Hey everyone, I took quite some time since my last post, as always.
Sorry about that.
I've been quite busy with a couple of things since the release of the last Braixen (Fauna) Animation.
Mainly focusing on coloring and animating Fia's Model for Dream Molder but also reworking and properly animating the old Lucario model which people where asking for.
I actually wanted to release the first proper Dream Molder version or at least something similiar to a Braixen "Character Creator" that will go along with the game, but after hitting some roadblocks along the way I had to put in a lot of extra work which isn't quite finished yet.
I'll use this post to go into detail of what was planned and why it failed, but also to show some of the stuff to can expect.
But let's start with Fia's Model...
Work on Fia's Model
Shortly after finishing Fauna's animation I started working on Fia's model to use in the final versions of Dream Molder.For everyone wondering what the whole model thing is about it's pretty much the main graphic file used to display Fia throughout the game, build in/with Live2D and gives me the ability to animate her sprites.
Since Fia has a bit over 100 expressions and poses there's quite a lot to consider until the model is 100% finished, but once the it's done there's not much left towards the proper releases, with CG-Art being the only thing left to do.
Work on the model was going well and I was expecting to be done with it around now as animations, the ability to change her colors, style, etc was all working fine already.
Technical Difficulties
Knowing that there's not much more to be done to finish it I put it aside to work on the Lucario animations for the month.
When I came back to implement the model into the game however it didn't work out as much as I was hoping for...
The model appeared much lower quality from it should actually be like.
Outlines were fuzzy and some things were missing completely.
Experimenting with the model a bit made it obvious that the problem wasn't the model itself but the engine messing up some of the color layers which made the model appear fuzzy.
You can see how the model in itself is actually quite clear when I dye her fur white which removes all the color layers.
Not really knowing what causes this I had to look into the engines code, rework parts of the model and try to figure out what the problem was in general.
I actually went so far as to rebuild the whole model from scratch but to no avail.
The latest build did improve the quality somewhat to not make it obvious as quickly, that definitely wasn't enough to use it for the game though.
You can see how the model in itself is actually quite clear when I dye her fur white which removes all the color layers.
Not really knowing what causes this I had to look into the engines code, rework parts of the model and try to figure out what the problem was in general.
I actually went so far as to rebuild the whole model from scratch but to no avail.
The latest build did improve the quality somewhat to not make it obvious as quickly, that definitely wasn't enough to use it for the game though.
The mode actually looks fine when viewed in preview or with any other software, putting it in the game though somehow messes up the colors.
The time it took to come to this conclusion however took way too long and I've wasted a lot of time trying to rework the model to make it work and right now I've got about 3 ways to move forward.
1.: Find whatever causes this in the engines code, change it and use the same model
2.: Rework the model to not dye it in real time and have a limited amount of colors to choose from instead
3.: Use another engine or write one from scratch and transfer everything made so far over time.
The first one I go for will definitely be 1. as this one has the highest chances of keeping everything done so far. The engine seems to mess with clipping layers for some reason, most likely scaling them weirdly?
3.: Use another engine or write one from scratch and transfer everything made so far over time.
The first one I go for will definitely be 1. as this one has the highest chances of keeping everything done so far. The engine seems to mess with clipping layers for some reason, most likely scaling them weirdly?
Fixing this is the best scenario, there will always be some kind of quality issue though which is definitely caused by the overuse of clipping and the engine not being able to keep up.
So I might need to do something else if I can't get it to model viewer quality.
The other two options are suboptimal, giving me a lot more to do to implement this than what it's worth.
I'll wait for some feedback and option 1. to fail before making any choice here though.
But yeah, long story short:
Whatever option I'm going with I will have to do some extra work which is why I most likely won't be able to release anything before end of the year.
That doesn't mean I'm not going to try, I'm definitely taking it slow and put quality first though.
It's not the first problem I bumped into and I've always found/had a solution in the end.
However, it's been a while since I've given an proper update for DM's progress and I think it was really needed. Even if it was about something trivial as this.
So I might need to do something else if I can't get it to model viewer quality.
The other two options are suboptimal, giving me a lot more to do to implement this than what it's worth.
I'll wait for some feedback and option 1. to fail before making any choice here though.
But yeah, long story short:
Whatever option I'm going with I will have to do some extra work which is why I most likely won't be able to release anything before end of the year.
That doesn't mean I'm not going to try, I'm definitely taking it slow and put quality first though.
Sidenote
I know this isn't much of an update and more of just me talking about minor problems.It's not the first problem I bumped into and I've always found/had a solution in the end.
However, it's been a while since I've given an proper update for DM's progress and I think it was really needed. Even if it was about something trivial as this.
I felt like I needed to involve everyone to keep up excitement and interest in the game for everyone.
That's what made me work on it until now after all...
So if you have any thoughts on the whole problem (Do you think it's worth using another engine to keep live coloring or would a few colors to choose from be enough for you?) or are excited about any of the features feel free to share/discuss it here or on our discord.
I need the feedback to keep me going and all thoughts/comments on this are appreciated!
Next update will most likely be with the release of either the first proper Dream Molder Scenes or the Braixen Character Maker, (hopefully) next month.
