Summary:
In which an exterior gains doors and foliage; a rockfall blocks an entrance; a shader-set is slightly enhanced; a second entrance is likely completed; the tomb into which said entrance leads is begun; a crevice connects two tombs; some interior geometry is worked on; a pathfinding system is improved; a bug is found in level one and fixed; and publisher-pitching progresses.
Greetings and salutations!
This week's screenshot shows a doorway into one of level eight's tombs, dark until entered:
The week just past was primarily one of level-building, although a few other things did get done:
Starting with the exterior of level eight, in the week just past I added scattered vegetation to the gorge, both pushing up through the pebbles of the ground and clinging to the sheer stone of the cliffs.
I also added further doors, distant and inaccessible, to the cliff walls.
But perhaps more interestingly, I worked on the two functional doorways that provide access to the interior of the level.
The first doorway leads into the tomb that holds the level's goal--but is blocked: a rockfall, modelled in the week just past, prevents passage and forces the player to look for another way in.
(And as part of building said rockfall I made some minor changes to my sunlight "decal"-shaders; the changes are a bit hacky--in order to prevent conflict with extant use of the shaders, as I recall--but work, I believe.)
The aforementioned other way in is provided by the next tomb in line. In the week just past, then, this tomb's doorway was finalised--as shown in the main screenshot above. Between geometry, light-level vertex-colouring, and adjustments to the player-light trigger, it should be pretty much done now, I believe!
Furthermore, a certain trigger that was added in a previous week was moved to align properly with this doorway.
As noted above, this doorway provides access to a second tomb of level eight--and in the week just past, I began the process of building this tomb.
As it stands, a fair chunk of the new tomb is done--enabled in part by using the first tomb as a base, I believe. As with that first tomb, there's more work that I intend to yet do, but the place looks already more or less the part, I think!
Now, the second tomb is a separate place from the first: each is its own construction, and not part of a single complex. How, then, does access to the second tomb help with the goal of entering the first?
Simply put, a gap has opened up in the stone between them--a cleft, perhaps a shifting of the stone, possibly connected to the previously-mentioned rockfall. However it formed, it provides a rough passageway between the two places.
This passage, then, is partway done: traversable, but unfinished.
Further, the "ribs" found on the ceilings of these tombs were touched up in the week just past. This included some UV-adjustments, and the breaking of a few near the rockfall and crevice, and scattering parts of them about the floor.
On the logic-side, I believe that I mentioned last week that my new pathfinding implementation had some bugs. These were addressed in the week just past; the solutions found perhaps have their issues, but they seem to work for now!
Likewise, I fixed some animation issues with the characters for whom said pathfinding was initially built.
And in doing so, I discovered that the second mummy in level one was not animating when they walked from their sarcophagus! This seems in short to have been another animation issue; with the animation itself fixed and a particular scalar in the relevant code adjusted, this seems to be working properly now!
And finally, I believe that I mentioned last week that I was gearing up for another wave of publisher-pitching. Well, in the week just past I completed my research for this wave, and began enacting it, sending out a new set of pitches. There are a few yet to be done, but the majority have been sent, I do think!
That, then, is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^