Hello Everyone! Welcome to the whimsical world of 2022! In thinking over this months update I feel I’ve done a whole lot of nothing, yet simultaneously I’ve got plenty enough to share. Fortunately for me, it doesn’t matter what I think so long as I’ve got all sorts of goodies to show off!
How have Genome Work Days been?
So over the holidays and new years it turns out that I still had a job when everything was said an done. Who would have thought? *shocked face* This has driven a particular shift in my attitude and focus moving forward. At the start of my job I negotiated to have my Fridays off, which I’ve leveraged into my “Genome Work Days”. Overall they’ve been good, however, I’ve had to cut many short, and others I’ve downright been unable to do attend.
It turns out working full-time hours to have a free day off, then using that free day to continue to work full-time hours is a bit unsustainable for someone with as much of an impact in my health as I do. I’m in a very liminal position right now, as I have been able to keep up with my work demands in part, and I sincerely believe it’s just a matter of practice and exposure to the effort. All in all, I appreciate everyone who’s been dropping by for my Genome Work Days, and I’m striving to continue to hold them in any form as often as I can.
Liminal – /ˈlimənl/
1. relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process.
If you want to join me for my Genome Work Fridays, come join our Discord Social HUB and hop into the #streaming channel when I’m around!
Alright, so what have I actually been doing then?
Okay so here’s some of the fun stuff all throughout. Over the New Years Holidays I was wanting to do some development for ‘fun’ (HA) and ended up starting a personal VR project. I’ve been garnering quite a deal of experience in VR development from work, and some time back I ended up grabbing a VR toolset as well.
In contrast to AG which is pure action gameplay, I’m set on working this VR project into something more akin to visual novels, dating sims, and point and click adventures. The core being that I want to explore the immersiveness of interrelationships from the perspective of stereoscopic VR vision.
It’s very much in its infancy, but it’s been really cool to build and expand on, when otherwise all my VR experience has been in doing what others want me to do with it. While it’s been cool to flex my skills within the bounds of project specifications, I’m still an avant garde artist type and I love having the autonomy to make whatever I please!
Some cool details worth noting:
- The Avatar that we are in the game (and that all other actors will be as well) uses the UMA Avatar system that Awaken Guardian uses.
- I plan to expand on the AG Item system and World Triggers systems to realize puzzle solving and world detail.
- The sky, time, and weather systems are the same, and can be tied into the World Triggers the same.
- We have a new artist working on these interiors! They’re eager to keep chipping away at more of the space in the coming weeks!
Uh oh, an artist doing more than one project? What about AG?
Worry not! I swear none of this VR project means I need to quit or stop with Awaken Guardian. In fact, expanding on this VR project is building up my toolset and skills around cinematic and character performance systems. This means that all these projects VR, and AG, are building towards a Genome Studios library of code that will embolden and elevate both projects!
Mostly it’s just that I wanted a break from Ag, as I’ve been at it since 2019. I love what I’ve accomplished in it, I feel there’s so much to still showcase out of it as a base. There’s no fear that I’m losing interest in it.
Here’s a quick snap of a new weapon combo in development!
Some interesting notes:
- Pay attention to the swings of the weapon during the debug view and you can see a hitbox appearing and disappearing during the swings. That’s how attacks work!
- The VR Project also uses the same Dialogue System, meaning as I expand my ability in Cinematics and Dialogue, AG will be bolstered too!
In Conclusion
I’m off to a very busy and demanding year. I move ever onward in my projects and hope to continue to show strong work and strong improvements in my productions, there’s no doubt that I’ll be working hard at all my development goals and I hope to see you along through it all.
Here’s to one more month!
Cheers.