Introduction
Neuronhaze team welcomes everyone on the pages of our weekly report. Many of you asked for some information on different mechanics, robots, skills and other game features. We’d also like to share this with you but in these reports, we primarily write about what we did last week. If working on the skills wasn’t our task, we can’t promise anything or describe something like that in our Weekly Newsletter. When the work on the code processing will include these mechanics, it will necessarily be reflected in our reports. Until then you can always find our plans for specific mechanics at various official game sources.
Software
Last week, the project moved to version 4.15.1, this led to a number of small fixes to the engine. Anyone interested can always read on the official Epic Games resources.
We continue working on the network. Now we’re stabilizing interaction with Linux servers. Our main task is the network stability at high loads and maximum optimization.
A full-fledged dialogue system was introduced in the game. Earlier there was an opportunity to give only one of two answers to a question. Now the communication with NPCs goes to a completely different level. Full-scaled branched dialogues with different answers and different reactions to them should make the game process even more interesting. It also clears the way for more complex and interesting communication mechanics, for example, special answers at different times of the day, different reactions depending on the relationship with the character, unique answers due to some world events and so on.
In connection with communication system improvement, the quest system has been reworked, because dialogues directly affect the quests. Various complications, branchings, and additional mechanics allow creating more elaborated quests. Finally, we begin to see the variability of quest completing and the non-linearity that we’ve been looking for.
World
This week we completed the Dump dungeon. We added various new zones, an arena for the boss battle created with due regard to the enemy characteristics, as well as two settlements with enemies and civilians. The total area of the updated dungeon amounted to approximately half a square mile. We’ll make the final touches as the mechanic and quests are introduced into the dungeon.
The creation of basic alien vegetation was our main work on the open world.
First, we created the necessary texture maps based on the concept you saw in the previous report.
The next step was the generation of high-quality grass, bushes, and trees assets in SpeedTree with the use of created textures.
After that, ready-made assets were thoroughly implemented into the existing nature of the world. To do so, we had to update the landscape shader, adding a few additional layers of alien grass generation, adjusting the presets for this generation, and adding large trees. In addition, we applied the method of vegetation colorization when working with the landscape. This method was corrected for the alien flora.
For colorization, we create a special texture color map that plants use to correct their own color scheme. For example, as the grass surface smoothly mixes with the drier earth, the growing green grass will gently turn yellow as the earth dries out. The same thing has become relevant for the smooth transition of greenery into the extraterrestrial grass of violet shades.
We continue creating the scientific camp game models, which are necessary for the final assembly of some locations.
Character
We started working on the concept art with the next type of high-level armor.
This week, we completed the female heads skinning, now they are fully integrated into the game.
We also did lots of work on the character’s hairstyles and beards skinning. Skinning the beards was especially tedious. There’s a big difference in facial proportions and shapes of different races and character types, so it’s impossible to use one universal beard model. It was necessary to manually adjust beards for each face creating unique models. Eventually, we created over 50 beard types.
We created two basic facial and body tattoo styles for male and female characters. It’s essential for us so that we’ll be able to implement the full customization in the game and test it as soon as possible.
And, by the way, we want to remind you that we really appreciate your activity in groups and forums. Your ideas and comments help us have the better understanding of what you’d like to have in the game. This applies to both the main mechanics and such trifles as tattoos. What types of body marks you prefer, what would you like to see, what style of tattoos, in your opinion, is most appropriate in the future — all such questions form the basis for our further work, and we’re always glad to hear your opinion on any such topics.
Conclusion
The network is still our priority. We can’t proceed with various game mechanics without a full-fledged and well-functioning network part of the project. The game world also requires lots of attention, as its size makes our artists literally work without a break.
For the time being, we don’t mention the ongoing work on the game design in our Newsletter, as at the current moment, most mechanics are created and repeatedly tested. Now we’re at the stage of continuous improving and balancing of each individual component.
Overall, evaluating this week we can say that development goes as planned and the first updated Project Genom tests are scheduled for the first half of the year.
We’d also like to remind everyone who suggests buying the game, that it’s in the alpha stage. So we strongly recommend not buying it if you expect a full-fledged finished project. We advise you to wait until the game enters the beta testing stage or even later if you want a full game experience.