[p]Hey Islanders,[/p][p][/p][p]Patch 0.20.117 is now available on the Evrima Public Branch. You may need to restart your Steam client if update is not immediately available to download.[/p][p][/p]
[p]Foliage interaction audio should now be properly playing based on size and speed (Due to a falloff range inconsistency, these will temporarily be quieter than intended)[/p]
[p]Stegosaurus power swing can no longer hit abnormal locations in front of its body[/p]
[p]AI no longer have a culling inconsistency that resulted in both failures to spawn properly and jumpscaring players that get too close[/p]
[p]Stability modifiers should no longer have instances where they can sometimes ignore crowd control entirely from other abilities[/p]
[p]Pouncing an animal no longer incorrectly affects stamina drain[/p]
[p]Fixed gallimimus mobilization calls also playing the default socialization call on a local client[/p]
[p]Triceratops no longer has unintended immunity from certain attacks while resting[/p]
[p]Fixed triceratops attack power not scaling properly with size[/p]
[p]Immunity to knockdown and other crowd control abilities now begins after regaining control of the character instead of when it is first knocked down[/p]
[p]Rain and thunderstorm sound effects can no longer go above intended maximum audio[/p]
Patch 0.20.109 is now available!
[p]Hey Islanders,[/p][p][/p][p]Thank you to everyone that participated in our recent Hordetest! Patch 0.20.109 is now available on the Evrima Public Branch. You may need to restart your Steam client if update is not immediately available to download. [/p][p][/p]
[p]Added triceratops[/p]
[p]Added spawn codes[/p]
[p]Adjusted pteranodon flight[/p]
[p]Added automated pteranodon circling (default: G while flying)[/p]
[p]Fixed migration zones failing for certain animals[/p]
[p]Added foliage interaction sounds to animals passing through vegetation[/p]
[p]Gateway's south plains has been updated in preparation for upcoming location features[/p]
[p]Game trails have been added along common player travel routes between highlands, west rail access, the new south plains area, west plateau and northwest outpost[/p]
[p]Gateway's west grasslands location has been updated[/p]
[p]Several new watering holes have been added in Gateway near player travel routes[/p]
[p]Gateway western coast preview area has been added (No patrol or migration zones have been added to this area. Do not expect food here yet)[/p]
[p]Fixed foliage color and saturation errors[/p]
[p]Adjusted island grass height to accommodate smaller animals[/p]
[p]Ceratopsian spar sidestep has been made faster for follow up attacks[/p]
[p]Enabled ceratopsian flip attack in spar mode (Hold LMB)[/p]
[p]Ceratopsian thrash can now be activated during spar and all locomotion states, but will block movement during the attack (Double Tap LMB)[/p]
[p]Prevented latching with 0 stamina[/p]
[p]Ceratosaurus mouth display no longer automatically ends when charging a bite[/p]
[p]Ceratosaurus slows down by 10% and uses stamina to continue the mouth display after the bite is fully charged[/p]
[p]Reduced RMB hold time for ceratosaurus's maximum damage/bacteria application[/p]
[p]Added 1.25x stability multiplier to ceratosaurus during their mouth display[/p]
[p]Salt licks now drain bacteria[/p]
[p]Bacteria levels appropriately drain over time[/p]
[p]Fixed the port tunnel not having proper textures[/p]
[p]Fixed corpses emitting their death audio when a player logs in near one[/p]
[p]Fixed deinosuchus getting covered in duckweed when lunging underwater[/p]
[p]Fixed meat chunks not appearing until the end of an animation[/p]
[p]Fixed animal AI not properly bucking when a player latches onto them[/p]
[p]Fixed diabloceratops sprinting push not knocking down diabloceratops of the same weight range[/p]
[p]Fixed instances of Prolific Reproduction mutation not working[/p]
[p]Fixed vocal audio not canceling during attacks[/p]
[p]Fixed dilophosaurus being able to see its own clones[/p]
[p]Fixed diabloceratops’ face clipping when shoving forward in spar mode[/p]
[p]Fixed juvenile omniraptor shaking while dragging a body and turning[/p]
[p]Fixed dilophosaurus' arms being incorrectly positioned when sprinting and carrying something, while having another player envenomated[/p]
[p]Fixed AI walking on top of foliage that they should not be able to walk on[/p]
[p]Fixed meat chunks getting stuck on carnivore's faces when they eat in replays[/p]
[p]Fixed falling leaves VFX spawning in areas with no trees[/p]
[p]Fixed chickens not being afraid of anything and sometimes wanting to fight everyone forever[/p]
[p]Fixed juvenile stegosaurus playing the quick rise animation twice[/p]
[p]Fixed diabloceratops remaining idle if their UI menu is open while sparred by another diabloceratops[/p]
[p]Fixed players who unpair and pair again being able to build a new nest[/p]
[p]Fixed foraging bubbles not properly culling[/p]
[p]Fixed dirt VFX playing when a deinosuchus drops a lunged player from on land into water[/p]
[p]Fixed maiasaura beg animation not playing audio[/p]
[p]Fixed crab rotation and prevented them from making constant sniffing and purring noises[/p]
[p]Fixed maiasaura not being able to stance swap when taking damage[/p]
[p]Fixed omniraptor sliding if it crouches right after using a directional attack[/p]
[p]Fixed pterodactylus traps activating from underwater playables[/p]
[p]Fixed juvenile beipiaosaurus receiving the incorrect prompt when it attempts to swallow too much food[/p]
[p]Fixed the "Too big to swallow" prompt only showing if the player was standing idle[/p]
[p]Fixed the adult beipiaosaurus’ mouth being held open on the customization screen[/p]
[p]Fixed the max speed on the character menu not reflecting the speed difference with the maiasaura stance swap[/p]
[p]Fixed playables continuously playing a jump animation if they press space while in the falling animation[/p]
[p]Fixed maiasaura being unable to move for several seconds after recovering from knockdown[/p]
[p]Fixed pteranodon not taking any fall damage when in the flying state[/p]
[p]Fixed gallimimus having no scent animation/audio while holding compsognathus AI[/p]
[p]Fixed the back of playables becoming instantly dry as soon as the character touches land[/p]
[p]Fixed blood masks remaining on the player in the rain[/p]
[p]Fixed beipiaosaurus becoming distorted if the player had been dolphin diving too quickly[/p]
[p]Fixed the hint prompt not updating when the player moves from gastroliths to grass and vice versa[/p]
[p]Fixed omnivores being able to pull meat chunks out of rotten corpses[/p]
[p]Fixed 'Having Muscle Spasms' not appearing in the status report of the player if they were not fully grown[/p]
[p]Fixed an issue where an omniraptor pounces another omniraptor already pouncing, it will make the pounced omniraptor input locked until knocked off[/p]
[p]Fixed patrol zones sometimes only showing for some group members[/p]
[p]Fixed an issue where a latching player continues to see an eating/drinking loop of a player they’ve latched onto[/p]
[p]Fixed chickens sometimes t-posing while stuck in place[/p]
[p]Fixed deer making boar vocals from a far distance[/p]
[p]Fixed an issue where if an elite fish is attacked while holding a player, the attacker dies and the swallowed player is sent to fish prison[/p]
[p]Fixed pterodactylus AI immediately harassing a player after catching schooling fish[/p]
[p]Fixed players escaping weight based grapple to pin by sitting and standing[/p]
[p]Fixed grazing prompt vanishing immediately after appearing[/p]
[p]Fixed players occasionally becoming permanently input locked while taking chunks from trees[/p]
[p]Fixed scavenger AI spawning on ragdolls in water[/p]
[p]Fixed debris continuing to spawn after a nest was completely built[/p]
[p]Fixed an issue where publicly set eggs would sometimes not show to players waiting in the egg screen[/p]
[p]Fixed an issue where scavengers would sometimes leave organs inside of a skeleton[/p]
[p]Fixed a visual issue with organs inflating in size when scavengers eat a corpse[/p]
[p]Fixed the gastrolith hint not disappearing when another hint appears[/p]
[p]Fixed latched players being unable to be knocked off with collision or water[/p]
[p]Fixed diabloceratops not entering spar mode when one hits the other to lock together[/p]
[p]Fixed deinosuchus having a second speed boost when they lunge onto land[/p]
[p]Fixed an issue where the cannibal coloration was not applying after relog[/p]
[p]Fixed an issue with stegosaurus sometimes able to cancel power swing animation into a directional attack without spending stamina[/p]
[p]Fixed foraged compsognathus spamming audio when they are dug up by the player[/p]
[p]Fixed scavenger AI not despawning when they run off[/p]
[p]Fixed psittacosaurus being able to carry ragdolls larger than itself[/p]
[p]Fixed an issue where compsognathus would sometimes have difficulty dealing damage to the player[/p]
[p]Fixed baby AI occasionally applying the same damage as adult AI[/p]
[p]Fixed an input lockup for dilophosaurus when a hallucination kills an omniraptor that is latched onto that dilophosaurus[/p]
[p]Fixed pouncers dying when they unlatch, if the player they are latched onto falls from a great height[/p]
[p]Fixed an issue with carnivores stuttering when they attack while moving and carrying a ragdoll[/p]
[p]Fixed maiasaura wallowing snapping into the standing animation[/p]
[p]Fixed pterodactylus dealing damage to a player that has picked up a meat chunk that they dropped or was forced to be dropped[/p]
[p]Fixed gallimimus corpses floating after death to return to their people[/p]
[p]Fixed omniraptor being stuck in a sliding animation when dismounting from grapple[/p]
[p]Fixed an issue where a player's status could be set as unknown despite safe logging[/p]
[p]Fixed the floating beehive[/p]
[p]Fixed waterfall attenuation[/p]
[p]Fixed an issue where both parents could permanently lose access to the nest menu if one parent logs out or crashes[/p]
[p]Fixed an issue where dying with a menu open prevented a player from being able to close the menu[/p]
[p]Fixed an issue where being shoved by diabloceratops would often play the wrong shoved animation client side[/p]
[p]Fixed carnivores pickup time sync[/p]
[p]Fixed character turning affecting head rotation[/p]
[p]Fixed knockdown not working properly from a spar push[/p]
[p]Fixed diabloceratops sliding if it starts resting while blocking[/p]
[p]Fixed animal AI not playing montages properly[/p]
[p]Fixed dilophosaurus clone being invisible in certain situations[/p]
[p]Fixed carry position for rabbit corpses[/p]
[p]Fixed diabloceratops sometimes having its head angle break when locked in spar[/p]
[p]Fixed corpse physics being reset when dragged[/p]
[p]Fixed being able to turn while thrashing[/p]
[p]Fixed consuming spar charges when thrashing in spar mode[/p]
[p]Fixed being able to activate thrash during flip[/p]
[p]Fixed being able to build nests on top of other nests[/p]
[p]Fixed nests persisting after being abandoned by both parents[/p]
[p]Fixed night vision exposure blinding players at night[/p]
[p]Fixed psittacosaurus burrows spawning in the air[/p]
[p]Fixed psittacosaurus burrows not being destroyed automatically[/p]
[p]Fixed some foliage causing players to be knocked off during pounce latch[/p]
[p]Fixed server list not updating on initial load sometimes[/p]
[p]Fixed some issues regarding ESC menu, skin menu and settings menu[/p]
[p]Fixed ceratosaurus directional bite applying bacteria even if it hit the target’s tail[/p]
[p]Fixed cursor disappearing if closing settings after death[/p]
[p]Fixed drink animation sometimes playing incorrectly after moving[/p]
[p]Fixed being able to push into blocking dinosaurs when locked together[/p]
[p]Fixed pteranodon uncrouching when pressing RMB[/p]
[p]Fixed being unable to do certain actions for a short time after drinking[/p]
[p]Fixed master foliage volume and attenuation scaling[/p]
[p]Fixed headtracking issue during skimming[/p]
[p]Fixed pteranodon latching again immediately on takeoff if RMB was held[/p]
[p] [/p]
DevBlog #59
Filipe - Lead Programmer
This month I’ve primarily been focused on the Elder system, which the current roster is having their curves put in for players who meet the requirements once they become adult. We had to replace the growth curve system to allow more entries, which will help us to easily edit and balance normal and prime elders, but also allow even more expansions in the future if we want that. All the curves have been set up and the Elders morph targets are also functional. We will be setting up some UI systems and specific animations to use in the elder stage and after that it can go to QA for some balance testing.
Rex crush still had bug work to do but it seems to have run out of edge cases that we can find so it seems this will be ready almost directly after trike’s release.
Besides those bugs, I also worked on the human locomotion and traversal systems. The focus was to establish a base locomotion system to use, but in a way that we can easily maintain and continue to develop. Most importantly we wanted to include features from Epic and support modding in the future.
That's it for now. See you soon.
Ariel - Programmer
I started the month with a bit more work on the climbing features of herrera and hypsi, which now also made it to QA testing and will be released alongside the triceratops. I’ve also altered the ceratopsians’ thrash attack to make its activation much more strict on quick double clicks, so there should be far less accidental activations, while still being able to quickly use it whenever desired.
Afterwards I continued work on the pteranodon’s new takeoff and fixed some issues related to thermals and slipstreams. The end of my month has me starting on a feature that will provide a pteranodon (and other animals) with a new and more interactive way to hunt small animals and fish, but it’s still in early stages as of now.
Tapwing - 2D Artist
I’ve had more plants on my plate for this week as well as some edit concepts for the Giga elder model. It’s got some fan favorite elements from the older giga model that’s making a comeback in its more wizened age.
On the plants side, I've been working on what’s essentially ‘living barbed wire’, the very angry looking Razorbark plant. It needs to attach itself just about anywhere (within reason) which is why I gave it little graspers that the plant could use to adhere to walls or other not-so-upright surfaces. The other idea it needed to get across was “try to pass through me and you’re in for a bad time” It needed to be thick and absolutely covered in spikes, even the bark of the stem I wanted to look jagged and unpleasant to touch.
Some of you might remember the other one on this list. An old concept that’s been floating around is getting its name and home, the Arborburst Redwood. I’ve always pictured the plant having some influence from the type-H strain which is where the extreme growth and armoured appearance would come from, also why the tree bares some resemblance to the Metallivore plant.
Wedge - Sound Designer
This month I have been rounding out Triceratops’ suite of sounds. The remaining adult sounds have been created, including sparring which has been implemented, horns and all; just wrapping up some attenuation and volume so these big brutes can be heard from afar when shoving one another around. I have made my way through the majority of the juvenile Triceratops sounds as well with only its sparring and a few other erroneous sounds remaining. It's been quite the undertaking but the Triceratops is very soon to be audio complete after some testing and quality of life passes over its sound suite.
I have also added sounds to Hypsilophodon’s new latched animations and made some improvements to the setup of the new foliage audio system, making more adjustments to the behaviour that dictates how volume, the mix of layers and attenuations scale with the speed and size of your dinosaur.
hypno - QA Lead
Originally, our plan for the horde test was to evaluate the Triceratops on its own, then the Tyrannosaurus, and finally both together. However, we’ve decided to skip directly to testing them both together following the release of the Triceratops to the evrima branch. This adjustment is essential, as the additional stage was determined to be counterproductive given how long the initial testing has taken. While we'll continue to refine them after their release, they need to be in a solid state at launch.
QA has been busy this month focusing primarily on the Triceratops, ensuring that all of its mechanics are functioning correctly with the existing systems. While it does share the same ability as the Diabloceratops (sparring), it weighs a heck of a lot more once it goes beyond its subadult phase, meaning that we had to check that its interactions past this point made sense for an animal of that size. We’re comfortable that the Triceratops is working as intended in our latest QA build and will be prepping it for its official evrima release, which we are aiming to have released sometime next week.
In other news, we’re going to be sending this update with some other new features and quality of life changes, including the long-awaited Hypsilophodon Climbing feature.
Acting almost like a hybrid between the Pteranodon latching and Herrerasaurus climbing systems, the Hypsilophodon is now capable of latching onto objects, but with the difference that it cannot move as freely as the Herrerasaurus can. This requires the hyspi to have some consideration on where it’s latching on to. Once latched, the player can jump and re-latch to another point; this utilizes its charged jump ability and launching itself to even greater heights. Taking your time between jumps will preserve your stamina and knowing which paths to take during a vertical ascent are key. This feature is the foundation for us to expand on its other potential systems, such as being able to create nests within trees.
KissenKitten - Producer
We’ve been toiling pretty hard getting things properly in order with hordetesting. Which has been challenging and taken longer than we’d have liked unfortunately. Classic case of surprise bugginess. But we grabbed a shoe and went to work.
The team has expanded, so there’re new faces, internal shifts, various system/mechanic/interaction tweaks/overhauls etc so it has been quite busy. Many of those changes should roll out with the release of triceratops. Who’s getting its missing sounds plugged in so we can get that umph in there. It’s a big animal with big bellows. There’s still more to do yet but now we’ve got more hands…errr EARS!
We’ve been making some combat changes here and there. A few are changes to recovery times on abilities that should allow you to respond in combat in ways more appropriate to the animal so you won’t feel as “stuck” in certain instances. Those alterations will be doled out over time since we’ll be going on a case by case basis but we won’t change all of those instances should they be placed there deliberately. But for the instances we agree are unintended and break the intended flow, we’ll be looking to take those shackles off, free up your movement a bit and make some abilities/interactions more responsive.
The animation team has been crushing it. They’re tearing through avaceratops animations in record time. Really goes a long way when the dinosaurs behave and the avaceratops has been a gem to work with but it won’t have anything to do with their demeanor on the island. I’d be careful tangling with one. The animation team has also largely completed the non-unique animations for the baryonyx, so it will be entering its holding pen awaiting its introduction onto the island alongside the austroraptor, allosaurus and kentrosaurus. I’m exceptionally proud of and impressed by their efforts and they should be as well. I’ll scrounge up some clips for you guys and give you a peek at the process of rig checking for the oviraptor and a test animation for the ovlet. Be good to each other. Toodles!
DevBlog #58
Ariel - Programmer
This month I mainly worked on the climbing features for the hypsilophodon and herrerasaurus. The former will be able to latch on to walls and jump around, but not climb around freely like the herrerasaurus. It will also be able to use the spit ability while latched and use it to knock down other climbing dinosaurs. I also had to make some changes in the background for the charged jump to work together with the aimed jump using RMB. As for the herrerasaurus it's getting some visual flair, latching on to walls on its side will first put it into a horizontal orientation, from where it can transition into the normal climbing mode. This should help make it not suddenly snap into the latched pose after some jumps.
As usual there were also various bug fixes and improvements too. I fixed some issues related to the ceratopsians' thrash changes and also made some changes to the stagger mechanic because the triceratops was taking very long to recover. I've also seen some photos of very impressive construction work involving hypsilophodon nests, but I'm sorry to say that they will no longer be possible. We also have some balance changes in progress for the ceratosaurus's bacteria that I should get to the end of soon.
Wedge - Sound Designer
This month I’ve been getting through a lot of triceratops’ vocal sounds and have completed the design for a majority of the adult sounds. Ranging from basic idle and generic vocal sounds used for mechanics such as the sniff and resting. From completing the pain sounds, making subtler vocalisations like eating and drinking, to longer and more complex designs such as its courting vocalisations (among many others). The designs are focused on conveying the size and mass of this creature whilst expanding on the sound palette established from the calls and attacks designed previously. With just a couple of the base mechanics left to design for, as well as any bespoke sounds needed for Triceratops’ sparring, the adult vocalisations are nearly rounded out.
I also had another look at the setup for the foliage sounds, making improvements to scaling between both size ranges and the varying speeds, adjusting volume and pitch modulation, the sounds used and the attenuation ranges that dynamically change based on those parameters to have a more audibly distinct differentiation.
VisualTech48 - Environmental Artist
This month has primarily revolved around building the labs, which will soon be featured in the game. It contains a wide variety of areas to explore, from the armory, to various offices, testing rooms and much more. I won’t go too much into detail, instead I’ll show you.
This is just a small glimpse as the area is fully finished and ready to be implemented once the time comes. Here you can see an image of a top down layout showing the highest floor, but it also gives you an idea about the size of the facility.
Alongside the labs I’ve also been working on some other additions to the tunnels, a bunch of minor fixes and the infirmary section which will be revealed in due time.
That’s pretty much it, see you next month!
Tapwing - 2D Artist
Watching grass grow is boring, but you might find it a tad unnerving when watching these plants grow.
This month I’ve been very focused on drawing up the concepts for strain plants. So far there’s the Metallivore. Conceptualized to break down (As the name suggests) the less organic things you’d find around the island. I played with a few different styles of branch and grippers for the plant, some skeletal-like with filaments that corrode what they’re attached to, some a little more subtly armoured with adhesive grips
The one we wound up going with was a segmented ‘Strangler fig’ inspired “ivy”. Something that could crawl along the ground, burrow and reemerge to wrap around metallic objects, break them down and leave a frame of what once there. Creating a kind of plant ghost of modern structures or objects.
The other plant is a little more devious. This is the Mendys. A sneaky carnivorous thing that’s helpful one moment and dangerous the next if you’re not careful. With that in mind the design needed to be somewhat inconspicuous. The leaves were to be reminiscent of our ivy that’s going to be used on buildings and such in the future, but the flowers and the grippers are where the strangeness begins. ‘Cat's claw creeper’ was used as inspiration for the hunting mechanism of the plant. Little claws that would run along the nodes of the Mendy's vine turning it into living barbed wire ready to wrap around any animals that’s gotten too comfortable around it. The only indicator of the plant’s intentions is the strange flower that changes colour when it’s about to strike.
Fred - 2D Artist
Marty and I have been quietly cranking out skin patterns for many of our playable animals for the last few months. Many hours going into rigorous details in order to get them to feel real and believable while looking interesting and fun. From old faces to brand new ones, we’re hard at work bringing them that much closer to you to be able to tinker and create interesting skins.
For now I’ll only show a few, and I’ll let you all have fun figuring out what the sneak peeks are of:
Bryan - Animator
For me, most of this month has been lots of little things going on. I’ve been working with the Austroraptor, getting it sorted out for implementation and doing some Kentrosaurus locomotion.
We want Kentrosaurus to be in a good spot speed-wise, so it’s a little bit faster than the Stegosaurus because we know how you Stegosaurus players are.
I’ve also been working on Elder morphs for all our current roster as well as all the upcoming beasties who have been rigged.
That and crab walkies.
hypno - QA Lead
We’re now on the verge of releasing our latest build to the hordetest for the Triceratops – this will be the last patch for Triceratops before we move onto the Tyrannosaurus testing, which I know you are all eagerly waiting for.
Over the past month QA has been finding all manner of bugs within the hordetest, from simple issues such as finding holes in the map that players have been getting stuck in, people being knocked off by bushes when latching with a pounce, fish not spawning in certain areas of the map, to some attacks dealing knockdowns but no damage at all! Rest assured, the patch we will be releasing within the next few days will be rectifying a lot of those issues and bringing some much-needed performance improvements.
Tyrannosaurus is coming along very well now and will be ready for testing publicly very soon. It has an ambush speed mechanic, similar to the one present in legacy, without the need to crouch first. It gives the character increased sprint speed at the cost of a higher stamina drain, perfect for catching those that you have been able to sneak up on. Coupling this with its crush ability makes for a deadly combination.
The Tyrannosaurs’ crush ability responds differently to its target, depending on their weight. If a creature is small enough, such as a Dryosaurus, the ability will grab and pick them up, allowing the Tyrannosaurus to thrash them against the ground, instantly killing the target. Those that are killed this way will see their bodies being slammed into the ground, which makes for a brutal display of the character’s strength. These execution-style kills are something that we’ve talked about potentially extending to other species as well.
When knocking down a medium-sized creature, such as the Ceratosaurus, the crush will knock them down to the ground, allowing the Tyrannosaurus to maul them. This does a tremendous amount of damage and more often than not, will kill the target or leave it with critically low health. Hitting a larger creature will result in the crush ability either staggering the target or, if too large simply, dealing damage.
Those that have been setup to interact with sparring will instead enter that state with the Tyrannosaurus, such as a Triceratops locking its horns within its jaws, making the players enter push/pull interaction. As you’ll see in the following video… It might need some more time in the oven.
KissenKitten - Producer
Gonna keep this one kinda short as there’s much to do. This month has been a lot of tweaks made all around. We’re still hammering away on the issues presented on the hordetest. Animation changes, map changes, balance changes, optimization changes, AI changes and many others. So, while that’s being a lengthy cook, we’re working on other things which, is customary.
The austroraptor is looking pretty sleek. Definitely has a different look and feel to it compared to the others on the roster in my opinion. We did have to correct a hierarchy issue that was fairly annoying but we knocked it out pretty quickly when it came into focus. Mostly just reexporting and reimporting. But tedium consumes time all the same. Anyway, it’s a very lithe animal so I’m curious to see how it measures up. Especially in your hands.
I was able to get some more work in on the hypsilophodon. Not only can it climb but it can also spit while latched. Which makes them even more annoying than they already are. But more than that, it assists the hypsilophodon in defense of its treetop nests. Which may be of interest to other island inhabitants.
The pteranodon is still in the works. Additional aerial animations to help gameplay feel more alive when you’re flying as well as terrestrial characterization, movement and attacks, to help players feel more comfortable and capable on the ground.
Kentrosaurus is wandering around in its holding pen awaiting release on the island. That will transpire once some of the other new additions have a firm footing. Herrera is getting some latch adjustments to make place to place traversal more dynamic when on the go. To make leaping from tree to tree a swifter experience if your timing and aim are good.
Baryonyx is well on its way to being animation complete. Just another set or two and we’ll be in a nice position. Of the 3 spinosaurids we have, it’s the most agile and flexible. Able to do things the others may not excel at in the same fashion. Each should feel unique to one another despite overlapping territories.
Also more work on humans. Really looking forward to giving them the full focus they need as I’ve mentioned before. Pleased with the results thus far though. There’s also more work on elders, skins, environment models and more. Till next time, take care.
DevBlog #57
Filipe - Lead Programmer
I completed the main setup for Rex montages. The Deinosuchus needs some special treatment due to its morph target setup and animations. The core systems for Rex and Trike are now mostly finished, with the Crush ability undergoing some bug-fixing, leaving sparring as the final step for full release.
I have been working on a variety of systems. There are now interactive foliage sounds which trigger when animals move through larger vegetation. This really helps communicate dinosaur activity to players that they were missing before just because they couldn’t see one another.
Besides that, I also have been working on the Allosaurus, primarily it´s special ability that allows them to pull a victim down or pull themselves on top of it, depending on victim size. The main setup for this is done, allowing for balance to be set up before we move into bugfixes and visuals.
And, some more changes have been done server side to improve its stability and performance with good results so far. Plus several bug fixes in general. See you!
Ariel - Programmer
I spent much of the month working on the triceratops, fixing various issues that came up and also making some improvements to sparring in general. The sidestep in particular is more responsive and it is now easier to follow up with other abilities or to disengage. The thrash attack is now activated by double-clicking LMB and can be done from all forms of locomotion. It might take some getting used to at first, but it provides far better control.
I also made various improvements and fixes here and there. Many of the dinosaurs are getting fixed to feel more responsive from how quickly they can move out of their resting states to movements after using certain attacks. I also made the camera movement smoother when sitting down or standing up. Finally I also worked a bit on the hypsilophodon’s climbing feature.
VisualTech48 - Environmental Artist
This month has been all about the tunnels, aka GUTS. Who would’ve guessed? This month I’ve built the whole construction to be able to be used mostly with simplicity, while keeping the amount of pieces as low as it can get, to not introduce any unnecessary complexity where we in fact don’t need any.
This does not mean that the tunnels are simple in nature, but rather than its assembly has been brought down to be as simple as it could to assemble, giving Jace, our level designer, a lot of room and freedom to maneuver, while giving him ample time to decorate the actual interior of the GUTS connections.
These models are for now called “corrective pieces” as they make sure that we allow full scale of verticality and horizontality during building, such as various pieces of staircase, diagonal rooms, ramps, etc.
Alongside those, I’ve made short pieces of the tunnels to allow very interesting mixing such as 2 tunnels or even X tunnels side by side, without breaking the grid.
Very simple tunnel layout made in less that 20 min with our pieces:
Some Diagonal Pieces:
New Elevator lobby piece for the tunnels:
And finally I’ve begun work on a massive new HUB which isn’t the industrial one, who, I won’t for now disclose much, and will sadly have to wait for the next dev blog. I will leave with this though:
That is it for me this month!
Wedge - Sound Designer
This month I have been finishing off Triceratops vocal call sounds, firstly working on final adjustments to the design of the adult vocal sounds and then working on the mixdown for each and ensuring that each call sounds weighty and powerful at both full and out of breath stages.
I have completed both the subadult and juvenile vocals as well, making sure each vocal was both a similar length to match the new animations and the adult vocal as well as carrying the aesthetic design of the adult vocals but reflecting the growth stage for each.
I also finalised the implementation of the vocals, making sure that the vocals both crossfade cleanly across all the growth stages and that pitch modulation for each vocal of the individual growth stages is manipulated so that the transition at each individual growth value is clean, clear and sounds appropriate.
Finally I have now moved on to working on the rest of Trike’s vocal suite starting with its directional attack sounds.Looking forward to working on the rest of its suite and bringing the Trike to life.
KissenKitten - Producer
This will be short and sweet since the hordetest has been dominating our focus largely. Thanks again for those of you that have participated. We’ve been spending time bug fixing and keeping a watchful eye on how the triceratops is performing. There needs to be some adjustments here and there, like with nightvision but largely with triceratops we are pretty satisfied with how the creature landed. However there is still more work to be done to ensure the triceratops and tyrannosaurus are able to have their epic showdown in a fashion befitting two of the most popular dinosaurs of all time.
So, while all that bug smashing stuff is happening, the rest of the team is working on other things. From knocking out skins for Acrocanthosaurus and Suchomimus, to elder related work on Spinosaurus, Quetzalcoatlus and Parasaurolophus. I have been doing some animation prep work for things like baryonyx’s defensive stance, avaceratops attacks, hypsilophodon climb finalization, dryosaurus springboarding, kentrosaurus defensive stance, parasaurolophus revisiting, omniraptor crouch pursuit, charge jump and more. Austroraptor is rebelling a little bit but nothing we can’t handle. All in all we’re going to be touching up a fair amount of the current roster so they can all nestle into their niches and mechanics for the foreseeable future.
That’s pretty much it for this month. Bugs, changes, tweaks and the steady standard. I’ll drop some pics and clips though. See ya!
DevBlog #56
Filipe - Lead Programmer
It’s been another busy month with a primary focus on the new playables like the Tyrannosaurus Rex, Triceratops and Allosaurus. The T-Rex’s signature mechanic, Crush, is nearing completion, with only a few animation adjustments left to finalize.
Another mechanic for sub-adult and older tyrannosaurs is a short, but effective speed burst to aid in ambushes. It has worked fairly well during internal tests, but we’ll be continuing to monitor its impact after release. We may also extend this ability to other animals, depending on its performance and balance, otherwise removed if deemed problematic.
In addition, I’ll soon be wrapping up the Throw ability for the T-Rex. This is primarily a gore-focused mechanic rather than a damage-dealing one, allowing players to throw corpses or enemies that are already guaranteed to die once released, which is an extension of the Crush ability but for smaller prey.
I also worked on Spawn Codes, which allows you to invite your friends to spawn alongside you. This feature is already available in the ongoing Hordetest. The Cannibalistic mutation now comes with unique skin colors. Once the mutation is active, your chosen skin will be overridden by a specific color set that indicates to others your dietary preference.
Besides that I also added an option to swap asset sex from within the skin creator panel, which has been a long requested QoL change that became necessary with the introduction of spawn codes.
Thermals and Slipstreams are also finalized and are exclusive to flying animals. While these systems could have even more uses in future, we currently have no plans beyond their current intended functionality.
To wrap things up, I’ve implemented new admin commands, made various improvements and fixes to pounce (including collision and animations), addressed animation issues for Triceratops, and resolved various other bugs across different areas.
See you next time!
Amarok - Programmer
Hello! Most of the last month I've been working on AI which includes Carnotaurus, Tenontosaurus, Omniraptor, Dryosaurus and Deer along with a new behaviour debugging tool that works with the new AI logic system. I also spent some time working on an extension of the engines navigation system for pathing around water and dynamic obstacles.
Bug fixing for the Psittacosaurus and its object carrying feature. I’ve been prototyping a new system for grass trails which are basically just flattened or grass being pushed down as characters walk through it. There are lots of challenges with this in terms of replication, culling and performance. I'm looking forward to finishing the production version of that soon.
I’ve also been working on the new replay filters which are designed for replays to give a more cinematic or immersive feeling to replays. Reworked some of the audio for animals to have “attenuation” meaning instead of fixed distances for an animal to “hear” a player the perception adheres to the sounds actual attenuation, This also comes with the advantage of more granular control of when and how audio is played. Investigations are also underway for various issues and server performance on hordetesting.
I’ve also added a small QoL change that's worth mentioning, If you are disconnected for some reason or the game crashes you can now reconnect without needing to queue again. This is entirely dependent on how long you take to restart the game, if the game detects an active session when you get back to the main menu it will prompt you to reconnect.
VisualTech48 - Environmental Artist
This month I’m happy to reveal our next, massive structure on the island. The original and monstrous DTA (Dinosaur Transportation Area). While it's been a large undertaking, it is now ready to be used in-game, and it features almost twice the size of our regular dock DTA. It is meant to house the largest of the dinosaurs for further transportation and has massive fences and sally ports to keep everything contained.
Next up, I’ve been working hard with Jace on some minor river fixes that came with the new waterfall area, however, most importantly I was and will be on the GUTS assembly for the interior to finally bring it full circle to life. I won’t go too much into detail right now but rather give you really nice snippets of what we are building here, in which all of the areas and hallways will connect to various hubs and GUTS parts.
That is all for this month, I hope you enjoy the snippets. Until next time.
Wedge - Sound Designer
At the beginning of this month after a bit of time away at the end of January I finally finished off Maiasaura with a new pinned vocalisation that better shows the distress with more visceral screams throughout the animation.
I spent some time readjusting footstep attenuation ranges to travel to more appropriate ranges for each size and speed, giving crouch and sprint their own ranges opposed to sharing with walk and trot respectively. The ranges have been reduced slightly to work together with the introduction of new audio for moving through foliage. With the reduced footstep ranges this will give more opportunity for stealth play to be a viable tactic, if you are considering how you approach. The foliage sounds will have a range that carries further so you will need to be aware of how much noise you and others around you are producing in highly vegetated areas. This will also play nicely into the Gallimimus’ paranoia mechanic so it is harder to tell whether the sounds you are hearing are real or not. After recording a large amount of foliage source material I have created an audio system that dynamically changes the sound of foliage based on the size and speed of your Dinosaur, small crouching dinosaurs will produce a light rustle of leaves whereas large sprinting dinosaurs will create a cacophony of snapping stems and thick swooshing. The snapping sounds will also change based on whether the plant you are moving through has a wood or plant based trunk or if it even has a trunk at all.
For the rest of the month I have been working on Triceratops. Starting with adding in the legacy vocal call sounds as placeholder so it is not silent until its new vocals are complete, as well as adding footstep sounds to its basic locomotion animations. Next, I did a preliminary pass on animations adding more footsteps where necessary as well as foley sounds for all animations. As vocal sounds are introduced for all the various mechanics and animations these foley sounds will be methodically tightened up in terms of sound quality, volume, sync etc.
I have also been working on new designs for its adult stages’ calls maintaining the essence of the legacy calls but giving them the usual glow up. However, some changes are being made to the overall design principle, giving the adult stage an emphasis on a booming quality to really sell its stature and power and keeping the higher elements of the original sounds for its subadult phase. I’m looking forward to hearing these out on The Isle!
Tapwing - 2D Artist
I’ve been busy with a few things lately. Outside of some icon and logo edits or variations, the modeling/concept team and I have been chipping away at the elder designs for our dinosaur roster, trying to make sure each one has its own little characteristics so not all the elders age in exactly the same way.
Outside of the dinosaurs, I’ve gotten a chance to tackle updating one of our older legacy concepts; the tissoplastic reaper!
This was one of my favourite concepts from before I joined the team, so I very much wanted to keep the overall character of the reaper, with its needle laden skin and bat-like appearance.
One feature that didn’t quite make the cut though were the scythe claws that used to protrude from the side of the hands. While it did make for a neat silhouette, its existence just started to look impractical, particularly from a mobility standpoint where an oversized spike coming out of the hand is simply begging to get caught on everything in any remotely tight space. Besides, with talon-like claws and forearms loaded with thorns, it has everything it needs to rip its prey to shreds if it gets the jump on you.
I did try drawing up a smaller “collapsible” version of the scythe claw, but it remains to be seen if it will make the cut.
Scythe-claw aside, we didn’t want to just take away a feature from the reaper without putting something back. After some thought, the idea of adding a membrane to the underarm was pitched with the idea that we might try giving it a gliding ability to allow the reaper more range for surprise attacks from high up places.
hypno - QA Lead
I hope that you are all enjoying the first iteration of the spawn code system, which was proving to be a bit of a pain to get to work initially, but it seems it’s finally almost there. During this time, we’ve been looking at feedback on how this mechanic can be improved and we’re constantly making changes to it. Speaking of, just recently Filipe made it so that Stream Mode hides the spawn codes from being visible (while still able to be copied), which should hopefully assist your favourite streamers against those pesky snipers!
QA have spent the majority of this month with a large focus on some of our most anticipated playables to date, the Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops are very rapidly becoming ready to be moved over to our horde testing branch. As you may have heard, we will be staggering the introduction of these characters, first testing the Triceratops on its own, then the Tyrannosaurus on its own, before finally testing them simultaneously. The reason for the staggered approach is to have our full-focus on one playable at a time, increasing the number of people testing the individual species, resulting in more bugs caught and for ease of balancing against the rest of the roster. Here’s just a handful of issues that we ran into:
Troodon causing Rex to grow even larger: Rex taking head fracture to the next level: Rex turning other characters into a skipping rope: Omniraptors shrugging off Triceratops horns: Triceratops abomination:
Thank you to all of those that are participating in the latest horde test, reporting issues using our community bug form, and continuing to assist us with making the experience as smooth as possible - we couldn’t do it without you. Here are a couple of highlights from the community reports:
Gallimimus turning upside down when falling with a fractured leg: Bouncy waterfalls:
KissenKitten - Producer
So there’s Hordetesting going on this month. Thank you to everyone that has participated. There’s some additional content that will eventually make it into hordetesting over time but for now we appreciate your feedback.
We’ve been making some tweaks to playables across the board that will slowly start appearing over time. Some changes from mild to wild, in no particular order for ceratosaurus, herrerasaurus, omniraptor, troodon, maiasaura and others. All of that is alongside the trike and rex sparring which is looking quite nice. Hopefully we can get some visuals going on that for you guys. We’re trying to preserve the ability for the trike to also be able to spar with the diablo at various lifestages even if at certain sizes it becomes no contest. But until those sizes, who “wins” is up in the air.
I’m very pleased with the work our animation team has been churning out. Trike and Rex have some filler animations I’ve been creating as testing dictates. The visuals we want to use and the visuals we need to use are not always the same thing unfortunately, so I have to make sure the visuals are lining up with the mechanics as best they can and within time constraints, which takes a bit of trial and error. For instance, what animations the creatures transition into and out of based on what abilities they used prior and which they use next. It’s a whole thing.
The rest of the animation team has been cooking with gas. Not only have they knocked out their contributions for tyrannosaurus, triceratops, allosaurus, austroraptor and kentrosaurus but they have also made quick work of a new roster wide feature that will be coming soon enough. Provided it works the way we want it to. Should help some of the tricky terrain less tricky. If that weren’t enough, they have also begun animating the baryonyx which I’m so excited to see come to life.
Do keep in mind though that animation is but one rung on the ladder of completion. So being animation complete is not the same as being production complete and not indicative of a release. Skin, material, tech animation, sound, programming and balance setup all contribute heavily to the completion of a playable. So lots of support for the other departments as they are all important.
Speaking of departments, I’ve got a few things I can share:
DevBlog #55
Filipe - Lead Programmer
Hope you all had a great holiday season with your loved ones. After spending time with family and friends it’s time to get back to work.
The main ability of the allosaurus has received more attention this month. While the main code is the same as some existing mechanics, visually the allosaurus looks very different when performing the action, so some adjustments are specifically made to accommodate this. We are in the phase of getting all the animations playing as they should and then we can move into QA testing and balancing.
The tyrannosaurus also required some additional work. There was some experimentation with mechanics to better balance its movement and hunting capabilities during its different life stages. Keep in mind these are additional mechanics focused on balancing; the pre-existing ones you already know about are unchanged.
Migration and Patrol Zones now support custom shapes, whereas previously they could only be made with generic ones such as Box or Sphere. Now those areas can be customized to just about any shape. This is very useful since most biomes and areas of the map will never be accurate using sphere or box shapes. This will help in making the areas more accurate to the map landscape overall while interacting with the migrations, but also allows all plants to spawn more accurately, avoiding edge cases with plants and trees spawning in areas of no traffic or even unreachable locations.
Lastly, the “Friend Spawn Code” is under testing with QA. I believe the system is close to fully functional, but we are also working on resolving a few possible exploits before it goes out.
See you guys next time!
Bryan - Animator
I’ve been spending pretty much all of January going through the upcoming roster to make sure everyone has their bone meshes and rib meat. And then horribly mutilating them to do the gore morphs.
It’s an Allosaurus so he’ll walk it off and be just fine.
I’ve also started doing the Elder morphs, which have been a long time coming now so you can all reenact the closing scene of Saving Private Ryan together.
Lastly, with animation well under way for Kentrosaurus among the animation team, I’ve started rigging up the Baryonyx.
VisualTech48 - Environmental Artist
This month I’ve been focused on making the final assets for the GUTS, and have been working on making smaller kits that fill out some coastal locations.
The GUTS received further additions this month with additional entry types. It features a sally port, a small control center for operating the doors and the security system.
In addition, some love was shown to our older parts of the kit and the new enclosure fence received some much needed 45 inward and outward fencing to make it feel more natural and assist in building.
And finally to top it all off, I’ve been working on the holding pen for sauropods and strains. I’ll hold off on showing until I’m happy with it, but when it’s ready I’ll have it passed through Phase Three. It’s a hulking structure that feels like the interior area could be its own level. And it’s almost, if not, twice the size of the DTA.
hypno - QA Lead
It’s good to be back! I took some time over the holiday to get into some playtesting on the official servers to identify many of the current major issues in the game. While this is far from a complete list, here’s a quick rundown of the issues I will be looking to have addressed over the next few patches:
Plants causing input lockups sometimes when eating them.
Plants disappearing but still being scentable.
Persistent rain sounds, despite it being clear weather.
General audio choppiness.
Omniraptors being kicked when dismounting from a pounce. (Fixed as of the latest patch!)
Grappled characters being able to break out from the pounce, even when pinned.
Cannibal mutation not appearing despite conditions being met.
Fish AI not spawning in certain rivers/lakes.
Various replay issues. Timer not going down, replay not being visible, etc.
DLSS screen tearing.
Dilophosaurus hallucinations sometimes being invisible.
Be sure to send in a bug report if you believe I’m missing anything substantial, but the above is what stood out to me the most.
QA has hit the ground running upon returning from the holidays, focused primarily on all of the community bug reports that we amassed during the break; we had over 600 reports to sift through! So, thanks to those of you that took the extra time to submit a bug report, they’ve been a great help as always.
As well as looking at the community reports, we’ve been busy running into our own issues, such as the beipiaosaurus becoming a little too enthusiastic when dolphin diving:
We experienced some difficulty testing a corpse related bug recently due to a certain AI animal. It should be known that while the psittacosaurus is meant to carry small corpses of comparable size, we hadn’t intended it to take ceratosaurus’ corpse bully niche:
Hopefully it doesn’t start chuffing!
Then there’s whatever is happening with this poor soul:
As Filipe mentioned, we’ve just been given access to the new Spawn Code system which is making great progress with each testing session. Being able to spawn in with your friends will be a huge benefit to players that want to group up, while still not disrupting the randomness of spawning that we want to retain. It’s a very simple system that works as follows:
The player joins a server, selects their species, and navigates to their group menu upon spawning.
On the group menu, the player will find a “Spawn Code” which lasts for 5 minutes. They can copy it and send it to their friends.
A friend can navigate to the “Eggs and Spawn Codes” menu and input the code. Upon being accepted by the code owner, the friend will then be able to customize their own character’s skin, before spawning in near the player that sent the code.
The following was taken from the latest QA build, which is still heavily WIP:
KissenKitten - Producer
Hope you all have had a decent start to the new year. While this month and last month were pretty short, the amount of stuff we’ve been up to is anything but minimal. I spent most of January getting back on the saddle checking in with each department to reassess their needs and having a bunch of meetings on what our first quarter will look like. Some topics of conversation range from rounding out Elder mechanics, spawn codes and more.
We’ve been doing a fair bit of QoL changes and at last returning to work on some of our shelved features for some of the existing dinosaurs, varying in degree. The hypsi and its ability to move about the treetops is a good example. The herrera’s climbing being a bit more dynamic, troodon getting some assistance performing its role etc. I had a bit of time on my hands so I was able to scrounge up some clips. Everything is subject to change of course.
The rex, trike, allo, austro and kentro are all looking pretty good and patiently awaiting their individual debuts. We’re pushing towards a hordetest fairly soon to get some much needed changes in your hands and if luck be on our side, maybe a bit more. The rex and trike need a handful of animations related to sparring before they will be fully ready for testing, the allosaurus needs some setting up and mechanic refinement while the austro and kentro await setup.
If all that weren’t enough, the baryonyx is next. Animation work never ceases.
We also have some minor features that we plan to implement to help the entire roster navigate precarious terrain with more ease as well as a new feature that should allow certain non jumping carnivores the ability to be proficient under more circumstances.
That’s all for now. See you in the hordetest!
Patch 0.18.111 now live!
Hey Islanders, while there will not be a DevBlog this holiday season, we do have patch notes!
Thank you to everyone that participated in our recent Hordetest. It’s been an action-packed year and we’re all excited for what 2025 has in store for The Isle. A new patch is now available on the EVRIMA Public Branch. Happy Holidays everyone!
- The Isle Dev Team
Patch 0.18.111
[expand type=details expanded=false]
Added maiasaura as a playable species
Gastroliths can now be foraged on gravel
Added officers to groups and the ability to promote/demote and transfer leader
Added alternative high/low grab animations for herbivores
Animals can now be staggered while flying
Adjusted building shader material to better handle vertex painting
Corrected sound attenuation during ceratosaurus’s charge attack
Adjusted attenuation curves for medium size animals vocals
Updated leg fracture animations for diabloceratops, tenontosaurus, gallimimus and stegosaurus
Any connected food items to a tree automatically fall when the tree is consumed
Timers for various environmental skin effects have been updated
Reduced the amount of food required to unlock the cannibal mutation
Increased weight threshold for being grappled from 65% to 101%
Improved system for fractured animations
Bucking now forces a dismount instead of dropping the player straight to the ground
Adjusted dilophosaurus hallucination in water
Broadcast no longer tries to show an extra name tag if the broadcasting player’s name tag is already visible
Reduced volume of crab movement sounds
Improved weather sounds volume balance
Adjusted AI spawn zones with more configurable options
Improved replay scrub time and fixed crash when scrubbing
Adjusted large footstep sounds volume and attenuation
Schooling fish now have a weight cap of 10kg
Added sounds to the stegosaurus digging animations
Fixed ini file being deleted on restart
Fixed issue with loading saves
Fixed vocal type sounds being unnecessarily muffled by nearby sources
Fixed deinosuchus jaw snap base sound not occluding in water
Fixed sounds when a troodon opens a body
Fixed volume issue with juvenile dilophosaurus dirt sprint footsteps
Fixed footsteps not scaling properly
Fixed some plants taking too long to despawn once consumed
Fixed blend from montage for juvenile morphs in certain species
Fixed latched pouncer being hit by their target
Fixed troodon taking longer to recover from a knockdown than it should
Fixed deinosuchus lunge forcing upward movement
Fixed not pairing up correctly after rejoining the server
Fixed courtship being lost on relog
Fixed being able to place a nest when in the same group but not courted/paired
Fixed hatchlings not being added to groups properly
Fixed courting not putting players into groups
Fixed organs not disappearing if using wipe corpse command (RCON)
Fixed dirt effects showing up on improper surfaces
Fixed gallimimus missing its gore mask
Fixed input lock after swallowing a ragdoll
Fixed hint message for closed coconuts
Fixed buck animation not triggering immediately while holding input
Fixed rotation mismatch during latch pounce
Fixed crouching deceleration not being used
Fixed hallucination pawn behavior if the target is flying, latched or swimming
Interacting with plant chunks now displays the correct hints
Fixed diabloceratops being able to trap pouncers in collision
Fixed being able to use ram while grappled as a pachycephalosaurus
Fixed carnotaurus’s sliding rotation rate
Fixed carnotaurus’s rotation rate while holding RMB
Fixed juvenile pachycephalosaurus being unable to knockdown fruit with headbutt
Fixed being able to turn too quickly while moving in mud
Fixed weather sounds in skin creator
Fixed swallow ability not always ending properly
Fixes to some miscellaneous issues related to underwater post process effects
Fixed juvenile deinosuchus ragdoll
Fixed males inheriting the "Advanced Gestation" mutation
Fixed an issue where ragdoll sleep was not functioning correctly
Fixed thunderstorm event not firing
Fixed an issue preventing certain species from swapping the pounce latch slot during a grapple
Fixed omnivores being unable to eat schooling fish on the ground
Fixed rabbit animation speed
Fixed elite fish not resetting after being damaged
Fixed an issue where psittacosaurus burrows would grow inverted infinitely
Fixed deer buck montage
DevBlog #54
Filipe - Lead Programmer
At the beginning of this month, I focused on fixing crashes and various bugs for the latest public patch while simultaneously working on the Allosaurus and its unique mechanics. Most of its basic systems are already functional, though some key animations, particularly those tied to its special ability, are still in production.
We also made notable progress on the Tyrannosaurus, mostly visual fixes and enhancements. This includes smoother animation blending and better integration with its mechanics to help translate visuals due to its size.
Additionally, fruit trees themselves will now be edible, not just their individual fruits. This provides a more practical food source for larger creatures at the cost. Consuming the tree significantly reduces future food availability, as a tree is necessary for fruit to grow back.
Finally, I added the gastrolith system. All playables can now consume gastroliths, which decrease the food contents of your stomach at a faster rate so that you can better manage your nutrition and diet combinations.
Ariel - Programmer
This month my main focus was the maiasaura. The animal is getting close to completion and it’s in full QA testing now, so new issues kept popping up for me to fix. Luckily nothing major was broken and we were also able to set up its stats now that everything is in place. Overall I feel satisfied with how the dinosaur turned out. Originally I was a bit wary of how we were going to support the two different stances, but it worked out quite well.
When not working on the maiasaura or bug fixes I had some time to start looking at my next task, which involves the pteranodon. I always enjoy working on the more agile animals, so I was quite excited about it. This won’t be part of the upcoming update as it’s in early stages, but you can expect some nice little additions.
Wedge - Sound Designer
This month I’ve been making my way through a large majority of adult Maia’s supplementary vocal sounds with only its pounced, pinned, blind and female court vocal sounds remaining. After these are complete, I will be altering these vocals for its juvenile stage. I’ve also done another pass on the adult animations adding short vocal sounds where necessary as well as more breath and foley sounds.
I’ve overhauled and simplified the way we handle reverb for calls at a distance, providing more accurate control on the amount of reverb the sound is sent to over distance. Within this overhaul I made changes to the reverb effect, adjusting decay rates, dampening etc. affecting how it sounds for each size category to be more appropriate and more importantly prominent. I also added an additional send to a multitap delay effect to simulate echo as it gets further away. The combination of all these changes should have a significant effect on making vocals more accurate and help the player identify the distance from a sound source.
I’ve also replaced the distant stomp layer of large footstep sounds and made some adjustments to attenuation and volume balance for the large footsteps.
VisualTech48 - Environmental Artist
This month has been all about the guts. Well not those guts, but the G.U.T.S. Most of my month has been focusing on the new shader Ikarop did and putting it to its true test with a big variation of materials, and applying them all to our new G.U.T.S, ranging from the already seen HUB#1 and a big variation of tunnel types that will be used with it.
I’ve started from the entrance towards the inner pieces, which are semi modular due to the PLA system. You’ll see variants as you go through them so it's not bland or repetitive.
I tried to keep it clean so Jace, or anyone that wants to build on top of the system, can do so with ease. Creators can not only change what is in said tunnels, but can easily make their own path and storylines within by just changing a kit’s piece from dead-ends to further tunnels and room connections. Overall the direction grants us a really nice structure for expanding the tunnels, (literally) in every way.
To top it off here are some development images for you to look at. Till next month. Cheers.
Tapwing - 2D Artist
We wanted to give two of the most famous dinosaurs their own spotlight piece of a 1-on-1 encounter. They were designed to mirror each-other and reflect the opposite outcome of a brutal fight where neither escapes unscathed.
Posing both animals was an interesting challenge with the Trike victory painting, because in early versions, the trike looked as if it were guarding the Tyrannosaurus body as opposed to standing on top of its attacker after finally bringing it down. Changing the arm position to be less possessive looking, sprawled out overtone the rex and adding a little more fear to the triceratops face helped bring the tone back to where it should be.
The Rex victory version of the painting had its own hurdle to work through. With the overlapping nature of the pose, lighting was going to need extra attention to make sure the outline of the Rex head didn’t disappear into the shadows.
For fellow illustrators: Plan out your lighting thoroughly in advance, you’ll save yourself a lot of headache and course corrections down the line!
hypno - QA Lead
This month QA has been focused almost entirely on Maiasaura, ensuring that it works with all of our existing systems. As we add more species to the game, as does the number of possible issues between them, so it was important for us this month to check it against absolutely everything. I can say with confidence now that we’ve checked it against all abilities in the game and they all work as intended. Deinosuchus can lunge and drown it, Ceratosaurus bite applies bacteria correctly, Dilophosaurus hallucinations can spawn and attack the Maiasaura, etc.
As you can see, the number of tests quickly stack up as we add new species; so, we’ve been working on streamlining this process within QA to make it much more efficient in the future.
To give you a video example of an interaction that was bugged with the Maiasaura, here’s what happened when an Omniraptor was bucked off of one:
In case it wasn’t obvious from the video, the Omniraptor would shrink dramatically in size each time they were bucked off! This wasn’t as straightforward as that though, as this issue only showed on the Omniraptor’s client, causing them to “jitter” for all other players.
As well as interactions with other species, the Maiasaura also of course came with a plethora of its own problems. Here’s how it looked if it grazed while turning:
We have also been testing the other new additions to the game. For example, Gastroliths are being introduced in the next update, allowing users to reduce their hunger faster.
I’d like to give a big thank you to all of those that have been continuing to report issues to our community bug report form (https://forms.gle/ufXDnxNfhRhZ7CCi8). Without them, we wouldn’t catch a lot of the problems that exist in the game. One report that we did come across from a report a while back was the aptly named “fish prison” issue – players that were swallowed by an elite fish would sometimes never be allowed to respawn, becoming stuck following the fish until forced to relog:
Lastly, QA has been playtesting the Maiasaura to make sure it feels fun to play as. We’re aiming for it to be a fairly tanky, swift animal that deals moderate damage in favour of better crowd control capabilities. The growth is set up in a way so that it quickly grows to its subadult stage, then slows down as it progresses towards a full adult. It is also able to quickly switch stances between being quadruped and biped, allowing it to adapt to various circumstances. My favourite ability is the “Shove”, which can be used while sprinting, allowing you to send smaller characters flying. I’m very much looking forward to getting this character into your hands very soon with a horde test, which we are aiming to push out within the next week.
DevBlog #53
Filipe - Lead Programmer
This month I worked mainly on finishing the diet system. The stomach grows with the dinosaur and food no longer scales with the stomach. This doesn’t have much impact on smaller animals, but large ones that have quick moments of growth are forced to eat far more often. The combinations for diets were simplified but now they are not dependent on having active slots. The value of a nutrient increases the bonuses proportionally with them to a cap. Salt licks were adjusted to better help with vomit sickness but they also drain a nutrient while using them. Don’t forget to set your active nutrient in the Dinosaur Profile if you want to control which one it is.
The diet and nutrition changes also allowed us to include the eggs in the diet system. Now players can grab eggs from female corpses that had gestated them before dying or steal eggs from the nests. Changes will be made to this in the future to account to specific “Egg Thief” dinosaurs but for now every carnivore can benefit from stealing those nutrient rich eggs from nests
To conclude, some fun things for server owners. A lot more server configs were added to help modify gameplay experiences and admin commands were updated to be faster and more responsive. Mass Migration was also added as a config and more is coming soon with the introduction of “Nesting Patrol Zones” but otherwise the system is done.
See you next time.
Ariel - Programmer
I’ve been working on some features you may have already seen for yourself in the horde test. Egg gestation has been added along with some adjustments to the nesting system. This required several changes, as previously you only laid a given number of eggs depending on your diet, but now you can choose how many you want and even lay them at different times. I also added scent support for them since they can now be picked up and eaten.
I also continued my work on the maiasaura. Most abilities were actually quite simple to update to support the bipedal and quadrupedal states but out of all things grazing happened to cause the most problems. I ended up reworking the animation setup for that, but that’s something that had been planned anyway. Maiasaura now moves quite smoothly.
amarok - Programmer
I have been busy working on a new navigation system for fish which can translate for use with swimmers and eventually flyers. I’ve added the fish's capability to try to chase down and eat smaller players which you may have seen in the hordetest.
With a lot of the back-end systems now completed my focus is AI. The base logic for most animals is completed with some big improvements to navigation and performance. The Pterodactylus and Compsognathus AI has been made using a new system which will allow larger hordes to spawn and interact with the world. Though these are WIP you will still see them showing up around the island. Each animal will get some improvements to their behavior now the foundation for base logic has been tested for performance and reliability.
To close, some new RCON commands have been added for server owners that you can find in provided documentation.
Bryan - Animator
It’s been rigging time, getting ready for the next round of animals to get back on their feet. Kentrosaurus is the first to use our new rig system that we’ll be using from here on out.
As far as animation goes, I’ve been on Maiasaura and Allosaurus lately. Maia never really was a pushover in the old days but it’s got a new trick up its sleeve for Evrima. Best not to make mommy angry.
The Allosaurus is getting new locomotion which is just about done for the adult and I’ll be working on the juvenile locomotion in November.
Wedge - Sound Designer
This month has just been more work on the Maiasaura. Along with polishing the adult calls I’ve also designed a set for its juvenile stage, maintaining the cute burbles and pops consistent from legacy. Additionally, I’ve completed the implementation for the calls, ensuring that the pitch and volume modulation as well as the dynamic mixing of vocal call layers over growth and other variables (such as when it loses its voice) all sound appropriate at every incremental stage.
I’ve also gone through all the adult animations adding in footstep and foley sounds. Taking into account both its bipedal and quadrupedal locomotion meant double the number of places to sync. I’ve now started working on the vocal sounds for the rest of its animations, starting with its attacks. With varying directional attack animations based on the angle of attack, a few different attack vocals of different lengths are needed, providing a coherent yet natural variability to compliment the variety in the animations.
hypno - QA Lead
Hey all! It’ll just be a short one for me on this devblog as QA have been working solely on bug testing both recent additions and some upcoming mechanics. Here are a few of the more interesting issues we encountered over the past month:
As you are all probably aware by now, one of our recent additions was the inclusion of our first ever seasonal content. Of course this came with some interesting bugs, such as being able to court and nest with dead dinosaurs:
Additionally, dead dinosaurs would leave behind some of their belongings if they entered spectator mode:
We’ve been testing out some new Scavenger AI that have proven to be much more performance friendly and reliably spawning on corpses, though have had a plethora of issues in their development. Thankfully, you can expect these issues to be fixed for their release:
Tenontosaurus had a fun gravity defying kick that set people up for combo damage instead of sending them away from a player:
We also found the omniraptor decided it would also be a ghost for a build and disappear whenever it would latch on to a player:
KissenKitten - Producer
Happy Halloween! October was an interesting month. A lot going on. There’s so many irons in the fire right now. And since I’m tired, I’d prefer to do more showing than telling.
Creature side there’s Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops, Maiasaura, Allosaurus, Austroraptor and soon Kentrosaurus all being worked on in some capacity across varying departments. Their animations are either complete or nearing completion for all but kentrosaurus who is next in line, followed by baryonyx.
The animation team has been doing an excellent job and stood up to the task I placed before them, which was to get the austroraptor animations complete in record time. The animal has land based movement, aquatic movement both above and below the surface of the water, and all that feather work. I am very proud of what we managed to accomplish with such a frankly annoying creature and I’m sure the entire animation team is as relieved to be bringing it to a close as I am.
There are new AI additions coming too. Destined for a life of being fodder for hatchlings and juvenile carnivores, these small animals will be showing up in specific locations and be yet another element we’re incorporating to bring the whole island to life. Grasshoppers, rats, dragonflies, and lizards to name a few.
Elders are looking pretty good. I’ve attached some images of adults and elder comparisons, some of which are already being moved into the game for current playables.
I hope you all enjoyed the Halloween event and continue to have some fun with it. That’s all for this month. The next two months are gonna be here and gone before we know it so we haven’t a moment to spare. Catch you next time.
Director’s Commentary
The Migration Zone testing went well and I'm happy to say the game works with or without the settings enabled, as well as Diets/Buffs, Patrol Zones, and Mutations. Additional configurations were added for server owners to further customize the experience they wish to give players and rebalance settings.
The User-Interface changes are rapidly coming to a close. It took a bit of time to figure out how to properly transition from an old retro style console interface to a sleek design in-game without it becoming jarring but I feel we've figured it out. I've attached a few previews of the layout approvals of the upcoming UI but the transition sequence is still too rough to display. The VFX of the menus can be toggled off and there will be a small color selection for menu color.
[TAG-107]
VisualTech48 made some fantastic progress in everyone's favorite general underground transportation system. Many of you by now have seen the proto-entrances that exist on the island and I've attached some images of their upcoming replacement. Someone somewhere is asking about the vending machines and yes, they are temporary stand-ins because you know AE has only the finest liquid provisions to provide to their workers.
Much like the Hubs, there will be a degree of variation among these that can allow various sections to branch off into other rooms, halls, or tunnels, including the elevator shaft. Coming shortly after these major connections are complete will be the destroyed tunnel variants that spill out into caverns and other internal environments.
Certain lighting is temporary as we work on the power system and as always, be nice to the tyrannosaur. They're just visiting.
Lastly, I’ll just fire off some things going into the next HordeTest with varying degrees of context.
Thermal vents and wind currents! These can affect flying creatures by providing speed boosts and lift and no stamina cost to a player and slowing them if they fly against it. These airways are also customizable and can be set to be active during a specific time of day, if they are immune to or affected by weather states, or if they’re just permanently active. You can expect all those natural thermal vents that are active during the day will go away during heavy rain or storms, as well as varying wind currents that become active at night to help move our flight-capable population around.
I know everyone is excited for the next animal and the Maiasaura will be stomping over that line for testing very soon. It will also be in one of if not the first HordeTest for the next patch.
I don’t have additional information context for these but they’ll be there: Spawn Codes. Gastroliths. Nesting Zones. Replay Updates and Effects.
