NeoFur!

Hi! It's Geril.

Because Lussy is 120% preparing for her finals, Lemniscate's development is going slower than usual. But in the meantime, I've had time to try out a new technology that I've wanted to try for a long time. It's called NeoFur by Neoglyphic. Because all of OLP's player characters have fur and fluff, this plugin is perfect for us.

For now, only Cole the bobcat has a presentable coat of fur applied. It would be a lot better with a fur pattern map, but Lussy is busy so it'll have to wait.

As you can see on the comparison screenshots, the fluff and the beard improves the character's appearance greatly. We can control the fur's length, density, and how much gravity, wind and force fields affect it. It's fun to tinker with and makes things really interesting visually. For example, we can even make Cole's beard grow during the game.

so majestic

According to our experience with NeoFur, it really is the best when used as a fur effect (because, of course, we've tried to use it on other things, too, like hair). However, it also looks decent for things like fluffy carpets or grass.

The fur effect is very costly graphically, especially when using more shells (70<), but using proper LODs helps solve this problem.

We couldn't make animations work with NeoFur yet, but we're working on it. We can watch the animated meshes with fur in the editor frame by frame though. We're looking forward to solving this issue, because the preview looks promising.

We can only recommend the NeoFur plugin for anyone making fur-coated beings in Unreal 4. It's really worth it (it's only $20!).

Apart from this, there are lots of things going on, for example, we may begin to publish posts on other sites, too. Nothing is decided yet, but it feels like our work up to this point is finally going to pay off.

After Lussy's finals, we'll get back to working on Lemniscate again!

3D comic #2!

Hey!

Here is the second 3D comic we made:

Being Superior by ProjectOL on Sketchfab

I think for now we'll stick with these (as they are more convenient to make and we are low on team members), but you can expect more traditional comic strips somewhere in the future.

This comic gives you more information about Cole's character. We were experimenting with sound effects (written, of course), 3D text, camera angles and facial expressions. There are some other things, too - I wonder if you'll be able to find them!

About the project; we're moving forward, slow but steady. I (Lussy) am working on textures, which means the two playable characters that only existed in drawings will soon be ready for animating and then importing into Unreal 4. Geril's doing the comics and other models while I'm messing around with the textures. Alex is still knee-deep in the engine itself (IKs! Yaaaaaaaaay).

Until next time!

3D comics!

Hi!

We spent a lot of time doing a new type of comic on Sketchfab. You have to click through the annotations to read it properly. Like this, in the lower-right corner:

We recommend full screen to see it better.

On non-widescreen (4:3) monitors, you may not be able to see all of the text, because we optimized the comic for widescreen monitors. You can move the camera with the right mouse button to see all the bubbles.

Enjoy!

Stargazing by ProjectOL on Sketchfab

Sketchfab!

Spring already!

We spent the Easter holidays (and the rest of the time, too) working. All of the 4 characters are slowly becoming functional, and we’re discovering more and more possibilities in Unreal 4 (though it already killed one of our laptops…).

Alex is working on a pickup system that is going to be very important in the game, as the players will be switching weapons frequently. We have two functional characters so we can also begin to test the local multiplayer elements soon. (And there will be a video of it.)

About the comic… It’s really late, we know. It’s going slowly because the 4th character’s design is still being worked on. But we joined Sketchfab, so in the meantime you can look at our 3D models in all their glory!

Cole_v25 by carpaintergeril on Sketchfab

Other ones will be uploaded to: https://sketchfab.com/carpaintergeril

Unreal 4!

Hi!

This month is a little crowded.

We are happy to say that we managed to get hold of Unreal Engine 4 for a while (thank you, GitHub!!). So these days we are trying out the engine, discovering the differences, etc. There are lots of built-in stuff in UE4 that we would have needed in the UDK. So we're looking at the pros and cons, and considering migrating our project. We're not sure yet though. I have yet to check out the blueprint system in-depth. (By the way, scripting is so much quicker with the graphical interface and in-engine compiler. No more restarting while adjusting a variable. Yay!)

Here are some pictures for comparison! Every texture and mesh is the same as they were used in the UDK. Only minor changes at most.

Left side - UDK, right side - UE4

---

Super detailed bump maps! Yay!

Geril created this "building" in about 15 minutes.

Real-time reflections make everyone look like T-1000s in liquid metal form

If we do decide to migrate the project, we'll make some tutorials.

I'm sorry to say that there may not be a comic this month at all. Geril is hard at work at his full-time job, and in UE4 too, and I (Lussy) am traveling in South Korea at the moment. I hope you can understand.

Comic No. 2!

Hi!

Here's the second comic:

We know it's late, sorry.. Geril got a full-time job, we had a lot to do, and little time. But don't worry, we'll keep up the monthly comics. We really hope we'll be able to finish the next one in time.

Movement test!

Hello!

Here's a video for you:


Just a quick update on how we're doing. As you can see, we're experimenting with different controls: a fixed, side-scrolling camera with 3D movement. It works out pretty well. The only awkward thing about it is how sometimes you can't determine where you are in the 3rd dimension. We're planning to fix this with a small circle of shadow below the player, and a more dynamic camera.

P.S.: Subwoofer required for full experience

Introducing: Comics!

Hi!

We've prepared a little surprise for you all. Here you go:

We're going to continue this comic series throughout the next year. As you can see, this is our first time making a comic, so you can expect us to get better with time. I think it will be interesting to see the progress we make with each strip.
The comic is mostly Geril's work, while I (Lussy) helped out a little with the background and lighting, and I proofread and translated the original text as well.

We wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Post-Halloween post!

Happy Halloween!

Here's a video that we just made (still warm). Prepare for spookiness!

You can see a brand new map and lots of new foliage and effects. We realised we focused solely on gameplay mechanics, so the environments.. kinda sucked. So we were working on creating foliage. And we're showing them off right now. Enjoy!

Here are some bonus pics of the map in daylight. You can see the foliage better this way.

P.S.:

It took us about 8 hours to export the frames from UDK, then convert them into a video, then convert that video, then edit it, and then export the edited video (the first edited export took 3 hours. Turned out it was 4:3, small and disfigured. The second export took about half an hour. It was also edited twice.) And THEN it turns out that the quality is faaar worse than the original exported images. Comparison:

So if we ever have the patience to try video editing again, maybe we'll fix it. But right now, we just want to take a break from this weeklong, nonstop video preparing and editing.

P.P.S.: At least the vid is 60FPS though.

Morph targets!

Hi! It’s Lussy.

We’ve been messing around with the facial morph targets of the bobcat, and we tested how well they could be converted into the UDK. So Geril made a short video of the bobcat lip-syncing to a song that, in his opinion, best suits his (yet non-existent) voice. It is a very basic test, so there is little to no animation playing on the body. The focus is on the face. First take a look at the one captured in Blender:



And this one was captured inside the UDK:



Here's another comparison:

 

As you can see, the UDK one is a lot weaker than the Blender one. We're working on changing that.

See you next time!

Concept art!

Hi! It's Lussy.

We've been working on the third player character this month (even though we are very busy with other stuff as well).  The third player character is a female mouse, but her model isn't ready yet, so I'll save the details for later. I'm going to share some of Geril's concept art of her, and I'll also post some drawings of the bobcat. In the meantime, I've been working on gameplay mechanics and some other things. I hope I'll be able to share some of them soon.

Enjoy the drawings!

(the scanner didn't want to cooperate. sorry for the quality)

Swordfighting!

Hi, Lussy here.

We’re progressing with the game, even if it seems like we’re just lazing around not doing anything. I’m working on weapon scripts at the moment, while Geril is creating the 3rd player character’s model and working on Eslie and the bobcat too. The bobcat has lots of placeholder combat animations, so I started working on a more serious combat system (until now it was very simple). I’m going to talk about these scripts now, in hope of either helping out someone, or someone telling me why they suck. Remember, I’m not an experienced scripter, I just get an idea and then try to make it work. So with that said, let’s begin.

The current combat system consists of 3 possible combat animations being played. The first one simply plays when you push the attack button, and the second and third ones appear if you successfully maintain a combo. Until now, all this was simply based on timers in the script, but right now I’m experimenting with AnimNotifies. It works like this:

-Player presses the attack button. The combat animation starts.

-When the animation gets to the point where it should start dealing damage, an animnotify calls the function for tracing the swing, and when it shouldn’t deal any more damage, another animnotify stops the tracing process. This way if the animation has a part where the sword is held stationery, it won't hurt anyone.

-There are also two animnotifies for doing combos. They mark the two points in between which the player can push the attack button to continue the combo.

-The last animnotify marks where the second animation should play, if the player wants to continue the attacking combo. If there wasn’t any input, the current animation simply finishes and the player gets back to the idle state.

I needed to do lots of planning to make this work, and I’m still not sure if it’s going to stay (there are lots and lots of ways it can make the weapon stop working altogether, as of now.). If any of you know any better, please don’t hesitate to comment.

Players can have two weapons with them (and some more in their bags, which can only be accessed while out of combat), though only one can be equipped at a time, the other one will be sheathed. Right now, only the sword has the combo system mentioned before, the axe is still very primitive, but functional. Obviously, the axe will be slower but stronger.

The sword only has these really slow animations for debugging purposes. It will be a quick weapon in the final game, with great mobility.

Planned combat speed

That's about it, for now. See you next time!

Some plans

Hi!

A lot of you (..the few people who sometimes read this blog) don't understand what the game is going to be like. So we'd like to make this clear: we're making a sidescrolling cooperative game in which you explore huge dungeons in groups of 4 or less, fight monsters and enemies and do quests. We'll leave the rest for later. For now, here are some of our most recent plans and ideas:

(don't tell anyone! ;) )

Bobcat

Hi! Today we're showing you the second playable character, a bobcat named Jagger (not sure if the name will stay).

He's the eldest of the playable characters. He's masculine, self-confident, agressive and short-fused. He likes gambling, curse words and being in control. He trusts a few people, but only respects his dad, and tries to follow in his footsteps. In the beginning of the game, he's trying to find a job because he's indebted to the wrong people.

The 3D model and the textures are not finished, but you get the idea.

(We designed his clothes with Mad Max / Han Solo in mind)

We tested what his facial expressions would be like (in Blender):

The Boulder is conflicted

Update: