The Isle News

[h2]FTessaro - Lead Programmer[/h2]
This month I spent the majority of my time improving new and current systems. As part of that focus, code in general received some significant improvements and cleanup. Diets, Insects & Migration received some minor additions while we are still polishing them in QA. Our focus right now is ensuring they are fun and balanced, which is often more difficult than developing the mechanic itself.

You’ll be glad to know that corpse detection is now far more reliable and we added rigged skeletons (generics for now), which will allow them to be carried or dragged. In combination with shaders, VFX and organs this can be really macabre.

Hardened fruits like coconuts now have a chance to fall from trees and open upon impact with the ground, allowing animals ill-equipped to break them to have an opportunity for sustenance.

Added the Death screen from Legacy, with some improvements made to the Loading Screen and performance of the HUD UI in general.

Added new camera behaviors that interact with certain abilities like eating/drinking/pickup and just movement in general. These are not the final changes and the camera will continue to be expanded upon as development progresses. Other minor changes were made to Vocals, Humans, Interactable Foliage, the Troodon Venom Pounce and more.

Finally, I updated the NVIDIA DLSS plugin and implemented an alternative for non RTX users, AMD FSR2. Which will hopefully allow a wider range of players to enjoy a boost to their performance. It will also come alongside a variety of new graphic and game settings aimed at granting players increased quality of life.

See you next time everyone!


[h2]Amar0k - Programmer[/h2]
This month I've been working on finishing the new scavengers and flier/swimming AI. The scavengers are complete and have moved to testing. Fish AI has had a big overhaul of movement and fleeing; they are now much more active and reliable with full rotation and interactive movement. Performance improvements have also been a part of these recent changes so we can allow more AI on the map.

Also the new animal AI framework is coming along nicely with more performant logic and reliability this will scale across to the new dinosaur AI. I have also been working on a complete AI behavior debugger to allow easier testing and for collecting performance data. Some small changes to the anti cheat also with an updated module and upgraded permissions.


[h2]dmIV - Programmer[/h2]
This month I mostly worked on human related things. The biggest addition would probably be prone support. It works similarly to crouching and I was able to reuse some existing code fortunately which made the implementation significantly faster. There are some significant differences though, such as the character’s collision being shorter, limited sideways camera turning or the movement being restricted to crawling forward and backwards for now.

Our humans use what is called a “true first person” system. Most first person games attach the arms and equipment to the camera directly and add the legs separately if at all. We wanted to try a different approach and take the same character you would see from third person and place the camera where the eyes are. This presents many challenges that I looked at.

First of all, sometimes the character’s head can clip inside walls or the floor during certain animations. I ended up creating a system that dynamically adjusts the location of the mesh to prevent that from happening. It’s a pretty effective solution that fixes the problem without being noticeable. The second issue I tackled was being able to look down your own neck, since that doesn’t feel very natural if we’re being honest. It mostly came down to doing the math to limit the camera movement appropriately.

I also set up prone related animations and made some tweaks to existing ones. Most of our current animations are placeholders until we’re ready to make proper ones, but I made some improvements to them so that we have something better for the time being.


[h2]Bryan - Animator[/h2]
Pretty much my only project this month has been gore. Lots of gore. All our Dinosaurs now have a spinal column, ribs and that bit of meat you can never really pick off the bone. For the most part I’ve stuck with skeletal diagrams to keep the skeletons reasonably true to the real animals with the notable exception of the Omniraptor where I referenced a Deinonychus skeletal and then just kind of winged it based on that.

Stegosaurus is probably my favorite so far, it looks so cool without the plates. Very satisfying collection of bones to work on. As you can probably imagine, Tenontosaurus’ tail took a while seeing as that animal is at least 90% tail. It’s been a fun process really, putting a skeleton together is a little like playing with Lego.



For now we don’t have other bones, just vertebrae, cervical ribs, thoracic ribs and tail chevrons but there are a bunch of other juicy, squishy bits you’ll find in the middle of a Dinosaur as well.

Lastly, we have gore morphs too. If you chew on a corpse, you’ll notice it actually gets eaten now, revealing all those bones in the body. Don’t forget to pluck out the eyes first before someone else gets them.


[h2]VisualTech48 - 3D Environment Artist[/h2]
This month was a wild prop one yet again, I’ve first added the Portable Generator, which will be used heavily by the humans while restoring bases.



It needs fuel of course, (duh) but its an essential to any new human settlement.



Secondly I’d like to introduce the Spotlight, with a vintage flare, that will light up the way and areas on the island in the future:



With alongside it I’ve wrapped up and finished the large Searchlight (hint, it will be movable):



And lastly, I’d like to introduce a human item, The Crowbar:




Besides the finished props, I’ve started to work on our Cages, which will be featured in five different sizes. Its a work in progress, so it is of course subject to change.



See you next month!


[h2]Tapwing - 2D Artist[/h2]

It’s time for our nimble, single crested “friend” the Monolophosaurus.

With a nose like that it made sense that it’d be a master of it’s sense of smell, but how to best use that as a mechanic? Being able to zero in on targets more easily or being able to catch scent of something from further away were starting ideas, but then another experimental idea was pitched that I quite liked. Why not a projectile of sorts, or rather a scent trap.

This substance is something that Mono could use to either mark a target to keep track of it during a hunt or lay a trap for careless creatures that step through this substance and make themselves easy-to-chase prey for Monolophosaurus.

Water and mud would be your best friend to wash off the stench with this guy running around.



[h2]Wedge - Sound Designer[/h2]
I started this month with a continuation of the progress on Beipiaosaurus vocal sounds, some more supplementary sounds such as vomit and death vocals. Additionally I worked on some sounds for the juvenile stage including its underwater vocals and some of its attacks.

My focus shifted through the month to working on some basic sounds for humans. I have created a bespoke footstep shoe layer to be used as a sweetener on current footsteps as a placeholder which works well for now. I have also designed some basic sounds for combat including punch and kick movement and some satisfying impacts in addition to a generic close combat weapon swing sound. To complete this basic set of sounds I am working on some generic breathing to be used at various stages, including resting, a moderate breathing for exerting and movement and a fatigued stage of breathing for injury and stamina depletion.

With the impending gore update I have done a complete overhaul to gore sounds currently used for each size category, this includes biting, chewing, gorging, tearing and ripping. All these sounds already existed and could be heard through actions such as eating or grabbing meat but have been replaced with new sounds intended to be more visceral and weightier.

I’ve also been giving Troodon a bit more attention, improving some of its existing sounds such as its bite vocal and sniffing sounds. In addition I’ve been designing some new vocals to complement the venom mechanic with a unique vocal, each increasing in intensity, to signal each stage of the envenomation process.

As always along with active progress I’ve put some time into minor QOL adjustments and bug fixes, some of the more significant being updated deep mud footsteps to be used in mud pits, ensuring all ambient AI animals produce footstep sounds and improving wing flap sounds for Pterodactylus.

[h2]FTessaro - Lead Programmer[/h2]
Hey everyone, I spent most of this month continuing the development of the Migration & Diet systems, participating in several long design meetings throughout the month, with even more to come as we hash out and test the final details.

Besides the Migration System and New Diet system with slot combinations, I also implemented a variety of new food items for Update #6. Such as: Fiddlehead, Dulse, Russula, Papaya, Jackfruit, Cashews, Banana & Brazil Nuts, they will spawn in specific areas of the map depending on their main biome. A new class of interactable actors will be introduced in Update 6, insects. Two types; Flies that spawn close to corpses and bees that provide juveniles with a nutritious treat... Though adults will receive quite the nasty sting!

Carnivores will be receiving a special mechanic for Update 6, it is called the Thrash Mechanic, or Corpse Shake. I can’t spoil the details just yet, but I think the names alone will provide you with all the information you need to get a good idea of what this entails. Besides that, the Troodon received some more love this month as I made improvements to its Venom Pounce to significantly increase its visual smoothness. We’re also experimenting with a locked camera adjustment for when you’re eating/drinking, aimed at making the game more dynamic & immersive, so you’ll no-longer have eyes in the back of your head while stuffing your face with food or drink.


[h2]dmIV - Programmer[/h2]
This month I made some changes to how logging in works. We often had different behavior whether the user did a quick or a safe log, with quick log generally having more issues. So I changed how that works and now it uses the same system as safe log, making it significantly more reliable.

Climbing is something I keep coming back to. It’s an interesting process because every time I make progress I feel very satisfied, but then I come back later and notice new things that need improvement. So I ended up polishing it further and also set up a few animations for testing. The visuals are in an early stage since our animators are busy with other tasks, but here’s a quick look at where things are:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Then I went back to the human character. The first time we made him publicly accessible I didn’t really have the time to make the code as clean as I like. So now I moved everything from Blueprint (Unreal’s visual scripting solution) to C++ (actual code). I also improved a few things in the background to make some of the human-specific movements work better. This isn’t really something that a player would notice, but it was important for making future extension easier.


[h2]VisualTech48 - 3D Envirovmental Artist[/h2]
As we followed the prop month, we went into another one. This month my focus was on not only props but bridging a collision update to a group of objects, for a specific reason. Hehe.

You’ve seen the container last week, well this week we bring forth the Military PDA, which will be used by humans, as a specific way of interacting and using it in the world. We will delve further into its use down the line.



Second less noticeable object is a “simple” stool, which has a few minor variants:



Third one is the HAM Radio, which in the future, “may” have specific intractability, and you’ve seen it perhaps in the Phase-Three section of our Official Discord.



Lastly for this month, I’ve wrapped up and finished an important part of the human future building system, the Portable Generator.



And that is it from me this month. Enjoy!


[h2]Wedge - Sound Designer[/h2]
This month I started out by finalizing ambiences I was working on last month, refining them to achieve the atmosphere we are aiming for on a clear day, both coastal and plains ambience as well as one instance of cave ambience have been added to the new map. Some new layers and one shots have also been introduced to the Jungle and swamp ambiences to expand on what already was heard in these areas.

I’ve also made some changes to ensure all animals have a vocal call for their idle and/or movement animations and created attenuations for them so they can be heard at range to help players locate them through sound.

Another addition to the soundscape will be heard through the buzzing of fly swarms that spawn on rotting corpses. Alongside this I have designed a few sounds for bee swarms.

The remainder of my time this month has been aimed at adding sound to Beipiaosaurus. I started with ensuring both its on land calls and underwater calls, once implemented, are only heard within the correct contexts and at the right pitch and volume. I then went on to add the majority of its foley sounds and created some new sound effects including webbed feet footsteps, claw swipes and jaw snaps. Finally I’ve started working through the supplementary vocals for Beipi. The sounds for all attacks and pain animations are complete or near completion and I will be moving on to the rest over the next month.

I’ve also had a focus on a large amount of minor enhancements and bug fixes – replacing or editing sounds that break immersion and ensuring they are heard and functioning the way we intend (e.g balance and quality of footsteps sounds, replacing leg break sounds, etc.)


[h2]Tapwing - 2D Artist[/h2]

Returning to the stage is one of our loudest creatures on the isle, Parasaurolophus.

This one has been tricky as it’s more of a looker than a fighter; not that it can’t slap away smaller animals, but when the big predators roll in, it’ll need to pull out a different bag of tricks to make up for its lack of weaponry. Its agility is its first asset. being surprisingly nimble for its size on all fours, it can make those ambushing attempts that much harder to land. Against more endurance style hunters though, its voice would give it a second chance. As an ear bleeding yell might stagger the predator long enough to give Para a good head start in running away.

All in all they are sociable singers and get the most benefit from being around others. 2’s a party and 3 is a crowd is not a sentiment the Parasaurolophus shares.


[h2]Seiza - Video Editor[/h2]
This month we presented you with our latest video format, The Isle Guides. As the game grows, it gets more and more complex, one of the ways we would like to explain new mechanics is through guide videos so that newcomers have an easier time getting started. Keep in mind that in future we will also have tutorial resources in-game as well.

The goal of the guide videos is to answer as many questions as possible related to the new mechanics. I hope this goal has been achieved in the Nesting Guide. Your feedback is very important here, because these are certainly not the last videos of it's kind.

Also this year we want to share another special Halloween video. In line with the upcoming Gore update, I was already able to use a few of the new Gore assets in the video. For this, Bryan also created exclusive "zombie" animations for the video, I hope you like them as much as I do.

Happy Halloween everyone!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]FTessaro - Lead Programmer[/h2]
It’s been a busy month of finalizing code and running tests with QA. The migration system is functional, only encountering a few bugs that we’ve now fixed, but far more tests are required to know for sure if it is going to work well and act as an engaging gameplay loop.

The new diet improvements are also finished, as of right now we are currently testing the slot combinations in order to find bugs but also to try and steer away from any sort of must have/meta builds. We've also expanded the penalties for dinosaurs that neglect their diets, they begin to incur malnutrition (a bad diet) that causes your dinosaur to become far weaker than it was before, the debuffs are significantly more aggressive than the previous iteration (AFK'ers beware!), while the new positive buffs are improved and allow for a wide variety of combinations you can use to custom tailor your diet to specifically grant benefits that support your preferred playstyle. For example, heavily favour a specific stat? Stuff your face and fill all three slots with the same type of nutrient to gain a beefy buff towards a single stat. Or you could opt to mix & match, vary your diet with more than one type of nutrient to grant a multitude of additional benefits, including a significantly higher growth rate.

In other news, some improvements have been made to pounce visuals and the overall speed of the pickup system. We regularly received feedback on how slow it was to pick something up, as attempting to snag a morsel from a corpse often resulted in the player’s demise as the system locked them in place for eons, so hopefully the increased speed will alleviate the scavengers' woes. We’ve also implemented other community suggestions, such as the stomach icon flashing as a warning that you’re near to vomiting. And lastly, besides overall bug fixing I’m also working on making corpse detection far more reliable. See you next month everyone.


[h2]dmIV - Programmer[/h2]
The Dryosaurus received some love this month in the form of a reworked dodge ability. The new version will provide more speed and agility, allowing you to move in any direction very quickly. It’s faster than sprinting too, so you will even be able to use it when moving forward to gain bursts of speed. We hope this will improve survivability and make the dinosaur more fun to play.

The new gore system comes with some changes to scent as well. Corpses now have a wider detection range than before and it also scales with how decomposed the body is. As time goes on dinosaurs will be able to smell the body from further and further away, making it more risky to stick around for long. Speaking of detection from far away, I also added support for increased corpse scenting range by species. This will be heavily utilized by the Ceratosaurus, which will be able to sniff corpses out from very long distances.

I also made some improvements to hit detection, you will no longer be able to attack others through walls or similar obstacles. So far we’ve mostly just had trees where it was not a huge issue, but now that more human structures are coming to the game it would have been more problematic.

I also prepared some of the legacy dinosaurs with the necessary code and files for the Evrima workflow, obviously they will need many new animations along with unique mechanics, but now we have a foundation to work with once we get there. Beipiaosaurus is coming along nicely, now with a variety of attacks and more animations in place. No promises about when you’ll be seeing it in-game, but I’ve been really enjoying working on it, so I hope that soon you’ll get to enjoy it just as much.


[h2]Amar0k - Programmer[/h2]
I started the month diving into performance and testing out various optimizations with a lot of changes to AI coming over the next few months including an entire new logic methodology. The decision for this change was based on reliability and performance of the Engines base AI trees which have strange behaviours after extended periods of operation or server up time. Lots of R&D went into how this might work and internal testing over the last month has proved the system, so now begins the journey of extending it into production.

The start of this system has been introduced with scavengers like the Compsognathus and Pterodactylus which now have the ability to raid nests for eggs and hatchlings which should make nesting more interactive and require more attention to watch over.

Fish AI has also had some significant changes to how they move around to fix latent responsiveness and non natural movement.


[h2]VisualTech48 - Environmental Artist[/h2]
This month has been pretty much prop month, alongside nature collision. Starting with the cables and ropes set, which consist of variants of cables, from wiring, to plastic cables, to all sorts of indoor and outdoor cables.



After that I jumped onto the lighting, and in this case, track lighting for roads and various markings:



Afterwards we went on to the roll-off dumpster, which is a massive one, and it has WHEELS!



And lastly, we come to the semi-modular security console, consisting of various screens, and tabletops:



That is it for this month, a lot of bug fixing for some props and collision for the nature stuff and buildings.


[h2]Wedge - Sound Designer[/h2]
This month’s focus for me, aside from a handful of small tasks, has been almost entirely on environmental sound design. I’ve been working on a variety of biome ambiences, including the two already in the public build as well as some new ones.

With Filipe’s help a bug that was preventing one of the one shot sound categories firing has been fixed which should make a noticeable difference to the amount of spatialized ambient sounds in environments you are already familiar with. On top of that I've also been balancing and refining them in terms of volume, on both an individual and macro level, as well as the frequency/volume ranges that one shots occur in, and dynamic volume modulation of the various layers within the ambient bedding.

I’ve also been finalizing ambiences for three more biomes that have been in progress but on hold for a while - plains, beach and cave. All three are now complete, spare some final mix adjustments. However the beach environment poses a unique difference that will need to be solved first before being introduced to a map as two of its one shot sound sets are sounds that should only emit past the shoreline out from the ocean.

Lastly I've been designing an ambient soundscape for a Redwoods biome, focusing on creating a sparse, spacious yet diverse ambience. The intent is to recreate an illusion of stillness through the ambience by zooming in on smaller sounds like insects and foliage, and particularly the distinct creaking of Redwood trees. However the environment does contain a large range of sounds for birds, animals and dinosaurs, but I've ensured there is enough distance and space between them to not overcrowd the ambience and fight against the intent for the soundscape of this biome’s ambience. All sound assets have been set up and my attention is solely on the balance of both this environment individually and the balance across all biomes.


[h2]Tapwing - 2D Artist[/h2]

It’s a tough life for Alberto growing up, but if one does make it to adulthood, they can become quite the deadly force.

We wanted to play with the idea of a high-risk high-reward animal, with the full grown Alberto having enviable tracking capabilities and power at the cost of stamina. It can’t run for days but when it does set up an ambush and catch you, the fight is over fast. Albertosaurus is a creature you’ll most likely see hunting in pairs and sometimes tailed by their offspring. While they can have many young, very few are expected to survive. If some do manage to not fall prey to similar sized carnivores during their youth, their continued growth and demand for food will get them chased off by their more ravenous parents or even eaten themselves if they insist on hanging around while food runs out.


You could almost call this one a vampire, because if Giganotosaurus is around, you know it’s going to be a bloodbath.

It’s a proficient bloodletter, so with this in mind, the Giga’s hunting style focuses on bleeding out large targets and flesh-grazing. like many wild canids who will start ripping apart larger prey before they’ve actually killed it. Bleed resistance and perhaps a dietary preference to flesh over organs are additional ideas we may play with depending on how we want Giganotosaurus to interact with each other.
And lastly, I wanted to play with the idea of it being proficient in sniffing out a bleeding target, allowing it to better find and bogart an ongoing hunt when blood is spilled.


[h2]KissenKitten - Producer[/h2]
Another month down and it’s testing, testing and some more testing. This month has been a methodical one with the team making tweaks and adjustments to the upcoming features pretty constantly.

Gore is moving along nicely with the final assets about to replace the proxy assets you have seen previously soon. Carnivores will be able to feel like they are actually feasting upon their prey in a much more dynamic way than ever before. Also paving the way for the flesh, organs and bones to all have unique diet implications based on the type of creature you happen to be playing. Some getting more out of a particular type of meat than others. In addition to the gore bits you’ve seen, there are new blood vfx that are currently being implemented that will start making attacks and eating of flesh a more visceral experience for the players. It’s getting messy!

As for creatures, the Troodon is in testing to ensure its venom is strong when properly applied but able to be circumvented by stronger animals with proficient battle prowess. If standing there and letting things happen is your playstyle, these animals will likely drop you and giggle while they do it. However, Troodons may have deadly venom and speed but they are glass cannons and will not be able to withstand much damage. So perhaps the best defense is a good offense if you’re strong or skilled enough to contend with them. The Beipiaosaurus has also been getting a lot of attention for those that have the bandwidth to split focus. Recently getting some new attacks and polish for some of its movement. We were even joking about the possibility of a barrel roll. But don’t take that too seriously. Some of the other animals that have been getting some love include the Dryosaurus, Gallimimus, Ceratosaurus, Dilophosaurus and Diabloceratops. The new additions getting their groundwork laid so their implementation can be more swift than playables created from scratch. Legacy ports give us some much needed breathing room as so much of their art has already been created and they just need supplemental animations and maybe some polishing tweaks here and there. You may have also seen that the Compsognathus and Pterodactylus are getting some new functionality. They will be able to raid the nests of players and may even make a meal of unattended hatchlings. So keep a watchful eye on your offspring and maybe teach them how to fight before you go off to forage.

There’s also a lot of testing of new natural assets and locations. The cycads you may have seen for instance form a sanctuary crèche for small animals and juveniles to get a brief respite from larger animals. The cycads wind and twist creating a network of terrain that will prove difficult to navigate for large animals, impassable for others but easy to zip through for smaller creatures and juveniles. Be aware that while these areas will assist in keeping larger animals out, smaller predators are still very capable of entering so it is unwise to let your guard down. These sanctuaries will also have a buzzing environmental hazard that ensures anything too big that gets in, may not get out alive and that any juvenile creatures attempting to make it their permanent home beyond a certain size can meet the same fate.

There’s much more going on but I think I’ll put a pin in it here. Take care and I’ll see you in the next one!

Hey Islanders,
​
A new patch is now available on the EVRIMA Public Branch, bringing forth a completely new Night Vision system, developed in response to the community feedback regarding our previous iteration of Night Vision. We hope that you enjoy the changes!

Please note that you may need to restart your Steam client if the download does not make itself immediately available.
​
​
0.9.91.06
- New Night Vision
- NV is disabled underwater
- Made Day as default
- Decreased Day time from 60 to 45mins
- Decreased Night time from 45 to 30 mins
- Increased spawn amount of some small AI animals
- Fix to corpse detection not being reliable as it should
- Duckweed removed from surface rendering

[h2]FTessaro - Lead Programmer[/h2]
Hey everyone, some of this month was spent working on the night vision update, which included a few bug-fixes and some necessary improvements to our anti-cheat capabilities. We're also evaluating feedback & investigating a number of reports regarding issues with the current night vision system, you'll find more information on that further down the blog in KissenKitten's post.

Regarding Update 6 the progress is going really well and I will split into categories below:

Gore/Organs: The base code is finished which allows organs to spawn when needed and be fully interactive with physics, soon we’ll be starting tests using animals bigger than the Utahraptor, but I don't foresee needing to make big changes in the code, besides possible enhancements and bug fixes. Still in regards to organs a new mechanic is being created for all carnivores, it is a gore specific mechanic that can be used for things like role-playing and improving diets, more details about it soon. New gore and rotten textures are going to be added to the corpses, and bone meshes as well. The bone assets are the last stage of a corpse, they will be interactable.

Diets/Nutrients/Slots: The enhanced system for diets was set up to grant more control to the players for what dietary buffs or “advantages” they can receive in our survival environment. With this new system, slots are not locked to specific nutrients anymore, they are now fed with the latest consumed nutrient and can be combined as desired by the players, for better understanding, you could fill two slots with carbs and one slot with lipid, which would provide the player with a specific buff, or a different combination of all slots fed with protein, providing another completely different buff. Players can use this to better customize their character to their playstyle.

Migration System: Since the new diet slot combinations system was finished some time ago, we now can start testing migration with the herbivores and slowly start integrating the carnivores into it. Several meetings are scheduled for the design team to decide all the details for the migration system, as well as the effects from different slot combinations. This system will motivate players to move around the map to get the benefits from their diets. You’ll get more details on this system in a future DevBlog.

Vocals: I also spent some time improving the entire vocal system, which now is more reliable, performant and fixed an issue related to reverb the sound when traveling great distances.

Skin System: By popular request, we’ve added Eye customization, so players now can choose the color of Iris to customize the character even further, integrated to the “random” button and import/export functions. I also fixed a couple bugs in the slot saves.

Physics Doors/Gates: Those systems were finished and provided to the Map Design team to start adding them to the maps. Those doors/gates are interactive physics based actors, the bigger the animal the easier it is to push them and open/close. Some doors will be “locked” by default, needing a human player to first unlock it before it becomes usable by animals. While the basic physics functionality is done, more work and adjustments may be necessary in the future.

Automatic Lights: Map Design now also has access to special actors that are automated in the island based on time of day, those lights turn on or off depending the time of day. This is a basic system that may be expanded in the future with other automatic systems added to it. This has a small relationship to Lore.

Interactive Foliage: This system has been expanded, now more foliage types were added to it, physics assets setup and tiny performance improvements added. It allows players to physically interact with foliage in the map, regardless of the distance or amount. Besides the visual joy of it, this can also be used to detect prey or threats among the foliage. This will continue to be expanded over time as much as possible.

Besides all that, we had a significant amount of bug fixes this month for QA to test, and more to come as there were also some quick tests with burrowing.


[h2]dmIV - Programmer[/h2]
I continued working on the Beipiaosaurus with something you might have already seen floating around, the breach. If you surface fast enough you will be able to breach the surface of the water. This allows you to maneuver around predators better and potentially reach shores you couldn’t reach otherwise. Personally though I think it was worth adding even if it’s just for fun, there’s something very satisfying about launching up in the air and diving back down.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
An interesting experience for me working on this creature is how it connects to when I was working on the Deinosuchus. We originally had a concept where the “water walking” was a more distinct state that keeps the animal only moving along the floor and you would have to leave that state by manually swimming up. In the end we went with the more seamless version you know well, since the Deinosuchus sinks passively and there isn’t that much of a difference between swimming or water walking. In the case of the Beipiaosaurus however, we returned to that same concept with some minor changes. So on the programming side I was able to just bring back the water walking prototype from back then, tidy it up a bit and just like that, one of the main mechanics was ready to go. The breach is a different, but quite funny story. While working on the Deinosuchus at one point I accidentally made it gain velocity when surfacing instead of losing it. This resulted in some very ridiculous behaviour and it’s completely different from how the new mechanic works, but I thought it was interesting how it also came back in a way.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Most of the month was actually spent working on something I had been waiting to work on for a long time, climbing. The idea originally came up along with the Pteranodon’s latch mechanic, but ultimately we didn’t have the time to include that. I always really enjoyed climbing in games where it’s possible, so I was pretty excited by the idea of taking a stab at it myself. There’s a lot of things that can go wrong with a system like this, you can have all kinds of complex surfaces and a character moving along in every possible direction. Making it work reliably and looking nice and smooth is quite a challenge. There’s still a good bit of work left to do, but it’s coming along nicely. As for what dinosaur actually gets to this, let’s just save that for later.


[h2]amar0k - Programmer[/h2]
With the hotfix out of the way I have continued working on the new online subsystem and resolving various issues with that. Player count is one as you would have noticed it not correctly updating to show a full server along with some work on RCON and the Queue system. AI work is back in full swing with the new Pterodactylus and Compy getting additional functionality like nest raiding and attacking so watch out hatchlings!

There has been a significant change to the overall movement of AI and how that functions to save on performance and the general look and feel of how they move around in the world. I have continued reworking crowd AI and spawning for performance and dietary updates.


[h2]Tapwing - 2D Artist[/h2]
My month has been partially occupied by another wave of color selections for some upcoming dinosaurs. I'm sure you’ve seen some clips or pictures going around the Isle discord. But besides that, I’ve more nature sketches for you guys.


Our lion of The Isle.

What we wanted for this dinosaur was to showcase its ambush centered abilities and really let them use those claws. For instance, you might not be able to outrun a Gallimimus, but if you can get the jump on it, you might just have the burst of speed to grab it before it slips away. For some other uses with it’s claws besides grappling and pinning, we explored the idea of it being able to dig up burrows or perhaps carry it’s food in hand rather than in mouth so that it might still be able to call, bite or smell where other animals would have to put their food down and risk loosing it’s catch to a sneaky thief.

All in all, you’ll want to be careful around those dense tree lines when Allosaurus is around



It’s time for our king of the skies. An insidious meat-eating flying giraffe with a lance for a face and you’ve got our Quetz.

With Quetzalcoatlus we wanted to show its air-savviness, from combat to surprise landing stab and runs. While it might not be able to go toe to toe with other apexes its size, it’s a nightmare to the many smaller creatures of the isle. Its long neck and beak give it plenty of range that make it formidable on the ground or in the jungles. So keep a sharp eye out amongst those trees, one of them might be staring back at you.


[h2]Bryan - Animator[/h2]
All of my work this month has revolved around Beipiaosaurus, it’s been a tricky and ungainly animal to work with as most Therizinosaurs are. They are the embodiment of “I don’t know what to do with my hands.” thanks to their abnormally large forelimbs and semi-upright stance. Thankfully we’re nearly done with the animation stage of its development once a few kinks are worked out, with only the Juvenile animations left to do. I think I speak for both Kissen and myself when I say “it’s been swell but the swelling has gone down”, we’re eager to move on to the next subject after spending so long on the Beipiaosaurus.

It will definitely be a fun playable creature and we really went all out on its swimming animations. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out and I hope you will be too.

On that note I’ll likely start streaming again soon so I’ll have to dig out the Gerry cam again since I know you all only watched the stream for the good boy. I have quite a few good animals on my task list you’ll enjoy, both from the new roster and classics from the Legacy roster.




[h2]VisualTech48 - Environmental Artist[/h2]
This month has been partly committed to the Damage Pass, consisting for now, with various decals and mesh type decals for damage and grunge to the buildings in general. It started off with various leaks, from rust ones to just environmental ones, dirt and grimes.



Next up I went further and took scans of existing damage decals, and color corrected them and made them game ready, with various tweaks to both color, height, and displacement which now features a bit more in the game itself. It's a “cheap” and old school POM displacement and all of the decals that are featured in the damage pass now have it.



I’ve started re-constructing the exteriors and a bit of interiors of known and done buildings to feature these types of damages and decals, which now makes them look more of this world, and that it has been weathered even further, with the addition of metal mask damages as well:



You can see a clear difference in the damage on the last image, where the decal has been put to most of the edge of the garage.

Lastly, I’ve made the CCTV 2 types of cameras, with a few variants, nothing too shabby. Here are some HD images of them rendered in Marmoset:




[h2]Wedge - Sound Designer[/h2]
I’ve mostly been focusing on rounding out all sounds for Troodon, this has included the final adult sounds that were not finished by the end of last month, creating a juvenile variant for the majority of these sounds (the ones that didn’t need this worked fine just undergoing some pitch modulation in engine) and finally sounds for its hatchling stage which at this stage include just a vocal sound for hatching and begging. Now all sounds are implemented I will be doing some fairly extensive play testing on Troodon to ensure that all sounds work as intended and there are no key sounds i’ve missed.

I’ve also been working on creating chorus vocal sets, much like Pterodactylus’, for Compies. I have completed a large group sound for the food chorus, a mob of chirping and interesting trills, as well as a handful of short alarm sounds, leaving only a chorus sound triggered by the player crossing into a territory they are inhabiting left to do. With these two significant tasks (Troodon and AI choruses) nearly off my plate I’m looking forward to what’s next to come.

As always, alongside work on new content, I’ve addressed a few sound issues that are brought to my attention either through the community feedback channel, QA bug reports or raised by the team or from my own playtesting. The most common issues I’ve addressed are problems of consistency in the intensity and volume of both ambient water sounds and footsteps (specifically for medium creature sound sets) across the three different movement speeds. I’ve also started putting together foley sounds for dragging corpses (and also for Deino’s movement), I’ve been putting together a looping sound for each surface type in game, split into 3 loops for each surface one for each of the main size categories which is an audio enhancement to breath a bit more life and detail into these interactions.


[h2]KissenKitten - Producer [/h2]
I swear it feels like there’s no more than a week in between these blogs. Time flies when you’re battling a knife fingered battle penguin. This month has consisted of further work on the mechanics mentioned in the last blog like gore. With the VFX pipeline pumping out buckets of blood in preparation for gore’s debut. After some fine tuning, we’ll be getting some test shots prepared for public consumption. Expanded diets and migration are also in full swing. The TLDR being that you’ll have more options for how you want the life of your character to play out. If you got into a scuffle and want to heal your wounds a little faster, there’s a diet buff for that. Feel like you’d enjoy running around a bit longer before being gassed? There’s a diet buff for that too. With the new system, you should be able to get a lot more mileage out of your gameplay experience and discover the best routes for your species and your personality that continue long after you’ve reached adulthood.

Troodon is nearing completion but needs testing and some supporting effects before it can be considered ready. Alongside it, the Beipiaosaurus has been diligently making its way towards animation completion despite being a fever dream to work with. We think you all are really going to enjoy it. But know that we suffered to make it a reality. Animation work on the Ceratosaurus and Gallimimus has slowed down as we’ve increased production but those two haven’t been nearly as complicated to work with. The Dryosaurus is also having its dodge reworked to be much more intuitive and fluid. The burrowing has been prototyped a few times as well but it is not ready to be showcased just yet. It is still on the backburner but at least on simmer. Some of the other animals that have been making some production appearances that we haven’t mentioned much include the Oviraptor, Baryonyx, Kentrosaurus and Dilophosaurus. None of which have entered the animation stage just yet though. But some of their supporting art should be making an appearance in the not so distant future. Some may even be featured in some streams soon. Cross your fingers!

Humans are getting some in-game polish in preparation for their entry to the live branch alongside Update 6. Our human modeler has done such a great job on them all and I’m so excited for them to be showcased in a much better light than you’ve currently seen. Speaking of light, we have received a lot of your feedback in regards to the new night vision causing some of our more sensitive players motion sickness and headaches and are working on making some adjustments to make it easier on the eyes. We take the matter seriously and want to make sure we can make the night vision experience comfortable for as wide a range of people as possible. Should it take longer than expected to make those adjustments, we will revert night vision in the interim so we don’t bar any of you from playing while we craft a solution.

Lastly we do have some new content coming out related to the NPE (New Player Experience) that we feel will help make The Isle more accessible to players that are new to survival games and specifically one pioneering playable animals. We understand the learning curve in The Isle can be steep at times. In many ways, we intend to keep it that way but also want to ensure accessibility is not solely lost due to a lack of clarity rather than a lapse in player judgment and decision making. So expect that content to drop soon as well. See you in the next one!