Initial pitch + early movement system
Hello and welcome to the devlog on my N64 inspired project
I'm taking inspirations from adventure games of yore such as
- Zelda
- Banjo Kazooi
- Spyro
- Crash Bandicoot
I don't want to straight up copy the above games, I want to make something original that mostly focuses on adventure, collectables and narrative. At this stage I'd like it to be fighting free. That doesn't mean there won't be conflict or danger. Just no bopping bad guys
The broad strokes at the moment of where I want the story to go (keep in mind this could change)
A fox (going for the anthropomorphic trend of the time) has responded to a job ad at 'mighty pigeon postage'. Turns out they usually only get pigeons applying for the role. And as such she is met with some confusion. They unfortunately are understaffed and bring her on board. They start her off with the exotic post section and so begins her travels to meet odd people and magical places.
The setting will be somewhat fantasy with modern additions. i.e. the areas are floating islands (want to do this to keep levels segmented) and to travel between is via airship. I do want some backtracking but only to certain 'hub' areas.
I have a lot of ideas on adversities that she will have to overcome to deliver her post and she's nothing but determined.
The character has already been made too, but it's not her final design at this point. A few things I want to touch up as there is so much clipping happening with her skirt.
To traverse the world I am inspired by the OoT style movement. I.e. no actual jump button and contextual traversal. I have already started on this and can show some GIFs.
So currently the movement system looks like this
So what's happening?
I have a dynamic camera that pans out to view the whole animation as I haven't used root motion
Currently, I think it sucks. It takes control away from the player and doesn't work as desired.
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I'm thinking of redoing
My thoughts are to lerp the z axis only of the impact point of the line trace and the cameras current position, this may lead to a much smoother more predictable solution.
I made the math a little simpler (no more lerps) and just had height of wall/2 + current camera position sets dynamic cameras current position. Additionally, also made the camera track the character.
Small differences
p.s. I saw that the character kind of teleported around on the high climb (fixed now) stuffed up a delay is all.
The camera is relatively dynamic and apart from a mid height wall grab got most ranges covered. This camera system would also work for sidescroller sections or a tracking fixed camera similar to when Link goes into houses in OoT.
I would like to change a few things regarding forwards jump height as currently can only be done if on the same plane. I also need to fix up some checks on overhead detection so she doesn't accidently jump into boxes or spaces that are too small.
I hope you're excited to see how it pans out
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no eyes as they will be rendered in game. But all painted up given a basic walk animation. Rig will work work root motion too. All I have to do is make up the remaining anims and the camera system will work just better with this.
Also just a note on the model. One of the differences is that she now has human legs. The 'fox' legs were causing issues with animation and weren't serving any purpose. Also shoes
re- modeled the main character
had to at this point basically as changed all the anims to root motion which kind of stuffed it up. Lessons learnt
Less foxy now but more cartoony. Features have been exaggerated a bit and once textured shouldn't have nearly as many clipping issues as the previous model
This model is sitting at 2033 tris which puts her at double the previous model at 1011 tris. Not super happy about this as to be faithful to the aesthetic it would have had to been closer to around 750 tris. But hey this is my project and I can do what I want.
Some interactivity with the environment
Can have sections as a 2D platformer now with the camera zooming out and tracking the player, still need to work on those animations, but functioning as is now
The camera will pan left right overriding any other camera rules I have but will stay in axis, then return to normal.
Additionally, added in a pushable box that can be climbed on
currently can only push and have had some physics issues, will iron these out and will add being able to pull too eventually.
An interaction system had to be implemented for this which I can use for a bunch of other things
Expanding the movement system with balancing on narrow ledges, swimming and shimmying along edges (no idea what this is called as I could not find any information on it).
Still have to smooth things out and make some more idle animations. I also want to make a sprint where she is running on all fours.
If I think of any more ways of traversal, I'd add them as I go.
Still need to make the over head check work so she doesn't jump into walls
Everything here is still pretty rough, but I'd say on the right track