Inner Circle Update for March 21 2019! (Patreon)

Hey everyone!

Sorry for being a few days late with this ;(.  TK, Kitsune, and I have been working this week on the animations for the release, and with any luck we should have them looking good for when Mr. Kittyhawk finishes up his Unity overhaul.  He's currently crunching to get the combat systems and H stuff reintegrated over the next week.   While we do this however, I've been focused on keeping the art pipelines full, meaning we've been getting a lot of other work out of the way.  Check it out below! 

• Vioreaper Animations
• Vioreaper Nest Progress
• Stage 1-2 Map Progress 
• Onyx Style Updates
• Weapon Concepts
• New Enemy: Mastermind

 Vioreaper Animations!

Kitsune has done a great job with the first Vioreaper animations!  We're continuing to develop our skills with Spine, and this guy served as a great opportunity to start working with multi track animations.  The Vioreaper's Idle pose is actually playing 4 animations simultaneously. The wings, hovering, and tail/stinger motion are independent of the actual idle animation, meaning we should get some truly dynamic looking results once they have AI.   We'll also be experimenting with procedural animations so that they can aim their stinger.

We haven't gotten to test him in game yet, but he should definitely be in the release after this upcoming one.

Vioreaper Nest Progress

Since Ubercharge is more of a hard surface guy, Limbo learned Z Brush this week so he could help sculpt the organic models that we need for our biomonster nest levels.  He got a really good start on the Vioreaper nest as you can see here.  Ubercharge also further refined the materials he's been working on, and in doing so was able to cut rendering times by 75-90%. 

• Vioreaper Nest Map Sculpt (WIP) 
• Vioreaper Nest Asset Sculpts  
• Biomonster Enviro Materials 

Stage 1-2 Map Progress 

As mentioned last week, Ubercharge has been back on Stage 1-2 to work on the parallax backgrounds.  We've got a preview of the train platform he's been working on!  Check below for an example of the full map.  Aside from a few fixes, we still have to add the last parallax layer of buildings in the background.  

• Stage 1-2 Full Map Preview (Medium Resolution) 

Onyx Style Updates

A focus of mine this week has been to get back on the Onyx move set artwork.  Our artwork has gotten way cleaner since we did these, so I'm updating them as I break them down for Spine.  There are still a few adjustments to make, but check out the difference between the idle pose now and from the last release :D.

The general goal has been to improve consistency in brush strokes and detail size, improve anatomy, and to simplify some aspects to better fit the retro anime style. 

• Onyx Idle Pose Comparison 

Weapon Concepts

Limbo had some time between tasks, and used it to work on concepts for weapon designs.  Now that we have the hang of Spine I'm pretty excited to see these implemented!  A couple of these designs could fill multiple roles, so let me know what you think. 

• Handgun / SMG 
• Pump Shotgun / Energy Weapon 
• Automatic Shotgun / SMG 

New Enemy: Mastermind

Since Limbo has gotten started with Z Brush, he's been planning on doing 3D sculpts of enemies to help provide references for posing/shading.  Not only is this helpful for Pure Onyx, but it should give us a big head start on 3D monster assets for MATM :D.  The first sculpt he's been working on is a potential design for a new monster that, for now, we're calling a Mastermind (Masturmind?  Eh?).  

Limbo originally planned for him to control Vorepup swarms, but now we're thinking he could add a level of complexity to biomonster encounters by buffing / shielding / berserking other biomonsters.  Another idea is that he could go Psycho Mantis on you with a channeled attack and scramble your controls until you interrupt him.  

As for the H aspect of things, consider the possibilities of telekinetic grapples and multi-teaming ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉)

• Mastermind Sculpts