Hello! I am Aurora Unit,
your personal artificial assistant.
Please wait while I calibrate your suit systems
All systems nominal!
Did you need something?
It's been a year since our last update?
Well, get ready for a whole lot of update!
By far the biggest critique of our previous video is Twilight.
modeled and rigged by Jeannot Landry,
she was the first of many renditions yet to come.
With the time and resources we had, she was sufficient for our purposes,
but far from final.
Since then,
we've worked hard to learn and adapt the styles
we love into a character we can all enjoy.
Having taken months to get here,
let us explain a little about why it took so long
and show you what goes into making our models...
AleChan: The first step in proper modelling is a good reference art.
This character art is key to working out the design requirements for our ponies.
Though things like anatomy are very important,
equally important or facial references in many poses.
This helps show what places need to bend and squish to get the expressiveness and look we desire...
Since 2019 JustAFallingStar has been the character artist for the game.
His style was the original inspiration for us,
as we love his cute yet practical anatomy.
As you can see his art is excellent, but we struggled to translate it into 3d,
something that required a lot of anatomy work and communication between
the producer artist and modeler.
I joined the team in October of 2020
with the purpose of filling that gap!
Quickly we started to redesign Twilight in a way that looked good in 3d
we spent about three weeks going back and forth as I practiced and worked on evolving Star's style,
until finally we were ready to go for the big leagues...
Aurora: Since the time of Jeannot we have gone through several modelers,
each of whom had their own strengths and weaknesses.
We wanted to have a "pony" modeler a person who would be able to judge the model as a brony
rather than one unfamiliar with the show,
but this of course was difficult to find...
Melvelvin: And that is where I come in.
With AleChan's extensive artwork ability,
and her ability to give in-depth critiques,
we quickly started remaking Twilight.
Many modelers before me had worked diligently to
capture the look and shape of the character,
yet without the aid of a character artist we weren't really able to refine the face enough to our liking.
See, there's a strong tradition of stylizing human anatomy in 3d,
but we're limited to really just a few examples for ponies,
which means we had to do quite a bit of novel work.
We had to go through several iterations
re-sculpting the mesh and making very fine changes in places
until we finally started to get comfortable.
Then came the challenge of rigging where we put the bones in the mesh to make it move
and it took awhile.
Let's just say that pony facial anatomy presents some "unique" challenges,
but eventually we were able to refine and tweak the system so that it worked properly...
most of the time...
But here we are!
Princess Twilight Primulaceae Fae as she will be...
for now...
Aurora: From inspiration,
to the drawing board of characters,
to the final rigging and animation of these models,
we're grateful for all the support you've given us!
Now with that out of the way we'd like to talk about the world these characters will be living in...
*beep beep*
which you just lost ^:)
Game design is a complex and new frontier, an art and a science.
For a team to successfully create a game that plays well,
lots of planning is required.
Our past two years have been spent in what's called "pre-production."
Here we write the story,
make game design documents,
draft out levels and bosses,
design and test mechanics,
and overall make a sturdy foundation for the game as a whole.
Without the foundational structure of pre-production things become disorganized.
It's like trying to build a skyscraper with no plans;
sure it's possible,
but halfway through you could discover a fatal flaw in your design,
and you'll either have to destroy the whole structure and start over properly
or freeze development altogether,
a state that drives most teams into development hell.
With pre-production we avoid this,
and are not ashamed to spend as much time as we need in it to get things done right.
As for the game itself, it's currently in its Alpha build.
Mostly consisting of a set of test rooms with toys and mechanics to play with,
it acts as a platform that allows us to make sure the game we're designing
is not only a good one but possible in execution.
Things like level loading,
persistent enemies,
spinning horses,
and that guy over there...
he kind of just does his thing.
Sentinel3RA: None of this of course accurately depicts the scope of this game.
Dimensional Shift's story has been the subject of much debate and hard work since The Arrival,
and this is translated into what this writer hopes is a delicate interweaving of plot, character, and gameplay.
Much has changed for the better during the time we've spent in pre-production,
enough that we're confident we can move into the next phase of development:
The Beta
With two years of pre-production under our belt we're ready to start our first major build: "The Beta"
Situated in the Avalon,
this will be the first minor level of the game,
and Lord willing, as legitimate towards the final game as possible.
We'll still continue developing other major parts of the game in pre-production,
as we're far from finished,
but this will be released for free to the public as soon as it's done!
When will it be done?
And why all this wait?
Well, to explain that we must talk about a serious topic:
our finances.
Saphire: A year ago we made a promise to
"refuse to let any of them work without pay nor
do we move ahead with tasks until we know we can fund them,"
and this statement still rings true today.
Up until June of last year we funded the project almost completely out of pocket,
paying our teammates and purchasing hardware and assets for the game.
Soon we gained very generous supporters on Patreon and elsewhere
who, as of today, donate a combined seven hundred and ninety dollars a month to us, which we're so thankful for.
But it's time for some serious numbers:
Last year we spent about twelve thousand seven hundred and thirty-six dollars,
with about seventy-five percent of the funds going towards teammates,
and had an income of about ten thousand two hundred and fifty-seven dollars,
split almost 50 50 between Vortex and Patreon.
That's about one thousand dollars a month in expenses,
but in reality 2020 only had about six months of major work,
the creation of The Arrival video,
with the rest being more spread out.
All of these numbers are quite average for an indie studio,
and we're very thankful and grateful for the generosity of you all in the community who helped this whole project come together!
Recently, though, things have been tight.
Because of some hard stuff in real life,
we've had to rely on the patrons quite a bit.
This means we have to divide up payments over weeks or months
which takes time and can prevent us from moving forward with other things that require more immediate payments.
We can proceed by all means, thanks to very generous teammates willing to wait on payment,
but this also puts a limit on who we can hire to the team.
Vortex: In the past we were able to afford relatively skilled artists to do the things we needed,
but this is difficult now that we must more tightly manage our budget.
We may not be able to afford paying many artists up front as we used to, so
we're in a tough spot where we have to look for artists willing to do work that can exactly be paid for at the moment
and to ask them to do the work as well as they can.
So to answer when will get done, that really depends on the support we can get.
It can get done without extra support for sure,
we'll still use our own finances when we can,
but of course it's much easier with the support of our generous donors like our patrons on Patreon and Liberapay,
something we're very thankful for.
Saphire: As we said a year ago, game design takes a lot of time and effort,
and it is only by the generosity of those on the team
and supporters around the world that this project keeps going on!
So we thank you for it,
all of it!
And if you feel like you want to contribute,
we will be eternally grateful,
no matter how large or small it is! ❤
Aurora: With that being said we're hiring!
We need creature modelers,
hard surface sci-fi modelers and designers for levels, objects, and spaceships,
a sci-fi armor modeler,
a HUD designer,
two male voice actors,
a pr manager capable of creating quality video content,
and a particle effects designer!
Check the document below for the requirements of each position and availability,
and for how to apply!
We'll be needing all of these positions in varying degrees for the next several months,
so don't be scared to apply even a bit late!
We also of course have our public Discord server,
where you can come and relax and get exclusive news on the game,
and don't forget,
for just one dollar
you can get news at the end of each week for all the happenings of the project!
Thank you all so much for waiting to the end of this update.
It's been a wild year, and we're looking and hoping towards a bright future!
We thank all of our patrons and supporters,
from platform
to platform,
for your generous love and support.
And above all we thank God for His blessings upon this project
and the grace and mercy He lavishes on us every day to keep on!
You all have a good night!
You're still here?
Well good!
We'll be hosting a live Q&A on 4chan, Reddit, and Discord
in voice and text!
You can ask any questions you want,
except for super spoilers.
Hope to (see) you there!
May the Lord bless all of you in His Glory!