Summary:
In which a level gains polish and finish; the same is started for another level; special effects may be placed in levels; special effects may be pre-defined; breakables may reference said pre-defined effects; walls are given "depth"; and shadows are tinted.
Greetings and salutations!
This week's screenshot shows a location within the "Dismal Halls" of the Ossuary Moon, now decorated:
The week just past was, once again, a level-building week--albeit again with a few other things besides:
I mentioned last week, I believe, that with the level first-drafts done, I had moved on to a stage of "completion and polish".
To that end, in the week just past I filled out the "Dismal Halls" with decor; I placed interactions that grant codex-entries; I added some breakable urns; and I finished the look of the level's breakable wall.
And with that done, I've started in on doing the same for the "Bone Galleries" level--although this is barely begun with yet-unfinished work on a breakable wall found there.
As part of this process, I implemented a new set of minor features: There may now be special effects placed within the game's levels (such as might be used to have a particle effect continuously emitting at a given location), and predefined effects that can be referenced by other objects. Further, breakable objects may now reference such predefined effects.
This then allows me have breakable objects that scatter bits of decor when broken.
In the case of the "Dismal Halls", this specifically takes the form of certain chests containing irrelevant papers, which are scattered on the chest's breaking.
Now, during the process of level-building I came to feel that I was still not satisfied with the look of things.
I attempted to address this in two ways:
First and simplest, I added a bit of shading to the bottoms of the walls in the Ossuary Moon--this, I feel, gives them a bit more of a sense of "depth", of three-dimensionality and lighting.
And second, I made a change to my lighting system: now the shadows can be tinted--and the specific tint and threshold for tinting can be varied per level. This, I feel, gives the lighting a bit more interest and variation.
Further, support for this feature has been added to my lighting tool.
I've used said tinting somewhat subtly in the "Dismal Halls", but you might be able to see it here:
And once again, there were various tweaks, changes, and fixes enacted 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! ^_^