Heyo! I wanted to get this build done before the end of the month, but as it often goes with big projects like this, I've run into some delays. Long story short, I lost a couple weeks crunching for a deadline at one of my other jobs and I had to fix a bit of unexpected data corruption in this project.
Despite all that, things are shaping up well and I'm excited to show off some new stuff that'll be in the next build. I will probably need another week or two to get everything I have planned completed, but here's a WIP in the meantime.
Something that's bothered me for a while is that every outfit is skin tight, which makes every character's silhouette look the same. This happens because the clothes are drawn onto the character rather than being a separate mesh (which is 1000 times simpler than sculpting each outfit to fit every body shape and size).
Instead, I use some shader tricks to push the polygons out from the mesh's surface to give the illusion of thickness in certain areas. This works well for adding flares to sleeves and pant legs.
It took a lot of trial and error to make this work, especially since I'm running out of texture space in the shader. So instead of using an image to mask out areas to control the thickness, I had to use math and gradients.
Some simple arithmetic can change the sharpness, position and size of a gradient. Combine a few of them together and you can generate a mask that is very precise. This one is used to mask out the shirt sleeves.
I also had to feed the position and direction of the arms and legs into the shader so the polygons would move in local space relative to each limb individually. Otherwise bad stuff like this would happen.
I'm pretty pleased with the effect and it adds another dimension of variety to the wardrobe.
I'm also working on some furry options and headwear to make characters even more unique. I set up some sliders to let you modify their size and position so you can put them in just the right spot for any hair style. I will have similar positioning options for headwear too.
I still want to add tails and horns, plus more outfits, hairs and shoes, but there's already much more variety with the kind of characters you can create. Here are some examples.
Anyway, that's all for now. Thanks for your patience and I'll see you again soon!