The past week has brought continued progress across several areas of Depths of Erendorn, with the team advancing character development, core gameplay systems, dungeon technology and animation coverage. The Tavern Master is approaching the final stages of his model, while the Client and Server Teams have continued expanding the Level 3 ability roster and resolving the technical requirements for the game's first transformation ability. At the same time, major groundwork has been laid for the next generation of dungeon environments, with new procedural cave walls, rubble systems and generation techniques providing greater variety and flexibility. Alongside these developments, the Animation Team has been improving existing ability coverage and filling gaps across frequently used combat animations. 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
As the Tavern Master nears the final stages of his character development, the 3D Modelling Team has been bringing together the remaining details needed to complete the model. This week, work has focused primarily on the character’s hair and facial hair, refining these elements to sit naturally with the previously completed head and facial features. With the hair now close to completion, the team has also been wrapping up the model as a whole, making final adjustments and ensuring the different elements of the character come together consistently. This follows the earlier work on his body, clothing, accessories, retopology, UVs and texturing, bringing the Tavern Master much closer to his finished appearance. Once these final details have been completed, the character will be ready to move towards the remaining stages required for his eventual implementation within the settlement of Depths of Erendorn.
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Programming
Client
This week has seen the Client Team continue refining the foundations of the inventory system while preparing the client for the next wave of Level 3 abilities being introduced on the server. Work has remained focused on moving inventory functionality away from Blueprints and towards a more efficient C++ implementation, helping reduce duplication and improve the underlying structure of the system. Alongside this, the team has been updating ability descriptions and active effect information on the client, while creating the necessary Blueprints to support the latest abilities. Particular attention has been given to the introduction of the first transformation ability, which highlighted issues with how the client handled ability changes. The team identified and resolved a problem preventing server messages from correctly triggering ability swaps, before addressing a further issue where abilities could be added but not removed when required. With both issues now fixed, the transformation ability is functioning as intended, providing an important step towards supporting more complex ability changes within Depths of Erendorn.
Server
A further milestone has been reached in the expansion of Depths of Erendorn’s ability roster this week, with the Server Team completing the remaining Level 3 abilities for the Assassin, Dwarf, Watertarg and Druid classes. These abilities have now been implemented on the server, providing the necessary foundations for their continued testing and integration on the client. Alongside the ability work, the team has continued supporting the development of the new dungeon systems and dungeon generator, helping progress the server-side foundations that will allow the client implementation to come together. The new dungeon approach represents a significant step forward for dungeon gameplay, establishing a more flexible foundation that can be expanded with further content and features in the future. With the remaining Level 3 abilities now in place and dungeon development continuing across both sides of the project, the latest work is helping bring several major gameplay systems closer to their next stage of development.
Environment Art
A major step forward in the development of Depths of Erendorn’s dungeon environments has taken shape this week, with the Environment Team developing a new procedural cave wall system alongside a collection of supporting set pieces. Built in Houdini, the new generator can produce 4, 8 and 12 metre cave wall variants across as many seeds as required, with the resulting Nanite-ready meshes designed to snap directly to the existing dungeon grid. The walls also feature a vertex colour-driven material system, allowing hard rock, softer strata, dusty upper surfaces and darker cavities to be controlled directly from the generated geometry while maintaining clean triplanar mapping. Alongside the walls, a procedural boulder and rubble generator has been created, producing fractured and weathered rocks that can be settled into piles, with nine low cover pieces and six taller line-of-sight blockers already introduced into the engine. Both systems share the same master material and vertex colour layout, helping maintain a consistent rock family throughout the caves. The team has also worked closely with the programmers to explore ways of making dungeon layouts more varied, including the use of hand-built set pieces within procedural spaces. Further research has led to a new approach for curving cave walls inward as they rise, allowing rooms and corridors to feel more enclosed and natural without changing the existing grid-based generation system.
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Animation
Attention this week has turned towards improving the consistency and coverage of animations used throughout Depths of Erendorn. The Animation Team has been reviewing the existing BPAs and replacing animations where better-matching options are available, helping ensure characters and abilities are represented more accurately during their respective actions. Alongside this, the team has been adding missing DDAs to address gaps within the animation library and provide greater coverage for the game's growing range of abilities and interactions. Frequently used animations have also been revisited, including cast effects and cast projectiles, with updates helping to improve their consistency across different abilities and characters. These changes build upon the team's recent work testing ability animations and identifying areas where additional coverage was required, continuing to strengthen the animation systems supporting combat and character interactions in Depths of Erendorn.
That’s it for this week’s devlog, but have you seen our monthly roundup of August yet?!
