Global Game Jam 2022 - Cathens -
Made in 48 hours for the Global Game Jam 2022 - The theme was duality, so we made a game about the duality between being either an agile, nimble magic cat or a strong buff cat in the streets of ancient Greece (Athens).
I was responsible for the shaders and vfx. To go with the cartoony, goofy aesthetic I used the OpenProjects cartoon shader as a baseline for the visual style. For the lava shader I've adjusted the shader to account for triplanar mapping and scrolling noise based on a texture input.
As far as visual effects go, I tried to include the square formed swirly texture in most of the VFX textures I made for a feeling of consistency, shape language and setting.
For the lighting effect I followed this tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40m_HUENh3E and adjusted it to account for darker outlines. I tweaked it to give a more cartoony aesthetic with thicker outlines which simply take more input (convert darker values from the noise texture to black) from the noise than the base lighting.
Above all, it was nice to experiment with learning a bunch of different things in just 48 hours. I hope this project showcases my ability to quickly pick up on things and implement them! Given more time, I'd visually optimize each graph and allow for more user input.
Credits :
Danae Dekker : https://danaedekker.com/ - Audio Design, Programming & UI
Luna van Egdom : https://runicpixels.artstation.com/ - Shaders, VFX, Programming Assistance.
Kian Kreikamp : https://www.artstation.com/baardus - Level Design, Environment Models.
Maiko Steenman : https://maikosteeman.dev/ - Main Programming
Daphne Zwarts : https://www.artstation.com/meowl - Character Models, Character Animation, UI
Gameplay Video
Custom fire, lava & distortion shader in motion.
Custom Lava Shader Based on the Open Projects Toon Shader, Custom Distortion Shader / VFX Graph, Fire VFX Graph
Lightning Attack VFX + Shader Still
Lighting Attack VFX + Shader Motion
Slash VFX Using Lighting Shader as a trail renderer.
Transform VFX using Clouds in VFX Graph.
Hit Effect in VFX Graph
Lava texture and movement shader.
Distortion Shader Graph
Distortion VFX Graph
Lightning Shader Graph
Lightning Bolt VFX Graph
Bonus : Foam Shader for lava. Unfortunately we had to scrap it, because the depth buffering only works in the transparency render queue. Which means that it won't get rendered with the distortion shader. In the end we chose to use the distortion shader.
Bonus : Foam instead of Distortion.
Dirty trick to render both foam and distortion by using two different shaders at the same time.
VFX textures / masks I made during the jam!
Itch thumbnail I made together with Meowl (Daphne Zwarts)