Zetheros
Developer
Hey Exanimates,
Work continues on force thaumaturgy, with some good progress made. The force blast power is now in many ways close to complete, though there is still some important work to do. It charges up and then blasts forward expanding, shattering, splitting and changing direction as it impacts the environment and objects. We're happy with the visuals, lighting and sound design; casting animations and targeting are also functional, though in terms of mechanics some things need more work.
Getting these core effects for force to look like a physical 3D mass that breaks apart when it hits things was one of the main challenges we faced and held a little uncertainty, so getting results we're happy with this quickly is great. We can definitely see the method being useful for other plasma-like effects, with fire and explosions in general being obvious ones. The additions to the lighting systems are also generally useful. In the immediate everything we did for force blast pretty much translates directly into 3 other force powers, and possibly a 4th yet unconfirmed one.
Now we're mostly working on how force affects what it hits, particularly characters and how they respond to weaker hits that might cause them to stumble or fall without being fully thrown. This is more of a character behaviour and animation problem with implications that go well beyond force and as always these things are tricky and a good amount of thought needs to go into them. We hope to keep the steady progress going here, but these things can be a bit unpredictable.
The bulk of force specific development beyond this is things like shields and barriers. These don't seem nearly as fancy or complicated as the explosive effects, but we do hope to get some refined visuals that will present their own set of challenges.
We are going to keep focusing on force thaumaturgy for a while still, but there is more we hope to include in this update and various general improvements, which we'll shift to talking about eventually, though some of it will need to be kept very vague to avoid spoilers.
Have a great week!
-the BM team
Work continues on force thaumaturgy, with some good progress made. The force blast power is now in many ways close to complete, though there is still some important work to do. It charges up and then blasts forward expanding, shattering, splitting and changing direction as it impacts the environment and objects. We're happy with the visuals, lighting and sound design; casting animations and targeting are also functional, though in terms of mechanics some things need more work.
Getting these core effects for force to look like a physical 3D mass that breaks apart when it hits things was one of the main challenges we faced and held a little uncertainty, so getting results we're happy with this quickly is great. We can definitely see the method being useful for other plasma-like effects, with fire and explosions in general being obvious ones. The additions to the lighting systems are also generally useful. In the immediate everything we did for force blast pretty much translates directly into 3 other force powers, and possibly a 4th yet unconfirmed one.
Now we're mostly working on how force affects what it hits, particularly characters and how they respond to weaker hits that might cause them to stumble or fall without being fully thrown. This is more of a character behaviour and animation problem with implications that go well beyond force and as always these things are tricky and a good amount of thought needs to go into them. We hope to keep the steady progress going here, but these things can be a bit unpredictable.
The bulk of force specific development beyond this is things like shields and barriers. These don't seem nearly as fancy or complicated as the explosive effects, but we do hope to get some refined visuals that will present their own set of challenges.
We are going to keep focusing on force thaumaturgy for a while still, but there is more we hope to include in this update and various general improvements, which we'll shift to talking about eventually, though some of it will need to be kept very vague to avoid spoilers.
Have a great week!
-the BM team
