This week Tomé and André reworked and tweaked some interiors of the game using many brand new assets. Some color calibrations were done to improve the atmosphere of each space and create distinct areas.
Secret areas are easy to be missed.
Some hidden lore in this wooden house.
Another pass in populating this interior.
André did some bug fixing and polished some mechanics. He’s preparing a new test build. Also, a first new version of streaming scenes was implemented with a great performance improvement and also an easier way to edit scenes for everyone.
Meanwhile, Pichel finished the player’s companion and is working on the other characters and NPC’s and doing a more detailed version of the painted terrain.
The outdoors are really coming along, the new areas are almost complete.
Another pass in populating this interior.
Next week we intend to redo the HUD (replacing placeholders) and make some minor functionality changes in the inventory.
This week André returned from vacation and is back in action, so we got some cool things to show besides new art and props!
He made some changes in how healthbars behave on screen (something he wanted to do for some time), they are now screen dependent instead of world dependent. Also, he improved the idle combat animations and behavior when the player has no weapons equipped. Only kicks and punches can save you in this situation.
Working alongside Iuri, they gave more life to the Elk. With some spine IKs system, ground adaptation makes the animal feel more real.
It’s still in WIP state (still doesn’t have the new Fur), we need more animations to make it like we want, but for now we are really liking the feel.
Some Elk action over here
Ricardo lent us a hand and did some awesome shader work to “fire up” the look of the wooden enemies we’ve shown in previous posts.
How’d it get burned?!
Instead of baking the burnt effect directly into textures, the shader allows for countless dynamic and randomized burnt variations. It’s a great way to empower artist and reduce production times.
Burnt variations.
Picking up where he left off last week, Tomé worked on visually improving a huge temple ruin that players will get to explore in the first area of the game. Here’s how it’s currently looking:
This week André helped the art team by doing some improved scenery meshes from the blocking mesh for the underground passage in the swamp zone (a new area we are working on). André also worked in something he wanted to do for some time, foliage dithering fading.
Dithering per vertex when the camera is too close .
André also did the same effect but per object when characters get too close to the camera.
A reworked streaming logic is in the works, more fluid and efficient logic that can’t be noticed even if the player has a HDD disc drive (or for consoles).
The new model of the Elk is starting to come alive! Iuri began skinning and animating the Elk, and we hope to show gameplay with the new model in a near future. For now we have a very dynamic walk cycle:
The new WIP walk cycle.
Tomé has been producing some more tree models to spread around the game environments, specially dead trees for the swamp area we are working on. He also developed a few modular stone pavement groups that can be combined together to form roads.
New trees for various new zones.
Pichel made a lot of progress with the Elk model, and he has been investing a lot of time into making the fur work with our visual style. You can see how it’s coming along in the image below.
Last weekend we showcased the game to some developers and players and some new bugs were found as expected. Some we already knew about and others were simply created when André was doing the combat demo scene we’ve shown. First thing Andre did in the beginning of the week was to fix these bugs and tweak the combat (feedback was very important). Seeing players playing and looking at what they do with the controller is very enlightening for improving small nuances in gameplay and making things more intuitive. This is a process that we intend to repeat in ever showcase we’ll do.
Tomé worked on some props this week. One of them is a very important prop – it’s basically a resting spot where one of our mechanics takes place. When the player uses it in order to recover, an ambush can randomly occur during the night while sleeping.
The various parts of this prop can be rotated or hidden to achieve different compositions and avoid repetition.
Meanwhile, Pichel is hard at work handcrafting the mystical Elk’s textures and experimenting with fur. He already finished the maps for the saddle, as you can see in the image below.
He also finished the High Poly of one of the NPCs that can be encountered in the beginning of the game. We will talk about him and the others NPC’s soon in a dedicated devblog.
This week, André and Tomé worked on replacing some old interaction and mechanisms placeholders with quality, animated and fancy shaded 3D models. Small logic additions and adaptations needed to be made to fit the new art.
Some new props, girl model for scale.
André is also doing some logic changes in order to streamline the localization process, the entire user interface and game text will have support to various languages.
Iuri is also replacing placeholder animations and doing some new ones for the mechanisms mentioned above.
A Journey checkpoint is always important.
Pichel is working hard on finishing the 3d model of the player companion. The next step is rigging it.
This week André added some new mechanics he has been developing for the swamp zone, like quicksand and other traps. He’s also working on fixing the terrain mesh and polishing the level design of that zone. Some bug fixing, code polishing and optimization was done too. Interior zones are more optimized now, the light culling masks were not set correctly but as soon as we fixed it the performance increase was noticeable. Ranged enemies are now more efficient when it comes to killing the player.
We would like to officially welcome Iuri Monteiro, our new animator. We have been using mostly temporary and altered asset store content but now, with a dedicated animator, we can finally define each character’s personality and improve the overall consistency and fluidity. Expect great things in the upcoming months!
New animations examples.
Meanwhile, Pichel has been doing the retopo of the Elk model, and he’ll start texturing it soon. Tomé is working on props like the ones you can see below – the Rune Stone (the concept art for it was shown in the previous Blog post) and the Shrine. The latter is meant to work as a checkpoint during the adventure.
More illumination iterations were done this week. We encountered some light probe problems and had some lighting misconfigurations, but we are working on it. Most of them are related to our scene streaming system and light baking workflow.
Illumination tests.
Tomé made some concept tests for a rune stone that the player can interact with. These rune stones are strategically placed near points or areas of interest informing the player about story lore, area information or even gameplay. We are trying to have as little as possible distracting on screen tips during gamplay, these runes and some hints in the re-load screen are given to maintain the immersive experience but the core gameplay will be clutter free.
Rune Stone and alphabet concept.
We are doing some tests for an ancient alphabet for the ancient civilization ruins and runes like in the concept above.
Pichel is finishing the high poly of the player’s companion, he followed the concept posted in the previous devblog but naturally some changes were made to match the 3D perspective.
This week we did some more illumination tests, still not as we would like it to be but it’s getting close! Next week we will update the Amplify Color LUT textures used, our idea is to create an immersive and smooth transition between interiors and exteriors. The use of Volume based blending per-area really helps us quickly test and improve the game look without adding to the work load.
We adopted a tetrahedral light probe placement instead of a simple evenly spaced grid and so far we are getting good results on dynamic objects.
Some issues still to fix but getting closer to the final version.
This week André made a few tweaks to the enemies AI and improved their adaptation to specific situations, in a game as ours AI is a constantly evolving area. For example, an enemy may adopt a defensive AI state depending on its weapon state; if its shield is about to break he will likely try to use it less and evade the player attacks, depending on the enemy it might even strike more. Enemies will also become gradually more offensive the longer they have to defend themselves from player attacks. On the animation side we also apply specific variations that required tuning.
Pichel is working on the new companion 3D model. We had several concept iterations until we arrived at the current result, while he’s doing the body High Poly some small changes might be made to the improvised settle and additional props.
More fantasy iterations.
The last concept made.
We are still not 100% sure about the item bags or props attached to the legs.
Our exterior and interior 3D modules are finally ready and we are assembling the buildings that were simple place holders a few weeks ago. We are still experimenting with the overall distribution and lighting of the area.
Modular props are very useful since they can be reused in other buildings, even on later chapters. They can be used as ruins too (with simple painting or decal variations). In the next couple of weeks, Level building will become much faster and fun.
You can use stairs to reach higher places, they will also offer you clues to possible passages.
Some cracks, rubble and wood planks will be added later for added effect.
Temporary lightning, this shot uses a very simple preview light setup.
We plan to have smooth and immersive interior/exterior transitions, visually and auditory. Duck volumes (exterior sounds like birds will be clamped when you are inside), eye adaptation and reverb zones combined will create an unforgettable experience.
Next week André will tackle dynamic spine IKs for biped and quadruped, and Pichel will be working in a new NPC.
A very important character in this game is the player’s companion, previously mentioned in the game description. Your companion can help in some puzzles, serve as a fast travel option and can store additional weapons, armor and potions that you can’t carry with you. But it can’t follow you everywhere! Some places can only be accessed with the player alone, for example: when you need to climb something, your companion will wait for you below; in this type of situation you need to manage what you bring with you and what stays with your companion, since your inventory is limited and your companion can carry many more items.
Early concept by Jeffrey Ferreira.
This was the very first model of the game (Modeled, rigged and animated by our programmer André), and it is still the model used for AI logic tests and behavior like in the gif below. All the mechanics and logic mentioned above are already implemented.
Here we can see some automatic object avoidance, the Elk automaticly avoids major falls and objects like trees even if the player forces it.
We are trying to make the Elk’s movements the most organic possible, like previously mentioned, in situations like avoiding falls and trees, and by reacting to enemies close by. If the player is adventuring around and exploring, your companion won’t stay in the same place waiting. Our idea is to have a character with personality that you can mount and interact with, not a soulless prop.
Some details like foot IK and body position relative to ground or slope will be implemented to enhance the organic feel. This behavior is highly influenced by Shadow Of The Colossus Agro’s behavior (the companion horse).
WIP, for tests only, not the final model.
We are still exploring the Elk’s design, and that is currently one of our top priorities. Next week Tomé will make the final concept of the Elk for Pichel to model. Next step is new animations.
In this week of work André did some bug fixing and gameplay polish while Tomé and Pichel finished the ruins asset modules.
