Hello, Quilters!
As you know, in Quilts & Cats of Calico, besides addictive gameplay, the cats are the most important for us. We wanted you to be able to create the most unusual kitties (sometimes even other species) and recreate your real live feline companions who are close to your hearts.
In today's Kitty Diary, we would like to introduce you to the process of creating a cat editor from the perspective of our 3D Artist/Animator Maks, and 2D Artist/Animator Monika, whose work (among others) you can see and experience using cat editor. Read how they created cat models and accessories, the colors and textures of cat fur, and the introduction of broad color palettes that allow you to create all those unique kitties.
Monika, on creating fur patterns:
The cat editor underwent many changes over the months. Originally, we didn't know if we would be able to provide players with extended customization options. Therefore, in the beginning, many ready-made fur patterns were created, exclusively in natural colors. Many of them were precursors to what is now in the game because based on those patterns, masks (masks in Photoshop work as kind of stencils and are made and implemented from Adobe Substance Painter) used in the game were created. It had its limitations, since, as I mentioned, we only considered natural colors and natural patterns. So, there was no purple raccoon, a cat with a moon on its forehead, or a cat that has both dots and stripes on its fur and looks like someone spilled markers on it.
However, manual fur coloring allowed for a much wider range of colors. Furs could have gradients, could be two-colored, and the lighting could be enriched with other shades, instead of just black and white at different % as light and shadow.
Currently, it works on a completely different principle. Despite predefined patterns being a pretty good system, the creator that allows rich customization is much cooler than the one we had. The fur creation process is also completely different now. The texture now determines the fur texture, where shades of gray determine which elements should be light and which dark. We also have separately the inner ears, nose, and paw pads, so the player can color these elements freely. However, all patterns are black-and-white masks, where the white color determines what will actually be colored. Such solutions allow for creating a realistic cat that one might have at home, as well as a rainbow alien.
Creating textures itself wasn't a challenge. Of course, there were more troubling moments where we had to decide exactly what would end up in the game, but I would say that creating the cat editor as a, working, coherent whole was the biggest challenge we faced. In the beginning, we didn't really know what options we had; there were dreams and ambitions, but there were also frustrations, and its concept could evolve from day to day (when we thought we couldn't add a color wheel, the next day the color wheel appeared in the project :)).
Maks, on creating cat models and accessories:
The cat model itself was originally created for animation purposes. Of course, there were considerations about adding the possibility of creating custom cats even then, but it wasn't clear at that time what it would involve. Only loose assumptions such as the need to edit the cat model to "some" extent, change textures, and so on. So, I kept that in mind, but it was still waiting to be determined. I must admit that when I started working on the editor, it dawned on me that I should devote more computational power of my mind to think about the editor in the context of what I can do to best prepare the model before adding the skeleton, weights, and animations. Fortunately, the blend shape function is incredibly flexible and powerful, which allowed me to achieve a very satisfactory effect (despite the greater workload).
The process of adding blend shapes or pose morphs, as this function is called in the program I use - Cinema 4D, is quite simple. For the cat model itself and each of the additional objects such as both eyeballs and the tongue, a tag called Pose Morph is added. It allows for "virtual" editing of the model on many planes, such as position, UV maps, or points (vertexes). The last option is the one we use because it allows editing the model at the level of individual points, which is the most basic because each polygon consists of four points connected to each other.
When we virtually edit the model in Cinema 4D, the state of the model at the time of assigning the Pose Morph tag is saved, allowing for changes without the risk of losing our base. After making modifications, we can easily use sliders in the tool to smoothly transition between the base state of the model and the edited state. This way, we don't switch binary between these poses, but we actually see the process of transforming the model or morphing it between two extreme states. After adding all the blend shapes, we can easily export the model in .fbx format and import it into Unity.
Before I even started working on accessories, I conducted substantial research on the subject matter. Searching for things/items that are characteristic enough of the event so that even after checking it against the low-poly model (because our accessories cannot be too large due to optimization on various devices), they will retain their silhouette and recognizability.
Later in the process, we had a significant meeting with the Quilts and Cats of Calico art team to choose accessories we’d like to make regarding our capability and time. After such a planning phase, I make final decisions and start the creation process.
I would say the most challenging thing about working on accessories is restraining myself from adding many details because I have to keep the models within certain limits in terms of polygon count. This is difficult, but not entirely bad because it forces me to think more deeply about what the object I'm working on really is at the moment, what truly makes it THAT object, and those parts I still have to consider regardless. Of course, in individual cases, I allow myself to slightly shift the boundary because I believe that a particular object will gain a lot through "special" treatment.
While working on the models, two moments gave me a significant dopamine boost: research on some accessories connected to certain cultures and holidays, and, of course, finishing each project. It made me feel that I was developing my knowledge by discovering new and fascinating things and also felt the satisfaction of being able to look at my work and describe it as effective.
We hope we've given you a little insight into the background of working on the cat editor. As a team, this was the first time we've implemented such a system, so each new texture, model, each option, was a new adventure. All this brought us a lot of joy, and, hopefully, it will give a lot of joy to you.
Thank you for reading!