February Devlog - Tier Updates and Catgirls (Patreon)

Welcome back to another devlog!

This month has been pretty busy for me due to a wall of commissions but I've also found some time to work on Catgirl Care. There's a lot to talk about, so let's dive in!

Commission Bank Changes

The commission bank now uses my regular commission prices (available here)!

The way it works now:

At the start of each month (usually 5th to the 20th).

Save funds equal to your tier each month (message me or I can't track them!).

Reach out when you're ready for a commission. I'll price your idea according to my commission prices here: https://furr.group/commissions (comic pricing available on request)

For a while, I've been locked into clearing out a lengthy commission queue for most of each month. This has lead to me falling behind on my game development goals and preventing me from drawing any personal art or working on side projects like Ask Fade.

I've kept my commission prices the same as my Patreon prices for a while now but this change will unlink them, meaning that your Patreon tier will cost the same and I can adjust my commissions freely. I'm currently weighing how I plan to adjust my prices but for the first month or so, they'll be about the same as what you're used to.

Additionally, these new changes will allow for more complex commissions to be priced appropriately. I've done this unofficially for a while now but now if you want multiple characters, alternate versions, full backgrounds, and similar changes, that's fully available and priced the same way I handle my regular commissions. I may even be open to multiple pictures but that'll depend on my workload, I think.

Anyhow, I think this will be a good change in the long run, so I look forward to seeing what ideas you all come up with!

Catgirl Care Updates

Catgirl Care development has started flowing a bit more smoothly, I'd say. I'm at the point where I can see some real gameplay coming together very soon! The demo is still a ways off, but I'm much happier with how things are turning out.

Most of what I've worked on before I was hit with a wave of commissions was improvements to the catgirl creator. It's a bit more robust and I've even started adding error logging to help players figure out what's gone wrong with their catgirl's appearance if anything breaks at some point in the future.

After my commissions cleared out, I decided to address an issue that's been bothering me for a long time now: the eyes. The base catgirl model in Catgirl Care has been using an concave eye with a floating iris. While I was able to get decent results for this in Rockin' Resort's models, I've been unhappy with the Catgirl Care version. The depth just felt wrong, creating an effect where her eyes weren't focused on anything.

This new version uses a texture that's being generated via code, which should allow for a lot of additional customization options in the future (pupil scaling, shine position, etc). That texture is on a simple eye mesh which is modeled to fit the eye hole nicely.

I still have some tweaking to do to make the new mesh work with blend shapes (blinking, expressions, etc) but I think this new version is so much more full of life while also being easy to work with! What do you think?

In the previous devlog, I showed off some initial tests with Inverse Kinematics which I'm using to place the catgirl's foot accurately on the floor. This is an area I'm still experimenting with nailing down but the results are turning out promising.

I was originally planning to do a system where the catgirl's steps were fully automated by IK but I've decided that a hybrid system makes more sense. Currently, instead of the IK controlling the catgirl's steps, the catgirl has a walking animation and the IK only takes over when it's time for her to place her foot down.

I've also started working on setting up the catgirl to walk around. Her animation drives her walking speed which should help prevent her from sliding once I polish the animation (the IK should also help). Adding on some very basic navigation and I've managed to get a catgirl roaming around freely in a 3D environment which is a huge breakthrough for me (I've never actually made a 3D character walk around freely before).

What's Next?

For Catgirl Care, I'm going to spend some more time improving the catgirl's ability to roam around. I'm not sure how deep these systems will be but ideally I can at get them capable of navigating multiple floor structures.

Commissions will likely keep me busy again this upcoming month (which I'm prepared for) but I'm interested to see how this new commission system changes things before I change my prices.

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Anyhow, thanks for supporting my work! It's thanks to you all that I've been able to work my butt of on art and gamedev, both of which are things that I'm very passionate about. I'm hoping that I'll have a lot more to show you this next month as well!