https://youtu.be/obrjXHEw6kU
WolfQuest 3: Anniversary Edition is taking much longer to develop than we expected — that’s bad. But a new fur shader could give the wolf much more realistic fur— that’s good! But now we have to spend more time experimenting and configuring it — that’s bad. But the final wolf will look so much better — that’s good!
This is sorta the story of WQ3 game graphics — new tools keep coming out that promise better visuals and/or better performance. It takes time to evaluate each one, so we first have to do a pre-evaluation to see if the promise of that tool is worth spending time evaluating it. But when the new tool is as amazing as XFur, which I demonstrate in this video, it’s definitely worth the extra work. This new fur shader by Jorge Pinal Negrete uses the same technical method (“shells”) as the fur shader we used in WQ 2.7 and what we’ve been using in WQ3 until now, but takes it to another level, offering control over fur length, thickness, occlusion (shadowing), and more. The result is thicker, plusher fur that flows along the contours of the wolf’s body. And to top it all off, Jorge has created an FX module that renders effects like snow on the wolf’s body. It looks fantastic and will add so much realism to snowy days in the game.
What makes it even more fun to work with Jorge is that he actually played the original WolfQuest game many years ago, so he’s got some affection for the game and has worked very hard to ensure that XFur meets our particular needs. Jorge also created the eye shader that we showed in a video awhile ago -- he's a talented guy! (And If you use Unity, be sure to check out XFur in the Unity Asset Store.)
Let’s see…what questions will you all have?
* Will the mobile game use this fur shader? No, but Jorge is making a mobile version that should look a lot better than the fur in WQ 2.7. Don’t know yet about snowy fur on mobile.
* Can my wolf have wet fur? That would be a cool effect but it’s tricky to create so we don’t know.
* Will there be new coats to choose from? We know that everyone would like to have more coats to choose from but we don’t plan to offer more initially.
* Can my wolf have more than one customization at a time? Yes. We’ll show that in a future blog video.
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