Our SFX artist has been busy this week, implementing sound that triggers depending on different situations. New camp sites have been added to the game, and Unreal Engine 5 was brought online, as we get our first look at an in-game screenshot running on the software. As always, join us on Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit for daily updates on Depths of Erendorn - now let’s get into it!
Set Piece Design
Our Junior Environment Artist has done some awesome work this week! They created multiple campsites for the game that will be scattered throughout Erendorn. These will be part of our in-game events - random encounters that can spawn, offering a totally unique experience every time.
This week they:
- Worked on a new bandit camp set piece.
- Worked on a new friendly camp set piece.
- Fixed the scale of chairs to fit the animations made for them.
- Fixed blueprints so they're all in the same format. Some of the older ones weren't using the BPP class that the programmers made (this allows things to spawn randomly in dungeons). Not all assets will need this of course, but it's better to keep things all using the same structure.
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3D Modelling
This week our 3D Modelling team finished the sculpt on our most recent cosmetic armour set. Again, this piece will be purely cosmetic and offer no statistical bonus to the players. Now the sculpt is complete, retopology can begin.
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Programming
This week has been eventful in the process of the Client switchover, we are now able to join a dungeon session and provide the various managers being used to govern gameplay, with relevant data about the session being joined. The Client is now poised to vote whether or not to reroll the room they enter.
- Room Data Parsing - The methods used for converting Room information sent by the Server into the data used to create Depths of Erendorn's procedural dungeons have been updated. Room data also contains information about enemies and events in said room and their usage has also seen updates to match.
- Character Stat Parsing - As stats have seen a number of changes in the Server switch to GoLang, the Client has been updated in accordance.
- Session Data Application - The Dungeon Session now loops through all gameplay managers applying whatever is known about the Session being joined. This is an important step before allowing players to begin interacting with the session and is now completed before revealing the built room.
Environment
Our Environment team have been hard at work in UE5 this week. We caught our first glimpse of the world in this new software, and began to explore the power of the development tools at our disposal. In doing so, the following work took place:
- UE5 terrain development continued with creating a fresh new auto landscape material.
- Added triplanar cliff faces.
- Added cliff slope mask.
- Added grass slope mask.
- Added basic grass macro variation.
- Added snow height mask.
- Added sand height mask.
- Added sand slope mask.
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Sound Design
Our Sound Designer has had a very busy week, focusing on the implementation of collision boxes. These will be used to trigger different intensities of wind in different locations and at varying heights. Meaning the player will experience different sounds, depending on where they are.
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A new Bird SFX has been implemented and set up with a concantenator to give the impression of the audio playing sporadically and at different locations, so the birds seem localised per sound being played but will not appear to be looping.
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Trigger boxes have also been used to give a more realistic sense of density in wooded and forested areas. The boxes trigger leaves rustling and wind blowing through trees, and the sounds are played through modulators to create a continually changing loop.
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The waterfall SFX has been re-implemented to play through the BP instead of being manually attached which will allow for easier implementation and mixing going forward.
The portal SFX has been updated and implemented through the blueprint so the portal now has sound attached at specific parts of it to give it a 3d spatialised feel as you enter. This is to create the feeling of being encompassed/immersed by the portal as the player enters.
Animation
Two models had the attention of our Animation team this week - the Zullra and Rhinogar.
Zullra:
- Worked on animation set: idle, walk, attack01, hit reacts, death.
- Cleaned/exported animations.
- Imported them in engine.
Rhinogar:
- Worked on animation set: idle, walk, hit react, death (not complete yet).
- Cleaned/exported ready animations.
- Imported them in engine.
That’s it for this week’s devlog, but have you seen our monthly roundup of September yet?!
