Project MTP dev log (March - June 2023)

2023-03-26 Got gltf model loading working again

2023-04-07 Lighting work start

Previously, the engine had no lighting at all and I’ve never implemented any lighting/shadow system before.

2023-04-07 Shadow mapping

Implemented shadow mapping. However, it only worked for one directional light (point lights were much trickier and supporting multiple shadow casting lights was very difficult and done later). Also a look at how my dev tools looked at the time.

2023-05-13 Skeletal animation and physics

I used assimp in the first iteration of the engine which made skeletal animations easy to load. However, I wanted more control over how everything loaded, so I used tinygltf and had to write a lot of code to get animation working again.

2023-06-15 Cat appears

Inspired by Cat Soup and Cookie’s Bustle, I came up with this cat character for the potential game. Here’s some concept art I drew:

2023-06-24 Cat model

Cat model, first iteration. I almost lost it when the Blender crashed after several hours of work (I don’t remember why I never saved before, never do this!), but thankfully a recover file survived. I don’t believe I could make such a nice model again, so I’m happy that it survided.

Also implemented chromatic aberration and film grain. You will see it on many screenshots from now on. I think it gives the game a nice “analog” quality, which I like.

2023-06-24 Cascaded shadow maps

2023-06-24 Dialogues and going to different levels

Implemented basic walking/character rotation. Also you can now speak with NPCs and go to different levels.