eromancer
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Inner Circle Update for July 30 2017!
🕑 Added 2017-07-31 09:33:51 +0000 UTC Hey again!I wanted to drop by and give you guys a sneak peak of what I’m trying to get ready for the monthly update! Before I do though I want to clarify something regarding the last post (on the 27th) since I saw some people may have misunderstood my intent. I wasn’t suggesting we were putting off v0.06 to work on the Maya conversion; merely that we spent a few days following up on my initial test after it was successful to get a better idea of whether the idea was actually feasible (and based on our tests it probably is). The conversion wouldn’t actually take place until after v0.06. I’ll make sure to adjust that news for the monthly update for clarity.
New Enemy!
I tossed around the idea of adding a female police enemy in to v0.06, and went for it after I realized I could work in a neat little story event as an introduction. She’s still a work in progress, but hopefully I’ll have something closer to the final version once the monthly update rolls around. Here are the full high resolution images!
About the Artwork
So, you’ll notice straight away that the art is different for this character. That’s because this is the first character I’ve created entirely with the intent to use a physically based rendering (PBR) engine. I had expressed concern over mixing art assets created between the new/old rendering engines for v0.06, but I figure I’d rather get the experience and have the opportunity to develop the new artwork style in advance of the artwork overhaul than to simply strive for consistency with an artwork style we are probably moving past anyways.
I’ll have a more thorough set of images detailing the process for this character in the monthly update, but I’ll point out that she is in a lot of ways an experiment due to having to create new PBR materials and to test various lighting situations to see how they behave. We’re really trying to avoid the use of cheesy post processing filters this time around (such as heavy outlines without the stylized assets to support them), and one area this makes things a bit difficult is layering portraits onto backgrounds or map artwork and not having them clash. When everything gets run through a filter it makes things mesh quite nicely, but with this style we have to rely on informed lighting choices and more advanced techniques.
Some things I think are obvious improvements are the possibilities for improved detail in materials, Fresnel reflections (this is a staple in getting an animated look out of modern 3D), accurate translucency (see the light shining through the hair), and way better skin due to subsurface scattering.
Keep in mind the style is still in the early stages and will probably develop quite a bit, and also that this is simply one example, but definitely let me know what you think so far! Oh, and just to clarify, the “new style” is entirely about the rendering, lighting, materials/shaders, and processing methods, and has nothing to do with body shapes or character anatomy.
Comments
I kind of imagine this lady being rather embarrassed personally. First stance standing in a sort of rigid "tough" pose. When the vest is broken a more concerned stance closer to what it is now with legs brought closer together and arms in a sort of concerned arms loosely crossed. Broken armor stance she's trying to hide her breasts with one arm, sort of hunched over with her legs closed and trying to guard with the other hand.
Here's an updated look at the same render after more work on the character and some additional lighting experimentation today ( <a href="http://i.imgur.com/imLrpkJ.jpg" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://i.imgur.com/imLrpkJ.jpg</a> ). Ubercharge will be taking this lighting setup and matching it in Redshift to test values for environment lighting. We're getting there I think!
I liked the style for Onyx also. The big problem is it doesn't work with any of our assets without a lot of customization. There are two separate components to the old character style; a set of shaders that only exists for the old rendering engine and would need to be recreated from scratch for any other, and a really ghetto edge detection filter which was honestly more of a crutch to get things to be cohesive. Another problem is that those shaders don't respond to anything beyond simple lighting, so they are a nightmare to work with for environments. But yeah, since we have to use another rendering engine for maps, there's a growing divide between the look of characters and environments. Using this new PBR style (which we are tuning to give a similar vibe to the old artwork), we'll be able to have them perfectly cohesive. Here's an update on my work on the fem-cop by the way, showing the results of some lighting experimentation and material improvement: <a href="http://i.imgur.com/imLrpkJ.jpg" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://i.imgur.com/imLrpkJ.jpg</a>
New rendering workflow looks to be paying off with this render. Hope to see more growth as you go on. Character art is what got me interested in the first place (saw a picture of neon somewhere i cant recall)
Somnovox
I like the idea of monsters turning on the enemies when they're exposed. But I also like the idea of friendly critters, robots, whatever turning on Malise or Neon when they're exposed, too.
Somnovox
I liked the style Onyx was in, before, and I hope they can bring that back, most of the way. I -liked- the black outline thing. It was visually interesting and yes, set MatM apart from other 3d art. A sort of stylistic touch. Adds an almost comicbook feel. Especially since a lot of the game is in stills, it suits the format. And I think it looked fine in animation, too. Maybe include it later as an option you can turn off, if they must. Then again, I don't want to make a shit ton of weird demands. I'd just love to see the game come to completion. Head and shoulders above any other H-game I've seen.
MB
Or for you to initiate h-attacks on enemies.
Ashiel
Given the apparent armor damage, I'm really hoping that breaking armor on enemies opens them up to H-attacks. It'd be pretty awesome for H-monsters to turn on exposed enemies. :3
Mostacho
She is - like the other 2 i told to you - also a realy nice Model for another new Artwork Print ;)
Antilles
The fabric and lighting looks amazing, but when it comes to the skin and eyes I actually prefer the slightly more stylized approach like Onyx had. I also like the black outlines, I feel they really gave the game a bit of character and help to set the artwork apart from a lot of 3D ero work.
Tadd Morgan
100% agree, it is excellent to see some variation!
Hey i really like that new Model! especially the body measurements ;) I Love Neon, Malise, Ven and Maya Design but they have nearly all the same physique (big A, big T). Well its a Great physique :) But good to see that there are more different types of Female proportions later in game. And this is a nice Preview and wise to give some people stuff for the eyes so they calm down a bit ;)
myself yourself
any prediction of when the v 0.06 will be out? :3
Fredinator
So hot. I love her. She reminds me of RE Revelations. Btw. is there a planned feature list anywhere?
You guys will be the first to know once we have one!
CherryBlossomStorm
Can we please have an ETA on 0.06. I feel like scope creep is consuming this project. There was an entire post about a single character's hair, and it's been over a year since the last public demo.
