Still improving Characters, why?

AUTHOR: Salireths

Thank you

2020 has been a difficult year, so much that there is no need to elaborate why. Thankfully, we've had measurable progress on our game, even if not as much as I'd want to have.

I'm immeasurably grateful for all your continued support through these trying times (that are sadly not quite over at this moment). It enabled us to continue reaching for the stars and keep making our dream game. We might be a couple months behind, but we are still strong and going, all thanks to you.

Reimagined characters

🔶🔶<<Check the full video turntable of both body forms here>>🔶🔶

For the reasons outlined further in, we've decided that it would be best to keep the characters closer to the original style and not change it to what I demonstrated in one of the previous posts. Not only it is liked by more people, I was also reluctant to just ditch the old Hizathri model style that's been my go-to style for many of my works. All the smooth skin folds and muscles - they are really sexy!

However, I've looked into new workflows that will allow me to utilize that old style much faster than before (though still slower than the "striking" angular style I demonstrated), and over a few days I've updated the Hizathri model to fit the new standards.

Seam hiding/blending system toggling on and off

We've also split the model into more bodyparts that can be swapped, drawing inspiration from an old game Impossible Creatures, where players could mix-and-match different limbs on their creations. That game blended textures between these bodyparts, and thus we had to develop a similar technology in order to avoid ugly texture seams when "stitching" bodyparts that weren't even designed to match each other.

That tech is a pivotal point in our design direction. Before we've been severely limited in making alternative parts of body, and that's why I went off-tangent exploring other art-styles: only to make texture seams less noticeable. I'm so glad I came across the IGN article that served as an inspiration of how to make it proper this time.

Layer customization, adding new layers and selecting their color/material

Then, we've looked into creating a layered texture system similar to one we learned when we were making a Kobold avatar for Second Life (Sims 3 Pets also has a similar system). Giving players total control over every little spot, mark, detail on their character's body, their shapes, colors, and materials (furs and scales that can glow or appear metallic).

Decal application interface in action

Lastly, since we have this layered system, we thought it would be cool make it possible to place individual decals anywhere on the body of that creature, be it an odd coloration patch, a scar, or a cutie mark (the exact design of these is yet to-be-determined). Such feature is often present in car/plane simulators that have in-depth customization.

With an uncountable number of combinations, these features will for sure let players spread their wings of self-expression and creativity, enabling them to create unique sonas and species. It also gives modders an ability to extend the system even more by adding new bodyparts and textures!

🔶🔶<<Check the higher quality customization video with layers and decals applied to the body>>🔶🔶

We intend to keep adding more exciting variety and options to the editor as time goes by: the more bodyparts and texture layers there is - the more unique species you, dear future players, can make for yourself to play as!

Some people might think about Spore, however it's not at all alike. Spore lets you freely attach multiple limbs, mouths and heads onto an arbitrary spine column, giving most players tools create goofy cartoony thingies (though some took it to extreme levels and can make quite impressive creatures).
Here however, we're focused on the realistic nature of the body and its anatomical correctness, keeping believable proportions, muscle anatomy, and of course the organs (including those under the tail) functional.

How we got there

From the very beginning the game was set to be focused around living a life of a creature that you can customize for your own liking - initially it was simple, just a handful of species, a few skins and some swappable options. Then, we moved to a more advanced system, with multiple bodyparts, individually-colorable regions and per-bodypart skin textures.

On the left is the old hard-coded customization with only 4 swappable parts, a skin texture, and 8 colors max. On the right is the later-made unlimited bodypart system, but with still a predefined number of colorable spots per bodypart.
Also a fun remark, the UI design apparently gets worse with time... But it's all fine, we'll be doing a major UX uplift after the next build is done.  

If you remember, a year ago we made a slight detour and made a Kobold for Second Life - except it wasn't really a detour at all, but a very valuable experience!

That Kobold proven how much variety can a texture baking process achieve. In a nutshell its one of the newer features of Second Life that lets you place textures layer-by layer, marking after marking, and colorize them individually - quite a straightforward idea, yet still incredibly powerful (and performant) and it allowed people to easily create unique individualities right in-client, even with a limited selection of layers we provided.

Because the game's style is similar now, the Kobolds might return...

After that, aside from more work on gameplay systems and environmental art/design/style, we spent some time thinking how to streamline the characters and give them an extra oomph in customization, without overcomplicating the process of creating new species. The idea was born of procedural animation that would allow us make more unique-shaped creatures, and some experiments produced an angular, striking and unique art-style.

The "angular" style that I developed to hid the seams on the texture by making seams everywhere instead. It is striking and unique, but we chose not to go with it.

However not everyone liked that art-style, as "it wasn't sexy enough". And if you were of the ones who was concerned about - you are totally right. If we talk about making a character editor where people can just make their fursona or avatar to turn into a ref-sheet or export into other games... That style wouldn't really conform to what you usually expect in a lot of other 3D furry art, it would certainly stand out.

Of course, in 99.9% cases its good that if art-style of the game is different and recognizable, and that's what all big game studios strive for! However it took me a while to understand that it wouldn't be such a great idea in this particular case for us. 

Sometimes generic is better because it can be more inclusive of different player preferences and tastes, and would just fit better with other models in, say if we succeed in making export to Blender feature (and as result players will be able to import that to places like Neos VR or Second Life).

The future path

Next step to make the game build-ready is to do another pass over animations and body designs - we need to expand them to facilitate the demands of the new character editor. We shouldn't lose old animations - I'm planning to retarget them (move over) to the new skeleton archetype that I'm developing now.

With that new skeleton archetype I'm also figuring out if we can make a system that morphs default character posture, for example giving player a slider that would transform the character from an anthro-biped, passing a beast-like semi-feral, into full theropod dinosaur - results are promising so far!

After that step done, we'll finally start producing different character interactions in bulk, including various sensual (and kinky) actions - that will be finally the time we've all been waiting for! The long-overdue build will follow soon after that.

Conclusion

Thank you all for reading, I may be repeating myself, but again, I'm very happy to look back at everything and see how far we've come only thanks to your support. I hope and wish that next year is more favorable to everybody, and I'm sure we'll have a lot of exciting things going on for TGOR and my beloved community.

Happy holidays everyone.

With lots of Dragon Love,
-- SalirethS.