SweetLife
patreon
Thank you and Upcoming Projects
🕑 Added 2024-11-10 14:09:19 +0000 UTCFirstly I wanted to say a massive thank you to all of the supporters who followed along the Tomb Raider Eclipse journey. What started off as a small idea of changing a couple of outfits quickly grew into being a much bigger project as more people showed interest in the mod, so I really do mean it when I say that I couldn't have done it without your support, feedback and words of encouragement. In my modding 'career' I have primarily focused on 3D modelling, but Eclipse was a great motivation to branch out by reigniting my love for animating as well as learning knew skills relating to audio and (very very rudimentary) scripting. So to see the reception be as positive as it has been since release is extremely heartwarming - Thank you!
What Are You Working On?
Well if it's not so obvious now, I have attached a video of a mod I have been working on for the past 1-2 weeks. This is for an indie platformer game called 'Jusant' that has such a beautiful artstyle, an interesting story, engaging gameplay - and surprisingly no mods at all! I only got the chance to start playing it at the end of October and I really connected with it so I decided I wanted to do a little more. After Eclipse, I did want to take a step back from Tomb Raider for a little bit and try my hand on a new engine and something different - however my first thought when playing Jusant was "This is very Tomb Raider coded", so naturally this lead me to putting Lara in the game. Am I crazy? I'm probably crazy.
Luckily the game has challenged me to working with an art-style that I haven't much experience with, so I hope you all enjoy it! I have created 3 outfits (one of which is a Patreon exclusive) and some minor gameplay changes, all of which I will share more on in the next few days, but at this point the mod is complete with a few kinks that needing some ironing. The mod will be released by the end of the week on Patreon with the public release being a few weeks later. To be honest, I don't expect a whole lot of traction with this, but for me it was a nice, easy project to work on after spending almost a year on Eclipse.
What's Next?
Over the past month I have been persistently asked "Will you do Rise Of The Tomb Raider or 2013?". The short answer is: Yes.
The tool creator for Shadow of The Tomb Raider reached out to me to advise that the tools will be getting expanded to Rise and 2013, so what was possible for Shadow will also be possible for those two games. This of course excites me, and I've already gone into planning mode, however as I stated above I would like to take a step back from Tomb Raider games for a little bit and broaden my horizons. That, and the modding tools do not have an ETA yet so there's no point just sitting around.
That doesn't mean I don't have anything planned though, quite the contrary. I have created some mods for the Resident Evil games in the past as the engine is highly moddable and allow for all sorts of additions to be made ranging from 3d models, to animations and new gameplay mechanics. I started a really awesome animation mod midway through last year which took a back seat in favour of Eclipse, and I will be completing that shortly. Stay tuned for that because I can't wait to show it off, it's a lot of fun! For years now I have also wanted to work on a comprehensive modding project for the Resident Evil 2 & 3 remakes that re-design all the main characters and give them a 90s overhaul. I have started on this previously, but at this point I probably want a do-over.
With the Unreal Engine (UE) being such a widely used engine these days, I also want to greatly expand my knowledge in it. I have worked with UE in the past on projects for Hogwarts Legacy and Silent Hill 2 remake, but I want to become more experienced with it which in turn will open up a greater variety of projects for a huge list of games - especially the next mainline Tomb Raider game. This was one of my main motivators for working on Jusant - and let me tell you, I had a lot of frustrating moments over the past 1-2 weeks of having to figure things out on my own as there was 0 resources for that game!
For those who don't know, apart from Tomb Raider and Resident Evil, I am also a big fan of Star Wars. Unfortunately I have fallen slightly out of love with the franchise in the past few years, however seeing that Jedi Survivor is on the Unreal Engine, has a widely positive reception and supports huge modding potential, I would also like to give that a go by overhauling the player character and the animations.
There are also mods that I have created for various games (one that springs to mind is Tomb Raider Angel of Darkness) that I have never publicly released. Is there much interest in seeing those and releasing them?
Ultimately I love character and costume designing. That's where a lot of my passion is, which might not come as a surprise to some of you. People often ask me for a straight up recreation of an existing design and sometimes I can't help but put my own spin on things or prefer to use that design as more of an inspiration. Like I'm sure it is for most people, if I am not creating or feeling creative then I'm not going to find much enjoyment. This is also probably why I often mod games that don't have such a huge active community haha.
With all this being said, I would love to hear from you guys as to what you would like to see moving forward? Do you like the above ideas? What games and projects would you like to see worked on? Would you like to see more character renders?
Thanks for reading!
Comments
rollmop10
Wow. Amazing job you have done and I for 1 look forward to what you do. Will need to upgrade my account.
haris mohammad
Bet and 2025 already being packed with so many game releases like GTA Vi, I know your overhaul for Rise and Hopefully 2013 stand out to me and are personally anticipated by me. As your voice and that face model are a match made in heaven and need more entries which I guess works out for you with the modding tools. Also you should get out into voice acting as you do a good job imo.
SweetLife
Thank you, I appreciate that! Luckily I have a British mate who I kept running lines by and where I struggled the most with was pronouncing certain words with a harder 'R' sound. For example, the word 'here': For an Australian we would pronounce it 'HE-ARE' whereas for an English accent it's more smooth, almost as if saying 'HAIR'. You probably might notice it more now when you play it :D As for my acting resumé, I probably won't dive too much into it (maybe I will one day) but it was mostly Australian ads, clothing campaigns and being an extra for whatever show or movie was being filmed here. I did do some work on a show that apparently was really well known globally. I have no idea if any of my scenes made it into the show since I never watched it, but its really funny that I've seen a couple of retrospectives come out about it lately.
haris mohammad
Yeah I felt this was done by someone who knows what they’re doing and it sounded natural so kudos to you. Also really interesting on how you brought your performance and AI together to make a Lara voice that I personally enjoyed a lot and hope the unified one is similar to this. Also with you being a film/tv actor, anything interesting you might have done if you’re comfortable with sharing as it’s personal info.
SweetLife
The voice for Lara is AI powered, however I provided the actual performance. Any new dialogue was performed by me - and to a trained British ear is why she may sound a little Australian at times (One person said they heard South African!). This means that the pitch of the voice is AI, but the delivery, tone and accent is completely mine. Of course, where I liked Camilla's delivery for the cutscenes I used her performance as the base and just re-recorded certain parts that didn't sound confident enough, or sounded a bit too breathy and exasperated. I would say that it ended up being about 30-40% Camilla's performance with me being the rest. As for me being a trained voice actor: Not specifically voice acting, however I did actually use to be a film/TV actor before going down another career path. To be honest, doing the performance really did reinvigorate my interest in acting. It was a lot of fun!
haris mohammad
Also are you an actual trained voice actor? Cause you voiced Lara correct and the AI was for dialogue relating to your new backstory and stuff relayed by npcs? If so then you did a fanfucking tastic job.
SweetLife
My apologies on the late reply, Patreon hasn't been notifying me of everyone's comments so unfortunately I've been missing some. Yes, I imagine most of the bigger projects will be coming next year (e.g the 90s overhaul pack), however I definitely have smaller releases for the remaining of the year which I've already started work on. You'll be hearing about them more frequently too :)
Vanmarsnille Nathan
Thank you so much for all you have done already. I'm looking forward to see what cool ideas you have in the future. When I see your name on a mod it's like a mark of quality. I love eveything TR, RE, SH and Harry Potter so cant wait!
SweetLife
The Jusant mod? I'll be releasing it by end of the week on Patreon :) Late November or early December publicly.
Izanagi
wow ok yeah if you release this i will have to buy their game lol
haris mohammad
Of course with the love and care you put into this, I wouldn't expect less. But even though you might not like the first game please do it as I would much rather play the SweetLife Trilogy rather than the Survivor Trilogy. So I'm guessing this stuff is obviously next year for release?
SweetLife
That is indeed the plan! Just know that it will definitely take some time to put the mods together, but from my understanding a lot of the custom animations I made for Shadow should be transferable to Rise. So that'll cut down some time!
haris mohammad
With those mod tools it sounds like you can make a trilogy of your Lara Croft and make them be a cohesive whole and I hope that's the plan as your shadow Lara is fucking sweet as she's a mix of old and new.
SweetLife
I love this idea! Jumpsuits are actually one of my favourite clothing items, I feel like there's so many different and fun styles you can do with them. When I move onto the project, I might sketch up what I have envisioned for some of the characters and post them here to gain some feedback :)
SweetLife
Wow thank you so much! Very kind of you to say, I'm so glad to have such wonderful supporters. As for Rise - I plan to do something similar to Eclipse :) change the animations, outfits/hair, face as well as the voice lines! I doubt the project will take as much time purely because there's nowhere near as many voicelines in the games compared to what was in Shadow haha. When it comes to 2013... I'm not sure if I want to mod it at this point, I will probably revisit it after Rise. It was my least favourite of the trilogy (in terms of gameplay) but maybe modding it will change my mind!
SweetLife
Thank you so much Aaron 💜💜
Kyle Rohan
I’m so excited for everything. You’ve quickly become my fav modder. As for the re2 90s overhaul plz give Claire a jumpsuit!!!! Her classic renders make her outfit look more like a jumpsuit and it fits her biker personality imo
haris mohammad
Thank you so much for this update! It's inspiring to see how much care and passion you put into everything you create. The gratitude you express really shows the special bond you have with your supporters, and it reminds me why I love being part of your community. Your work consistently brings value, whether it's through your insights, or mods, and it’s such a privilege to witness your journey and can't wait for what's next! Thank you for sharing these behind-the-scenes reflections with us and for making us feel like we're truly a part of something bigger. Knowing that our support helps fuel your creativity makes it all the more rewarding. Well since the tools aren't out for 2013 and Rise and have no ETA then enjoy your break lol. Also when the tools do come out, what scale of mod creation are you thinking?
Aaron Thompson
You've come so far, so proud and thankful for all you have given us. I look forward to the upcoming projects and always wish you the most success <3
