The Isle News

[h2]Filipe - Lead Programmer[/h2]
This month I worked more on updating some remaining UI panels and bug fixing them. The UI took less time to implement than expected, which is great for once.

Besides that, new mutations have been added which allows you to change your gender, but also another one that allows a female to lay eggs without a mate, allowing more nests to be around. These are needed additions but required some additional setup to get working right. Some old mutations got some balance changes as well and a few bugs fixed.

Also worked in a new system for skins which will be added once we finish testing it, which is a theme system, which will give different color pallets based on those themes, for example, Forest theme will focus more on greenish pallets of colors. Dinos may have several different themes to choose from.

And of course, bug fixing.

See you!


[h2]Ariel - Programmer[/h2]
Most of my time this month was spent working on updates for the pteranodon, the first of them being the dive roll. It’s just something fun the players can do without it really “doing” anything, but I think it really adds to the character of the dinosaur. Originally it would activate whenever someone tried to fly downwards, but that resulted in players being locked into the dive for a short duration even if they only wanted to make small adjustments. So it was changed to activate when double tapping Ctrl (crouch) instead.

The second feature is something that has a much bigger impact on its gameplay, adding a new way to turn sharply. With the pteranodon being a small, nimble animal we wanted to improve its mobility without having it suddenly snap in different directions when turning. This one’s a bit difficult to explain, but first we tried a version that would automatically change your turning behaviour based on your speed and turn rate. It didn’t feel completely intuitive at first, but after some getting used to I’d say it already worked well. The second version is what we have now, which is making it tied to air brake, giving players better control over their movement. This way braking and turning quickly are done with the same key, which made it a bit more difficult, but I think I found a good point where both can be used comfortably depending on how quickly one is turning.

Other than the usual bug fixes and balance changes I’ve also been looking at the austroraptor a bit, setting up some animations and reorganizing some existing code to fit the austroraptor’s needs.


[h2]Tapwing - 2D Artist[/h2]
Recently I’ve been working at narrowing down the basic colour palettes for all dinosaurs to create some quality control for the colour combos that can be made. For example, an animal might look good in either green, red or blue, but making all those colours available in one set creates the potential for some truly eye-bleeding colour combos.

This brings me to the second part of my recent tasks, which is creating a number of alternate colour sets for the roster. This way we can offer a more expansive range of colour sets on animals like Tenontosaurus or Omniraptor, who are currently restricted to their respective brownish colours with the basic set, but might also look good in a set themed around forest greens or sandy yellows.

We’ll be able to add greens on an otherwise default red dinosaur without having to worry about how and IF those greens are going to work with those reds.


[h2]VisualTech48 - Environmental Artist[/h2]
This whole month has been (mostly) dedicated to building the labs.

A massive facility that spans over 110m in length and is one of the largest locations above ground. It consists of over a dozen different room types, spanning from the known Lab Hub that was incorporated (RIP GUTS), towards a plethora of new areas, such as the armory, all new offices, administration, containment, and some others I can’t speak on yet. It is a multi story building and gives access to a lot of explorable areas, in which only a handful of rooms currently are not accessible. The building has numerous ways in and out, and not unjust from the front door. Most areas have two or more connections to prevent players from getting stuck, or worse, cornered.

This whole facility has been one of the most exciting pieces I wanted to show you and here you are, the only thing missing from the piece is the final weathering and satellite structures:



Besides that I’ve created two habitation buildings that are used for housing and R&R for staff that was on the island, featuring a separate kitchen, bedrooms, and various lounge rooms, and a small supply closet. All that’s left are a few independent models such as beds (no more just cots) and some rec room items.



That is it for this month, besides the usual bug fixing and minor new stuff that I’ve added this month.

See you in the next one.


[h2]Wedge - Sound Designer[/h2]
This month started with us wrapping up the finishing touches on Allosaurus with some testing leading to adjustments to some of its audio and fixes to any bugs that we were made aware of along with any other audio related bugs that need to be addressed for the impending patch.

After that our focus has been on Kentrosaurus, which has come together swiftly. We have been exploring multiple angles within its audio palette, and have landed on a variety of sounds that have a diverse but cohesive range. It pulls a little from Stegosaurus, keeping it in the family with a different syntax and then incorporates shrill bugling, bovine honking and hoarse shrieks.
We have a large majority of its adult sounds completed with only a small handful left, and a decent chunk of the juvenile sounds designed as well.

Austroraptor has had its final batch of sounds implemented and with the new vocal animations being created a lot of attention has been put into getting the synch and age scaling of the vocal calls just right so they sound their best at each stage of growth.

In addition to the new sounds for upcoming creatures I have done some more work on footsteps, with additions of missing sounds in the large dinosaur footstep suite (and terrains that hadn’t been covered yet such as gravel and snow) as well as replacing either place holder footstep sounds or sounds that were starting to show their age. These have been implemented into the existing sound cues so the sounds could make their way into the game quickly. However more work has been done on a new footstep system that will correct any scaling issues with footstep sounds over the increase of growth as well as give us more flexibility in control over the various parameters so we can have pin point accuracy on every aspect. This will need more rigorous testing after being implemented before making its way into your hands (or feet).

To end the month, the time has come to dig up an old concept I had designed a few years ago for an exciting audio component that will be making its way into the isle soon, the first of many additions to help breathe life into the sound of the island. More to come soon.


[h2]hypno - QA Lead[/h2]
It’s been a busy month for QA as we close in on our last few updates of the year, with us tackling the remaining Tyrannosaurus and Elder System issues, as well as taking on the UI overhaul and Allosaurus character all in one go. Our current focus is testing server performance, ensuring that it’s up to standard for the evrima branch, as we’re using the Debug 5X Growth servers on the hordetest to identify any remaining crashes or stuttering that is occurring.

Tyrannosaurus had the unintended feature of becoming a home invader, capable of crushing a burrow and eating its inhabitants, despite them not being visible.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Sparring between Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops still had some issues lingering as well, which was mostly caused by the crush into spar interaction. When a Triceratops’ legs were almost fractured and received a crush on its head, it would break the sparring for the Tyrannosaurus but the Triceratops would still see it occurring, so it wasn’t replicating properly. This would lead to all sorts of weirdness, like the two becoming permanently locked up or the Triceratops strafing on their client while moving normally for others. This could also result in the Triceratops player looking in the complete opposite direction for each player as well, which made it look like you were attacking from behind while in reality you were hitting them from the front. We will be continuing to iron out these problems over the next few builds.

With your feedback, we decided to change it so that elders would no longer have an increased growth speed when they had received diets. This has allowed players to continue to enjoy their adult (and elder) characters for a longer duration before eventually reaching the point of entombment.
Speaking of which, entombing has had a continuous issue of resetting the player’s skin and swapping their sex since its implementation. With the help from community bug reports (which you should all be doing! 😊), we now believe to have located the source of the issue and are currently in the process of applying this fix to our upcoming hordetest patch. No more losing your beautifully crafted camouflage.

There are still improvements yet to be made to the Elder System. Some characters, such as Deinosuchus, Troodon, and Hypsiloophodon have an especially difficult time achieving prime status. This is something we are aware of and will be addressing in the near future.

You might not have thought about it, but the programmers replacing all of the assets for the UI took up a fair bit of QA’s time, with text fields breaking, buttons becoming non-functional, colours being mismatched, and menus extending beyond the user’s game resolution - just to name a few. Even now, we are still finding some more minor issues, such as the nutrients not scaling properly on the HUD.

All of our new UI had to go through extensive testing. Can I type into a box where a number should go? Can I open the character menu while the game settings are visible? Can I exploit existing systems with the new menus? The latter proved to be true, where players were able to invite others to their nest via a code and spawn them in before their eggs had even finished incubating.
Server queuing will be making a return and is expected to be brought back to all servers for the update to evrima. This is currently only present on one of the HT servers to see how it fares with our new server caching system.

One strange example we ran into is the new admin panel deciding to break whenever the teleport button was highlighted.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
The first implementation of the Allosaurus latch allowed them to stack on top of one another, creating a potentially endless chain of them. We were sensible and stopped at three but just imagine the potential!



Allosaurus has been experiencing an issue where it gets kicked from servers if it uses its pounce ability when it has attained prime elder status. This is expected to be fixed in our next patch to hordetest.

Of course, this wouldn’t be a complete devblog without mentioning whatever the latest fun our AI has decided to bring us this month.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Sometimes, I have no words…

It is known to us that the Diabloceratops AI have been fattening up the Tyrannosaurus groups, making their growth far easier than it should be. These AI will be more evenly distributed across the island and improvements to them are constantly being made by amarok to make them less of a free meal.

We’ve been putting a big focus on making direct changes to the game based on your feedback. For example, we’ve made it so that the Beipiaosaurus, Dryosaurus, Hypsilophodon, and Troodon characters no longer become infertile when they reach 100% growth. They would grow so quickly that they did not have ample time to create a nest, including all of the other usual challenges that they face. So, this has now been addressed and is present in our latest hordetest builds. Justice for the small playables!

Lastly, Don has been making balance changes to the majority of the roster, fine tuning the damage, knockdown thresholds, and fracture modifiers of the larger species. Stamina is also being adjusted for these characters and has been temporarily put on a level playing field in order to find some more appropriate values for them. These changes should make them all feel fairer against one another, as opposed to the Tyrannosaurus breaking a Triceratops leg in 2 crushes and winning. Allosaurus went in with its maximum bleed values and has since been brought back down in line with the rest of the roster, though further tweaks may still be required. It is also suffering from a bugged delay to its movement when dismounting from a latch, resulting in the target being able to get a free hit on the Allosaurus.

Let us know your thoughts and keep that feedback coming; now is the most vital time to do so before we commit this update to the evrima branch.

[h2]Fred - 2D Artist[/h2][p]Since the start of the custom skin system, we had been using 1k textures for our creatures. Due to some troubleshooting during that process as we continued to update, I started making some of the skins in 2k in order for them to function as intended in-game. Since then, some are in 1k, some are in 2k. Now I’ve been tasked with giving everyone a 2k upgrade. During this resolution upgrade, I'm also combing through these skins and giving a few of them a subtle cleanup. Below are some examples. Hopefully the older skins will look on par with the more recent ones.



[/p][h2]Director’s Commentary[/h2][p]I gave the team two months of reprieve from having to write in any of these and you can see why Fred is the GoodNoodle™ of the team. This officially makes my entry director’s commentary and I don’t have to write a saga.

We’re going to start strong with bugs. I’ve been partaking in bug hunts this month that make me want to put my head in a bag of holding and scream until I’m dead or I wake up God. It has not been fun and it’s not even visually interesting so there’s no heehaws to be found unless you count the allosaurus (again). Are you starting to notice a pattern? If an animal ever deserved to be resurrected just to go extinct again, it would be allosaurus. Why does its foot shake? Why does it slightly glow? The Gods remain ignorant or indifferent to our pleas.

The UI is nearing completion with only a few screens and pop-ups remaining. After that, there may be a few additional tweaks to allow a bit more of a personal customization for the display but the theme is largely there with a secret or two already buried in it. After that comes all the additional information like hints and tutorials.

As testing builds have gone on this month, a lot of animal colorization options have been temporarily reset before being drastically reduced. The reduced color options are so that we can expand dinosaur patterns to have varying palettes. This will allow us an overall greater freedom for color choice that stays within an intended artistic vision without letting players run around as giant rainbow monsters.

(There is an option intended for player servers to allow all palette colors \[or possibly a color wheel] so you can visually do whatever you want. If I can’t see it, it can’t hurt me.)

Pteranodon flight stats were drastically changed this month as well with all the aerial stamina requirements lowered across the board. Pteranodon carries its momentum exceptionally longer in flight than it did previously as well. There’s one more turn functionality for its flight to keep it nimble, but otherwise flight is done and it's time to give it some terrestrial enhancements. Don’t forget, when we’re done with it this animal is going to have a violent ground game.

The animation team has leaned fully into the camarasaurus. This sentence is just to pad the paragraph since I’ll let the attached media for the sauropod speak for itself. Bryan is putting the finishing touches on the quetzalcoatlus rig, which now has dimorphism in the crest for females and an additional edit to the juvenile. After that, he’s on to oviraptor locomotion so it can be plugged up alongside baryonyx, kentrosaurus, and austroraptor. The animation team will remain with our sauropod until its complete, barring an occasional switch over to any austroraptor cleanup that may be needed during its testing.

That being said, austroraptor, kentrosaurus, and baryonyx have had their basic functionality, locomotion, and lifecycles put in. I know some of the images are already floating around the community, but I’ll get some more out there in Phase Three this week. The three of these animals have needlessly cute juvenile morphs that may make a player stay their hand for a moment before trying to kill them, so use this to your advantage when the time comes.

Since last month the sound team has burned through the austroraptor, with only a few juvenile calls left before its time for kentrosaurus. The kentrosaurus’s core vocalizations have been done, so this is just like the austroraptor from last month where they can smoothly move from one dinosaur to the next that has a core vocal palette prepared. In the interim, Will is tackling some foley audio for the large animals before we can change the way footstep audio is handled (Nothing too crazy here. Just having footstep audio dynamically change based on weight).

A myriad of other balance/bug changes have found their way in. In no particular order, just going to throw out some mentionables:

Tyrannosaurus changes went well with only one particular spot in the early juvenile life stage that was allowing tyrannosaurus to hit a little harder than intended. There’s a little more to shore up on making his crush initiate a spar, but he can no longer just pin and kill things in its own weight class (and paleo calls work).

Maiasaura thirst decay has been reduced. This animal will be receiving a bit more attention for CC on its attacks and how easily it can stagger/knockdown an enemy when defending itself, including a small grace amount on the standing shove. Maia also has a small hidden passive most everyone doesn’t know about that will also be getting a minor boost in performance to make sure this is truly known as the good mother lizard.

Omniraptor’s latch decay has been reduced to more effectively hang on larger creatures for longer.

Beipiaosaurus and herrerasaurus oxygen decay has been greatly reduced.

More of the larger animals have received growth curve updates so they have more overlap with animals of smaller sizes instead of linearly outpacing them almost immediately. As stated in the last blog, the times for growth have been slightly shortened as well and put on the end of these animal’s lives so that they spend more time in the elder phase.

Jace has been hard at work on Gateway, expanding the outposts with the new buildings I spoke about last month. Gabriel has been supplying him with shells of locations you’ve seen in the GUTS locales, including some that will be too large for the outposts you’ve seen. You can also expect a new sanctuary near the highlands soon.[/p][p][/p][p]I leave you with media, good tithings, and an update to the HordeTesting branch. See you on the servers and Happy Halloween ya filthy animals. [/p]

[h2]Don - Director[/h2]

Who’s ready for nothing but director’s commentary? There’s been a lot of moving parts this month so I’m giving the team a break from having to provide an entry. There may be a distinct lack of media in this particular devblog since it’s just me, but I’ll try to catch the more interesting stuff the team is doing. For a little bit of time we unfortunately had to divert attention and resources away from the HordeTest to deal with a few vulnerabilities discovered on our public evrima build. The result of that is that players on the HordeTest have sat with some pretty rough bugs and imbalances (and cheaters) much longer than I’d have preferred but updates are once again headed your way to mend the issues at hand.

The first big visual change in the HordeTest you’re going to notice is the new UI is in the process of being implemented. You will see it in partial completion as the HordeTest builds go on so expect to see some clashing designs for a little bit as we move forward. The monkey’s paw curls.

The other notable visual change you may see is that the old prototype ceiba trees have been replaced with final versions. There are a few edits to the branch materials that may result in a few tree species having slightly abnormal color for a build or two, but the jungle feels great both on the ground and to fly through. Hypsilophodons may look forward to potential communal building in the largest of the jungle trees, as well as some increased climbing capabilities to assist it further without it becoming impossible for herrerasaurus to catch. Concepts courtesy of Tapwing.

Hypsilophodon can now mock you from its own family tree.

With the help of a lot of you violently breaking the elder system (thank you, though), we’ve found a lot of things to fix and a few considerations that were missed. Since quite a lot of the merciless jank has been pushed out of the elder system now, lifecycles are going to slow down a bit. When players grow to adult, any growth bonuses from diets will no longer apply (the rest of your diet buffs will remain unaffected). There will be additional ways in survival to remain prime for longer (possibly de-age), but for now this is what we need while elders are ironed out.

Note: Remember, if the elder system isn’t for you, server owners will have several options to alter or remove its impact for a more sandbox experience. The system may be turned off entirely to remain an immortal adult forever.

Some more of the animal roster will also have their growth curves moved to a less linear style so there’s more overlap with small carnivore animals before hitting a more considerable growth boost to move them up the next weight class. For animals that may grow to adulthood a little faster now, that time can be moved to the time spent growing in their elder phase for playtime in that part of life (This may not fix something like troodon/hypsi at the moment, which is currently very fast. There are other solutions actively being worked on for them).

Mutations have had adjustments, with some mutations no longer being inheritable when an offspring wouldn’t be able to use it, and values being moved around to help with problem areas we’ve seen. Cannibalism will temporarily have no requirement to unlock it for selection, so that’ll be interesting. Player speed is no longer increased by any mutations and two new mutations have been introduced that allow players additional opportunities for nesting: Sequential Hermaphroditism is a non-inheritable mutation that allows a player to change to the opposing sex and Parthenogenesis is a non-inheritable mutation that allows a player to nest and lay eggs alone.

Tyrannosaurus has upcoming changes for its crush so it’s no longer capable of punching upward and pinning massive targets, as well as some alterations to pin conditions so a tyrannosaurus can’t enter that lethal crush so easily. There’s also some stat updates to fracture damage for when tyrannosaurus leaves its juvenile stage to prevent it from being so oppressive towards anything in its active weight class before it becomes an adult. These changes together should give some much needed breathing room when dealing with the king of the dinosaurs.

Tyrannosaurus paleo calls are making their way in with some new animations to follow shortly behind in an upcoming build (I repeat, it’s not out at this moment. It will be put in the HordeTest notes when it is). There’s nothing suitable for a juvenile or subadult sound set for now so it's only available when you become an adult! You can activate paleo calls by holding F and pressing secondary fire for your vocal call or 1 for your broadcast call.

Note: The paleo calls were fun and cool. This doesn’t mean every animal on the roster will get some sort of infrasound or “paleo” call. We may do it again in the future. We may not. We just hope you like what we did for the rex here.

Pteranodon flight is still being worked on to achieve that organic flight feeling while keeping pteranodon relatively nimble in comparison to the much larger counterpart that’s coming. Expect to see sharper turning capabilities and some pitch adjustments in the near future. The days of free aerial harassment are over. Flight is not the only thing being given attention, as pteranodon will also be getting some edits to make it more capable on the ground to encourage its gameplay in that area. We want him to confidently hunt small animals or juveniles without feeling the need to take to the skies unless a larger threat emerges.

Anti-Air Commentary: Pteranodon can only attack heavier players on the ground while they are hovering in airbrake or they will knock themselves out of the sky.

Allosaurus has received a few more updates and it’s closing in. The new claw swipe is in, a mobile attack that has allosaurus using its forelimbs to slash targets alongside it without losing momentum, which also happens to be the last of its attacks to be implemented. The sound team has been moving quickly through the juvenile sound sets for this animal, though it may be introduced before they are all complete. To be clear, yes, allosaurus will be moving into the HordeTest alongside tyrannosaurus.

There haven’t been many visually hahafunnymaymay bugs to display this month. At most, allosaurus has an odd thing where he occasionally stares straight down really intently.

Fig B. Allosaurus stares at the dirt where it belongs.

The animation team has been everywhere. Allosaurus needed a few touch ups found during testing and the tyrannosaurus paleo calls are nearly complete, but bringing camarasaurus to life has been their main focus. These gentle giants will have an interesting lifecycle, seeking shelter in dense undergrowth before growing to sizes no predator could hope to bring down alone. There is a unique approach planned for sauropod nesting and gameplay to set them entirely apart from the rest of the animals on how they work, but it must survive the testing phase first. One thing is for sure, the camarasaurus will bring some long awaited trampling mechanics with it to the roster.


Speaking of roster, here’s the current order for some of the upcoming playables:
Tyrannosaurus
Allosaurus
Austroraptor
Kentrosaurus
Baryonyx
Oviraptor
Camarasaurus
Quetzalcoatlus
Parasaurolophus
Spinosaurus

Honorable Mention: No sweet, sweet details on everyone’s favorite hadrosaur yet but now you know where parasaurolophus is in the lineup. Spinosaurus is last here as it’s going to be a lot of work for one animal.

The core vocal calls of the austroraptor are complete, keeping some familiar animal sources players may recall from previous versions. This gives the audio team a good jump on austroraptor as the audio palette is already there. Once the allosaurus audio is complete, the sound team will be jumping straight to this animal.

Quetzalcoatlus got bumped up in priority to take advantage of the flight system being worked on. The quetzalcoatlus rig is coming along, with some tools to help the animation team based off of what we learned since we first started pteranodon. Once the animation team completes the camarasaurus, they’re diving in (or taking off?) to quetzalcoatlus. This animal will be a terrifying threat to things smaller than it, utilizing its reach to both close distance on prey or keep distance from predators until it can retreat. But if you can get the drop on it, it’s certainly not invulnerable. Was that just the trees creaking, or something else?

As most of you know, GUTS encountered some loading issues in the latest engine update. These environments have been stashed so they won’t be lost in the future, but we’re putting a building shell around many of these locations so they can be brought to the game ASAP. Expect to see a large increase of human structures on the island, from their emergency shelters dotting the island interior to the extended ranger stations that will have emergency shelters, medical buildings, and armories. And if you’re tired, try grabbing a BEIPSI JAVA. Just don’t ask how fresh it is.



There’s a lot I haven’t covered that’s also on the radar, but I’ll leave you all with some additional media because I can’t go breaking trends. See you next month.

[h2]Filipe - Lead Programmer[/h2]
As you know, there were also some issues related to upgrading the engine version from 5.4 to 5.6 that caused delays, but it was a much needed upgrade. The T. Rex and Elder System has its first pass out in the Hordetest, but I have also been working on the allosaurus and have started to get into the austroraptor. The allosaurus is the first animal in a long while that doesn't require a lot of custom things to make it game ready, so I expect it to go smoother. We will see about the austroraptor, but I don't expect major issues or delays there either.

There are plenty more things happening in the background, new dinosaur design documents have been finished and approved for implementation, so you should be hearing more about those soon. For now that is it, not much to talk about, the focus has been to get the Rex and Elders in a hordetest asap so we can move forward.

Besides bug fixes as usual. See you!


[h2]Ariel - Programmer[/h2]
With the pteranodon’s spearing mechanic making its way to QA and the hordetest, I spent some time on related bug fixes and balance changes. Overall the ability is coming along nicely and should be ready to be wrapped up soon.

I also worked on ability for the tyrannosaurus you all previously didn't get to see until recently; the directional variant of the existing muzzle swing. This ability is not focused on dealing high damage, but it has a strong sweeping attack to knock others off their feet. The new version is bound to Alt + RMB and can be used to more easily hit others behind you.

I also went through the majority of attacks and updated their hitboxes to be more accurate to the body of the dinosaur. This means that for example if the animal is visually moving its head along a certain path while biting it will no longer hit others that are vaguely in the same direction. Please note that this is not related to the attack inaccuracy that can happen due to latency, that is entirely independent.

Finally as always I did my fair share of general bug fixes and small tweaks here and there, mainly related to tyrannosaurus and elders this time around.


[h2]Wedge - Sound Designer[/h2]
This month has seen some good progress on Allosaurus’ sound suite. We have expanded on its existing vocal identity as a wider breadth of sounds are introduced into its audio profile to complement the previous sounds it already had and some new ones you all haven't heard yet.

A majority of the most important vocal sounds for the adult have been completed, including its full suite of attack and pain sounds as well as some other sounds for core mechanics such as courting etc. and we are continuing to plug away at the remaining audio needs. Luckily Allo doesn’t have as extensive a list of animations as the previous two dinosaurs we have been working on so this list is shrinking at a good rate.

Finally I have also been looking at bug fixes for the next patch to ensure everything we have worked on the Rex is functional and sounds its best.


[h2]hypno - QA Lead[/h2]
I hope you are all enjoying the hordetest release of the tyrannosaurus and Elder Systems, despite a rough landing. We’re actively investigating the cause behind the rubberbanding occurring on the hordetesting servers and plan to continue patching this branch right up until we consider this update ready for evrima.

Thank you to everyone that has been submitting bug reports over the last day; now is the most important time to get those through to us so that we can fix them for the evrima release. As some of you have already experienced, a high priority issue we’re also looking into is character replication failing, where the player is spawning as an omniraptor with no mutations instead of the species they were previously playing as.

To give insight to just a few of the high priority issues pertaining to tyrannosaurus since our last devblog, here are a few examples that QA caught:

The tyrannosaurus subadult animations were failing to play properly due to blending issues. This is a fairly common occurrence with our species that have multiple morphs for their growth cycle and the reason that we have to be thorough when verifying animations for an animal’s full life:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
It was found that a tyrannosaurus that thrashed a pinned target but pressed its carry key before killing it would result in an unintended weight loss programme:



A tyrannosaurus that had missed its crush ability and then received a flip attack from a triceratops would lock it into sparring. The problem here being that the rex would be unable to move or disengage from them, becoming completely at the triceratops’ mercy:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
And a whole lot more, such as crush weight thresholds not working correctly, being able to perform crush without expending stamina, and having no collision when charging the ability while running through other characters. Until now, we’ve had a total of 236 issues opened for the tyrannosaurus alone!

That’s all for me this time, unfortunately. Gotta get back to the hordetest bugs. 🙂


[h2]KissenKitten - Animation Supervisor[/h2]
My main focus for August was of course the rex and the other upcoming playables, including allosaurus, austroraptor, kentrosaurus, and baryonyx. With these newcomers, the animation team has been creating greater and greater distance from the other departments. Which for those that may remember, was a long term goal of ours that has come to fruition. Best laid plans still take time to execute on. Which wraps things back around to the rex.

It was a taxing endeavor to bring the tyrannosaurus into full focus but we really wanted to offer a unique experience as the tyrannosaurus rex changes throughout its life more than any other creature in the game. Not just visually but in playstyle as well. Going from frail speedster to a lanky bruiser before culminating into the tyrant lizard king for those that can survive to adulthood. I think all in all the animation team topped out at just shy of 1000 animations for the rex, which were then slotted in by our tech animation department, given a voice by the sound department and fully brought together by programming. We wanted you to feel like a tyrannosaurus rex in more than name and appearance. Hopefully we’ve achieved that so give it a whirl and let us know what you think.

As involved as the rex may have been, we never stopped making traction on the other playables. The allosaurus is likely next up to enter hordetesting as soon as it gets some more sounds and a bit more mechanical adjustments, so be on the lookout for the lion of the jurassic. The allosaurus was thankfully a pretty straight forward playable to work with minus an annoying hold over from legacy. Despite it being fairly straightforward compared to the playables of late, it'll be fun to see how it fits in and measures up. I think it’s one of the first carnivores I would say feels like it prowls.

The austroraptor is still coming along nicely, getting its swimming capabilities hooked up and core vocal suite finalized. Elegant and nimble, it’s not going to be as suited for combat as its cousin omniraptor but like all of our animals, it is not defenseless. The baryonyx however is much more suited to stand its ground. It’s still a bit away considering the sound department has to get through the animals I've previously mentioned and the kentrosaurus first but it should scratch the slashing scrapper itch for those that enjoy that. The kentrosaurus is also coming up. It’s having its main vocal suite designed currently and when that’s done, you’ll be seeing it waddling around not long after. It is a more agile stegosaurid that can keep a lower profile than the stegosaurus, and it should be no slouch in the combat department considering its adornments.

The avaceratops and oviraptor are also on the cusp of animation completion. There’s a handful of outliers for them both and locomotion for oviraptor. They’ll still need their sounds but getting these animations done eats up the bulk of the dev time for an animal generally speaking so getting that out of the way is a boon. I still think they’re both gonna be omnivorous and a threat to smaller creatures on the island that they can make a quick meal of. Between the two the avaceratops is probably the one to look over your shoulder for the most though if you’re tiny. It has a brand new attitude that nostalgia won’t prepare you for. The camarasaurus has also entered full swing development. The list just keeps growing!

As I’ve mentioned in previous devblogs, we are still making changes to old playables as well. The rex kept us rather busy so some of the current roster has had to wait just a bit before getting adjustments. The pteranodon should have its spear fishing entering testing, which will be followed by adjustments to flight. The deinosuchus is going to get some of its backburner abilities added in that should make you feel more crocodilian than before. More dragging to the depths action, smoother swimming and maybe some other stuff. The carnotaurus has also gotten some love recently as well that can show up any day now too.

Despite the length of this blog entry, in truth I’m barely scratching the surface of everything that has been going on lately. But for now, this will do. See ya next time!

[h2]Ariel - Programmer[/h2][p]In the beginning of the month we updated the engine, which involved dealing with some issues that took some time to figure out. Throughout the month I also dealt with bug fixes as usual, this time mainly related to elders and the rex. We have also changed the carnotaurus's charge attack around a bit; you will now have to press LMB to attack while charging instead of it being done automatically on contact.[/p][p][/p][p]The main feature I worked on this month was spearing for the pteranodon. The ability is now functional including animations and visual effects. You can spearfish or catch clams hiding under the mud that require breaking open on rocky surfaces.

[/p][h2]Wedge - Sound Designer[/h2][p]This month we have wrapped up all the tyrannosaurus vocalisations, knocking out the remaining juvenile sounds in addition to sparring. Next the team all have moved onto concepting the vocalisations for the Austro and Kentro suite of vocals, while I have worked on the allosaurus.[/p][p]
I have worked hard on maintaining the elements of Allosaurus calls that are the most revered by the community. Although the breath and underlayers are new, the broadcast’s core design is unchanged other than aiming to reduce the amount of noise and bring in more of the high frequencies lost in the original. The attract call maintains the passive high whine from legacy but fills out the frequency spectrum with additional layers that conform to the original intent. The generic social call is also similar to the original design but I've brought out more recognisable tonality in the sound so it is not so dominant in the breathy elements. The danger is a completely new design that conveys the distinct scream and warble of the legacy design, using the original audio profile as the foundation that is created with new source sounds. The threaten call is the only significant departure from its original calls combining low elephant bull trumpets, trilling baboons screams and wildcat hisses and spouts for a more threatening and bellowing roar with a sharper edge. [/p][p]
I have also designed the juvenile calls, slightly deviating from the legacy juvenile sounds (apart from the broadcast) to create more cohesive counterparts to the adult vocalisations.[/p][p]
I’ll be continuing on with the rest of the vocalisations for Allosaurus, which the others will join me on once completing the calls they are working on.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]Bryan - Animator[/h2][p]July has been for rigging. Lots of rigging. With the animation team working on the other Dinosaurs, I’ve been getting the next few Dinosaurs ready for animation. Avaceratops has an updated rig now, as well as juvenile morphs.

But best of all, Camarasaurus is rigged now. It’s a pretty fancy setup with lots of gizmos for the animation team to work with. Including a soft body system to make those muscles jiggle. Have a look at this test cycle in action:

Next month is going to be even more interesting as I move on to the next guy. Look to the skies.[/p][p] [/p][h2]hypno - QA Lead[/h2][p]The QA team has been focused almost entirely on the Tyrannosaurus ahead of its upcoming release.[/p][p]Its had a few problems that have ranged from simple, such as its head deforming when turning, to more serious ones, such as a server crash caused by using its crush ability while falling. There was also an interesting way to get out of a tyrannosaurus crush with the press of a specific, allowing a player to stand up and escape from the jaws of the Tyrannosaurus Crush as if nothing had happened – which, I think you’ll agree, would make for a rather lackluster ability for everyone involved. [/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]
In other news, work continues on the much-anticipated Elder System, which already has functionality for growing to elder, dying of old age (which is initiated by the player and not automatic), and passing your mutations onto your next life. These mutations will scale in strength each time the player repeats this cycle until they reach a cap.

An Elder in its prime, with the ability to select a fourth mutation:

[/p][p]The Replication Screen unlocked at the end of a lifecycle: [/p][p]The Replication UI, with previously selected mutations shown on the left: [/p][p]A fresh spawn juvenile with mutations from a previous life: The Isle has always been a game where players make their own fun, with no set objectives. You eat, drink, sleep, grow, nest, etc. but ultimately, you end up in the same place: a fully grown dinosaur that either goes down swinging or finds the nearest mountain to throw itself off, ready to join its friends as a different species.

With the Elder System, there’s always a goal to work toward: Who can create the strongest dinosaur? Who can replicate each species to hit the mutation caps? Who can build the largest family by prioritizing nesting mutations?

I’m excited to see how this changes the dynamic of the game and all the possibilities it brings. We may even be able to tie this into other potential systems.

Last but not least, I’ve expanded my team of QA volunteers by bringing on 7 additional testers. They've hit the ground running and have already contributed to 34 (and counting) unique bug reports within just a few days of joining!


[/p][h2]KissenKitten - Animation Supervisor[/h2][p][/p][p]Updating to 5.6 had us against the ropes this month but we’re bouncing back. Those sorts of updates always shake the table but we’ve gotten most of it back in place. Aside from that, our animation time has been dominated by the tyrannosaurus which should be in a good place to make its legitimate debut. During this time it has had features added to help address issues in testing to make sure the adult is exceptionally formidable. The tyrannosaurus takes a long time to reach its true potential but if/when it does, we want it to be a force of nature. It can spar, has a devastating crushing bite, can gap close surprisingly well if it gets within ambush range and can take most animals off their feet with a quick swing of its powerful head. Be very aware of your surroundings when the rex lands, which should be right around the corner followed by allosaurus.

Aside from that there’s been touching up of old buggy animations and more work for the baryonyx, avaceratops, oviraptor and pteranodon.The fishing mechanic is in testing which is fun. The pteranodon has needed love. New flight mechanics will be following which we really want to get right. We were pressed for time with the pteranodon and deinosuchus implementation way back when, so we had to make concessions that we no longer have to, so we really want to improve flight and swimming experiences. We’ve got more semi-aquatics and a massive flyer on the way which makes this necessary.

Speaking of massive, the camarasaurus is going to be entering the animation pipeline real soon as you may have seen. The goal with this animal is to give you a true sauropod experience. Tail whips, kicks, stomps, tramples, and neck swings all contained within what should be one of the most chill playables we’ve put out to date. Players that enjoy a slower, observers pace with the might of a titan will hopefully find their niche with it. Sauropods grow rapidly to a point and then become walking fortresses but even the mightiest of strongholds can fall. Danger is ever present for every creature in The Isle no matter their size. That’s all for now. Here’s a small amount of what we’ve been working on.


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