Highlights in this week’s devlog include the new Indestructible Box asset, which we’re creating for a special event, as well as an animation test of our recently completed armour set! As always, join us on Twitter, Instagram, or Reddit for daily updates on Depths of Erendorn - now let’s get into it!
3D Modelling
It’s quite a quick update from our 3D Character Artist, who spent last week refining the shapes of the new armour set blockout. Here’s a before and after of how the blockout’s been improved thus far:
Animation
For our Animator, last week was about making small but important updates to existing characters. For example, the rotations and positions of weapon bones for the Forest Druid and Watertarg were updated, and the Earthen Dwarf received some small improvements on its basic idle, eye rotation, and skin penetration on the chest. Again, all really small changes that are just oh, so important (for example, who wants a character with dodgy eye rotation?)
Then, the heavy armour set our Character Artist created a few weeks ago (not the one we just mentioned!) was tested with a walk animation to see how it animates. This is still a work in progress, and we haven’t applied the materials just yet, but here’s how it’s looking so far:
https://depthsoferendorn.blob.core.windows.net/assets/Armortestwalk-1.m4v
Environment Design
Asset Design
Another event is getting worked on for Depths of Erendorn, this time featuring an Indestructible Box that players will only be able to open if they can cough up enough gold coins.
So, last week, one of our Environment Artists (who’s created all our event set pieces so far) worked on creating the Indestructible Box asset that will be used in the scene. Using the concept illustration as a reference, they took to Blender and created what you see below! They still need to tweak the gem material so that it fits a little better, but it looks badass all the same:
Programming
Golang Server
Last week, a few nice features were added to the new Golang Server, including Soul Cooldowns, the Ping Command, and a new effect block called Kill Entity:
- Soul Cooldowns are unique abilities that only have their cooldown reduced when something dies, be it a friend or foe. They’re currently only used by the Twilight Elf Assassin, but we’ll eventually be implementing them for all characters
- The Ping Command is pretty self explanatory - basically, it marks locations on the battlefield so that you can coordinate with your team members more easily
- Kill Entity is a new kind of effect block that skips the Damage part of an attack, and allows you to immediately kill the entity you’re targeting. While we already have ‘instant kill’ abilities, which instantly finish an enemy off if they’re at or below half Health, the old PHP server could only handle this by dealing a massive amount of Damage to them. This posed a problem because, in the future, we may have weapons that heal based on how much Damage you do, or specific effects that trigger on the player when they deal Damage. By ignoring the Damage part of the attack, Kill Entity allows players to immediately slay their enemies without any awkward knock-on effects occurring
That’s it for this week’s devlog - see you next Tuesday!
