f imp animations
I'm back home and working on her animation sets. Still in the blockout and planning phase so I haven't touched the smaller controls like her face or her hands yet. And I had to hide the other character in the scene to make things safe for work so I didn't have to paywall this post.
There's a few rig fixes I need to make and I need to make her anatomy variant.
I did have a small moment of panic earlier this week. I loaded up into a test level and was quickly looking over the save volumes again. I'd drop a few items, pick some berries from the bushes, open doors, and unlock containers then save the game. Exit out. Start the game back in and load it up. Everything would load correctly other than the items I had dropped. But I had tested this on the main overworld map and things were working. Uhoh. I was picturing another week of tracking down so file reference that I had overlooked that was breaking everything. I was just adding in more comments and digging through the blueprints... and I noticed there was a property on the volume I had completely forgotten that I had added. The property was "don't save new items". So... yeah. Lol. I really hadn't remembered adding that or setting it on this map but it's there so I can limit if the area should save new items or not when the player drops them. I unchecked that and double checked things and all is well. Just me being forgetful.
Alright, so the next build I'm going to try and have out next month. That's the goal. And the usual warning that I'm not always great at meeting time frames. But I'm going to jam through these imp animations, hook up the dialogues, do the scene scripting and then see where we're at. There's still a pile of animations I want to do and the other imp I want to have a handful of similar scenes in the monastery and that's not even touching the scenes when the inquisitors catch the player doing something they aren't supposed to... but one thing at a time and those extra scenes might have to wait for the next build after this one.
Comments (6)
Here's something: demonic summoning and demonic possession! Let's start with summoning. In Christian Old Testament lore, demons were ethereal, spiritual creatures. They could speak to humans and possess them, and were all fallen from heaven into hell. I was supposing that if the demons in your setting are indeed from Hell, perhaps only some of them are on earth, so to speak. This way, demon summoning could still work by summoning a demon who's still in Hell. Perhaps it isn't done often because it's difficult to hide, considered a bad idea, or that the ritual is difficult to complete. Something else that I've read is that Satan is "at work in those who are disobedient", which the article defines as those who're not christian(https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/satan-and-demons/). This gives me the idea that the demons might have greater influence in the faithless or those with divergent faiths. Second, I shall write of demonic possession. Since demons were immaterial creatures, they couldn't physically interact with the material world without a medium. Thus, the need for possession. In your setting, it seems that anybody can become a demon, and you mentioned in another post about them influencing the mind. Perhaps demonic possession is possible, but requires intense concentration and puts the demon in weaker body? Maybe this possession is limited in its usage and doesn't make sense to implement outside of specialized cases? On the topic of demonic possession, I'd like to tell you about the three permutations I've read about in Warhammer 40k. They most certainly have been thought of before, but 40K is where I first learned of them, so I'm crediting them. *Demonic possession - A demon gets into a person's head and takes control. The person possessed either take a backseat or suffers personality death. If the person merely takes the backseat, then perhaps they can regain control of their body with outside help. *Human possession - A demon gets into a person, but the person's will overpowers the demon. The demon takes the backseat instead while the person gains demonic powers. The amount of demonic power that can be safely accessed is dependent upon the strength of the person's willpower. When the amount of demonic power accessed is greater than the person's willpower, the person's control erodes. Warhammer example (https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Eightbound). *Demonic symbiosis - A demon gets into a person, but the person and the demon find an equilibrium. They both agree upon a kind of give and take relationship and so become something more. What this looks like should be unique since everybody is different, but commonalities should be control of the shape of their body, magic projection, and two voices speaking together in sync. Warhammer Example (https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Gal_Vorbak).
Summoning + summoning circles - almost definitely will be a thing! I really like the idea of doing a ritual to summon and bind a succubus or incubus or whatever. But I'd try to frame it more like Planescape I think? Where it's a plane of existence that the magic is pulling from and then different spells pull from different locations and NPC types. Possession... hmm I could see this working with a specific visual effect and animated eye textures and horns and tales and stuff. But like you mention these would most likely be heavily scripted effects attached to specific game events and quests. But if the player were possessed I could see like UI changes and fx and auditory stuff. Things that could start out subtle at first and then become more intense and distracting. Thinking about it there might be a decent overlap with corruption mechanics too. Depending on which way the corruption mechanics go I could see those being super similar - physical changes, auditory + visual halucinations, etc.
Here's an idea: a power limiter! Imagine, if you will, and item that controls how much demonical power that is accessed on a person. The more power that this person draws upon, the further into demonhood this person descends. This could be something the more radical members of the inquisition use to fight the demons, to fight fire with fire. What greater showing of faith and strength of mind could there be than the mastery of the tools of the enemy? Imagine a companion who has undergone this procedure and the player gets to tempt this character with potential victory, suggest that they tap into just a little bit more power, and eventually either have this character accept their new self or aim their anger at the inquisition. This way, through this character, you could explore the various stages of demonic corruption up close. How many stages does a person go through until that person becomes a demon? How does becoming a demon affect the mind? Which stage is the point of no return? Does willpower and faith actually do anything against demonic corruption? Also, to limit the risk in this venture, those who undergo this procedure are on a need-to-know basis. They know exactly what the inquisition wants them to know. They may learn more once they are deployed out in the field. Maybe this companion is only available if you join up with the inquisition? What do you think? Do you like the idea of the inquisition meddling in things they don't fully understand?
This one is tough mechanically. It's tied back into the corruption mechanics but now it's item based. Maybe with cursed items where I can control when + how the player equips the items. It kind of reminds me of Warhammer fantasy ttrpg or whatever the title is. They have a corruption mechanic that is a random roll and has negative consequences and stuff. But yeah I need to put some more time aside and figure out how in depth the corruption system is as the basis for any of these higher level things that would sit on top of that system as a foundation.
So, I was thinking about angels. In the Christianity, heaven and its occupants is the total opposite of hell. Where demons go and tempt humans, angels inspire awe with their majesty. Naturally, some stories portray angels as puritanical extremists, tolerating no taint present in the soul however minute. A relatively new IP called Trench Crusade portrays angels as agent of good, though as weapons of mass destruction. So, the setting has a good excuse to not have any of God's agents present in its bleak setting. Another spectrum to base angels and demons upon is that of facelessness vs individuality. Angels not only dance to the tune of the Christian God's plan but also maintain it. Thus, it is easy to interpret that they have no real agency of their own. Demons and fallen angels are those who've decided for one reason or another that they'd like to decide for themselves, and in doing so cultivate their own individuality. Both are extreme ends of this spectrum. If angels have no agency, do they also have no free will either? If not, then what separates them from an automaton or a construct? Another question is if there are to be multiple gods within your setting, do they all have angels? If not, is there a certain power threshold that need to be met for a god to have angels? Do each God's angels have a differing aesthetic? I've got two characters to share with you concerning the topic of cool looking angels. The first is Inarius from Diablo 4. (https://diablo.fandom.com/wiki/Inarius)(https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/diablo/images/4/46/Inarius-D4art.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20230604215856)(https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/diablo/images/4/49/Wanderer_seeks_Blessing_of_Inarius.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20230606072528) Here we have a vainglorious and proud angel. The angels in Diablo lore have no god they serve, at least that I could find, and so Inarius' fall is his own fault. The second is SCP-001 "The Gate Guardian"(https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/dr-clef-s-proposal). I've found several different images of this creature; all are fan made except the one on the page I linked to you. Here they are: (https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/vsbattles/images/1/1e/Scp_001_gate_guardian_by_felipey_art-dbq5ma1.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20171227083906) and (https://img0.reactor.cc/pics/post/full/The-SCP-Foundation-SCP-art-SCP-001-5316522.jpeg). There's more, but I couldn't find them in decent resolutions. Both are faceless, as is often the case for those who serve large institutions. This could be both to signify that they're not human, and a lack of individuality. In addition, this presumes that angels will even have a place within your game. What do you think?
Nice, a lot of this stuff is pretty far ahead of where I am currently lore-wise. I have vague ideas for religions, corruption, etc. The thing I've found for my development process is not to lock anything in until I'm actually working on it. So I have pages of notes and gigs of reference images for all sorts of things. But those ideas always evolve and get informed by other things - especially gameplay mechanics. There's a lot of times where there's this really cool idea but then translating that into concrete systems can be a challenge. Then it can be a balancing act of fitting the idea to the mechanics and vice versa. This all applies to the corruption stuff a lot because on the one hand it would be really cool to completely morph the player character over time but the reality of making that mechanic and making it work with all the current body types, armor types, animations, and stuff ends up being a mountain of work. But I'm still messing with lore ideas and a pantheon and what / how gods would look in game. I've been reading and listening to stuff about more pagan sorts of things and trying to absorb some of the ideas and concepts from those sources that I'm not so familiar with. It makes me think of Morrowind. Where the lore and the religion are tied into the world and feel really novel. I think that comes from the variety of sources the writers were drawing on to create that world. Then in Oblivion they seemed to limit their sources of inspiration down to only a few sources and the game is still fun but there isn't the same sense of exploring a new world. It's more the feeling of "oh this is familiar". lol, that's my rambling way of saying I don't know yet. I still have a lot of research and thinking to do before settling on how / why demons and religion work in game. My initial idea was just pull straight from Cthulhu mythos... do the otherworldly detached immortal beings that don't really notice humans at all. Alright, enough of my rambling, time for more coffee and back to work.