Filipe - Lead Programmer
This month I focused on finishing the grapple mechanic since it will be used as a basis for other upcoming dinosaurs with their own specific variations. Outside of regular bugs, the Hordetest allowed a more “natural” environment to begin balance testing for grapple. Right now it is getting to a very stable state that we can start expanding upon. The same can be said about Mutations; its main functionalities are in with bug fixes and balance values already tested. The only core mechanics still not available at this time are related to Elders, which is planned to be worked on next.Spectator mode has received some much needed attention to help administrative users. “Physics Foliage Interaction” is finalized both in core functionality and performance wise. Players can enable the two forms in the in game settings. The system now can be expanded to have more foliage types applied to the system and more should be done in the near future as we investigate foliage destruction.
See you next devblog everyone!
amarok - Programmer
Hey! I’ve been working on a few different things over the last month like bug fixing various issues from Hordetesting and QA reports. I also worked on some server performance issues and setting up some backend tools for our profiling pipeline, which should allow us to keep a closer eye on how things are progressing performance wise. I finished up the additions to RCON and did some more work on an upcoming engine update. The majority of my month was taken up working on the new AI systems that I briefly went over in the last dev blog, which should make finding AI a lot easier along with some behavior and spawning improvements.
Ariel - Programmer
Many of you have probably already seen most of my work this month on the hordetest branch. I was focusing on improving the diabloceratops's sparring mechanic, particularly the interactions when two players are locked together or pushing each other. It can be tricky to get things like this working in multiplayer, but I feel like I got it working rather well now.We had some changes to the ceratosaurus's chuffing mechanic on our internal branch, but we decided to bring them to hordetesting. The ceratosaurus will now receive the defensive buff regardless of whether it vocalizes or not, it will also not vocalize automatically at group members or when it's below subadult growth.
Another change I made was enabling certain diabloceratops and tenontosaurus attacks to knock down fruit from trees and also open coconuts on the ground. Other than these I've been focusing on bug fixes, like I usually do during the horde test phase. I hope you have been enjoying the latest addition to the roster. On a personal note, it wasn’t my favorite at first but I’ve grown quite fond of this animal over our time together.
Wedge - Sound Designer
This month my attention has been entirely focused on lots of small incremental changes to push the update to the finish line in terms of audio, with a focus on both Diablo finalization and last additions to Stego’s new power swing. These include but are not limited to:- Juvenile versions of Stego’s power swing vocals
- Added new sounds for Stego preparing its power swing while raising its tail
- New horns sound for Diablo when re-engaging into locked stance.
- Improvements to arrangement of Diablo sparring vocals when locked
- Balance to diablo sparring sounds volume – horns vs vocals
- New juvenile Diablo danger call sounds
- Improvements to generic Diablo juvenile sounds such as sparring and resting
- New adult and juvenile Diablo threaten call sounds
- Sounds added to Omni grapple and Diablo Grappled animations
- Improved diablo impale sounds – separated pre whoosh and impact sounds to improve timing and play the whoosh sound even if the attack does not hit a target
- Minor adjustments to how far horn sounds travel and behavior of sounds at distance
- Changed weather sounds to be filtered when indoors instead of silenced
- Updated Diablo beg and consume sounds to match new animations
Tapwing - 2D Artist
Lately I’ve been working on a mix of things. My more recent task list has been made up of helping bring to life some meta characters and supplementing some surveillance equipment you may have seen alongside some vehicles you most definitely have not. It’s been an interesting project working out what I’ll call ‘vehicular anatomy’ and trying to come up with designs that are familiar enough to look believable while also giving it a unique flare so that it would feel like it came out of the game’s setting. What I like to do is chimera together parts from different vehicles for ideas and play with the basic shapes and then tie all those components together with similar stylings to our architectural designs: such as angular, brutalist, themes and the addition of the bars and rails gave them a nice militant, guarded look for the world they need to function in. You’ll see some of it in Phase Three this week!Bryan - Animator
It’s been a light month for me as I’ve been out of office, but I’ve been making up for the time working on the Diabloceratops and a bit of Tyrannosaurus so we can get to working on it in-game. Diablo is pretty much done animation-wise, but with how complex it’s sparring mechanic is there is always something to improve on to really sell that bit of gameplay.
Just imagine he’s locked horns with another Diablo.
KissenKitten - Producer
This month like so many others has been a bit of a blur for me since there’s so much going on. There’s more polish done on mutations, grapple, sparring and diabloceratops that should get into your hands soonish. There will still be tweaks and alterations to the mechanics as time goes on as they need to be fairly flexible so other animals can interact with them in meaningful ways. But overall they’ve been satisfactory barring bugs of course. The animation department has really been cooking this month. We’ve got some QOL animation smoothing tech being worked on in the background that should help remove some of the jank present in some transitions between animations. That process will be ongoing as there will be audits to all of the animations in the game as a whole for each species so we can pull the overall quality of the game up. We’ve been knocking animations out for the tyrannosaurus, triceratops, maiasaura, pteranodon as well as the now revealed allosaurus. They are all coming along nicely, some being animation complete or nearly complete. The tyrannosaurus has been getting some of its sparring related animations at last as well as polish to its special abilities. The triceratops will be following suit once we do some diabloceratops vs tyrannosaurus testing. For technical reasons, the maiasaura is awaiting the release of diabloceratops before its features are implemented but it is pretty much animation complete barring any issue, so the maiasaura should move fairly swiftly.
The pteranodon’s backburner mechanics have been brought back into the light along with some new features that should bring some meaningful changes to it as a playable that we were not able to deliver upon its initial release. The Isle is animation intense due to the amount of life we strive to breathe into the animals. So creatures that occupy multiple habitats (terrestrial, aquatic/amphibious, arboreal, aerial and subterranean) increase animation complexity by a large margin. Which led to creatures like the pteranodon, deinosuchus and dryosaurus releasing without some of the core features we had planned for them. Not lost, not forgotten.
For the creature on everyone's lips, we know the allosaurus was a super popular playable in legacy and we want to make sure its introduction into EVRIMA keeps with that trend. While we’ve only just revealed it publicly, the allosaurus has been worked on in small parts for a long time. Prototyping varying styles of grapples, claw swipes and more. It's important for us to try to incorporate its claws, which are an evolutionary step up, into its playstyle in a way that feels and looks appropriate for the animal as opposed to something too generic. The allosaurus is likely going to maintain its jack of all trades status by being both an ambush predator as well as a large game hunter. Exploding from cover at speed for a short distance to overwhelm smaller prey before being gassed. But foregoing stealth tactics for a more upfront approach when dealing with larger targets. Whittling them down over longer engagements. All of this is subject to change of course since even our best laid plans don’t always work out. More will be revealed as its features start to take shape and solidify. Here are a few of those prototypes.
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