Sapphire Documents Issue 025

Animation Overhaul

We have mentioned this before, but our new animation overhaul is coming to a head. We have been working with our new animation team to remaster all the existing animations to include penetrations and redesign the positions to allow for a smoother experience when multiple creatures use the same animation.

In the game, we have made massive adjustments to creature sizes and the animation pipeline so previously locked animation to creature sizes can now be used by creatures that match the requirements. For example there are animations that are currently only usable by Tiny creatures (sweedee and salatonie), with the new pipeline they can be used for any combination of what we call two step sizes. In this example that would mean Tiny x Medium sizes, Small x Large sizes, and Medium x Enormous sizes.

As a result of the math involved, Tiny classification has increased in size, while the Enormous size has come down some. Though they are still extremely diverse compared to the player model, here is how big the Enormous size is compared to Jamie.

Along with the new animation work we also took the time to remaster our intro cinematic. Within the intro we plan to add in new save file customizations including photographer customization and island flavor settings (futa, male, female spawn options and other assorted settings).

Lifestyle Director

To make effective changes to creature behaviors, we needed to start fresh on how the island handles creature spawns. Our current playable system was very basic and only served to give the island the feeling of density. It came with a slew of RNG-related completion issues, optimization issues, dead AI for recently spawned in creatures, the list goes on and on. Our new system is hand made and extremely optimized.

In this GIF, the beginning shows the spawn distance possibly currently, in the second half you can see the new Lifestyle Director spawns in action.

The goal is to populate the island with persistent spawns, to populate regions of the island with expected creatures so players can learn where to find a creature they want to photograph. A good example of expected behaviors is creatures congregating around their nest entrances. With some of them breaking off to explore the island. Currently we have the spawning system working as shown above, along with all the current systems in the game. So expect a beta patch for this soon.

The next steps will be to build new creature behaviors and an individual needs system. In the future expect that:

• Creatures will seek sources to fulfill needs they have. Example: seeking entertainment if they are bored, water if they are thirsty.

• Creatures will return to their nests once their resting time arrives. I.e., going to bed at night, with their beds being in their nests.

• Creatures hiding from the rain.

• Creatures moving together in herds.

• Creatures being assigned jobs to complete in the environment: Ie Sweedee pollinating plants.

• Species having their own unique behaviors. Ie a cheetah predator only reacting to the player if they run near them.

These are just some features the Lifestyle Director will be adding to the game. And we are making excellent progress with it. The new spawning system even though there are hundreds of creatures visible at once is actually less impactful on system resources. Yay for good planning.

Male Creatures

The process for creating our male creature variants is going well. We have crafted four of the total twelve creatures and the audition for three of them is wrapping up currently. They won’t be included into Sapphire until we have more of the Lifestyle Director complete to give them a more diverse behaviour catalogue. Males are not Females afterall.

Small Updates

Island Upgrades

As a result of the Lifestyle Director the map of Sapphire Island is being expanded. There will be a greater distance added between the nest locations of each species along with moving a lot of these locations around to better suit the species in question. For example, Lustra will get a dam nest within the river area.

Lighting Upgrades

Creature and environmental lighting is getting upgraded as well. The first is that in general we wanted the creatures and player character to react more to the lighting of the environment. Creatures should be reflective to the time of day and other sources of light. It means everything feels brighter and less bland as a result.

Irises Reflections

There is another small change we are making to how reflective creature irises are. Something that happens in real life with photography and light is animal eyes will be reflective at particular distances. If the player is further away you’ll be able to see eyes looking at you through darker areas.

Steam post image

More Unlocks

Bundled with the persistent spawns will be upgrades to the camera that take advantage of it, including more lenses like a telescopic lens and very likely something in the middle zoom category. We are also moving the tracking tech to a module system so players can disable or enable the system as they desire.

Sapphire Safari

That’s all for now, keep your eyes open for new beta drops in the near future with some exciting but buggy systems for you all to test!