PURE ONYX November 2023 Progress Update!

Hey everyone!

The November Pure Onyx release will be up by the end of the day!

The major addition with this release is the first Onyx + Brute H scene :D.  We've also added FemCop's torn/damaged suit to her visual equipment/damage system and more improvements to the Onyx + Bunnies diIdo H scene.  Clothing break FX now also play during H scenes as well.

AltairPL and Mr Kittyhawk have revamped the enemy wave spawner backend (for both survival missions and regular enemy encounters).  Many other changes this release are visual fixes/improvements to the characters, as well as some longstanding fixes to shading that I'll go into in the update post. 

As usual there's also a lot of new WIP art content to share :D.  

This month we've made progress on the Syndicate Enforcer, the Sewer Boss and his map, Fleshpod animation concepts and more.   Check it all out below!  

Topics for this Update

• November Release Details
• Brute H Scene and Improvements
• Syndicate Enforcer Sculpt Complete!
• Sewer Boss Concept Art
• Sewer Boss Sculpt (Final Design)!
• Sewer Boss Map Mock-ups
• Sewer Boss (Early Designs)
• FK/DK Doll Background Scene Concepts
• Fleshpod Combat Animation Concepts
• Wave Spawner Revamp

November Release Details

Tentative Changelog (** indicates items added since the November Inner Circle test release.)

• ** Fixed Brute's H attack cooldown, preventing him from spamming H attacks
• ** Added pin based stuck detection to navigation agent, helps actors unstick themselves from the environment in some situations
• ** Fixed Brute's AI breaking if he has no combat target for an extended period
• Added first Onyx + Brute H scene to gameplay and gallery
• Added Brute Bearhug ability to game
• Made additional animation improvements/fixes to Onyx + Bunnies DiIdo scene
• Added FemCop's torn/damaged leotard models to visual equipment system
• Clothing break FX now play during H scenes
• Revamped enemy wave spawner algorithm and backend (should ideally function the same for this release)
• Began mass character rig revamp to fix Unity blendshape normals (fix ugly shadows during blendshape animations)
• Added turn animations for Splicer Brute and Male Cop
• Fixed issue with visual damage system that caused Bunny Girls to freeze after defending
• Fixed issue causing block FX/SFX and animation to fail to play when Onyx successfully blocked an attack
• Fixed Brute's Punch hurtbox (Onyx often wasn't hit when she should have been)
• Fixed Onyx freezing when hit by Brute's Leap Smash / Ground Stomp while knocked down
• Fixed Vioreapers swapping position after finisher loop in Onyx + 3x Vioreapers H scene
• Leashed enemies no longer take tiny glitchy steps when wandering
• Fixed FemCop's skin outline not appearing at gameplay camera's standard distance
• Fixed missing outlines on parts of FemCop's beret, leotard, collar, straps and boots + UV issues on metal parts of jacket
• Fixed ugly shading artifacts + glitchy blendshape on Wraxe's wraxe blade
• Improved performance of Chain Splicer high quality model by removing unnecessary geo + fixed glitchy crotch of pants during H scene
• Simplified Chain Splicer's jacket shading, fixed error on kneepad texture, added outlines to knee/boot spikes
• Fixed missing Chain Splicer mask, jacket collar, and leather strap outlines for LOD model
• Fixed normals on Thug model, yielding fixed outlines on hands and mask
• Fixed texture errors all over Thug's pants from flawed early baking process
• Fixed Thug's pants clipping through his boots on LOD model
• Improved 2D style of Runt/Looter with material revamp, smoothed normals, fixed outlines and textures
• Entirely remodeled/retextured Runt/Looter's mask for cleaner geo/outlines + optimized polycount
• Fixed issue with Runt/Looter's donger not disappearing completely when hidden
• Runt's drone and box no longer perform a glitchy crossfade across the screen during the Onyx + Chain Splicer and Runt H scene

Brute H Scene and Improvements

We've added the first Splicer Brute H scene to the game and gallery :D!  As with the other scenes, it will receive additional SFX and polish in future updates, as well as versions for other female characters. 

We've also performed a revamp on the Brute's rig, which is used for the new H scene and should hopefully be used for his combat animations in the IC release next month.  We've reworked his arms from the model up so that they deform and maintain volume better.  This has required us to go through all his combat animations and adjust them for the new arms, but they now look significantly better and clip less with the forearms.    

We've also added turn animations for both the Brute and Male Cop, which are a big improvement!

Syndicate Enforcer Sculpt Complete!

Kame has finished the Syndicate Enforcer sculpt, including his gun :D!  This is one of those enemies that's gone through a few different concept variations, especially with the face and coat.  Lessons learned from Mr. Black's sculpt helped with the coat here, and we actually were able to develop a look for male faces by using our AI pipeline to give suggestions based on our female designs. 

Sewer Boss Concept Art

Since we started on this guy a while back, I think Limbo did at least 10 different concepts for him :D.  Well, we finally have a design I'm happy with!  As you'll see below, we went through quite a few just this month.  The winner here combines elements from both Limbo and Demonu4's designs.  

P.S. the concept is hard to read until you see his scale and where his head is ^-^.  Check below and it will make sense!

Sewer Boss Sculpt (Final Design)!

Demonu4 has done a great job this month of quickly iterating through several 3D concepts as we tried to get the correct vibe for the Sewer Boss design.

This is the "final" design, a combination of both Limbo and Demonu4's work.  In all likelihood the sculpt will require changes and potentially more details, as once we get into actual construction of the map and figure out his animations we'll likely come up with new requirements.  As you'll see from the next section, it's a bit more complicated than our usual boss!

P.P.S. That's his "first" head opening up to form the giant mouth :D.

Sewer Boss Map Mock-ups

Zydaline did a set of map mock-ups for the Sewer Boss arena this month :D.  If you recall, here is Limbo's old sketch to show how the concept has developed.  

The first idea in the set above (with the tentacle for foreshadowing) could likely be utilized for either another Sewer map or for an intro section into the boss area.    

The second image depicts the boss arena.  As discussed in an earlier update, we have a few potential ideas for this fight.  One certainty is the boss will rise up out of the reservoir in the background, and throughout the fight will animate in such a way that his immense scale becomes clear.  

The main objective in this fight won't be to directly defeat the boss with attacks, but to either defeat the (smaller) spawns he creates within a time limit, or more ambitiously to traverse a scrolling map while fighting his spawns and picking up energy cannons to fire at the boss in the distance from scripted interactive points on the map.  TK also suggested breaking down pillars in the playing field with standard attacks could drop debris on the boss, damaging him or making him recoil into the background.  

While not entirely decided upon yet, one idea is that the boss will draw closer to the foreground as the fight continues, thus acting like a sort of timer until he reaches Onyx and the fight ends.  Yet another idea is that the entire goal of the battle would be to escape the boss, and using the aforementioned means to damage him would act to stun him and buy time to continue running to reach the end of the map.  I think all of these ideas are attainable, and all sound really fun to me :D.  Let me know what you think!

Sewer Boss (Early Designs)

Here are some of the early designs that Demonu4 and Limbo conjured up for the Sewer Boss!  I normally wouldn't show stuff we passed on, but between all our artists this boss was one of the more difficult ones to finalize a design on, and these were honestly too cool not to show. It's not that these aren't good designs, just that they either didn't quite capture the style or weren't what I had in mind for this guy.  

That all being said, the alligator-looking design may be reworked into a standard enemy for the Sewers stage (we already have some concepts, which I'll probably show in the future :D).

Also, if you enjoy seeing stuff like this, be sure to check out our Discord if you're subbed to the Inner Circle tier or above so you can see and comment on all of the in-progress stuff :D.  A lot of our work doesn't always make it to the end-of-month updates as there's just too much to post.

FK/DK Doll Background Scene Concepts

I told Xxoom earlier this month we needed some designs for background H scenes involving the FK and DK Dolls and their fellow Splicers.  I pretty much gave him free rein, and these are the results!

Fleshpod Combat Animation Concepts

Limbo has completed a huge batch of combat animation sketches for the various Fleshpod enemies o.o! I'm only including a few above, but I'm attaching a folder with the entire set of GIFs for you to check out!

Wave Spawner Revamp

AltairPL and Mr. Kittyhawk have completed a major upgrade to the wave spawner code!  This update merges and extends our various wave spawner techniques, and in the future we will use this to make much better wave compositions (including faction oriented ones) than are currently present in places like the survival missions.  Here's a technical update about it from AltairPL:

We now have multiple ways to determine enemy event wave(s) composition! It's hard to explain it, since every part has its own quirks and stuff, and the number of possible combinations is a bit scary.  

The main way is an upgraded version of the waves config component, which was already successfully used in places like the Slums and Red-Light test map.  It allows us to set up default wave and override waves:

• default wave is used when there is no override for wave with given number
• override is used for specific wave numbers if different/specific wave composition is desired, e.g. boss

Each wave config can use one of two modes:

• direct - allows making a list of enemies to spawn for this wave - for default wave, this list can be used as a pool for random enemies
• faction - this is the new addition to the component config, but makes it much more versatile - randomizes enemies from selected factions.  It has a lot of customizable rules/parameters, allowing us to make variety of events, even with only just default wave set up properly

The second way is wave composition method, which at the moment is used only for wave spawner compatibility, but could be used for very specific events, where configuration would be too much for the waves config component... though it would probably be better to somehow integrate it with said component.