Progress Report

Hello everyone,

It's been a while and I have quite a few things to report on regarding Normalin Run.

Hair Mesh Update

Firstly I've remade Normalin's hair. Her previous hair looked like a solid mass of hair, and didn't fit with the much rounder and more defined base model that I used. Thus I found a Blender Plugin that allows me to more easily make multiple strips of hair (also known as hair ribbons). Below is a comparison of the two. Notice how the hair on the right has better 'flow' to it

It's not perfect, but I believe its quite the improvement!

In addition to looking better, hair ribbon hair has another advantage: It makes it easier for me to animate it.  I was thinking of using Cloth Physics at first, but I am not very experienced with that kind of Physics simulations and it is a bit expensive to run for many PCs. So I opted out with a more traditional, rigging approach. Below is an image of the rig (Yes that octopus looking thing on her hair XD)

So when I rotate any of the bones of the rig you get movement. All that is left is to move the bones in game in a pseudo-physics kind of way.

To do that I've decided to buy a Unity Asset that allows me to animate the hair rig. Unfortunately that plugin didn't work for my Blender exported hair rig, so I had to make my own version.  Below is a video showing the hair animation in action. Again this isn't perfect, but even a little movement of the hair goes a long way to make it more believable.

I've also made the hair fade out at its tips to make it look even more natural. It kind-of looks like a mop on her head without it.

More Ropes Update

Next thing that I worked on during the last week was completing all of the different rope restraints. I've embedded some screen pics showing the different ones.

Like I've mentioned in a previous update I am able to combine her tied arm animations along with her normal movements. The difference now being that the restraints are actually visible :P

Gameplay Update

Next I've tried putting things together and creating a functioning  and runnable segment. The camera is behind Normalin by default and follows her (You will be able to rotate the camera). The camera also rotates automatically when there's a sharp turn, so all you really have to do is hold the forward key and avoid obstacles.

That is another small change from the first demo: Players will have free movement! Normalin will be able to run in any direction, as well as jump to avoid obstacles.

I still haven't figured out how to implement obstacle generation, but I believe It should be something less RNG, as random obstacles can cause frustration (and the occasional UN-winnable situations)

That is all for now! See you next update.