Paralives May Have Gradual Aging & Height Sliders
Disclaimer: Paralives is still in development. Any features mentioned in this article have not yet been confirmed, but are being discussed or considered by the creators. Therefore this content should be considered speculative.
Paralives’ creator is experimenting with procedurally generated animations.
The upcoming life simulation game, Paralives, may include a new feature for the life simulation genre. The game already has advanced build tools, such as curved walls, curved pools and fluid object resizing. We may also see some new features made possible by the character animation system.
In many games, animations are key-frame based. This means that every animation must be individually crafted. As an example, let’s consider the ‘hug’ animation. You would need to create 2 separate animations for this, one for adult-to-adult interactions, and another for adult-to-child interactions. That’s a lot of work!
Procedural animations to the rescue
“A procedural animation is used to automatically generate animation in real-time to allow for a more diverse series of actions than could otherwise be created using predefined animations.”
Wikipedia
This type of animation system would be ideal for an indie game with limited resources. It would allow for more time to be allocated to gameplay, which will be the focus of Paralives. Recently, the creator revealed that they are currently experimenting with procedural animation
I’m currently experimenting with a procedural animation system to save time. For example, two adults hugging vs an adult hugging a child would be two different animations normally but I’m thinking on a system that would adjust some frames of the pose to different heights
Alex Masse, Paralives Discord, Off-Topic Category
So how could this improve a life simulation game? We asked Alex if procedural animations could allow for a highly requested feature: gradual aging.
If procedural animations end up working well, I think gradual aging might be possible. Experimenting with it at the moment. But don’t get your hopes too high on this
Alex Masse, Paralives Discord, Off-Topic Category
Did someone mention heights?
Could procedural animations finally allow fans to create characters of more varied heights?
Can’t confirm the height slider yet 🙂
Alex Masse, Paralives Discord, Off-Topic Category
Well, that surely wasn’t a “no.” ? Could we finally be getting height sliders and gradual aging? Update: Height sliders confirmed
This looks like it could have great potential. I’m a Simmer and have been for years. I love simulation games that I can play a character and build a home. The more customization available, the better. Woo me away from Sims with extensive content, the ability to have custom content and mods, create a style and color wheel, curved walls, spiral staircases and ladders (along with traditional stairs) and open world and maybe even the ability to visit other Simmers (I know that last one is a tall order, but it’d be awesome!)