The past week has witnessed good progress across various facets of Depths of Erendorn's development. The 3D modelling team's mastery shone through as they expertly textured an armour set, seamlessly merging deep leather tones with opulent golds and striking reds. The week also saw the programming team's commitment to improving performance, debugging tools, and enhancing user experience. The addition of contextual tutorials and improved logging mechanisms further elevates the gameplay. The environment teams made advancements in settlement structures, as they embarked on creating new roofs. Meticulous research and experimentation with geometry and textures culminated in the achievement of optimal polygon counts while maintaining authenticity. Lastly, the animation team's dedication to enhancing magical gameplay continued, focusing on refining spell animations with dynamic real-world-inspired movements. 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
In the latest week's strides, the 3D modelling team successfully completed the intricate process of texturing an armour set, masterfully blending deep leather hues with opulent golds and striking reds. Their keen attention to detail is evident in the harmonious fusion of colours that breathe life into the set. Building upon this achievement, the team's drive continued as they embarked on the crafting of an assassin-style set. Beginning with the foundational block-out phase, the team incorporated essential elements such as a concealing hood and flowing skirt. These additions not only contribute to the set's aesthetics but also imbue the character with an aura of stealth and mystery, aligning perfectly with an assassin's persona. Examples of their progress can be observed below.
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Programming
Client
This week has been about analysing and addressing performance issues in packaged builds, improving debug tools to catch harder-to-recreate bugs and adding targeting-type text for a number of abilities to better communicate how they are cast. The team would also focus on addressing any minor and overlooked bugs left in the UI, as well as implementing some new assets for buttons and the post-battle summary. Additionally, work has resumed on implementing a tutorial for the game. Besides actually showing the tutorial the drive has mostly been on laying the foundations so that we can show contextual tutorials based on player actions and tracking history of viewed tutorials so that we're not endlessly feeding them back to players. More work completed by the team throughout the week can be seen below.
- Further improved logging filters for Session and Combat updates to allow certain log types to be omitted reducing the amount of text generated while maintaining precise logging as the game runs.
- Fixed a crashing bug caused by leaving Dungeon lobbies during Adventures.
- Added new target requirement descriptions and applied to relevant abilities, new categories:
- Targets Self
- Targets Area Around Caster
- Targets Chosen At Random
- Targets Party Members
- Targets All Enemies
- Requires Exactly x Adjacent Enemies
Server
Last week the team set about bringing Fast Travel into the server code. By using our Interactables codes the team has added the spawning of interactables that when right clicked activate the fast travel code. The goal of this change is to make fast travel the method of starting and ending adventures as we look to change how our adventures currently work into a more flexible system that will enable us to move anywhere within Erendorn in one session, instead of having many loading screens as we move between zones. Additional work completed by the server-side team can be seen below.
- Joining new sessions now uses fast travel points.
- Handlers can now be stored in the interactable manager.
- Added interactable spawning for Fast Travel Points.
- FastTravel data is now set to the client.
- Added FastTravel Helper functions.
- Zones now cache FastTravel Points within them for easy referencing.
- Adjusted PlayerNotification server-to-server command to use FastTravel points.
- Added Nav Service Preloading code to correctly preload the required data on zones/fast travel networks and chunk data.
Environment Art
The environment team has made substantial strides in enhancing the visual appeal of the settlement structures within the game. The process of creating new roofs for these structures has commenced, marked by thorough research into Viking roofing techniques. Beginning with the creation of a wooden roof shingle material, the team's commitment to realism led them to explore using actual geometry for a more authentic look. Although initial attempts revealed concerns about polygon count, the team's dedication and meticulous effort resulted in significant refinement. By deleting unnecessary backfaces and adjusting shingle size, the team successfully reduced the polygon count to an optimal level, ensuring both visual quality and performance efficiency. The dedication to detail and authenticity shines through, even as the textures remain a work in progress. Examples of their progress can be seen below.
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Animation
During this week's development, the animation team at Depths of Erendorn has been dedicated to enriching the visual experience of spellcasters within the game. A key focus has been on refining and generating innovative spell animation ideas. By incorporating dynamic movements inspired by real-world references, the team aims to infuse fresh and captivating energy into the spellcasting process. The ultimate objective is to expand the repertoire of spells available to characters of various races, ensuring a diverse and engaging magical gameplay experience. Examples of their progress can be seen below.
That’s it for this week’s devlog, but have you seen our monthly roundup of July yet?!
