Finally an update. After about 3 months of work, new character models are brought to Kingdom Chess. It couldn't be updated earlier because changes affected some core mechanics, so all old models needed to be replaced. This month some minor improvements should be made (hair models, inventory icons, item values, item drop models, monuments) along with creation of new models (bandits, villagers).
Here is summary of the improvements:
- More detail has been added. Base model has been rebuilt several times. Now it has about 3-4 times more triangles. Shoulders and hips are now properly connected with torso. All the body parts has been shaped look more like human but it's still very blocky as intended.
- All the previous models have been replaced (pawn, rook, knight, bishop, queen king and jester). 3 new models have been made (cannon, phoenix and elephant). Thanks the feedback received before, now it should easier to distinguish different pieces on the board.
- Skeleton adjustments have been made for the models to deform better. Also corrective bones have been added in few places and animations has been reloaded.
- Models are now properly divided for customization purposes. Before I could only add extra models on top of existing ones which was very limiting. Now body parts can be replaced in 4 areas: chest, legs, head and hands.
- Characters have been optimized in few areas. Materials have been put together into atlases to reduce draw calls. Separate body parts are merged into single models. Animations are optimised to reflect visibility and distance from camera. All that together allowed to increase performance by about 30 fps on my computer (standard setup with 32 characters).
- All the weapons have been corrected, to match new character models.
- It's now fully implemented into the game so everything works properly with all systems updated.
