Project Vault Game Dev Log 028 (Patreon)

Dang September blew past me here! Got a decent amount done this month, although it's a bit of a lighter update than I'd prefer. A solid chunk of the time this month went into cleaning up a bunch of stuff with the AI and models for the sentry enemies. Likewise outside of that, most of my time has gone into building up the greybox levels this month. I've been wanting to focus more and more on getting some of the major starting levels actually greyboxed out for me to start testing features and level sizes. This effort will probably continue through most of this year as I need to finally start putting the game together haha!!

Sensor Puppet Model Cleanup: First up I finally returned to the model of the Sensor puppet and gave the entire model UV a makeover. I now have properly built up UV's for him that I can start off of to build up their design. Likewise I got a start with painting up a look for the Training room versions! Need to return to them and continue painting up the textures now haha.

Sensor Puppet AI updates: Likewise I gave a lot of the UI a complete overhaul. Cleanup on how the Sightcone system works, likewise some beefing up of the AI code in general so that it is less bug prone. A good chunk of animations also got added in to show off reactions and allow them to finally attack bod! Next up I need to put some time into a full on enemy controller system that can help guide the enemies as needed when things get hot in the game haha.

Water Feature Cleanup: Spent a little bit of time playing around with the water system. Part of it was code cleanup to make sure it was working properly. In addition I added some other code that gave it some new features like the ability to be moved with the switch system. Finally I did some tweaks to the shader to give it a vibe I want in my training levels :3!

Wierway City greyboxing efforts: Spent a massive chunk of time this month focusing on the greyboxing of Wierway City and it's ruins. As of now both current levels of the dungeon/ruins is now fully fleshed out and has working cameras/transition zones. Likewise the grotto and lower city has been completely cleaned up also with the cameras. I still have the industrial sector to wrap up for the city, but once that is done then the initial greybox efforts for Wierway city are done!

Construction Barricade: Alright I know it's a bit silly, but I want to make a lil construction barricade to toss in the game XD. Outside of being an asset that I will use of course as set dressing, it does serve another purpose in the game for my early playtesting. Clear and concise "WIP zone" tokens haha. When I have areas that are still being fleshed out or worked on, these can work as great indicators of places that a playtester will not be able to explore (yet).

Copper Heights Thumbnail art: Which means it's time to delve into the outskirts and 2nd city in the game, Copper Heights! This city is the capital of the valley in the game and is found nestled within the towering heights of the largest tree in the valley. Bod will end up having to deal with some of the local bandits around the base of the tree, in the trunk, and finally on the main branch of the city to confront the leader of the bandit contingent. A lot of the focus for these thumbnails revolved around the internal trunk rooms in addition the the city proper!

Next month I'll be continuing a lot of this work! In general it's time I started closing some stuff out rather than leaving it in sort of half finished states. So I'll be focusing on the last bit of camera work in Wierway city in addition to continuing work on the interior portions of the city (Houses, shops, ect). Likewise more work will continue on the Sensor puppet AI and animations. Lastly I'll be spending some time to go back to Bod's movement animations and give them a good level of polish. I've learned a lot with the Sensor puppet and now have a bit of an idea on how to get some cleaner animation work done with Bod :3!!