The Art of AR (ARt?) | State of Matterless #44
This week, our art team makes inroads into our AR apps, customization features for Floorcraft: Arena, and Inco fur shaders!
The Art of AR
While the Matterless development team progresses with gameplay and hand tracker improvements, our art team has also been polishing a host of visual upgrades for both Incos and Floorcraft: Arena. Charlie, our lead product designer, lays it out:
Recently, I have been working on further refinements to the UI overhaul for Floorcraft: Arena. This involves adjusting the overarching color palette and implementing some missing spots in the user flow, such as settings and vehicle customization. The design work on the upcoming Floorcraft: Arena development phase has come to a complete state, and we hope to have all these great new updates ready for a release candidate in early 2023.
Charlie has also been diverting much of his energies to vehicle customization for Floorcraft: Arena. Which parts of the vehicle will be customizable, how will we layer those customizations, and what will be interchangeable? The team will spend the next few weeks creating assets to test out this system and see what issues pop up, and if all goes well, you’ll eventually be able to design your hovercar with unique decals, paint jobs, and chassis! In the meantime, download Floorcraft: Arena from the App Store to get racing right away.
Visual Enhancements Engaged
The arrival of our new technical artist Marko has brought a fresh set of eyes to Incos UI overhaul. Over the past week, Marko has been working with Charlie to add several subtle but aesthetically pleasing features to 2D mode, including a shadow for the Inco, and a backdrop gradient that changes colors dynamically to reflect the Inco’s mood.
One of our Unity Wizards, Howard, has been implementing mood conveyance indicators that help users understand how their companion is feeling. A bit reminiscent of The Sims, don’t you think?
Furry-ous Shaders
The design of our blob Inco continues to evolve, and with the advent of AI art (which we talk about in our most recent episode of The Cyberdelic Podcast), we got the idea to turn to this clever piece of technology for inspiration. This resulted in a number of blob Inco iterations that we could pull different ideas from and implement into the current design. It’s only a matter of time before we settle on a look with the right balance of expressiveness and cuteness, so stay tuned to our socials and Discord for updates on that.
Meanwhile, our master artist Batu has been cooking up new fur shaders for Incos! The idea is for this to work hand-in-hand with our hand interaction system, with the patches of fur dynamically reacting to your touch. It’s a complicated feature to implement, so Batu is doing R&D on this going forward.
Visit our LinkTree for a comprehensive list of resources on all things Matterless, and I’ll see you next week with more updates!
— Kerwin, community manager
