Re:Focused v011

Welcome explorers! With another month behind us, we are finally getting Sapphire Safari closer to our imagined game, how exciting! This month we had a focus on fixing a lot of the feedback that was building up over the last couple of releases. A great way to clean up before 2023 really starts.

Camera camera camera!

A big piece of feedback was around our control scheme for camera functions, like zoom, focus, etc. The issue was that having a manual focus required, well, buttons. The previous system allowed us to move a line along a pathway so naturally, a scroll wheel made the most sense. What resulted was a very confusing and time-consuming way to get nice photos. To fix this we took the opportunity to swap over to the cine camera system within Unreal Engine 5.1, which looks a lot nicer but comes with an implementation cost.

Along with the cine camera, we also added autofocus. All you need to do is watch the monster girl through the viewfinder and the focus will automatically be pulled, it leads to some amazing shots. Though right now it's a little wonky with how it works along with the presentation of it all.

We also swapped over the main POV camera to cine as well, so it might feel a little different to move around the world. It is something we will be tweaking in the future.

AI overhauled once again

We have finally finished our move over to State Tree based AI for Sapphire. Currently, the AI has a primary focus of fleeing from the player once spotted based on sight, however, scattered around the game world are special Smart Objects the AI can occupy based on their needs. So if a character is thirsty, they will seek out Smart Objects that can add more thirst to their needs. This system will extend to sexual actions (like say a plant Smart Object for cunnilingus). Still in its infancy but the start of a great system for sure.

There have been quite a few other features added to this build, stuff like physics being reenabled, spawning tweaks, and such. Overall this should not change your enjoyment of the game.

Changelog v011

• Camera swap from game cam to cine cam
• Added camera autofocus
• Moved camera and character tagging from Named Tags to Hierarchal GameplayTags
• Moved to state tree based AI
• Adjusted AI Spawns
• Implemented new AI interaction system (Smart Objects): Shower, Hot spring Lounging, Closed Sitting, Drink ground water ( 2 versions)
• Adjusted character physics to combat physics sleep/freezing
• Fixed physics being disabled on characters
• Simplified spawn region blocker search. This should reduce the initial map load time
• Simplified AI material randomization. Should reduce spawn hitching

In the next build we will be back to 100% dev speed so expect some exciting things!

Cheers,
Kinky