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Story Test Build Soon

Didn't make it for the new year, but as part of my resolution to myself I am not only trying to refactor a lot of the game systems to be more modular, I am also trying to actually lock down SOME sort of gameplay functions at all.

There are going to be three main hooks - story, management, and gameplay. I have shown it a bit before, but "story" is going to be in a point and click format, allowing you to take control of a character, talk with NPCs, maybe some puzzles, learn some stuff, maybe unlock things for the playground, etc.

To keep myself focused and back on creating again, I am locking into the story functions right now, so that I won't get stuck on a minutia of the other modes, at least, not just yet. I will talk about the other modes more as I get there.

A secondary goal is to make these sections modular enough that I can export them in their own little packages for preview, thus not have massive downloads every time. That is still up in the air though as I move everything for each section into it's own place.

I ran out of time today due to the new years parties, but I will try to have some pictures before the actual build. Happy New Year, yall.

Still Alive

Yes, it's been a bit. Honestly, like usually time just has ways of escaping me these days, between work and family, before I know it months have passed. It actually makes me a bit happy to see so many of you still sticking around, even through the droughts, but I am doing what I can to get more stuff out to you.

This post is to break down what I have been doing and what I hope to be doing in the future.

So I know the big question, what is happening with the Unreal project? That has some good news, and some bad news. The bad news, I was constantly coding myself more and more into a corner where adding anything at all was starting to become monstrous. To get myself back on track, I reverted the project "core" by about six months. This includes some of the graphical style, which I felt was losing itself in my chronic need to edit. I have gone back to what I felt was a bit more subdued version that felt more readable from a distance, though I do plan to mix in a few edits in a more MODULAR method, so that it will be easier to revert without burning down everything.

Now this does not mean the SYSTEMS I built are gone, it means I am slowly adding them back into the core but without the terrible mess it was before. I did this with the Speaking and Lust systems, but other systems, like Orgasms, or the Gaze function, were all baked into the pawn actor, so adding those to say, future pawns, meant a lot of work. I have started breaking all these systems down into components that can be added to anything I want in the future, whether a sex pawn, NPC, player character, etc.

All of them are also using built in dispatchers, like now instead of needing to use a special timeline for the "cum spurts" they are driven by a timeline and a delay, which means I can add a dispatcher to randomly play something during the orgasm stage, like audio or special morphs.

Lastly, and you can blame my kids for this since I do a lot of (SFW) workflow dev with them, but I am still dabbling a lot in generative artwork. It's become a secondary hobby, and I am enjoying the process a lot more then I thought I would. The issue is, I know it's rather creatively bankrupt, so I don't really feel right posting my experiments much outside of Discord. Maybe that won't be something I can get over until the stigma changes like it did for machinema and such, but who knows.

Here is to hoping I can get more productive in the new year. Working ten hours days at my day job can be draining, but I am trying to fit in what time I can between family and other hobbies. Hope you stick around for the next build. Thanks yall.

July Report

You may notice not much has been happening, and it's because I couldn't work on anything due to a health scare. In the end, after a lot of tests, the issue ended up being benign, but there was a few days I thought I could be on the fast track to the grave. Ended up taking a small trip out of town to get my head back on straight, only to hear a family member close to me is now in the hospital themselves after a series accident. Just not been the best month for me.

I have been trying my best to stay productive though. One thing I kind of started doing when I started noticing the health issues was going back into AI, it's something that I use kind of just for myself but I often avoid showing my experiments, mostly because I know it has such a stigma, but life might be short, so maybe this month will wake me out of my social fear spiral.

Generations

These are some experiments using a customized model I have been dabbling with, using the game as a source.

Writing

While stuck in bed I took up writing again, mostly because I had an outline of a story for this but nothing really concrete. It allowed me to also develop a codex with all the data that I use to help with the writing process. Here is a little raunchy section from a later chapter.

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Korkal’s thick hands gripped Sivana’s hips, fingers digging into her soft flesh as he slammed into her from behind. Her cheek pressed against the rough furs of his cot, her breath coming in ragged gasps between each brutal thrust.

"Still got that sharp tongue, Orcslayer?" His voice rumbled with amusement as he leaned over her, the weight of his body pinning her down.

She sneered into the furs. "At least one of us still has something sharp."

Korkal chuckled, the vibration rolling through her body as he yanked her up onto her knees. His free hand tangled in her hair, forcing her head back. "I bet Ravage loved hearing that mouth before he got tired of it."

Sivana spat to the side, teeth bared. "I don’t beg, dog. But you—" Her words cut off with a sharp gasp as his hips snapped forward, driving deeper.

"Finish your thought," he growled, voice thick with exertion.

She twisted, glaring up at him despite the flush of pleasure spreading through her. "You'll always be just... a dog... licking his master’s boots—"

Korkal snarled, his tusked mouth twisting into a vicious grin as he flipped her onto her back in one brutal motion, the coarse furs scratching against her bare skin. Powerful hands gripped her thighs, forcing them over his broad shoulders, spreading her wide beneath him. The shift in angle sent a jolt of sensation through her, emphasized when he plunged back inside—deeper this time, his thick length stretching her with each rough thrust.

Sivana's back arched instinctively, muscles taut as pleasure and defiance warred within her. His massive frame loomed over her, the heat of his body pressing down, his breath—heavy with the metallic tang of blood and the musk of his exertion—hot against her parted lips.

"And yet here you are," he growled, voice thick with dark amusement, his orange eyes locked onto hers. "Taking this dog’s cock like a good little bitch." The words dripped with mocking victory, his grin widening as he relished the way her body tightened around him, betraying her in ways her sharp tongue never would.

Sivana’s fingers clawed at his chest, but her defiance melted into choked gasps as his pace quickened. His weight pinned her down, his rhythm relentless.

"Look at me when I fill you," he demanded, gripping her chin.

Her glare flickered, lips parting—but before she could spit another insult, his groan cut her off. Heat pulsed inside her as he came, his satisfied grin the last thing she saw before letting her head fall back with a frustrated growl.

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Gamedev

I have gotten back into dev work starting this week, mostly trying to get what I hope to be the final character system working. I had to take it back a level because while I am now using a data table for extra like hair and outfits, I had individual ones for each type, which just complicated it. I knocked it down to a single data table per gender now, and it's way smoother. It required a bit of extra logic though to make sure it works with the unlock system and such.

New chaos build I am hoping to have soon but I really need to focus on this character setup so I can finally add back in all those missing characters. I have to stop putting that on the back burner. Anyways. I need to sleep. Hope you all had a better month then I did.

Updates

Know it's been a bit. Still feel like a waffle between motivation and burnout. Miss playing games so been trying to be more balanced.

One big thing I wanted to do was improve my rig system to be more versatile. Showed a bit of what it gives me on Twitter. It got me into animating again so I got a few new animations being added.

Will try to show some stuff tomorrow but I am so tired from work today I don't think I will have the energy.

Hope everyone had a good June.

Chaos Interim Build

So good news and bad news, while hunting down the packaging issue I had to revert some of my code over the last few days. When I finally found the issue it ended up being something totally unrelated, but basically some data tables in a folder were trying to pack even though they were not supposed to be doing it, which was causing the errors and preventing the build from finishing.

The good news is that switching those over to editor only has fixed my issue and I have revision control copies to bring back a lot of the code I removed trying to hunt for the problem, so fixing it shouldn't be too bad.

The bad news is that I spent almost a day and a good chunk of this morning since like 2am trying to figure this out, and it's left me burned out. I was already feeling a lot of burn out from this project just because I have been investing all my rest time into it and have finally reaped the strain from that, but this has pushed me over an edge. Combined with my day job I often put a good 14 hours into work and the rest of the time is parenting and sleep.

I need a break.

I am putting up the slightly reverted chaos build just because I promised I would get something up. The male character switch code isn't working and few of the functions I was adding for skin swapping are broken but at this rate I don't have the energy to go through the revision control fixes. Most of the newer code is there like a few tests of the expanded speak system and the better character loading code, but just a lot of the functions are not connected right now.

I am going to take a break starting today till May 26th or so, and when that day comes I will do the revision control to bring back in that code and do the proper one for this month. Sorry guys.

Chaos Interim Build Download

Package Woes

This is something I run into almost every single time I get to a build stage. Sometimes all the moving stuff around and adding things causes the packaging system to just decide it doesn't want to do it. It keeps telling me that one of the items its trying to cook is failing and it won't tell me which item it is, so it won't package the executable until I figure out where the hell this problem is.

I'm still trying to get this done for today and even spent an extra couple hours on it trying to fix this bullshit. My next step is to do an entire validation pass and if that doesn't work I'm probably going to have to start disabling a few things. I will make sure the meat of the system works but a few other things might be a little more messy than usual.

This is the one thing that really sucks about unreal engine and I wish they had some way to stop this bullshit from happening. Some days I just wish I went back to unity or some shit.

Tomorrow

Should be good for tomorrow with the chaos build.

I'm going to try and get as many of the old characters that kind of got lost in the updates and make sure everyone is fixed up as much as I can. The new database system requires a little work but once it's set up it'll be much easier to build characters in a much more performant way.

Just a bit more.

Was a little behind because of mothers day and a few more changes I wanted to do, but new chaos build will definitely happen this week. Am confident on that.

Chaos Build Soon

Been working my ass off in pretty much all facets of life right now, including the game. Goal right now is for the chaos build to be released on Monday, then I need to take a small break to prevent burning out.

So what has changed so far?

• Bug fixes. I heard you guys on a lot of the worst bugs in the last chaos build and so I worked hard to squish most of them.

• Refactoring code. When I started this idea I was a total newb, like the length of my knowledge was just how to load animations into the engine without them breaking. Since then I have learned a lot, and much of the older code needed updates. Here is a little bit of some new cycling code to cycle through assets like outfits, hair, etc, which can be pretty much used on anything.

• Adding managers and components. To go with the new code structure I have taken much of the newer code and put them under managers and components. This gives me way more flexibility on how I apply them to actors as the code is no longer locked to an actor or a level, but can be applied to anything. Characters and banter are the two systems that have so-far been decoupled into their own systems.

• Improved banter. Though it's new, the refactoring of it's code allowed me to make it WAY better overall. It now has no limited on the conversation length, can be loaded async, thus takes up way less memory, and has proper subtitling.

  

• Lust system. The first new system I added under the new code process was a component for "Lust", right now, as the characters go at it, a internal counter will count up until it reaches 100. As it counts, characters will undergo small changes like blush fading in, changed to expressions, and even changes to what they might talk about when bantering. Right now, when 100 is reached, the duo will automatically undergo a climax scene before resetting. It was setup to also allow manual increases,m so I can easily change it into a more active system down the line.

That is all I can give for now, but I just wanted to keep you guys informed on what I was working on. Cross your fingers I get the time to package for Monday.

Chaos Build - April

Due to the pain from the car accident, I didn't get all the things done I hoped in this one, but I have to stick to the creed that these chaos builds I post monthly even if things are whacky or missing or buggy. The whole point was to have more stuff for you guys to try out and tell me if I am doing good or fucking shit up.

MEGA Download

A few notes.

• Added back in the female moans

• Spawning functions have been rebuilt to use a proper manager, and now shuffle both animations and characters. Though I was trying out a spawning effect people seemed lukewarm on it, so I removed it for now.

• Menu has been condensed, the original is based on a photo mode preset and some of the controls felt like they could be together, thus making more room for my custom functions.

• Can toggle outfits again, though hair and the direct sliders for dirt, spec, etc, didn't make it yet.

• Certain characters and animations are still missing, just because through some project shifting issues some assets didn't make the trip. Once I get those assets back over I can redo the character and pose assets, and they will just drop into the menu automatically.

• Removed a few controls for the styling, mostly the cubemap and ambient light. Ambient light just did the "brightness" function but worst, and cubemap was just kind of a resource hog. If I can get cubemap back in without making things feel worst I will.

Future Goals

• Return all the missing characters and poses.

• Add back in missing controls like sliders and hair toggling functions.

• Restructure some of the data assets for better scaling to future body types.

• Add new animations (this chaos build has a new one, reverse congress, but would like to push even more).

That is all for now. Sorry it took a few extra days to even get this, but some of those days were a little out of my control this time.

Small Delay

This morning I got in a rather large car wreck that forced me to the emergency room. Thankfully, I have no serious injuries, but my neck, back, and right arm were tweaked, making it hard to do anything on the computer for extended periods of time. Was packaging up the chaos build today but ran into cooking errors. They shouldn't be hard to fix but my stamina gave out on me and I have to call in quits for now. Will try again early tomorrow.

New Chaos Build Soon

Lost a week due to a trip but hoping for the next one within the first few days next month. Here are a few of the things returning.

Moaning
Toggles (hair, outfit, etc)
Skin Sliders

Hoping to get more back in.

Chaos Build - March

Here it is, the first of my Chaos Builds. Disclaimer, this is literally the latest package I am working on, and comes with missing items, bugs, and other issues that I am slowly but surely, trying to fix.

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MEGA Link

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Game Info

To enter or move a set of characters around, either open the DOMINATE menu in the top left, or hold SHIFT. Left click will enter the actors for direct control, while a right click will pick them up and allow movement plus rotation with MOUSE WHEEL. Right click again to drop them down.

While in DOMINATE you can see what items are adjustable by hovering over them, while SHIFT just highlights everything that is adjustable. If you want to move figures forward and back by holding CTRL + Mouse Wheel, I recommend using DOMINATE, as letting go of SHIFT will relock the actors and can sometimes interfere with CTRL.

As I decided to remove the direct doorways, I added a small button in DOMINATE to move between the existing maps. The bottom two maps (Camp and Gate) need some fixes but I left them in for you guys.

Hitting TAB will bring up the settings menu, and right now I recommend dropping the quality to MEDIUM for most things. You can of course use the higher quality settings if it runs well for you, but I find going smaller often improved the frame rate without really changing the styling. If you notice any screen tearing, make sure to turn on V-SYNC.

When in DOMINATE it will activate what I call the MAGIC EYE, which will allow you to see through walls. If you want to manually use that function for looking around you can hit "i" on the keyboard.

F.A.Q

• What is a chaos build? 

A chaos build is simply a quick package of the project regardless of bugs, issues, or missing content. It's a way to actually let you guys play with the project without me getting hung up on trying to make things overly complete. While I still want to have full, content driven builds, the chaos builds will let me relax a bit.

• Hey something I liked is missing!

As I experiment I find better ways to optimize and improve the project. Smaller files sizes, less memory, stuff like that. Sometimes doing these changes can break a lot of other referencing, and requires me to go back and redo it. They will be back.

• There is a bug preventing me from doing something.

Yup, and I likely already know about it, but you can still report any weird bugs to me just in case. You might find something I didn't notice.

• Why does ESC not open the menu?

Because, in their amazing wisdom, Epic made it so hitting ESC just closes the preview window, preventing me from testing it. To get around this, I attached the latest settings and exit button to the TAB key.

• Am clicking some characters but nothing is happening.

Click harder. No seriously just click a few times on them rapidly. It's a weird bug that only happens randomly but sometimes you get locked out for a short period. It usually only happens when you try to switch characters too fast.

• Why are the characters not moaning anymore?

To test out the BANTER system I turned off moaning for the time being. Been looking into improving the functions in the moaning system and just not gotten to that point yet. It will be back next regular or chaos build.

In closing,

Yes, it's not exactly what I was hoping for the next build, but at this point I needed to do something or I might as well just close this place down. I will try to make a chaos build a monthly occurrence, and will try to do better to post other updates too. Cheers y'all.

"Chaos Build" - Tonight or Tomorrow

What is a Chaos Build? Long story short, I am still finding myself stuck in an endless cycle of experimenting, breaking, fixing, experimenting, breaking, and fixing. This isn't a huge problem for me personally as I love trying new things, but it makes it so I never reach the upgrade feeling I want for the next build. The fact most of the time "fixing" is the least stimulating of the options does not help much.

Then a deadline hits and I am nowhere near where I wanted to be, so I just retreat into my hyper-focus and push this place out of my mind till I feel I got something worthy for you all.

Most of this is because I didn't want to give you guys a disappointing build, as characters will be missing, functions might not be fixed yet, etc. However, I have to be real with myself. I need to get over the fear of disappointing you all because frankly, my radio silence is probably more damaging and disappointing then anything I could release.

So I am furiously working on what I decided to call the Chaos Build. Each month I will release a build of this experiment of mine regardless of quality, bugs, or anything else. Stuff might be missing, functions might not be fixed, you might hit some weird bugs or other issues, but at the very least you guys will be able to see more of the direction I am trying to go.

I don't plan to sleep much tonight, but I also know there is a high chance I will pass out. No matter what though, I will have something for you all to at least goof around with tomorrow.

End of Year Updates

New build is finally close. Optimized. Fixed major issues. Packaging is no longer failing non-stop. Felt I needed to go over a few things though going into the new year just so people know.

Getting Updates

Straight up, I don't come here enough.  It's been hard to just remember to post, because I don't like spending too much time on too many websites as I become older (and wiser). The fact I can't post videos here does not help any, since I don't want to make GIFs just to show stuff. For right now I am going to try to focus on posting more updates on my Discord and Bluesky from here on forward, and only likely post the actual builds here.

For those that follow me on Twitter, I have mostly retired those accounts for personal reasons.

Game Updates

To get it out of the way, I actually suffered a catastrophic crash that killed the 5.4 project over a week ago. Luckily, I had a copy of the project in 5.5 that I used to try out the new features, which saved my ass. I have since backed up the 5.5 project and will be updating it going forward.

Since I will be using 5.5, I am trying to use the new MegaLights feature for better shadows. It likely will change the overall feel of scenes since it adds ray tracing, but I hope to keep the style mostly intact.

Optimizations to the models and assets themselves have taken chopped off 75% of the memory footprint of the main actors. It's feeling a lot smoother now, though might still be rough on old computers.

Am going to look into more possible optimizations by using the Mutable functions added in 5.5, but it's still experimental.

The "Viewer Mode" is being retired. The point of it was to have a "jump in and go" level, but after updates to the "Playground Mode" allowing more positional movement including lights, it's just felt like a really cheap method of enjoying the scenes.

New build I am hoping for as early as January 11th but I can't make any promises. Wish me luck.

Updates

Yes, it's been awhile since the last update here. Work and stress were getting to me a little too much, and it was hard to work on the game systems even in the rare spots I had free time. Been trying some things to help with that.

I know many want the next build, and it's close, but to keep enjoying myself I usually try to add features I want or experiment with new ideas rather then fight the Unreal packaging system. It's more soothing for me, but I realize that does not really bring much joy here, so I need to be better about talking about what I am working on. Discord is the best place to usually see what I am doing, but I know not everyone here uses my Discord. So here is a little rundown of some new things.

(Disclaimer. All these GIFs I am about to post will be on my discord later in the game-dev channel if you want a better view experience.)

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1) Camera.  Not sure if I mentioned it here, but awhile back I decided to make the main game a top down perspective. Have always been a fan of RTS or top down RPGs so it felt natural to make that the focus. There will still be first person and over the shoulder options, but they will be more for fun in areas like the playground rather then a part of the gameplay loop.

After tweaking, I ended up using a tilt shift style of perspective. Tilt shift makes things seem a little more miniature based, but you can still zoom in if you want to.

Now I am sure you are asking how it works with walls and stuff. Even the preview has some rocks and stuff almost get in the way, but I worked that out with a toggle I call the "Magic Eye".

It's still experimental but allows you to see through most walls and some props.

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2) Better Placement.  The playground has not changed much, but I added some improvements to how things can be moved around the scene. You now hold SHIFT to actually pick up a group. Once picked up you can adjust some position options using the mouse wheel, rotation by default and up / down by holding CTRL. You then hold SHIFT again and click to finalize. There is also a much more tactile feel to the process, with both a small animation and sound effects. (Can hear in video on Discord)

As you can see, it also works with certain prop items, like the torches. This was added to help with more scene customization.

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3) Gaze.  My gaze system got some improvements. It now utilizes a slider rather then a toggle, giving you the ability to choose how intense you want it to happen. You can also switch her eye view to remain on her scene partner or look down at the action.

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4) Face.  This one might be noticed in the gaze area, but I felt I wanted to give it a bit of it's own shout out. To make the face more interesting I added a sequence randomization that will give more expressive options to the chain. You might start a scene with a bit more pensive look, but after a minute may look more pleasured, or even a little coy, or back again. Plan to add a lot more to the system, and it works independent for both face and eyes.

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5) Better Menu.  On much request I got a better when it comes to adjusting settings. Sound still utilizes it's own channels so if you really hate listening to manly moans you can just turn them off.

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6) General

• Style improvements have been done to fit more of the feel I want. I know this feels like it happens all the time but I feel I am the closest I have ever been to the feel I wanted.

• Fresnel has been fixed up and now sits only slightly over the emission channel, so the glow only happens strongest when under scene lights and not glowing in the dark. Am thinking of adding a slider for the process though.

• Tried to better optimize the models for performance without losing too much. Adjusted LODs to fix a few issues with model alignment.

That is all I can get to today, but I hope to update you guys more often even if I may be lagging on the build. Remember, if you want to see these GIFs as videos, please check out the Discord. Thanks again to all those that stuck it out with me all this time.

Work, Love, Sickness

Things didn't work out last month like I wanted, so I didn't hit the milestones I was hoping to hit, but I know I have to stop just forgetting to properly update people so I wanted to go over what has been going on.

When it comes to life, work has been more demanding of me then I expected. I have often hit 50-60 hour weeks and then once I get home I have to take care of my kids. It's been worst due to some sickness, and just last week I have been dealing with the death of someone close. It's all been a gut punch.

When it comes to the game, I have tried my best to get it updated with more substance. I want the next build to have not only the voted characters but some different "racial" types, like a shortstack race. I want a level that actually has some light gameplay hooks, at least for the story segments. Performance has also been tough, and I had to redo some material settings to try and make it so certain hungry material trees could be disabled depending on if a character uses the feature or not (tattoos, glowing eyes, etc). All of these I have been trying to mess with in what amounts to a half hour a day at most.

I know it can be hard to wait, but I hope everyone can hold on a little longer. I don't want to give an ETA yet as I don't want to add expectations I can't make again, but just know I am trying.

Bugs, Squish and Stuff

May notice things slow again, as I mentioned on my Twitter awhile back, it was mostly due to a huge bug that prevented anything from saving. Any time I loaded up the project it would act as if nothing was there and nothing I did made it come back. Preferences? Scenes? Nothing.

Good news, I was able to finally fix it by just updating the engine from 5.1 to 5.4.

Bad news, it's requiring me to redo a whole lot of the code and stuff I worked on just due to incompatibilities.

But hey, more good news! Am almost finished with the code reset. All the old functions and such are working again like they used to, and a few codes are even a bit more streamlined then before.

So here are the big things I feel people need to know.

The RTS camera I was using became defunct in the engine update. Had to go back and figure out another one, and was able to get one working that is actually, I feel, a little better then the old one.

Decided moving forward that the RTS camera is going to be the core camera of the game. The game I want to go with is going to be top down based with a mix of genres, like point and click, and maybe some classic RTS vibes. For those that love the FPS options, don't worry, am adding some code that will allow you to possess characters and walk around as them, it just won't be gameplay relevant.

The last thing I need to do is finish up the new cameo characters. Right now Wonder Woman and Loba are being added based on the polls on both here and SubStar. While I would love to have the new build out before the end of this month, I know it's likely not going to happen, but I am confident early next month will see the new build.

Have a good weekend.

New Poll

Sorry it took awhile, day job has been busy. Doing some changes soon to my schedule that I hope will free up more time to stay on top of things like polls and such. Am trying to add my first possible section of gameplay before the next build happens.

Updates

Will have a poll soon, just trying to figure out which options to fill the two new open spaces but my brain has been kind of mush from work. Still, I know people want to know what is going on so here are a few things I have been trying to do and have shown through various channels.

• Two new maps, a forest camp and the war camp outside the dungeon.

• Weather effects and day / night cycling for outdoor maps, including adjustment of materials based on weather.

• New hair and outfit system that keep them more organized, now you can change hair color using a slider bar and outfits come as sets, meaning you can switch an outfit and then toggle the various stages of undress for that outfit.

• Animation fixes and hopefully some new ones for the next build. Trying to also go back and add variation types based on speed like some of the new ones.

• Various UI improvements to hopefully make the process of switching things around to be easier.

Hope to show more soon.

Orcslayers Updated Build

So the next build is finally updated.

MEGA DOWNLOAD LINK

Changes / Updates / Fixes

• First, the update adds a few more characters, including the winner and second place of the last poll. They can be found under the side menu. Was also adding Jaheira from BG3 but she needs more time to cook.

• Two new animations have been added and a few missing ones were returned to the list.

• Playground has gained save slots. 13 to be exact. You can now save any scenes you build out. Slot 1 is the base load and will load on map opening, so just leave it blank if you always want it to be clear. The slots work individually per map and save between loads, including restarting.

• The menu has gained some new functions and improvements to make it easier to build. It can also now overlap with the photo mode.

• In the playground mode, the only way to enter a "scene" is through going into the edit mode using T and clicking on the characters. The reason I removed the loading process during the walking mode is due to how buggy it was and it just felt more consistent. Think of edit mode as what you want to use to make a scene or view a scene while walking mode is more for just enjoying the scene outside of it.

• Oh, and just for fun I added a sort of fly camera that is independent of the photo mode. It's very basic right now but can enter using Q while in walking mode. Hit Q again to go back. Remember you can also hit C to go into different character camera modes, like FPS, Third Person, and Top Down. (Just for fun)

• The rest I guess you will have to just check out.

Once again bare with it as it's still mostly experimenting with the playground and the viewer. Please do tell me how it's working now. My goals for the future are better hair customization, morph transfers for clothing, saving characters in the viewer mode, better menu including limited key bindings, and more maps.

As an aside, with how things have been going on a certain site, I wanted to make it known I have other places that can also work for supporting progress. You can check them out on my twitter.

Thanks, and I hope you guys enjoy.

Next Build Soon

The next build is going to have a few light changes.  The biggest will be in the playground.

1) Editing will be done entirely in the "build mode".  That means to select a scene group you have to go into the build mode first.  Don't think this will be a popular change so I am going to leave all the code in that allows the choosing through interacting in the other modes, and will see how you all feel. 

Why this change? The selection method when scenes are close together isn't very accurate and even now after adding a sort of line of sight limiter to selection, it still bugs out and requires weird quirks, like you always have to "look down" at the figures even when they are standing.  The edit mode mouse click does not have this limitation and is way more accurate when it comes to selection, it just requires you to hit T to go into the RTS mode.

2) Build mode now will have Save Slots.  There are 12 of them right now as standard and after you build a scene you simple click "Save" and it till save to that slot.  To load again, you simply hit Load.  It's map specific too so you can save 12 per room.  I showed a few examples of it on my twitter.  It also will save character looks and will reload on program restart, so a good way to try to save a character you tried to customize while I try to add the system directly into the viewer.

3)  There are a few new test animations and five new characters.  Some of the characters are my own or friends, but two of them are voted characters.  I decided to pick the top two from the poll this week as a little extra for everyone.

4) There is another big recode coming in the future that will make things even more modular.  Hair color and voice will soon have toggles that will allow you to alter them.

Weeks are busy but I hope it won't be too much longer before I have the chance to finish this up.

New Poll

Sorry it took awhile, got a bit distracted on doing the next build updates.

January 2024 Build

Know it took awhile, but the new build is finally ready to try out.  To make up for the delay I spent a good chunk of the day practicing my UMG and made a little menu so people no longer have to always toggle through characters or animations.  Just head to the top left to open when you want to change something.

MEGA DOWNLOAD 

CONTROL CHANGES

The UI allows you to pick and choose which character and animation you want to load directly.  You can also control the speed of the animation using the small scroll bar next to the title, or hit the CUM button to play my cum code from previous builds.  Next to the character headers are four little icons which control hair, outfit, skin, and eyes.  

Be aware that NOT ALL CHARACTERS HAVE OPTIONS, so it's not broken if you keep hitting the skin button and nothing actually changes.  If you want total freedom, pick the CUSTOM character, who has (almost) all the options as standard, though be prepared for some MAJOR issues like clipping and such.  Still need to copy morphs over to most of the clothing.

Other then the UI, I moved most of the toggle options over to the number pad, so if you still want to toggle through the old way, you can.  123 controls the female character, hair, and clothing.  456 does the male characters options.  You can hit 0 to toggle through animations and the plus and minus button can alter speed.

Lastly, I have added an experimental body preset changer.  You can alter the female body shape by hitting PAGE DOWN and the male body shape using PAGE UP.  There are four preset pure shapes and the rest are just the character shapes, which you can mix into the existing characters shape to change it up a bit.  This function is still experimental.

KNOW BUGS

Due to the change to the way I load characters, a few other actors types lost their bodies.  I removed the cinematic actors for the time being while I properly retrofit them, but one I totally spaced on was the playable model in the playground.  You now are just disembodies clothes.  As I didn't notice this till I was uploading, I won't be able to fix till next build.

Some of the sound mixing isn't the best.  Been trying to figure out a way to level out all the sounds as some sounds are great and others sound great when testing only to be either too quiet or too loud when put into the scene.

Anyways I am tired so I am getting some sleep.  Hope the new build is enjoyable.

Tuesday

My goal was to have the new build on Friday but ran into some snags, then my family took all my time Saturday and attempting to pack it this morning is just pissing off my wife.  Have two ten hour shifts starting today so trying to package the build will kill me if I have so try stuffing it into the limited time I have to rest.

Tuesday is my next game dev day and I WILL finish the build.  It will happen before the end of this month.

More Modular

As I said in the other update, one big change I wanted to do was make things more modular.  When I started this project, I mostly wanted to focus on the characters themselves being self-contained, but it became clear to me people wanted at least a little bit more customization.  This requires a total shift from the process I was doing, but I think in the long run it will be a little better.

THE OLD WAY.

Before I made every mesh a FULL VARIANT.  Example, I had Sivana nude, but when I moved over to Sivana in her outfit, it was the whole model again + outfit, then model again plus outfit B, etc.  This was done because I heard it got better performance at the expense of size, but it had a lot of down sides, like it was a bitch to make adjustments and it was a lot of data I had to worry about.  If I decided to say, down the line, add some adjustable body morphs, I would have to add those morphs to EVERY SINGLE VARIANT.

THE NEW WAY.

Have streamed down the character models as much as possible, so for example I now only have three body models so far.  Female, Female with Tail, and Male Orc.  Instead of loading each character and outfit as their own FBX like before, I made each of their shapes into a morph on this core model.  When the character is loaded the script looks for the name of the character then applies the proper character shape, and then adjusts the materials to match on this singular model.  Outfits and hair and such are now retargeted over the singular models and I can easily bulk transfer morphs from the body to the outfits as I go.

While I hope to add more options later, this has already opened up these possible toggle options.

Hair

Outfit

Body Shape

Body Texture

Eye Texture

As I get better at setting up the system, I hope to expand on this further, but for now I am happy with what it has allowed me to do.  Here is a image of Sivana with Lakuu's hair and Anuu's outfit.

Updates

I know everyone waiting for the next build but after speaking with some supporters and friends I decided to retrofit the system a bit which took more time. Don't have a lot of time to go over it, but there are two big changes.

Clearer Keyboard Controls.  Viewer / Pawn controls have moved to the NUM PAD.  It took a bit to get a mapping that felt nice, but now to toggle details you use the num pad keys like 0 will toggle animations and + and - will change animation speed.  Still hope to add a true UI at some point but it's low on my desire list.

More Modular.  After much talks with supporters and friends I decided to revamp how I loaded skeletal mesh data.  Before I kept every mush as solid as possible because I heard it was less render intensive.  After researching into it, I realized that with the scope of my game I could go more modular.  As such I am starting the process of recoupling the hair and outfit assets from the body mesh.  This means a single body mesh will be used with the extras laid over it.  As a plus, this means I can mix and match outfits and hairs between characters to a limited degree.  Num pad controls will be by row, for example female toggles are 1 for character, 2 for hair, and 3 for outfit.

The build I am still happening to have by this weekend once I get these changes done.

New Build Soon

Was trying to get it done before the new year, but didn't happen.  I discovered Data Assets, which allow me to pack characters into nice little sets of resources and load them through that.  It means I no longer have to have all the code locked to each actor and can experiment with more universal functions.  Now that I got the code retrofit done, I need to finish up the new characters and such, and am also adding an outfit I have wanted to for a long time, the new version of my old "Hellfire Prisoner" outfit redone for Orcslayers.

Hopefully not long after 2024 starts I can get it uploaded.

Next Cameo

Yes I totally forgot.  My bad.  Here it is though.  Going to add her this Friday, whoever wins.

New build will take a bit of time as I am streamlining how the characters are added.  Part of the reason my shit wouldn't save was due to issues with how I handled the variables, but with a few code edits I won't have that issue soon.

Gameplay Interest Poll

This is more for my own interest, and isn't what I am going to use to decide on gameplay.   All of these are possible, but the one I will likely go with will be what I can manage as a solo dev.  Be aware I don't have to lock myself into a single gameplay type, so multiple of these options might be possible to some degree, like a dungeon manager with missions.

To make it easier for people to process I am adding a name to games that are similar to what I mean, though obviously not 100% the same as I won't have the resources to make games made by full teams of developers.