Hello my readers, blogging time is here again, yay!

Time goes fast when we are trying to create exciting games, but will I manage to keep up to schedule? Surely, I do try to be productive, but it feels like it’s going so slowly forwards, everything takes quite some time.

Last week I explored more about visual effects, I find it to be so interesting, and I guess I spent a great deal of time trying to learn more about it and got stuck a bit on trying to polish on my effects more and more.

I worked on the main menu and wanted it to look “alive”. I mixed our “promo poster” 2D image view with visual effects such as small stars flying around the screen. I’ve also made the moon a lot bigger than on the original picture and with the help of VFX, it now shines a lot more.

Also, I made the “moon VFX” so it changes color. However, it looked a bit unrealistic and weird when I tested it, so I removed the color effects and changed it to be a plain white, shine/light VFX.

Border design around the menu buttons is inspired by Luna. I have shaped lines so that they have elements of the “snake” itself like Lunas lower body. Now you can see the curved spinning lines /shapes. The buttons are beautiful by themselves and I love their transparency part being so simple, but something is still not right. Looking at the overall picture, the buttons stand out from the previous design a bit.
At the moment I have to prioritize other tasks from the project and if there is time left I can make some changes. I have a wish to modify our menu from 2D view to 3D. For a more “alive look” on the menu, I would like to add our main 3D characters together (when they are done) instead of the 2D picture we have now.

Main Menu

VFX Fountain

In addition, I have been working on creating some fountains. It was more advanced than I expected. I had to work not only with particle effects but I also needed to animate the fountain. Animation is not my strong suit, as I haven’t worked with it before, so I made many mistakes. I have to redo the animation from start with new textures. Nevertheless I’ve learned from my mistakes.

What didn’t seem so clear, except the textures, was the “tiling”. The texture I used had problems, therefore, it messed up from the beginning. There is a sharp line where the texture ends and begins. At the same time, I have trouble making the fountain flow more evenly, it feels like its chopping and it looks a bit laggy right now because the effects loop. I have to look at it and regulate it, then try to distribute the emission more evenly. I’ll also add some splashing drops to make it look even more realistic.

Animated Fountain VFX

The other fountain VFX I was working on had particle effects but no animation. I’m quite happy with it, but it does not fit directly into our 3D model for the fountain. However, super fun to experiment with physics, particle effects and make the water move upwards and then fall downwards.

Fountain water VFX

To be continued…
/Ana Jaksic