It has been over 3 weeks since our last blog and a lot of things have happened since then. Many of these things aren’t directly related to the development of Fragments of Him but we would like to share the moments that are. Here is a run-down of some of these highlights.

Progress

We have started a period with a new couple of interns who have been absolutely great so far. Kaylee Mulder has been taking over the character art department on Fragments of Him and is doing very nice job. Maik Bentlage is also doing a wonderful job with developing a key location in the game. Starting last month, we now adopt a method of weekly milestones with intermediate progress checkups. This is proving to be rather successful from a production point of view. It provides the team with a clear, self-imposed, goal to achieve for each week whilst getting feedback on fixed moments. It helps to get the right amount of iterations in and creates leaps in progress. In terms of development on Fragments of Him we have finally reached a golden thread in the story. This means that we can, with more certainty, undertake production steps with less worry about cutting a lot of work. With that being said we are planning to do a motion capture session pretty soon to get a large chunk of all the animations recorded.

Shaders

In the meanwhile, we have also created a shader using Shader Forge that enables us to drive the variables that we need. To illustrate this you can look at the difference in the results below. On the left is the default material that Unity gives us that makes use of diffuse, specular, and normal maps. On the right hand side we have the same maps with increased performance, better colour control, full range in specular intensity and glossiness control, Fresnel intensity and colour control, and the ability to make it transparent and opaque. Additionally, we now have a skin shader that makes the skin for our intended look behave better when subjected to shadows at an improved performance. With simpler terms you could say it just makes things look prettier.

Indigo 2014

Last week we have also been at Indigo 2014 to give people the opportunity to play the prototype that forms the foundation for the full game. The responses from peers and players have once again been very positive and wonderful. This edition of Indigo marked a lustrum with it being the fifth edition. With 32 games of notable quality available to be played at the event you can say that our industry is definitely moving forward. The first day had a recorded attendance of over 600 visitors. That same evening was reserved for press and industry professionals which also resulting in quite a crowd. The second, and also last day, also brought in a good number of new faces although was not as well visited as the day before. We are very happy to have been able to allow so many people experience Fragments of Him and would like to thank the Dutch Game Garden for selecting our game to be part of this catalogue of titles. Thank you for sticking around with us for this blog. Follow us on Twitter @SassyBotStudio or leave a message on our Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/SassyBotStudio if you want to get in touch.