and ice blasts
and just alien fungus and all kinds of stuff.
So everybody is the same boat, and everybody has to survive
.
So the objective of the game is that everybody works
together to survive?
Yep, to keep the tower intact.
That's pretty interesting.
So we got what we call hard points.
That's machine holes where you can put your own machine.
I think it's a bit like a gnoll goblin machine
where you can build whatever you want.
So if you want to build something and to make people happy,
you have to talk to people what they need,
what do we need in this area that you're living.
And if it's metal or rubber or whatever,
then you try to get the blueprints to build stuff in Metal
or Road.
So then people will greet you and think you're a great guy.
So the game is going to be very craft-associated and very
social, right?
Very social. First priority is social.
Diplomacy, politics.
So in a way it's kind of like the game There or Second Life
.
Have you heard of those?
nope well they're kind of like massive multi massive multi-
parallel rpgs except there's no
fighting it's just like a jungle second life yeah second
life and then yen can i do second life
yeah he's he's like he's he said yeah i know that it's
about he's laughing every time you see it
it's hilarious there's another one called there but i'm not
really interested those are just like
giant 3D chat rooms where you do stuff.
Oh, Second Life.
Is that the one where everything is bad graphics
and you can put graphics in?
Yes, exactly that.
Yeah, yeah, okay, I've seen that.
Yeah, I know that one.
Well, I don't know if we should compare a seat with Second
Life.
But, like, the social dynamics would be kind of like that.
Okay.
Like, it'd be like a virtual chat room, sort of.
Well, you get missions.
You get missions from NPCs and players that you have to
solve,
and then they like you better or give you something and
stuff like that.
So it's not just walk around and talk with people.
And that's what I mean that 80% of our working process here
is to implement small stories and big stories together.
So it's one big story.
Okay.
And that's why the hardcore players, of course,
get more items or raise a bit more in levels.
It's not called levels,
but if you repair electrical stuff,
then you get better and better at repairing electrical
damage.
Okay.
But small stories are very important,
so you don't have to play 24-7.
Yeah.
What happens if the tower collapses or gets broken?
We don't know.
You don't know?
We don't know.
Is it possible?
Well, we really don't want to stop the game when the game
is going.
Okay.
But I think I would answer that question more precisely
in three months' time
because we got beta testing coming around the corner.
Three weeks.
Three weeks.
The beta test.
Yeah.
The 9th.
The 9th.
February 9th.
And a link on the show notes.
The application is from today, I think.
Oh, okay.
I'll put a link on the show notes
so everybody can check it out.
Yeah.
Actually, two weeks from now
since the show is coming out in a week.
Oh, yeah.
So in two weeks.
Yeah.
Okay.
No, I mean, so it's a very unique game.
I don't know if I didn't make the game that I would play.
I'm really into Half-Life and Far Cry and...
First-person shooters.
Yeah.
Sorry.
But I always loved science fiction,
So I can easily sit here and dream and build science
fiction worlds.
And of course I'll play the game.
Okay, that's pretty cool.
So it's great, it is.
Excellent, I wish you the best of luck and I really hope
that your game is successful.
Thank you very much.
Well, is there anything else you'd like to add about the
game or anything?
No, I think if you try and follow our forum at seedthegame.
com,
we have a lot of hardcore gamers that are fed up with World
of Warcraft
and EVE Online and stuff like that.
Okay.
And our forum is exploding,
and there's some great and intelligent conversations.
So check the forum out.
okay
seedthegame.com
seedthegame.com
okay
that's it
um
well I kind of
started my own
forum for CGCast
are you interested
in commenting
on some other
people's work
that have posted
sure
okay I'll send you
a link on
yeah
this guy he's been
working
monkey magic
he's been working
on a Ferrari
magic monkey
he's been working
on a Ferrari
very nice
oh yeah
pretty impressive
That is sweet.
That's a high end.
Very high end.
Oh my God.
A lot of polys.
Oh, that's sweet.
Do you have any comments or criticism for him?
I would say don't worry so much.
Don't worry so much about rendering when it's not totally
finished.
Okay.
But else, pretty good modeling.
I wouldn't be able to do it myself.
Neither would I.
But I'm in the low end.
yeah it's kind of different
it is
but the way of thinking is
way different
but what about when like in a few years
when the polys and games get
higher and higher and higher
well then we will be used
I mean in three years time
let's say we could use
double the amount
then we
then we will
kind of glide into that
so we will
probably just said, oh, did we really only use 120,000 poly
gons on a level back then?
Now we use 400 or 300.
And then we just follow the flow.
So it's progressive.
Yeah, progressive is the word, yeah.
I don't think we will notice unless we look back that we
probably do sometimes.
Would you like to look at another work?
It's not really game related.
I have one game-related image.
I'll show you that after.
Yeah.
This one is by Sha.
He's working on a living room scene.
Oh.
It has a nice composition.
It is.
And a good way of using fall off on the couch.
Yes, it's nice.
Nice effects you got there.
I'm impressed.
That is really nice.
I like the lightning.
Yeah.
I already gave him a few things that he could fix,
Like outside the window is just gray and it's kind of
boring.
Yeah, and the plant.
Yeah, it's the ACE objects from Max, I think.
Okay, I would lighten up the plant a bit.
I mean, I can't see what it is on the left corner.
I can't really see.
Yeah, and also the window grills, things are not really
touching.
As you can see from the shadow, it's not touching the wall.
No, there's a bit.
I think he used radiosity in the wrong way.
I don't know.
I don't know anything about rendering.
I have a V-Ray or anything in Brazil.
I don't know anything, but I can see the shadows in the
corners are wrong.
Yeah, he needs more bounces, secondary bounces.
Secondary bounces, yeah.
I really like the...
The composition.
Yeah.
It's very good.
Since you're in game art, Franklyn, he was supposed to be
on the show today,
but I guess it was too early for him, time zone issues.
But he started working on a tank, game art.
Here it is.
So this should be your area.
I will lynch you, Franklyn.
I think his textures are a bit too sharp or something.
I've been looking at them now.
Look a bit sharp.
Well, I'm sorry to say I can't see it's a tank.
But it's not finished.
No, no, no.
I was about to say it looks like a very WIP, WIP.
I would make the texture different.
It's too big.
You need to scale it more.
I mean, I like the dirt, but the dirt should be way smaller
.
Okay.
Because the dirt is probably as big in real time as half
the size of your hand.
But if you zoomed in and you measured, it would be half a
man's size on his objects.
Okay.
So it's the tiling, the unwrap I would change.
Okay.
But I like the metal.
yeah he does that a lot
the metal so I'm pretty sure
he has a lot of practice with metal
Franklyn we want to see it finished
yes and post it on the forums
by any chance do you do any 2D
do you know anything about 2D
no well I used to paint
what do you call it
watercolors
acrylic watercolors
yeah watercolors
and I like to do it
like fast
okay um and as i said before i used to do graffiti but i
haven't i played basketball in florida where
i had paintings and drawings on the on the highest level
and that really helped me but that was 10
years ago and i haven't i haven't painted or made sketches
since then it's a really good idea to be
good at drawing if you do 3d i'm trying to learn drawing
but me and straight lines we're not best
friends well let's see that's one thing i remember if you
're painting nothing is straight lines yeah
they're forcing me to do a lot of technical drawing at
school and it's being hell on me i can't
i can't get perspective technical drawing with uh in hand
uh yeah and hand and rulers and stuff but
I had to draw radios and chairs and stuff like that.
It's been hard on me, but I'm getting used to it.
That's the point of school, to learn.
Yeah.
Well, it's probably good to have it back in your mind.
Yeah.
I just need to learn perspective properly.
I always get that really bad.
Me too.
But that's a good thing with Max.
Yeah.
But, I mean, that is my big hurdle that I have to make big
scenes.
I only got one.
I mean, as you said, the perspective, you start in one end
and everything looks nice.
But if you have to complete the ring, you know, the ring is
not tight.
Yeah.
And that is because I'm not 100% 2D.
You'd think by using 3D Max all the time
that your perspective skills would be great, but it's not.
Well, it's sharpening my perspective skills,
but if I went home and sat on my couch
and made some 2D drawings every night,
that would help a lot.
But I don't want to do that.
I want to play games during the whole night.
Here's a 2D painting, the only 2D painting on the site.
I think it's really good.
Yeah.
Made by girl Maria.
When you first look at it, it kind of looks like a photo.
What?
I thought it was a photo.
So did I.
Don't you think she used the picture as a reference?
I don't know, probably.
But I don't think she did a paint over.
I think she just...
That is wicked, man.
Yeah, it's awesome.
She has a lot of skills.
But even so, if you use the photo as a reference, you need
to be a good painter.
Yeah.
I can't do that to save my life.
Me neither.
I actually tried really hard to learn with no success at
all.
Yeah?
Yeah.
Well.
I got an A.
That's for you.
But as I said, that was an 89.
Well.
So I'm totally idiot 2D right now.
3D is the way
it is
you can always
control Z
or delete
yes
the coughing
mirroring
that's a wonderful thing
don't you ever get that
sometimes
when you
if you do something wrong
in real life
you get that
instant feeling
control Z
oh fuck
I can't do that
I wish I could
control Z
most of my life
but sometimes
I just get a split
of a second
where I just say
control Z
oh no
I can't do that
I'm not working in Macs
so the thing that I
I like the most
I would really love to do
in real life
is copy paste
oh
that would
save me a lot of time
in real life
well we use that a lot
copying
models
ah
copying parts
yeah
and try to put
extra parts on it
so people won't see
that it's actually
a copy of the thing
200 meters down the alley
well it's
only two guys
working on the environments
in the game.
I guess you'd have some liberty on that.
Oh, we can do whatever we want
just as long as it's
almost like the drawings we get.
Or we find better solutions.
Oh, awesome.
So it's almost do as you want.
Oh, cool.
So it's very free.
It sounds like you have an awesome job.
It is.
It's very cool.
I'm happy
I'm not complaining
So for the people out there
Looking for jobs in the gaming industry
What advice do you have to give them?
Get in work free
That's the only way
I'm sorry to say
But how did you
What you did an internship or what?
To work for free?
No
I just
I got to know some people that did 3D
And in Copenhagen it's not a major global
cities so everybody in 3D world knows each other in Denmark
and I just keep applying and talk to
people even I didn't really know them I was probably a pain
in the ass but I said I want to
do this I want to work for free I love gaming I know I can
do it and then one day I said oh I know
a guy that's starting
he got some money for a game demo
and
then I broke down his door
and then I
I mean he couldn't say no I came with my own
computer my own
Wacom tablet and
worked there for a year
and that's where I learned
most of my stuff
that's cool you got all the experience first
yeah
that's interesting
I mean we don't have any education
game-wise production here in Denmark.
So the only thing is to work for free.
What were you doing before that,
since you started kind of late?
Sure.
I used to be a lot of jobs waiting.
I used to be second guy at a restaurant.
Okay.
And three years, two years as a bike messenger
in Copenhagen.
then did some seasons
in the Val d'Isere and Val de France
as a snowboard
skiing
and fixed skis
so that's about it
where do you see yourself in 10 years time?
doing this?
still
hope so
I don't know
I hope so
maybe on Seed 3
Seed 3 where I decide that
me and Nick decide that
we got big ass aliens
and big guns.
Probably.
Probably.
Or then we'll just call it
SEED with E-N-N-A.
So we won't get harassed
by my boss's attorneys.
A hostile takeover.
Yeah.
We'll hack us into Seed 3
and take over with our laser guns
because C3 still don't have any
still there's a non-combat
and that would be cool
maybe if all the players
decide we want combat and have
have a
mini social war inside the game
maybe they'll let you take guns
you never know
in the game industry I hope so
but I don't think
that far ahead because
I know it's
yeah
I just want to be happy
that I'm still working Monday morning.
Okay, cool.
Well, thank you for coming on the show.
You're pretty fun to talk to.
Thanks.
I love your idea, Bytes, with the CG cast.
I hope it grows.
And when we earn tons of money, seed,
we will come back to your show for free.
Sure, no problem.
That would be great.
I'll be joining the beta, so I'll see how it is.
That would do it.
April 4th.
April 4th.
No, April 4th?
No, I mean the beta.
The beta, when does it start?
February 9th.
Okay, February 9th.
Yeah.
And you'll be releasing the game when?
April 4th?
April, yeah.
All right, cool.
So I'll be checking that out.
Do that.
I wish you lots of success.
Thank you.
And we will probably see each other on your forum, CG.
On the CGCast forum?
Yeah.
Cool.
Maybe during the summer, if I have some cash, I can fly
over to Denmark with my video camera.
I'll take the train.
The train is expensive, though.
Is it?
All right.
The train is much more expensive than flying.
Okay.
But you are more than welcome.
Okay, sure.
I'll bring my camera.
I can make a cool video cast.
Yep.
That would be cool.
And show how the studio works and everything.
Yep.
And then you can direct.
Yeah.
Direct yourself.
Yes.
I actually made a videocast.
Well, you'll see.
It would have already passed by now, but it was pretty fun
to make.
So I kind of want to do it again.
Yeah.
All right.
Well.
All right, Archer.
I'll let you go and finish working.
Finish working.
It's four o'clock in the afternoon and I know I won't be
home before nine.
I know when we chatted, it's definitely not going to be
fine.
sorry
sorry
no no
I wouldn't do it
if I didn't have the time
okay
I want to support you mate
thanks
I really appreciate it
alright
but
you're gonna send me a mail
with
when this is
when this is on
it should be on
on the 14th
14th
okay
when is the 14th
yeah on the 14th
yeah
okay
okay
take care bye bye
bye bye
