I got a bit of unexpected free time last night so I wanted to take the opportunity to show some of what's been added to the upcoming sandbox mode. The first of these is implemented in the main project itself, while the second is not since it is reliant on the pending shader updates. Work is still keeping me incredibly busy, leaving me anxious for a break next month to finally combine the two projects and make full use of the new shader.

First, I wanted to add a bit more realism to the waifus, so I've set it up so they can maintain eye contact when their head is not pointed directly towards the camera. Normally, I'd have done this using Unity's native IK targeting system, but since I am relying on blend shapes for all facial and eye expressions, I opted to use those instead so that eye contact can easily run in tandem with them. I did this by first calculating the difference in the angle of the waifu's head versus that of the camera, then applied blend shape weights responsible for controlling eye rotation to match. I'll need to make use of some animation curves to make the rotations a bit more accurate, but I'm happy with how it's turned out so far.

I also expanded on the IK look system that is used to keep the waifu's head pointed directly at the camera when enabled. By randomly setting an offset every once in a while, she will now turn her head slightly rather than constantly looking forward. The last new feature for eye contact was to randomly lower her eyes from time to time, implying that she is trying to sneak a peek at the player's business during gameplay. This all combines to produce the following, which when coupled with a new wind zone for the backyard, produces some nice results when using the photo shoot prop.

Lastly, I've been working on ensuring that all the lighting options I hope to have available are at least tested to the point that I can put a first draft in place once the main project has been updated to the new shader. The shader being used in the current version of the project has several limitations that the new shader does not, a main one being that it is limited to directional lights only; it does not work whatsoever with spotlights or point lights. If you've run playlist mode and noticed that it is not as performant as the dressing room, the reason for that is due to the ridiculous number of directional light and spotlight combinations required to produce the lighting for that scene. Since spotlights work on world geometry but not the waifu, each "spotlight" in that scene is using both an actual spotlight for the ground paired with its own directional light for mimicking a spotlight cast on the waifu. This will not be an issue once the new shader is leveraged, which frees me to use only a single directional light for outdoor lighting and the freedom to place a lot of actual spotlights and point lights in the scene without killing performance. This will be great for creating sunrise, sunset, and night configurations with things like walkway lights, pool lights, fireplaces, and more.

You can see in the video below that spotlights work pretty well with the new shader, even if there will be some tweaking needed before it can be considered complete. Unlike lighting in the current playlist mode scene, this spotlight is just a single light; there is no need to combine it with a directional light to achieve the final result. The new shader will not only produce more realistic lighting conditions and provide more lighting options, it will also make the shadows cast on props and other world geometry much more realistic, which is good news for anyone with even a halfway-decent GPU. On top of that, there are numerous other tricks I can use with the new shader that will help prevent skin clipping through underwear, allow for body oil and sweat, and a long list of other things that I am excited to share this coming fall. Point lights are only about halfway through initial setup at this point and will be shared once done, but the fact that point lights and spotlights work at all with this new shader is a huge improvement over what exists in the main project right now.

On a related note, since starting this devlog, I have realized that a photo shoot might be a better way to present waifu options rather than the dressing room that is currently in place. The next time I am free I will likely test out that idea, which should give everyone some more things to play around with, including these new eye contact features and either the phone camera or a full-screen one. I may even go so far as to add buttons for sharing the photos you take to social media directly from the game itself.

Until then, thank you to everyone for your support and patience as I progress when work affords me the ability to do so. All of this work will eventually come together into a major update in the form of sandbox mode being made available to those that have purchased the game.