Before we get started:
Firstly if this project interests you then please Follow us either here or at www.Aquars.co.uk for updates.
If you could help spread the word via sharing this post or anything else we’d greatly appreciate it! Not only for exposure, but we’re going to need testers!
Lastly if you feel extra passionate about the project, please consider supporting us over at Patreon!
Just knowing people are interested is a huge boost mentally, and if you want to fuel us with caffeine to boost us physically then all the better!
(In all seriousness, the money is for extra assets to speed up our workflow and server costs...).
There are rewards over there too such as being the first to play, creating a weapon for the game or simply being in the credits~<3
Discord:
I was going to save this as a reward tier for Patreon but the more the merrier! Join us on Discord: https://discord.gg/WZnf3R2
If you’re new here then let me explain Aquars!
Aquars is a colorful paint-based 4v4 online shooter.
Players takes sides with 1 of 2 species then battle it out over new territories in a multitude of game modes.
Player characters are customizable with clothes, weapons and hairstyles, and get their own apartment to decorate.
Along with online battles, the hub-world itself is connected online allowing you to socialise with other players, shop together, visit the arcade and even visit each others apartments.
Those who’ve been following along with us from the start, here’s what’s new:
Characters:
As I’m sure you can tell from the images, @nimadoodlez has been hard at work finalising our character models and bringing them from our original low-poly idea to current-gen specs. They’re now complete and I couldn’t be happier with them!
She’s also created some artwork that you can see at the top of the post, designed a few weapons (featured in the artwork!) AND created the first item of in-game clothing, a Donut Bikini.
With the character models complete I’ve been able to start coding the character customiser that’ll make sure everyone sees your character’s customisation online.
Visuals:
I’ve been hard at work moving the project over to Unity 5.6 as it offers a much improved lighting system along with post-processing effects. The result is what you see above, pretty impressive global illumination and bounce lighting!
I’ve also added generated clouds to the sky to make the world a little more believable and got some nice water effects for our first battle stage.
Shaders:
I’ve completely re-wrote the paint shader for the FINAL final time!
For the nerds out there, a single paintable area can use a single 128x128px texture, and uses a single color channel (plus alpha). The shader colorizes the paint, generates normals & shadows and animates the surface.
This is a lot more efficient than writing to separate textures, and combined with an updated paint engine painting is super smooth.
I also modified the fur shader for the players so we can “mask” the fur, preventing it from rendering where it’ll be covered by clothing.
Environment:
I’ve been hard at work creating misc models for use around the cities and stages, everything from shop-fronts to paving slabs. They’re all textured using PBR techniques which is new for me but much faster than previous texturing methods. You might be able to make a few of the models out in the pictures.
The city has been a major issue for me but I’m happy to say I’ve finally come up with a design I love! It may look simple right now as I block things out, but the finished version will have lots to do and places to explore. Here’s a view from the train station:
Here’s a quick look at the “interest” mechanic.
Things in the players environment can grab their characters attention.
There’s not much use to this, it just adds a little interactivity and makes them even more adorable!
In addition to all of this we’ve explored a few new mechanics for the players, a few alternate game modes, improved the character controller and squished a few bugs with it, reworked the gun system, figured out inverse kinematics for the tails AND worked on a new website;
Check out Aquars.co.uk, our official homepage!
It’s a work in progress but it’s well on it’s way.
I’ll be posting news over there in the Dev Blog.
I’ll continue to post on Tumblr too with links to the corresponding site post in case you want to interact with us there.
It offers a few advantages over Tumblr as it allows you to comment and give us feedback and ideas, and allows me to post larger gifs and files.
As always, thanks for following our progress!
