Inner Circle Update for February 11 2018! (Patreon)

Hey guys!

So much for a battle test release on the 7th >_<. There have been some hold-ups, but the good news is we’re only a few days away from having it ready, and it will not only include Malise’s reworked poses but also Neon (you can find some examples as well as the list of changes below).

Battle Test Release 2 Progress/Features

Since we’re preparing for our Enty launch I decided to give this a few more days so that we could get Neon in this next test release, as I think it would make a lot more sense to people who haven’t seen the game before.  Here’s a (nearly complete?) list of features. 

• Added Neon :D
• Re-worked Malise’s poses (some more than others). All are now rendered with the proper lighting/perspective, and for applicable poses characters will now look at the player/camera instead of straight ahead. 
• Malise will now use both guns when attacking (still have to do the final testing). 
• Japanese language will now be available (can be toggled in the main menu).  
• Improved game database pre-processing to decrease game play-test start time and disk writes.
• Improved handling of and partially implemented non-linear movement for battle UI elements such as indicator and battle camera animations.
• Re-coded and optimized player character's level/experience indicators to allow for JP localization, and made some alignment fixes for 16:9 compatibility on the battle results and loot screens

We intend on putting out an additional release for the Inner Circle probably a week or so after this monthly update. That one will feature HDR processing, so among other things, Neon’s armor will look much better. 

Malise’s Reworked Battle Portraits

As far as portraits we’re still experimenting a lot with what works with the new style and what doesn’t. Unfortunately, it’s really easy to burn multiple days of long hours when an experiment simply just doesn’t work out (like these past few days). Some however have worked out.

The reworked Malise portraits for this release are rendered from a different position to better acquire the camera perspective and correct environment lighting. This should make previously ambiguous poses more readable (like the escape pose).  I decided Malise looked weird firing one gun all the time (plus it didn’t make for a very aesthetic pose), so I thought it could be a cool character mechanic for her to attack twice with her base attack. I figured this could be a feature to differentiate her at the core from other characters, and we could build her weapon skills kind of around that. Anyways, we still have a bit of work to do on the mechanics, but the attack pose certainly looks a lot better. Here’s a comparison GIF showing the progression.

While I have most of the posing done and even have them rendered, Ubercharge and I have been working on improved eyes for the past few days and I’m trying really hard to get it into this release. While the eyes are certainly an improvement (and will help with all characters once it’s finished), we also burned a lot of time experimenting with face improvements for Malise, but I’m pretty sure we’re sticking with what we have. TK and I still have to implement the final fix for the eyes, so if it goes smoothly I’ll show that off with the monthly update.

Neon Battle Portraits

As far as Neon goes, I still have a few poses left to do for her, but quite a bit of time went into making fixes that only became apparently with her Genesis 3 figure/armor once I started making the poses. We’ve got those wrapped up and it’s all working well now, so beyond finishing the poses I’m hoping we can get the eye fixes working for Neon as well.

You can check out a few of her unprocessed pose renders here. This is the first time we’ve shown off Neon in a while, and the skin / face changes are pretty apparent (here’s what she looked like soon after we first showed her off, before we had skin right). To top it off, this is also the first time we’ve shown off TK’s remodeled armor. Here are some high res shots of that.

If you’ll notice on the portrait renders, I decided to leave bloom out of her lights for this release. I’m saving that for the release the week after since we need to update the sprite system to allow for HDR processing. We’ve done the testing and everything should work okay, so it’s just a matter of coding it. Here’s an example of what it should look like once we add HDR bloom/glare.

Ubercharge’s Map Progress

The ARIS station map is finished, and we’ve done bunch of sprite lighting tests, as well as some to properly grade and layer fog to get sprites to blend correctly. You can check out a full sized uncropped example here – zoom in :D (keep in mind sprites look a bit weird since sprite reflections and shadows aren’t in yet). This is the first map Uber has done with procedural editing and HDR in mind, and it’s already a much smoother process of getting the assets to blend properly. This process is also a better one for our workflow since most of the lighting editing is done in post using a pre-wired template, and doesn’t require juggling a giant 3D scene around between us, or having to mess it up just to make edits later.

Uber has begun creating the props for the next map, which will include the lift that takes Neon and Malise from the perimeter wall into the streets of the Void.  Here’s a preview of the model he’s working on for that.

Sprite Lighting System in RPG Maker

We had previously planned on creating a separate sprite lighting system just for v0.06; one that would look “okay” but be compatible with RPG Maker. APL however spent a day testing out crazy ideas for how to get the sprite lighting system we intend to use with our URGE engine working in RPG Maker (we showed off a while back – skip to 44 seconds on this video for a reminder :D ). He actually got it working, but at a severe hit to performance (among some other limitations).  While I get 2800 FPS in URGE on our map test, RPG Maker struggles to hit 60 and stutters very noticeably every second or two. The messy part of this is that it would take a significant amount of time to get another decent looking system going and set up for all the maps (there’s some manual work involved). What’s your guys’ opinion? Would you deal with subpar performance on maps for v0.06 in exchange for better visuals and a faster release? While we’re not 100% sure this is an option yet, I’d like to consider it if you guys are okay with it.

Enty Launch 

I have most of the materials written up for the Enty launch (currently being translated by our translator), as well as a WIP campaign video. The tough thing about doing this now is that to really show off how the game plays we would need to show off content in the old art style, which is something I don’t want to do for people who are first seeing the project. The plan though is to include one of the upcoming battle test releases with the first post, give some history of the project, and include a gallery of screenshots to fill in the blanks.  I’ll be sure to let you guys know how it turns out, as well as what our experience is like over there.

In Summary!

Battle Test Release 2 will be in a few days, preferably after we get this eye improvement sorted. It will contain Neon and Malise’s reworked poses, as well as the first test for our localization code (with Japanese available). Battle Test Release 3 should come with the IC update after that, and will contain (at least) HDR processing.  I’d like to use Battle Test Release 3 for the Enty launch, so that should happen around the same time.