Lots of progress today! I started by integrating newly received models from Alcaraz for both the environment (replacing my crappy temporary model) and Miku (updated with 3 pose animations and repainted face).
Putting them in was pretty straightforward; only had to tweak a bit the positioning and rotation of the environment. It looks better though still a bit too empty; I also removed the placeholder jihanki vending machine and lamp posts, although some work will be required to make their lighting reflect the dynamic behavior of the old ones (they turn off during the night and I also had them affect the ambient light).
I introduced a big change on interactivity/gameplay; instead of teleporting randomly in the scene, Miku will now teleport in front of you and stay there for as long as needed. This makes it less of a frustrating chasing game of agility, and more of a creative experience with still some randomness and timing elements to consider.
Now that we had some poses in the model, I also worked on triggering them automatically tied to the song lyrics, which is a CRITICAL part of tying together the gameplay with the lyrics, a crucial evaluation criteria which I missed in my two prior entries. The poses are triggered automatically as some words related to them are unfold in the song, and you have to anticipate this to take cool, highly valued pictures.
In order for this to feel a bit more organic, I added a swaying procedural “dance” movement so Miku isn’t just standing there on a single position; this of course means she “skates” a bit in place, at least for now, but I think it’s ok… I guess we could always improve this so that the left and right movements are in sync with her “idle” dance animation.
Speaking of which, I think we’ll need to have more than one idle dancing animation to switch between them for variety… I wonder if we’ll have time for it. It already seems like this is being a lot of work in the art side for Alcaraz!
Speaking of art, I’m not sure yet we’ll have the support from Armyboi this year for the cover art since he seems to be more busy than ever… may need to reach into someone else or maybe use our 3D scene for that. Similarly on the UI side, it’s looking like it’s going to be just me and gray semitransparent boxes again.
Anyways, another gameplay option added where the E and C buttons being used to tweak the camera height, so you can take dramatic shots from below or above.
Finally, in a kind of experimental way, I’m also sending signals to Miku’s model that will be used in the future to control her mouth and make it look like she’s singing to the songs (right now they control the eyes instead)
Coming up, I’m thinking of adding a “photo review” interaction in addition to (or maybe even instead of) the scrapbook thing; I’m not too sure anymore about the scrapbook – but in any case a separate interaction where players can inspect the photos up close, and download or share them, seems like a must.
This makes even more sense thinking in advance of the mobile version of this.
Slashie's Gamedev Adventures 