[Development] Zurizuri Gets An Upgrade!

Hey y'all,

The Zurizuri Engine is getting a much needed upgrade this month! Yay! ^^

I put a few hacked and isolated tests together last month to figure out what was needed before trying to put it into Zurizuri. 

Previously I could aggressively make changes at each new chapter. But since we combined all the Chapters under one game, changes are a little more delicate. So I need to make sure that Paizuri University isn’t going to break or behave badly when I start poking, pulling things out, and slamming new things in... ... ...

... And so far, the upgrade is moving along nicely.

Here are the upgrades so far.

Character Avatar System

The Character Avatar System got a total rewrite. It now has support for Shader Effects, Animated Avatars, and has some new Z-Script commands to give us even more control.

Shader Effects

We can now use Shader Effects on characters for fading in and out with a special effect, or even just applying an effect to help with Dialogue. And the great thing is, it’s super easy!

The example shows a basic blur effect being applied to the Kareen in the middle.

Animated Avatars

We now have support to display animated characters~! This means we’ll be able to make avatars have a bit more life with little animations or even full animation! (if we had the time to do full animations v_v).

The animated character in the example is from the Live2D Unity SDK for testing purposes.

Background System

The background system can now support transitions and special effects using Shaders.

Transitions

The transition system got a total rewrite, replacing the old one. It now uses shaders to get the job done, and like the Shader Effects for Characters, adding new ones is super easy.

Special Effects

We can use shaders on backgrounds to do crazy things too!

LIGHTNING! *kla plow*

What’s next?

Next I need to add support for Character Avatars with Props. For example, having Kareen with wings without having to redo all of Kareen’s avatars with wings on them. It’s going to be a little tricky to setup, but I’m hoping not too tricky. *fingers crossed*

I also have to add scrolling backgrounds and scenes. This will let us do different sized backgrounds and add support for panning scenes related to adventure mode. This is also a little tricky to do. *more fingers crossed*

There may also be a few bugs that need to be fixed as the new systems get used more too.

Something else I'm also investigating is Live2D, to see how we can use it for animating characters. I don’t think we’re ever going to get the time to create fully animated characters, but we’re hoping it’ll solve some limitations with what we’re doing with animations in Unity. We also have to learn how to Live2D… so... baby steps!

Hope y’all enjoyed that. I know, my posts need more boobs, but Buka Chan should be providing some to Patrons soon. ; )

~ Zuri Sama ~