NPC Animation - Devlog 01.11.2025

Hey :D

Still working on a Shuffle Me on Godot Engine.

Animated Avatar is done

So, AnimatedAvatar is ready and tested. We have already added all the mechanics, like changing animation when using a card. Now all we need to do is just to attach the animation name to a card to make the card activate the animation on use. So I consider this part of my plans done. The most awesome part is that now I can do a lot of animations without quite fast. I mean, 1 animation can be done 3-4 times faster than an artwork. Can you imagine? The reason is that the Avatar is already set up, so I don't need to do it again xD So to add new animations I just need to move some bones. Also physics help a lot.

So I've done about 10 animations for the Avatar. And would probably add some more when I have all the cards in the game (so I can see better what moves are missing). The goal is to make the Avatar respond to any Player's input (aka any card).

I have already uploaded Avatar demos in previous posts, so won't do it here. I better upload some interactions with other NPCs in the next post xD Just wanted you to know that it's done and all the issues on the Godot side are resolved :D

NPC animation

Now I'm working with the Enemy NPCs. We've created 5 Robot NPCs. Sure I decided to start with the most complicated one xD
Though I can't say it was hard. You see, when doing NPC without considering transformation or usage of different clothes (like you do when doing Avatar), you do it pretty fast. So yeah, doing enemies isn't that complicated anymore.

This particular enemy will get non-linear progression though. The robot has different attachments (these banks), so it will be becoming stronger during the game :D So when this NPC gets a new skill - it also gets a new attachment :D

(sorry, NSFW animations below, so I can't show it in public, only for patrons)

I haven't done many animations yet. Again, bcz at first I need to add the cards themselves, and then make the animations. It won't take long, bcz again, when the character is set up doing animations isn't that hard anymore. And this one is set up pretty well xD

Character Interactions

So, in additional to individual moves, sure I want the characters to have cross-interactions. For that we needed to figure out a very precise way to combine characters together. And doing that considering the "draw order" (what part is rendered first, what - last. So something should be overlapped by something else). Why "precise"? Well, bcz when something that belongs to one character should be sticked into specific tight spot of another character - you need to do it with the highest possible precision.

At first, I though about combining 2 characters into 1 project (so it's kinda like 1 character). If you remember, I did "threesome" animations this way. It's not a very cool way, bcz it's like a different project. For example, if I add new hairstyles to Avatar, then I need to add the same hairstyles to all the animations made this way. The same about all the other changes. So it's not the right way.

So we tested and tried different approaches. And finally we found a way to place the character with high precision. Moreover, we found a way to "insert" character in the right place in "draw order". However, I can't show you that well, bcz I haven't figured out the way to do gifs from the game. So animation is from the Spine editor.

Yeah, I just made a quick animation using 2 Avatars xD That's what we do to test it fast, so it's not refined yet. As you can see, the hand should be placed on the back, but it's rendered behind the boy. Bcz the girl is rendered behind the boy completely. Though in the game we "insert" the character in the right place, so as you can see the hand is rendered above the second character (and yeah, the avatar is in the game, with the full transformation mechanics)

So working on visuals is going on and soon will be done. Main characters and avatar are ready. Simple characters won't be that complicated and modular. Just some simple animations and very simple rig.
Then need to make the UI pretty. Idk about the sound, probably will add that later, because it's the whole new world xD The game itself is mostly ready. So after visuals will spend some time on testing and refining and launch it for Patrons only :D