Siren's conversation animations, polish/fixes, and general progress.

Hey again everyone! This week I may dive a bit more into some specifics on what to expect this build along with the progress report. Aside from that, the main focus was Siren's conversation animations, and her dialogue in the hub. Anyways! Let's get into it!

I'll start with what to expect in the build:

Due to me starting the VA process fairly late, voices will not be in v0.4 right away. I will likely put the voices in at some point next month during the development of v0.5. That being said, I will be looking to release a "v0.4.2" or something on Nov 1st which will just be v0.4, but with voices implemented. So this means (hopefully) that there will be an intermediary build this cycle.

Aside from that, v0.4 will add the same level of content as the previous builds: New character, and level, along with QoL/mechanical updates. Typically today would be the day I consider the build done, but considering there is still another week in the month, I am going to see what kind of things I can get in before v0.4's release in terms of extras. I'll cover the these things at the end of the post under "next weeks workload".

Let's get onto this week's progress update!

I broke the image up, meshed and rigged it.

Here are the different animations you will see from her.

Idle:

Happy/Smug (Smug simply has a slightly different facial expression as seen at the head of the post)

Shock

Angry. This one will probably seldom get used, but it's one of my favourites :P.

With her animations done, I also wrote up a lot of her dialogue. Writing her dialogue also allowed me to establish a bit more of her "character". I created a bit more "history" for her in her dialogue than the others.

Aside from the animation and Dialogue, I made sure to set some time aside to ensure I get some polishing, and touch ups done on the final stage.

-I added a "Controls" menu in-game, and in the hub. Right now, keybinds are not in, but it's mostly to give direction, as there was previously no way to tell what the controls were outside of the patreon post.

-I changed up a good amount of the transmission dialogue throughout the level.
-adjusted spawn times to feel a little more comfortable
-fixed some animation bugs with the waterbug enemies.
-fixed some flaws in the Large enemy's canons.
-Made is so large enemies will give Affinity for Siren if you kill them before they are able to open fire on the city's buildings.

-I also finally actually added proper colliders to the structures/obstables (looking now though, I still haven't added the fade shader for when they get close to the camera. I'll add that to the list)

-Next was actually a change I had wanted to do for a while, and to me is kind of a big deal. I decided to add an extra "collider" to the player's lasers.

(Yes these colliders are big. They are big because the lasers move very fast. The biggest problem I had with increasing the hitbox was that it would also make the lasers easier to hit structures and obstacles. I added a smaller hitbox. The smaller hitbox is detection for obstacles, whereas the large hitbox is the detection for enemies. This way I can give a forgiving hitbox for shooting smaller enemies without making it easier for lasers to get interrupted by obstacles. This also helps in scenarios where you shoot things like turrets that are basically attached to objects. Sometimes the hitbox would prioritize hitting the obstacle the turret is stationed on over hitting the turret itself. I really felt this in Molbon at the time.)

-Next I added a bit of an "indicator" on the boss. It's not pretty, but I felt it was kind of necessary.

I added a teal box behind the cannons. Before, it was black. While that was the case, I felt it was rather unclear what your target was, as well as not really being able to see it that well. The cannons themselves blended in with the ship.

-I also fixed an issue where in "Help" sequences, if the ally was to shoot something after being saved, they would actually still shoot it, even if they were not saved.

-I fixed an issue where Saber's canons would shoot even if they were destroy. Now if you have destroyed 3 canons, and only 1 canon remains, only that 1 canon will continue to shoot.

-I actually decided to 1 more interesting thing. This is a new concept, but I actually kind of like the idea behind it. Considering the situation on Catiya is very similar to the ocean planet (Which I will be calling Sapphire), Siren feels much more ambitious if you have her in your party during Catiya. I added a rail where she will come in and help.

I originally opted not to have stuff like this, but after trying it here, I think it adds a bit of a cool dynamic to levels depending on your team.

I may do this a bit more often (where if you have a certain character on a certain level, they will come and assist like this). I will still likely keep it pretty seldom, so it is a nice surprise when it does happen. That being said I feel like it breaks a bit of the "x character is x level" feel, and gives a neat feeling of balance that the characters in your party are still very much a part of what you are doing.

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Next week I am going to be doing some touch ups and see if I can add a few extras. I doubt I will be able to get everything, but I will add what I can in order listed here:

>Checkpoints
>Shop system + new weapon types properly implemented.
>Aether's conversation art.

Anyways! Thanks again everyone! v0.4 is just over a week away, then we will be moving onto the Merchant and her desert level! Catch you all next week!

-Regulus