Filipe - Lead Programmer
This month I have been working primarily on bug fixes for several systems while we focus on bug cleanup, but I’ve had some small time to work on some upcoming changes for the skin system. You will get a limited type of color pick gradient for skin palettes that change per layer and not every palette will be on every pattern, but overall it should offer more freedom and consistency in the look of your animal.
There are also some balance changes coming to pounce related systems such as Bucking and Grapple/Pin, since bucking hasn’t met the mark for either side of pounce interaction. It should help in situations where players just fall to the ground during a pounce, because even during a grapple most animals are capable of fighting back. Some more changes may be needed later, but we have to try things in parts to avoid over changing stuff.
For now that is it, see you soon.
Ariel - Programmer
This month I was mostly working on a mechanic we’re referring to as “hill slide”. The goal is to improve navigating steeper slopes and making the biped/quadruped experience a bit more different without making the dinosaurs too mobile in the process. To put it simply, dinosaurs will be able to slowly walk up steeper hills as long as they turn to the side, but trying to move downwards will put them in a sliding state. This also extends to something that’s been happening in the game when a player tries to run down a hill and when it becomes too steep they end up getting “launched off” the hill, often resulting in taking damage. This has been adjusted so that dinosaurs will enter the hill slide state and stay on the ground. There are still some adjustments to be made and testing, balancing, but the implementation is coming along well overall.
Seiza - Video Editor
Over the past few weeks, I've been working on content for the impending Steam page change, including images, GIFs, and of course, polishing the Steam page trailer, which is fundamentally different from our previous work. While our previous patch release trailers were filmed in a more documentary style, this will be the first trailer in a long while that has any cinematic feel to it.
Even though Maiasaura, Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus rex, Allosaurus, and the Pteranodon innovations make up the bulk of the trailer, we want to give all previous species and mechanics a place in the trailer as much as possible. As always, all scenes are engine and in-game footage so as not to distort the presentation of the game. The project is already very advanced and just needs a little polishing. We want this trailer to give you goosebumps, and I'm excited to see if we can pull that off.
My next few weeks will be spent finalizing everything. Here are a couple sneak peeks:
Baardo - Environment Artist
This month I had an opportunity to work on some assets for a new biome on the island, the redwoods! We didn't want to use the same marketplace redwood assets everyone uses, we really wanted something that was unique to The Isle. Flora diversity in this biome won't be as great as in the jungle, the redwoods themselves (along with their various growth stages) dominate the various layers of the canopy. This meant the redwoods had to look really good and diverse. To this end I created about 10 unique trees, encompassing a range from small saplings to monsters well over 300 feet in height.
Such large trees have to have quite thick trunks. For trees with trunks this large it was important to create something that held detail well at scale. Any imperfections (such as UV seams) would be much larger and more noticeable so I had to be very strict with how I authored the blend from the root base to the rest of the tree trunk. "Flatness" of texture can go unnoticed on smaller diameter trees, but for these assets I had to increase displacement and poly density on the massive trunks to let the textures pop a little more.
In addition to the trees themselves I created a handful of ground cover foliage types. Some clovers and a leafy plant to add some clutter to the forest floor to complete the look and add some lush greens to the biome. It's been a long time coming and I am quite proud of how it all came together!
VisualTech48 - Environmental Artist
This month has been given to optimization and getting a lot of our buildings ready for the new optimized decal shader that is now in. Previously, we were restricted by the nature of Unreal’s way of storing specific information. The buildings are now properly being culled by both the server and the client.
With this, we should be seeing far less performance issues across the board with our human POIs, and locations and loading times. However, this new decal shader allows us to paint what we had before anywhere in the world, without many restrictions and time loss, keeping the same aesthetics as before.
To showcase this optimization feat, we’ll be using the large Labs shell for the prime example.
As with a lot of our modular kit, the limitations of how specific mesh data was stored forced us for quite some time to use alternative methods until recently, where we finally solved the issue. but still kept the detailed freedom it gives us (at a small cost of time setting it up per building).
We call this the Painting Plane. The current roster of exterior buildings is already transferred to Gateway, with the use of this new technique.
That is all I can share for now, hopefully this will bring The Isle closer to our optimization goals. See you next month!
Wedge - Sound Designer
We are kicking off the new year with a new set of calls for two new creatures coming to Evrima. I have taken on Quetzalcoatlus’s calls, which are being approached with a unique concept. While I would love to share the design intent to its vocalisations and how they are sounding, much like Quetz, the less said the better. Meanwhile, the rest of the sound team is concepting Baryonyx’s guttural bellows and growls, with a touch of moisture complimenting its amphibious playstyle.
In addition to vocalisation concepts, some improvements have been made to various audio aspects, including a major fix to the custom attenuation behaviour and volume/attenuation scaling of foliage sounds. Austroraptor’s sounds have been implemented and we are moving on the finishing touches to Kentrosaurus’s vocal sounds.
Finally some minor adjustments to vocal call attenuation volume curve are underway, adjusting the volume curve so calls are less quiet at distance without change to how distant they sound, in aim to give more life to the ambience and deliver more information to players.
KissenKitten - Animation Supervisor
I’m blowing the dust off my devblog skills since it’s been awhile since I’ve made an entry. For the past few months I’ve had my head down and sights firmly fixed on new species. There always seems to be a mountain of work to do in so little time but as a unit, we do what needs to be done.
As you may or may not know, there will be new playables released onto The Isle in the very near future. Austroraptor, Baryonyx, Kentrosaurus, Oviraptor and Avaceratops. Most of those we’ve shown here and there a fair amount. Following quickly behind them are Camarasaurus and Quetzalcoatlus. The former either have or are in the process of getting their sounds. Once that is done, they’ll be entering a HT as production allows. Then we’ll see how they perform, iron out whatever wrinkles and kinks they exhibit and then prepare them for Live Evrima. That trend will continue until we’re done with all the playables.
I mentioned many moons ago that I was ordering our steps to allow us a clearer and faster pathway for releasing playables and at last we are here (especially now that the tyrannosaurus is off our plate because that thing was a doozy). Get ready for the ecosystem to be in a relatively constant state of flux for a while. The new playables are likely to disrupt what you have come to know and expect on the island so much like the animals, you need to be prepared to adapt. It takes awhile for the dust to settle and each species to discover its most effective position within the food chain and how to navigate life with the other species.
The animation team has been working on additions for the older playables as I mentioned in devblogs past. Pteranodon, Austroraptor, Hypsilophodon etc. I’ll include a few animations. There are other additions here and others not shown but for the sake of brevity I’ll only go over a few and let the rest show up as they show up.
The pteranodon is being outfitted with better movement and attacks on the ground so hunting and fighting on land doesn’t feel like as much of a lost cause as it used to be. It should be faster, dish out more damage and likely be slightly larger. But be that as it may, you are still a fragile species comparatively so act accordingly. These changes will not turn you into anything other than a more powerful pteranodon. Which is still a pteranodon at the end of the day.
Hypsilophodon has some new attacks and nest related animations. Since we’re doing some new things with it, all of this is subject to change should it not work out. But if all goes according to plan, it should introduce more interesting gameplay options for this tiny but iconic species.
There were a handful of straggler animations for the austroraptor that the animation team has also completed, many including idles. Each playable has always had a number of different idles but with some of the newer playables and the introduction of the elder system, we’re likely to add more (some of which may only play or be attained under special conditions).
Now for the species so many have been waiting on, we have the quetzalcoatlus that’s in active development. This animal is being designed to be an imposing, stealthy, stalking terror from the land and sky. One of the pillars of the characterization we want to nail for quetzalcoatlus is to ensure it feels like a terrifying presence no matter where you encounter it. Be that on land, in the water, in the sky or even in the trees. The quetz is no less dangerous no matter where you encounter it. When the quetz makes its entrance into The Isle, make sure you keep an eye on your herd/pack mates. Turn your back for too long and someone may vanish without a trace.
That’s all from me. Remember that everything you’ve read or seen is all subject to change. But for some extra razzle dazzle I’ve included some prototype animations. See ya next month. Toodles!
