malixegames
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Nuns can't dance💃
🕑 Added 2024-08-19 07:10:18 +0000 UTCHello everyone.
It's during the assembly of the scenes that it's possible to notice some deficiencies in the workflow. As you know, I'm a single person working on this game, so optimization is essential. The time to make these optimizations is now.
Taking a few days to assemble and configure a single scenario would only be feasible if I had a team tackling several things at the same time. The solution is to spend a few days programming a system that configures itself automatically.
I only needed to assemble and organize the objects that make up the house, and all the settings that allow navigation are applied automatically. This transforms the work of days into a couple of hours and makes it feasible to include all the scenarios that I have planned.
If there are many scenarios, there will need to be more characters. Creating a system that configures the characters automatically brings some challenges. The main one is to arrive at a pattern that works for all the bodies. The solution is to use the skeleton as a reference. If the system finds the "bones" of the breasts, it adds jiggle dynamics, the size of the bone sets the weight of the movement. And everything can be reconfigured later.
After finishing the system, 29 characters with various skins volunteered to test it.
But could I create a character from scratch in about an hour? Let's find out.
I start from the basic model, but I make all the changes so that she looks unique.
I added the skeleton, I already have a script ready to add the facial expressions. The clothes are very simple but I have the necessary techniques to model them tightly to the body.
I preferred not to spend too much time painting the textures at this point, so I reused Wanda's, painting some details.
The character and the skin are configured and I only need to adjust the dynamics colliders and the skin occlusion to avoid clipping. And I can test how she looks in the game.
And she's alive! She breathes, blinks, changes expressions, and changes her focus, all procedurally and without me having to configure it manually. But one question remains: could she dance?
The next step is to optimize the scene editing flow, making the process as automatic and fast as possible. I hope to be able to show the results of this work soon.
Thank you very much!
Comments
MaliXe
Hey Archy, Thank you for your kind comment! It's motivating to hear that my development process is interesting. Balancing everything is a constant juggle, but I'm glad that the system-building approach seems to be working. I know that the delay in this step is a big problem. You would like and deserve to receive new content. I intended to address this in this post but I had difficulty explaining it. The fact is that these details need to be decided in advance. Discovering that I chose an unfeasible flow for the amount of content intended later would mean having to start over or abandon the plans. I intend to have a system so consistent that it allows me to focus solely on the artistic side, and then I can flood you with new content. Thanks again for your encouragement!
Archy_TaxiWhy
Hello, Thank you for giving us the lowdown on your progress in the game, it's really interesting and instructive even for those who are complete novices like me in the field of programming. I think you have the right vision of the different tasks you need to put in place to optimise your work. As you're on your own you have to deal with all the different fronts at the same time, which is often very time-consuming. Creating systems to automate the work is really the right solution. Admittedly, you have to spend more time setting up these different systems, which can be frustrating in terms of your perception of progress in the game. But once (as we can see here) these systems are in place, they save an incredible amount of time. It's great that you've made it possible to adapt the different character skeletons. It's impressive to see the number of characters and variations you've created. I like the challenge you set yourself to see if your system works the way you want it to. It allows you to see the different stages involved in creating a character and clothes. The video shows how the collisions already in place in the FPS have evolved. Frankly, you've done a great job. I wish you every success in optimising your scenes Editing flow. Kind regard
