WIP Meet the Avali - (Original and fluffy)

IMPORTANT: All further development posts/questions/answers/etc will now be posted in the mod-file discussion thread. This is the original WIP thread







Get it here!



Introduction
An ammonia-rich iceball world far beyond the goldilocks zone of a blue star doesn't seem like an ideal spot to find life, let alone a technologically advanced civilisation, but life has a habit of turning up in the strangest places; the shifting snow fields of one such world was home to a race of feathery bipedal pack-hunters. Of course, these days they are less pack-hunters, and more often scientists, artists, philosophers or lawyers; civilisation has a certain way of domesticating it's adherants, and the Avali have walked the path of civilisation longer than most, boasting an impressive technological arsenal, and for whom the technological singularity now looms large on the horizon...

But, they're still feathery, bipedal and live in packs, so let's call it 3 out of 4



Art and Screenshots
Wasteland wanderer - NEW
Increasingly polished sprite, palette and tier 1/2 armour - NEW
Improved energy shield graphic
Energy shield proof of concept
Tiered armor concept art
Full character concept art
Idle poses and basic palette/plumage demonstration
Prototype emotes
Very early in-game collage
Recent in-game shots
Old doodle
Character creation



Development
Currently I'd estimate the project to be over halfway to initial release, and is now into the home-straight, with the worst bits now over. A more complete overview is as follows:

Character Sprites: 90%
Need to add more plumage styles, and would like to further polish, but fundamentally ready.

Back-end files: 70%
Have completed the codex entries, still need make some changes as racial gear becomes available.

Weapons: 15%
Concepts are done, but not begun work on any true weapons. Shields up to tier 2 are complete

Armour: 35%
Tier 1 and 2 racial armour is essentially complete. Still need racial clothes, concept and groundwork laid for most racial gear.

Ship: 10%
Concept is done, but that is all.

Structures: 0%
Purely theoretical at this stage.​

Further plans
I'm keeping my fingers crossed we'll see a hyperthermia system implemented. Avali are meant to be adapted for cold climate environments, meaning they should overheat on temperate worlds, but won't require thermal protection on tundra or snow worlds. Similarly, they are meant to be natural gliders, so I'll be looking into the possibilty of adding a tech that enables controlled gliding.

I also want to add some Avali settlements and placeables to seamlessly introduce codex entries expanding upon their backstory and culture.






Origins
The Avali started life as something of a socratic exercise in the run up to the release of Spore, examining aspects of alien or future life, and seeing how this would affect the resulting civilisation; what if they relied on sound instead of sight, how would a low-temperature metabolism effect things and how would they adapt, how might a neurally augmented species live day-to-day?

Of course, Spore turned out to be a terrible platform, falling short of all Maxis' promises, and promptly milked and abandoned by Electronic arts who didn't even fund patches for the game-breaking day 1 bugs. While the Avali featured in it and proved a popular concept (most prominently in a well received story based adventure called "Whom gods destroy") I didn't really get to examine their background in the game.

Nonetheless, they provided a tonne of interesting ideas and concepts and still do to this day.



Lore
Needless to say given how the race came about conceptually there is a TONNE of information, even the stuff below is quite heavily abridged and only represent a portion of information (Click spoilers for more information), more specific information from an in-world perspective will be in the in-game codex

Physiology

The Avali are superficially similar to dromeosauridae of ancient terra with a novel, ammonia based biology adapted for extremely low temperature worlds. Their wing feathers do allow controlled, short range gliding, but they are not flying animals.

While they possess large eyes, this is purely to provide eyesight on the very low light levels of their homeworld, their eyesight is actually poor. Due to a lack of an iris to adjust light levels they often cannot see at all in terrestrial daylight, but this does not hinder them.

Their primary sense is auditory, with their four, long independently mobile ears, their auditory processing is wired at a neuronal level to allow them to build not only a 3 dimensional map of their surrounding based on reflected sound, but to also distinguish and track multiple individual sound sources.

This uncanny hearing gives the impression of blindsight, being able to "spot" and track creatures outside of line of sight.

Avali are not mammals. Male and females are most easily told apart by their feathers; females tend to have muted, two-tone feathers, often with speckled patterns, while males have brightly coloured, irridescent bands across much of their body.

Social behaviour

Avali society is built around packs, siblings who live together their entire lives. This close bonding emerged as a hunting strategy, individuals within a pack know each other intrinsiclly allowing near perfect teamwork; this is further leveraged by their ability to hold and process multiple conversations simultaneously thanks to their superior audio processing, allowing a pack to rapidly discuss an idea and reach concensus without having to wait to take turns speaking.

In wider society, packs are treatted the same way individuals might be treatted in a conventional race, individual members of a pack are almost never apart from their siblings, the concept of privacy or pesonal space is quite alien (and rarely desired) and they share the same jobs and roles together.

Packs who lose members are left at a permanent disadvantage, as replacing their numbers is simply not possible, the bonds formed at infancy cannot be reforged or filled by an outsider, such damaged packs are often treatted as disabled individuals of another race who may've lost a limb, and the effect on performance is similar. Avali left alone due to heavy casualties or seperation often go mad in isolation.

Society

Avali government is essentially a meritocracy. The highest authority figures within an organisation are usually elected for the role based on experience by appopriate bodies, who then select their sub-ordinate packs, also based on their ability to carry out their jobs. Performance of subordinate packs is the responsibility of their seniors as much as it is the pack's, given it reflects poorly on the managers skills if he is selecting and retaining workers who cannot fufill their jobs; he is afterall failing in his own role as manager.

There is no social stigma attached from opting to step down from a role the pack cannot handle, indeed it is regarded as a positive trait to be able to know ones own limits and be able to confidentlly say what your pack can and cannot handle and is often the gateway to being offered the option of further training.

At any one time, much of the civilian population is connected to a system known as the Nexus; a system that basiclly amounts to a hybrid between an internet, and a matrix. A huge amount of work that would traditionally be carried through a terminal by other races, are often carried out from within the Nexus, as well as much of the Avali social calendar and communications. It also provides an ideal platform for education - this "virtualisation" of much of society vastly reduces the need for resources, large, specialised buildings and private wealth, placing greater emphasis on skills such as creativity, original thinking and the development of new technologies and nexus tools than hoarding of wealth.

Architecture

The virtualisation of their world, combined with natural pack socialisation means that Avali structures and colonies tend to be very small physically, lacking a need for large offices or houses with seperate studies and large open plan living spaces. This is further compounded by their use of wall cavities and holographic projectors for electronics, with hardware embedded inside the structure itself, and their interfaces projected holographically when a user needs to interact with it, so rooms don't tend to be cluttered up with physical devices like a human building.

This freedom in use of their space means residential structures are often designed as much for aesthetic and comfort value as practical, with sweeping curves, large external windows, and light, airy spaces with soft furnishings indoors and large, relaxed spaces and well groomed gardens outside.

The industrial zones are often walled off from the residential areas and hidden away below ground or in specialised structures; built to be highly space efficient, they have little in the way of foot-access or safety, being instead designed to be maintained by small specialised drones rather than serviced by an actual engineer.

Diet

Avali are obligate carnivores by nature, they are reliant on the vitamins and minerals present in the meat of their homeworlds native fauna and are unable to digest unprocessed plant matter.

However, they are a technologically advanced species, which has invented many forms of processed food that utilise plant-based feedstocks, and also utilise some plants to supplement the flavour of meats and processed foods in the same way humans use herbs as seasoning.

It should be noted that they have difficult eatting meat from water-based life forms as the water content freezes solid when exposed to their sub-zero core body temperature; this also means that while they are carnivores it would be extremely dangerous for them to attempt to eat a humanoid... despite this, many races are uneasy about sharing a ship with an apex predator.

Codex preview: The data-miners

Research for the Avali lends whole new meaning to "data mining", when the Avali need new technology, they simply sift through the reams of material created by the Oracle system and see how to implement the idea.

Much of the bleeding edge discoveries by the Oracle system are so far advanced as to seem useless to present day Avali, in the same way quantum mechanics was discovered almost 100 years before practical applications were made for it.

Codex preview: Nomads of the frozen desert

When I was assigned to as part of an exchange program to study the Avali in their native habitat, I must confess a certain distaste; their homeworld is unfortunately a small, ammonia-rich iceball moon, and not remotely pleasant to one olfactory senses. What I found however was an enigmatic race full of paradoxes.

One particular paradox that stands out to me is how they see themselves. When I look upon their land I see a frozen wasteland, bitterly cold. Yet they consider themselves desert dwellers. Due to their low body temperature, snow does not melt in their mouth or against their bodies, it behaves as sand does and irritates.

Nor does the water-ice ever melt on it's own on this world, meaning ice fills the role of rock to them, solid and impenetrable, while liquid water is dangerously hot to them, and it solidifies when it cools, meaning to them, water is analogous to lava.

This leads to the greatest paradox of all...

...in their eye, we humans are nothing less than lava monsters!

​

 

This looks VERY cool, I'm really excited to see more!

 

I remember your Spore creatures! I wish you luck on your mod. Glad you are expanding your races past the limitations of Spore. Loved every bit of Whom Gods Destroy, I know for sure you won't have any problems with lore.

 

Ohhh, I am excited to see this done! I will be eagerly awaiting a finished version. Keep up the great work!

 

This looks amazing, I'm definitely going for a download when it comes out.

 

Adds an amazing twist on the normal races that have the same shaped bodies. Great job and will totally pay close attention to upcoming updates! Defo going to download this when the time comes

 

You do know nothing in the game actually uses the climbing frames, right?

 

Yup, which is why they've been lowest priority. I plan to get them in at some stage (probably after initial release), but I wouldn't be surprised if we see climbable tiles like ladders/trellis/vines at some stage, or mods that use them. So I plan to future proof it eventually.

 

You raise a good point. Allow me to counter with the amount of official costume and hair assets that don't include climbing frames..

 

I look forward to trying this mod out~

 

As I said in my message when you posted the concept art, I adore the idea and execution. And you're using Character Creation Extended, so I can use it at the same time as making my race mod!
I'll definitely be following this one.

 

Curiously could there be hand to hand potential with this race of hunters?

 

Couple updates... firstly pondering how to handle tiered armour without wasting an inordinate amount of time making armour sprites. The best solution I figure therefore is that each progressive tier of armour will look like an upgrade on the lower tier set:
http://i.imgur.com/YVHN3HL.jpg

Secondly, I've been playing with the idea of giving the Avali shields in their racial gear list; specifically, energy shields; which seem to work in principle!


EDIT: Now with 90% more awesome visuals

Hmm; it's a possibility to give them a pair of "hidden" one-handed weapons as their starter weapons, but doesn't really fit. Their claws are limited use as weapons, it's their bite (Or rather, their dozens of razor-like teeth) that is dangerous, but there's no reasonable way to animate a biting attack on player characters and I don't imagine them relying on their teeth anymore when they've advanced a bit beyond that (Their classic hunting weapon being spears, which they use final fantasy dragoon like, luring prey into an ambush, jumping down onto it, using their feathers to guide their aim, and then driving the spears deep into the target from above with their full weight... of course, these days they have railguns)

I could give them "unarmed" weapons in their racial recipes list, but there's no good reason why those weapons shouldn't be available to all, by which point we've come full circle and we've got ourselves an unarmed combat mod - which are a thing that already exists anyway.

Still, I might look into whether wristblades are feasible, some high-tier wrist-mounted energy blades would make fun dual wielders

 

Sees first image:
:O *Vomits rainbows*

Real nice race I'm really excited for the release! F*** the Novakids!

 

I'm looking forward to this. Looks very nice.

 

Ok that clears up a lot more then. I already like where this is going. I'll definitely be camping here for updates~

 

Final update for a busy day - little sneak peek at the tier 1 racial armour (top left), and racial shield (while active)


Once I get the tier 2 armour up, couple weapons, and give the sprite and palettes one last spit and polish I think I'll be ok putting out the first release version of the mod (Probably tommorow). Granted it won't be nearly as grand as my long term goal for the mod, but folks will be able to mess with it, give feedback and perhaps spot any tiny bugs I may've overlooked.

 

Take your time. It's already looking promising as is.

 

Now see, THIS is a race mod I can get behind. Can't wait to hear more from ya.

 

I won't be putting up the early release version today, still smoothing and polishing as it were. But things are looking good now - currently fine tuning and tweaking the extended palette options, random generation turns out quite a few interesting colour combos