This week the focus was on the actual creation of the Luminids themselves. Model work, rigging, animation tests, and trying to lock down how these creatures look and move in the game. This is the first time Luminids have started to feel like real characters instead of placeholder blobs.

Defining the Luminid Shape

The start of the week was spent refining the base body shape. Luminids are simple silhouettes, so small adjustments matter more than you’d think. A smoother head curve, slightly wider base, shorter arms. Everything changes the personality.

The goal was to find a balance between:

readable at small sizes
expressive in motion
easy to animate
distinctive without extra detail

It was solved by keeping the body a single unified mesh with soft, rounded forms. No harsh angles. No complexity. The simplicity actually forced better decision-making.

Rigging the First Luminid

Once the model was locked in, the work moved into rigging in Blender. A minimal bone setup was used. The rig only needs:

head control
spine bend
arm flaps
body squash and stretch

The trickiest part was getting deformation to feel smooth. The mesh is very soft, so better weight painting was needed to avoid dents and pinches when the body squashes.

A few constraints were also tested for secondary motion. Even a tiny rotation offset on the head makes a big difference. Makes the Luminid feel curious instead of robotic.

Animation Tests

A few core animations were built out:

Idle

A slow breathing motion with micro-sways. Enough movement to look alive, but not distracting.

Walk

This one took the most time. Luminids don’t have legs, so the movement relies on:

body bob
arm float
glide-like forward motion

A bounce cycle was tested vs. a hover cycle. The bounce cycle felt more friendly, so it was kept.

Look Around

Just a simple head tilt with small rotations. This one gives the most personality for the least effort.

Glow Pulsing

Shader-based glow pulsing was experimented with in Godot. The animation sends a signal to the shader, letting the Luminid brighten during idle or when it notices something.

Even this tiny detail makes the character feel more alive.

Bringing Them Into the World

Once the first animated Luminid was dropped into the game world, everything clicked. Even simple idle/walk cycles completely change the feel of the scene. A static world becomes a living one as soon as something moves inside it.

What’s surprising is how well the animations read at distance. The squash and stretch body motion carries even when the character is tiny on screen.