Adam Hey there! This week, I had other business to take care of, but had very productive discussions with Daniel concerning species appearance customization and the project's LOD (Level Of Detail, a graphical optimization strategy) approach. We'll probably dedicate a post to LODs in the near future so you can see everything that goes into having things that are both pretty and can run on our machines without melting them. Daniel Hello, this week I've been touching up on the faces a little bit and handing off a bunch of knowledge about them to Adam to aid him in integrating...

Adam This week, I worked on integrating the new species creation menus. The portrait customization is still a work-in-progress, but it's going to be incredibly cool once I'm done with it. I can't wait to play with it and see what I can create. Hopefully, you will too! Daniel Hello, this last week I've wrapped up most of the remaining things related to the procedural head mesh and texture generation as well as going through generating and tweaking LODs for the existing environment meshes. Dave Hi! Nothing terribly exciting for me, just working through the plot-point generation. It's actually nice...

Adam Hello there fellow cosmonauts! This week, I spent some time working on an intro sequence for the game, as well as fleshing out the prototype for an updated version of character creation. Once complete, character creation will now also incorporate Daniel's blendshaped faces for portraits and will provide a quite unique approach to customizing species appearance! Sidenote for you space nerds: Don't forget to check out the Supermoon lunar eclipse on September 27th, which we won't see again until 2033! Daniel Hey guys, this week I've been wrapping up two of the remaining parts of the procedural heads. Namely...

Adam Hey everybody! This week was another one for admin, project management and the like! I did manage to squeeze in a bit of AI work, but I'll have more to say on that next week. See you then! Daniel Hi Guys. This week I've spent working on the procedural heads, got both the mesh and texture getting generated procedurally and looking nice doing it. They aren't all super-models but generally they don't end up looking broken, which is a bigger feat than you might think. Note: Still missing both eyebrows and eyelashes. Oh! And eyeballs! Dave Hello. We have...

Daniel Hi Everybody! This week I've mainly spent working on the faces more. Specifically their procedural textures. Additionally I've had a first stab at our LODs. Level Of Detail meshes automatically switches a mesh for a lower resolution version of it when the camera is far away. Sadly the computer can't generate them and set everything up right all on it's own so a human has to do a lot of file management and setup to ensure things turn out as they should. The human ending up doing this in our case is of course me. Dave Hello. This week...

Adam Hey there space cadets! This week was more AI goodness as I moved forward with the behavior tree implementation. The core code is mostly done and I've been spending some time putting together a simple visual editor that will allow us to easily hook up AI logic. I'm thinking long-term here, because this is the kind of tool I'd use again and again for AI in future titles. See you next week! Daniel Hi everybody! So, this week I've actually reached a point in the making of procedural faces that makes sense to show. They are not textured yet...

Adam Hey there fellow Spacers! This past week, I changed gears and took another look at crewmember AI. I'm writing what's known as a Behaviour Tree implementation to allow us a little more flexibility in how we define AI decision making. Things like syncing up dinner schedules with other crew members and core meltdowns created problems that couldn't be elegantly handled by the current system. Besides, the beauty of Behaviour Trees is that they don't lock you into a particular way of doing things. Rather, they provide a control mechanism for pretty much any approach to decision making system you'd...

Adam Hey everyone! I finally managed to get connectors added and done. I also started looking at AI again to get us sorted for Early Access. While the first iteration did a valiant job with most situations, some special cases (like reserving seats for later for social/dining areas) could not be handled elegantly. Once I'm done extending the system, I'll probably post a special update explaining the process. Once I'm done with that, I'll be focusing on character conversations on-station. Dave completed a system a while ago to generate text for these conversations, as well as changes in their relationship....

Adam Hello everyone! This week was a quiet one so far on the programming side. I had to attend to other business to do my part in keeping this show running. Luckily, my weekend is wide open for wrapping up connectors once and for all (for a little while at least). So look forward to more of that next week! Daniel Hi Everybody! I've been busy working on the heads this week as well. Finished up the tests I was doing and started in on the procedural textures, making all the masks and details it will need. Fun work but...

Daniel Hi Everybody! This week I've mainly worked on the face meshes. I'm working to get a base mesh that has the flexibility of being adjusted to allow for different face shapes, parts and variations among those. While also making sure that it is light weight enough to have many faces on screen at once, and making sure that it has the ability to support the possibility of facial animations should we find the time and budget to add such things. I guess the TL;DR would be: I spent this week making faces, again. Adam Hey there Space-friends! It feels...