Summary:
In which a dragon gains an arena; a thorny boss sees a fair bit of work; a crystal shader is pressed into other service; a third boss is added to the new demo; the list of bosses for that demo is considered; "continuous" particle effects gain an upgrade; "cone" attacks make better use of "continuous" effects; "cone" attacks gain better auto-generated geometry; and a holiday is decided upon.
Greetings and salutations!
This week's screenshot is a gif, showing one of the prototype bosses intended for the new demo!
And indeed, it was pretty much a week of bosses:
To start with, the Dragon boss now has a better arena, complete with walls.
But the Thorn Guardian boss saw rather more work: it gained prototype art, effects, bounding walls, a floor, and even a tweak to the fight itself!
Of perhaps particular note is that it now makes a fair bit of use of the shader otherwise intended for "growing crystals" (now with some minor upgrades): while not perfect for this particular boss, that shader does at least work for demo purposes, allowing me to have plant-like growth and withering.
Further, and as shown in the gif above, work was done on integrating another boss into the demo: the Shattered Knight.
The boss itself was added, prototype art was made for it, effects applied, an arena set in place, and animated pillars made for it to strike!
Indeed, I think that just a few touches remain to be added there! ^_^
Beyond the bosses themselves, I've slightly reworked the start of the boss side of the demo: instead of being a linear boss-rush, it now presents the player with the option to visit each boss in any order from a central "hub room".
But perhaps more fundamentally, in the week just past I gave some thought to, and settled on, a list of just which bosses I intend to include.
Although there has already been one revision to that list! As I recall, I ended up concluding that one intended boss--the "Winged Serpent"--called for more work than seemed wise for this demo, and furthermore was perhaps a little too brutal for demo purposes.
Now, I had already done some work towards the Winged Serpent, and part of that involved some tweaks related to my handling of "continuous" effects, and especially of continuous particle effects.
In short, continuous particle effects should, I think, now work a little better in and of themselves, and be better used by "cone" attacks!
Furthermore, and for similar reason, I believe that I've improved somewhat the geometry that "cone" attacks may auto-generate to represent themselves.
And finally, I've made a decision as to the dates for my annual holiday of this time of year: I intend for my holiday this time to run from the 18th of December to the 7th of January!
That, then, is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^