Inner Circle Update for November 21 2018!

Hey guys!

We’re happy to have gotten the first Pure Onyx release out to the $3 tier, but we’ve been really busy working on some other aspects of the game as well, including artwork for the first level and environment effects. First though, how about a little rant :X?

Limbo and Kitsune’s FedEx Adventure

Limbo left his previous job early this month, and both he and Kitsune are wrapping up moving cross-country to better work with us full-time. I’d like to give a big shout-out to FedEx for completely screwing us over on this. Kitsune’s PC was “out for delivery’ for five days after the expected arrival date, and she just received it today (it was shipped on the 7th). Limbo had to pick his up at the dispatch office today. Both of their monitors were damaged, with Limbo’s screen being beyond repair. Limbo has thus been working from his old laptop, but since his software has no line smoothing functionality he’s been limited to working on sketches.  They'll both be up and running by tomorrow though!

Stage 1-1 Map!

In better news, Ubercharge finished the foreground for the first map in Pure Onyx at the end of last week. This stage is set in The Void, the same place the next version of MATM will be set in. The plan is for the day to progress as you proceed through the level (it will be made up of multiple maps), so that it’s night by the last maps.  

More importantly, he finished all the mundane stuff that will allow us to move more quickly with maps, including a system in Maya for rendering 4000x4000 textures in our mixed perspective that can be pieced together in compositing software to create a scene.  This map utilizes 4 of these chunks, and we’ll probably add a couple more showing an underpass on the right side.  

Environment Effects and Lighting

Mr. Kittyhawk and I spent a few days last week working with Ubercharge on post-processing and environment effects.  Like with MATM, Ubercharge has put together the map procedurally in compositing software, meaning we can build environment effects from that, and then export and do what we have to in Unity to make them dynamic.   

Because of our rendering experience from MATM (well, really Uber’s film experience) combined with Unity’s graphics capabilities, we’ll be able to do all sorts of cool stuff at relatively low performance cost, including 2D volumetric fog, god rays, particle effects, and more.  The image above (higher res version here) is an example of some of these effects at max intensity (we will be able to modulate them dynamically in-game).  We also will be generating light maps so that when characters move into lights/shadows their sprites will adjust accordingly.  Mr. Kittyhawk already has the custom shader for processing the masks and sprite depth / etc. working, but it still needs some more time in the oven before we show off a test.

Limbo’s Latest Sketches

As mentioned above, Limbo’s been hard at work on sketching the pose set for the Chain Splicer enemy and first boss (his outfit isn’t finalized, we’ll be working on a detailed concept for that now that he’s got his computer back), and even did a few sketches for the Vorepup and Vioreaper, which will most likely be making their way over from MATM :D.  

• Chain Splicer Poses
• Boss Poses
• Misc Sketches
• Biomonster Sketches