Welcome to August’s development update!
We’re back to the usual format this month with loads of prehistoric goodies for you to discover and share. If you’ve been keeping up with our Discord some will already know that we have a surprise animal announcement to be made, but you’ll have to read on to find out more!
Terrain Shader WIP
Our shader artist has been designing our new terrain shader from the ground up to work with the voxel terrain. In its basic state the shader is already capable of producing a more detailed look than what was featured in the demo.
SpeedTree 8 and PBR Materials
With the game overhaul taking place over the last few months since the release of the Jurassic Patch, one of our focus areas has been bringing asset quality up to par with our new expectations and production standards. SpeedTree 8 allows us to work with enhanced generators, wind effects and shaders that are both better and faster than previous versions of the software.
Unfortunately, however, this means that we’re currently waiting on SpeedTree and Unity to finish adding support for SpeedTree 8 and their brand new PBR materials as detailed in their blog post from GDC 2018. While they say that it’s not too far off now, the results look superb and we cannot wait for them to push the additions.
Until the technology is available, we’ll keep progressing with general development and finalise all the art assets until they can be implemented properly.
To almost no one’s surprise, the art team continues to pump out a continuous stream of lovely content that’ll be ready to get dropped in-game.
Building Concept Art and Models
The visitor dock is one of the few ways that guests will travel to your island. With a large ferry arriving at its port, this will act as entrance and exit to your Prehistoric Kingdom.
Increasing the land value of the immediate area, the science monument stands tall as a reminder of the genetics and power of science that brought once extinct animals back to life.
Originally featured in our pre-alpha demo, the vehicle depot redesign sports a sleek and elegant modern design with vastly improved texture quality. This garage acts as the storage facility for staff transport.
The monorail station is a quick and accessible way to get your guests around your park. Build tracks at varying heights to efficiently view animals, as well as view some in-universe advertisements.
Tropical Wet Foliage
First shown off a few months ago alongside the new mediterranean island, here’s the all tropical wet foliage! We’ve made sure to select a diverse range of plants that cover the expectations of tropical vegetation and mix well with our future climates. Palms, ferns and canopy coverage; we’ve got it.
It’s worth mentioning that for the sake of visual and creative freedom, we occasionally hybridise multiple species of foliage to create a more general and unspecified look (e.g. the canopy tree and tropical palm). With mediterranean and now tropical wet out of the way, it’s time to start work on the boreal and semi-arid climates.
Animation
While not originally intended for this update, we thought we’d quickly show off the walk cycle for our Allosaurus using the medium theropod rig. Unfortunately it didn’t have enough time to render out using our usual format, but we hope that you’ll forgive us!
Compared to our larger creatures such as the Tyrannosaurus, you can see more of a bird-like posture in its movement.
Music
A Not-So-Gentle Giant and Tooth and Sickle Claw are the brand new introductory themes/tracks for our large carnivorous dinosaurs and dromaeosaurs. The pieces present an interesting contrast between a large and foreboding yet majestic sound for our tyrant kings to a more muted and aggressive conversation between a group of instrumental raptors. Our composer had a lot of fun coming up with these, and we hope that you enjoy them.
https://soundcloud.com/byronmckay/a-not-so-gentle-giant-carnivore-theme
https://soundcloud.com/byronmckay/tooth-and-sickle-claw-raptor-theme
These motifs will continue to pop-up across the soundtrack.
New Creatures
This month we’ve got an assortment of new exciting animals to reveal. Without further ado, let’s get a closer look at August’s newcomers; Torvosaurus tanneri, Nothronychus mckinleyi, Coelodonta antiquitatis, and Mammuthus primigenius!
But there is, however, one more to show…
Utahraptor joins the battle! With some surprising body proportions and a terrifyingly large skull, Utahraptor ostrommaysorum makes its way into Early Access as a replacement for Deinonychus antirrhopus.
As you can see we’ve adapted the original ‘vulture’ design of the Deinonychus into an alternate skin for our big land eagle alongside its new default.
Since we wanted to update and redo our previous version of Deinonychus antirrhopus, we ultimately decided to push Deinonychus back into a later version of the Early Access game and introduce a highly requested fan favourite to fill its role as a large raptor.
Ontogeny Sequences
August brings us an interesting look at the ontogeny of two of Cedar Mountain Formation’s residents: the elusive mango-goat and tiny freedom bird.
Alongside the two aptly named dinosaurs are the brand new versions of our hairy big-nose and hairy long-nose friends – complete with an adorable ontogeny. Please note that our rendering software loves attempting to render flat planes and mammoth tusks, so please excuse the jagged edges which won’t be visible in-game!
https://youtu.be/W0H0n8XWg5Y
https://youtu.be/bndmfd0ysyg
Alt. Skins
Our brand new Tyrannosaurus skin has been brought over into 3D and we simply love it. As you can see it’s sexually dimorphic in its colour vibrancy, and we can’t wait for you to see how the infants look, too!
We’ve shown many, many, many alternate skin designs since February but we’re almost at the end of our time for previewing the design sheets before they’re translated into 3D textures.
For this month’s gameplay discussion we’ll be talking about our current thoughts on visitor needs and how you, the park manager, will need to respond to their various requirements and preferences. It’s important to note that all information here is subject to change through development and will be tweaked in the future.
The Basics
Much like your animals, each guest has a basic need that must be fulfilled by players in order to satisfy them effectively and raise your park rating.
Buildings such as Fast Food Kiosks, Restrooms, Grand Hotels and benches can be placed throughout your park in order to allow your guests to replenish their independent needs.
Animal Group Preference
Animal preferences are where Prehistoric Kingdom begins to separate itself from the rest of the herd. Previously, we chose to define guests by three main categories: thrill seekers, paleo enthusiasts, and mainstream. As this is rather broad terminology and doesn’t effectively communicate what a certain guest likes, we have chosen to instead opt for animal group preferences.
Certain guests can respond better to certain animal types whereas others may not have a preference at all. For example, a visitor who favours ceratopsian means that the guest enjoys seeing animals like Triceratops interact or fight with each other and will thus receive an increased mood bonus, rewarding the player with additional park ratings.
These preferences are not mandatory and won’t punish players designing specialised parks, but it will offer support to those creating a varied and diverse prehistoric zoo.
Exhibit Visibility
What’s the point in making a zoo if your guests can’t see anything? Fences can have a direct impact on visibility based on their design and visual properties, meaning that players need to find the balance between comfort for their animals and viewing areas for guests.
Attractions such as viewing platforms, lookout towers and monorails allow visitors to look directly into paddocks at different elevations. If an animal feels too exposed it’ll try to hide, decreasing the mood of onlooking patrons and potentially harming the creature from starvation.
Park Visibility & Safety
A map stand is a placeable guest object that visitors can interact with in order to take a look at your park layout and navigate to where they want to go quickly. Without checking a map stand or purchasing a map from an Information Centre, your visitors will wander and explore your park with a lack of purpose – something that could prove fatal in the event of an emergency.
Land Value
Each building in the game comes with an associated value that will either add to or retract from the immediate land value of an area. Decoratives such as the Science Monument offer a high land value bonus when placed in your park, whereas “uglier” structures such as wind turbines can retract from the park’s aesthetic if placed too close to your bustling plazas.
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Another month, another development update.
Thank you so much to everyone who has been waiting patiently for our updates to come along each month. We all know that this process takes a long time, but we are incredibly glad to have such a supportive and understanding community.
Until next time. – The PK Dev Team.
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If you would like to check out our past blog posts, you can head to the official one here!