Dev Blog 31
New build on the way
Islander
- Project Lead
Hey Extinctioneers,
This month has been focused heavily on cleaning up, stabilizing, and improving Echoes of Extinction after the Unreal Engine 5.7 upgrade. A lot of the work has been behind the scenes, but it is all important work that helps the game run better, look better, and feel more complete as development continues.
The team has been working across multiple areas this month, from optimization and demo bug fixes, to new foliage improvements, character selection UI, creature skins, models, traversal updates, sound design, and continued progress on upcoming species like Dracovenator, Tropeognathus, Pachycephalosaurus, and Nemicolopterus.
Overall, this month has been about strengthening the foundation while still pushing new content forward. The improvements being made now will help us build faster and smoother going forward.
I also went around on Suna's new Parkour area and took some screenshots, curious to see how many tries it takes you guys to complete!
Video:
Yaroslav
- 3D Artist
This month I have been working on Tropeognathus skins for each biome.
AirSickLowLander
- Level Designer
This month I’ve been working on integrating new features and optimizations for Unreal Engine 5.7, as well as addressing more of the bug reports from our demo.
I have begun replacing our foliage with Nanite skeletal mesh foliage instead of static mesh foliage, which should help improve performance and decrease the total disk size of the game. Along with that, much more of the foliage on the map is now voxelized as well, helping it retain its shape at a distance while cutting overdraw down to almost nothing, which is a huge performance win.
As of right now, almost all cover meshes for the ground are voxelized, and this has greatly reduced overdraw in dense areas.
I have also been filling in areas that have been empty for a while, such as the area surrounding the volcano and the meadows near it. I am going through every single mesh on the map and adjusting the amount of cards Lumen devotes to them for ray tracing coverage. In many cases, this can be reduced, which improves ray tracing performance.
I have also changed some of Nanite’s behavior by modifying clustering habits, and as of yesterday, material quad overdraw has been completely eliminated on the map. Every single material is now using compute shading because of this, which is much more performant.
The screenshots I attached show meshes being rendered with compute shading, represented in blue, our current very low Nanite overdraw on the map, and some of the new environment additions around the volcano.
FuriousSmaug
- Programmer
Hey everyone, this month I was back in engine cleaning up some issues related to the engine upgrade. Night vision, physics, sounds, and a few other systems all had various problems connected to the upgrade that needed to be corrected.
While working on that, I also took advantage of a few new and older systems within Unreal to optimize and clean up some of the dinosaur mechanics, particularly relating to the animation graph, GAS abilities, and UDS.
There were also a lot of updated animations from a couple of months ago that I got to add in. I also started adding the new Purussaurus skins, which come with two new patterns and a lot of new colour options. The same will also be applied to the current Eocarcharia and Ouranosaurus skins to bring them up to the same level of customization as the Purussaurus colours.
Looking to the future, expect more of the same next month, as well as the start of seasons and environmental tolerances. A new dinosaur ability, digging, will also soon be implemented, which will let carnivores dig up small prey while on the move to help them stay alive.
Chikangia
- Programmer
This month, I focused on stabilizing the project after the recent engine upgrade and pushing forward with backend and UI improvements.
I resolved several issues that came up as a result of the engine update, helping make sure everything runs smoothly again.
I also made various server-side improvements to help with performance, stability, and overall efficiency.
Alongside that, I started implementing the new character selection and character customization UI, beginning with the character selection menu that appears when joining a server. This menu allows players to manage their player profile and character slots in a more streamlined way.
Suna
- Level Designer
Hi hi! I started off by importing custom ledges and platforms to make traversal up mountains more diverse, but still natural looking.
I finished replacing the parkour blockout with all natural assets, with a few playtests to make sure it is actually possible to get to the top.
I also photo-bashed a wishlist of mangrove plants and ecosystems around them, with the goal of one day making the gradient from freshwater areas to saltwater areas more detailed.
I helped Air model some more detailed tree bases, as well as modelled some organically shaped geysers for a volcanic update. I also photo-bashed a wishlist of what I researched, which could be a possibility to explore in the future.
Bohuslav_Salo
- 3D Artist
Hey everyone! This month I’ve been working on the Pachycephalosaurus model.
Here are some WIP images.
Arrived
- 3D Artist
This month, I made some new sets of stairs and also started working on the human corpse models.
RAR
- Concept Artist / 3D Artist
This month I continued to develop the Dracovenator and Tropeognathus during our weekly live streams.
The Dracovenator has gotten a lot of attention in ZBrush, adding the initial pass of details to the skin and preparing it for the addition of scales soon. I have also continued getting the behaviour sketches for Dracovenator completed, with the latest being its human carrying ability.
Tropeognathus has been taken into Blender for some adjustments to the low-poly mesh. I am modifying some areas of the face to better catch the details added to the high-poly version. I have also begun the process of UV unwrapping the mesh and testing some basic textures to make sure they function properly.
The Nemicolopterus base mesh is nearly done and should be ready for sculpting very soon.
M_Z
- Sound Designer
This month I worked on ambient sounds, such as wind, bushes, frogs, the eerie sounds of distant birds, and insects, bringing more life to the environment.
I’m also working on more Foley sounds, such as the sounds of water as dinosaurs swim, to enhance immersion for creatures with more water-focused gameplay, like Ouranosaurus and Purussaurus.