Hi all,
This post will attempt to clarify all questions related to the upcoming introduction of akeytsu Indie 2021 and the release of our last major update this year. Although things are not set in stone for 2021 and we have no definite roadmap for that year it will also touch on the main development areas, how we'll go about running this devs and perhaps most importantly for the community how we'll communicate on our progress.
2020.3 Major Update
We are currently all hands on deck to get version 2020.3 released by end of the month. Believe us when we say no time is spared to make this happen and it isn’t short of challenges.
Contrary to what was highlighted on the shop presentation page at some point it was decided that all 2020.3.X updates will be made available to akeytsu Indie 2020 users to reward early adopters for upgrading from akeytsu Indie 2017, ease the transition to an annual release and make up for what some, and for the right reasons, saw as a lack of proper communication on our side.
Feature-wise our priorities are to ship
- Space Switching (Dynamic Parenting) which will enable an object to change space across a single animation and will let you animate character props with a lot more ease by binding it to world or a joint of interest such as a given hand in the case of a weapon.
- What’s internally known at Nukeygara as Global IK which will provide you with an additional tool to better manage the behavior of a given IK-chain across multiple layers and let you decide whether IK should have priority over certain layers or the opposite.
Both these features are highly technical and require us, at a very low level in the code, to augment our engine with new concepts or protocols to keep akeytsu the way it is: simple and user-friendly. It's often hard to grasp but some of akeytsu most potent innovations are hidden under-the-hood so that the user doesn't have to worry about it
This requires us to consider a great number of use cases so that everything works like a charm. For this reason we've decided to postpone some of what was announced on the roadmap to a later date namely Looker, Roll joints and Meta-controllers (although no one really knows what these are at this point because it's our little secret).
Some of these may or may not come by end of this year at which point they'll be patched as a 2020.3.X update. We want to reassure you that we are not holding on to anything that’s ready for obscure reasons. If anything we are actually developing "just-in-time” to make the most of it. And this of course, as some of you know, can be a lot of stress on a dev team.
akeytsu Indie 2021
The akeytsu Indie 2021 product will be released on Steam together with 2020.3 with exactly the same price as akeytsu Indie 2017 (now delisted) and 2020. This product will be patched with 2021 updates until akeytsu Indie 2022 releases end of next year.
A loyalty offer to upgrade from akeytsu Indie 2020 to 2021 will be put in place as soon as possible. Please bear in mind that COVID-19 has slowed down operations for a lot of people including Valve so this may take a bit of time but will be arranged eventually.
More importantly there will be opportunities to upgrade from 2017 to 2020 and 2020 to 2021 at discounted price during either or both Autumn and Winter sales depending on how fast all can be set up. There will be no direct bridge from akeytsu Indie 2017 to 2020. I'm not at liberty to tell discount rates and exact dates for these sales according to Valve policies but be on the look-out for them. Every user counts and we want you guys to embark on a journey with us. Patience is a virtue and those who bear with us will be rewarded.
In terms of content, our roadmap for 2021 will be available by beginning of next year and while it's too soon to get into specifics I can already tell you a little more about what's currently brewing in our minds. Obviously one thing we want to offer is more “smart” constraints just like we have for IK and RF. We want to improve in-app discovery and accessibility to reduce friction when switching over from another app. We'd also like to facilitate the import and tweaking of mocap assets in akeytsu while staying true to our keyframing spirit. Finally we want to add more interface options to make akeytsu even more relevant for professional use.
Feel free to discuss these in the comment as we ARE reading everything and hear your concerns although we don't always answer.
Roamdap, Community & Communication
We have also noticed that the way we built our roadmap did not let us have enough maneuverability with development and created frustrations among users for wrong reasons. While we absolutely want to bring in more into akeytsu we need to be able to pilot either time, content or quality. Quality is not an option for us as our basic promise is – simply put – “to do it better”. The way we wrote our 2020 roadmap was interpreted as a full-on commitment on both content and time.
From that point onwards we kind of brought doom on ourselves for the whole of 2020 as it always turns out to be a steeper slope to climb when you start climbing. We are still proud and satisfied, in that turn of event, to be in a position where we should deliver 80% of what was initially written with 2020.3 on a modest team (of remarkably skilled and passionate people) compared to other big players. Of course, we'll keep on aiming for 100% and will get better at it with more time and experience.
We understand that people are expecting a lot of akeytsu. If anything that's kind of a good sign. We also appreciate that one needs visibility if one is going to purchase based on the promise of future updates. We'll still plan for several major updates next year that we will let you know about in the form of a roadmap as soon as things are better shaped out.
That being said and in order to keep things manageable internally, we’ll change the way we design our roadmap along with production methods. For each update package, our 2021 roadmap will sanctify one Feature that will be our absolute priority. And while we’ll still have internal launch windows for each version, we will refrain from sharing them so as to not be deceptive when we have to postpone by a week or so to make sure it's ready.
Finally there will be a list of Feature Candidates that will be shared along Priority Features. These Feature Candidates may or may not find their way into akeytsu Indie 2021 depending on production impediments BUT we'll aim for roughly 70% of it to be delivered before akeytsu Indie 2021 launches on Steam.
Final words
We think that this is the best compromise we can offer and we hope that you'll find it agreeable. Feel free to let us know your thoughts and list what you’d like to see put as Priority Features or Feature Candidates. More than anything we hope that you'll be willing to keep on animating in akeytsu and help us build a tool that will unleash both aspiring and savvy animators. Feel free to share
We wish you the best in these very challenging times,
- The Nukeygara Team