amar0k - Programmer
With the release of U6 and the break over we have been in the process of migrating the game from Unreal Engine 4.27 to Unreal Engine 5. This has brought some exciting new features to work with like Nanite. As we convert more art assets to be compatible with this system, we can create more detailed and realistic environments without as much compromise to performance. I have also been working on implementing world partition with the map team to improve performance and optimize the rendering of the game's environments. This system divides the game world into smaller sections allowing us to only render the parts of the world that are currently visible to the player. The process has not been completed, so results may vary.
Overall, the migration to Unreal Engine 5 has been a challenging but exciting experience, and I am looking forward to seeing the final results in the future.
Aside from content migration, I have been working on the base dinosaur controller logic and have also improved the animal animations to include look poses and turn in place animations. The goal here is to smooth the animal movement to be less robotic and fix the movement strafing you currently see.
dmIV - Programmer
I started the year by finishing some code reorganization I started before the break. It’s one of those things where you put your time into something that doesn’t change anything for the users, but it makes your life easier in the future. Then I moved on to some engine update related tasks, which is mostly just making changes in all kinds of places where something works differently now or broke for some reason.
Afterwards my main task was the Ceratosaurus. It has a fairly straightforward mechanic, you build up bacteria in your mouth when you eat, which you can apply to other players by biting them. After enough hits this will cause them to vomit. The mechanic is currently functional, but it will still need testing, balancing and visual effects.
Wedge - Sound Designer
For the start of the new year, I spent my time finishing getting Beipi set up with its last pieces of missing audio, finishing off a handful of sounds for its hatchling/juvenile stages. After going over and testing Beipi to make sure it is fully complete audio-wise, I have moved on to working my way through all the supplementary sounds for Cerato. I have already designed and implemented around half of the sounds needed for its adult stage, with a handful of others also in progress. The sounds completed include eating, drinking, primary and alt attack, mouth display, death, regular pain, thrash and vomit, It’s sonic aesthetic is big and brutish with an emphasis on low guttural texture, its attacks sound impactful and gnarly with a satisfying crunch as its teeth clamp together and it also has a low but explosive roar when displaying to threaten its competitors and bolster its bite.
I spent a little time with Filipe looking into the issue related to footstep attenuation, we have narrowed down the cause to limitations with the system which is overriding the set attenuation and truncating the range, however we have not been able to find a solution to fix this but it is something we are aware of and looking in to.
Finally, I’ve dipped my toes into UE5’s new audio engine to familiarize myself and see what can be capable with metasounds. I’ve begun to think about how it can be integrated into our existing audio pipeline that is reliant on UE4’s systems so we can avoid deprecation issues, albeit this will be much further down the line from now.
Bryan - Animator
Most of 2023 has been about updating rigs and filling in the missing pieces on a few of our Legacy animals in preparation for their debut in Evrima. Ceratosaurus saw a lot of work in particular and while there are always tweaks to be made to the animations once you see them in-game, that beastie is pretty much complete, with Gallimimus soon to follow.
My current task is getting Diabloceratops ready as well. It’s one of the older rigs and needs a lot of work before I’ll be happy with it. I also took the liberty of updating the baby morph, look at that little chonker.
Tapwing - 2D Artist
Small and unreasonably angry, it’s The Isle’s Avaceratops.
Actually, just about all our ceratopsians are full of attitude, but the wrath of this one might’ve altered (or rather added to) its diet to take advantage of the carnage. Like boars, they have little patience for the presence of other creatures and are bullies of anything remotely their size. Full of energy, they’ll run you out of town unless you can hit back or are exceptionally good at staying out of reach.
So keep an eye on your hatchlings, such fragile things are a prized target of the opportunistic ceratopsian.
Mykie - Animator
This month I continued working on the Ceratosaurus and the Gallimimus, adding more animations to both sets. I worked on the knockdowns for Ceratosaurus, but my focus was mostly on Gallimimus as we were wrapping up on these creatures' animated features. I worked on a hatchling animation for this creature, and I hope to see all of our Gallimimus players entering the Isle in style.
KissenKitten - Animator
New year, new things. Meetings, meetings and more meetings dominated the first week and will do so further but we’ve certainly hit the ground running. Programming and adjacent teams are hard at work migrating to Unreal Engine 5 and all the “fun” stuff that comes along with that process.
Troodon will be moving into combat testing and then be making its way to the hands of stress testers when given the greenlight. On the topic of playables, the Beipiaosaurus, Ceratosaurus and Gallimimus are either animation/mechanic complete or very near it. Upon testing, more polish and the go-ahead, they will follow suit and make their way to be stress tested as well. We know you have been anxiously awaiting new playables and are excited to get them in your hands. Having expanded the animation team should help that process along even more. The Diabloceratops is next in line after those and will be entering R&D phases to see how far we can push the limits of a unique sparring experience for playables with horns. So keep your fingers crossed and send those good vibes. Dilophosaurus and Herrerasaurus will come afterwards provided there are no production shifts. We will also begin spinning up two apexes so we can establish what an apex animal’s impact will truly be like in Evrima. Their capabilities will far exceed anything you have experienced in Legacy and so need to be extensively tailored. Please do not expect them to appear on official servers but rather community servers instead when they are complete and we’re ready to launch them.
In regards to Update 7, the design team is pooling and organizing the multi-tiered approach we intend to take for perks and elders. There will be a few different ways to acquire perks and the perks will vary based on how you acquired them. Some based on what you eat, others based on how you’ve grown and others based on what you’ve done. Elder being a key component to retaining some of those acquired perks for a new playthrough of that species. More to come on that as time and development progresses. That’s all for now, see ya soon!