August ‘23

When I told myself I'd start writing updates, I had this weird anxiety about posting as much as possible, like once a week or something. Which was obviously *never* a thing I ever did, so once I failed to live up to that expectation I began to feel much better. I think that posting once a month will be a better goal for myself, and if I fall short of it, then oh well. So check back here every month or so! Maybe there will be a new post? Here's one: it's time for the AUGUST AUPDATE

I've come to a pretty significant roadblock on the great highway of game development, but luckily I'm almost around it. Part of my motion capture suit died. I'm getting great repair service from the nice folks at Rokoko though, and hopefully I'll be back to animating soon! But in the meantime I've found plenty to keep myself busy with.

For example, a new model! Her body still isn't done yet, but she'll be my fourth character so far--for this game, and ever. I'm doing some weird topology to suit my weird art style, and I've already gone back & reworked some older models since I feel like this latest model taught me so much. Always learning, always improving!

The building is (more or less) fully put together, so lately I've been honing in on certain sections that could use polish. No matter how much I do, I feel like there's still so much more to get done...but at least I think I'm getting some pretty pictures along the way! The courtyard and lobby are both looking good.

Here's the meat and potatoes of what I've been doing lately: tools for the player to use!

As the player, you can't manipulate the characters in any direct way, but now you can use a remote to control the flow of time, a spyglass to investigate things up close, and a book that will provide you with more information. Please ignore my shoddy placeholder UI graphics :')

And if you don't mind going to the website formerly known as twitter, here's a short clip (with sound!) of the remote in action.

Hopefully my mocap equipment will be back with me soon. It's a long process to record an animation, clean it up, retarget it to a character & import the animation for playback in the game engine. It's even worse when I don't have all my limbs being recorded! So as soon as I have my stuff back I'm going to be recording like a fiend. See you in a month or so!