July Progress Update #2!

Hey everyone!

I'm doing a special second monthly update this month to show off what we've been working on the last couple of weeks.  It should vastly speed up content production, and will hopefully provide some clarity as to why we pushed back the Pure Onyx release this month.  

In short, we've figured out how to very nearly replicate our hand drawn character art style for Pure Onyx in real time 3D, thereby dramatically cutting down the time requirement for future animations.   Best of all, the setup time is a fraction of anything required for MATM (in part to all the leg work we did last year converting to Maya, as well as having a simpler art style), and it's very compatible with our current code, including our dynamic physics and particle liquids.   

We already have a rigged Onyx test model as well as three enemy models done, and are well on our way to completing the rest.   The above video and all of the images shown in this update were captured in Unity.  We still have work to do to weed out the artificial 3D look (especially excuse Onyx's hair, it's a placeholder), so do expect improvements. And don't worry -- I intend to animate in a style that maintains the charm of 2D sprites.  We're heavily referencing the Guilty Gear Xrd games' workflow for how to do this correctly.

We originally created characters in 2D to get Pure Onyx off the ground quickly.  Now that we've overcome the setup time issues of working in 3D, here are some of the benefits we gain from this switch:

• Far faster animation production times
• Far easier to animate transitions 
• Easier to create variety in individual enemies / characters
• Particle liquids can collide with 3D characters, for super messy fun :3.
• Full dynamic and environment lighting (for better blending with environments)
• Real time shading / gloss highlights
• 3D shadows, including characters casting shadows on each other
• Assets we make in 3D can be used for our future projects 
• We get both left and right facing "sprites" for free
• Changes simply require model/texture edits instead of hand editing frames.
• Real-time motion blur and improved post-processing

Summary of Where We're At

Here's the tl;dr for where we're at so far with this 3D conversion:

• Made an entirely new low poly body model for Onyx + re-purposed MATM assets to complete her model.  The final model will include better stylized hair and optimized clothes models.
• Splicer Thug and Onyx test rigging completed
• Updated animation code to work with 3D models
• 3D model animations, dynamic physics, and liquid particle collision working in Unity
• New high poly and low poly Vioreaper models
• New Splicer body model + re-purposed MATM assets to complete the Splicer Thug model
• Completed Larva enemy high poly model 
• Implemented shaders and revamped post processing.

And now for the details!

Onyx 3D Body Test Rigging + Rendering Improvements

I made a ton of progress on rigging this past week, as you can see from the video at the top of the post.  Our new rigging system is far faster / more automated than when we were last working on rigging for MATM.  We already have a test rig for Onyx's body in Maya, and I've successfully exported the skeleton and a (crappy) test walk cycle to Unity.  Excuse the glitchy hair and shoulders :D.  We also already have the physics system that we had set up for our 2D animations working with the 3D models (see dem boobers).  

I've been doing some tests with stepped animation to better produce the illusion of 2D sprites.  The right-most Onyx in the video t is an example of this.  Her animation updates at the framerate you'd see in cartoons/anime instead of the super smooth look you get from 3D.  There's more to it than that, but for now this is a pretty decent test.

Lastly, we've updated the post-processing and have solutions for 3D character shadows and "fake" gloss for those shiny highlights working.  The look for both of these can and will be improved further.  Shadows won't stretch for miles and the gloss effect will look less artificial / 3D. 

3D Splicer Body / Clothes Sculpts

We have the 3D version of the Splicer Thug model ready to go!  Limbo did a really nice stylized sculpt for the body, and we updated our MATM clothing assets for this version.  We have the test rig done for him and, like with Onyx, the next step is to create some test animations so that Mr. Kittyhawk can test his new animation code.

• Splicer Thug 3D Model Hi Res 

More Enemy Variety

Going 3D makes adding more enemy variety far easier, so we'll be implementing a system that will allow for some randomization from pre-made materials for things like enemy skin and hair color.     

3D Vioreaper Model

Limbo has modeled the Vioreaper completely from scratch, and we already have a low poly version mostly ready (shown above).  Now that we are in 3D we can dynamically process his (and other enemies') glowy bits with HDR, which removes quite a bit of fuss from the Spine workflow.  

• Vioreaper High Poly Model 
• High Res Unity Screenshot 

3D Combo Animation Mock-Ups 

At the beginning of July, TK and I started on 3D mock-ups for Onyx's combos.  Shown above is a little example I rendered out in Daz (before we started the 3D conversion). The fact that we did this and more in one day is what gave me the brainwave to investigate 3D again.

As you can see from the animation above, the game will feel very different than it does now once we expand on Onyx's move set.  I intend for us to really focus on this while we work on the 3D conversion, as I think having Onyx feel great to play is instrumental in making an appealing public demo (our next major milestone).

I encourage you to ask questions and give feedback here!  Unless we're blindsided by some technical issue I think we could have a playable test with the 3D models in the next couple of weeks.  We'll definitely have a lot more progress to show off by the August update.