Crystals, archery testing, new skies, and a bit of lore (Patreon)

Worked on a few things this week.  The new sky and atmosphere stuff I started implementing and tweaking.  I'm going to need to rework most of the old sky system to fit or else just scrap it and start fresh but right now I think it looks really cool.  That was one of the big things that I wanted to use from the 4.25 engine update.  I think they're also working on a new cloud system but that won't be out until 4.26.  

I put a test bow and arrow together.  There's a few kinks to work out and a bunch of animations to do but the initial tests have gone pretty smoothly.  

Then I made the crystal shader from the above screenshot.  (This is still all early stuff and super subject to change but)  The plan is to make crystals sort of an integral part of the world.  They'll be a source of magical energy and power, a currency, and also act as a ward of sorts.  The biggest reason why monsters haven't overrun the human cities and towns is because they have ward crystals at the gates.  These won't make it impossible for monsters to enter the town but they will make it uncomfortable for them to be there for any length of time.  But  crystals can also be warped and corrupted by powerful magics and will have other uses once corrupted.  

Moving forward from here all of the basic component pieces are done.  I guess it's sort of like building a car.  I have all of the different pieces together a couple tires over here, the frame leaning against the wall over there, all the electronics in this pile, and the outer body stacked up over here, but even though all of the pieces are there it can't be driven to the store.  Yet.  Now it's going to be about putting those pieces together and making a working car / game. Which in this case is going to take some trial and error but this is going to be the fun part.  So hopefully over the coming months we'll finally have something that can be driven to the store.  

And I'd just like to say thank you to everyone that is along for the ride and has helped support the project.