Welcome back, and a thousand praises to you, Your Majesty! This is the fourth My Lovely Empress dev log from the teams at GameChanger and Neon Doctrine. We hope that this series of behind-the-scenes peeks at the process of game development gets you excited for when My Lovely Empress launches on Steam, Switch, and Xbox later this year! In case you missed out on our previous dev log, check it out here: https://steamcommunity.com/games/2052990/announcements/detail/4337614262873956451 For this fourth entry, we wanted to go even bigger than before: a two-parter where we have answers from both GameChanger and its codeveloper partner, Neon Doctrine. As My Lovely Empress shifted from 2D to 3D, both developers ended up taking part in bringing its cast of humans and the Yaoguai to life. So today, we will go over the process of 2D animation as explained by GameChanger’s Matthew! [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44615942/f64e29f0e6d9713e53d1dd338ea5dba533d39c26.gif[/img] Now, when it came to animating My Lovely Empress, the foundation obviously started with emulating My Lovely Wife so as to evoke something familiar to returning fans. However, Matthew had quite a taste for exaggeration, and so the inhabitants of the Ashuwa continent found themselves with an expressiveness and flair that surpassed GameChanger’s previous titles. As GameChanger’s new animator, Matthew’s greatest hurdle involved striking the right balance between his personal interpretations of how the game’s characters would act, without straying from Empress’ moody tone. Plenty of tweaks were needed to toe that line right, which even shifted between characters as the humans tended to be more grounded and restrained while the Yaoguai were allowed greater freedom to run wild with. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44615942/9a2572af52077be849ba3f1ca312aa4e0045cea8.gif[/img] In order to animate each character right, Matthew first needed to get into their heads. By collaborating closely with Empress’ art director Raswan, each character’s most important characteristics could be shown not just in how they looked or spoke, but in how they moved as well. One such example is Piscis’ constant trembling, where stepping into her shoes involved imagining being a frightened, traumatized girl that tries to make herself small and thus shivers in fear when confronted. However, any artist will always have their favorites, and for Matthew’s that would be Jade, the undead underling. Thanks to her bratty personality and rebellious spirit, this zombie girl was allowed to break free of Matthew’s self-imposed rules that tried to keep everyone grounded in Empress’ moody drama, becoming an energetic and playful pest in Emperor Hong’s life. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44615942/4124c599e3b6470c8dfad447a53ebe3d75378096.gif[/img] We hope you enjoyed this sneak peek into My Lovely Empress’ development, and catch Part 2 of Devlog 4 coming very soon, where we talk to Neon Doctrine about 3D animation! My Lovely Empress releases this August 21st, 2024, on Switch, Xbox, and Steam. Wishlist here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2052990?utm_source=homepage&utm_campaign=devlog&utm_medium=steam ~ Neon Doctrine 👑 Remember to [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/2052990?utm_source=homepage&utm_campaign=devlog&utm_medium=steam][i][u]Wishlist[/u][/i][/url] the game, join our [url=https://discord.gg/nd][u][i]community[/i][/u],[/url] and follow our [url=https://neondoctrine.games/m/links][i][u]socials[/u][/i][/url] so you don't miss the notification when it drops! [url=discord.gg/nd][img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44615942/ae722c0b337c54ba93f693c123684e2d591eb256.png[/img][/url]