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December 2018 Progress Update!
🕑 Added 2018-12-02 20:44:55 +0000 UTC Hey guys!The first stage of Pure Onyx is coming along really well, and we’ve got a lot to show you :D. Limbo and Kitsune are also working full time now, so we’ll hopefully be making a lot of steps forward on character art and animation this coming month. We’re also going to try to have some H animation stuff ready this month pending we get the remaining kinks out of the animation system – but more on that below.
Here’s the list of topics for this update!
- First Boss!
- Evolution of the “Wraxe”
- Limbo and Kitsune’s FedEx Adventure
- Chain Splicer
- Biomonster Concepts
- Splicer Thug Shaded Artwork
- Stage 1-1 Map
- Environment Effects and Lighting
- Black Friday Asset Hoarding
- Animation System Progress
First Boss!
This guy is actually a tie-in to MATM. When you encounter him, he’ll be in the middle of repairing the wreckage of Stigmata (the robot boss from the first MATM release). Not only is he equipped with a ridiculously oversized wrench (now a wrench-axe), he has tentacles that shoot out of his face when he removes his mask. We’re looking at ideas where he can behave a bit like Scorpion from Mortal Kombat, reaching across the level to grab Onyx. He’ll no doubt call on lesser Splicer henchmen to join in the fray, rounding out what we think will be a solid first boss encounter.
Limbo already has a set of pose sketches ready to go for him, and I also want to share all the concepts leading up to his final design.
Evolution of the “Wraxe”
Our boss’s weapon started out as a big ol’ wrench, but quickly became the focal point of the character when the idea came up to make it into a wrench-axe hybrid. It also took like 10 redesigns to finalize it :D. Limbo really pulled through, so I thought I’d share some of his concepts leading up to the final version!
Kitsune also has a 3D version in the works to use as a reference when we do the final poses :D.
Limbo and Kitsune’s FedEx Adventure
Limbo and Kitsune were out of commission for quite a while this month. Limbo left his previous job early in the month, and both he and Kitsune wrapped 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 received it on the 22nd (it was shipped on the 7th). Limbo had to pick his up at the dispatch office. 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 was limited to working on sketches until this past week. They are both up and running now though!
Enemy Artwork Progress!
We’ve made quite a bit of progress on enemy artwork. Limbo has a new enemy to show off, as well as a bunch of biomonster sketches – some of which you’ll remember from MATM :D.
Chain Splicer
The first new enemy is a Splicer equipped with a chain, which he’ll use like a whip similar to everyone’s favorite vampire hunter. Goofy references aside, it should also make for some fun H attacks. Here’s the current work done on his move set!
Biomonster Sketches
Next we have an assortment of biomonster sketches! We’re revising the design on the Vioreaper a bit but haven’t settled on anything final. We’re looking at some Giger elements to bind the biomonster class style-wise. Expect a whole mess of these sketches before we narrow it down :D.
Splicer Thug Shaded Artwork
Lastly we’ve got the shaded Splicer thug artwork about ready for cutting up for animation. I still have to add speculars and improve the shading in spots, and since these were largely done without reference I’ll go over their anatomy once they’re prepped for spine and scale features that are a bit off.
Stage 1-1 Map!
Ubercharge finished the foreground for the first map in Pure Onyx. 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 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.
Black Friday Asset Hoarding
I normally don’t do the Black Friday thing, but I found a few new outlets for licensing assets this year, and we came out really good! I spent all weekend hoarding, and overall, we scored about $2000 worth of assets for $600, almost all of which will be used for aiding with environments in both Onyx and MATM. Now we just need to prep them all ;(.
Animation System Progress
Pure Onyx’s animation system consists of embedding Spine, a 2D skeleton and animating system, within Unity. Mr. Kittyhawk and I got the meat of this working before the release a couple weeks ago, but there’s still work to be done. I spent a few days after that sorting out bugs and remaining pitfalls that we only ran into once we started trying to transition between Spine animations. In effect, what we have now is a system that’s very similar to, but a bit clunkier to use than, Vanillaware’s animation system (Dragon’s Crown, Odin Sphere). We basically have a whole lot of flexibility to tailor sprite switching and smooth interpolation between poses.
While I think I’ve identified everything that could majorly screw us, I’ve changed the workflow for animations to something a lot safer. Instead of focusing and following through on one animation at a time to completion, we’re going to first break down all artwork into the images Spine requires for meshes (limbs, layers, etc), and populate the skeletons for each pose. Doing it this way we’ll be able to see very quickly where there are issues with animation transitions, as opposed to spending a lot of time on an animation only to find we have to redo it later. This means we’ll be making an effort early on this month to prep Onyx’s poses for Spine.
We’ll also be making H content a focus this month! Aside from the artwork itself, the first goal is to get the framework for triggering and progressing through animation sequences ready. If that goes well, we can begin implementing it into gameplay.
Comments
The plan is for voiced sounds, but not lines :D.
Venus
I'll be dead honest it looks great but I really paused at "We’ll also be making H content a focus this month!" :P
Jamie C.
Thanks for the work you guys, I hope to see MATM and now even this little game finally come to pass.
Subjectivity
Wow! That's impressive. I already love it so much more! It'll be interesting to see the vore mechanics in a real-time environment like this. It's very different from the more turn-based MATM. I'm really looking forward to it! I hope it doesn't become too ambitious, though. Simple can be good.
MangoFishSocks
So, it's been a year since I pledged. A lot has happened since then. You played God and toyed with light. Neon lost and found her lipstick. Malise grew her hair out. Both lost their clothes to various extents. Malise even got abused a little bit. Several new faces joined the team behind the scenes. And since recently Onyx took to the spotlight. I hope I've been of some use with my feedback and suggestions. You guys put in an incredible amount of work for gorgeous aesthetics and proper gameplay, while a large part of the adult game industry lacks in both. I've upped my pledge tier and have been giving a listen to all those meaty metal synth soundtracks you guys've produced a while back. Here's to another year of productive development. Looking forward to it. As for this post: I love the dynamic feeling of those chain splicer sketches. Big props to Limbo. The biomonsters also look excellent. I vastly prefer the disgusting, wilder look to the smoother ones from the MatM demos, especially in contrast to, say, the tamer designs of the cops. The dog-looking thing is new, excited for that. Hope he has a 'regular' set of genitals too, along with that forehead jaw looking thing. Would love to see him come back in MatM.
These biomonster designs were done with Pure Onyx in mind :D.
MB
Re: chain splicer, check out rope dart videos for good real movement reprentations. Most of the stuff seen in moviea is BS when it comes to what you can and cannot do with a rope dart. Side note, part of using a rope dart is wrapping it around yourself to build up potential kinetic energy, but the wraps are done in such a way that they come apart in flash. It's a real-life power-move charge-up.
Somnovox
Substance Painter 2019, if you don't currently have a license or as many licenses as you'd like, can be purchased through Steam right now for $75 for Substance Designer, $75 for Substance Painter(with 1yr support/new version downloads), and I see a sale until FEB 2019 for Marvelous Designer that's got the price for a perpetual license at $240 vs the normal price of $490, if that helps anyone.
Subjectivity
Those are beautiful environments! I really hope FedEx is paying for those monitors. I was wondering, are any of those biomonsters planned for Pure Onyx, or will they only be in MATM? I do enjoy monster H more than human H, but I realize vore and punching bugs might be difficult in a side-scroller.
Not your bussines
Boss concept looks really nice, the Mortal Kombat reference sounds pretty good from a gameplay perspective. I imagine: Tentacle hook into H-grapple or something like this. How the multiple goon spawn works out has to be tested imo, I get some nasty flashbacks to various such encounters with the goons stunlocking you and the boss just destroying you. But it really feels good to see you guys making so much progress! Love the visuals on the chainsplicer, looking forward to seeing more of him. Speaking of esthetics, the new biomonsters, just a treat for the eye. I hope you stick with the "giger" look, his creations are some of my favorite art and seeing your artstyle mending with his is just heartwarming. Last but not least, will we have any level of voiceacting in it? I don't expect fully voiced diagloge or a wide array of in battle voicelines, but alteast some non stock data battle grunts and moans for onyx should be implemented in a product that shapes up to be on such a high quality level. And don't get me wrong a fully voiceacted adventure would be just mindblowing! PS: Looking really forward to the first implemented hentai content!
Trooper38
nice work getting 2 grand down to 600 bux thats a good bargain!
