Project: Ocarina - Status

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Today I realized it's been over a month since I last posted a update here. I expected the updates to be less frequent now that I'm trying to use twitter. But I didn't intend to be quite that silent. I havent even posted much to twitter this past couple weeks. The reason is, I just haven't done much with PJO. And the reason for that is mostly because I was sick, and it held on a bit longer than I thought it would.

Now that I'm no longer sick the task is getting into the swing of things again. Sometimes after a break from coding, and I guess now game development, I have a hard time getting the same regular interest and drive I had before. So I've been trying to address that issue by poking at it with smaller projects. Mostly custom stuff for VRChat like character models and environments (for the upcoming VRChat SDK).

Before I was sick, and likely to remain heading into the future is also the fact that I'm juggling a lot of projects of various sizes. Doing so helps make sure I have suficient tasks ready to help me learn, rather than applying what I already know over and over again. And it's definetly nice when I'm stuck or frustrated with something to have the option to put that aside and work on something else for a bit. But naturally it can cause slow periods with projects like PJO.

I guess another thing I should mention is, I'm not exactly trying to get PJO done asap. I was considering trying to grind through to a May 7th release, since I like releasing stuff on my birthday, but any thoughts of that died when I got sick. Now that that's passed, again I feel no rush. And that could be in large part because I myself still don't own a Rift. Since I can't enjoy the outcome of my creation, instead my primary joy is from the learning experiences PJO and the other projects offer.

That said, I do still plan to work on PJO and finish it. Don't hold me to it at all, but if I had to guess I'd think I'd have a release in the next 1-2 months. That could be a over estimate. It could be a under estimate. Also, sh!t happens, and that could get changed drastically.

Anyway, for some details. I believe I last felt that I was mostly, if not completely done with the Hyrule Field specific stuff. What I have left that I want to do is add some animations to the character avatar, once that's done see about adding footstep sounds, design and add a main menu with some options, and create my idea for a intro.

Finally, as it's related, on some unknown Sunday in the next few weeks, I'll be showing off a new custom room environment for that upcoming new feature of VRChat. Being the Zelda guy in the scene, I figured I should make a Zelda OoT room as that may be expected of me. Like PJO, it's a recreation of a area from OoT. Just I chose something simple to recreate and got the main bits done in a couple hours. I don't think I saw anyone ask for this area for PJO exactly, but I'm sure the VRChat regulars will like it at least! When I will show it off, I have no clue. I'd like to do so when the SDK is more polished, and I've put a decent amount of the SDK interactivity features to good use.

So yea. If you want to see another OoT area before PJO is done, and/or want to hang out and talk with VR devs and enthusiasts for a couple hours, drop by VRChat on Sundays after CymaticBruce's stream in the 4-5:30pm PST hours. Lots of interesting conversations, and great laughs (sometimes from me and my growing collection of avatars). You can even check out the goings on from most of our past meetups thanks to Gunter's Twitch Channel.