Hello, community!
Today we brought you two studies from early 2021 when we were getting the hang of two systems that we want to be implemented in Profane.
Water Flux System Studies for Profane
The Dev Friday posts show a raw side of Profane's development, while things are still being processed by our team. We want to share with you the studies and experiments that are run by our artists, game designers, programmers, and whatnot! For this reason, we ask you to really keep in mind what these posts are all about: demonstrations of what people are studying around here! What you WON'T be seeing around here are finalized works or with the final art touch. The content shown here may or may not reach the final version of Profane (or release version, at least). Everything might stay, maybe only some parts will, or maybe even none of it will ever see the light of day again. Only time will tell.
But, in the meanwhile, why not keep you update on this whole process, right?
This video means to demonstrate the water system and its flux!
It is a parametric system (which is a fancy way of saying that it's a unified and integrated system), meaning it's a whole body of water, but that is able to have regions of itself under different rules of operation (such as color, density, foam, water agitation, etc.)
The objective of this study is to learn how to create water movement in a way that seems natural but also optimized. This choice implies having to find a balance between beauty and performance (and we are achieving good results!).
One of the challenges was to make this parametric system work without causing any visual hiccups between rivers, oceans, lakes, etc. It needed to be one body of water that could encompass all these different water environments in a way that remained beautiful and without breaking immersion.
Body and Armor/Clothing Morph System Study in Profane
Thomaz, one of our Tech Artists, has been studying ways to make armor (and other elements) adjust themselves automatically to the different body shapes that may be present in the game.
The goal of a tool such as this one is to make the process easier (and quicker) for the art team. With it, there's no need for our artists to adjust each element (armors, hair, clothing, beard, etc.), one by one, to anything that they attach to. The tool allows them to model something to a standard body type and from it quickly make adjustments according to their needs.
The initial tests have been very promising, we did not bump into any issues and we are excited to see its full potential being applied to the development of the game. The armor used in this video is for testing purposes only, it's not an official asset.
The next step is to test this system along with other animations and equipment (or other elements) that look a little more like Profane 🙂.
Besides that, we also need to see where this tool can fit in the creation process of our Art team. Although it has great potential, we need to make sure that it's well applied and absorbed by the workflow without creating any new issues.
Another fun fact about this tool is that the initial plan was for it to be used internally only, meaning that players wouldn't really interact with it, and it would be seamlessly integrated into the game system.
However, the tool turned out to be so promising (thanks Thomaz!) that we are now considering applying it to an interface that players will be able to interact with and use to shape their characters, for instance, enriching the creation process and the options spectrum for players.
So, what do you think? Any questions? Ask away and we'll answer!
