Big Ol Monthly Update: Tech and Animation

Hello peeps, this month wasn't as productive as I wanted but some solid work got done. I took about a week for some health stuff (think diet/preventative related) where working as I normally do wasn't viable.

So, let's get started.

Looking

A function Naomi's partially had for a long time was the ability to look at things dynamically. But the actual implementation to be usable was never done. Now that implementation is mostly complete, there's some nit picks mostly with some animation stuff. Like the eye twitching (which helps the character appear more lifelike) doesn't work while "looking" so it needs a math-based solution now. And I would like some additional functions for when it triggers.

But the effect works even with complex poses like the above. With constrained limits and such, and the ability to keep the hands in place or not. This should be togglable most of the time like in sex, but it's mainly intended for dialogue scenes. It's just sometimes it's a bit odd, so we'll see.

In the end this should allow me to reuse animations more, and also make stuff like pose mode have more variety.

Environment Traffic

 I added an extremely basic spline-based traffic system, this is entirely for set dressing so that while you see cars moving, they aren't repetitive and act somewhat naturally. It's really just moving down the spline at preconfigured speeds, and a simple check so they slow down when they get too close to colliding (most of the time).

The above gif is an earlier version, you'll see some cars blink out of existence but that only happens when you're not looking at them.

This system does some things like randomly change car colors, and randomize spawns.

I do want to use this system for some things like possible civilian traffic, kind of like the shadow people in Persona 5. At least that's the Idea. but that's more down the line.

So, expect at the apartment or other future locations an occasional car or person to go by, adding some realism, maybe thrill...

Blow Job Training Animations... And More!

You guys have seen it for a long time, but haven't been able to see the actual content beyond some older previews. Getting these done was how I spent the end of the last month. Some of these were partially from Kabangeh's work, but unfortunately, they weren't able to continue doing animations. So, I'll be finishing them.

All the gifs are above of most of the animations.

In fact, animations are going to be my sole focus this month. I think I wanna see how much of the animations I can get in a single month.

I believe I can knock out all the blow job training animations at least, but hopefully some cinematics too. Obviously, this doesn't include implementation, that will come later but I will be focusing on it then.

I've said this before but for me, focusing on a single task tends to lead to efficiency doing that task. And I've already warmed up.

About the roadmap

I know I said I'd have a roadmap this month, but I think I'm gonna hold back. I'm gonna do this animation burn, then determine what I expect from here on. One I'll have a chunk of needed work wiped out, 2 it's much easier for me to judge how long implementing these animations will take than making and implementing them.

Animation is now the biggest hurdle to the steam release, and burning through a chunk will give more perspective.  

Some notes on animations needed, in order of priority:

• Blow job training animations accounts for roughly 60 total animations (I'm missing some factors here like intro and conclusion scenes!), since this activity is progression based, I may not need to do ALL the animations before a steam release. As some may make more sense to unlock later in the game.

• First night has already been animated, this is currently the only story-based sex scene until the end of Act 4. I haven't exactly determined if the end of Act 4 is needed for the Steam release. But the end of Act 4 event is actually intended to introduce dress up and role play properly. In the final game Act 4 will not have dress up, it will be focused on random outfits. Act 5 will have it.

• The other priority scene is the "Measurements" scene. This one, may take a bit of doing, cause it's more about "Feel" over raw animation, so we'll see how that goes.

• Sex Sim foreplay and conclusion scenes are generally simple. For foreplay you can already see their initial poses in the game, and each of those is roughly 5 animations. (Idle, entry, Pace1, pace2, cum) maybe 1-2 more I gotta check my notes later. Either way not a ton of work. Conclusion scenes currently aren't planned to be animated, just poses, the issue is effects like cum and such. I don't exactly want to use the basic system in sex sim I want something more "3D". But the process for that needs to be efficient and not based on simulation (cause that's annoying). And even though I don't plan to animate, being compatible with at least some idle loop movement is ideal. So, we'll see.

• Sex Sim has been worked on, and some new positions have been at least partially done, but atm there is enough for a release IMO. Publisher may say different but doing these is not complicated.

• Next priority is dialogue scenes, scenes where basically the player and Naomi are talking on the couch or elsewhere, likely used repeatedly throughout the game. These are what the look functions were primarily made for. These don't need much if any animation; it's just a lot of poses and variety really...

• VN Dialogue is used less than I sort of expected. But there's still animations needed. A good chunk were done a long time ago, and originally it even had implications for normal chat dialogue, so this does relate a bit to the above. I may kind of rethink this whole thing and how it's setup. Not remove it cause it's important, basically allowing me to skip doing animations for some things. But the setup is very old, and I've learned a lot since I conceived it. So, reviewing what I intended to do before it gets full-fledged use is probably a good idea. This means there isn't only an animation burden but some dev work too...

• Additional cinematics, lowest priority, as you can tell this priority list is effectively in order of lewd. Realistically that's just how it needs to be. While the majority of these can't be missing from the steam release, a decent amount could be, possibly at least temporarily replaced with the VN dialogue scenes if needed. Thats why the priority is below that. But when it happens the animations will be produced from Act 0 and forward. Sooner this is done sooner later acts can be produced and released. My goal is to avoid moving forward until everything is done on the previous cinematics at least to satisfaction. Thats 4 acts of animation to finish so we can focus on updates to one act at a time as they come out.

Hopefully this whole run down gives some perspective even though it's not a proper roadmap.

Conclusion

So, like I said, focus this month is animations, we'll see how it goes.

Depending on how it goes roadmap should also be next month.

Also, because I'm focusing on animation, don't expect a build next month. But do expect A LOT of content next build as implementation is focused on after doing a bunch of animation.

Thats all for now, thank you your support! Please share the previews around!

~sacb0y