I did it, I added even more settings. Yesterday I made a post about how many settings are already in the mod, but I've added more. 20+ more in fact!
The multipliers are now exposed as settings. Now you don't have to mess around with the modifiers if you don't want to. Not only that, but now all NPCs have their own multipliers.

This allowed me to address a particular issue with Sally. Her shop had a low ceiling, which meant she could grow through the roof very quickly. By the 10th quest her head was already in touching it, and Sally gives out the most quests out of all the NPCs right now! She also has the most repeatable quests.
Her tail was already large by default so the tail would very quickly break through the wall. I don't mind the tail doing that, but it shouldn't happen so soon!

With NPC-specific multipliers, I'm now able to make Sally grow in height much more slowly. I did the same with her tail since it had similar issues. The rest of her proportions grow as they should, but now with proper giantess growth!
It'll take more than 30 quests for Sally to outgrow her shop now. The tail still breaks out early, but it takes longer now.
I'll make a gif of this new growth soon.

For now, I won't add this update to the ko-fi. I want to put a bit more into it before I update it. I want to share a new build at least once every week.

I decided to focus on multiplayer again. I was closer to a solution than I thought!
I know I uploaded a new version yesterday, but I'm gonna have to upload another one.
Joining a server with several high level players surrounding the spawn was incredible. It works!

I didn't have time to test much of anything else. I did notice that modded servers can break the Growth Mod, but I'm not sure which mods break it or for what reason. Normal servers should work just fine.
This is good enough for now, I'll go back to focusing on growth.

Although, I am a bit worried. With what I have planned for Diva. Desyncs are inevitable, right? If growth affects gameplay it'll certainly cause weird problems, especially between those who do not have the mod.
Well, I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

...

Y'know, I've never naturally played to level 40...
I should take one of my characters there.

I did some multiplayer testing. Bad news.
I was met with MILLIONS of errors. Every frame. Terrifying.
The Growth Mod wasn't working in multiplayer AT ALL. Today I spent time just making sure the mod at least starts in multiplayer.

I succeeded, but there are some problems. Any player that was already in the server before you joined will not have growth effects applied to them.
At some point, the mod loses track of some players and starts throwing errors. Instead of spamming an error every frame, I'll just have the mod log when it fails to track a player for now. When this happens growth effects won't apply, but at least there won't be errors showing up every frame...I hope.

For now, I'll put this version of the mod on Ko-Fi since the current version didn't even function in multiplayer. This version half functions. That's better than nothing!
I don't know if players can see growth effects or not if they don't have the mod. It's hard to notice on a low level character. The game caps sizes as well, so un-modded probably won't look weird. I'll find out later.

I need to decide what I'm going to focus on. It'll either be multiplayer functionality, Diva's growth effects, or Vivian's enchantment effects.

Wanna know something great about Diva? Much like the other important NPCs, she uses the same kind of armature as everyone else.
Not only can I make her grow, but her breast dones are just as easy to grab. There are no butt bones to use unfortunately. I need to figure out how to scale thighs along with the but still anyway.
Diva BE is real and I'll make it happen.

I spent time with family today, so I didn't have time to really work on much, but it's good to know Diva can be scaled in more ways than one.

We'll see if I can scale her attacks soon. I may be able to share some screenshots about it soon.
My plans are Diva are going to take a lot of work so don't expect anything too soon. I might have an easier time with Vivian's enchantment growth compared to this.

After a couple days of absence I'm getting messages about my Growth Mod. I should have figured people would want to use it themselves if I started posting about it on here. I don't know why that didn't cross my mind.

This mod was originally self-indulgent. I made it with my own interests in mind, so it wasn't in a good position to be shared with many others. If I wanted to make this public then I needed to restructure everything. Remove most of the hard-code, create a ton of settings, strip the debugging, and use default values that are good to start with. Hours passed until I thought the mod was in a decent state for other people to use.

Was that enough? Is this really all I want to do? My mind started racing. This Growth Mod can be more than just a mod the makes the player and NPCs grow as you progress. I could incorporate size changing elements all over the game! Maybe even....shrinking? What if enemies could potentially grow in size? What if size could affect gameplay?
I could go bigger. BIGGER!
Make this the best size experience anyone would ever want for this game!

There was one problem: I hate sharing unfinished work. An audience deserves a finished product. If I wanted to commit to this increased scope then I'll need more time. I originally thought this mod would take me about 2 or 3 months, but now I have no idea how long it could take. My ideas aren't even solidified.

Another problem: I don't believe work should be free. I recently had an incident that put me in financial jeopardy so I'd more than love to get paid for my work and effort. But...
I've been on the internet long enough, I've seen how people react to paywalls. How DARE someone ask to get paid for their hours, days, weeks, or even MONTHS of hard work! Even so...
There's an expectation that mods are free. I don't think this is wrong. Mods are building off of a creative work/IP they don't own. Mods are meant to service a community, and if that community gets paywalled then they'll have a hard time sharing their experience together. I don't want that.
So, I'm conflicted. What do I do???

Here's my compromise: I'll make a ko-fi where monthly subscribers will get access to my mod updates whenever I finish them. I'll make the price low, so if you don't have to send me a lot of money for a WIP mod. However, the moment I consider the mod is done I'll make it FREE and post it on somewhere like the Thunderstore. This goes for all of my mods and not just the Growth Mod. I plan to make other size-related mods for Atlyss to improve the overall experience.
To show I'm serious, I'll post one of my own mods I made for self-indulgent reasons to the Thunderstore: Camera Freedom.
Download Here: https://thunderstore.io/c/atlyss/p/.....amera_Freedom/
I've used this mod for several screenshots I'll be uploading here overtime.

Also, I'll be open for to suggestion. If there's something about the Growth Mod you personally wish to see added, I'll tackle it if I think it is feasible. You won't have to be a subscriber, I'll listen to all suggestions and make this mod and all other size mods the best that I can.

I don't care if subscribers "pirate" my work and share it around. All I ask is that you don't upload it to any mod databases or even places like Reddit. Also, please do not claim you may the mod. I want people to be linked to the source if they want to experience. If I see people doing this, I'll refund subscribers for the month and hide my updates for as long as I feel necessary. I want to people to visit MY public spaces on the internet for MY work. Share it amongst friends or in private internet spaces if you want. I don't mind, I even encourage it. Just don't remove the creator from their work y'know?

If you do try it, I recently worked on its Network compatibility. It SHOULD work fine in multiplayer, but I haven't tested it much myself. Other mods may break what the growth mod is doing. Let me know of any issues you encounter. I'll try to squash as many bugs as I can.

I'm still figuring out exactly what's next, but I'll share some plans:
- Make size accurate collisions for NPCs. (Imagine standing on Enok's shoulder when gets massive from growth, or walking between an NPC's legs!)
- Make the player's size affect their range and hurtbox (This existed at one point, but I removed it for buggy reasons)
- Fix the ledge-grab animation so it matches size
- Add a temporary shrink debuff to some enemies attacks
- Adjust certain quests so they cause size related events
- Make some enemies or bosses have size related mechanics to change how they play
- For Diva in particular, have her grow in size after each defeat and increase the size of her attacks as she grows. Have her also grow in size when a slime is defeated while she is active. If she uses the attack that spawns slime from her breasts, have that shrink her a little to give players a chance if she grows too much during a fight.
- Make functional shrinking. (Right now, the Growth Mod does shrink with negative values, but since there's no limit, you can shrink past "0" and growing while flipped upside-down. Past a certain threshold, the size should be divided instead of subtracted to avoid this problem)
- Add temporary growth to Vivian after an enchantment.

and MORE!
I appreciate any support anyone is willing to give and I appreciate anyone who wants to try my mods. I don't think they're good right now, but with enough work I can make it great. It's a promise.

I started this thinking I would write a journal everyday for a while and I couldn't even make it more than a week. Life can hit you hard and fast. Barely scrounge up enough to make rent for this month. Don't worry, I'm fine for the time being. I got enough to get by if all is well.

The good news is, I found some time to work on the mod again today. I focused on a couple fixes. Exp no longer desyncs growth between sessions and the game doesn't softlock if the player happens to not have a tail.

I also had an issue when adjusting scale values. For debugging reasons, I had a method to adjust values while the game was open, but doing so would lead to inconsistent sizes and scaling. After some math, the scaling problem was gone.

Not a whole lot was done, but any progress is good progress.

Whenever the game is closed and reopened, the mod re-assesses the player's stats to scale them back into the size they should be at. Not everything works as intended. The player's growth scales with exp and levels. The game does not save the overall exp gained between previous levels. As a result, the player will load back into a slightly smaller size. This is actually showcased in both of my player growth uploads. The player is noticeably smaller in the second one because of this issue.
This will require some math to get working as intended.

VIvian is a particular issue in this case. Right now her growth is tied to Angela's quests, but if I were to implement enchantment growth I'll need to find a way for the game to remember her size from enchantments. Maybe I can make enchantment growth temporary? I'll think of something.

I've mainly been using gifs in my posts, but showcases are going to be slowing down for a bit. There's a lot of playtesting I want to do and there are real life struggles to deal with. I may whip together some screenshots for those viewing this page.

I've uploaded a couple posts showcasing expansion/growth working on body parts instead of just overall size.

It took a little bit of experimentation to make things look correct and I'm not quite satisfied with it yet. For the butt, it would look better if the hips or maybe even thighs grew in size as well. I'm worried that these models lack the bones needed to make such adjustments feasible. I won't know until I try.
Besides, even if that doesn't work, at least I managed to make the butt grow at all. That's better than nothing!

By the way, there isn't a cap. There are no limits to how far growth can go. I disabled the size limits of the player and the quest giving NPCs can scale infinitely as long as they have repeatable quests. The game remembers how many quests you have completed, even the ones you did more than once. I could farm the same quest over and over if I so desired.

As fun as that is, this does introduce problems. Several visuals don't quite line up on the player past a certain height. Ledge grabbing looks weird. The camera doesn't line up quite right with a taller player. There are gameplay consequences to being bigger too. Projectiles can have weirder angles, your weapons may have more range, and you're a bigger target for enemies. I guess being more vulnerable is a good trade off for more range.

For NPCs, the growth no longer aligns them with their collision and triggers. The camera isn't going to zoom out more to make sure they fit the frame when you speak to them. The dialogue trigger stays where it is so you might have to walk inside the NPC just to talk to them if they're big enough (Zuula has this problem). NPCs can detect if the player is close so they can stop walking, but that range doesn't line up with they get bigger.

Clothes can have trouble lining up on larger and more hyper sizes. You can see that with Sally's clothes in a recent post of mine. The same case is true for certain armors the player can wear.

One day I may try to address some of the quirks, but for now GROWTH comes first and foremost!
Sacrifices are needed to keep getting bigger and bigger!

Quest giving NPCs grow from quests, but this mod is not just about NPCs. I want growth effects on both NPCs and players.

Future plans aside, the player Exp and Levels now affect their size.
In the showcase I made, the player's breasts and bottom stats were also affected. This isn't all it is limited to. I experimented with expanding other assets as well. The player's breasts, bottom, belly, arms, and even the tail can all be affected by growth.
The tail was harder to do since Kiseff never made a slider for the tail. I managed to find a way to change its size cleanly.
As for the arms, I thought I could simulate muscle growth that way, but it doesn't look quite right. I'll leave the functionality there in case I find a use for it.

Doing this made me realize that many NPCs actually share a very similar armature to the player's model, so I could manipulate their models as well to achieve similar effects. Smart move Kiseff. It's certainly easier to get NPCs rigged and ready for the game this way. Luckily for me, this means I can do more than just change their size.

That's the good news. The bad news is that NPCs were not modeled with changing the size of body parts in mind. As an example, I can't change Zuula's breast or bottom size easily. The bones in her model just aren't setup for that.
That's okay. Maybe it's better that not all NPCs grow the same way. It makes them unique!
I'll showcase this soon with Angela and Sally.

Instead of continuing to sit on this account with nothing to upload, I'm going to use it to share development of multiple size related mods I'm planning to make for Atlyss.
I'm making this for my own personal whims, but the thought crossed my mind that despite having an account here for years, I never uploaded a single thing.

From here on, that will change. Starting from now, I'll share whatever I add on to this little project of mine. It's better than leaving this account empty.
I need to think of a profile picture at some point....