Custom fur shader & other news
Added 2016-01-11 20:31:54 +0000 UTCAdding "real" fur to our characters is something we have wanted to do for a while now, but the options available haven't been great. There are basically two fur shaders in the Unity asset store, and neither one of them support a [for us] crucial feature - directional fur. This is quite surprising, considering most creatures don't have fur standing right up. For example, the hair of a dog is streamlined and goes along its back.
This past time we've been researching how to develop our own custom fur shader supporting directional fur. Apart from developing this custom fur shader, we also had to research and develop tools for the directional fur authoring and export.
Today, we're happy to share the results of our work:
Body without fur authoring (for comparision)
All these are rendered in Unity 5 using our custom fur shader. The fur directions have been hand-authored by Dogson. You cannot currently achieve this effect with any other shader in Unity (at least not available in the asset store).
This shader is quite heavy compared to a normal surface shader. We're still not 100% sure if we're gonna keep it or not, but we're definitely gonna let you guys try it out and have your opinions heard. Hopefully, this shader should be part of the next patron build.
Overall the 0.5 cycle will be mainly focused on polish and improvements in visual fidelity and functionality, but also in other areas. We're spending a lot time paving the way for custom characters by automating more of the workflow. This work won't be immediately visible, and thus not so exciting, but extremely important nonetheless. We're also hoping to revamp the sounds and add ambience to the environments.
We hope you're as excited about these developments as we are. Devoting time to creating a custom fur shader was a big risk for us, since this meant entering unknown territory and chance of success was uncertain. The time invested could easily have been proven to be wasted. Even though we might end up scrapping this, it feels like a success from a research and development point of view (because we got it to work), and we learnt a lot of useful things during this journey.
Comments
Nice, this will be interesting.
Navoa
2016-01-16 08:33:35 +0000 UTCThrow it in as an optional "skin" or something in the settings if it takes a lot to run. So everyone can at least run app if they can't handle the shader. Personally i can handle anything u throw into it so if it were up to me, go crazy :P
shondy
2016-01-13 11:56:44 +0000 UTC♥ LOVE ♥
2016-01-12 21:09:47 +0000 UTChaha wat
FurryVNE Team
2016-01-12 17:56:24 +0000 UTCI don't think such a point exists. There is always something we can work on and improve. So as long as people are willing to support this project, we will keep going. - odes
FurryVNE Team
2016-01-12 17:55:05 +0000 UTCDamn, i'm not sure if my laptop will be able to handle that and not blow up :D
Villy
2016-01-12 07:16:45 +0000 UTCHoly crap fungus fudgeo cookies. :O
Bazzal
2016-01-12 01:58:52 +0000 UTCLol, I was going to post this but you beat me to it!
Harmae
2016-01-12 00:38:34 +0000 UTCman this stuff looks really great, such strides such progress...do you ever think you will stop? like, at what point would "the yiffaliciou crew" consider things done?
Clap.
2016-01-12 00:30:10 +0000 UTCyou guys are doing amazing, i hope this dev cycle is as good as, or even better than, the rest!
Hexaconic
2016-01-12 00:05:13 +0000 UTCLooks great, this really adds depth and "realness" to the fur
2016-01-11 22:05:38 +0000 UTCThe fur looks really great and I think you guys should definitely keep it on at least as a toggle (in case of performance impact). It would look really sweet on characters like the rabbit and wolf. Sounds and ambiance sound pretty good too especially if we got the ability to control or add lighting to levels (like a floating torch or dimmer switch for a ceiling light)
Baphomet
2016-01-11 21:54:24 +0000 UTCThis is amazing! You guys should really keep it; it adds so much detail. Even if some computers might get bogged down by it, that's what graphics options are for. XD
Dark Sunrise
2016-01-11 21:48:48 +0000 UTCNICE!
Алек
2016-01-11 21:35:46 +0000 UTCGODSON
2016-01-11 21:13:01 +0000 UTCThank you. Hand poser and other features have all sort of been put aside temporarily as we're working on custom characters. That is our highest priority right now. It's unlikely hand poser will make it for 0.5.
FurryVNE Team
2016-01-11 20:52:21 +0000 UTCNice work! Makes a big difference to the wolf.
2016-01-11 20:52:14 +0000 UTCThanks! Yes, if we're keeping this it's definitely going to be an option.
FurryVNE Team
2016-01-11 20:51:04 +0000 UTCLooks good! Hope to see this soon. Any chance of seeing the hand poser in the 0.5 cycle?
Psy Draggy
2016-01-11 20:48:47 +0000 UTCThat looks great! Is it possible to make it toggleable in options? That way we can keep it even if some can't run it.
Xaos Wolf
2016-01-11 20:47:29 +0000 UTC
