Looking back through my list of what we’ve gotten done in the past two weeks, and what we still have yet to do to have a functional demo. We’re nearly there!
Here’s some of the things that have been done:
First of all, baked shadow maps are working! It took awhile to figure out how to get the UV unwraps to work properly, and then it took another while to optimize the baking process. (Got a test scene down from 30 minutes to 12 seconds for the shadows to bake)
It’s incredible how much of a difference shadows make in bringing things to life.
Secondly, all the flight animations for Jasper have been completed! I wish we had someone on the team who was a really good animator, as it is, I’ve tried my best. Maybe someday we’ll find someone who can do better.
The third big thing that we did was add music/sounds into the game. Different tracks for when you’re a race, or when you’re just flying around, wind noises that change volume/pitch depending on your speed, etc. As with the shadows, once you add them, you suddenly realize what was missing the whole time.
Fourthly, the flight system has continued to see some significant improvements. Getting an intuitive, simple, yet flexible and robust flight system sure is a challenge, but it’s definitely coming closer.
On the list yet to do before we release the rough version to start getting more playtesting feedback is:
– Incorporate animations into the flight system (we’re using anim-events during the flapping animations to drive functions for player movement and such)
– Create more “points of interest” around the map (Yay level design! Not my favorite part of game dev…)
– Finalize design of the “castle/fortress” (I suppose that isn’t necessary for release, but it’d be nice)
– Set up the races and collectibles to be interesting and challenging (That is, after all, what we’re going to be playtesting)
– Ensure the UI stuff like the map system and such are working adequately
– Flight system
So, as you can see, not much at all! 😉 By next Devblog I hope to be announcing either the demo release, or the date thereof.
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