Game dev update November (411)

Hello everyone.

Last dev update was october 30? (I think a monthly update on this might work depending on the flow of content/speed of progression.)

Before anyone asks: No there is no game to play yet. I've been thinking about releasing smaller parts so people can get a feel for the game and give feedback. I am aiming towards a demo showing more features the final game will offer. To realize that I needed more game models and customization in order to create more diverse characters. Wether it were NPC's or the player itself. I think you already know where this is going: Character customization

Last month I showed you my new character model (below).

Despite her good looks (I think she looks good *cough cough*), this character wasn't done yet. I wanted the model to be modular. Certain parts should be able to switch on/off in order to make room for different pieces of clothing or simply leave body parts away (yes limbless fuckdolls or petgirls crawling on all 4 are on my to-do list)

So I did what was necessary and chopped my model into pieces. I immediately ran into a problem that took me 3 days to fix (my lack of blender knowledge naturally played a part in this...).

See after chopping my model up in pieces I immediately noticed the strange cuts and shading of the normals. However, since I had cut all parts from the same model I figured blender did something wrong.

At first, in the game engine I didn't even notice it but after running it full screen I noticed how the edges were indeed visible. Not just the arms(above), the entire body features seams and strange cuts (below)

I searched for 3 days to find an answer and on the third evening I realized I could simply copy and paste the normals from my older back up model to this one and... Voila! (Although my lack of blender knowledge definitely played a part, I was also able to fix it myself :D )

The model now looks smooth again both in blender and in the game engine.

So you might ask: why go through all that stuff? What's the point in having a model like this? The answer is of course the skin tight fabric I find so sexy: latex. It's so close to the skin that putting it over the skin would cause strange artifacts and other visible bugs. To eliminate these I decided to have the player decide how they want their skin and latex to look like. Now you can play around with any kind of skin tight suit and even rebuild ones you have seen already.

("Mrs. Incredible?... Helen par? Is that u?!")

Yes you will be able to create suits like that for your character and if that doesn't suit you (no phun intended...) you can always create whatever you like to see.

Question: "But Lerra, what about their hair?"

Answer: "I want to create hair models that are equally modular allowing people to turn certain parts on or off. Creating all of that (especially the programming) will take some time. Luckily they don't need any animations and the programming code to connect them to the animated armature is already up and working (tested and fixed multiple times in the past).

"So that's it? Some colors and shit?! That's why I have so few images in my dropbox folder right now? Where are my stories to read?"

Well yes...

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But actually no...

Other than a skin tight layer, I also want regular clothing to be a part of the game. This is one of the main reasons why it was so hard to figure all of this stuff out. How was I going to let all of this work without creating an overly difficult system for myself to manage which was also pleasing for people to play around with?

About a month ago I already told you about how I finally figured out the problems surrounding clothing clipping through the characters body. Even before that I had already set up a system/setup how things "might" work and after a few tests of my own I'm proud to show of the work I put in to get a decent look of what the final result "could/might" look like. (Image below)

Above image uses both the modular body parts combined with other 3d models to create outfits that are all unique. You can turns items off or on or give a different color to items or body parts should you feel the need for it.

(For those with a keen eye, the gloves on the right front character are partially skin/partially added 3d models. Together they create an illusion of clothing).

Now all of this is nice and well but there is one element to all of this that I struggled with a bit. See, I want to create a game where your clothing matters and sort of changes the way your character could move or perform actions in the world. (Tied up or taped up hands should have an impact on your game right?).

I'm still aiming for that with certain elements like hoods/wrist cuffs/ankle cuffs/gags/collars etc. However, I realized that players might put a lot of time in certain outfits or the looks of their characters. In fact, sometimes people equip certain pieces of gear or clothing because they simply look good. Thinking about this, I realized certain pieces of clothing might cause unexpected behaviour in game play. Probably... in a negative way. So what I want to make clear right now is that: most of your clothing will not have any effect on your gameplay behaviour HOWEVER, should you character wear any of the following: wrist cuffs/ankle cuffs/ collar/ gloves (that squeeze/shut off finger usage)/gag/blindfold(including hoods/masks) or specific bondage related pieces of clothing (like reverse prayer binders/armbinders), you will be able to CHOOSE how these pieces of clothing act. Should you choose to wear wrist cuffs without the possibiltity for bondage the game will also ignore it as a viable option to use.

Q: "So what if I want more than one outfit? One for playing around and one to adventure?"

A: I'm planning to create a system where you can create and save an outfit to certain slots. Later you can use these slots to instantly swap between outfits.

Q: "Will I be able to use these slots on all of my characters/team members?"

A: "Yes... but only if you have enough pieces of clothing... You have to collect/craft pieces of clothing in the game. If you desire to have an army of slaves, all wearing the same outfit, you're gonna have to work for it :P "

So now what? First of: I already re-imported the new model and rig back into unity. I immediately came across something funny because the eyes of the character are not attached to the rig yet (I have to code it in order to keep them in place). It's the same code I use to connect the hair rig so it won't cause any problems (... I hope). Anyway, they're boucing around outside of the body right now as I run around. For reasons... I disabled them in the image below.

Once that is in you'll be able to enjoy looking deep into your characters eyes and... yeah whatever everyone just wants to see this anyway.

Anyway... It's been quite a month and I put in quite some work and time to get something decent. There is still a lot to work on (Shapekeys for the mouth/different gags/Shapekeys for the nose/nose mods. But to be honest, other than 1 gag I don't think I'll need many gags/mods yet for the demo so I'm simply adding those to the pile.

I did however create one shapekey because it couldn't be implemented any other way:

A squeezing waist. Now you can give Mrs. Incredible an even thinner waistline without limits.

Normal (0%):

50%:

100%:

"Oof!" (notice how the normals of the character, despite dealing with 4 different body parts that have their shapes deformed, are not causing any artifacts/strange visual bugs? :D )

So when will there be a demo? Something playable?

I won't say a specific date. There's a lot going on in my life these past few months and there are certain struggles I have to deal with. Past week my father's dog (which my sister decided to take care for) had gained weight dramatically and turned out to have cancer. We had no other option but to put the poor thing down in order to rid him of the pain. My aunt living at the end of the street got her share of shit when her brain decided to quit (cerebral infarction) which naturally brought stress and shit feelings into my world once more. All we know now is that she won't be able to use the entire right side of her body any longer.

All in all: It was a productive, yet very shitty month in terms of content and living (In my world). All I can say is: stay tuned for the character customization demo and if you're into stories/images, I will make a post about that right after this one.

Last but not least, a small teaser regarding the game's UI. I'm not done with this yet (... obviously) but it covers a lot of elements that I previously had no idea about how I wanted it to look like or how it should work. The image below doesn't show everything but that's not a bad thing, it's still a work in progress anyway so...

And that concludes the dev log for November :O

I'm creating a seperate post for the lack of images and stories this month and explain how it got to this point. (Mostly stress that played a part and made me insecure about a lot of my sketches/writing skills).

Thank you for reading my book of struggles and game related items. I hope you like what you are seeing so far and if you have any questions leave a comment below!