Filipe - Lead Programmer
I’ve been working on fixing UI issues and preventing some exploits. Kentrosaurus has a few reflection bugs where it's dealing damage in unintended ways but it should be done soon.
The only thing to show this month is the skin system. We want to make sure it works fine using texture gradients without issues, but also avoid people being able to spawn with ridiculous colours on official servers.
That’s all this month! See you!
Ariel - Programmer
This month I was mostly working on the underwater movement system for the baryonyx. This animal prefers to move along the bottom of lakes and rivers, so unlike other dinosaurs, running into the water will keep the baryonyx attached to the ground. Similar to beipiaosaurus when latching, baryonyx can then move across the terrain at the bottom of water. It can “jump” to push off from the ground and swim as normal, but idling anywhere except on the surface of water will cause the baryonyx to sink again.
Wedge - Sound Designer
With a new sound designer joining our ranks we have made some serious headway with Baryonyx’s vocal sounds, working our way through the last of its audio. It is near completion with the finishing touches being applied to the last few juvenile sounds before some testing and final review. .
I have moved onto the concepting phase for Camarasaurus’ vocalisations, experimenting with different sonic aesthetics for the creature. The current concepts run a broad spectrum of sounds all aiming to strike a balance between paying homage to instances of sauropod vocalisations from other media and finding a unique sonic identity, as well as conveying the sheer mass and size of this creature.
Our newest member of the team has turned their focus over to Avaceratops, and is in the early stages of concepting, taking as many measures as possible to maintain its vocal identity established with its legacy calls, whilst giving it the modernisation it deserves.
hypno - QA Lead
Hordetesting released to a great start, with the first new playable being the Kentrosaurus, which I would consider one of our smoothest releases of a new species to date. There are still some kinks to iron out with this animal, but once those have been addressed, we will be looking at moving it over to the Evrima branch alongside all the new changes to Gateway.
Over the course of the hordetesting, I will be compiling as much feedback from you guys as possible to address some of the lingering issues with the current state of the game.
- The save system sometimes fails on server restarts, causing player data to be wiped.
- Eggs being “locked” if a player decides to never hatch from them.
- Tyrannosaurus issues, such as not entering spar if it’s holding its crush ability.
- Reflection damage added to ceratopsian horns and stegosaurus tail spikes.
- Discrepancies between animal bite speeds and their damage output.
- Pin retaliation damage not remaining consistent with the size of the animal.
- Footstep audio and attenuation issues, such as troodon/dilophosaurus being very loud compared to their sizes.
- Herrerasaurus impaling itself on kentrosaurus with its drop attack.
- Body dragging costs stamina despite its slow movespeed. Stamina consumption for it will be removed.Adjustments to the migration zone system to avoid them becoming stuck in one place.
Director’s Commentary: Hypno initially made a compiled list of lingering issues but I’ve sealed these away while some are actively being worked on. You get to blame me for having such an abridged version.
A recent addition to hordetest that I’m particularly excited about is the new gradient system for the skin customizer. At the moment, the current hordetest only includes a single theme (the dinosaur’s default colour palette), but the amount of themes will be expanded significantly over time.
KissenKitten - Animation Supervisor
During the hordetest I’ve been personally going in alongside the rest of the animation team and polishing/swapping out some animations for kentrosaurus, austroraptor, oviraptor and pteranodon. Still a bit more for pteranodon I need to do but overall I’m very pleased with how everything is turning out.
After those, the bary, camara and quetz are gonna be next, in no particular order. We wrapped up on some of their lingering animations so they’ll be next in line to just miraculously show up someday in a hordetest of their own. I’m especially pleased with the imposing presence the camarasaurus is bringing. It’s absolutely massive! No dinosaur experience is complete without a sauropod in my opinion so we’ll definitely try our best to make it feel as epic and powerful as it looks. Watch the legs!
The avaceratops is a special grumpy snowflake since we decided to give it sparring so we’ve been hitting that task pretty hard. Sparring as a feature is quite involved art-wise so it’s taken the entire animation team to help crank these animations out alongside all these other deliverables but it’s coming along nicely despite it all. Ironically, it’s been one of the easiest to work with, go figure. Oh, and it’s officially omnivorous, complete with meat eating animation. Oviraptor has one of those too so you’ll really need to guard your hatchlings and your eggs.
Now for my personal gold star: Parasaurolophus. Still just as beautiful as the day it was made. The parasaurolophus is going to have our signature hadrosaur functionality such as stance changes etc that you’ve seen with maiasaura but of course it’s a much larger animal. It will be throwing more weight and more blows around than it ever has before. Much like with sauropods, large hadrosaurs are a key part of any dinosaur experience. Having it on the island again is going to feel amazing and help flesh out The Isle that much more. The para has also been a dream to work with for the animation team, which is saying something. We’re also going to try to do something new and interesting with it vocally. I can’t get into specifics but if all goes according to plan, the beauty of its melodic songs ringing out across the island will only be rivaled by its majestic appearance.
Anyway, that’s all I’ve got. See ya next time.
