This week in the Forest! #12
Added 2021-01-27 01:07:38 +0000 UTCYo folks! Hope the weeks starting well!
Let's jump into it with a word from Vixel!
1/25 weekly report
Added Red's sweater animations and transition. (This won't appear until we start Act 3 of the story!) The transition will work similarly to the swim floaties transition: Red will automatically don his sweater when you step into the snow.
Added a "New" label to the interact ui for the gossip interaction. Now you'll be able to tell when characters have new gossip without opening the Gossip menu.
Under the hood: Moved a bunch of fast travel code into new scripts, so I can upgrade the code next month without causing outside bugs.
Under the hood: Cleaned up some player movement scripts and prefabs so I can upgrade the code for a new feature we're adding soon. (This feature will eventually change the dashroll mechanic, so it's important I isolate that code to avoid causing outside bugs.)
The latest build had some spawn-related bugs including one that spawned the Dustin and Mabel date on the shore of the lake! (It's always supposed to happen outside Maverick's shop in Central Forest.) The cause of this appears to be two scripts running in parallel when I assumed they would run in sequence - sometimes one beats the other and confuses the game. I'll be upgrading on the spawning system to fix it -- hopefully will have a fix ready by next build! (Thanks yall for finding & reporting that!) <3
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Hell yeah :>!
On my side I stopped working on Act 3 script stuff to finish up Act 2 script stuff! I kiiiiiiinda thought we'd only have a few gossips left, and a critter date here and there, but we're looking at liiiikely... 20 or so interactions at least xD! So I've been going through and fleshing them out. Most of them are done at this point, but some require new assets 'n what not, setting up my to-dos for this week!
Other than that, I got started on the recent 10$+ poll!
This one's bringing up an interesting conundrum.
Most of the times, I do these illustrations straight in Aseprite. It helps me seperate my normal methods and artistic choices by working in a different program. It also helps keep things consistent by limiting certain things.
BUUUT, aseprite isn't super great for normal illustrations. It can take a lot longer to do something that Clip can do pretty quickly. Just the tools/workflow support it more.
SO I decided to doodle this one in clip.
It's SO quick to get something out like this. And the line variation adds that extra dimension that normal illustrations can have. It has its caveats, but it also brings in a lot of life.
Roughing stuff out in aseprite can work, but it definitely takes a lot longer. (I like the silhouettes/poses more of the bottom, but the top has a way better over all composition, so I'll likely be merging the two.)
It leaves me pondering a few things:
If I go all the way and completely "draw" this one - it will undoubtedly lose the "sprite" qualities (even though our illustrations/animations KIIINDA seem more like low-res art). The main culprit of this phenomenon is the introduction of Line-weight, and the introduction of inconsistencies.
The other option is to switch up the brush weight in clip. Go to a 1 pixel brush, or something very small, and just try to do the normal clean up there. See how it goes. I'll lose the lineweight possibilities, but still have the same workflow benefits? Not sure!
The other thing is - could the "more drawn" visuals be a welcomed sight? I think it LOOKS better, but I think it LOSES consistency and the "flavor" of the visuals of the game. Is this a problem? Is this a problem only to me?
These are the weird issues I run into with workflow and vision for the game. I want things to be consistent, since that's a large factor when it comes to something looking and feeling legit. BUT I also need things to be efficient, since there's a lot to do! WOOHOO GAME DEV lmao. So many things to consider!
So I need more info.
My next step is to do a test. I'll probably clean up the sketch in clip using 2 brushes, and we'll see if I can find a happy medium! I'll probably do this tonight.
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Other then that, that's it from us!
We're aiming to have an EARLY release next month so we can get back on schedule. But it'll be a smaller release, since it'll only be 2 weeks from the last one. But we'll keep y'all updated on how that goes haha.
Thanks for all the support guys!
Y'all the bomb :>
Comments
Thanks for the wonderful update. As far as style goes, I definitely like the current art style. Too clean of an art style would put the project into a been-there-seen-that, type of situation. This is obviously just my opinion but from a workload standpoint, consistency will only continue to enhance the project. Seeing as how you have a great deal of the game done, it'd been a pain to start from scratch (if styles were to change and you wish to stay consistent). The rough look comes off as an intentional art direction that plays into the concept of cute, not so innocent, woodland creatures from old Disney games about anthropomorphic characters having amazing adventures. The music and environments all work extremely well together. My vote (although I don't have one, wouldn't dare question your creativity) is for the current art direction. Its warm, fuzzy, and squishy (in a good way, wink).
Zebra27
2021-01-27 03:49:58 +0000 UTC
