MNL Progress Report #60 (Patreon)

Hey there, nudies! Real short progress report today. We did manage to get a lot more insert panels and illustrations done this week thanks to Sweez's hard work, but you'll have to wait and see them later. I know you're all used to seeing some cute art at the top of these progress reports, so it's probably a bit of a bummer to see nothing but text. Well, the truth is, I just needed to stall for a bit and make some space so I can jumpscare you with this.

AMBER'S NEW RIG IS DONE.

Bear literally just turned this thing in yesterday, and we've spent most of today working on getting it in-game. Didn't quite finish it in time for some gameplay footage, but we did toss it over to our amazing animator AT who tested out the capabilities of the new rig with this supersonic cool pose (as requested by Bear). We've actually just been playing around and making cursed stuff to test it out.

Jokes aside, the new rig is STUPIDLY good and allows for a much wider range of control for animations and expressions. If you can get past the way past cool posing above and the dream-like work in Amber's face, you can see how more flexible things have gotten. Her sandals flop separately from her feet, her fingers bend more, and her whole face has more range for goofy expressions. And that's all because this new rig has a horrifying amount of new points we can manipulate. Like, look at this damn thing.

This is a frankly absurd amount of articulation, but we can do SO much more with it. Unfortunately, AT will have to redo several animations since the original emotes aren't compatible with the new rig and model, but it should be much faster and smoother this time around. But while AT works on that, Invertex and I will work with what we got and keep on building.

It took roughly 3 weeks of straight work, but Bear did it and it came out AMAZING. It's already proven well worth the wait. This is where development is really going to pop off. Until then though, see you next week!