This week our teams have been adding the finishing touches to many aspects of their work. Plus, our Droval model takes its first steps! 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
This week our Junior Environment Artist has been adding the finishing touches to some recent additions to the game. They added some new megascanned assets, such as bundled ropes and new types of blood splatter. They also ensured that the file sizes were suitably small, while maintaining most of the detail. These new additions will help with spicing up the set dressing of our settlements, events and environments.
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3D Modelling
This week was a busy one for our 3D Modelling team! The latest of our armour sets is nearing completion, so the final touches are being added to ensure it meets our high standards. This included texturing the set, creating fur meshes and an entirely new fur material. This is no simple task and takes hours of tweaking and refining to get the right texture for the job. Not to mention how impactful something as simple as fur can be to an in-game asset - it adds a whole new dimension to models and content, adding a layer of quality that can be easily overlooked.
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Programming
This week has been about getting the DoE Client to the point where we are able to create a playable build. Many updates have been made to core gameplay systems and Dungeons are once again playable. Here's a few of the changes to get us to this stage.
- Ability Targets - Abilities have had a lot of attention this week and players are now able to target and cast abilities that take different target types. Abilities that require entities, tiles, directions, a whole room and any combination as their targets are now castable in-game.
- Ability and Active Effect Templates - The methods used to process and create in game actions have been updated to align with the new Golang format and existing Ability and Active Effects (previously Status Effects). Templates are now functional meaning any Ability or Effect that previously had character animations, VFX and sound are now back in working order.
- Portrait/Overhead UI - Changes made to character stats and Active Effects have meant character UI has needed updating, this now correctly displays their status in game.
- Server-Client Validation - Added the ability for the Client to ensure the logs being used are in the correct order and request an updated log history in the event they aren't. This means that the Client is able to avoid performing actions out of the order.
We also made a whole load of changes and fixes, including:
- Fixed crashes related to having the correct resources to cast an ability.
- Fixed an issue with abilities that targeted the space behind an enemy.
- Fixed a crash relating to ability casts that were valid.
- Adjusted the log creation when casting an ability to stop failed casts breaking the client.
- Improved logging when abilities are used and when logs are created.
- Updated the timestamp on messages to be in nanoseconds as opposed to seconds.
- Added the combat logs command so the client can now request updates from where it needs.
- Adjusted ActiveEffect data sent from the server.
- Added relevant logs to attack commands so the client has the correct information about results of the attack command.
- Fixed some issues with 'Line Of Sight' checking.
Golang
The Golang server is now running a playable game for the client. This is hardly the end of the journey as we now have dozens of bugs to fix, both client side and server side as never before tested abilities are used for the first time. Entirely new mechanics trigger, and the client has to accept server information it's never seen before.
Environment Art
Our Environment Artist has continued work on the recently shared in-game screenshot that was created using UE5. Their work this week included:
- Fixing normal blending issues on terrain material.
- Improving the water shading placeholder material.
- Began testing Nanite.
- Created small beach scene with Quixel Megascan meshes utilising Nanite.
Animation
This week our Animation team brought our Droval model to life. They also did some more work on the previously featured Rhinogar model, adding a new run animation. This weeks work included:
Droval:
- Idle, walk, run, attack unarmed, attack armed, hit react, death.
- Cleaned animations and exported to engine.
Rhinogar:
- Run cycle animation.
- Cleaned and exported for engine.
That’s it for this week’s devlog, but have you seen our monthly roundup of October yet?!
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