Restitched: Recapped! | February 2024 (Patreon)

After an exciting and jam-packed January recap, we're back again with more Restitched progress! We're excited to show new and continued developments from the last month, so grab your favorite snack and get comfy!

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New Members

This month we added two new programmers to the team as Trial Devs. We'd like to welcome both Josh and Ryan to the Restitched community! We're looking forward to seeing how they shape the game alongside us.

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Flex on 'Em

Two new Restitched GIFs are available through Tenor, meaning you can now search for Restitched or Stuffy on Discord, Twitter (X), etc. to find Stuffy emoting!

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We made quite a noise this month with hundreds of new commits to the game. From new features to bug fixes, and even polish... there's been a lot of positive changes to the code!

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Through The Floor No More

After we switched to 3D Physics support, a lot of work had to be done on our older assets and systems to update them for new colliders. Unfortunately, a gap in that transition was found this month as several Props would start falling through the floor and had no collision.

We were seeing in the engine that collision shapes did exist and get generated for these models, so why weren't they working? In true game dev fashion, the solution was simple... just uncheck the "Is Trigger" option!

Somewhere in our generation code, we were marking box colliders as triggers - which explains why only certain Props were breaking, as not all Props have boxy shapes!

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Getting Edgy

A lot of work, outside consultation, and time went into making a simple new shader this month. Halston is new to the shader world, but was determined to get his idea working! Of course, the solution ended up being so much simpler than we first thought.

Using Amplify Shader Editor in Unity, we took the Vertex Normal of our brushable geometry (Building Materials) and mapped a new texture to each face. So, we can now make Materials that have a different look on the front and sides!

An example of how this could be used is seen below with corrugated cardboard textures. It works with different bevel types, too!

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Out with the Old, In with the New

Material icons have been broken for a while now. We weren't sure why, but after some investigating we discovered it was a bug with the way our tool captures custom shaders. Ozy switched all materials to default shaders instead of custom ones - fixing the issue!

During the start of development, we used a custom lighting solution that we called "voxelized lighting". We also used a custom Stamping/Decal system to place graphics on models. To solve two problems at once, both of these systems required a single custom shader to be used on every asset in the game. We felt this was not practical and it limited us artistically.

In 2023, we ditched the custom voxel lighting in favor of standard Unity lighting and custom fog. We're also now working to replace our entire Stamping system. By doing this, we now have better lighting and visuals, have saved some performance, and can make Stamps placement more precise and unique.

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Stick to the Script

Playing a boing sound effect when hitting a bouncy surface? Making the player sink over time in quicksand? These are both features we've been blocked from working on further thanks to the way our current PhysicalGroup hierarchy works.

Lead Programmer Michael stated that he wants to rewrite the grouped object code at some point, but until then a solution has been patched into the project! Ozy explained part of the issue, seen below:

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Revision Wrangler

Most of us have been working in a separate game branch for several months. While work progressed dramatically on this new branch, the main "master" branch fell behind quickly.

Our Lead Programmer merged the branches this month, announcing that a new save revision slot was taken, and others being reshuffled. This breaks any level saves made during the non-merged period, as explained:

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This month, Carter sent over a batch of new Stamps to be added. There are several new motifs and designs for our planned story themes! One of those includes a beautiful and majestic dragon, which can be seen below in its early stages:

Carter also threw in another design, this time of a golden lion face! So pretty... so shiny...

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Righty Tighty

Halston spent some time importing new models this month, with several more ideas added to our future list. Of those, three new Ornaments were added - each of a different screw head:

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Spoolin' Around

Santiago has moved from Cosmetic modeling back to Prop modeling to help add even more new assets to your creative arsenals! Their first task was to create a Thread Bobbin (or 'spool') that Stuffy would stand on in the Wardrobe. Here's a glimpse at the early blocked out model:

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Background Building

Evan is working to replace our default level background. Sadly, we'll be saying farewell to the construction and wood (for now, at least), and saying hello to scaffolding! Evan presented the idea of scaffolding this month and proposed we drape it with tarps.

We're switching the models of our default background to better meet our quality goals. The original background was an early model from a non-modeler with mismatched UV tiling on the textures. It also didn't hold up when we switched to 15 layers, because it was only designed for 5-8.

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Halston opened up some of our level background scenes this month and did some optimization, polishing, and rearranging of assets. A couple of examples of this effort include our Forest scenery and an unrevealed city-based background.

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A Slay for Any Day

Cade rolled up his 3D-modeling-sleeves this month and whipped up an impressive batch of brand-new cosmetics! We're so excited to see Stuffy's closet grow and are especially looking forward to trying on these clothes in the new Wardrobe scene we've been working on.

Below are the new models for this month (some untextured):

Overalls, Dress Shirt, Crop Top, Tuxedo Top

Chino Trousers, Denim Shorts, Vintage Jeans

Cargo Shorts, Tuxedo Pants, Cargo Pants, Bell Bottom Jeans

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Black Belt of Felt

On February 4th, Santiago created a gorgeous two-piece Karate set. Who knew Stuffy was so into martial arts?!

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Style Maintenance

Just when we thought Cade had done enough, we were surprised with a few new pieces before the month ended! These include a Hazmat Suit, Jacket and Shirt, and Jumpsuit. 

Further texture work was made to the Jumpsuit after this, and it's looking very nice!

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Cozy Curations

Halston did a near-final art pass on the Wardrobe scene toward the end of the month. We can now see a mirror on the easel, which helps the player see the back of Stuffy's clothing without needing to rotate the character. 

Other bits of scenery include a mannequin, pin cushion, sewing machine, blueprint rolls, and more. This makes for a super cozy scene worth spending time in as you dress up your Stuffies!

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Stay Hidden!

A tedious new bug was discovered this month. Objects (materials and props) that are marked as hidden or non-colliding no longer listen to those properties. This means you can now see things like invisible barriers in gameplay, and Stuffy can interact with some invisible things as if they're solid.

We're putting our best detectives on the case, and hope to get this patched up soon!

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Gap Trap

We've found that Stuffy can't walk backward or forward onto Props that occupy the next available layer. We took a closer look and saw that colliders are technically not touching between layers, which creates a gap that tells Stuffy to stop.

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Crazy Climber

When you attach to a climbable edge, we do a raycast to check if there's an attachable space. Once attached, we only check to make sure you're still on the same object set to 'climbable'. We don't check for curves or uneven surfaces, meaning Stuffy can climb indefinitely into nothingness!

We're hoping to get this sorted soon, but it will take a bit more time and focus for our coders to close this loophole.

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Paws Menu

While it's not a new bug, it was further reported by our developers this month that the pause menu doesn't block all input in the level. Highlight effects are still shown and typing in the level name box will move the camera around.

We intend to put a brake on things for good when the game is paused, which includes hiding certain in-level UI and stopping all input for the game itself.

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Halston offered a new look at the first "level complete" menu. In this concept, we can see several statistics from our time spent playing the level. 

How long did players actively stay in the level? What score did you get, and what's the top recorded score? Did you pickup any gifts? How many times did you die? How many enemies were killed? - These are all things we want to show the player as they look back at their playtime report!

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Status Report

On February 21st, we shared an exclusive look at new level editor footage on trixel+. This new video is 1 minute and 31 seconds long, and showcases several in-progress features like placement and manipulation, editing tools, and stuffy movement.

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Z-Axis Limit

Even though Stuffy can move around the scene with full 3D physics and movement, we think it's important to compensate for player intention. That means we've limited the depth on certain platforms to help you not fall off! 

A few bugs in this system were ironed out by Ozy this month, along with a bug that prevented us from walking between props on different layers even though they were right against each other!

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Collective Collectors

With the Token pickup already in-game, we dug into our model archive and decided now is as good a time as any to add our Gift collectibles. We've even added a first pass at animation for these items!

Currently, they animate from the moment they're placed in the level. This means they're desynced as shown below. When reloading a saved level they will all be synced in animation. This is something we plan to iron out!

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Wardrobe Wonder

3D Artist Santiago drew up a quick idea of what the Wardrobe scene could look like. We're eager to explore a lot of options for this space but have ultimately gone with something a bit different!

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Concept Captain

2D Artist Daniel started a brand-new concept to explore how Cpt. Stuffy might fit into Restitched as a wearable outfit!

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Progress continued this month on the cutscene animatic. Luke and Brennan are putting the finishing touches on their former scenes while animating the final planned section. 

We're looking forward to doing a polish pass on the whole thing and seeing Stuffy come to life in a new, more expressive way!

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An updated page 27 of The Grandiose Tales of Cpt. Stuffy was sketched this month by line artist Ari! Here's a sneak peek:

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Collection Test

by: Halston

Fallen Fellows

by: Halston

Yoshi, is that you?

by: Luke

Little Light of Mine

by: Halston

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Thank you for checking out the latest developments from Restitched! We've surely made many more since and can't wait to show you in the next post!

What was your favorite part of this month's developments? We love hearing from you, so let us know in the comments!