Coffee Diary 14/9/20

[Zetheros]

Hey Exanimates,

Kieran is still hard at work making procedural weapons, this week we've got some one handed swords to show you. In typical Bare Mettle fashion we ended up going a bit further with the system again. When trying to decide on all the blade types we wanted to include, we realised it would be far easier if we could do fullers separately, so we ended up developing the system further so that fullers are combined with blades procedurally. Now we have a much more manageable number of core blade types, with different optional fullers being added and even having their own deformations. This is a feature we can use for many other things too, like etchings / engravings, inlays in different materials and even maker's marks.

We still need to add a bunch of proper grip materials, but something else we did this week is greatly simplify how procedural materials are created and managed, so adding more materials is now very easy.

Besides the ongoing effort to make all our weapons procedural, we're still working to properly integrate the new GI system to support very large environments and making good progress. Work is also continuing on roles and other new content. We should be close to beta testing all the rendering and graphics updates, but we haven't quite settled on what our final public release should include. There's a lot things we've been working on that are very nearly complete, we generally like to release big important updates that make it seem worth experiencing the game all over again, but as the coming update is mostly arena focused we might make an exception and release things a bit differently.

-the BM team

 

[Midcal9]

My apologies for posting in this thread, it's not really meant for discussions and criticisms but I've got fierce urge to do so.

All of the swords you have shown above have a certain design drawback (taste related I know) which I have not seen in this game so far, they are all a little bit over the top in terms of heft and thickness, especially the cross guards and grips. It's almost as if they were designed by the same person. Is this the sword design (overall shape) you have decided to implement from now on?

Why not take aspiration from Gaël Fabre or Peter Johnson instead? They make historically accurate stuff, and even when they don't their fantasy/personal projects look a lot more natural, less "game like".

 

[Metherion]

I would like to disagree, they all look lovely to me and actually have good variation. Great work!

 

[Snoopbear]

It's almost as if they were designed by the same person.

Well, that would make sense if you look at how many smith's workshops there are in Exanima.

 

[Madoc]

My apologies for posting in this thread, it's not really meant for discussions and criticisms but I've got fierce urge to do so.

All of the swords you have shown above have a certain design drawback (taste related I know) which I have not seen in this game so far, they are all a little bit over the top in terms of heft and thickness, especially the cross guards and grips. It's almost as if they were designed by the same person. Is this the sword design (overall shape) you have decided to implement from now on?

Why not take aspiration from Gaël Fabre or Peter Johnson instead? They make historically accurate stuff, and even when they don't their fantasy/personal projects look a lot more natural, less "game like".

This is a perfectly good place for feedback, if it's on topic, as this is.

Just to clarify, these all belong to the same sub-type of sword, specifically a standard arming sword from roughly the same period, it's by no means supposed to be representative of every type or style of sword. Even within this specific type, it's not a complete set of designs, but some common simple ones we started with. We'll keep adding more, and also get more creative with them as we do. We need to get through a lot of different weapon types, so we won't focus on any one too much for the time being. For the common blade weapons alone there will be daggers, short swords, falchions, grand falchions, longswords and greatswords too. More unique swords and designs will eventually also have their own dedicated "factory", rather than be a product of these more generic ones.

This should be thought of as where you previously had one basic arming sword in arena, you now have almost infinite variants of that same specific weapon. We're basically going through most common weapons in the game, and replacing each one with something similar, but procedural.

As a side note, all our new procedural weapon designs so far have been based on real historical examples. We do deviate a bit overall for practical reasons, but we've based our proportions etc. on real world measurements.

 

[Midcal9]

This is a perfectly good place for feedback, if it's on topic, as this is.

Just to clarify, these all belong to the same sub-type of sword, specifically a standard arming sword from roughly the same period, it's by no means supposed to be representative of every type or style of sword. Even within this specific type, it's not a complete set of designs, but some common simple ones we started with. We'll keep adding more, and also get more creative with them as we do. We need to get through a lot of different weapon types, so we won't focus on any one too much for the time being. For the common blade weapons alone there will be daggers, short swords, falchions, grand falchions, longswords and greatswords too. More unique swords and designs will eventually also have their own dedicated "factory", rather than be a product of these more generic ones.

This should be thought of as where you previously had one basic arming sword in arena, you now have almost infinite variants of that same specific weapon. We're basically going through most common weapons in the game, and replacing each one with something similar, but procedural.

As a side note, all our new procedural weapon designs so far have been based on real historical examples. We do deviate a bit overall for practical reasons, but we've based our proportions etc. on real world measurements.

Thank you for your reply,

As long as they are not going to be the "main" type shape wise that's alright. I must stay true to my own jaded self however and point out that most arming swords of 14th and 15the century tended to have somewhat slimmer cross guards and grips. I'm sure you have someone who is even more knowledge about historical designs than me (I bet you got a few real experts from the Armory webiste), perhaps you could ask them? Cross guard-Grip-Pommel conjunction shape is somewhat off on all the examples which does make them all look somewhat club-like. On the upside they all look far better than 99% of bladed weapons in most games, kudos for that. If you were going for the "Castallion type" they ought to look a bit more refined though. God I'm so negative, haha.

Big thanks for engaging with the community feedback!

 

[Madoc]

Thank you for your reply,

As long as they are not going to be the "main" type shape wise that's alright. I must stay true to my own jaded self however and point out that most arming swords of 14th and 15the century tended to have somewhat slimmer cross guards and grips. I'm sure you have someone who is even more knowledge about historical designs than me (I bet you got a few real experts from the Armory webiste), perhaps you could ask them? Cross guard-Grip-Pommel conjunction shape is somewhat off on all the examples which does make them all look somewhat club-like. On the upside they all look far better than 99% of bladed weapons in most games, kudos for that. If you were going for the "Castallion type" they ought to look a bit more refined though. God I'm so negative, haha.

Big thanks for engaging with the community feedback!

Making cross guards a bit thicker, or preferring thicker designs, is a conscious decision we made to deviate for practical reasons after looking at the weapons in game. Problem is with the game's view, a thin guard become little more than an aliased line, these images are larger and clearer than any view you will have of the weapon in game.

Again these designs are not final and only a sample, we have been more focused on getting everything working than tweaking assets, this really is a "yay it works" screenshot and we rushed it out the door for the coffee diary. These things always get iterated on a lot. We even said as much, but the image caption gets lost in the forum version.

In my opinion though as it is the main things that still need iteration are the pommels, their size and shape is often off, and perhaps the blade deformations need some tweaks. The overall proportions are fine imo. Here's a comparison between one of our references and an average similar shape sword from our system:

 

[Midcal9]

Making cross guards a bit thicker, or preferring thicker designs, is a conscious decision we made to deviate for practical reasons after looking at the weapons in game. Problem is with the game's view, a thin guard become little more than an aliased line, these images are larger and clearer than any view you will have of the weapon in game.

Again these designs are not final and only a sample, we have been more focused on getting everything working than tweaking assets, this really is a "yay it works" screenshot and we rushed it out the door for the coffee diary. These things always get iterated on a lot. We even said as much, but the image caption gets lost in the forum version.

In my opinion though as it is the main things that still need iteration are the pommels, their size and shape is often off, and perhaps the blade deformations need some tweaks. The overall proportions are fine imo. Here's a comparison between one of our references and an average similar shape sword from our system:

View attachment 2904

Well, now that you have explained your approach I guess it does make a lot more sense now, some weapon elements did appear nearly non existent in game. For some reason It does not apply for all bladed weapons however, 5th level arming sword has elegant lines which can be easily perceived by the player, other weapon models did often suffer from this drawback but I have always accepted it for the realism's sake, but i doubt it would apply for most people playing Exanima.

Thanks for clearing things out!

 

[Madoc]

Well, now that you have explained your approach I guess it does make a lot more sense now, some weapon elements did appear nearly non existent in game. For some reason It does not apply for all bladed weapons however, 5th level arming sword has elegant lines which can be easily perceived by the player, other weapon models did often suffer from this drawback but I have always accepted it for the realism's sake, but i doubt it would apply for most people playing Exanima.

Thanks for clearing things out!

I'm explaining what the process and our reasoning was, it might make sense, but it doesn't mean it's a good idea. For example, we started with a very average historical shape, then tried it in game and the guard looked generally small. We scaled it up thinking "we need to do what looks right, not what's historically correct", but ended up regretting it after seeing more complete swords. It just looked wrong, but we realised that in game it seemed tiny because our characters don't close their fists on the grip. Obviously we should fix that (eventually) rather than cripple our sword designs, so we mostly reverted the change.

This is a typical problem we deal with constantly. We make something in isolation and with big zoom. Then we put it in game and it looks too small, or the details are all lost, or it looks disproportionate with other props etc. The view and other factors sometimes force us into weird scales. Deciding what to prioritise and what to compromise is pretty arbitrary. It's a balancing act that involves quite a bit of trial and error, and sometimes has us running in circles.

I appreciate other perspectives and new sources of inspiration, and I'd like to bring some discussion back to these forums. The game is what it is today largely thanks to this kind of feedback and discussion.