Armour retopology, weapon sound effects and snow layers were worked on last week. Along with plenty more bug fixing! As always, join us on Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit for daily updates on Depths of Erendorn - now let’s get into it!
3D Modelling
Our 3D Modelling team continued with their retopology of the recent armour set. Along with unwrapping, this is one of the final stages before the project is complete. Once done, the set can be textured and handed off to another team for visual effects and any animations specific to the armour.
Set Piece Design
Our Junior Environment artist continued their work on the recent blockout of the new outpost, along with analyzing features of a new UE5 project. Their work last week included:
- Downloaded the UE5 demo project to familiarise ourselves with the new features.
- Continued on blockout of the outpost. However, it's on hold for now as we'll be changing the terrain there.
- Started work on some props our concept artist sent over.
Programming
Last week was spent testing and fixing issues with downloading and using our new custom version of UE5, which we compiled from source. We then moved onto fixing issues that arose from switching from UE4 to UE5. We also:
- Added logic for closing and removing Websockets when play has ended. As a result of some changes made to UE5, Websockets no longer automatically close even when play mode is exited, leading to multiple connections providing server data which caused crashes. This is now resolved.
- A number of widget displays were disrupted by the engine switch, these have now been returned to normal.
- Event information is now stored when entering a dungeon and is displayed to players when room voting is available.
- Pathfinding in the open world now moves around obstacles.
- Exporting and Importing of MapData has received some fixes.
- Debug displays for the open world pathfinder now works and shows the route taken.
Golang
Maintenance and bug fixing continues for the Golang team, with a laundry list of small to medium things that have been tightened up in the code.
- Added every trigger to the game (triggers cause other things to activate, for example, gaining energy every time you're healed).
- Ability blocks that trim the number of entities in a selection have been refactored and consolidated into one much more powerful ability block.
- Removing all the uses of the old functions from every ability in the game has been completed.
- Fixed: Summoning a charged spiderling followed by trying to ping the game as the charged spiderling crashed the game, as it doesn't have an account registered on the server.
Sound Design
This week our Sound Designer has been revisiting weapons. The sound for daggers and maces have been updated, and a few more will be finalised this coming week.
The wand is currently a very early draft, as they work on honing in on what exactly "arcane magic" will sound like - a few of the character abilities have arcane magic, which we've designed already, but the basic wand attack needs to feel "lighter" than abilities or spells. It also needs to sound interesting/quirky enough that it won't become boring or annoying to listen to (as a basic attack it will be used often, like a sword or bow).
Mace
Wand
Dagger
Environment Art
Our Environment Artist continued work on new environments and technology last week, focusing on adding height to certain terrains. Check our their work below:
- Implementation of experimental technology "Virtual terrain height field mesh" testing as a more optimised replacement for Tessellation in the terrain material.
- Research into improvements to foliage
- Research into HLOD layers
Animation
- Updated the lizard rig once again due to some bone hierarchy issues. We then updated animations to match the new changes; exported and cleaned Lizard animations and added in engine. We also reimported SK meshes in engine for the Swamp and Thorny Lizard.
- Edited skin weights of the Gargoyle Flesh Ripper to add SK mesh in engine, then exported and cleaned the rest of the animation that was not exported.
- Started to prepare the next character for animating: Harpy
That’s it for this week’s devlog, but have you seen our monthly roundup of December yet?!
