Hey everyone~ There is much to report!
 
The next experimental build will be posted shortly, but for now, let's get right into the news.

These last few weeks my primary focus has been finalization of the player skeleton so that sandbox development may resume. This finalization process did result in a little model revision... which snowballed into a lot of model revisions following our discussions in the ol' Discord server.

We’ll begin with the most glaring change. The head and face have been completely remodeled.

Larger eyes, improved facial structure, and supple lips with improved topology for animating.

The consensus so far is that this is a notable improvement over the previous iteration. Admittedly, after staring at the previous face for so long, the new one has taken some getting used to. That said, the new look has grown on me. It edges away from realism and leans into the realm of style. I like where it's headed. Be sure to let me know what you think~

Moving swiftly on, since I cleaned up the face, I couldn’t stop there. As if led by my own mania, I became absorbed in cleaning up the rest of the body and ironing out the mesh geometry. The goal was to further improve upon the model topology so that animations moving forward are cleaner. I believe I have achieved this. All the outfit components were adjusted to fit, and in testing the movement is better than before.

Speaking of outfits, I remodeled the player shorts, shirt, socks and boots. I wanted to go for a more fantasy aesthetic with the boots. I also modeled up a set of underwear for the player.

After the male base outfit is sorted I'll begin creating a Meido starter outfit to pair with the cuteness curse. Maids are cute, right?

All hair models required revision to fit the new head shape. During this process I implemented the basics of our modular hair framework, and made substantial advancements with hair physics. Most styles and attachments are now physics enabled. A few remain which require physics to be applied or re-applied due to instability. Just a few kinks in the process which will be buffed out.

So, how does this modular hair system work? As outlined in the roadmap, we have begun with modular buns and ponytails. Of our base hairstyles, four of them have been set up with modular attachments. These styles have been marked with a purple background. Of the four, the first two allow for twin attachment points, so you can have twin buns or twintails. The second two have a rear attachment point, allowing for the attachment of various ponytails and buns.

I quite like this system as the addition of new attachments or bases exponentially increase the number of potential styles to choose from.

To close on the topic of hair, one last thing I’d like to discuss is the inclusion of a “Conceal Ears” toggle. This has been added exclusively for the Magus race and serves two purposes. Firstly, their ears are short enough such that one could argue Magus can hide their ears behind their hair. In some cases this is a desired “look”, so the option is there.  
Secondly, since our kemonomimi races are anatomically correct, there is hair in places where ears would normally be expected to stick out. This means that in the case of Magus, their ears will almost always end up clipping through the hairstyles. This is predominantly an issue for styles which are short on the sides. In future, I intend to resolve this by designing base variants which take into consideration non-kemonomimi ear placement.

Sandbox development has sort of kicked back off again. I’ve added player movement (walk, run and jump). Last post I mentioned I’d like to get leg IK working. This process ensures our legs position themselves correctly depending on the terrain beneath them, so when a player walks on stairs, their feet connect with the individual steps rather than clipping through them. Or, if the player happens to be standing on uneven terrain, their feet would remain planted on the ground beneath them (as opposed to having one foot hover or another foot clip). It’s one of those overlooked details which has a big impact, and I just love the look of it when it works.

I've included some earlier test footage of the legs in motion below. Note, this was recorded before the face and body update, so it looks a little different to the image above.

 Later I’d like to add turn based tilt for run animations. I ran some quick tests earlier. Didn’t work so well. There are several more aspects to movement and control which I should really square away first, so we’ll return to that little detail another time.

Finally, I’ve added a pose system to the player which handles pose animations in the character creator. It’s now only a matter of loading the system up with pose animations and adding the ability to switch poses on UI. I figure it will also find use in a future photo mode.

Some other changes and additions of note.

 ◉ Audio Updates 

◉ Added choice portrait for [Broken]
◉ Shrunk and symmetrized limiter seal texture for the player mesh 
◉ Eye Updates 

◉ Credits page update

One final plug. If you’re not already on the Discord server I would recommend checking it out and joining in on the chit chat. I post updates in the #arkavite channel frequently as developments are developed, so if you ever want see all this unfold in real time or shout at me directly, that's the place to be!

This weekend I will be putting together a basic sandbox map, modelling up some dicks and porting over the character description parser. I would also like to add the basic “player archetype" selection screen to the character creator, but that will depend on available time. In the new week I'll be jumping between working on the male base, implementing choice functions, and beginning a port of our old inventory system.

And that is all for now. Thank you all for following along. Be sure to let me know your thoughts, and I hope you all have a wonderful day.

Till the next one~