Kay Lousberg | KayKit
patreon
KayKit Updates recap!
🕑 Added 2025-09-15 11:16:08 +0000 UTCHey all,
I thought it might be fun to give you all an update on KayKit works in progress here on Patreon. I try to post these daily on the Discord server, but I didn't want you guys on Patreon to feel left out so here's a recap of the past couple of weeks :)
Let me know if you enjoy this type of update recap, if you do I'll try to do one regularly/monthly!
Animations update (name tbd)
I'm updating the character animations to be more modular. Currently all characters have the whole animationset included in their .fbx/gltf files, which is nice for usability but not great for scalability and updating animations on my end. Going forwards there will be different 'animation sets' like CombatRanged, MovementBasic, MovementAdvanced etc. so you can load in whichever set(s) you need for your project, and the characters will no longer be bloated with 100+ animations each.
This update will allow me to add new animations much easier in the future, I've already started making Bow animations.
New animations include:
Bow animations
Crawling
Sneaking
Crouching
+ more
Lots of other animations have been tweaked/fixed/changed, some redundant ones have been removed. Current/Old versions of the animations and characters will remain accessible, so nothing will be lost/removed.
I'm making some minor tweaks to existing character's rigs (called Rig_Normal going forwards) to accomodate these changes (nothing destructive and current characters will be compatible with new stuff with only minor adjustments).
Also included in this update are completely new animations for the larger characters (Clanker/Golem/BlackKnight etc, called Rig_Large from now on), they will get less animations than the regular set for now, but each animation is made specifically for these Rig_Large characters. Manny, our mannequin character has also gotten an update :D
Adventurers 2.0
Also happening at the same time is an update to the Adventurers. In short:
- All characters visually updated
- New free Ranger character
- New (extra tier and above) Rig_Large version of the Barbarian character
- Release date : 1-2 months from now, I'm aiming for October.
This is an update to the existing package, not a new one, so people who've bougth the EXTRA or SOURCE tier previously will get the content added for free.
The Adventurers where the very first characters in the new style (with legs) and over time I've started adding more detail to the Mystery Monthly characters here on Patreon, and I figured it's a good time to update the Adventurers as well to match the level of detail.
The knight's helmet will be openable now too.
The barbarian got some more elaborate updates, including his own Rig_Large variant!
We needed a character to make use of the new bow animations, so here's a Ranger!
I don't really have a timeline for these updates at this point just yet, but I'm actively working on these things so I expect within the next 1-2 months all of the above to be released. A large portion of the work will also involve making some tutorial videos on setting up the characters in various game engines, which will be helpful for beginner gamedevs working with 3D characters and animations.
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Anyways, big post with lots of updates, let me know if you want more of these! If you want to check in on updates live, please join our Discord here.
Thank you to everyone who supports the KayKit assets, it's very much appreciated! ๐
-Kay
Comments
Kay Lousberg
Glad to hear your excited! :D Mouths will just be static unfortunately, I really want all the characters to be consistent across the board and adding facial rigs and animations to all characters is currently a bit out of scope for me. I totally understand the need for those though, so the most realistic option I can provide is to make a separate asset pack in the future that has animated heads only that you can swap onto existing characters, to take care of dialogue and cutscene needs. The materials on characters is a similar situation, the current focus is to have everything consistent and work 'out of the box' and be optimized etc. so beginner devs don't need to mess with anything. And experienced devs can go into the blend files and tweak what they need still pretty easily. But I do appreciate the feedback! :) Acrobatic animations like rolls and flips will not be included in the initial update, however the main purpose of the animations update is to make it easier for me to add more animations down the line. I've added flips and rolls to the list, so expect those in a future update.
Dragonforge Development
Really great to read all this as I'm not on the discord and it's really exciting! I'm very excited for the bow animations! Since they have mouths, is there any chance those will be separate so that we could do some animation for cutscenes and the like? In the same vein, is there any possibility of having exported models that have materials mapped to different parts? I'm fine with just swapping in various png sheets, but every once in a while I think it would be nice to add a shiny metal to the knight's armor. I also once gave the barbarian armor made from ice with a shader, and I had to cover up everything. If the answer is I've gotta do it in source in Blender myself that's fine. Just thought I'd ask. P.S. I'm hoping there's some new acrobatic animations like rolls and flips. Whatever we get is awesome! You deliver really quality content!
Kay Lousberg
Thanks Brandon! :D
Brandon Dilmore
Awesome stuff! Great work, Kay! ๐
Kay Lousberg
Ah good to hear you enjoy a blog post like this :) Yeah this will affect the mystery characters too, either starting October or November those will have the tweaks needed for the new animation set, already existing characters will get updated. Ultimately the main change needed for some game engines is naming convention on the armature (rename Rig to Rig_Normal to go from old to new animations, and viceversa). This is meant to be an update across the board for all KayKit characters (with legs), so they can all use the new and future animationsets
NickyBHobbying
Hey Kay! This is a cool update and I do appreciate it even though I have been in the Discord and semi-following along. Nice to have a big detailed update. As can happen with a big update I might have missed it but does this affect releases of Mystery Character of the Month? Ironically my initial reaction was, โbut does this affect that?โ, and I had to think of what else is covered in the Patreon lol. Thanks mate and good work! Keep it up. The barbarian looks awesome giant sized.
