Novembre 2023

General

As in the previous month, I focused a lot on character development, asset management and a lot on in-house tech.

Character Config Swap

Funnily enough, I can now swap character configurations.

It's possible to have a Micro Talas or a Macro Cobble.

As I often say, I try to make development as modular as possible. And with character upgrades, I make sure to separate all the code and elements linked to each character.

There currently are 3 types of character in the game: Macros, Micros and Game Master.

The different characters have their own assets and configuration, may it be for Talas, Cobble or other characters to come.

This is something I wanted to develop initially with the Character Modding update, but it's better to do it now as it will structure a lot of elements in the game for later.

MMVS Addon

I had made another Blender extension specifically for MMVS, I don't know if I had already talked about it in one of my devlogs.

The extension allows me to manage different Blender files and scenes more easily.

I spent some time this month to produce this plugin and to generate a better character and Rig management with configuration files, just like I do with other game elements.

I also had to reorganize certain files and separate the various assets into separate files.

The extension also lets me automate certain tasks, such as updating Rigs, creating contact collisions and regenerating models.

I talk about this below.

Animations Fix And Import

As you know, I've made a lot of changes to the characters. As a result, the various animations in the engine and animation files are broken because they're no longer compatible, so I need to correct and re-import them by doing the following.

Open the file.
Extract the animation data.
Update the Rig version.
Re-import animation data.
Update the to be exported data.
Export the new file.
Import assets into Unreal Engine

Of course, doing this by hand, a file at a time, would take far too long. I have over 200 Blender files for animations alone to produce over 800 assets.

So I updated my blender extension for MMVS assets and my export/import script to manage the update and exports.

649 assets exported from 200 files in a single click in 44 min.

Taking the time to automate such tasks is always the best way to save time.

Rig and backward compatibility

As explained above, the animation files are no longer compatible since Rigs have changed a lot. Some bones and properties have been renamed and/or reoriented.

I therefore need to manage backward compatibility as I did previously with the interface of my Blender for Unreal Engine extension, and update the various data at the same time as I change the Rig version.

I do this using my MMVS extension and my export/import script.

It works like a charm and allows me to be much less restricted in the modifications I make to the Rig.

If you're also a developer, I've made the code available in my personal Blender Python library. BleuRaven Blender Python Library

Rig

I made further modifications to my Rig generator to make it compatible with Blender 4.0.

I also had to update some features such as stretch management for the shoe Rig.

This isn't new, but now it's been corrected with the Rig changes and works with the shoes.

Mesh Generation

Contact collisions use dynamic meshes that will track and deform with the character.

I'll tell you more about this in August and September’s devlogs.

Dynamic meshes are created from a character's model and must be recreated each time the character is modified.

I've automated this task to automatically generate the various meshes based on the configuration file and my MMVS extension.

It's the same way I generate "Emptys" - empty skeletons of a character to which I can attach various modular parts.

Ragdoll

Unreal Engine uses physics assets to configure constraints for physics simulation and collisions for skeletal meshes.

When I changed the orientation of my characters' bones, all these assets were destroyed, so I had to recreate them from scratch.

So I took the opportunity to review the physical constraints and make it usable as a rag doll.

With UE5's new Physics Control I can create physical animations much more easily.

This example is purely for testing. I won't be adding this in the next Vore update, but it's fun and now I know how it works for later.