Callisto 0.50 - Week 5 Update

As mentioned last week I have taken a little bit of a break from the club environment to work on the writing / coding. As part of this process I have invested significant time into the side mission which for the next version will be set in a western theme. One of the reasons I am prioritising this content for early attention is that often it is necessary to procure additional assets during the set creation and character outfit work. Below is some of the work in establishing these sets.

The image above is largely a single asset from Stonemason, however I have integrated the Terradome background and tweaked some of the surfaces and lighting. The saloon location below utilises the shell provided by the Stonemason asset, however all of the interior fit out comes either from primitives or modifying items from other assets.

The plot outline for the side mission has been completed and I am part way though the writing / coding. The side mission will be slightly larger and significantly more divergent than the previous side mission. With the new replay ability within the quest tracker, I am less concerned about creating content that would not be seen on a single play through. If a player chooses, they can take alternative paths in the replay and see other potential outcomes, although this won't change the outcome within the game.

I have also spent some time reconsidering the method by which I am going to do the dance animations. Having spent significant time reviewing source material (instructional pole dancing routines), there are common methods to start a dance spin and also how to exit the spin. As such I can utilise a common starting position for the routine subsets and create significant variety from relatively minor alterations mid segment. The advantage of this is that I should be able to create different routines for each of the models for each outfit. I currently have 8 segments picked out to animate and if I use 4 of these in each routine, this gives me a potential of 1,680 alternative routines. This is without even considering things like changing rotation speeds or segment start angle.

Should you be really interested in seeing exactly what I using as source material the following link is a routine from which I am extracting a segment.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPHlegD6lkk

More specifically I am going to utilise elements of the inverted spin from 60s to 80s and the backward spin from 85s to 100s into the routine. This content creator has been extremely useful. From having done the previous dance animations, the real challenge is when the hip is continually changing rotation. Spinning the figure around the pole and moving limbs is relatively easy. Hence if the belly button isn't moving all over the place (expect for spinning around pole), it may be animated in a reasonable amount of time.

On to plans for next week, I am going to complete the coding of the side story, Kara backstory and then delve into the crew interactions associated with the relationship wheel. For the next beta a really want to establish all of these interactions and the related lewd content, as well as the club environment. In terms of testing, these portions are the most likely to kick out inconsistencies. 

If you want to get involved in some of the creative process, I am looking for ideas for the side pranks that the central girls can play on each other. I want to include at least one prank by Lia / Kara / Tiffany on each of the other 2 girls. Probably the best location for this discussion would be on Discord -  https://discord.com/invite/pcFpmVw.

Speak to you next week,

Xav