TrixelCreative

Restitched: Recapped! | September 2024

Added 2024-10-03 15:00:00 +0000 UTC

Wow, what another exciting and productive month! Each time we compile one of these development posts, we surprise even ourselves with how much we've accomplished over just a few weeks as hobbyists - and hopefully, you feel the same!

Let's take a look at what September brought to Restitched in terms of development progress...

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Trixel+ Anniversary Celebration

At the end of September, we announced the newest Trixel+ Anniversary month lineup. This is a yearly event where we celebrate another year of Restitched and our trixel+ supporters. October will be full of news, events (2 contests!), exclusive posts, bonus content, free posts, and more!

You can read all about October's celebratory plans here.

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Limited Trixel+ Legacy Tier

As part of the celebration month, we've announced openings for the old, archived Trixel+ Legacy Tier. These supporters are considered a core part of the community, having been with us during special events and the start of development. As such, we have plans to use it as a sort of focus group for exclusive "one-on-one" opportunities that will influence some of our development decisions.

This tier was capped at 150 members, and the slots are now full. Keep an eye out for any future openings for this exclusive membership!

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Trixel+ Legacy Rewards

Not only will the Legacy group work alongside us for more personalized feedback opportunities, but they will also receive a special thank-you gift to be used in Restitched.

The Trixel+ Exclusive T-Shirt will offer an additional Swatch for Legacy supporters as an exclusive colorway. Thanks to community feedback, it also now features a recolorable trim!

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We've been really gitty this month... Git it? Becuase we use Git? okay...

Loads of code was poured into the project this month in the form of new content, features, code changes, refactoring, etc...

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Publishing Error Support

While we already supported publishing errors in the code, Raphael has added new errors when more exceptional issues are caught during the process (or if it can't be started at all).

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Default Camera Adjustment

It can sometimes be tricky to judge depth when Stuffy is a 3D-based character in a 2.5D scene split up between layered objects. To further address this (outside of just level design practices), Halston has tilted the default camera even more so that more of the deep playable space can be seen.

Restitched is best seen and played as a "diorama" stage, where you have limited depth to build with, but can traverse in 3D. Not quite isometric, but not quite traditional 3D or 2.5D.

This makes it a bit easier to judge depth, especially in combination with the drop shadow we previously added under the player. For those who aren't fond of this angle, you can always override it by placing custom Camera zones in your level!

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Startup Splash Screen

Gabe and Halston have been working together to set up a splash screen/intro video for the game. When booting, this short video will play and can be skipped. The current video is a placeholder, but Halston and a team animator, Luke, have already begun discussing and working on a proper version.

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Stamping Returns

After a very long hiatus, former coder Louis has rejoined the Restitched team to help us reboot our Stamps system. This new implementation is more robust, specialized for Restitched, more performance-friendly, and offers support for new features.

We're excited to see this feature back in the game and working as intended! There are naturally some rough edges to smooth out over time, but progress toward fully restoring this feature with all-new bells and whistles is going great so far!

Louis' most recent work includes fixing the custom shader to support receiving shadows:

The custom Stamping system works by creating an invisible shader over the normal material shape. It supports its own textures, which allows us to create new effects for Stamps.

Whether it be a shiny gold sticker, an embossed logo, or a deep clawed scratch. Stamps eventually supporting normal and metallic maps will be extremely useful for adding art to Stuffy and levels alike! We can't wait!

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Trigger Zone Changes

You may remember from the previous Recapped post that we showed sphere colliders being stretched to new sizes for trigger zones on things like music:

Unfortunately, this was a technical oversight with how Unity handles sphere colliders. While it's technically possible to create a mesh collider that stretches to the sphere's shape, we want to optimize code, time, and performance. As such, we've restricted collider stretching to only the box shape.

Box trigger zones can be adjusted separately on the X, Y, and Z axes. However, sphere triggers can only be resized overall with each axes tied together into one slider.

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Emotes Support

Proper development of our Emote System has been planned for a while, but more urgent tasks have taken priority. Until we fully implement the UI and extra features for emoting, we've added a temporary method for playing these actions in-game using the numpad keys.

Now Stuffy can flex, thumbs-up, dance, and more!

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More lovely 3D models were created for the game this month and will be imported as Props/Ornaments.

Cade has modeled and textured a few things for the Foliage category, including Sunflower Stem, Cactus, Daffodil, and Sunflower Head.

We've since split the cactus from the pot and removed the head of the sunflower stem. Both were adjusted to allow more diversity and modularity, so they can be combined by players in more ways.

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Proximity Mines

This new gameplay object is now added to the game, complete with a proper model, effects, lighting, and gameplay script. The Proximity Mine was pitched by the community, conceptualized by Daniel, imported by Halston, Modeled by Cade, and the gameplay scripting was coded by Jake!

Further adjustments made the Mine a bit darker so it stands out better:

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Prop/Ornament Imports

Halston imported some of the aforementioned models to the game's Props dataset during the month, allowing their placement in levels using the in-game level editor inventory!

Sunflower Head + Grass Tuft:

Toy Car 2 (beside the existing 'Toy Car'):

Egyptian Cat Statue:

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Race Zone Objects

Another big gameplay mechanic we've started this month includes the Race feature, triggered and completed by separate trigger zones tied to objects like "Race - Start" and "Race - Finish".

While the coding for this feature continues to be worked on in spare time, Halston started on the blockout and doodles for what this feature might look like. The design decision was made using existing assets assembled in-engine and needed to fit within our technical limitations (ie. layer depth).

Just to get a sense of scale, the following was thrown together in Unity at runtime:

Once we saw that this feature made sense and explored how it'd work with our existing systems, Halston began doodling some quick ideas:

The idea was to have a checkered flag lying on the ground, accompanied by a battery or pencil. A popsicle stick would make up the restricted area (the little flap that raises to let you pass). The battery would power a lightbulb on top to show the status of the race.

This eventually went on to be added to the game using existing assets:

Though we liked the idea, it wasn't as self-contained as we hoped. The battery conflicted with limited space in the layers. It didn't quite fill a full layered slot and also wasn't thin enough to not have a full layer's worth of collision.

So, we scrapped it and created a new style that was both visually appealing and distinct, played well with our limits, and matched for a proper start and end zone:

Basic work was also done on the script to play visual effects when the end gate is triggered:

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Needle 'n Thread Polish

The thread for the Needle 'n Thread feature needed some visual touch-ups. So, this month Halston cleaned up some of the textures and shader settings to make it a little more realistic in its tiling and easier to see in the dark:

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Honey Surface

We've reused existing custom shaders to make a new flowing Honey material that reacts to lighting. Additionally, it will affect Stuffy by putting them into a 'sticky walk' where their speed is slower.

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Collection Effects

Halston has revisited the older script for Pickups (collectible items) and added better support for animations, sounds, and particles when Stuffy runs through something like a Gift Box or Score object.

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Synthwave 2.0

Carter continued their progress on the Synthwave background remake this month. As part of this journey, the team was asked how they feel about the floor style of this background:

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Forest Update

The forest environment was slightly tweaked to improve performance and have a more consistent art style with the rest of the game. Much more work is still needed on this scene!

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Optimization Pass

Ahead of our next team build, a pretty decent pass was done over most existing backgrounds to improve their performance. This included lowering the level of detail on distant objects, removing redundant and cluttered props in some scenes, turning off shadows for certain distant light sources, compressing textures, deleting or hiding pieces of larger models that you'd normally never see from a distance (such as the back windows of buildings, etc.)...

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With Proximity Mines out of the way, 2D Artist Daniel has created a quick concept sheet of missile explosive types. The idea of the concept was more to get the idea across, as the proper art couldn't be completed as Daniel was on holiday!

Daniel also posted these ideas as a Team Vote, and the Firework won by a landslide. We find it to be a very cute and charming idea that fits the vibe of the game!

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New Clothing Items

We've imported a few new Cosmetics this month! These include a Backpack, Basketball Shorts, an Arrow Quiver, and Cargo Pants.

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Preparing the Musketeer Set

Santiago has begun working to weight paint the Musketeer outfit pieces so that they will be ready for import in the future:

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More Shapekey Deforms

New deformation options were added by DeRose this month to continue the fight against Cosmetic clipping. Stuffy looks a bit odd when we expose these using dev tools...

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New Swatches

New styling options were added for some existing items, like a new leather look for the Backpack, a netted appearance for the Basketball Shorts, and Leather for the Cowboy Jeans:

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New Icons

Halston has updated the custom Restitched icon font with a few new icons intended for our latest object settings.

As an example, the icons can be seen with new settings here:

Also, some older icons were given a minor touch-up to be more consistent with the latest designs! In some cases, they were replaced entirely.

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Category Divider Styles

Halston wanted to explore a new divider style between settings and chapter categories, so a quick mockup in-game was used to pitch a team vote for more opinions:

We couldn't quite decide on our own, so it was later opened up to the trixel+ community as a public poll. Most opinions were to combine them into one style, with both the shading and chalk lines!

We've thrown this onto the backburner of "future ideas" for now, as it takes a little extra time and work to add it everywhere.

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Hardware Chapter Reorganization

We've slightly renamed and reorganized the Hardware chapter so that more useful/frequently used categories are sorted toward the top. We've also added the race gates to the Gameplay Enhancers section.

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Level Stats Added

Joseph has been working on adding level stats to the in-game Workshop menu for each level. The design is far from final, but we're tickled to see it pulling and displaying the right data now!

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Notes Settings Update

Jake has continued work on the Notes object by letting its text be added as a special widget in its settings page. This is giving us a little bit of trouble, so Jake has refocused on more urgent matters for now... but, progress!

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Blink Bubbles

We're finally ready to reveal a fun new gameplay object called 'Blink Bubble'! This is a cute and fun way to teleport Stuffy around the level with preserved velocity.

The design intent behind this object was to make it stand out, satisfying to use, and be able to be entered from any angle - whether it be front, back, or sides! You can see our early design process for it here, including footage of it being used in various phases of prototyping.

Halston sent a full explanation of the current features, along with some potential future changes and ideas:

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Climbing, not Clipping

We've fixed a bug where Stuffy would clip into surfaces when climbing. The logic for climbing needs a substantial change to make this a proper fix, but for now, DeRose has offset the position of the animation to make this more presentable:

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Needle Visibility

Jake has added basic support for exposing the Needle object in Stuffy's hand when nearby a threadable object, slashable enemy, etc.

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Improved Pulling

We've updated the Needle 'n Thread's pulling-in animation to fully play. For a short time, this was broken as the animation wouldn't fully play and the strength settings would cause Stuffy to strain against objects that were actually being pulled toward them.

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All of our recent progress has come with new bugs, of course. These range from minor issues that are quickly fixed to cases of future refactoring...

Grouped Object Settings

We discovered that grouped objects become their own new object, and thus cannot have their contents' settings changed in the same way it would work by multi-selecting non-grouped items.

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Collider Thickness

This one is a problem! The collider size for thin materials is too chunky and overlaps with thicker materials in ways it shouldn't. We're looking into a robust fix for this, but until then we're having to turn off collision for thin materials if we want to push objects in front of them.

We don't expect this to be a particularly tricky fix, but we do need to make sure the right steps are taken without breaking other things by accident.

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Pushing ...and Tipping?

A main feature of Stuffy is the ability to push things around. For a while, we've had some issues with objects tipping over. We assumed it was relate to where the origin of the object was in Unity, and how force logic was pushing it away.

Halston and DeRose looked into this more during September and found it could be addressed by using a small tweak to the code. While not entirely fixed, it has improved and no longer tips from normal pushing!

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Lighting Issues

We've been grappling with some annoying lighting issues for months. These haven't impacted us too heavily, so we've not focused on them with our full attention yet. However, as we draw closer to the next trailer and new milestones, we want to get this sorted. Especially because it seems to have been made worse by unknown recent changes.

The issue is most noticeable when changing level backgrounds. In many cases, the change doesn't break anything... but other times, the lighting glitches out and certain things become bright and unlit, or don't have proper lighting data attached.

We've tried to find the source of the problem by manually loading scenes instead of using the in-game setting, changing the lighting per background, reassigning lighting data, checking project settings, and breaking lighting (which was a very annoying, tedious, time-consuming process that ended up still not fixing it!)

At this point, we've hopefully narrowed it down to three things:

1) The lighting data isn't being attached to the proper slot anymore when a background is changed in-game.

2) The code for switching scenes (backgrounds) needs improving so that reflection probes are properly assigned and there's enough time to sort out all the technical stuff during the scene transition.

3) Properly rebake the lighting for backgrounds with consistent settings, and ensure the data is both assigned and not overwritten by the Wardrobe - which is always below the level floor in each scene but also has its own baked lighting.

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New Tracks

Thomas has created some stunning new songs for the game recently! This includes "Secrets of Stone", a temple-inspired song:

...and 'Y.O.U.", a boss-style song with overblown bass and a heavy beat:

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New Thumbnail Art

Carter's continued working on new song artwork for Mad Lab and Brash Breakout!

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Cutscene Polish

As usual each month, even more incredible progress has been shared by Luke! This is related to a large part of the first cutscene in Stuffy's journey. In these recent updates, Luke has improved the lighting, effects, camera angles, and more:

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Backward Walk Animation

At DeRose's request, Brennan has created a backward walking animation for Stuffy. This, in combination with the Needle 'n Thread animations, will help polish the visuals for when you're threaded into an object and want to move closer and farther from it.

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Halston's put together a new animated version of the key art! This was done by stripping down the source image into layers, and individually reassembling them in After Effects. We'll be using it in certain promotional material, like the next trailer!

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The Restitched spin-off comic, The Grandiose Tales of Cpt. Stuffy, continues development with its tight-knit team of artists, alongside the designer and writer. We'll be announcing something quite exciting for this project later in October, so keep an eye out for the announcement!