A Bit about you

Tell us about you. What can you tell us about yourself?

I am Camille (a.k.a. SkyRider3217 in most of the accounts I use). I am an artist and student in college perusing a Fine Arts degree and going for a Bachelor’s Degree in Character Animation, Character Design, and/or Digital Designer. I am responsible for several things in the community and might consider myself well known in those areas such as designing logos for the Trovesaurus Database website as well as generally helping out with information whenever I can. I am also the head leader of the Trove information website known as Trove Wiki(a). I have been in Wikia websites such as those for more than 4 years now and I do not mind helping out a community whenever I can. I am also a Modder here on Trove making lots of wonderful mods (mainly dragons because those are my favorite to mod) in the hopes that people would like using them and possibly getting the developers to accept my work for their game.

 

Where does you name come from?

The name SkyRider comes from the things I like, I like creatures that fly (mainly Birds, Bats, and obviously Dragons) and I’ve always had a passion to fly (even though I have never flown in a plane, hand glider, etc.) so that’s why I came with the name SkyRider. The numbers can be a bit questionable to some people but I have always used these numbers because they are simple, plus 32 and 17 are my lucky numbers.

 

Outside of Trove, do you have any other experience with modding or art?

I do not really have any sort of modding experiences in the past but I have worked with many art related programs such as Paint.net, GIMP, and Adobe Photoshop and InDesign. I always like to incorporate my art digitally due to the growing advances in technology but I still have knowledge and experiences with hand drawn art.

 

What inspired you to start modding? Which modders work inspires you the most?

I was just getting started on making items and decorations in TroveCreations Reddit and got the hang of using the program I use to this day. One day I wondered off to the Forums just to look around and saw a bunch of really cool mods made by other players. The curious person I am, I tried looking up a tutorial on how to mod the game with what I have and found it being slightly confusing to me. Took me several tries until I successfully created my first mod (which is the Frost Fiend Dracolyte Mod). I had quite a bit of fun making it and started making more with lots interesting ideas and perspectives and started creating my own characters with that.

I was not really inspired by many modders but one that did stick out to me was FriedSushi. Her work is all so colorful, vibrant, and creative with a very interesting style to it. Kind of hard to ignore based on the sheer amount of mods she has made since she started and I have been fascinated by her work whenever she brings in a new one.

 

Current Modding

What mods have you made so far?

I have made quite a bit of mods. Most of my mods consists of Dragons (which is why people who know me like to call me the Dragon Tamer because of all the dragon mods I make) which is one of my favorite things to mod. I will occasionally make costumes and other mounts when I have a good idea to work with.

 

What is the most popular mod you have made?

Out of all the mods I have posted, the Pirate Dragon is THE most popular mod I have with a total of 7,572 views and 2,218 downloads/subscriptions on both Trovesaurus and Steam Workshop. No wonder the developers wanted to accept this mount and other people were excited to see Flakbeard come into trove (since that mod got accepted back in March or May I do not remember). This mod is definitely more than a year old and it is still quite popular.

 

What are you most proud of making?

Most of the Mods I am proud of making are mainly all the dragons, but if I want to be very specific, it has got to be the Christmas Dragon (a.k.a. Tannenbomber, the Harbinger of Tidings) and the Chaotic Dragon. The Christmas Dragon was such an interesting theme to go about, making a dragon with a Christmas tree theme, it was quite fun to make and challenging to make all parts of the mount make sense to the theme as well as matching the colors of the Chloromancer’s Evergreen Evoker costume. As for the Chaotic Dragon, I had fun making the dragon a bit creepier than what I am used to making just to for the chaos Cthulhu theme.

 

 

What do you use for the design process or what steps to make a mod?

For designing my mods I always want to make a sketch on how I want my mount to look if I have a clear idea on how I want it. All I do is just get my sketchbook and pencil and just start drawing. At some point I will be happy with a concept design and work around it. It does not have to look exactly like it (it is just a concept, changes are bound to happen). It is just a simple habit I have when making all of my mods. I like to make my characters realistic and relatable to the theme. For instance my chaos dragon first appeared as a sketch and made so many modifications to make it how I have it now.

 

What tools do you use to make mods and why?

For all of my modding, I use Qubicle 2.0. I self-taught myself on how to use most of the features of the program and I found it similar to working with Photoshop and it is much more better for me since I can add multiple parts of the mount into one file to see the final product before I mod it into the game which is really helpful. The steps I usually take is building the model that I am using, then modifying it to how I want it, make Material Maps, then start making files to mod, which is just very simple and efficient for me.

 

How long did it take you to learn the program you use?

I like to be self-taught, doing so took me quite a bit to understand. I believe it took me about a month or so just to get the hang of the program I use and several more just to get the hang of how voxels work and how to incorporate certain details to make it appear how I want it. There is a bit of a learning curve to learning the program without outside tutorials but all the tools and features were very similar to how I was learning how to use Photoshop so it didn’t take me quite as long to learn how to use it. I never like the other programs I have tried like MagicaVoxel since it does not like my computer but I am glad to find Qubicle 2.0 working out for me.

 

What is the most challenging thing about making mods for you?

I feel that the most challenging thing about modding for me is getting an idea or inspiration. I can make the mod no problem but I barely have many ideas to work with in my opinion. I know there can be an infinite amount of ideas out there but sometimes I have a hard time thinking of a “good” idea to work with without it being too generic (although I was proven wrong when the developers accepted my crocodile mount).

 

Future modding

What advice can you give to new people wanting to mod?

I have a few things that may help people with modding. My advice to all those who are just starting out or are interesting in Modding is to get the hang of designing things in the program you are using. I started out with designing things in TroveCreations and it has helped me learn quite a lot about Trove’s art style. Doing this also gives you a better understanding how Material Maps work which is necessary of you want to make some really good mods with interesting textures to better fit the theme you are going for. Also when you do make mods and post them, Criticism can help your mod. Use people’s comments as a way to possibly make your mod better. If they give some suggestions to make it better, use to make your mod better. Don’t take it as offensive (though there is a few that can be offensive, those don’t really help you). Also if you are trying to think of some ideas for mods, you can make them ridiculous. What I mean is IF you want to make a Dragon made of balloons, you go ahead and make it, want make a mount entirely of candy, go ahead (just don’t go too far with some of your ideas)! Mods do not have to be serious looking, have fun with it!

 

How do you see the modding community right now?

I feel like the modding community just keeps on growing. There is so much creativity around and with each person having their own unique idea/interpretation. Each idea, good or bad, really shows what we modders can do.

 

What would you change in the modding community if you could?

I don’t really have many concerns about the modding community. I feel that it is fine the way it is at the current moment. It is lively and full of creativity, so I wouldn’t change that. I do feel like sometimes when some really good mods go unnoticed or mods that have lots of potential just keeps getting pushed back on the forums.

 

Have you had any experience uploading your mods to steam workshop, and what do you think of the process?

I had no past experiences with the Steam Workshop and the process of uploading to steam workshop was fairly simple. My only issue was starting out the new .tmod system was very confusing for me. Other than that, it was very simple to show off mods in another location.

 

What has your experience been using the new tmod format over the old one?

Like I said in the last question I had some issues understanding about the new .tmod system. I was used to the usual .zip folder and manual installs but this new system changed a bit on how I set up mods. I was one of the few people testing this before the full release with the developers. It was hard to understand at first but I got the hang of it after a while of trial and error and possibly sending some bugs they have.

 

What improvements could be made by developers, or mod distributors (trovesaurus/steam)?

I might be a bit nitpicky but I feel that there needs to be a bit more of an improvement to the Steam Workshop. Having only one .tmod file for the mod is a bit limiting. I like How Trovesaurus can have multiple different downloads and there have been a bunch of normal Steam users requesting the mod to replace something different because that is what they have. I want to help them but it would be more convenient to allow that for Steam, but I am not entirely sure how that would work out.

 

Other than the mods you've created, can you list a few of your favourite mods?

There are plenty of unique mods that I love seeing, a bit too much to count so I’ll just keep this list a bit short.

• Jusiv’s Mycolord: http://forums.trovegame.com/showthread.php?70880-Dracolyte-Costume-The-Mycolord
• Evilagician’s Gingerbread Peaceplane: https://www.trovesaurus.com/mod=2942/gingerbread-peaceplane
• SkyTheVirus’ Gashark: http://forums.trovegame.com/showthread.php?113272-Mount-Chompers-the-Land-Shark
• NTwarrior’s Christmas Elf: http://forums.trovegame.com/showthread.php?113349-Boomeranger-Costume-Christmas-Elf
• KawaiiCaretaker’s Flora Dragon: http://forums.trovegame.com/showthread.php?114710-Dragon-Flora-Dragon!
• Aviarei’s Skipper the Toymaker: http://forums.trovegame.com/showthread.php?110466-Griffon-Skipper-the-Toymaker
• Ainogommon’s Rock Dragon: http://forums.trovegame.com/showthread.php?111723-Dragon-Rock-Dragon-Old-and-Overgrowth
• Fizzinc’s Sakura Dragon: http://forums.trovegame.com/showthread.php?111539-Dragon-Sakura-Dragon
• LippyLapras’ Breaker of Hearts: http://forums.trovegame.com/showthread.php?111451-Candy-Barbarian-Costume-Breaker-of-Lost-Hearts&p=706354#post706354
• FriedSushi’s Swan Griffon: http://forums.trovegame.com/showthread.php?110581-Mount-Elegander-Swan-Griffin-of-Lakeside