Friday, July 26, 2013

Aquanornia Update #2

So I decided to run a Maraquan Grendel wolfling run to enjoy my recently-created fixes...and found out the hard way that they, and presumably other norn-bodied grendels, have trouble navigating the lowest floor of Aquanornia Revamped once they're adults. In light of this, the metaroom has been updated again.

It's available from the C3/DS Downloads page as usual, or you can get it directly here.

Two posts in one day, whoo. \o/

Dabblings in BD....

....Have resulted in something usable.

If you've ever used Trix's Maraquan Grendels, you may have noticed the issue adolescent and older grendels have with their arms. If you haven't noticed it, the issue is that the lower arm tends to detach at the elbow and that the grendels seem to pick things up with their wrists as opposed to their hands.

Being as OCD as I am, I found it to take away significantly from my enjoyment of the breed. The thing is, there used to be a fix for this issue made by Trix herself. However, she forgot to upload it to her server when she updated her website, and as a result it was lost forever. I didn't have any luck finding it, so I instead decided to dive into the BD files and fix the issue myself. It was tedious, but the result?

I succeeded in recreating the fix, and therefore putting the Maraquan Floating Arm bug to rest. If you found the floating arms as annoying as I did, then you'll find this fix will drastically improve the breed's presentation.

Monday, July 22, 2013

Another Year, Another Birthday

As the title says - today is my 21st birthday. That means I'm finally free of the last bit of legal prohibitions - I can now drink alcohol, etc. Does that mean I will drink alcohol, etc.? No (alcohol has more cons than pros as far as I'm concerned).

I wasn't going to miss the chance to release a breed this year, if the crapton of releases that came before this one are any indication. I could have made a jab at my newfound ability to drink by making a breed revolving around alcohol, but decided that a serious breed would be more worthwhile. Unfortunately, this is where I break the streak of aquatic releases. Instead, this breed is more suited for an ocean of a different sort - the sea of outer space, as a passenger aboard of the Capillata.

Corny metaphor aside, the W-Runner Grendels are simultaneously a breed designed for wolfling runs and a breed designed for Docking Station. They have the advantage of being able to follow smells and navigate doors and lifts from birth, unlike normal creatures who have to wait until childhood. In addition, they do not get homesick and love using portals. They're more even-tempered than normal grendels to prevent their anger from getting in the way of their survival, but if you think they're completely friendly you're sadly mistaken.


And speaking of portals, you may be wondering how there's an open warp portal behind the grendel up there when the DS server has been offline for who-knows-how-long. Here's your answer....

These altered warp portals let your creatures travel from place-to-place in your world, while simulating the appearance and feel of the warp jumps of lore. 
Do note that there's a bug with these: if you have a closed portal in the same world with open portals, your creatures will sometimes get warped to the closed portal. It doesn't happen often, though, so hopefully you can live with it until I can figure out just exactly what's causing it. 


To end this post on another corny philosophical note: the way these grendels jump through the warp they love so much symbolizes my anticipation and worries for the future. With any luck, I'll still be here next year, bringing you yet another breed to enjoy. Time will tell, though....

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Yet Another Aquatic Release

Every single post this month thus far has been a release, and this post is no exception. Let's get to it, shall we?

The first release is a breed, albeit one that isn't quite as complex as some of my other ones.

The Swimming Aqua Grendels are...well, Aqua Grendels that can swim. That said, they do have some differences from the normal variety besides the obvious - chief among them are the swim bladder edits from the Astro Tetras.


The next release is quite a bit more significant. 

I've been talking about the Sea Garden for quite a while, and decided it was about time to do more than that. Since the full pack is taking forever to finish, I decided to release it in parts. 
Part one consists of two plants: the Sea Pen and the Coralroot. The sea pen provides creatures with an underwater source of fruit, while the coralroot does the same for food. With these, the lack of aquatic fruit (and too a lesser extent food) has been addressed. The coralroot has the bonus of providing aquatic creatures with entertainment once it's been eaten. 


So, is that all the releases for this month? Nope - my birthday's coming up within five days, and just like last year there's going to be a breed release for that too. In fact, since it's my 21st, the swarm of releases is a bit of a preliminary celebration. Stay tuned; there's more to come.

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Need more aquatic stuff? How about some norns?

In a similar vein to the Twilight Norns, it's time for me to release a norn breed for the third release post in a row. I've talked about these guys a bit, but I think it's time they got a proper release.

The Coral Reef ChiChi Norns are exactly what it says on the tin: ChiChi Norns who are adapted to live on a coral reef. They cannot breathe above water, but they have an adaptable diet that includes critters and bugs, and they're very social. They also change colors as they progress through their lives. They took a little while despite not being that complicated, but I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out.

Monday, July 1, 2013

More Anemones!

I assume most of you remember me going on and on about the Oasis/Biodome Anemones and how unsuitable they were for creatures. Well, I finally decided to stop just saying I was going to make a revamp of them and actually made said revamp.

These new anemones can now be interacted with by creatures. While they're no longer "critters," I decided to turn the two varieties into a "plant" and a "weed." Peach Anemones (right) are pleasant for creatures to interact with, but they best watch themselves when thinking about touching Purple Anemones (left) - not only does it hurt for most of them, fully grown purple anemones are slightly toxic. In addition, the anemone spores can now become dormant when creatures start getting hungry, protecting the anemones from getting wiped out.

But that's not all. You're probably wondering where those wonderful tints went. For those of you who value beauty over a faster computer, I made a version that has those tints intact.