Greetings Pioneers!

Reporting in. we’ve begun technical setup of the transport vehicle this week, and modelling work on our bike variant has also started. Designs are getting prodded and probed by test in a practical way, and A.I. has had some minor adjustments after the pooling optimisation.

Here’s what we’ve all been upto:

John – Lead Designer

Been involved in some interesting design discussions with Tom and Matt that involved minor changes to the layout to allow the world to make more sense now that we have Oxygen as an atmospheric hazard (or lack of Oxygen to be more accurate). Also been hashing out further details for the on player crafting changes we’re making. Now that we’re able to play with these changes we really can see how it’s benefiting the challenge and complexity of the gameplay cycle.

Matt – Art Director

Phew, lots on the cards over the last few days. Been working on the mechanics for the Vehicle suspension with Lauren so that it looks and works convincingly as the wheels go up and down over the terrain surface. Been working through level changes and tidy up after some further design iteration we’ve been doing through play test and analysis. On top of this we’ve been designing a zombie like pioneer, that is half human half stalker. But it’s all chugging a long fantastically!

Lee – Technical Director

My time this week has been mainly spent fixing up a few bugs with AI and spawners and trying to get to the bottom of an engine assertion we keep running into. I’ve also spent some time placing nearly a hundred AI in one vicinity in the map to test performance. I already had a good idea of functions I needed to optimise, but this did throw up a couple I was unaware of too, so I’ve been working to fix them up ready to test again next week.

Marcin – Designer

I’ve had to take a break from working on the AI this week to instead try to create some editor tools for artists to help them create icons automatically. It’s a first time for me dabbling in non-gameplay logic so it’s a bit scary but extremely exciting.

Also been looking into functions that load up, save, populate and auto-start levels, all from outside of the game, as well as find, read, edit and create files. Getting a hold of some of those function libraries feels a lot like finding a spellbook in a way that, although it’s going to require a lot of study, it promises that I will be able to do things I not so long ago considered impossible to do. I am buzzing.

Sam – Concept Artist

It’s alive, it’s alive! The Zombie design is nearing the final stages of completion, and with a few tweaks here and there, will be ready for the 3D stages some point in the near future. Here you can see the front/side orthographics I’ve put together – you may notice that the creature’s jaw has changed completely. What was once much a more similar mouth to the Stalker is now more human in appearance, and this is because we believe it better conveys the sense that the hideous monstrosity you’re looking at was once a person.

This new jawline shape also creates a more tormented expression, further reinforcing this fact. That said, the Zombie still needs to end up a Stalker, and so you may notice the subtle implication of a split-chin on the bottom lip. I won’t get into all the gory details, but when its body starts to change again, it’s going to get a lot less subtle. You get the idea.

Tom H – Designer

This week I have been diving into the design of the Transmitter tower and surface of the Dam. Balancing enemy placements and planning out structural changes to both of these areas. The surface of the Dam has proved the most interesting to work on, being able to effectively give you guys enough cover for the firefight and making sure th section is challenging yet rewarding. In terms of the tower I have been planning changes to allow for more fluid exploration of this area.

Butch – 3D Artist

Started very early blockout work on our ‘speeder’ bike, just to determine correct working scale. Unlike the bike itself, this is a steady and slow process. (because Matt demands perfection)

Lauren – Lead Animator

This week I finished up the refitting of the Paladin armour, we’ve removed those curiously positioned back pockets but otherwise it’s just been slight tweaks to get it fitting both the new male and female characters.

I’ve also started rigging up the new heavy transport vehicle. There will need to be a few adjustments to the model to get all the suspension both looking and behaving as we want it to in game. It’s been a bit tricky to get all the moving parts rigged up to move in the right way but its getting there. While other vehicles might have had the suspension hidden behind the wheels, our vehicle is so big that the 1m long springs are still very much in view at most front angles and need to move in a sensible way.

Andy – Lead QA

This week I put together the timeline for the Hoverbike tasks for James and Matt to review and begin work on. I also investigate the problems we were having with the tick assertion further which Lee has been looking into.

I also reviewed the Audio changes that Lauren had made to the Dam structures, and went over design notes with Matt about the critical path level design work that Tom. H. has been looking into.

That’s all for this week..

See you in the fray!

-Team Flix

 

Greetings Pioneers!

Some serious transformations are happening behind the scenes.. One of the first driveable vehicles nears asset completion, both female and male characters get their armour fitted properly to match the new proportions, and proper atmospheric oxygen has been implemented.

Here’s what we’ve all been up to:

John – Lead Designer

This week we have been defining the initial makeshift items which are items that can be cobbled together on the player without the need for a Fabrication Unit. This means that we can start the player off anywhere in the world and go from no items in their inventory to a “Repaired Construction Module” and “Repaired Optical Array” which will degrade when used.

These Tool Modules can them be used to Mine better metals/materials and build an Emergency Shelter, a Fabricator, a Temporary Atmospheric Generator (TAG Unit) and certain basic Primitive Structures.

A Fabricator allows for a Colony Grade Construction Module to be crafted which will not degrade upon use, a Mining Laser Module and more… we finally have progression and reason to build bigger and better! After this, we’ll start to go to the other end of the progression tree and create the Excavation Grade Mining-Charge Module and Military Grade Build Module, etc. – which I’m sure you’ll appreciate far more than the initial progression curve 🙂

Matt – Art Director

As we’re replacing a lot of static items for destructibles in places of interest, we’ve started placing in pickups for our atmospheric mechanics. O2 is playing a big part in survival with our game mechanic overhaul so this system requires pickups and ‘safe havens’. I’ve been focused on placement of the pickups so we can get onto testing the initial design.

On the other hand, (my third and most trusted hand which I’ve had to grow to juggle all this work) I’ve been doing material setup for our vehicles as we begin to structure them in a way where we can support customised variation, damage, and lights.

Lee – Technical Director

So this week I have been debugging and finding any outstanding issues we have with the new AI pooling. There are still a couple of minor things, but on the whole it is now working very well. I’ve also been trying to narrow down an assertion we keep running into due to an optimisation where we turn all tick functions off and only turn them on where absolutely necessary.

Butch – 3D Artist

Texture work is complete! after the different textures sheets for colours/glass/roughness etc I’ll be moving onto the destruction modelling.

Yves – Senior Developer

I’ve been working on several illusive crashes with a very low probability of reproducing, an exercise in pulling teeth doing the same thing over and over again in hopes to nail the problem.

Joe – Lead Artist

Woo Eden Star! I’ve been working on swapping out our craftable grids into easier-to-understand lists. You’ll also be able to see details of what you can craft without having to click through everything now. This is just a very early first step in my ongoing mission to make using our UI streamlined yet informative.

Ricky – Senior Developer

Planning to get some progression started in the crafting department. We’re going to change the crafting column to be a scrollable list to differentiate the visuals from other standard inventories to make it a bit easier to spot, and the makeshift weapons and creating your own basic build module will be in the player crafting menu to start this off.

Carlos – Developer

I’ve been putting some time in to get our new audio manager in and working, allowing us to start creating some nice sliders in the UI to control some of our newly designed volumes! I’m hoping to make the system flexible enough so that we can adjust the sounds and add UI elements as needed.

Marcin – Designer

Like I mentioned last week the turning logic for AI seems like a simple concept at the first glance, but it’s actually a fairly complex problem to solve. This week I dived into the guts of the engine to figure out how it was intended to be accomplished and to hopefully emerge with a good plan at the end. I’ve been mapping out the classes and functions that take part in the process to have a better image of what’s going on behind scenes before I start changing it.

I still have a way to go, but I’ve managed to establish a few fundamental rules and design decisions, such as when will the AI turn as a separate behaviour, what determines the direction and speed of the turn, whether the turn will be continuous or beespoke, and how to scale the animation with the speed of turning. Here I can show you the examples of 3 Splintermites using the same animations (for the best or worst) but turning at the rates of 360, 90, and 30.

Tom H – Designer

This week I have been redesigning the main tutorial sections of the game. Ensuring the path is clear and informal for you wonderful players, old and new! Designing the best way for you to learn the basic mechanics and systems of Eden Star in a way that will feel natural and immersive. I have also been looking at which enemies you will encounter as you play through, to ensure you don’t accidentally run into a nest of juggernauts!

Sam – Concept Artist

Hi there! This week we have come to a consensus on the specifics of what the Zombie creature should look like. While original design was a step in the right direction, certain features have been altered to really push the idea of a physical transition between the human and Stalker forms.

The zombie’s skin is constantly deteriorating and peeling away whilst the victim is technically still alive, and so we wanted to make sure the face conveys the fact that while it is hostile, it is still crippled and in a state of perpetual physical torment. Here you can see some of the sketches I’ve done to bring us up to this point – keeping it varied early on, then honing in on what we like the look of!

Lauren – Lead Animator

This week I have been creating and implementing appropriate sounds for the ‘Hunter’mite and ‘Jumper’mite so that the player can have a bit more of an indication where they are and when they have spawned. I have also been tweaking our current armor meshes to fit both the new characters, male and female starting with the Pioneer and Paladin sets.

Jamie/Andy – QA

This week Andy and I have been dealing with an annoying tick function crash and have been helping Lee with understanding what it is. We’ve been discovering a few more bugs and crashes this week too. We’ve also been testing out the new interactions with the Huntermite and the Mite creatures and making sure their new sound effects are working correctly.

See you in the fray!

-Team Flix

Greetings Pioneers!

More delicious progress has been made this week, with vehicles receiving the texturing treatment and our new Huntermite creature has had more or their bespoke animations and attacks added. There are still a fair few bugs with the AI that have emerged with the new pooling mechanic and other new features but once those are resolved we will be in a much better position for stable release.

Here’s what we’ve been up to in more detail:

John – Lead Designer

The organisation of the project and the overall design as a whole as you guys may already know, is my main concern. To keep up momentum we’ve got a few more designers in house to push this update forward, so it should be exciting to see their work going forward! It’s important to keep a fresh perspective and enthusiasm as we implement quite extensive revisions from our past release feedback. 

Matt – Art Director

On a practical basis I’ve focused my attention on getting some critical assets in place, one of these has been a destructible loot create/item. Both the asset work and adapting functionality that exists in the game to get something practical to use for the design team. Otherwise its business as normal with meetings about the different areas of the levels, but I’m especially excited seeing the new creature work, which is starting to feel and look exceptional.

Lee – Technical Director

I managed to complete the work to stop AI from being garbage collected. Now we are able to spawn what we need at the start of the game and pool them until needed. This is a good performance gain for the server now. I’ve also fixed up a few bugs with spawners now they are starting to be used more often in scripted situations in the world.

Tristan – Lead Developer

This week I have been expanding on the melee logic and making it a bit more generic so we can add more melee weapon types. I have also been going over some of the AI work with Lee for more optimisations.

Butch – 3D Artist

Let the textures flow through you. I’ve been blasting through giving the transport its first coat of beauty. Will update everyone next week as we anticipate it to be finished and in game soon!

Marcin – Designer

This week I was able to get back to our beloved AI and actually implement a few more behaviours, which we all eagerly awaited. First of all we have the investigate the sound behaviour. The AI is longer clairvoyant as to who or what made a sound and will now have to go and see if it can find that out. Enemies are able to hear gunshots, explosions and calls for aid of their fellow aliens and react accordingly. There are still a few bugs to iron out but that’s now part of their repertoire.

Additionally I’ve been working on the “turning on the spot” behaviour, for which Lauren has been making animations. Although fairly simple in concept turning behaviours are deceivingly difficult to do right. We should know, because this isn’t our first attempt either, so we are taking a slow and diligent approach this time.

Tom W – Designer

I’ve had a fun week working on the Oxygen/Atmosphere mechanics for the game. Farting around on an alien planet without a helmet will have dire consequences for our pioneers! *Cough Prometheus*

Sam – Concept Artist

Hello everyone! This week you’ll be getting your very first peek at the “Zombie”, a slow-moving yet intimidating creature that serves as a mutated transition between the colonist human and full-blown stalker forms. We’re off to a strong start with our initial designs, but are still looking to push the boundaries even further, past the barrier of your stereotypical walkers from the big screen. behind the scenes I have also been working on a final render of the Hunter to go alongside the Mite’s. See you next week!

Tom Whitt – Designer

This week I’ve been continuing to iterate on the drop pod lay to make sure the introduction to the game gives you all the information you need to get going. It’s a slow process and we have several reviews a week but we want to make this absolutely perfect when its finished!

Tom H – Designer

Hi All! I’m new (yes another Tom). Mainly paper designs and getting my head around the current design for the project. I’m aiming to refine and strengthen the gameplay formula we’re using for the different areas on the island.

Lauren – Lead Animator

This week I have been animating more of the Huntermite’s actions and reactions to make him feel unique. With its own set of attacks and idle animations and refinements to the balancing values, he is starting to feel a lot more how we would like him. I have also been working on one-off turning animations for the new turning behaviour. This will not be our first implementation of turning mechanics but we are hoping this time to have a behaviour that will work the same across all AI while still allowing for various types of turn.

I have also added a turn to the stagger animations so that he turns automatically towards the attack direction after playing a stagger animation, this already helps him feel a lot more responsive than what we had previously as he now moves out of range of the player’s melee, forcing them to move in order to re-engage. This is the stagger will play after the stability of the Huntermite is below a certain threshold, not instantly as shown here.

Andy – Lead QA

Myself and Jamie continued with our testing of multiplayer this week focusing on server stability.
We also got to test the initial implementation of the Huntermite, fixes to the inventory and re-implementation of the “sell” functionality.

See you in the fray!

-Team Flix