The latest week of development at Depths of Erendorn saw focused efforts across multiple teams, leading to notable refinements and enhancements within the game. The 3D Modelling team embarked on remaking the Vampire Bats, sculpting their sinister forms to elevate the realism and predatory nature of these creatures. On the technical side, the Server team improved dungeon stability, refined entity spawning systems, and addressed persistent issues with door placements, inventory communication, and dungeon navigation, greatly enhancing gameplay reliability. Concurrently, the VFX team concentrated on optimising environmental visuals through efficient integration of FluidNinja, particularly focusing on smoke effects to reduce performance load while preserving visual impact. 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
This past week, the 3D Modelling team at Depths of Erendorn began the process of remaking the Vampire Bats, currently progressing through the sculpting phase. Efforts have focused on capturing intricate anatomical details, emphasising the creatures' sinister and predatory nature to enhance their visual impact in-game. This update will ensure the Vampire Bats align with the evolving standards of realism and immersion set for Erendorn's expanding bestiary, contributing to an even richer and more dynamic gameplay experience. An example of the work completed by the team can be seen below.
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Programming
Server
Over the past week, the Server team at Depths of Erendorn implemented significant refinements to dungeon and entity management systems. Notably, entity death handling was refactored, enabling default spawning within settlements and laying the groundwork for more flexible future adjustments. Additionally, the team resolved a critical infinite-loop issue affecting dungeon generation, substantially enhancing overall stability. Active inventory handling was integrated into the dungeon server code, allowing seamless communication of inventory states between zone and dungeon servers, giving players the ability to interact with their inventories during dungeon encounters. A persistent bug causing spawned doors to disconnect from main combat areas was identified and rectified, ensuring reliable dungeon navigation. To complement these updates, a function was developed to clear unnecessary areas outside the main combat zones, accompanied by adjustments to Cellular Automata parameters for improved balance and variation in combat scenarios.
Visual Effects
This past week, the VFX team at Depths of Erendorn continued refining environmental effects, revisiting and enhancing several previously created event effects. A key area of focus was exploring efficient methods to integrate FluidNinja, primarily targeting smoke effects. The team investigated ways to use a single FluidNinja handler across multiple emitters, aiming to significantly reduce shader load while maintaining high visual fidelity. This optimisation effort not only improves performance but also enhances the versatility of environmental visuals, supporting richer and more dynamic experiences for players exploring Erendorn’s immersive world. Examples of the work completed by the team can be seen below.
That’s it for this week’s devlog, but have you seen our monthly roundup of February yet?!
