Greetings Pioneers!

The sun is shining outside, and we’re teaming it up in the Flix den, continuing to make great progress to the level and large melee system changes that are, as of this last week, going in.

Unfortunately server crash issues are persisting and whilst this is making things difficult for everyone, the whole team appreciates your patience, we’ll be doing a build update as soon as possible, and we won’t be going anywhere until this gets done <3

We hope you’ve thoroughly enjoyed the election (all you UK people out there) and while we continue to wait, here’s another update on what we have all been up to this glorious last 5 days:

John – Lead Designer

This week I have been knee deep in production, we’ve been testing fixes from Epic for the multiplayer branch crashes, but it’s been unfortunately slow progress. Multiplayer may change drastically with the one gametype that we want to implement so I have also been working through these designs with Tom, Alex, Matt and Andy. More info to come soon!

Matt – Art Director

Oh boy, this is my favorite part, been cleaning up the start area interior to our pod. The space has been re-purposed to make more sense as a lifeboat, this includes cryo-chambers and makeshift pilot seats. Initially this space is all about getting you into the game with what you need quickly, also acting as a brief ‘safe haven’ to get your bearings before plunging into the unknown.

Lee – Technical Director

I have managed to finish the transition of all the AI over to the new behaviour component, which should make life easier for the design/art team. I’ve also been working again trying to solve a new crash we have with the multiplayer server, very frustrating.

Tristan – Senior Developer

This week I have been going over system designs with Marcin as well as continuing on with logic for turning the modules into weapons of their own. I have also been doing some server debugging.

Marcin – Designer

My main focus this week was on the presence of items in the world. We want all the items (not just mineral shards) to be able to be picked up from the floor and dropped back down and have them look like the items they are. The gun you pick up in the starting section of game is a prototype of what we are trying to achieve. I’ve looked at the system design with Tristan and began implementing the objects for weapons and armour, since materials and foods are already working pretty well.

Joe – Environment Artist

Jumping around onto a lot of different things this week – I’ve been continuing with the Lab tileset and also got some time to add a new vehicle bay entrance to the Dam!

Tom W – Designer

Interesting week down at Flix HQ! Came down for a surprise visit, and ended up staying for two days, we’ve all had super productive discussions with regards multiplayer, and the general direction of the game. So productive in fact, that Alex and I ended up staying the night down there just so we could continue the discussions the following morning. Other than that, I’ve been doing a lighting pass for the inside of the dam, and more high poly models!

Yves – Senior Developer

I’ve been polishing off the new axe weapon, it’s getting very close to feeling meaty.

Ricky – Senior Developer

Peeping my peepers into the functionality for our new interactions, I’ve started debugging this and cleaning things up for the customisability that those bossy designers seem to want… just kidding we love the designers <3

Alex – Designer

This week I’ve been working on the top of the transmitter tower, redoing the shape and layout as well as decorating. Additionally, I’ve also added in gameplay objectives and lots of enemies for you guys to kill. You’re welcome.

Lauren – Animator

Working through directional hit animations for the Axe attacks and interactions, these include confirmed hit animations for left right and overhead swings, and air swing anims for misses plus idle and animation behaviour when the player is moving. This will be our standard going forward! Looking forward to seeing these working with Yves’s new work on the melee.

Andy – Lead QA

It’s been another week of smashing bugs and catching crashes. We have a pretty regular Garbage Collection crash which we have had to report to Epic and and a server crash caused by the NavMesh which we have fix.

Also had the new kids on the block (Alex and Tom)  come into the office on monday and we had an amazing design meeting where we can up with some really exciting plans for multiplayer, but for now we are going to keep that under wraps. So stay tuned for more 😉

See you in the fray!

-Team Flix

 

Greetings Pioneers!

Cometh into the inner sanctum, where mysterious and unearthly happenings are taking place. Some fantastic progress is being made on the interior spaces across the encounter locations, mood lighting is going in, and creatures are beginning to roam the corridors. We’re looking to bring you some gameplay footage of our current progress in the coming weeks.

Here’s what we’ve been upto:

John – Lead Designer

I’ve been swinging an actual Axe around the offices to inspire Lauren.. but this has backfired terribly, with everyone cowering under their desks. Of course I would love to do this in reality, but safety regulations state that if you would like to swing an Axe in doors you must at least wear goggles and protective clothing. Production and design is never THIS exciting, but what is exciting is seeing a new weapon with sharp and pointy edges that you’ve designed come to life.

Matt – Art Director

Been ripping the floor of the silo up to start getting some foliage into the space. This is for certain gameplay reason that will become apparent when you’re able to explore the area. I’ve also been cleaning up the models for the blast doors in this area and going through several reviews with the guys on their respective work for the other areas.

Lee – Technical Director

Continued working with a few issues we are seeing with the multiplayer server. I’ve also nearly got to the end of swapping the AI over to the new behaviour component.

Tristan – Senior Developer

Been working on some steam issues we were having. Looks like those are all fixed. I had lots of help from Andy. Some might in fact say he did it. I think he is more popular than me. On another note I have also been looking splitting out the tool weapon so players can customise their loadouts more.

Yves – Senior Developer

I’ve been dragging the new melee system out of the prototype phase into production, we now have a pretty meaty axe.

Ricky – Senior Developer

Mission Objectives system backend with Marcin, see below for details on this particular foray. I’d then been looking at how we go about picking stuff up off the floor, foraging through bushes or different types of interaction and futureproofing of this so we can have a solid plan and not require any changes in future.

Marcin – Designer

Working on the mission objective system and how that ties into rewarding the player for their discovery and exploration efforts. The system includes functionality for designers to directly add items to the player’s inventory if required, and the ability to toggle sequences of objectives based on outcomes, whether that is destroying an object or picking it up into your inventory.

Joe – Environment Artist

This week I’ve been poking away at the Silo area – specifically the Laboratory. There’s lots still to do but I’m trying to nail down the feel for the area before we move too far forward on detailing.

Alex – Designer

This week whilst working on the transmitter tower, I’ve been making sure that you guys, i.e. the player are all safe. By modelling and adding railings, airlock systems and also lifts for lazier player. On top of that adding in new cool volumetric lights thanks to Joe, to add that all important atmosphere, in the areas that have… atmosphere. I’ve also spent some time creating some dusty particle effects to the same… effect.

Tom W – Designer

This week, I’ve begun modelling the various props and hero-pieces for the interior of the Dam, starting with the backup power generators, which will be a central component to one of the main encounters found within the Dam. Next up will be the control panels found throughout the game!

Following lots of lovely feedback from Marcin, we’ve also tweaked the layout and gameplay loop of one of our encounters a bit, which should require more participation from the player than we had previously.

Lauren – Animator

This week has been all about the axe again, I’ve been getting animations looking smoother and refining the idle position of the grip, while Yves makes sweet code to get it to choose the correct swings, stick into sticky things and ricochet off of harder objects. It’s really coming together for a satisfying mining tool and melee weapon.

Andy – Lead QA

This week I’ve been working on multiplayer fixes with the team. We’ve also implemented the new axe, reworked the entrance for the Ancient Eden Kit, made tweaks to the Dam and the Transmitter Tower and looked into the pacing of the game throughout these new feature areas.

See you in the fray!

-Team Flix

 

Greetings Pioneers!

This week we have been continuing with the level work in our internal main stream and it’s really coming together. We’re putting together gameplay sequences, placing lights and sounds and hooking up interactive buttons that do things… 🙂

Very good news on the condition of our update to the multiplayer with turret upgrades – we’ve managed to remove the majority of critical crashes! so we confidently say you can expect to see a new version landing shortly.

Here’s what we’ve all been up to this week:

John – Lead Designer

Heading up another fantastic testing session with Staffordshire University. Getting the students involved in UE4 always brings a smile to my face, and it’s eye opening for them to see a working title in it’s development stages. The production on Eden Star has been rapid these last two weeks as we move to the later stages of implementation where we start to see everything come together!

Matt – Art Director

Lighting passes, mesh work and all sorts have been done. The guys have vastly improved the benchmarks for the different areas of which variations will come throughout the level. Our primary goal has been to replace the design blockout with our tile sets ready for artification. Personally I’ve been working on the silo area and bringing the lighting quality up to standard.

Lee – Technical Director

So this week has been mainly testing the latest fixes to do with the multiplayer server issues. Everything looks good! I can now focus on finishing off moving the AI over to our new behaviour component.

Tristan – Sandwich (Lead) Developer

This week I have been putting in some partial optimisations for the spawning the prefab bases and general level loading. I have also been working on bugs oh glorious bugs. I also made fishfinger sandwiches on monday. For the team. Coz I’m kind.

Yves – Senior Developer

Working on implementing our new melee system, it’s looking good and should vastly improve the feel of close quarters combat (plus make it much fairer than it stands currently)

Alex – Designer

Lots more revisions have been made to the transmitter tower this week, making sure it’s a fun play space, that also seems functional and realistic. An entirely new top section has also been modelled and with some inspiration from watchtowers and air traffic control towers going into the design of it. Still lots to do before it’s ready for release but it’s going to be worth the wait.

Ricky – Senior Developer

Preparing to implement the first of 3 shiny new features…

One will allow level designers to build deeper underground. It was a request, don’t tell anyone but I think they want to secretly build one of them evil bad guy superbase compounds underground.

There’s next crafting of makeshift items on the player.

And finally finishing touches to the new use interact system which will enable you to do things like pick up items from the floor or either tap or hold the use key to do different actions such as open a blocks inventory or use it in some other way. This will also allow you to pick up items even while having a weapon equipped.

Joe – Environment Artist

So this week I started on the Silo base – while Matt was working on the awesome Silo area itself, I took a look at the hallways, entrance and corridors that lead to it. They will form a long-abandoned laboratory that should be good for short/mid range combat and tense exploration of a creepy sci-fi facility. I also took a look at some of the collision/navigation issues with the new areas with Marcin, paving the way for exciting AI interactions using all the new Melee and combat systems.

Tom W – Designer

This week, I finalised the Dam’s interior, adding multiple entrances and exits, allowing for a variety of ways to explore the area. Now that the layout of the Dam is complete, I’ve moved on to producing the high-poly assets for various important areas, starting off with the Power Generators.

Lauren – Animator

This week has been mostly about axe animations, improving the feel of the swings for mining rocks and rigging up the latest axe model with the pointy pick side. I’ve also been continuing work on 3rd person locomotion, working on new crouch movement animations and tweaking player acceleration.

Andy – Lead QA

This week I have been working Lee and Trist on the fixing of multiplayer and optimisation of the game. I’ve done several reviews of the Dam, Transmitter and Ancient Eden Kit and worked with the guys to iron out any tweaks we decided upon.

See you in the fray!

-Team Flix