First of all, as shown above, I finished off the adventurer who is met in the most-distant part of the level.
On the minor side, I touched-up the vertex-based shadows ostensibly cast by the adventurer's lantern, turned down the power of said lantern, and adjusted the adventurer's location a bit.
I also decided to prevent the adventurer from rotating around to always face the player: the vertex-based shadows don't react to this, which I felt looked a bit odd. Along with this, I added some restrictions to the rate at which the adventurer can turn their back, neck, and head (and possibly eyes; I forget) to look at the player: this prevents them from suddenly snapping from one side to the other if the player passes behind them.
With that--and excluding sound effects, which have yet to be added--I think that said adventurer is done! ^_^
But perhaps the most salient change of the week just past was the outfitting of a long-abandoned shop that can be found as the player progresses through the level.
In each major "section" of the level, save the first, I want to have at least one interesting "scene" for the player to discover. In the case of the most-distant section, it's the aforementioned shop.
Coming down from the residential section above, the player enters behind the shop-counter. A head of them lies the door leading out. Behind that is a table-top holding a shard of shaped stone, and a display case, its glass shattered, and only scraps of cloth within. On the wall to the side is a large animal-sign, one which may only be found in this place.
On the counter itself the player may notice a small bronze coin: this is a new collectible item, also modelled in the week just past.
Some work was done towards another scene elsewhere in the level. This, however, is rather more nascent: all that's been built of it thus far is a rough wooden tally-board, marked in sevens using what might be charcoal.
There was some challenge in getting those markings to look decent, as I recall.
I tried my "decal" shader--the one that I've previously used for scratch-marks--but the levels of transparency that it produced made the markings look a bit watery, I felt. I also tried the "mural" shader, and after some frustration, realised that it was specialised in a way that made it awkward to use for this purpose.
In the end, I went back to the "decal" shader, but added a new parameter that allows me to control the number of levels of transparency that it produces. I can thus now have two levels for scratches, as before, and also have a single, somewhat hard-edged level, as here.
Getting the geometry for the markings--and in particular for their tips--took a few attempts to get right, but was not a major issue, I think.
When working on the shop, I ran into a problem that I've seen once or twice before: it can be difficult to see the tops of tables, or flat objects on them. In short, this is a consequence of the lighting that I have in place, including some thresholding done in darker regions.
This was particularly a problem for the collectible coin mentioned above: being quite small and flat, and placed at table-top level, I feared that it was quite easy to miss.
I conducted a few experiments, attempting to find a way of both increasing visibility on table-tops and retaining the aesthetic qualities that I like in my current lighting. Alas, nothing quite seemed to achieve both goals.
In the end, the coin situation at least was resolved by brightening the cloth on which it rests, and adding a faint and subtle blob-light over it. This makes it rather more visible, I do think!
And once again, a few other tweaks, changes, and fixes were done in the week just past that don't seem worth detailing here!
That then is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^