Wind Carrier; Pre-Alpha 1.59

Hello all!

I am late!
What else is new? :p

This week, I've got a couple big things, but the change-log is a rather short one; which can be attributed, in part, to the fact that my wireless card finally crapped out after 10 years of faithful service.

Let us have a moment of silence for my dead hardware....

And then the changelog!


Change log, 1.59


-The Temple was always intended to be a bit of an important landmark for the Wind Carrier. I have several functions in mind for it, other than the ones which are already added. Before now it didn't add a bunch; I'm not even sure it did anything other than look pretty. But now:

-The Temple civilization upgrade now allows the player to sacrifice resources to increase/decrease influence levels to discovered civilizations. As the temple levels up, the Wind Carrier will be able to invoke more powerful and more efficient sacrifices, making spreading their influence and their will that much simpler.

-The Temple now allows you to permanently summon a card as a follower. By placing a card onto the dais of the temple, the Wind Carrier can summon the being dwelling within for as long as they choose. If the summonee would fall in combat, they will rise anew a short while later. And at any time, the Wind Carrier can return to the temple and remove the card, dismissing the follower and allowing them to place a different card atop it.

Enemy Updates:


-Haljuhurtta

-Added a charge attack


Bug Fixes:


-Fixed a bug where a blooming Siieri wouldn't drop it's seedpod when gathered.

And that's all I have for this week. >.>

I've not even any screenshots, as there was not enough to take a shot of. :/ 

I supposes I could have taken pictures of the new interface, I legitimately did not think of that until this moment. 

Not a lot, I know. I'm posting this far too late in the evening and I feel myself falling asleep at the keyboard. Which is an odd feeling, I've heard, anecdotally, of friends doing it, but I've never experienced it before right this moment, which, coincidentally, is leading to this pointless tangent and this horrendously long run-on sentence. 

But, yes, until next time...

-Lucas Cady

Project Director

Wind Carrier; Pre-Alpha 1.58, Demo 1.0.7

Hello all!

I did manage to get the game to build, and the newest build can be found, as always, at:

https://cloudsofglassgames.itch.io/wind-carrier

and the combined change log from demo 1.0.6 to 1.0.7 will/is on the aforementioned link.

Random thing I noticed: The newest builds have a compressed size of half of the previous builds. Which is odd, since the unpackaged builds are only barely different sizes.

Turns out the problem had to do with me reorganizing my folders within UE4. :/
At tip, for those that ever use UE4, organize your files properly the first time - the re-directors haven't once worked properly for me. It could be just me, I mean, it would not surprise me in the least. But, I've found reorganization is a bigger hassle than it should be.

Anywho, I spent the bulk of my time creating and implementing the female Vulpine's anims. I also rebuild the influence system from the ground up as the previous system didn't account for multiple civilizations of one race; which was a large oversight on my part. :p

To the change log!



Change log, 1.58


-Added some new Eir encounters

-Increased the likelyhood of Eir encounters

-Rebuilt the influence system

-Updated the melee system to be more accurate with the timing of its damage

-Added some animations for female Vulpine: Spear C1, spear casting, spear idle, death

-Updated the way that the animation blueprints play montages


Player Updates:


-Set up everything needed to have to player's melee function properly, just need animations and meshes. :p

-Set up everything for the new animation implementation as well.


Card Updates:


-Updated all cards to properly interact with Eir encounters

-Updated all spell cards with stable ticks as opposed to one based on frame rate


Enemy Updates:


-Changed the mesh and animations of the Vulpine Ritualist to the new female Vulpine mesh


Coming up:

Well, probably more work with the female Vulpine. :p

I've also got a new large creature that should be ready for next week; all that needs to get finished are some animations and then it's done. Well, other than implementation, but that is the easy part.

But, screenshots!

A comparison shot between the previous spear idle and the new idle for the female Vulpine. To me, the new idle speaks more volumes about the Vulpine race's views toward their afterlife than anything else. They aren't overly concerned about death, for the Vulpine believe in a vibrant, festive afterlife and believe that their peers will all gather for an immeasurable feast at the end of their lives; and they wish to be prepared. Vulpine Ritualists  often take a hallucinatory drug - the lavaleaf - to help them communicate with the other side. Vivid hallucination often follow, quite often also leading to their untimely deaths at the hands of one of Goldrath's many predators, at the hands of brigands, or at the hands of the Wind Carrier herself. 

A blooming Siieri, aided by the powers of the Wind Carrier. Siieri seedpods have multitudes of uses: from simple poultices to different types of jewelry and even dyes. 

And that's all that I have for this week. I find myself spending more time on art these days than in UE4, but I suppose that is part of the natural progression of these things.

Anywho, until next time...

-Lucas Cady

Project Director

Wind Carrier, Pre-Alpha 1.57

Hello all!

Start this off with a bit of bad news. The project is throwing a fit this week, so there won't be an actual updated version of the game this week. I'll post the changelog and all that, I'll just have to get the next version up next week.

Now, we've got a few new things as you see in a bit. Nothing super exciting, save the new female Vulpine mesh, but there are some substantial updates this week.

I, again, spent the largest segment of my time in Blender; this week working on finer details: fingers, joints, perfecting the weights.

But without further blathering from me, the changelog.


Change log, 1.57


-Updated the inventory descriptions of items to include the stats, positive and negative, that would be gained by equipping it.


-Updated the equipment system to be much more mutable, making items with more exotic stats simpler to implement.


-Weapons can now deal elemental damage.


-Started implementing the new female Vulpine mesh

-Idle, walk, run, jump anims

-Most female Vulpine NPC's will be replaced with it as of now, including all merchants and crafters


Item Updates:


-Added Mushy Poultice, causes the user to regenerate health for 30 seconds, craftable.

Coming Up:

I've some plans for tweaking the AI a bit for next week and I'll certainly get the damn packaging problem sorted, of course. I'll likely work on getting the newest mesh up and running for at least the bots, which I guess will mostly be female for a while after that. :p It seems like this dang new mesh will be a bit of a priority for a while, which is annoying, but that's what needs to get done. 

Anywho, onto screenshots.

All we've got for this week are a pair of shots illustrating the new stat info widget (which really has a much stupider name in the system.) But, it shows you all of the specific info that one could want from an item. 

It also compares based on your current equipment! Which is simply something that it almost has to do, as far as I'm concerned. I like doing math more than most people, but I still don't want to have to flip pages to get the exact difference between this or that item. 

Anywho, my shoulders are aching and I should probably do something that isn't work for a bit. :p

I'm loving this though. This being this whole process. I have to wonder if game #2 will be as much fun to produce as this one. There will certainly be less frustration, I'm sure.

But!

Until next time,

-Lucas Cady

Project Director

Not entirely sure what to title this!

Hello all!

This week, I spent around 90% of my time in Blender and I think it finally has paid off!

I have updated the female Vulpine mesh and begun the time consuming process of making all of her animations. I had always intended that each of the races/sexes would have their own animations sets and that's part of what I've started here.

Now, her full animations are not completed yet, only the walk cycle and the idle are finished. The only implementation that has occurred is changing the base female NPC's to the new model. In order for full implementation to occur, I will have to: finish the animations and then regenerate all the animation blueprints.

In the next week, I will spend time working on getting the basic animations created and returning to UE4 for implementation along with other UE4 related things.

I did add a couple of new items to the game, but to save myself time, I will just add them to the next changelog next week before the newest build.

Onto screenshots!

The new Vulpine model, just naked in Blender. Other than a few rough spots here and there (the shoulders, a couple spots under the breasts, among others) she is complete. Touch ups will be done, but I'm happy with her. 

In UE4, mid animation. :p

The time that I did spend in UE4 was, mostly done working on getting a truely customizable color pallet up and working. 

There are three colors that can be changed. Base coat, secondary (seen here in the white underbelly,) and the tertiary markings (the black eyes and tail tip.) The secondary and tertiary markings will also be able to be chosen on character creation, as one would expect from a game like this. Currently there are only the default, but as time goes on, you'll be able to mix and match from dozens of different markings, even between races. The skin patterns on the: paws, ears, and nose, will also be customizable in the future; the only thing stopping it now is the lack of patterns. :p

Another example, I just feel ecstatic that I was able to get it up and running. I theorized and planned how I wanted it to work, and was surprised when it actually worked out how I wanted it to. :p

A final example, the coloration only because I felt like making something garish. 

So, yes. That is what I spent my week working on. I probably put a good thirty hours into that model and the logic to go with it, but the good news is that it will make all of the following models and textures that much simpler to work with. 

Looking at that last picture, I feel like I should change the ears a bit so the skin doesn't extend all the way to the front of them... hmm.

Anywho, until next week.

-Lucas Cady

Project Director