It has been a productive week for developers working on Depths of Erendorn. The 3D modelling team has started the retopology of the Human Knight armour as the sculpting has been finalised. The sound team has been implementing some audio for enemy idle cycles and as players draw their weapons. The wizards of coding have been fixing some niggling bugs within the server and improving performance within the client. Finally, the environment team has continued to create the latest update for the castle ruins and the animation team has created looting cycles for the Zentragal Illusionist. As always, join us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit for daily updates on Depths of Erendorn. Alternatively, join our Discord for all the latest! - now let’s get into it!
3D Modelling
With the sculpting for the new Human Knight armour completed, the team has moved on to retopologising before they begin texturing. The process we have seen used for other highly detailed models will allow the armour to maintain its detail while being more processor friendly. Starting with the main body of the chest piece, the team has started to overlay the lower poly model over the top of the sculpted armour. With this low poly model, the team will aim to keep the shape of the armour without taking its detail. Once this lower poly model is complete, the team will bake the detail of the sculpt onto it giving them an asset that will then be textured. Examples of the retopologising process can be seen below.
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Programming
Client
This week has been about improving performance during adventures by adding the concept of 'distance relevancy' to Overhead Health Bars as well as working through several bugs that cause problems for World Combat. Examples of more work completed by the client-side team can be seen below.
- Added a method for hiding Overhead Health Bars when outside of a relevant distance to the camera.
- Updated UI hiding toggle to work correctly with distance relevancy.
- Added developer console command for changing distance relevance range.
- Updated Scorpion Sting, Unholy Bolt and Quickening Poison ability templates.
- Narrowed down the source of the World Combat soft-lock bug.
- Fixed dungeon entrance positioning on the new dynamic dungeon entrances.
- Reworked client movement implementation.
- Corrected issues with interrupted movement prediction logic.
- Fixed stuttering movement steps.
- Improved speed of queued movement removal.
- Added a transaction message to the vendor screen to inform players when interactions are disabled whilst the transaction is processed by the server.
- Fixed a series of functions that would cause any changes to the player's inventory to appear to revert and repeat themselves multiple times.
- Added a timer to the vendors to notify players of when their stock refreshes.
- Started implementing real-time refresh on the vendors.
Server
This week the server team has been busy fixing a large amount of miscellaneous, slightly less critical bugs throughout the zone server. A few examples along with other work completed by the server-side team can be seen below.
- Entity spawning locations in Zones has been optimised better to stop them from spawning in weird, unreachable spots.
- Charged Spiderling was causing a crash through its AI targeting. The initial issue was it was given the Standard AI type as opposed to aggressive, however, this just revealed Standard AI was the root cause of the crash, causing this to be fixed too.
- Vendors have been updated with what they communicate to the client to allow inventory refreshes mid-dialogue with them
- Generated Dungeon Locations were not correctly distancing themselves from each other and events, and were not being counted correctly, causing dozens of dungeon entrances per zone.
- Fixed a bug in joining a Dungeon Entrances lobby that caused the player to activate the entire adventure, spawning hundreds of NPCs and simultaneously putting the player in every single dungeon lobby at once.
- Increased the Tick rate of the game session command processing.
- Fixed various issues with the new movement implementation.
- Implemented mid-movement interruptions.
- Fixed entity location calculations.
- Fixed the teleport glitch with the new movement.
Sound Design
The sound team has been implementing some audio for weapons and enemies of Erendorn throughout the week. When removing a weapon from its sheath or holster some form of feedback is necessary to let the player know the action happened. The team has implemented a range of sounds for a variety of weapons that will be used by the players of Erendorn, such as blades and short staffs. Additionally, the team would start working on some of the idle sounds for enemies that will inhabit Erendorn and its dungeons. The idles audio for the Vampire Bat, Black Bear and Heavy Husk Bettle were all implemented to the engine throughout the week, bringing some more life to the enemies of Erendorn. Examples of all the audio implemented into the engine throughout the week can be seen in the video below.
Environment Art
The environment team has continued their work on the updated castle ruins that will adorn Erendorn's landscape. As the team builds up the modular structure they have been implementing some new details to the front of the castle. The arches that are in the first example on the front of the building will eventually become windows of the impressive structure. The team are implementing these plans now to ensure the modular kit can be built to fit around them. The team would also start working on the interior of the model, creating additional modular assets that would become extra archways that will give the appearance that the second floor is properly supported. Examples of the progress to the castle ruins can be seen below.
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Animation
The animation team would continue working on the movement cycles for characters looting throughout the week. Focusing on the Zentrgal illusionist, the team has adapted the animations from the bi-pedal models for our eight-legged creature. The team will have to do this for many of the different movement cycles needed for gameplay due to the Zentragal's design differences. Creating animations for a character with eight legs can sometimes be a challenge for the animators as each will have to be bespoke of this type of creature. Using some techniques through Maya's animation program the team will be able to take some aspects of the animations they did last week, mainly above the waist. The differences will come in the way the character positions themselves on their feet, with eight legs to choose from this character is able to shift their weight around a lot more than a character that has two legs. The team has crafted this into their animations along with the variations of the looting movement, that are ready for gameplay. Examples of the new movement cycles can be seen below.
Visual Effects
The VFX team has continued the work on the border effects throughout the start of the week. After fixing some issues within the engine, the team would be able to focus on adding some visuals to indicate when a player is being blocked by the mystical barrier. The team have implemented a white circle that appears on the surface of the world border. This effect also has a feature showing players how close they are to the barrier, as the players approach, the circle will get bigger adding some feedback to the player why they can't proceed. Additionally, the team would work on several variations of the purple aura for the Twilight Elf Assassin. To make these effects personalised to the Assassin, the team have continued the colours that we have come to associate with the stealthy Twilight Elf. One thing being considered would be to add more particles to the effects showing the progression of players as their power increases, this is a possible feature we may see further down the line. Examples of the newly created effects can be seen below.
That’s it for this week’s devlog, but have you seen our monthly roundup of January yet?!
