Weekly review #6

Hi folks! This week we spent some time doing paperwork and attending different meetings, but we also got to work on the building editor and its objects and textures. We'll tell you all about it!

Files and applications

As we had already mentioned, if we know well the creation of video games, the creation of a company is less part of our skills. Since we want to create our own video game studio (which involves creating a company, as well as producing and distributing our games on different platforms), we need help and advice on these areas. In November 2022, we joined the Inria Startup Studio, which is a first significant help for all these elements.

However, we are still looking for other complementary help (incubators, grants), which can help us on other aspects of business creation, help with the hosting of the future company (once we leave Inria), as well as allow us to get the necessary funds to continue the development of the game (in addition to the crowd-funding you can join on Patreon).

So we spent a lot of time this week on these points, we won't tell you more for the moment (until we have answers), but having access to different incubators and programs could be an inestimable help for the future!

Modeling and editor

We've resumed work on the building editor (which is one of the most complex parts of the game), and we've added several useful features, such as filtering objects by tags, a better placement system, as well as new objects for rooms, and children's toys. Nous avons également continué l'intégration des objets sur les murs courbes.

We'll show you a first sneak peek of all these new features very soon!

Textures and materials

At the time of VirtualSociety Online, we used very few textures because of the constraints of a browser-based game (in order to limit the weight of the game to the slowest internet connections). Now we can afford to use many textures to define the way materials react to light (details, reflections, etc.). We will probably do a more in-depth article on this subject.

We've been designing and preparing a lot of materials this week, which you'll be able to see very soon in the upcoming previews of new features in our building editor. Our goal is to have a consistent and complete collection of materials and patterns that can be reused in the object predefined styles.

We can't wait to show you more! Thanks for your support, and see you next week.