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Version 0.0.3-and-a-half (development update)
5 years ago
Hello everyone. I want to start out by thanking you for your patience and patronage. Supporting a project at such an early stage makes you true angel investors, and I appreciate you joining me on this voyage of self discovery.
I've been very busy, although this time I've dealt with several development based hiccups because I've been pushing my limits. I've grown as an animator and game developer, and the game will benefit from this investment, both immediately and throughout the life of the project.
As learning new techniques takes time, and as I fail to push out an update as soon as I wish, sometimes I try to divert my attention to extra R&D to compensate for a perceived inadequacy. It's not healthy for me, and it also threatens the project in the long run. I think this is because of the impact working like this has on my mental health. I'm trying to put out more numerous updates than saving up all the features and putting out one big one, because I'm fueled by your enjoyment of the end result. So if I can work towards more regular releases that would be great for all of us.
I think I can end up with a better result by balancing R&D and content development. Of course, the game needs to be developed so that it goes somewhere and achieves what it's set out to do, but while that's the "how", the content is the "why". The content is the fun part too, and why shouldn't this project be fun?
Here's a list of things I've been working on since the last release. As I write this not everything is ironed out, but it will be by the next release. I also want to elaborate on some of the work I've done in other posts.
Thank you so much for your time, your patronage, and for helping me make this happen. Here's what you can look forward to in version 0.0.4.
✨ Learned how to apply metaparticles to a mesh - in the test case it was a soap sud material, but I can reuse this for some gooey effects!
✨ Learned how to have a gizmo follow a helper with a script - this blows the door wide open for hundreds of different special effects. It's so flexible I don't even know what I'm going to use it for next.
✨ Learned how to bind a helper to a given polygon or vertex - this let's me add some effects without hand-animating them on top of the animation I've already done with the bone-driven meshes. It will save hundreds of hours of work.
✨ Designed a pretty cool looking soap sud material that is procedural, and thus scalable.
✨ Animated a big solo scene with Airt, which is integral to one of the characters' prologue plots - it's about 80 seconds of animation!
✨ Developed a way to have the game randomly select variants for animation loops to break up monotony, repetition, and make the characters feel more natural and alive - this is an old technique I came up with in 2008, but I'm applying it to the game's engine this time.
✨ Designed an animated background scene element, tested and implemented it.
✨ Designed, tested and implemented an animated foreground scene in the same vein.
✨ Developed a method for adding clickable easter eggs to animated scenes within the game - this is an integral feature of the game's engine.
✨ Developed condition-based scene selection which modifies the animated scenes based on certain events that happen in the game.
✨ Designed a "wet fur" look. Plenty of applications for that!
✨ Explored CUDA and hardware accelerated raytracer rendering in preparation for transitioning to a photorealistic renderer - hopefully scheduled for the end of the pre alpha phase, I hope I can grow my patronage to the point where I can overhaul my characters and art style. This would be the greatest upgrade to my art style in over a decade!
✨ Defined the scope of the development life cycle stages for the project, both in terms of features and content.
✨ Figured out which areas of the Arcology will be explored during the prologue - version 0.0.5 will allow you to explore these areas!
✨ Started working on a new character whom you'll get to meet during the prologue and the game proper - Langston the Bull. I'm very excited to introduce him!
I've been very busy, although this time I've dealt with several development based hiccups because I've been pushing my limits. I've grown as an animator and game developer, and the game will benefit from this investment, both immediately and throughout the life of the project.
As learning new techniques takes time, and as I fail to push out an update as soon as I wish, sometimes I try to divert my attention to extra R&D to compensate for a perceived inadequacy. It's not healthy for me, and it also threatens the project in the long run. I think this is because of the impact working like this has on my mental health. I'm trying to put out more numerous updates than saving up all the features and putting out one big one, because I'm fueled by your enjoyment of the end result. So if I can work towards more regular releases that would be great for all of us.
I think I can end up with a better result by balancing R&D and content development. Of course, the game needs to be developed so that it goes somewhere and achieves what it's set out to do, but while that's the "how", the content is the "why". The content is the fun part too, and why shouldn't this project be fun?
Here's a list of things I've been working on since the last release. As I write this not everything is ironed out, but it will be by the next release. I also want to elaborate on some of the work I've done in other posts.
Thank you so much for your time, your patronage, and for helping me make this happen. Here's what you can look forward to in version 0.0.4.
✨ Learned how to apply metaparticles to a mesh - in the test case it was a soap sud material, but I can reuse this for some gooey effects!
✨ Learned how to have a gizmo follow a helper with a script - this blows the door wide open for hundreds of different special effects. It's so flexible I don't even know what I'm going to use it for next.
✨ Learned how to bind a helper to a given polygon or vertex - this let's me add some effects without hand-animating them on top of the animation I've already done with the bone-driven meshes. It will save hundreds of hours of work.
✨ Designed a pretty cool looking soap sud material that is procedural, and thus scalable.
✨ Animated a big solo scene with Airt, which is integral to one of the characters' prologue plots - it's about 80 seconds of animation!
✨ Developed a way to have the game randomly select variants for animation loops to break up monotony, repetition, and make the characters feel more natural and alive - this is an old technique I came up with in 2008, but I'm applying it to the game's engine this time.
✨ Designed an animated background scene element, tested and implemented it.
✨ Designed, tested and implemented an animated foreground scene in the same vein.
✨ Developed a method for adding clickable easter eggs to animated scenes within the game - this is an integral feature of the game's engine.
✨ Developed condition-based scene selection which modifies the animated scenes based on certain events that happen in the game.
✨ Designed a "wet fur" look. Plenty of applications for that!
✨ Explored CUDA and hardware accelerated raytracer rendering in preparation for transitioning to a photorealistic renderer - hopefully scheduled for the end of the pre alpha phase, I hope I can grow my patronage to the point where I can overhaul my characters and art style. This would be the greatest upgrade to my art style in over a decade!
✨ Defined the scope of the development life cycle stages for the project, both in terms of features and content.
✨ Figured out which areas of the Arcology will be explored during the prologue - version 0.0.5 will allow you to explore these areas!
✨ Started working on a new character whom you'll get to meet during the prologue and the game proper - Langston the Bull. I'm very excited to introduce him!
Tachyon
~tachyon
Foundational and background work is to be expected at such an early stage of a project. Sounds like cool progress, and I think the automation time-savers are especially good news moving forward.
itoril
~itoril
OP
That's a healthy perspective, thank you for helping me see it that way.
