Highlights in this week’s devlog include awesome new sound effects that were added to the event set pieces we’ve been creating over the last few weeks, like the Warding Circle! We’ve also got an updated clip of our Lava Pool to show you, so stick around to see that. As always, join us on Instagram, Twitter or Reddit for daily updates on Depths of Erendorn - now let’s get into it!
3D Modelling
As we mentioned in our last weekly devlog, our Character Artist added RGB maps to a newly completed armour set to allow for future colour customisation. Well, this work continued last week, with our Artist testing out some colour changing options for the customisable material. Here are some of the tests they carried out:
Our Character Artist then cracked on with sculpting a set of Dragon bones, which we’ll use in areas of our environment to spruce things up a bit. Here’s a quick example our Artist put together of how these bones could be used in the game (don’t mind the skull rotation):
Animation
Most of the animation work that took place last week was focused on the game trailer. For example, the walk cycles for Ogres were improved for when they’re milling around the settlement. Of course, these improvements benefit the game as a whole, not just the trailer!
Additionally, our Animator created two new sitting idles for lions and jaguars - take a look:
Environment Design
Set Pieces
More work was carried out on the Lava Pool set piece we showed you last week. Not only will variations of this appear throughout volcanic regions of Erendorn, the set piece itself will be part of another one of our randomly triggered events, where players will be able to coat their weapons in the burning fires!
Our Sound Artist also created some new sound effects for this set piece, as well as for all the other set pieces we've made so far. We'll show you all of them further down the page, but whilst you're here, check out the Laval Pool and its accompanying SFX:
https://depthsoferendorn.blob.core.windows.net/assets/LavaPool.mp4
https://depthsoferendorn.blob.core.windows.net/assets/SFX_Lava_Deep.wav
Draft sounds 1
https://depthsoferendorn.blob.core.windows.net/assets/SFX_Lava_Burning.wav
Draft sounds 2
Visual FX
Whilst our VFX Artist continued working on the vertex animations we mentioned in our last devlog, they also spent some time prototyping a procedural modelling workflow for weapons in the game. Our Environment Artist helped out with this, creating some sword assets that were split into their constituent parts, i.e. blade, hilt, handle and pommel.
Sound Design
Last week, our Sound Artist created sound effects for some of the new set pieces that our Environment Artist has been working on lately! These set pieces will all appear as one off events that will trigger randomly as you play. Check out how their visuals look with the new SFX that have been created!
Orb of Knowledge
https://depthsoferendorn.blob.core.windows.net/assets/OrbOfKnowledge.mp4
https://depthsoferendorn.blob.core.windows.net/assets/SFX_OrbofKnowledge.wav
Revolving Sphere
https://depthsoferendorn.blob.core.windows.net/assets/RevolvingSphere.mp4
https://depthsoferendorn.blob.core.windows.net/assets/SFX_RevolvingSphere.wav
Warding Circle
https://depthsoferendorn.blob.core.windows.net/assets/WardingCircle.mp4
https://depthsoferendorn.blob.core.windows.net/assets/SFX_WardingCircle.wav
Sacred Gong
https://depthsoferendorn.blob.core.windows.net/assets/SFX_Gong.wav
Programming
Game Trailer
Last week's work on the game trailer was all about adding the finishing touches to all of our shots, fine-tuning the visual effects, and implementing extra characters and camera animations.
With this work, our video production team added and updated all the effects for falling leaves (which we showed you last week), flocking birds, and some fiery hand torches. They then combined all the extra character subscenes into the master shot, so it’s all starting to really come together! Take a look at some of the in progress shots:
Finalising the New Golang Server
For the Golang team, last week involved shoring up all the new code they’ve been implementing over the past few weeks. During this process, many features were added, meaning that our Programmers had to conduct a lot of code admin in order to adjust the rest of the server so that it could handle the new functions and values being passed through.
With that work done, we can officially say that the new Golang Server is now as complete as it can possibly be, without us moving it into the live server for the client. This freed up some time for our Programmers, which they spent reworking the Ability Editor.
Reworking the Ability Editor
The Ability Editor is a program we use to assign all the values, effects, stats, etc., that every entity and ability has in the game. While it works perfectly well in its current state (notwithstanding a couple of annoying bugs), it's completely incomprehensible to anyone who didn't write it themselves, and we obviously want people other than the Programming team to be able to design and rebalance abilities!
So, in order to make the whole thing more readable, our Programmers created a clone of the SQL storage server, which contains all the data that the Golang and PHP servers pull from. They then began the process of converting all the code jargon and raw numbers into things normal human beings (i.e. not Programmers) can understand.
As an example, 'OnTriggerID' no longer requires you to know from memory that 4 is triggered when you're hit by an attack. Instead, it now has a drop down list that contains 'hit by an attack', with the editor then assigning the number 4 under the hood.
That’s it for this week’s devlog - keep an eye out for our monthly roundup, coming soon!
