Detaching UI
The UI system I built for Vesper was conceived as screen overlay, and so tightly tied to the camera. When I decided to explore diegetic UI I needed to find a way to decouple it - without messing up the work I'd already done.
I decided to insert an intermediary construct between the UI and the camera - a UI plane component. I believe the technical term for this is a switcharoo. (It's important to remember that I have no idea what I'm doing). Then I'd generalise the component until it could derive the plane from just about anything (a camera, a quad, some dimensions)
It took the better part of a work day, but I liberated the UI without causing any undue harm — I think.
[↑] The stand-alone UI plane component still has issues. Stretching, scaling, you name it. Tomorrow-problems.
It's been slow going for a while. The vacuum left behind by the completed first playable. I have my bearings, but getting back into the swing of it hasn't stuck (yet).
Vesper has always had its variable cadence and seasons. I keep coming back to that—it's worth re-iterating. Going slow and exploring is what works. Perhaps it's how I work I guess. Either way, as Vesper stretches across time the valleys grow longer and deeper, and I seem to pass through cycles of loosing sight of the shape of it. Having to re-discover it as I cross another threshold.
The work itself is myopic. I'm either in the moment, with the work, or pulled back, looking out across the span of it. Never even remotely both. The modes are incompatible and shifting takes sustained effort - like untangling yourself from a net in the water. There's a lot of thrashing about and expending energy on approaches that don't pay off. It's a search for the right move. A point of leverage.
It seems to change every time.
The Shape It Took on Its Own
[↑] Reworking part of the tiny game I started before summer. Managed to introduce a glitch in the text generation and something broke in just the right way. No idea how to recreate it (of course). Another short-lived, lucky accident.
