It has been a busy week for the team with lots of exciting new things going on! Our Zentragal rework gets some more optimisation and props are being updated for the interiors of Erendorn. A new point of interest has started development and the sound team has been out in the real world collecting ambient sounds. Our animation team tackles a new creature of the world and the VFX team works to create building blocks for their new ability sets! As always, join us on Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit for daily updates on Depths of Erendorn - now let’s get into it!
3D Modelling
The 3D modelling team has continued its work on optimising the Zentragal reworked model last week. Pointing their optimisation work towards the legs and spines of our eight-legged friend. As mentioned in previous development logs this process will aid in other areas of development such as animation, which in turn, will make sure that the model is able to be placed in-game without too much processing power going into rendering the model. Examples of this process can be seen in the picture below where the lower poly model is imposed over the high poly one.
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Set Piece Design
Prop work has continued within the Set Design team as they power through the list of props needed for the dwellings within Erendorn. Last week the team has been working on updating some existing props to get them more in line with the original concepts. Previous work is not lost though as the variation in props will be used to keep the interiors feeling fresh but recognisable from dwelling to dwelling. Examples of the new props and the updated concept work can be seen below!
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Programming
Client
This week has been about setting up World Sessions to use and interact with the Camera Controller, working towards implementing movement of both the player character and the camera within the world. Here is a breakdown of the work done by the client-side team
- Implemented Camera Actor into the World Session.
- Updated the Movement Manager to listen for movement inputs from the Camera Actor.
- Updated the execution order of Session setup, the Session now waits for a zone to be loaded before updating its Session State, among other organisational updates.
- Created Session-WorldMove command to be sent when a player requests.
- Fixed team Portraits not showing in Combat.
- Added the ability to show health regen numbers on Overhead UI.
- Fixed a bug causing teammates cooldowns to not display correctly.
- Updated entity placement in the world.
- Added the ability to get the height of the floor at any point in a zone.
- Fixed a crash from requesting the height outside of the zone bounds.
- Fixes Stats display on the Inventory.
- Inventory is now functional.
Server
The server-side team has been working on a few things this week, with some bug fixes and some general quality of life updates. A breakdown of all the work completed throughout the last week can be seen below.
- Added the ability for one server to notify another about a player which will soon connect.
- Changed the connection workflow between the client and World Sessions.
- Added CharacterSelect and SessionChange Message types and notifications.
- Obtaining Loot from the dungeons should no longer crash the server.
- Removed the Inventory from the JSON version of a player entity, this reduces message size when sending player data and stops clients from seeing what is in other players inventories with client modifications.
- Added the ability for servers to assign players to sessions without their connection.
- Added Inventory loading for expected players.
- Added Session Change notification when a player dies in a dungeon.
- If a player expected in a session died in the previous session the character is healed to full.
- Added the ability to remove States from entities outside of combat.
- Added the ability to disassociate a player with a specific session.
- Death in combat now removes all active effects and states.
- World Join now checks if the player is expected.
Sound Design
The sound team have taken their equipment to the wilderness last week, collecting some wonderful outdoor ambient sounds. These sounds will be used for the vast landscapes of Erendorn, giving atmosphere to the world as adventurers travel through it! Check out some of the sounds the team has been working on here.
Donjon AMB - Snow, wind in trees, heavy wind (Short)
Donjon AMB - Snow, wind in trees, light wind (Short)
Donjon AMB - Garden, spring, morning
Fireplace Recording - Closed doors
Fireplace Recording - Handles and heating controls
Fireplace Recording - Open flame
Fluctuation Flow - Cavernous
Fluctuation Flow
Environment Art
Our environment team has moved out of the engine this week to work on some 3D models for new points of interest, starting with the castle that can be seen below. Firstly, this castle will be built up in the 3D modelling program to appear to have just been built. While building the initial castle the team will take careful consideration of the silhouette of the castle and how it may be placed in the landscape. After this, the artist will begin to create ruins from the walls and towers that can be placed in the world of Erendorn. During this process, the artist will also create modular build pieces that will allow the parts of the castle to be reused multiple times. This process will save the artists time and will also mean that the process of building other castles that may be needed is a lot less complex. The work-in-progress castle build can be seen underneath.
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Animation
The animation team have been busy working on multiple models this week! Some updates have been given to the Zentragal rework making it ready for the final mesh to be applied, once done this can be exported to the engine ready to be applied into the game. After this, the team has started work on the Small Ogre model, preparing the model for the engine and creating fresh animations for the creature. Although not finalised, the animation team has done a wonderful job of conveying the size of the monster through these animations, the slower run and heavier breathing of an ogre are to be expected due to the size of the creature. These new animations can be seen below.
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Visual Effects
The VFX team has been doing some experimentation this week after working on the Earthen Dwarf character class abilities. The team has been working on creating a new library of "building blocks" for visual effects. These building blocks will be the foundations of many of the visual effects to come. From these building blocks, the team will be able to create many different and exciting visual effects, this process also makes their jobs a lot less complex. With these completed, the team sets to work concepting and gathering references for the next batch of abilities so there are some exciting things to come! Examples of these building blocks can be seen beneath.
That’s it for this week’s devlog, but have you seen our monthly roundup of March yet?!
