Welcome back! Has it already been a week since the last post? Time flies!
We made some seriously awesome progress this week on all fronts. Bug fixing and stability testing has been continued, and increasing with every week. This week in particular, the inventory, death, and Genome Point menus were the main targets of the bug hunt. In case you missed the post about Genome points way back in the day, this screen allows you to spend upgrade points gained depending on how successful your last life was. Even though death is final in PAMELA, you'll always gain at least a few Genome Points to make some progress with every life.
Narrative integration has also been progressing nicely, with "Echo" emitters being placed throughout the world and tied into dialogue. You'll have to explore every nook and cranny in Eden to uncover all of them to learn Pamela's full story! That's all we'll say on that before launch. :)
Last big note this week is Patrick and Mathew finishing up the low-poly Map geometry. This low res version of the world will feed into the AARM's map menu and assist in navigation throughout the world. Almost 2 years to model the world itself, 2 weeks to model the map version. Not bad guys!
Full list below; there's so much this week that I only mentioned a small fraction above...
Adam
Finished dirt pass on Promenade District props; this was the first area to be fully modelled in the game, and somehow became the last to be polished off before launch!
Cut up some new revised animations for Afflicted Stage 1, Stage 2, Reaper, and Seeker NPCs
Set up revised on/off lighting states for the world which can be toggled by using certain props in the world, if the district has enough power, that is
Assigned Pamela "Echo" emitter IDs throughout worldAlayna
Wrote voice lines for all NPCs, which will be undergoing a vocal overhaul in the next few weeks
Placed Pamela "Echo" emitters throughout the world; you'll have to track these all down to uncover her full story!
Imported finished Pamela vocals into project, and set up subtitles in Unity editor
Began work on writing datalog entries that can be found throughout the world
Started polish pass on different power states for the world - each district can be turned on, off, or emergency mode, and each of these setups needs to be hand made for the best resultsChristian
Converted all NPC animator systems from state-based to blend trees, making their movement smoother and less erratic
Implemented a major performance optimization into our zone-culling system for a nice framerate boost
Reimported all NPCs, now including rigged eyes and facial blend shapes, for huge improvements in NPC believability!
Performance optimizations on NPC rig set ups to squeeze out a few more frames
Created procedural facial blending system for NPCs to make use of new models
Finalizing NPC animators, and adding miscellaneous new animationsPatrick
Finished map geometry
Created "Echo" emitter model
(almost) finished new Recycler and Rehydrator props; I'll let you guess what these do...Ian
Made several improvements to the lighting/power system
Refactored interactive prop code for increased flexibility
Re-implementing Kiosk store props for improved performance and cleanliness
Several performance optimizations on keypad objectsMathew
Finished modelling, and organizing all map geometry
Created large canteen, and purifying tablet
Starting props for a completely unique new area, which we'll be working on soonJames
Cleaned up Death Menu and Genome Point menu
Implemented proper Genome Point collection based on player performance in-game
Genome Point screen now properly locks out abilities above the player's levelChris
Created Pamela "Echo" Emitter, and added functionality to play back Echos within Datapad once found
Fixed a ton of bugs on inventory menu