Hello, and welcome to the fifth Dev Diary!

I have been making progress on the Demo room and the details for the assets are forming nicely. The Time-Lapse video showed me building the generic furniture, which are almost complete. There are still several assets to be done though - the space heaters/radiators, stove and freezer. Handles need to be made for windows, cupboard doors and doors in general, as well as drawers.

Windows

One window frame done, 2 to go. Luckily those are all that is needed to cover every window. Enlargements of window pane slot and window hinge

Making the window frames is not as bad as many say, at least not on #sketchup, but it did take quite a bit longer than I anticipated. hinges are still one of the most time consuming things to make and the window hinges are not an exception to this. This simple hinge and the window frame together took about 3 hours to make, taking into account all the measurements, re-sizing and error correcting. Sometimes #sketchup can be a pain in the behind, despite it being so easy to use, most often when trying to merge two forms/components together.

Doors

Front doors are also largely generic, which is a time saver. Only difference will be the nameplates on the front doors and textures that are to be applied to them. Enlargements of the peephole and mail slot cover.

In the game, I'm planning to make it possible to peek through the mail slot to see without distortion if there is danger lurking out in the apartments or at the staircase (works both ways). The peephole will have lenses and can be looked out from, but it will have the usual distortion that most traditional peepholes have (hemispherical image).

Hinges

Two of the larger hinges. Left one is for the front door and the right one is for the apartment room doors. There is going to be several other types still.

The hinges are surprisingly time consuming to make. Even though they are one of the smallest things size-wise, they require much more detail, if realism is your goal. I aim the game to look as realistic as possible, with modest requirements for the hardware.

Epilogue

The approach I'm currently taking might not be the most optimal one and many things might need to be changed in the test builds of the game. Once the room assets are finished for the most parts, I'll be focusing more on bringing a more playable test build for all to try out. There wont be any enemies around yet, but it will be a showcase of the progress being made on the project and a chance for me to have some more feedback on, say, how the controls might have better feel to them, for example.

Here is also a bonus picture;

Thank you for reading the fifth developer #diary and I hope to see you all on the next one, on 11th of February!

Please note that the day might have changed for you before the release, as I'm releasing these while there is a Monday in Finland.

Sincerely,

Marco Tinell