monstergirlisland

Shading update

Added 2016-05-02 10:03:27 +0000 UTC

I wasn't gonna update until the Mako scene was done (it's coming in a few days, don't worry) to surprise you guys but I have to post this!

One of the greatest struggles of anime style 3D models is the faces. If you have played games with anime models you have probably noticed that the vast majority of them either don't use shading at all or just use a rim light and a very subtle shadow ramp. That's because of the nature of the stylized faces that makes them look pretty bad with "real" shading (see pic 2). Of course having no shading in a porn game is kinda lame because shadows and light give definition to the bodies making them look "hot".

The first image is how I was doing it, shadows in the body but not in the face. That works under good lighting but in darker scenes like the one in the image it's pretty noticeable. Pic 2 was the alternative I had so far which looks horrid.

There is workarounds for this, like the CGI in anime (that is not viable in a game for performance reasons) or some fancy techniques used in games like GG Xrd (which is not really viable for an indie game with tons of character due to how time consuming it is).

But I found an alternative! it's actually pretty simple, I just use the same drop shadows system that give real time shadows to everything else but cast them on extra high resolution only in the faces. I'm pretty satisfied with the result and it should finally put my autism at rest...

tl;dr faces look better now

Also, don't send me your monthly messages in a bottle yet, I send the announcement around the 5th to wait for people with issues, etc.

And thanks for your support this month too everyone!