December 2021 Progress Update

Hey again everyone!

I hope everyone is having a good holiday season ^-^.  We've been plugging away, and as usual there's a lot to show off and discuss.  

Since the patched release on the 4th, we've started an itch.io for the growing number of interested people who are unable to use Patreon (some countries have issues with billing). I've also finished the Onyx vs FemCop cinematic mode preview, which I've linked below.

We also have a ton of new artwork to present!  Kame has finished the high poly sculpts for the Ghoul enemy.  Penapsquat, Limbo, and our new animator Ryatta have been working on Bunny Girl combat poses and animations.  We have a new Syndicate Girl enemy design from Demonu, as well as two new enemy concepts from Limbo.  TK has finished the Splicer Pitbull low poly model and just about finished the rig, and lastly we have some new map artwork and pipeline stuff to discuss!  

Topics for this Update!

• December Release Details
• FemCop Cinematic Mode Preview + Update
• New Enemy WIP: Syndicate Girl 
• Ghoul - Finished Models!
• Labs Stage Concepts + Maps Update
• Bunny Girl Combat Animations
• Splicer Brute Concepts
• Mimic Concepts

December Release Details

Tentative Changelog (** indicates items added or being added since the December 17 Inner Circle test release):

• ** Added Dancefloor test map to the Test Mission
• ** Added early version of Bunny Girl H Scene #2
• ** Added background/foreground H scene events between NPCs.
• ** Bunny Girls will now be "performing" on the Dancefloor test map.
• ** Fixed a major regression where Onyx and H scene initiator would swap positions after grapple / H scene
• ** Fixed a longstanding issue where Onyx could be moved for a brief period between grapple and H scene (looked very janky)
• Added secondary motion, animation fixes, additional facial animations, SFX, and liquid FX to the Bunny Girl H scene.
• Added a topless version of the Bunny Girl H scene.
• Added SFX to the second part of the FemCop + MaleCop vs Onyx H scene.
• The Bunny Girl H scene will now loop until the player exits the scene.  The "scene loop" mechanism behind this will be utilized for scenes intended to be played in the background between NPCs (such as this one), but is a step toward having more control over looping specific animations in the gallery.
• Potentially fixed runtime exceptions preventing some people from starting PO.
• Potentially fixed weird VSync behavior on some GPUs/drivers.
• Added native support for DualSense (PlayStation5) controller, both wireless and wired.
• Fixed issue with hiding enemy HP gauge/info when hitting (and not killing) an enemy right after hitting (and killing) another enemy.
• Fixed issue where HP gauge breaks when equipping gear that changes max HP.
• Fixed issue with HP follower (white section appearing when damage is taken) breaking for all enemies except the first encounter on a map.
• Fixed issue with hiding enemy HP gauge/info on enemy death while HP follower is active
• HP followers are no longer forcibly stopped/finished when opening debug console or pause menu windows.

FemCop Cinematic Mode Preview + Update

• Onyx vs FemCop Cinematic Preview (HQ - 1 GB)
• Onyx vs FemCop CInematic Preview (Compressed - 257 MB) 

You can download the minute-long cinematic preview video above ^-^!  I also wanted to give a brief update on the progress we've made toward adding cinematic mode to the game.

In completing this video, I accomplished a few more necessary tasks, such as figuring out how we should handle camera animations.  I've also completed a couple of first drafts of necessary user interfaces, including the cinematic mode interface and scene unlock interface.  

I'm out to make the cinematic mode UI quite minimalist so that controlling aspects of the scene don't occlude it.  Particularly so is the camera selection widget, shown in the bottom left, which displays available / unlocked cameras that you can select as the scene progresses.  Figuring out these requirements will allow us to unify the UI with the standard game-view mode that's already implemented so the two operate seamlessly.

New Enemy WIP: Syndicate Girl

We've been tossing around concepts for a female Syndicate enemy that would be a counterpart to the male Enforcer for quite a while, but our sculptor Demonu made a solid breakthrough with the design this month ^-^.    

She will largely appear in the Red-Light and Skyline levels, and would fight similarly to a ranged FemCop, though squishier.  She's still a work-in-progress, so feel free to toss ideas out there, and expect more progress in the next update!

Ghoul - Finished Models!

Kame has finished the high poly models for the Ghoul enemy!

These guys will make big appearances in both the Junkyard and Labs levels, and I suspect after all this work we'll make them into at least two different enemies (an old / malfunctioning version that behaves like a shambler-type zombie, and a newer, more difficult one that acts like a "runner" zombie).  

The last thing Kame has to do is add some mechanical entrails for a torso-only ground version that pull himself along and grabs Onyx from below.  

Labs Stage Concepts + Maps Update

We've been working on getting the map pipeline restarted this month, with plans to ramp up production next month :D.  We're adding members to the map team as well in an effort to distribute the workload more and improve the style of the backgrounds.  TK, our rigger and resident Maya master, will begin managing the Maya portion of the pipeline.  Kame and Limbo will become full time team members to dedicate half their work toward maps (modeling and 2D art respectively) while continuing with their character creation responsibilities.  One goal of Limbo spending more time on maps is to further integrate 2D art into the backgrounds, as I think this will help obtain a more organic and traditional look.  It's very likely we will add additional painters as well, and, when possible, embrace matte painting over time-consuming large scale 3D scenes for backgrounds. 

This month, I've been teaching Limbo the workflow Ubercharge designed for creating tile-based maps in the beat-em-up perspective.  Now that he's built up an understanding of it, he's been producing some great tileset designs for the upcoming Labs stage.  Due to team constraints, Uber had previously been designing these types of maps himself as he went. Having Limbo draft concepts has the two-fold benefit of allowing us to distribute the modeling work among the 3D team, as well as gives me the opportunity to playtest the designs in-engine.

Bunny Girl Combat Animations

Speaking of expanding the team, we have yet another new character animator who will primarily be aiding with combat animations.  Please welcome Ryatta to the team ^-^. 

This is turning out to be one of the areas our pipeline backs up at the most, as these animations require their own level of technical complexity and dedication apart from the game's H scenes.  They also require me to give a lot of input and feedback in order to convey my vision for a character so as to result in a stylish set of animations.  Ryatta is an experienced technical animator and rigger, and has so far shown a solid degree of autonomy when achieving this.  Check out some of the animations above for Bunny Girl that he's already knocked out :D (P.S., thanks Limbo for the concept art + Penapsquat for the 3D key poses ^-^).

Splicer Brute Concepts

This is actually an old concept back from 2018 originally done for MATM, now finally resurrected ^-^.  Limbo did the full body concepts for him just this week.  

I hadn't planned on using him originally, but I realized having a larger humanoid as a standard enemy would add a lot of potential for grapples and H scenes.  The Splicer Brute will be capable of things like bear hugs, and will have unique face tentacles that will add even more possibilities.

Mimic Concepts

Basically everybody who saw the chest animations from last month asked if we would be adding a mimic enemy.  The answer was obviously yes :D, so Limbo went ahead with some concepts.  

We couldn't decide whether it would be a trap or an enemy, but we're now leaning toward enemy after some discussion on the Discord.  This would make for a much more engaging encounter than to simply enter a scene when a box opens.