DevBlog #18: Happy Halloween!
[h2]FTessaro - Lead Programmer[/h2]
Hey everyone, it feels like these months are flying by! As if it was only a few days since our previous DevBlog. As you’d likely expect, I’ve been primarily focused with the ongoing Mechanic Test for Update #4. For the Diet System I’ve set up some additional fruits and vegetables such as coconuts, interactable horned melons, radishes & pumpkins.
The implementation of coconuts also required collaboration with our awesome animation team, so that a certain hard-headed herbivore could use it’s ram attack to split them open to reveal the nutritious prize hidden inside. That collaboration also resulted in a system that plays low, mid or high eating animations based on the size of the eater and plant being eaten, dynamically.
Besides all that, I've been busy making adjustments to the Diet and Fracture systems, the usual day-to-day bug fixing and testing some things that we’ve been working on for updates 5 & 6, which we’re all excited to share with you sometime in the near future. That’s my October everyone, see you next time!
[h2]dmIV - Programmer[/h2]
Most of my month was spent reworking how footprint scent works. They are now detected passively around the player in a small radius, which increases as you hold Q. This can be toggled by tapping Q as well. Players can also begin tracking specific dinosaurs by tapping Q while standing on top of a footprint. This will highlight the prints left by that player with a different color.
Another big change is that you can no longer scent all footprints. Instead players will only leave behind groups of scentable prints a distance away from each other, so you will need to find these instead of following a continuous line. We are still experimenting with different cues and visuals but that’s the general direction, making tracking feel more like tracking.
[h2]Amar0k - Programmer[/h2]
Hello! This month I spent a bit of time working on a new monitoring tool for the team to use as you may have seen in some previews or my stream. It includes a heatmap of where all the players are hanging out. We can use this for balancing or map design to name a few functions. I have also spent a bit of time on the ambient rabbit which I'm hoping to do something similar for each of the ambient animals it now burrows after a certain distance and time spent running from a predator. It will eventually come out of the burrow if you are far enough away. There has been some pretty heavy work going on with the backend servers and how we manage them which is still on-going. Carnotaurus AI also received some much needed love recently as it was slaughtering everything in its path.
[h2]Baardo - 3D Artist[/h2]
This month I continued work on the edible plant assets, including a remake of an older asset, the Coconut Palm. I was able to bring the asset up to a higher graphical fidelity as well as add some extra details to it for the diet system. It comes complete with bushels of coconuts and the coconuts can be cracked open in multiple layers. Quite a glow up for one of the assets that made its debut with the first batch of tropical foliage!
Additionally I made some new smaller diet assets, including a season appropriate pumpkin! In addition to smashing some pumpkins, the player should be able to gorge on radishes and russula mushrooms soon.
[h2]Wedge - Sound Designer[/h2]
This month I have been continuing to round out any audio missing from update 4 content – I created the sounds for coconuts being smashed and foley sounds for eating, particularly herbivores which now just need to be implemented. Additionally I have been sourcing more sounds for the ambient animals in spare time when possible.
I created more variants for the Troodon calls as previously only one iteration was made, which entailed recreating them from scratch with the audio files used originally and manipulating the elements to create subtle diversity. I have also started conceptualising calls for the Beipiaosaurus, after a phase of drafting ideas I have a clearer direction and am now looking for unique sources and sounds that can be combined and processed to have a referential aesthetic to sounds produced by waterfowl, whilst adding layers with a more harsh or threatening dinosaurian quality.
With the introduction of blunt force impact sounds on the Pachy headbutt I have also been looking at creating sounds to complete the audio design for combat. I have planned what sounds will be needed for the various combat situations and started designing impactful hit feedback sounds for all sizes of creatures, on top of blunt impact sounds these will include bites, stabs and slashes as well as additional gore sweetener layers with potential ongoing additions as new abilities are added.
[h2]Tapwing - 2D Artist[/h2]
This month has been pretty busy with skins.
Fred and I have been working to finish dressing up the remainder of our current planned roster.
It’s been an interesting balancing act coming up with fitting patterns that are unique enough to the animal while still abiding by our skin system of 4 separate colours and a detailed colour for the male pattern.
When the time does come where we get to elaborate on our skin system and add multiple patterns, we’ll have plenty to draw upon.
[h2]KissenKitten - Producer[/h2]
October has been a whirlwind of epic proportions! A lot of troodons running around all over the place in addition to hammering away at the remaining content for Update 4. There are new diet plants incoming and more to be created even after those. The creatures have their fracture animations in testing currently so you can finally limp away at a decent speed like a boss should you get knee-capped. Just a few final touches and tweaking a few stats and we’re going to be ready to drop Update 4 and start previewing content for Update 5. All of your help has been very valuable to us and we appreciate your contributions. Enjoy the spooky treat Seiza and the team have cooked up for you all! See you in November!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Hey everyone, it feels like these months are flying by! As if it was only a few days since our previous DevBlog. As you’d likely expect, I’ve been primarily focused with the ongoing Mechanic Test for Update #4. For the Diet System I’ve set up some additional fruits and vegetables such as coconuts, interactable horned melons, radishes & pumpkins.
The implementation of coconuts also required collaboration with our awesome animation team, so that a certain hard-headed herbivore could use it’s ram attack to split them open to reveal the nutritious prize hidden inside. That collaboration also resulted in a system that plays low, mid or high eating animations based on the size of the eater and plant being eaten, dynamically.
Besides all that, I've been busy making adjustments to the Diet and Fracture systems, the usual day-to-day bug fixing and testing some things that we’ve been working on for updates 5 & 6, which we’re all excited to share with you sometime in the near future. That’s my October everyone, see you next time!
[h2]dmIV - Programmer[/h2]
Most of my month was spent reworking how footprint scent works. They are now detected passively around the player in a small radius, which increases as you hold Q. This can be toggled by tapping Q as well. Players can also begin tracking specific dinosaurs by tapping Q while standing on top of a footprint. This will highlight the prints left by that player with a different color.
Another big change is that you can no longer scent all footprints. Instead players will only leave behind groups of scentable prints a distance away from each other, so you will need to find these instead of following a continuous line. We are still experimenting with different cues and visuals but that’s the general direction, making tracking feel more like tracking.
[h2]Amar0k - Programmer[/h2]
Hello! This month I spent a bit of time working on a new monitoring tool for the team to use as you may have seen in some previews or my stream. It includes a heatmap of where all the players are hanging out. We can use this for balancing or map design to name a few functions. I have also spent a bit of time on the ambient rabbit which I'm hoping to do something similar for each of the ambient animals it now burrows after a certain distance and time spent running from a predator. It will eventually come out of the burrow if you are far enough away. There has been some pretty heavy work going on with the backend servers and how we manage them which is still on-going. Carnotaurus AI also received some much needed love recently as it was slaughtering everything in its path.
[h2]Baardo - 3D Artist[/h2]
This month I continued work on the edible plant assets, including a remake of an older asset, the Coconut Palm. I was able to bring the asset up to a higher graphical fidelity as well as add some extra details to it for the diet system. It comes complete with bushels of coconuts and the coconuts can be cracked open in multiple layers. Quite a glow up for one of the assets that made its debut with the first batch of tropical foliage!
Additionally I made some new smaller diet assets, including a season appropriate pumpkin! In addition to smashing some pumpkins, the player should be able to gorge on radishes and russula mushrooms soon.
[h2]Wedge - Sound Designer[/h2]
This month I have been continuing to round out any audio missing from update 4 content – I created the sounds for coconuts being smashed and foley sounds for eating, particularly herbivores which now just need to be implemented. Additionally I have been sourcing more sounds for the ambient animals in spare time when possible.
I created more variants for the Troodon calls as previously only one iteration was made, which entailed recreating them from scratch with the audio files used originally and manipulating the elements to create subtle diversity. I have also started conceptualising calls for the Beipiaosaurus, after a phase of drafting ideas I have a clearer direction and am now looking for unique sources and sounds that can be combined and processed to have a referential aesthetic to sounds produced by waterfowl, whilst adding layers with a more harsh or threatening dinosaurian quality.
With the introduction of blunt force impact sounds on the Pachy headbutt I have also been looking at creating sounds to complete the audio design for combat. I have planned what sounds will be needed for the various combat situations and started designing impactful hit feedback sounds for all sizes of creatures, on top of blunt impact sounds these will include bites, stabs and slashes as well as additional gore sweetener layers with potential ongoing additions as new abilities are added.
[h2]Tapwing - 2D Artist[/h2]
This month has been pretty busy with skins.
Fred and I have been working to finish dressing up the remainder of our current planned roster.
It’s been an interesting balancing act coming up with fitting patterns that are unique enough to the animal while still abiding by our skin system of 4 separate colours and a detailed colour for the male pattern.
When the time does come where we get to elaborate on our skin system and add multiple patterns, we’ll have plenty to draw upon.
[h2]KissenKitten - Producer[/h2]
October has been a whirlwind of epic proportions! A lot of troodons running around all over the place in addition to hammering away at the remaining content for Update 4. There are new diet plants incoming and more to be created even after those. The creatures have their fracture animations in testing currently so you can finally limp away at a decent speed like a boss should you get knee-capped. Just a few final touches and tweaking a few stats and we’re going to be ready to drop Update 4 and start previewing content for Update 5. All of your help has been very valuable to us and we appreciate your contributions. Enjoy the spooky treat Seiza and the team have cooked up for you all! See you in November!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]