Summary:
In which a trader's appearance is worked on; room-edges fade into the background; room-covers are improved; a level is begun in earnest; and some bugs are found and attended to.
Greetings and salutations!
This week's screenshot shows updates to the "Hall of Artefacts" in the Vertical Slice Moon:
The week just past was perhaps given primarily to a new aesthetic feature, to changes in the room-cover system--and to some significant bug-hunting. And with a few other things done besides!
First of all, and as shown in the first screenshot above, in the week just past I continued work on the new "Hall of Artefacts": specifically, it how has a better model for its trader-NPC (if likely without final texturing), including a carpet showing some wares that are ostensibly--but not actually--for trade.
You may also note in that screenshot that the edges of the room now fade into the surrounding blackness. This was an aesthetic change made in the week just past: "interior" levels now have shaded edging placed over the perimeters of their rooms. This, I hope, makes such places feel both less flat and more connected to the world than I fear was previously the case.
It did prove somewhat challenging to get right, as I recall, both in and of itself and in its interactions with the extant room-cover system and with breakable walls. Indeed, it involved a fair bit of iteration and reworking! Further, it informed more changes in the aforementioned room-cover system--improvements, I do feel.
(The new system now actually renders edging and room-covers to an off-screen texture--thus allowing me more control over how everything blends--which is then composited with the scene in the game's post-process shader.)
Here below, then, you should see an example of the result in action!
Returning to level-building matters, in the week just past I started work in earnest on the Vertical Slice Moon's "Hall of Secrets". For one, this a place in which I intend to give access to codex-entries that aren't located within the main content of the vertical-slice demo. But perhaps more excitingly, it's more so a place in which I intend to provide a preview of the "metroidvania abilities" that are implemented and intended for the full game, but that go beyond the limited scope of the demo.
This process, however, is very much nascent: I've only put in a few (unlit) rooms, a set of books to grant codex-entries, the implementation (I think) of an NPC found there (including their effect on the world), and one trigger.
And in the course of the week's work, I alas bumped into some fairly serious bugs! These were primarily, I think, related to loading and saving: things like room-neighbour information not being fully stored, map-icons not showing up--and even enemies disappearing!
Thankfully I think that I have these fixed now!
And, once again, there were a number of things done that don't seem worth detailing here!
That, then, is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^
