chrysaoravioli

[chrysaoravioli]

2nd Year Anniversary: Happy Little Experiments

Remember this?

It's hard to believe an entire year has flown by and yet, I don't really have much to show for it, huh? At least, in terms of completed projects... nada. Zilch.

It seems like I've simply rested on my laurels, haven't I? Well, not quite...

A Nagging Feeling

While I was making the Bayonetta 3 combo video, I kept finding myself thinking, "Hey, what if this move was backported to a previous game?" or "Man, this hit reaction state was so cool. What if we could port it forward?". And as I kept working on this project, the list of musings kept growing bigger and bigger.

After the combo video was released, it was clear that the completion of this project had left me a bit empty. I found that it was difficult for other games to keep my attention because Bayonetta 3, despite some of its faults, had set an incredibly high bar for mechanical satisfaction that only one other game has ever surpassed (hint, it's also another Platinum title :D ).

For some time, I was contemplating what I should do next. Another combo video? Maybe creating the high level guides that I had briefly talked about? What about the violin covers? I kept going back and forth, and yet, I always came back to my list of "what ifs". There was this nagging feeling, a sort of itch that was just out of reach that desperately needed to be scratched.

I simply concluded, "eh, why not? Let's learn how to make a game because it's bothering me."

Giving Unreal Engine a Shot

Those of you that have been following my Twitter may have noticed an uptick of Unreal related tweets around March 2024. That's when I had a few personal breakthroughs and was absolutely excited to share any and all progress, no matter how inconsequentially basic.

You see, I had actually began experimenting with game engines around July 2023. After the Unity debacle in September, I made the switch to Unreal but I found it an absolute behemoth of a program to parse. In addition, I made the mistake of following a book that also taught C++ for Unreal, leaving me incredibly frustrated and lost. All I could think was "god, I really hate programming."

However, around March, I decided to sit down and just start from scratch. Forget finishing that silly book, just try to do something simple like... making a door open without writing a single line of code.

I Don't Actually Hate Programming...

...as long as it's Blueprints.

You see, this visual scripting system is actually a godsend. Forget about header files. Forget about trying to figure out the exact syntax. Forget about what feels like arbitrary words that somehow makes the computer do things. Instead, just take these coloured blocks, connect them with little wires, and hey, it spits out the same exact result as the hieroglyphics you've been trying to learn!

And holy ****, it actually makes sense! This node based scripting system allowed me to perfectly visualize and execute any idea that I had in my head. It's so freakin' convenient!

Only two weeks later, I was able to craft a basic initial framework for a dial combo system, similar to the one found in Bayonetta 2 & 3.

By then, I was locked in. Seriously. As soon as 5 PM rolled around, for two months straight, I would begin experimenting with charged attack inputs, delay combos, and a little system for evaluating left stick inputs to enable command attacks. By May, I was even brave enough to begin experimenting with hitboxes.

There's still so much more work to do but I was absolutely over the moon. Unreal Engine satisfied that same mechanical desire that I had felt when playing Bayonetta 3 but I still hungered for more...

A Self-Imposed Challenge

In June, I decided to challenge myself by recreating a specific mechanic from a game within a month. I needed a bit of a breather, as I knew that working on the stylish action system required a lot of interconnected subsystems that was beginning to feel overwhelming. So, I decided to work on recreating part of the painting system from Splatoon.

In the first week, I researched Render Targets and learned how to draw a simple shape into the RT. This simply uses the "Find Collision UV" node from a trace hit, then draws the painting material to the Render Target at the hit UV coordinate.

In the second week, I decided to go a little further and apply an entire Render Target to a custom mesh. This required creating a second UV channel with custom UVs so that the paint could be "continuous". However, one issue is that if an UV island wasn't scaled properly, the paint blob would become distorted.

In the third week, I took the plunge into the Material Graph so that I could figure out how to restrict painting surfaces. There was a lot to learn since creating the necessary functions to manipulate colour was a bit of a foreign concept to me. In the end, I was able to successfully figure out a solution that restricts a paintable wall with a mask.

In the final week, a Tricolour painting system that was much closer to Splatoon! While I'm still using the somewhat questionable custom UV channel albeit with more uniform UV islands, I can have multiple static meshes that share the same Render Target! Team Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie paint into their respective R, G, or B channels of the Render Target, which is then processed into a material to transform these into the appropriate colours defined in a Material Parameter Collection.

While there's still work to do in figuring out how to turn this into an interactive game element, I'm fairly proud of my work in this month long exercise. I learned a lot about the Material Graph and have even begun researching into how to bring all of this stuff that lives on the GPU, back to the CPU in a performant manner.

What's Next for Year 3?

For the time being, that little nagging feeling of mine has led me to realize that I'm really happy and satisfied as I slowly tinker away in Unreal Engine. It does mean I'll have to sacrifice some of my video ideas but I think that's okay.

I'm not really that old but I'm also not getting any younger. While I did enjoy making the combo videos and violin cover, they end up feeling so ephemeral that I think my time is much better spent on something that can have a more lasting impact.

So, as long as these little experiments continue to satisfy my curiosity and engineering spirit, that's what I'll stick to for the foreseeable future. And who knows, maybe if things pan out, you'll be able to play and experience the results of my experiments a year from now! Wish me luck!

While I wished I could've done more for my channel, I still hope you'll continue to support me in the future. Thank you so much for all of you who have stuck around!

Best wishes!

chrysaora 🎐

[chrysaoravioli]

Bayonetta 3: Pure Platinum Requirements

This isn't a cooking recipe website so let's skip right to what you came here for.

✧･ﾟ:* Bayonetta 3 Pure Platinum Spreadsheet *:･ﾟ✧

By clicking the bold sparkly text, you will go straight to a Google Sheets document that details every single time, combo, and damage requirement in Bayonetta 3.

The various verse requirements were extracted from the game so they should be 100% accurate. If you're struggling with some of the more strict verses in the game, hopefully this spreadsheet can help guide you to that glistening Pure Platinum. Enjoy!

[chrysaoravioli]

1st Year Anniversary

Although the channel was created in November 2021, my first video, a quaint Animal Crossing cover, was released on August 13th, 2022. As such, I think it is appropriate to treat that day as the true start of the "chrysaora" channel. Though I'm a little late in acknowledging this occasion due to offline commitments, I thought it would be appropriate to reminisce over my favorite works from the previous year as well as discuss musings for the future.

【 MV #01 】 6:00AM from Animal Crossing: New Horizons

This project originally began in 2020, with an overambitious plan to create a medley of all 24 hourly themes. However, due to the pandemic and various circumstances that affected my mental health, this idea never came to pass and as such, the decision was made to break down this idea into smaller parts. While it’s good to have ambitions, it’s best for an inexperienced, independent creator like myself to realize his limits and find ways to go through the entire creative process from start to finish more frequently in order to gain more experience with completing projects.

Despite the final video's amateurish quality, I'm rather proud of this video. There were many "firsts" while working on this project, including...

Learning to use the BMPCC4K

Permanently switching from Adobe Premiere Pro to DaVinci Resolve

Learning to color correct BRAW

Learning acoustic guitar to accompany the violin parts

Screen tracking/replacement effect to place recorded gameplay footage onto live action scenes

Conceiving appropriate visuals to elevate the musical performance

While I still have room to grow, I'm quite happy with this video. My personal policy is to make videos that I can still be proud of in a year's time and this video certainly fits that criteria!

【 COMBO MAD 】 ASTRAL CHAIN - Uncontrollable

Since its release in 2019, I've accumulated over 750 hours in Astral Chain, with about half of this playtime dedicated to creating the combo video. Yes... that's right, 300+ hours of playtime was spent just for a little three minute video.

This was my first combo video so I wasn't quite sure how to approach it other than "kill enemies in cool ways". After many hours of experimentation, these are the guidelines that I created for myself to follow...

Create combos that are only possible with this combat system

Find a balance between technical skill and presentation

Music should synchronize with the visuals in order to elevate the combo's presentation

For point #2, this is a mindset that I developed while researching combo videos from other games. You can have an extremely technical combo that requires complex inputs but if its presentation is lacking, what were you trying to achieve outside of "I can press buttons fast"? Conversely, if a combo appears flashy but is incredibly basic, the combo becomes less impressive in my eyes. This balance is difficult to achieve and I'm aware that I didn't successfully fulfill this self-imposed criteria. However, it did serve as an important learning experience for my next combo video...

【 COMBO MAD 】 Bayonetta 3 - à la mode

Bayonetta 3 has had a tumultuous release. At the time, I thought it would be best to keep my head down and experiment with the combat system with the goal of presenting it in its best light.

While I have privately joked with like-minded peers that Bayonetta 3 is "Astral Chain 2", it quickly became clear that the dynamic between summoner and summon was extremely different. In the stylish combo department, it became clear that both Bayonetta and her summons had fully fleshed out movesets, allowing both characters to work independently compared to the more dependent relationship between summoner and summon featured in Astral Chain. With this in mind, I decided to feature combos that revolved around the idea of "catching", where one character could pass an enemy to the other character and vice versa. You'll notice that many combos feature in the video end with some sort of "catch".

Once again, I adhered to the guidelines I had established in the previous combo video, especially for music synchronicity. Some combos sync incredibly well to the jovial, flirtatious à la mode and as such, it makes the video a joy to re-watch many months later.

What's next for Year 2?

Let me discuss my thoughts about the upcoming year.

After the Bayonetta 3 combo video, I was admittedly frustrated with the combat system to the point of burning out. While I recognize that I have some sort of personal responsibility to document high level techniques, I don't really know when I'll get around to it. I've been sitting on a couple of scripts for a few months now but every time I attempt to touch the game, it leaves me with this feeling that my time should be better spent elsewhere.

There are many projects that I would like to work on but I've had very limited free time as of late. I don't know what or when my next upload will be but whether it's related to action games or one of my silly music covers, I do hope you stick around!

Thank you so much for your support during the first year! I hope I can release a few surprises in the upcoming year...

Best wishes!

chrysaora 🎐