slaen

Cat inspired animations!

Well, not really but it looks funny without the other character in the scene. But so I'm cruising through her animation set - these still need some polish but I was able to re-use and re-work a lot of the previous animation set. So polish pass and then the climax animations for this anatomy and that'll be her scenes ready for the build.

Did I do anything else this week? Friday sort of snuck up on me. Oh! I finished her other climax animation set for the other ...

Dialogue scene setup

I started putting all the stuff together in game this week. There's a surprising amount of pieces going into this now.

The player using furniture and playing an idle animation specific to that furniture. There's also slots for getting into and out of that idle animation but I'm not sure how necessary these are - you know how in Skyrim or Fallout 4 there's this animation whenever using a bed or a crafting table that can't be skipped and takes just a bit too long e...

From the animation mines

Lost a day this week to a dentist appointment but I'm catching up on animation work.

So this is all of her scene cycles for one human anatomy type done. Now I just need the climax animations and the other human anatomy type and then that's her primary animations done for this next build.

I also did a couple of rig tweaks on her. Her individual toes now have joints and I added some joints and a mesh for her anatomy variant (the mesh is hidden so I don't ha...

f imp animations

I'm back home and working on her animation sets. Still in the blockout and planning phase so I haven't touched the smaller controls like her face or her hands yet. And I had to hide the other character in the scene to make things safe for work so I didn't have to paywall this post.

There's a few rig fixes I need to make and I need to make her anatomy variant.

I did have a small moment of panic earlier this week. I loaded up into a test level and was quic...

Saves, bugs, and dialogue

This week I had to track down a game breaking save bug. This would essentially corrupt the entire save file and immediately crash to desktop whenever that save file tried to load -unless the player remembered roughly where they were on the world map or which interior level, started a new game on that same save slot, then loaded the old save from nearly the same location as the one where the save was created. So yeah, it corrupted your save file.

It also took me a...

The Void

This bug. This one bug. It pops up worse in some builds. Sometimes I can run around in game, in and out of buildings, completely fine. Then close and reopen the editor and the first building I enter I fall through the floor again. It's one of those bugs that is so game breaking to a player. It's not something fun and quirky (like the giants smashing people into the sky in Skyrim) that adds to the game. It's a bug that throws the player out of the experience. It suc...

Odds and ends... and getting closer to the next build!

Lots of stuff this week trying to fix bugs and smooth out all the new systems.

• Candles can be interactive, have a recipe and placeable, + flame fx follows the placeable candle

• Vfx and sounds can be triggered by volume and by time of day

• Containers restocking should work correctly now - this will replace previous inventory entirely

• Waypoints work with new spawnpoint system now

• More lighting and envi...

  2025-10-01 21:47:08 +0000 UTC View Post

More save game work and some imp animating

That's almost everything working (in my brief testing) for the save system! NPCs and their transformations, containers contents and lock state, doors being locked or open, gatherable plants, mining resource points, planted crops, dropped inventory items, and placed inventory items.

Items also have a respawn time stamp for things to reset or restock. So for gatherable plants they're set to take a day before they can be gathered again. Merchant inventories should al...

Spawning logic...

Mostly worked on the spawning system this week. It keeps tracks of NPC schedules, where and when they will spawn and despawn. It always respects when the player advances time by waiting or resting and will update NPCs accordingly. It also works with the updated save system so the player won't need to leave and return to the area for things to update. Oh, and it should respect quest status and flags (I haven't tested this yet!) It's also cheaper as far as memory footpr...

Unarmed animations and map work

Ok, worked some more on the path leading up to the monastery and integrating that into the map better. Still a bunch of fine details to do but the landscape work is mostly done.

And as I was playtesting I realized that if the player wants to fight they're way out but doesn't have a weapon that they currently have no way of doing that. So I finally put together some melee animations for the player. The two different punches are shown but I also have the ready, unre...

The jump to Unreal version 5.4

It worked!!!

Sometimes upgrading Unreal engine versions is super simple, other times it takes me a few days to fix things, and still other times it completely breaks things and I have to remake stuff. So making the jump from 5.2 to 5.4 had me a little nervous. I knew that there had been a number of code changes as well as system changes between engine versions and also that I was going to try skipping over 5.3 entirely. Luckily this time the upgrade went pretty ...

Melons?! and map integration!

Got the monastery dropped into the main map file! Now I need to update the lighting and do the surrounding environment work.

Jammed out some growable melons so the novices have something else to do with their time.

I was also working through dialogue trees and bugs. One major bug was related to the day time stamp checks. NPCs can have dialogue that can progress over multiple days. Like the first day in the monastery they'll welcome the player, the secon...

More environment work

Got a decent chunk of work on the monastery environment done. Some work on props and general environment stuff. Some more texturing. And some more work on the lighting.

And started working on the overworld area to drop the monastery into the map. Also did a bunch of cleanup work on environment LODs.

I'm hoping to get this placed in the map this week and then start playtesting the dialogue trees and quest flags. It's getting there!

More monastery progress

Finished the low poly mesh for the imp robes and I was able to get started on the textures. They still need a detail pass and I'm planning on trying a few things with the rig.

I also started putting together the monastery cave. Because every monastery needs a good cave system beneath it right? The layout is done and the general lighting. Just a fine detail pass left over and to hook it into the main level map.

And more trespassing work! There are a lot mor...

Imp robes, furniture, and lighting practice

I thought the imps should get in on the whole monastery thing and get some monk robes of their own. I went through a few other different designs with varying degrees of lewdity until I landed on this design. As if she's trying to not be completely lewd but can't quite help herself. I still need a proper detail pass and to go back and do all of the wrappings up but I think this gets the idea across.

Also furniture! Mostly textured and ready to go in game. There's...

Furniture, scripting, and UE 5.4?!

Still working away at the monastery content this week. I wanted the furniture and overall vibe for the player's room to be very utilitarian. No flourishes, very simple, very clear and rigid lines. So I did up some quick furniture sculpts with that in mind. Just need to low poly and texture them up still. Oh, and like I mentioned last time, these are modeled to set a uniform height to things. This way moving forward any animations that require a bed or a chair can get...

Writing, writing, writing

...and some scripting work too. But mostly dialogue and design writing this week. Just a heads up there might be a bit of light spoiler type stuff in here.

So I'm trying to juggle the dialogue trees to handle if and when the player has spoken to a specific character. In theory it'll keep track of if the player has spoken with that character for the day. Then after that they'll get a generic dialogue saying something like "I'm busy come back tomorrow". I also wan...

Getting back into the swing of things

Jammed out some hoods for the monk robes. They're rigged and in game.

Then working on the monastery content. The main interiors for where the player will start are detailed and mostly done. The entry halls and rooms still need a detail pass for trims and everything but the layout is there. I'm also thinking I'll need grunge decals and placeables to break up all the straight lines everywhere. After this detail pass I'll drop this into the main map and then do a...

Door...

I ended up taking things a little easy this week. Just kind of stressed and unfocused. I ended up doing stuff that I didn't need to be "on" for. So I made a door :) This is for the monastery content and will be used for the interior hallways.

Then I also did a whole lot of bits and pieces. Dialogues can now be fired off by regular actors. Before they had to have an associated character but I wanted things like the altar in the monastery to trigger dialogue sc...

More monastery intro work

Finished the character presets for the named characters in the monastery. I also have their intro dialogues written out. Next I'll need to write out their generic everyday dialogues and set their schedules and spawn points.

Also got the monk robe body types, rig, and setup done and in game. There is a slight weighting issue I need to fix on the hanging rope belt still.

And did the growing stages for tomato plants. Farming and cooking will be an optional w...

Robes, frogs, more tutorial work

Made up some new novice robes for the monastery intro. I used some of the inquisitor robes' sculpt as a base and then filled in the missing pieces of the sculpt. Still need to do the body types and then get this rigged.

I also went back to the frog ladies and messed a bit more with her proportions and shapes. I'm still figuring out exactly how far I can push forms but still make it fit with the art style. But I'm pretty happy with where she's getting to. I'll do...

Monastery and skeleton anims

Finished the basic layout for the monastery / tutorial area. This is almost everything necessary for the core gameplay in this area. I still need to integrate it into the main map and then do all of the fine detail. The first screenshot is one of the interiors with some work in progress lighting and the 2nd one of a birds eye view of the overall layout.

Then more skeleton animation work. This is the ready idle, the attack animation, and the death animation. I ...

Dungeon tileset + new tutorial writing

Working more on the models for the dungeon tileset. I think these will be used heavily in a whole bunch of different contexts so I'm trying to get things right so that they're easy to use. It's funny I kept running into rooms in the frog dungeon where I needed a specific piece that I just didn't have so I'd have to figure out what would fit there, how it would look, and how it would fit with everything around it. And don't get me started talking about making arches. So...

Dive bar exterior detailing + skeleton animations

I've been working on detailing up this corner of Redtree next to the dive bar. Trying to give it almost a back alley feel. It'll be the cheapest place for drinks in Redtree when it's finished. I still need to go back and do some proper textures and tweak some colors to make things pop.

And skeleton animations! Sorry about the gif compression I'm trying out a new program that I was hoping would be faster and easier but getting mixed results so far. But yeah, sk...

Dive bar, frog temple, shrooms

Started work on the dive bar exterior. It's mostly a block in and still needs a solid detail pass but I dropped into the map.

Frog temple lighting. I started messing around with color schemes and haven't decided on just how moody to make the temple yet. I'm going to try a greenish yellow color scheme next but I'm always surprised how even without full detail assets the lighting can really bring a scene together.

I've also been working on further into the...

Skeletons, frog temple, and shroom anims

Skeletons! I'll come back and do a polish pass on the textures once I start doing variants on these. But for now I'm calling the textures close enough to get in game. I was also able to get the rig and weights done, which went surprisingly quickly on this. So skeletons are ready for animations!

Frog temple progress! I started dropping in art assets on top of the blockout. With each new dungeon I'm trying to plan better and build up a new set of environment pi...

Skeletons!

First thing Version 1.15.11 is now open to all supporters! The build notes are here.

I finished up the low poly on the skeletons and started on texturing them. Debating on glowy eyes? or no glowy eyes? Maybe do a variant for high level armored up skeletons or caster skeleto...

Frogs, dungeons, spawns, and cheats

Dug up the old frog lady sculpt I had and started updating her to match frog daddy. I'm still figuring out overall shapes and how much of a thickness to jacked ratio to go with for her. But I'm digging the big feet and toes on her so far.

Started in on coding a cheat menu. For now it'll be in the options menu and will apply to all save slots. Pretty standard stuff infinite health, stamina, mana, money and eventually ammo - once I have ammo logic working properly....

Skeletons, placement mode, frog dungeon, and 3d printing!

I was doodling a bit on a skeleton NPC and the sculpt is getting pretty close to done. I'm still messing with a few shapes and want to do another detail pass. The idea for the undead is to have a faction of NPCs that will always be hostile to the player.

I also did some polish on the placement mode for objects. Moved the hotkeys around and fixed a few of the bugs. It should be a little easier to use and not quite so clunky. There's still a few bugs I'm working...

Bow, shield, shroom

Letting myself recover a bit this week after crunching on all of the imp content for the last build. That build was a big one in terms of all the systems work and was a really good test of putting together quest logic and flow. In theory the foundation work for quests is done. But I needed some time away from imps and blueprints.

There's a proper model now for the basic wooden shield and the bow. I'm trying to flesh out the early tier weapons s...