Greetings all! I’m just about to release the next update to Flex, and wanted to give you a quick overview of what new features to expect in the December build.
Extreme Sliders
I really couldn’t think of a better name, though there probably is one. This feature was originally suggested in the discussion forum, and for a while I was under the impression there was a technical limitation preventing it. But a little research later, and after an update to the engine, voila! Extreme Sliders became a thing!
So what, you might ask, is an extreme slider? Well it’s basically the ability to crank any slider past its natural min and max values. This has some obvious benefits for things like lighting intensity, etc. But things get pretty wacky, and amazing, when you introduce this to the body modification.
I think you should probably be the judge of how wacky. https://imgur.com/rIA93nk
I can’t imagine what horrific creatures you could create with this new feature. I’ll let your dark imaginations be the guide. But I beg of you, please post your grotesque creations in the community pages on Steam, and elsewhere on the internet. I don’t even care if you don’t give credit to Flex (though, it would be cool if ya did;), I just feel like the world needs to see your monstrous twisting of normalcy into the nightmare inducing creatures born of darkness and terror.
Ok, that got a little Lovecraftian for a second. Really, though, you can make some meme-level shenanigans, so have at it!
One important thing to note, to open up the extreme slider simply click and hold on any normal slider in the UI and it will pop up.
Undo/Redo
This feature isn’t quite as glamorous but is pretty handy. I’m not really sure it’s been worth the development hours, but I started it a while back and so I wanted to see it through to completion.
Most of the structure of the app is built on a message system, passing data from the UI through a switchboard type system to modify the character or other elements. This isn’t a bad way to have built it, it’s pretty lightweight and easy to quickly add more customizations.
The one benefit (and hence the pre-amble) is that recording a history of the character’s creation is as simple as recording snapshots of each action, and simply reversing that data, rather than the entire character’s data. Meaning each snapshot is very lightweight, as in bytes of data.
This means that there isn’t really any undo limit history, which is great. The downside is that there is the possibility of the character and the user interface getting out of sync. So I’ve been testing every corner of the app to try to iron out these issues. I don’t expect to have caught them all, so if you notice something not working properly, just shoot me a message!
Here’s a boring gif of things being Undo’d. https://imgur.com/sBke10H
Other Stuff…
In other news, Hotkeys! I’ve started to integrate hotkey commands to help speed up working with the app. The full list is below, but it’s just a start! If you have ideas for hotkeys, or feedback on mappings, please leave comments in the discussion, or send me a PM!
Finally, I’ve put in some nifty tools for cinematographers who want to use Flex as a storyboard tool. I have some friends in film that were requesting some framing guides (rule of thirds, etc) and letterboxing to different aspect ratios (emulating wide screen, etc). https://imgur.com/0TwG4j1
So, to wrap up, progress is good! I’ll be out of town for a much needed break over the holidays. If you run into any issues let me know and I’ll be able to look into fixes when I get back in town.
As always, thanks for all your comments and support. I’m really looking forward to seeing what you all make with this next build of Flex!