We're finishing January off with some awesome work from the team! Texturing nears completion on our most recent armour set, animation work continues on our Harpy model and weather systems are ported over for the new in-game environments. Join us on Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit for daily updates on Depths of Erendorn - now let’s get into it!
3D Modelling
As our most recent armour concept nears completion, there are several art passes that take place. This can lead to adjustments and edits of the design to improve the overall look and quality. Doing these revisions is paramount to the overall progress of the armour set, as doing them too late could undo hours of work.
Work is shared and reviewed between the team on a constant basis. This is done to make sure the design makes sense thematically. We also have to ensure that the model meets the concept artists vision and will be useable by the animation team. Edits are drawn up, and the 3D Modelling team makes agreed upon changes to ensure we hit the level of quality we strive for.
Set Piece Design
Our Junior Environment Artist was working on new assets for towns and cities last week, after the blockout settlement was moved over into its new level. We decided that the settlement needed a different location, so stay tuned in the coming weeks to see what has changed. The new assets being worked on include a weapon and armour rack. These will be found in blacksmith stores and shops, and will be used to display armour and weapons on offer. These could also be used in many of our planned events that you'll encounter while out exploring the world of Erendorn.
Programming
This week the Programming Team split their time between helping team members with the UE5 Source switch over, and updating how the Client deals with rooms being finished along with some other smaller fixes. This included:
- Fixed room victory state so that players have a chance to view the room they have just finished before loading the next.
- Fixed the parsing and loading of the next room after a room is cleared.
- Updated AoE and combination Server requests inline with our game server targeting requirements.
- Fixed the ability to delete account characters.
Server
Last week was used to focus on some persistent bugs that needed squashing. The first was an issue that's not fully resolved yet, involving the server randomly disconnecting from the client, or perhaps vice versa. We're slowly picking apart the issue and eliminating what it can or can't be.
Additionally, stat changes applied by active effects aren't being handled quite how they should be. We've fixed a couple of minor maths errors, and some smaller things like the stat changes accidentally being added to the 'changed stats' list twice, but there are a couple more inaccuracies like that which are going to need weeding out.
We also worked on these additional changes:
- Added ping/pong handling for connections that don't get traffic for an extended period of time to ensure the connection is still live.
- Debugged the connectivity issues between the client and server.
- Fixed Zone pre-loading on server start.
- Started server-client connection rewrite to avoid the random disconnects we've been experiencing (to be finished next week).
Environment Art
Our Environment Artist imported weather systems last week, meaning we now have better control over things like lighting, atmosphere and immersion for players. Their work last week included:
- Weather systems ported over from old level.
- Dynamic day/night set up for new level.
- Exponential height fog set up.
- Volumetric cloud setup.
- Foliage implementation into new level.
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Animation
Our Animation team continued work on our Harpy character model last week. This meant working on things like its flying animation. They also updated the Revenant model, adding additional animations and movements to the set.
That’s it for this week’s devlog, but have you seen our monthly roundup of December yet?!
