The start of May has brought lots of work from the team. Last week, our 3D modellers have gotten closer to completing the textures on the Zentragal rework. More props have been created from Set Design, while Environment Art has textured and sculpted some new bricks for the next point of interest in Erendorn. Additionally, the Visual Effects team have worked on new ability effects and the Sound team has created new audio clips for visual effects made last week. Finally, the Animation team have created a new animation set for the Rhinogar and the programming team has continued work on the party system. As always, join us on Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit for daily updates on Depths of Erendorn - now let’s get into it!
3D Modelling
Texturing has continued for the reworked Zentragal model as the artists get closer to finalising the design, we begin to get a better understanding of what the eight-legged illusionist will look like when they grace the world of Erendorn. Using the colour pallet based on the Black Widow spider, our artists have created a wonderfully sinister and mysterious motif for the Zentragal. Work will continue on the Zentragal until the artists come to a finalised design, once this is complete the spellcaster will be able to go through the pipeline to the animators before being put in the engine. These newly updated textures can be seen below.
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Set Piece Design
After some mild technical issues, the set design team are back creating the many props that will be needed to fill the world of Erendorn! Last week, the team has created a bench, an opulent chair and a wall hanging scroll. All of these are ready to be put into the engine and placed into interiors within Erendorn, these props can be seen below.
Programming
Client
Last week has been spent furthering the Client implementation of the Party System, adding functions for each of the possible party state changes; players joining and leaving as well as invites being sent, rejected or expiring. Some more work completed by the client-side team last week can be seen below.
- Added the handling of Party Updates, a new message type that can be received by connected players that holds the most up-to-date state of the player's party.
- Added comparison functions for each potential party change and events to handle them.
Server
The server-side team have been working on creating a Zoneserver Configuration and adding the framework to handle when parties disconnect while on an adventure and don't return, both of these improvements will make venturing through Erendorn a much more streamlined experience. A breakdown of other work completed by the server-side team can be seen below.
- Adjusted elite NPC scaling.
- Adjusted ability cooldown logging.
- Added the ability to regenerate ability charges each turn.
- Added the ability to set ability charge restoration rate and max charges in the ability editor.
- Players in a party should now have colours assigned.
- Debugged and fixed party messages being sent.
- Fixed a potential crash when a connection was to unexpectedly drop.
- Fixed lobby Invites.
Sound Design
The Sound Design team have been working with the Visual Effects team again last week, creating new sounds for VFX that have been created over the last few weeks. The team have been working with the level 3 abilities for the Parakaw, Human Knight and Forest Druid bringing them to life with newly implemented sounds. These visual effects and sounds now give an accurate representation of how these abilities will be viewed by the players in the game. The combined visual effect and new audio can be seen in the video below.
Environment Art
The environment team have continued from last week with their work on the next point of interest that will adorn the landscape of Erendorn. To start the week the team have worked on some new bricks that will be used in the ruins. These bricks have been created using Zbrush and are a high poly representation of what the bricks will look like within the world. These bricks are then baked onto a lower poly version of the bricks, this process takes the high detailed textures of the sculpt and projects it onto a low poly model. This process will save some of the rendering power needed for the game to run. These high poly sculpted bricks can be seen below.
These high poly bricks were then made into a tileable texture that could be used on some of the bigger surfaces of the castle ruins. Making this texture tileable means it can be placed on bigger surfaces repeatedly without a seam being noticed between them. Now, this texture can be used in many different areas and buildings while still being consistent with the high poly sculpted bricks. Using substance painter a smart material was created using these assets, this will keep everything consistent when applied to a larger area giving the desired effect for the ruins. The 2D texture can be seen below.
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Once all together in the modelling software, the artists can render a full wall with some of the bricks falling away, all the work done through the week comes together to create an amazing visual. Using these assets the artists can now focus once again on the form of the castle ruins and how they will be placed in to the landscape of Erendorn. An example of all the work put together can be seen below.
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Animation
Last week, the team have been working on a new set of animations for the Rhinogar! Starting with an idle and walk cycle. These animations have also been made with the Rhinogars weapon in hand, another cycle has also been created to show the Rhinogar unsheathing its weapon from its back. Finally, the last animation created last week is a two-handed swing of the weapon the Rhinogar is holding. All these movements convey the strength and size of this character, using anticipation and holds to show how heavy the armour and weapon that this enemy is holding are. This new animation set can be seen below.
Visual Effects
Work has continued on the list of abilities needed for the spellcasters of Erendorn. Last week, the team has worked on an array of abilities such as Voidtouched, Voidcloud, Voidmind, Veil of Darkness, Link Strike, Vengeance, Wounded Defiance, Solo Killer and Disciplined Reserve. These abilities follow the themes of the ones created before them. The void abilities have all been created with deep colours such as purple, red and black. All these colours combined give the spells the visual appeal of ones that have been created by dark and mystical forces. The mysterious abilities created last week can be seen below.
On the other hand, other abilities have been created that use more bright and warm colours. Abilities like these give a sense that the user is more inclined toward the good in the world. All these abilities will go through the next stages in the pipeline by getting audio effects then they will be added to the engine. These extra spells that were created last week can be seen below!
That’s it for this week’s devlog, but have you seen our monthly roundup of April yet?!
