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[JobLeonard]

Eh, just mix it up with the occasional concept art that gets across the idea of what it is supposed to feel like and you're probably fine

[oahda]

I'm really lousy at ever doing much of that, at least in presentable form! End up just doing it in-game so I can have the shaders and stuff work things out for me.

But I did do this half-finished two-minute super dirty sketch a week or two ago of something more of what the character who dies at the beginning of this section might look like, so since you suggested it I might as well post it~



It's really more of a "general overview" thing and then I end up diverging when I actually get into modelling TBH. Might end up looking completely different. Maybe I'll even sketch some more. Also I drew a bench for some reason even tho I know they'll be sitting on the edge of a fountain.

For example, this…



… was really the only sketch I did of the character and then in Blender I used it along with a bunch of other inspo pictures I found for the various details to actually come up with the model I have now. Helps a lot to see all the different angles in 3D too when it comes to figuring stuff out. Proportions here look almost child-like because I didn't really bother until I actually made the model.

I might still add that scarf but since it would need some dynamic solution to flow in the wind and while running I haven't bothered yet.

Another thing about the first sketch here is that it still isn't really indicative of the style the characters will be in yet. Even the main player character's model might have proportions changed to something less realistic later depending on what I decide. I think overall it'll be a bit surreal and exaggerated. Eyes are another one. I'm toying with black eyes with no white in them like this for now, but we'll see. It's something I've had the luxury of leaving aside for the main character thanks to the gas mask.

Here are some characters from an LD game of mine that I tested the watercolour shader on, and I'm still considering doing something like this but more polished since these were originally made in almost no time at all. And different clothes and stuff obviously since these characters are from the real modern world and those in Ao are not.

[ChrisLSound]

I like these concept sketches! They have a pleasant and unique personality to them. I also really like how (based on the clothing) everything seems to have this sort of common core of "cold environments". It's an aesthetic/mood I personally love and would greatly enjoy playing in

I'm excited to see what sort of character style you go for and how the visual design all comes together.
Are you doing all the modelling/animations yourself?

[oahda]

Thanks! Agree on the æsthetic preference, which perhaps isn't so surprising considering I'm making this game…

So far doing it all myself, tho on the animations I've gotten a lot of helpful instructions from my (life, not dev) partner who's much better at it. Keep getting useful input on all sorts of stuff besides animations too! But any flaws are down to me not bothering to implement it all properly yet. I still consider the character and their animations about as WIP as the rest of the game. Good for now, but I do want it cleaned up a lot by release. I feel like their clothes are still too generic and not indicative enough of the town's culture, for instance.

[Ishi]

This looks lovely, great to see so much cool tech going into the game over the course of the devlog. I also like the idea of a Majora's Mask style game but without the stress of the strict non-rewindable timer. Great work so far and looking forward to seeing more!

[oahda]

Thank you so much!

[oahda]

14

Let's build

Only getting started, but there's editor stuff on the way (using the WIP docking branch of good old ImGui)!



Built right into the game and script-extendable, so maybe someone could have fun modding this game in the future, if it ends up being the sort of game that people would want to mod.

Here's basically what's in there so far, which ain't much, but as usual there's a bunch of hidden programming work behind it, for things like undo/redo, extendability, avoiding spaghetti code as the editor gets more complex and so on…



Decided it was finally time to start on this since I want to put together a little tool to help me build all the houses in town semi-automatically so that I can focus on the details of each building.

I don't think it'll be restricted to a rigid grid later on, but it's a good way to figure out how to segment the buildings and what sizes to make them:





Will replace this with all sorts of good-looking pieces later! Imagining a bit of a Sims-like system that lets me outline the walls and so on.

[ChrisLSound]

Exciting and extra inspiring seeing how much you've built from the ground up!

[oahda]

Thank you!

[diegzumillo]

Your modeling looks great with your shader. Would be interesting if you managed to get the shader working on desktop, like a looking glass thing! you move the window over the model and it shows it under the shader.

I thought about that when I was making pixel art for the mega drive because I needed to see what it looked like all blurred like a CRT. One thing to make modern pixel art, another is to make pixel art for old display devices. Completely different approaches. I even found a CRT window that works the way I described but still wasn't very useful because I could not change the size to match the end result, but you could probably pull it off!

[oahda]

Thanks! Unfortunately it's not just a simple post-effect but relies on the depth information and so on of the actual 3D, so it wouldn't be quite the same. :c Should be fast to see it in-engine with some hotloading tho!

[oahda]

15

A year in review

Wow! Tomorrow is the anniversary of this devlog. How did I do? Well, it went from this to this:



Not seen here is also NPC behaviour, and time mechanics, as we saw working back in June:



I've actually been on a two-month hiatus or so since December, but I got a fair amount of work in between the last update and then on the editor (can boot the game from there and communicate with it now!), and this week it finally culminated in me starting on the barest bones of that house editor!



Lots more to do, but I'm happy so far! Still excited about the game, which is important.

Don't really feel the need to get into some sort of evaluation. It remains a hobby project and as a solo dev I feel I'm progressing at a sensible pace. I've got a planning board to keep track of issues and tick things off as I get to them, but I don't track time or make up schedules. I just fit work in when I can.

Thanks so much to everyone who's been supportive so far! It means a lot. Let's keep going into 2020!!

[diegzumillo]

Great review! I know there are a lot of work that goes unnoticed because they don't make nice gifs. Keep it up 

[JobLeonard]

Congratulations! 

[ChrisLSound]

Yay great work! It's been lots of fun following everything this past year!

[oahda]

Thank you three! And happy actual birthday to the log today!

[Ishi]

Congrats on the first year of the devlog!

[oahda]

Thanks!!

[Shephf]

Congrats! The editor is coming along great! You know, after looking at all the work that you did I kinda get thoughts about making a 3D game/engine from scratch myself I bet one can learn a lot from making everything with his bare hands

[oahda]

Thank you! Do tell if you do. Just hope it doesn't bring your game to a halt.