Throwing elephants or the Ren issue. (Spoilerpost.) (Patreon)

Hello everyone,

Another week has passed, so I wanted to give you a quick update on the current progress.

First of all, regarding last week, none of you managed to guess the mean little trick that is coming up. But that is perfectly fine. It just means the surprise is still intact. Toward the end I did get the feeling that some of the suggestions were not entirely serious anymore. Throwing elephants at Ren or getting breast implants to distract someone. Let us just say my ideas are not quite that creative. Although I did have to laugh at the elephant suggestion.

So, what is the current status?

Right now I am deep in animation work, specifically combat animations. A lot of them. It is a lot of fun, but it is also incredibly time consuming. Those of you who played the teaser already know that there are quite a few animations in it. The one or two minutes of gameplay in the teaser alone probably cost me more than half a month of work just to get the animations right.

And it is not just about creating a single animation and calling it done. The real challenge is connecting them so everything flows naturally and dynamically instead of feeling stitched together. I have probably recorded most animations three times in different variations, only to scrap them and start again from scratch.

Sometimes I do wonder whether that level of detail is really necessary. But I genuinely enjoy doing it, so I am not planning to stop.

The next big fight scene is currently in progress. You can already see in the preview image which two characters are involved, and this time they are actually going to clash. I want the scene to really hit hard, and that inevitably means it takes longer to produce.

I think one of the challenges when you get more experienced with the engine is that you also become more aware of what is possible. When I think back to the first chapters, I was producing renders and animations incredibly quickly, sometimes multiple per hour, simply because I did not know any better. Back then it was more like good enough, next scene.

But naturally you want to improve.

And honestly, creating combat animations is probably the part of development I enjoy the most. Well, second most. The best moment is still when everything is finished and I can watch the whole scene play out.

Although I am never truly satisfied.

Perfection is always the goal, even though it is never fully achievable. But I think that is exactly how it should be. A little dissatisfaction pushes us to improve and evolve.

Alright, now I am starting to philosophize.

The important part is that I am really enjoying the work right now, even if progress is a bit slower than usual. Once the clash between the two opponents is fully animated, things should become a bit easier again since there are calmer moments coming up.

Although things will explode again toward the end.

We will see.

Thank you all for your patience, and I hope you are doing well and surrounded by good people.

Take care of yourselfBerki