Inner Circle Update for November 1, 2019!

Hey guys!

We're on track to have a release sometime in November.  The goal is to have combat with the Splicer Thugs functional (and pretty).  I intend to have an earlier release for the Inner Circle.   

Mr. Kittyhawk has been working on improving the combat system physics and collision systems for the 3D overhaul since the last update, and while he's been doing that I've branched out into getting the groundwork laid for weapons and environment props.  Limbo is now working on the weapon designs and models, and we've already got quite a bit in that area to show off.

TK has the low poly / optimized Splicer Thug models ready and rigged, and we've also got a first look at the Splicer Looter in-game.

Last but not least, Uber has completed the first map tileset for the sewer level, and for the first time we've got a working pipeline that will allow us to easily generate multiple versions of the levels (daylight / night time variations, artificial lights on/off, alternate color palettes and so on).  

Low Poly Splicer Thug

TK and I have finished up the low poly Splicer Thug, meaning he should be ready to go for the next release :D.   Since his original pants and boots were never intended for a real-time game, TK did a crash course in Marvelous Designer to redesign them like the original 2D version.  I'm really pleased with the results!

Splicer Looter

TK and I put together the materials for the Splicer Looter over the last few days, and I love how goofy he came out.  I can't wait to start animating him, because I'm certain we'll use these guys for more than just the looter enemy.  These guys will be generally clumsy/comical, and will turn up in ridiculous scenarios (popping out of barrels / chests, packs of them riding by on out-of-control vehicles, etc.) 

H Animation Progress!

TMX has been getting a head start on the H animations before we dive into the Splicer combat animations.  He's got the Splicer Thug struggle loop done and has begun working through the transition animations for the first scene.  Keep in mind there's no face rig on Onyx in this scene :D so no face animations yet.  

Environment Props! 

These aren't only for the pretties -- props will have a significant role in populating maps with interactive and dynamic content.  

• Static - Some props will simply be there to change the shape of the playing field to make encounters more interesting.
• Chests - Unique to Mission Mode, you open these bad boys and get equip-able or consumable loot.  All chests are not equal, and some demand certain items to open them.
• Containers - Breakable props that spray out things like currency, temporary weapons, or in rare cases loot -- these can also be traps!
• Obstructions / Events -  Barricades may be used to enhance encounters, and some enemies may use them as cover.  There may also be events in which Onyx has to break barricades quickly to escape something or reach an objective. 
• Vehicles -  In some cases these may act like barricades, but I'd like for enemy reinforcements to sometimes arrive in vehicles (which you could potentially destroy before they spawn).  Some enemies may also begin encounters on vehicles and when knocked off change to their regular behaviors.

I spent quite a bit of time this week working with styling them in a way that works with the backgrounds while making them stand out enough to recognize that they can be interacted with.

Traps and Hazards

We've given the darker (fun) side of environments some attention recently.  We first organized traps in a way that makes them easy to develop and implement, and then started populating a list.  The Discord channel was a lot of help here, as some of you gave some great ideas (I encourage those of you that haven't joined yet to do so :D!).  Of course, if you have any additional ideas feel free to add them in the comments! 

Anyways, here's the list of ideas that we have so far :D. 

Welcome to the Gun Show :0

Limbo and I have been working on temporary weapons recently -- most of which just happen to be guns at the moment >_>.   The concepts shown above are potential designs for certain roles we need filled.  

Temporary weapons, or what I'm calling "secondary weapons" since some enemies (and potentially future playable characters) will have primary weapons, are weapons with limited uses, charge, or ammo, and basically act like power-ups.   You can read about the gameplay mechanics we have planned for them here (the yellow text is stuff we're unsure of without testing). 

Also, you can check the full list of weapon ideas that we're planning here!  

Energy Cannon

Here is the first gun to be completed!  This is actually the most heavy duty weapon we have planned at the moment.  We plan for it to launch a beam of energy for as long as you hold the trigger, but we also want it to have a secondary overcharge attack that allows you to launch a plasma ball that explodes for massive AoE damage.

Sewer Tileset

Uber finished up the first filler tileset for the sewer level, and the results are pretty great I think :D.  I've included a few examples of what we can create with it above.  

To clarify -- these tilesets will be for filler maps that link the more interesting/unique event maps.  They'll be getting attention first though since we can create long playable segments for releases during the development process.

New Environment Color Workflow

Ubercharge's system for generating different map lighting variations is very necessary, but it has some limitations.  It still takes significant manual work per variation, and would need quite a bit of automation work to minimize that.  It also doesn't allow for individual objects within the scenes to be recolored (yet).  

Luckily, TK discovered a machine-learning based app that surprisingly does a great job of recoloring the final images based on palettes you feed it -- meaning we can minimize the number of variations that we need to run through Uber's process.  With some extra masking we can also make truly unique palettes (as opposed to changing just lighting or editing color on all the objects at once).  Best of all, it actually does such a good job of adding color that I'll be using it to improve upon all our environments.

I posted some examples of our results so far in the gallery at the top of the post!