This week, we have been busy making sure that the PlayStation 4 version was on par with the PC version. e.g. making sure that things like the new GUI functions correctly using the PS4 controller. The PS4 version is still running at 60fps (the accurate number is 59fps but a little rounding up would not hurt) and it supports all the features that are in the PC version. Its visual quality is the same as the PC options set to their highest ;)
We haven't forgotten about Trading Plinths, Direct Trading and XP player progression. We are scheduled to start our internal testing by end of next week. To our surprise, it is looking like we might be able to start our internal testing of warping too around the same time. Next week is going to be busy. We started some internal testing of the World Builder’s prefabs this week. That should be released to the public soon! We hope that players will be able to get hold of these new features (first pass) by end of this month. Exciting!
As we been working on developing the bigger features, we were only able to release a small update this week. Details of this update can be found here.
Oh, the hopper (working name) creature (first pass) is coming to your neighbourhood in Boundless soon too! Watch out! You have been warned ;)
Code
This week, we have been continuing the work on the buying and selling plinths, with the user able to set prices, types of item to buy/sell and collect the coin/items from trades. Work on the warping has begun, and as part of this friend lists and location markers are being looked at.
Progression is progressing, with a simple in game leveling system now in place for systems like mining and combat xp. Work is continuing on the creatures with the server side root animations being used for smoother movement, as well as some tweaks to wandering behaviours so they approach the user. We’ve also been working on expanding the colour palettes for the blocks to support more varied colour schemes.
On the engine side we have replaced the texture atlases with texture arrays. This reduces the amount of texture space used and improves the filtering using by anisotropic filter, so oblique objects are more detailed.
Design
The design team is starting to feel more like a team, with four of us now.
Luke has been working on an objective system, which will be used for the non-obtrusive tutorial, and also for rewarding interesting feats in the game (much like the achievements that many games have). He has also been considering what other help new players might need to learn and understand the game. In between doing all that, he’s started getting his head around the progression, stats and forge systems which will be a key area of the game, and deliver a core part of our “sandbox MMO” concept. That’s going to be a long time in development, and will be delivered in many stages, so he’s going to have a lot to do.
Rob has continued work on the HUD, and how all the GUI will work over different resolutions and aspect ratios. He has also been looking at the styling of the GUI, whilst not wanting to move too far away from the excellent work Ben did, we want to see if we can tweak things to turn it up to 11.
Having spent last week getting up to speed with the World Builder, Matt has put together a good first set of earth-like biomes (see his post here). It’s great progress in such a short time, and I’m sure it won’t be long until some new worlds are up on testing for you to explore.
Ollie has been trying to catch up with everything that has happened while he was away, and there have been lots of meetings and discussions. Let’s hope next week he actually manages to contribute directly to the development of the game…
Art
This week, the art team has continued with creature progression exploration concepts.
We’ve completed progression concepts for the spanner which you use to maintain your machines. See our post here
The spanners are now in the modelling stage.
We completed Torch progression models and here’s an ingame gem torch visualisation (the one on the left). Eventually the torch lighting will look like the one on the right. We are going to explore particles in the future.
We’ve started rigging the Hunter. Here’s a WIP image of building the skeleton.
Cross posted from devlog forum which can be found [url=https://forum.playboundless.com/t/weekly-dev-update-2016-august-12th-ps4-version-and-the-status-of-current-feature-development/4796] here