UE 5.7 Update Complete!
Islander
- Project Lead
Hey Extinctioneers, welcome to another Dev-blog.
This month has been a really important one for Echoes of Extinction. A lot of the work this month has gone into strengthening the foundation of the game, from upgrading the project to Unreal Engine 5.7, to pushing species research forward, improving UI, expanding tribal assets, and continuing work on upcoming creatures and mechanics. While some of this month’s progress has been more behind the scenes, it is all building toward faster and smoother development going forward, and helping us shape the game into something much bigger.
Video:
View game page
Soundrynx
- Sound Designer
This month I completed the Purussaurus adult sounds, giving it its final call, help, and also finishing its bite sounds. With that, the rest of the adult sound set is now complete as well.
FuriousSmaug
- Programmer
Hey all! This month I have once again been mostly subject to documentation through various forms and sites. However, it has been a very productive month, with multiple species being researched and getting their stats finalized and set up, along with dossiers written up, including Argentinosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Coelophysis, Gallimimus, Pachycephalosaurus, and Spicomellus.
Almost all the species got some work done, but have not yet been finalized, with work such as speeds and weight during growth being the main target. Researching this is always difficult because there are so many different interpretations of species in our roster, with some having very little understanding at all, leading me to do some fun math with similar species to see if a desired speed is even plausible.
I’ve also been working on and conceptualizing various mechanics, like the Dracovenator Echolocation and then finally Evolutions, one of our final major mechanics, is the most complicated, as it takes all the others into account. Nesting, combat, growth, disease, they all play a part in your dinosaur’s life, and therefore a part in how it can evolve. I’ve come up with several new evolutions that will help encourage different gameplay points and better equip players in those situations.
Along with evolutions, I’ve continued RnD on various creature abilities, made minor touches to nutrients, and have been helping Islander with a special project.
As for that project, I got my hands back on it for about a week, and in that time I tweaked several things and added a few QoL features like alt looking, admin teleporting, and skins becoming pale with less nutrients.
Suna
- Level Designer
Hi hi! I started off by fixing some mangrove collisions that AirSick gave me.
Then I made a blockout of the mountain on Mangrove Island, just for a bit of fun. It’s a small project while I get used to the place and try not to impact anyone. Please feel free to download it and playtest the jumps and let me know any feedback once the update it out. It’s a parkour map to get from the bottom to the top of the mountain.
HematoSalpinx
- 3D Artist
Hey yall,
This month I handed off Semionotus to RAR to finish up some sculpting adjustments. I am currently rigging and animating Semionotus. Short update from me, but behind-the-scenes things are progressing.
April Fools update will be posted soon.
Kouga
- UI/UX Designer
This month me and Void worked on improving the TAB interface, adding a little texture, deciding the rarity colors, and making the Dinosaur TAB feel more alive. Note that the silhouettes and the colors are just placeholders. They won’t be this dark.
Arrived
- 3D Artist
This month, I finished up the modular pieces for one of the tribal houses. After that, I made these sets of tents, huts, and resting places for tribals to take shelter in.
Chikangia
- Programmer
This month, I successfully completed the upgrade to Unreal Engine 5.7. With that done, we can now fully continue development on the game.
We’ve already noticed a performance increase within the editor, which is a great sign. I’m especially looking forward to the next build, where we’ll finally start making full use of the new features and improvements that come with UE 5.7.
RAR
- Concept Artist / 3D Artist
This month I worked primarily on concept art for several upcoming species.
I completed the concepts for Dracovenator, which I will be sculpting on and off stream. I also completed the concept for Pachycephalosaurus, which has been handed off for modeling. And I started work on a concept for the tiny pterosaur Nemicolopterus.
I’m also working on several sketches for a few different species, showing some of their abilities and behaviors.
AirSickLowLander
- Level Designer
This month I’ve been focusing on integrating Unreal Engine 5.7 features into the map. We’re going to be using just about everything the update has to offer, and we’ve already started using voxelization for foliage and some ground cover. This allows foliage to better retain its shape at a distance, while also reducing overdraw even further than before. It was already performing well with full geometry foliage, and now it is practically non-existent.
This has also worked well for ground cover, such as scattered leaves or rocks with foliage attached to them, which I’ve been experimenting with.
Alongside that, I’ve begun setting up support for Mega Geometry. This means Lumen will be able to trace against meshes in full fidelity, bringing cleaner lighting with less noise while also improving performance.
Fast Geo has also been implemented on the map, which allows me to set time budgets for streaming with World Partition and helps keep actors streaming in smoothly and efficiently.
You can see the difference between regular full geometry and voxelized full geometry in the screenshots I attached, where darker colours represent less overdraw and brighter colours represent more.
There’s a lot more I’ve worked on as well, but this post would turn into an entire book if I included all of it.
