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Inner Circle Update for June 18 2019!
🕑 Added 2019-06-18 16:07:49 +0000 UTCHey guys!
We all took a few days to unwind after the last release, but have been back at it this past week and have quite a bit to show already.
One of the more important updates is that we have dynamic physics working *on character skeletons*. In short, this should mean far less animating work with better results to boot. You can check out some examples of it working on Onyx's hair and jacket in the video above -- but keep in mind we've only had it working a few days, so we need some more time to resolve glitches / tune it and integrate it into our animations/workflow.
We also finally have some female enemy concepts to show off! Take a look at all the details below :D.
FemCop Concepts
Here are the first sketches for the female cop enemy concepts :D.
Spine makes it relatively easy to have separate skins for a character, so I've been messing with a bunch of variations in hopes we can utilize that further. It's easy to go overboard here, so I'll probably select two or three and see how it goes before committing to too much.
Syndicate Assassin Concepts
The second female enemy concept is a Syndicate ninja/assassin. She'll be a highly evasive enemy that can switch between katana and kunai depending on her range (or maybe we'll break them into two enemies). I'd love to try out more hair styles with her when there's time -- especially now that we can animate it all automatically @_@.
Dynamic Physics Details
Mr. Kittyhawk has made significant progress with his AI system, but we spent the last few days trying out a Unity plugin that is going to save us a ton of work (and produce better results). The plugin offers a higher level of detail from Unity's physics engine, in that it allows us to enable physics on any bone chain in a skeleton, meaning hair, boobs, jackets, and even jiggles for skin can be completely dynamic.
Currently things freak out when the pose changes radically, since right now we don't have animation blending on. This should work itself out as we add that in, but in the meantime we will need to code a fix for it. Another thing we need to add is more flexibility, since in some animations we may simply not want physics on, or want different settings. We will add this into our animation metadata system once we get to it after the AI.
Animation Progress
Originally the plan was to show off some new H scene artwork for this update, but I got sidetracked helping with the new female enemy concepts ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) and got a bit behind. That said, I've been bouncing back and forth between four H scenes and two struggle sequences. One has really come together, and with some luck we can have a release for you guys next week to show it off.
Lastly, TK has been rigging and I've started animating the boss' moveset. One thing I hope to experiment with soon is 3D blade trails, since doing them in Spine isn't quite working out. It works great for chopping motions, but for any attacks that need to convey depth it's lacking since the animation can't be in front of and behind multiple characters simultaneously.
Comments
Speedyshamrock
Oh? This should be interesting to digest.
Sorry for the delay in the next IC update guys -- I should have it up by tomorrow afternoon ^-^. We're adding some traditional animation elements into our workflow and it took a few days to get right, and I wanted to have some results to show :D.
James Denning
The boss' weapon - I can see that it is supposed to be an over-sized adjustable spanner/wrench with a blade built in, but when I first looked at him I thought "Why does he have a giant bottle-opener?". It took me a few minutes to realize it was a wrench.
Speedyshamrock
fuck man, I didnt even think of it in those terms; tactical CC with bait.
MangoFishSocks
That would be really cool. Even allows for some tactical gameplay, taking the females out to keep the guys busy and thin out the crowd.
Speedyshamrock
If that is implemented, I would consider that the biggest icing on the cake move ever. Good luck!
They should have H scenes with Onyx yeah. I'm considering giving them H scenes with other enemies as well after they are KO'd -- we're pretty certain we can retarget Onyx's animations so that they work on other female characters with minimal editing.
The physics should work on boobs -- for some reason though it wasn't overriding the hand animation in our tests. We plan on adding 'physics material' presets so that hair / clothes / boobs / etc. all have different and realistic properties. You'll notice in that elasticity test i the video, the jacket looked good with high elasticity but the hair looked less buggy with low.
They're just variations we're considering for the design. Armor damage isn't off the table, as it's quite easy with Spine -- I just don't want to commit to anything extra yet :D.
Probably just randomized character sets so they don't all look exactly alike.
MangoFishSocks
I like everything I'm seeing here. The break is well-deserved and you shouldn't be afraid to take several more regularly. The physics look absolutely amazing. If you could get it to work on the boobs and have animations that somewhat resembles that same fluidity (some of which you already have), you will have absolutely top notch quality on your hands. The female enemies are very interesting. I'm hoping for some sadistic H-scenes with those stun batons and some between-the-legs grinding. I personally prefer bare-legged variation for the leotard-jacket femcop and the single bare-legged variation for the catsuit femcop. The barely covering, high cut leotard standing in for pants with the more modest/comfortable jacket is really hot, and having one leg free would allow the catsuit femcop to slip the crotch of her suit to the side to get her private parts exposed for fun times. As for the assassin, it's a toss-up. The eyepatch/visor is neat, the exposed arms would allow you to make those straps there dig in for a really tight, BDSM-y look, and the windows on her outer legs would allow someone easier access to her fun bits. The edge lines of her legs go up really high, though, with the bare legs. I recall you having some trouble with plugins in the past, so please tread carefully. You lost quite a bit of time having to rework stuff back in MatM development. Other than that, great update, and well worth a wait I didn't mind.
Can I ask, for the fem cop, seeing as to how the model has a two-leg clothes verison, a one-leg clothed version and one version with just what i would assume is a thong, are you planning on armor damage on enemies? or do they just represent different enemy classes?
Hey guys, firstly, good going on the break. Honestly you guys deserve it, I mean we're all humans working right? We all need a break once awhile. I know what it's like to overly burn out on a project, so the break is good for you, the project, and us all. Hope you all drank lots of beer, had lots of fun and stuff. Next I'd just like to say the the Femcop looks good, But the way she looks is a bit more Japanese anime angled as compared to Onyx who is more American comic angled. I don't know.. maybe it's just my opinion so anyone please share what you think... But other than this, remember you made a Femcop model for MATM some time back? Any chance you'd bring her back? I think the way that artwork is done is more suited for the current PO art style... Also I'd like to ask, since there are a few models with different types of clothes are you perhaps considering a few classes of these femcops e.g. red hair ones = melee, black hair = range, etc???
Spencer
I like the new concepts. I like the leotard or one piece look
Speedyshamrock
great news; I think the question on everyone's mind now is with the female enemy concepts, will we be seeing H-animations from them as well?
