Tuesday update!

Hey guys!  Sorry I didn't write a report yesterday – I worked a very long day and was frazzled at the end of it.

A number of things are all moving along at once right now:

• Victoria's working very hard on the new low maintenance avatar.  The new design is not only going to be easier for us to update, but will be much more beautiful, and we're looking forward to sharing it with you very soon.  This will make it faster for us to create new scenes and new clothes/hair/makeup/skin tones.
• Hyneman prototyped the new clean avatar layers code and proved that our design from week 1 works!  In his demo, an avatar configuration for which we'd need nine layers in the existing system was achieved in just five, with no detectable difference.  This will make clothes much easier to manage in the engine.
• Working with a freelancer, Lara built a working prototype of the new character creation screen.  Because the new avatar doesn't work in the same way, you'll need a new set of controls to customise it.  The new version looks surprisingly gorgeous IMHO.  This will enable you to interact with the new avatar when it's ready.
• Hyneman developed a cool new SVG-based colour layer that may enable us to recolour things like hair, skin & clothing using code (instead of hand-colouring all the different variations).  If this works then it will save us lots of time in art production, and let us offer you lots more colour options.
• Yesterday I shared a new, simpler way of designing story sections in the dev channels (basically storyboards – inspired by Stone Librande's One Page Designs talk at GDC 2010).  This provoked some lively discussion in the dev channels, especially around the area of how community writers can use this format to contribute their own content, which is really exciting.  If this works, then it will not only speed up my own personal story production, but also provide a model that community writers can use to add in their own greta ideas.

Loads is happening right now and my main desire is to share this with you ASAP – we're moving as fast as we can.

I also promise to post a general update on Bangkok/design options soon as requested by several community members – certainly before the next Patreon billing cycle, I'm just too blasted to do anything else today.  👴🏻

Okay, I'm gonna go relax so I can get in another good day tomorrow.  See you then!