Paramaker Item Showcase + Social Situations + Planning of Build Mode Content
Hey there,
Alex here today to share various updates about what we are currently working on. Let’s get started!
👕 Paramaker Item Showcase: The Beanie
Léa and Sonia recently created various new items for the Paramaker. Today, we’re showcasing one of them which is a cute beanie. I think Léa did a pretty good job since it looks super comfy!
An anonymous Para showing us the new beanie.
It comes in different colors!
🤝 Positioning Characters for Social Situations
As you know, we are currently working on the part of the live mode concerning relationships and social interactions. One of the biggest challenges is that we have to design complex algorithms to place characters in social situations. Richard is making good progress on that. He has to make sure that the positioning looks natural which is harder than it looks! Here are some examples.
The Circle
When chatting together, characters need to be positioned in a circle. Objects like chairs can also be considered, in which case characters can sit instead of standing up.
Just some mustache men having a chat. We use spheres to visualize the positioning algorithm. The greener the sphere, the better this position is.
The Object of Interest
In this situation, characters are looking at an object of interest. It could be a painting, a musician, or a TV, like in the screenshot below. Characters need to be in front of the object, not too far from it and not too close to it either.
Mustache men watching TV. Notice how the top position on the couch is not a valid position because it is not in a good angle in front of the TV.
Physical Contact
When characters have to perform an interaction that requires physical contact, the positioning algorithm needs to make sure that the characters are at a specific distance in front of each other. After all, you can’t handshake someone from 3 meters away!
The character on the left needs to move to one of the positions visualized by the green spheres in order to perform the handshake interaction with the character on the right.
I hope you liked this glimpse of Richard’s work. We’re excited to be improving and playing more and more with this algorithm in the near future!
🦆 P.S. Can you spot the duck in each of the 3 screenshots above?
🪑 Planning of Build Mode Objects to Create
We have already shown you a good amount of furniture and objects that we have made for Paralives’ build mode. However, we will need to create a lot more of them before the initial release of the game. Since the art direction and the build mode features are now well established, we are able to create new objects at a much quicker pace than before which is pretty exciting.
To plan everything that we want in the game for it to be enjoyable at launch, Chloé recently worked on a huge list of all the furniture and objects to be created. For each of them, reference pictures are included, resulting in a pretty massive board:
This is only a fraction of the list!
We can’t wait to reveal various furniture and objects here on Patreon as we create them!
Enjoy the weekend!
Alex
Comments (43)
It is interesting to know how paras handle positioning. I hope that it will work out well and not weirdly, like putting an infant on the bathroom floor in front of the toilet just because there is room there for example.
I managed to spot all 4 ducks yayy
OMG I'm loving this so much. One thing though, maybe when paras get together to watch TV and there are no more chairs available, they could sit on the ground (if there's room) and those who can't sit on the ground stay up?
I’m here for Mustache Man! You should totally make him a townie (with a mysterious back story of course!) 🤣
So cool! Will we see the dogs, cats, and horses soon? Probably not but I'm very excited.
Heck yes, give us those platform steps!
such a treat to see how far you all have come! All the furniture pieces look lovely! P.S. adorable duck 😎
This is amazing! The progress is unbelievable. Thank you so much for sharing this ^_^
This looks awesome! So sitting on the sofa, are they not turning their heads to watch the TV? Also, yes I spotted the duck! lol
I think they would, but if you take a look at the pic, there's not really a TV there to look at, so I suppose that's why haha :)
man am i relieved to see moustache man back in his style ☺️ also: very excited to see these updates! would be curious to see the beanie on paras with different hairstyles
Wow, I'm so excited for this! I litterally can't wait
The team's work is looking wonderful and I can't wait to see more!! Happy weekend to you and the team, too!!
Am I the only one who thinks the bangs are kind of clipping with the beanie and forehead?
It's so exciting to see all the progression in the game!
The way I laughed so hard at the duck's hiding spot on the third screenshot is embarrassing. Very clever.
If paras are talking and a spot near the wall is a "green" place to stand, could a para lean against the wall to sort of settle in for the conversation, or would that require too much tweaking of animations? Obviously it's not, like, critical, but if it's viable I do think it could add a lot of personality to them.
Will the peras be able to watch tv on a bed or just on cheats and couches?
Wow love seeing these insights!
Thank you!😊
Thanks for having black paras with black hairstyles. Means a lot ❤️
Of course! Thank you for supporting the Paralives project😊
That last duck was tricky. I love seeing all the progress you guys are making. It's really amazing.
Thank you so much!
It might be to early to answer this question, but will these interaction ranges/radius/circles be accessible via the modding tool, so modders can adjust and customize them when adding new interactable objects or new interactions?
The furniture list made me actually giggle with excitement. I also LOVE how snug the beanie is! It looks realistic! And cute! And it was so cool to learn about another element of programming/making the game work! Thank you so much for all the great info and sneak peeks <3
Thank you for the kind words, we're really happy you are liking the beanie😊
For extra customization, do you think it'd be possible to implement a feature where you can change the design on the beanie label? Or maybe be able to remove the label full stop?
I love the blue jumper.
Glad you like it😊
Thanks so much for the updates on your progress! (PS found the duck, the last one was sneaky!)
Good catch! Thank you for your support :)
Thank you so much for the hard work. I'd love to read, if possible, more about the thought process behind the positioning of Paras. The circle in particular interests me because it's not fully clear to me why some spots are less green (the red ones are more obvious on the other hand). Like, maybe characters arrived in the living room together, in which case they'd be standing closer ; or a child (Kid Mustache, if you will) would stand close to their mom (Mrs Mustache, evidently) rather than at a perfect distance from strangers. I'm sure you've thought of that so I'd love it if in the future someone had the time to elaborate on the thinking behind these patterns. Also YAY MORE FURNITURE ! I see some essentials in that tiny excerpt of the list, but also some pretty interesting pieces. Will we vote on some furniture at some point ? It'd be pretty cool if we could say "this chair was selected by our community" or something. Since there seems to be both very basic items and some more interesting ones, I'm hoping we get some multi-use pieces of furniture too ! Modern homes have evolved so much in the past 10 or 15 years... https://www.patreon.com/posts/33003070
Does this mean paras can have conversations while one (or more) is sitting and the other(s) standing? And can a para suggest/invite another para to look at something with them, like a painting, tv show or performance?
looking so good, thanks guys!
Thank you for the support!
Spotted the duck!
Looking amazing!! The duck encroaching on the moustache men’s convo is hilarious!!
Thank you Agatha! :)
Return of the moustache men!! I love it all! Thankyou team ✨👏🏻
Thank you so much for your support, Becky😊
this is so cool. I love to watch your progress on this
Glad you are enjoying our updates, thank for your support!