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[Thaumaturge]

Blog post (15th of March, 2021)
Passages

Summary: In which a mist-effect is completed; the logic for it is set in place; a level is then (more or less) done; some font-hunting is done; the customised key-binding module for the game is updated for non-English characters; a new level is begun; and a new variant-shader is put in place for the purpose of said level.

Greetings and salutations!

This week's screenshot shows a new location, a bare start on a new level:



The week just past was somewhat varied, if also somewhat slow, I feel:

Work continued on the previously-shown mist-effect and its associated feature.

And indeed... I think that I have it done now! It's not perfect, but I think that it works--and it no longer easily exposes ugly gaps in the geometry, as it previously did!

Furthermore, in the week just past I set in place the game-logic that controls this feature--the scripting for certain items and interactions related to the place of this feature in the level.

And lastly, I wrote the accompanying text-lines for these things.

And with that, I believe that I have level six complete! (Aside from some saving-and-loading work, I think.)

Here, then, is a glimpse of that feature:



And if you don't mind minor spoilers, here is a short video showing what it is, and some of how it works:





I mentioned in last week's blog post, I believe, that I had updated my key-binding module to support non-English characters.

In the week just past, then, I went hunting for a new "fancy" font, hoping to find one that contained such non-English characters. Until I realised that with English text the issue only really comes up with key-bindings, and that these either were or could be handled by the "general" font--which, as it turned out, did have such characters!

I did however update my customised sub-class of said key-mapping module to likewise support non-English characters: It turned out that some of the relevant logic was in methods that were overloaded by the sub-class such that said logic wasn't executed. Furthermore, there were a few places in which, in accordance with the paragraph above, I wanted to swap out the "fancy" font for the "general" one.

And with all of the above done, I moved on to embark upon a new level.



This level isn't the one that directly follows level six (i.e. level seven)--instead, it's the one thereafter (i.e. level eight). This is another short level, and one that's quite different from both of its predecessors.

Here our protagonist finds herself in a deep and narrow gorge, with carven tomb-entrances to either side. Within, she hopes to find information--a final answer to the location of the lost city that she seeks.

As to the work done for the level, I: wrote the "rough draft" description of the level; started in on the model for the level; created its level-file; and made a stub level-script for it.

In addition, you may note the nice, smooth shadows on the cliff-side in the screenshot at the start of this post. The dynamic shadows of A Door to the Mists are not that good.

No, this actually uses a sunlight-version of the vertex-shadow system that I've previously shown, created in the week just past. This then is informed by vertex-colours generated by a Blender-script.

That then is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^

[Thaumaturge]

Blog post (22nd of March, 2021)
Several Stone Surfaces

Summary: In which level eight is worked on; a pebble-bed is textured; a "distance-splatting" shader is made; broken stones are added at cliff-side bases; cliff-faces are detailed; a tomb interior is begun; some footstep-sounds are made; a shader-change incurs tweaks to an extant level; and saving within a specific feature is handled.

Greetings and salutations!

This week's screenshot shows a start on an interior portion of the new level:



For the most part, the work of the week just past was given to such level-construction, with just one or two things done outside of that:

In last week's blog post I showed, I believe, an image of the gorge in which level eight is set. In that image the ground was still rather unfinished--it had only stand-in texturing. In the week just past, then, I set about texturing it properly.

To start with, the main of this chasm-floor is covered in small, lightly-coloured pebbles.

As these pebbles are quite small, many, fiddly, and overlay each other, I didn't make the relevant textures entirely by hand. Instead, what I did was to build a small program that randomly placed pebble-images within my textures, drawn from a set that I made for the purpose. This (aided by some manual placement to cover gaps that random placement wasn't quickly hitting) produced a fairly good pebble-surface, I feel!

However, I wasn't happy with the effect produced by simply applying these textures in-level: as I recall it became somewhat busy in the distance, and furthermore, didn't fit that "somewhat painted" aesthetic that I'm aiming for.

So, I created a new variant-shader that "splats" textures based on distance from the player. This allows me to shade between the detailed pebbles at close range and something more abstract and less busy further out--a little as one might paint such a surface, I feel.

And overall, I'm fairly happy with the result! ^_^



At the bases of the cliff-sides can be found a band of broken stone. This I've started, but not yet finished.

In particular, I struggled in the week just past to get the edging of it to look good, to not reveal the underlying geometry by cutting off abruptly; none of my shaders quite did what I wanted, I fear. I could have manually edged it, creating a geometric outline of the outermost stones--but there are a lot of stones, and my heart rebelled at the thought.

However, I think that I may have an idea that could work...



The cliff-side itself also saw a bit of work in the week just past. Specifically, I added some detail to it within the region accessible by the player. It's subtle, but I think that it makes the surface a little less uniform, and thus a little more convincing.



As shown in the main screenshot above, I also began working on the interior that's accessed from the cliff-side doorway: a king's tomb, shaped from pre-existing hollows in the stone.

For now, only the basic form of this is in place: there's a fair bit of detail and texturing as-yet to be done. Not to mention the various contents of its rooms!




Moving to audio, I made a set of footstep-sounds for the player's movement over the pebbles of the chasm. I'm not sure that I'm happy with these, but at the least they'll do for now, I think.

And finally, two sets of changes were made in places other than level eight:

First, part of the work on the cliff-face involved changes being made to the sunlight-version of the "mural" shader. This, however, incurred some changes to the carpets in level six, which also used that shader. Thankfully these changes were fairly quick and easy to do, I believe!

And second, I attended to the matter of saving the game while standing within level-six's "mist feature"--something that I hadn't properly dealt with previously. Thankfully, this likewise proved fairly quick and easy to do, I believe!

That, then, is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^

[liva]

I dont know if its just me, but I cant see any of your screenshots hosted on dropbox

All I see is something like this :



for the entire thread

[Thaumaturge]

I dont know if its just me, but I cant see any of your screenshots hosted on dropbox
...

Oh dear!

That's... very strange. I can see them easily enough, despite the fact that I'm not logged in, and I haven't yet had any other reports of such an issue.

So, to others who might be reading this thread: Can you see the images?

@liva: Could Dropbox perhaps be blocked where you are, whether your country or your location? In the latter case, places like libraries or universities may block certain sites, I think. In the former, I believe that Dropbox is blocked in China, for example.

In the meanwhile, perhaps you'll be able to see them either on my own website, or on IndieDB--I post my blog on those sites, too, and the images are hosted separately, I believe.
My website: http://thaumaturge-art.com/
The game's IndieDB page: https://www.indiedb.com/games/a-door-to-the-mists

[Alain]

I can see your screenshots just fine. Great job on the progress, keep it up

[Thaumaturge]

Thank you, on both counts! ^_^

I'm glad for one that the screenshots are working for some, at least!

[RealScaniX]

Those are some nice looking stone materials.
 
As for the images: Never had problems with them. Some filesharing sites reject IP ranges from VPN services if they produce too much traffic, too. Or it is the new hidden feature "Spoilerfree mode" of the forum.

[Thaumaturge]

Those are some nice looking stone materials.

Thank you very much! ^_^

(Although in all fairness, the stone material used for the interior structure has subsequently been changed--what's shown there is stand-in.)

As for the images: Never had problems with them. Some filesharing sites reject IP ranges from VPN services if they produce too much traffic, too. Or it is the new hidden feature "Spoilerfree mode" of the forum.

Ah, I'm glad to read that you haven't had problems here! ^_^

I didn't know that some sites reject VPN-service ranges. That does seem like another possible source for the problem, indeed!

... Is the "spoilerfree mode" a real thing, or was that a joke...? ^^;

[RealScaniX]

... Is the "spoilerfree mode" a real thing, or was that a joke...? ^^;

A bad joke (as usual), I'm afraid.

[Thaumaturge]

Aah, I see.

... The joke might have worked better for me if I'd had more sleep. ^^;

[Thaumaturge]

Blog post (29th of March, 2021)
Bright Walls

Summary: In which broken-stone geometry gains edging; other geometry is touched-up; chiselled, speckled stone is textured; a chamber is plated in shining gold; guardian-statues are made; some new enemy logic is begun; bug-fixes are implemented; a string-file is added; and more work on the publisher-search is done.

Greetings and salutations!

This week's screenshot shows a king's sarcophagus-chamber bright in the "reflected" light of gold-plated walls.



The week just past was a varied one, one of modelling and texture-making and logic-writing and more:

I mentioned last week, I believe, that I had experienced some trouble with the edging of the broken stones found near the cliff-bases of level eight.

In the week just past, then, I worked on this--and indeed, after some effort, I believe that I have something that does the job!

I went through a few approaches to this edging, but in the end what I did was fairly simple: I applied a mask (with three tiled versions packed into colour-channels to increase the interval between repetitions), which "cuts off" stones below a certain line.

It's not perfect--there are no individual scattered stones represented beyond the border, and there is some repetition. But I think that it works fairly well, at the least following the contours of the stones rather than cutting them off sharply at the geometry's end.



And along the way I worked on the geometry and UV-mapping of the mesh itself, too.

(The above hasn't yet been applied to all of the relevant geometry, however.)

I also took some time to clean up the geometry of the cliff-face itself, as well as the doorway that I've shown that leads to the interior.

As to said interior, in the week just past I worked on the appearance of its surfaces.

To start with, most of these surfaces are simple chiselled stone--albeit that said stone is flecked with little bright "starbursts", likely some pale mineral common in the area. So I made textures for these, both colour and normal-map--the latter of which proved somewhat tricky to make to my satisfaction!



But perhaps more eye-catching is the sarcophagus chamber in which the king is intended to lie.

As shown above, this room is plated with gold, which bright metal catches and rebounds and so amplifies light that's brought into it.

However... the shaders of A Door to the Mists don't support any such thing.

Had I left the lighting at its default, the walls would have been shiny, but dark: appropriate-enough to a single piece of metal surrounded by other surfaces, perhaps, but nowhere near as reflectedly-bright as I intended for this room.

So I turned, then, to my "blob-light" system.

After some experimentation, this room now has a "blob-light" whose intensity and position are controlled by the level-script, according to the player's position. Specifically, this light is dimmer the further the player is from the approximate centre, and locates itself opposite the player within the space of the room.

This creates an effect somewhat-similar (I feel) to light being bounced around the room, and brightens things appropriately!



But what king is without guards? And indeed, in an unadorned chamber off of the main tomb-hallway, a rank of five guardian-statues can be found.

These I also modelled in the week just past. Modelled--and began to animate...



Indeed, I furthermore started in on some custom logic for these figures--but let me not spoil that too much...

And on the minor side, I enacted some bug-fixes in the editor and added the beginnings of a string-file for level eight.

And finally, the publisher search continues: in the week just past I sent out some queries to publishers that had not yet responded, and began research on one more wave of publishers to pitch to. o_o;

That then is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^

[RealScaniX]

What a shiny new update!
Looks very nice. I like the new flute orchestra birdies.
I bet they all wanted to fly, but with those tiny wings they became musicians instead.
Ok, I'll stop being silly now.
 
You could place those statues in all corners of that place in different stages of destruction. And one of them becomes alive when you get close and will attack (or play the flute).
That's an interesting cloth design, too. It is like a loin cloth that you wear around your neck.
 
It's sad that no publisher has answered yet. They are probably super busy, because of the current situation. I wish you the best of luck for the next wave.

[Thaumaturge]

What a shiny new update!

Thank you! ^_^

Looks very nice. I like the new flute orchestra birdies.
I bet they all wanted to fly, but with those tiny wings they became musicians instead.
Ok, I'll stop being silly now.

Hahah, the silliness is appreciated! XD

You could place those statues in all corners of that place in different stages of destruction. And one of them becomes alive when you get close and will attack (or play the flute).

Let's just say that their placement here is done with a purpose, and that you're not entirely wrong on one point...

(Two, if you could the fact that I intend to have the remains of at least one broken statue in another, adjacent tomb.)

And no, neither of those points are "playing the flute".

That's an interesting cloth design, too. It is like a loin cloth that you wear around your neck.

Thank you!

I suppose that it's some sort of tabard-y thing.
 

It's sad that no publisher has answered yet. They are probably super busy, because of the current situation. I wish you the best of luck for the next wave.

Thank you very much! ^_^

I'll confess that I'm a little anxious about the lack of positive response!

(And to clarify, I have had a few responses--just all rejections, save for one inquiring after what support I wanted, followed by silence (thus far).)

but yes, we'll see how wave two goes, and whether any of the outstanding publishers from wave one respond!

[Thaumaturge]

Blog post (5th of April, 2021)
Passages and Paths

Summary: In which interiors are worked on; an exterior is likewise; level-exits and a trigger are put in place; simple path-finding is implemented (but yet buggy); publisher-searching continues; and a solution to an update-incurred issue is sought and found.

Greetings and salutations!

This week's screenshot shows some changes to the geometry of a tomb found in level eight:



The week just past was a mix of level-geometry work, game-logic, and "business stuff":

As shown in the screenshot above, work continued on the interior geometry of level eight. This involved a number of changes, some prominent, others less so. Perhaps most saliently, shaped ribs--if I'm using that term correctly--were added to the arched passageways; and the side-room and its passage were made rectangular, losing their arched ceilings.



The exterior of level eight saw work in the week just past, too. Here I lightened and largely-finished the band of broken stones at the bases of the cliffs, and added further (mostly inaccessible) doors along the cliff-side.



Moving to game-logic, I added exits to the level, bounding the player's movements in the exterior region.

Perhaps more interestingly, I added a trigger, along with some associated logic, which is intended to be met as the player leaves the tomb-interiors. However, the purpose of this trigger is rather a spoiler, so I hope that you'll understand if I'm reticent to say more.

Another piece of spoilery logic was implemented in the week just past--but this one I can perhaps talk about, as it's intended to be used in more than one place. This is a basic path-finding implementation, one that takes a set of connected nodes and uses them to guide an enemy towards the player.

And indeed, along with some level-specific logic, this is starting to produce the behaviour that I want from certain enemies.

That said, there are yet some bugs in this implementation, so more work is likely called for!

(And I added a bit of cleanup-code for the older "waypoint" system as part of this.)

On the business side, I mentioned last week, I believe, that I had begun a second wave of publisher-research. This I continued in the week just past, although it's not yet done!

Furthermore, I touched up my pitch -deck and -email a little, in preparation for sending out a new set of pitches!

And finally, an update to a new version of Panda3D incurred an issue with the tabs in the "collections" menu of A Door to the Mists. In the week just past, then, I searched through Panda's commits, looking for the culprit. (This was done using GitHub's handy "bisect" feature, which provides a binary-search traversal of a range of commits.) Eventually said culprit was found, and a Panda-dev provided a workaround that seems to have fixed the problem for now!

That then is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^

[Alain]

The way down the tomb looks like you walk down the esophagus of a giant beast, which is a nice touch. I wish you all the best for the business stuff and hope things go the way you want them to.

[RealScaniX]

I like the corridors a lot, those arcs are an interesting touch.
Ah, new game mechanics. They are the most fun and the first reason for a slowed down progress. ^^
I like triggers, they make the game come alive a bit more. And I'm looking forward to running away from the enemies with their new pathfinder.

[Thaumaturge]

Thank you both! ^_^

The way down the tomb looks like you walk down the esophagus of a giant beast, which is a nice touch.

That's an interesting interpretation--I hadn't thought of that! ^_^

Perhaps there's something to be said for the dead having been "swallowed" by the tomb...

Ah, new game mechanics. They are the most fun and the first reason for a slowed down progress. ^^

Hahah, indeed!

In all fairness, this is intended to produce behaviour that I had long had in mind, but that alas wasn't feasible with the elements that I had already implemented.

Plus, it actually makes use of some of those elements behind the scenes! Perhaps most notably, it actually constructs a set of waypoints for the characters to follow, thus making use of the code already implemented for that system. ^_^

I like triggers, they make the game come alive a bit more.

Triggers have proven invaluable, indeed! ^_^

And I'm looking forward to running away from the enemies with their new pathfinder.

Ah, you think that you're faster than they are. You'll see. >;P

(Maybe there's a more... cunning way to get away from them, however. )

[Thaumaturge]

Blog post (12th of April, 2021)
Broken Stone

Summary: In which an exterior gains doors and foliage; a rockfall blocks an entrance; a shader-set is slightly enhanced; a second entrance is likely completed; the tomb into which said entrance leads is begun; a crevice connects two tombs; some interior geometry is worked on; a pathfinding system is improved; a bug is found in level one and fixed; and publisher-pitching progresses.

Greetings and salutations!

This week's screenshot shows a doorway into one of level eight's tombs, dark until entered:



The week just past was primarily one of level-building, although a few other things did get done:

Starting with the exterior of level eight, in the week just past I added scattered vegetation to the gorge, both pushing up through the pebbles of the ground and clinging to the sheer stone of the cliffs.




I also added further doors, distant and inaccessible, to the cliff walls.

But perhaps more interestingly, I worked on the two functional doorways that provide access to the interior of the level.

The first doorway leads into the tomb that holds the level's goal--but is blocked: a rockfall, modelled in the week just past, prevents passage and forces the player to look for another way in.

(And as part of building said rockfall I made some minor changes to my sunlight "decal"-shaders; the changes are a bit hacky--in order to prevent conflict with extant use of the shaders, as I recall--but work, I believe.)



The aforementioned other way in is provided by the next tomb in line. In the week just past, then, this tomb's doorway was finalised--as shown in the main screenshot above. Between geometry, light-level vertex-colouring, and adjustments to the player-light trigger, it should be pretty much done now, I believe!

Furthermore, a certain trigger that was added in a previous week was moved to align properly with this doorway.

As noted above, this doorway provides access to a second tomb of level eight--and in the week just past, I began the process of building this tomb.



As it stands, a fair chunk of the new tomb is done--enabled in part by using the first tomb as a base, I believe. As with that first tomb, there's more work that I intend to yet do, but the place looks already more or less the part, I think!

Now, the second tomb is a separate place from the first: each is its own construction, and not part of a single complex. How, then, does access to the second tomb help with the goal of entering the first?

Simply put, a gap has opened up in the stone between them--a cleft, perhaps a shifting of the stone, possibly connected to the previously-mentioned rockfall. However it formed, it provides a rough passageway between the two places.

This passage, then, is partway done: traversable, but unfinished.




Further, the "ribs" found on the ceilings of these tombs were touched up in the week just past. This included some UV-adjustments, and the breaking of a few near the rockfall and crevice, and scattering parts of them about the floor.

On the logic-side, I believe that I mentioned last week that my new pathfinding implementation had some bugs. These were addressed in the week just past; the solutions found perhaps have their issues, but they seem to work for now!

Likewise, I fixed some animation issues with the characters for whom said pathfinding was initially built.

And in doing so, I discovered that the second mummy in level one was not animating when they walked from their sarcophagus! This seems in short to have been another animation issue; with the animation itself fixed and a particular scalar in the relevant code adjusted, this seems to be working properly now!

And finally, I believe that I mentioned last week that I was gearing up for another wave of publisher-pitching. Well, in the week just past I completed my research for this wave, and began enacting it, sending out a new set of pitches. There are a few yet to be done, but the majority have been sent, I do think!

That, then, is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^

[RealScaniX]

That's becoming a nice environment to explore. I like caves and tunnels. Something to crawl through to get rid of the Pathfinder v2.
Bugfixes are everywhere. Sometimes it is shocking to see what basic bugs are in systems that you think are finished for a long time. ^^

[Thaumaturge]

That's becoming a nice environment to explore. I like caves and tunnels.

Thank you! ^_^

Something to crawl through to get rid of the Pathfinder v2.

You're not far off, indeed.

Bugfixes are everywhere. Sometimes it is shocking to see what basic bugs are in systems that you think are finished for a long time. ^^

I know--it's horrible! XD;