#instead of brain there is manticore and matrix math

[gubbles-owo]

Looking forward to Super Manticore Ball coming from the marble experiment. "Hold still to become invisible" would even work well as an integral mechanic!

keeping the marble still... in a marble maze game.... the ultimate test of skill, on god..., Y'know, I haven't really thought about the context of marble game much yet. Right now it's just a wooden board with a metal marble (the reflective metal is just an excuse to get away with a single billboarded sprite :3c), but it'd be cool to switch up the context... maybe it's an intricate key to unlocking a device, or perhaps you're just rolling a pillbug around in a shoebox. Typically I'll go into something with a pretty solid idea of how I want to present it, but since the aim largely amounts to a vague "get a Thing working on the N64", I haven't really given the presentation much thought. The only question in my mind as of late is "how in the h*ck do i handle collision" (there's no "game engine" here so I get to figure out how to program that from scratch, yay yippee!!) Similarly I also haven't thought much about the end goal of the Manticore model... again it's primarily an exercise to learn how to model a character that looks halfway decent. I've got OCs, sure, but no visual reference for them (at least I can't draw much myself nor afford commissions of em atm). And god the visual reference helps soooo so much when it comes to working out the shape of a thing in 3D space. So the ongoing hyperfixation brainrot of a particular Arknights character-- one that has both official reference art and a bunch of fanart-- seemed like a natural choice of subject xD

But if I can be brutally real about it... I don't think the model is gonna suit itself to *actually* run well on the N64. It's still fairly dense in terms of tri count, especially in the head/face area, like augh look how much is going on here. And for the love of all that is unholy I do not know how to model low poly hair. It's either an awkward clump of too much geometry-- something more reminiscent of 6th gen than 5th-- or it looks real flat and lifeless, with that perfect middle ground always escaping my grasp. Maybe someday I'll crack that code, but I have the sneaking suspicion that the character has to be designed with these limitations in mind from the outset. or maybe that's just an excuse for not knowing much lol I could potentially slap her in marble game if I can manage to think up a context that works... I'll have to let my brain sit on the whole presentation thing while I whittle away at optimizations and physics nonsense. Mark my words, whatever I wind up doing with the Manticore model... it's gonna be yuri.

#ough that sure is a wall of text alright #uuhhhuhh how does tagging work again #ask #gubdev #uhhhhhhh #instead of brain there is manticore and matrix math