July Update - Combat
Added 2023-07-06 17:24:43 +0000 UTCHi all, happy July!
Last update, I formally announced the decision to set aside Velle's campaign and pivot Blood Crisis' development to focus exclusively on a single campaign for Alpha. Since making this decision, I've made considerable progress, making more progress in June than I've made in a while.
Alpha's rig is finalized, almost all of Velle's old obsolete code has been successfully removed, and I'm finally getting the hang of root motion-driven animations.
By the end of this month, I'm aiming to have fully functional enemy and player hitboxes and hurtboxes, and if I'm ahead of schedule, maybe even some polished GUI elements.
The last few months have been a lot of trial and error as far as character animations go; I've fully animated and scrapped multiple abilities/attacks just because they didn't feel good to use. I've been animating my entire life, but never for a game like this. Unlike film/tv/pre-rendered animation, games not only have to look good from every angle, but they also have to *feel* viscerally good to play with. One of the hardest lessons I've had to learn while making Blood Crisis is that just because an attack animation looks good in blender, doesn't necessarily mean that smoothness will translate well in-engine. However, focusing on just one player character over the last month has helped me hone my skills dramatically, and I finally feel like I've shaken most of the rust off my animation abilities.
Additionally, just as a side note: I'm going to be making these update posts public going forward, and I'll try to upload smaller-scale posts to Patreon more often.
I really feel like I'm regaining a momentum that sort of slowed down for a while, and I'm eternally grateful to all of you for your continued support.
As always, don't forget that I stream every Thursday (that's today!) at 7pm EST on twitch.tv/bloodcrisisdev, today I'm streaming editing for devlog #2, make sure to stop by!
