I suppose if I get too dismayed at my progress, I can just look at this video from when I started dec2024

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Finally. Combo attacks working. Now a single ability action can have multiple montages in a array and combo through them during defined combo windows.

Importantly, dashing can cancel out of the cooldown getting that oh-so-good MonHun great sword feel.

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I have a working attack system. So now I'm extrapolating into the way data will be organized for hot swapping attacks based on weapon data... Again... Sigh...

In the meantime; Heavy kick. Also, sticky targeting so Clover hits her mark when not locked on.

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Tonight's Project: Continues work on the melee framework.
Very very sloppy structure right now as I figure out the handles I need to serialize.

But, I am able to define hit frames and apply damage instances to HP.

Plus some fun hitstop juice.

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Tonight's project: Starting the framework for melee attacks.
Setup queues for impulses and movement locking at keyframes as well as a better way of handling upper body blending.

Also added some juice to dashing.

(The 'voice' is placeholder. No audio work done yet.)

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Tonight's project; First ability. Dodging. (Boosting?)
I'm debating turning dodge into a generic action. Probably a shoulder key.

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Camera Lock-On and flick re-targeting rebuilt.

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This is depressing.
Here we are again. Square one.
A player controlled actor with camera.

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I compensated by truncating the vals and enabling FXAA to hide the rogue pixels, but this really isn't a fix long term.

May have to use another channel now that retains float detail, like anistropic. I wish I could just output to my own custom buffer.

I also updated Clover's hair mesh.

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Finally found some time to finish the 3-kick-combo animations.
Guess I gotta actually write the combat system now.

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This is what the animation ended up being. At some point I'll redo her shoulder weights so that they don't bend so weird at the clavicle.

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Three more attacks. Punching now, though I put a mock blade on the wrist so that the animations can be reused for an arm-blade.

My intent for melee is that every melee wpn has a three hit combo. The combo index is preserved if you use a different melee attack before finishing the combo.

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Enough putting it off. Time to start refactoring combat.

This is such a weird but fun animation style to craft for. Purposeful frame drops with linear root motion and off sync frames.

This would be a right hand only attack combo.

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Animations. How do they even work.

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Trying an experiment with Lucky.

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Another weekend, another couple hours on my bunny project.

Lucky's now drifting about and she vanishes when certain actions happen or if she's too far away. She comes back a few seconds later. She also vanishes if she's in the way of the camera during combat.

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Steeling a little time this evening to try animating her.

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Did you know UE5 has an option for taking high resolution screengrabs? Because I sure didn't until just a few minutes ago.

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Lucky revisions.
Trying to make her more childlike. Smaller, thicker limbs, bigger ears, de-emphasized the hair, different eye shape...

Getting there.

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It's a start.
I of course used the Clover mesh as the base. Gotta be frugal where I can, but they are slightly different body shapes. I originally tried to match their ear length, but Clover's ears up are waaaay too tall.

(Oh, and I really do have my reasons for Lucky's simple face.)

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No energy tonight. So just a little poking at something minor.

Got all these face textures. Why not use them?

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Got some rest. Did my day work.
Now back at this with fresh eyes, I was able to polish up the bits that felt weird to me from last night.

I keep saying this project is intended to play like Armored Core. Hopefully it's becoming clear why.

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Funny backwards legs.
I'm not actually happy with how the blueprint is handling the animation remapping under the hood. Maybe there's something with control rigs I can leverage.

Otherwise, yeah, can now drastically change body shape on the fly with new equipment.

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Too much?
Trick question. It's never too much.

(I created a new module that automates a bunch of the annoying parts of using Level Sequence animations and decided to put it to use.)

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Limb asset destruction and replacement working. Lucky uses her threads to adapt equipment for Clover's body. So I used her FX theme'ing for the animation.

Fun touches: The limbs go ragdoll when broken. Clothing remains ruined even after replacing a limb.

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I don't have the system for hot swapping limb assets just yet, but I wanted to see it on her. And of course, I had to go beyond what was needed and added sounds and animations too.

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Stepping in blood puddles now increase a bloodyPaw value. If this value is higher than 0.25 Clover leaves paw prints. Each step decreases the value by 0.1 until 0.

I also set up a splatter that happens if you're in melee range when the target explodes. This fades over time.

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Got a basic system wired up to damage events now.
Maybe some day I'll come back to this and set up a 3d volume texture that can record hits and use that. For now, this will do.

Time to move on to the next thing on the check list...
(Checks notes)
Bloody paw prints? Huh.

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This art style is so much cheating I love it.

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Gonna take a break from working on Lucky and get back to addressing Clover art. Still need to set up the body-horror aspect of the idea.

But vacation ends Monday, so will have to refocus my attention back to day-job gamedev.

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