Category Archives: Animation

DevBlog 81 / Oh my guard!

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Hello all!

A lot has happened this week, we’ll do our best to keep it short and sweet with all the juicy details, so let’s jump right into the news!

Pun intended!

The Canyon area has been under heavy construction, our chief mason has been busy chipping away at all the rocks and cliffs so it won’t be long before we share some details on this zone!

Some of the dungeons have been blessed with added complexity and intricacies and several new sounds have been added to the game, as some are still temporary, but there is still a handful of work to be done here.
Also, here’s a shot of the Royal Guard in-game, on a scale of 1 to Big, he’s pretty big!

And as tough as he looks!

We also came up with a new solution for the torches and their mechanics as we weren’t at all pleased with how they were working before even though they were working as intended. As it was, our beloved main character had to look for a torch every time one was needed because she wasn’t able to store them, but it quickly became more of a chore than a complementary mechanic to the game. For this reason, we’ve changed their logic and now a torch is available at all times, yay!

Our QA army has been combing the game for all those nasty pesky bugs, much squashing was heard throughout the week with more to come in the next!

What’s this? The Royal Guard is being animated already? Uh oh!

Oh no!

We honestly can’t wait to see them in action, terrorizing our protagonist!

Stay tuned for next week’s DevBlog, thank you for reading!

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DevBlog 80 / And there was much rejoicing!

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Hi everyone!

Hope you’ve all had a great Halloween and hoarded a ton of sweets!

Let us start by celebrating the 80th DevBlog Post, yay!

And there was much rejoicing!

We kept working on the Boss for the Canyon area, concluding its fight mechanics and animations that will surely provide a memorable challenge with a unique twist!

Some extra animations were also added for the main character, allowing her to dash diagonally in order to give players more freedom in dodging melee and ranged attacks, we’re pretty happy with the new dynamic they bring to combat. Here, have a sneak-peek!

Everybody was Kung Fu fighting!

On a sidenote, we’ve already added the first animations for the Magic system in the game, more information on this in a future DevBlog!

There were some polish passes on the AI of all enemies regarding their behavior while engaged in combat, mostly in terms of rotating towards their target, to be more specific.

The Royal Guard we’ve shown in the last DevBlog is already in the Low Poly phase, looking as awesome as it looks menacing!

Finally, the architecture for the massive Canyon puzzle is mostly complete, here’s a screenshot just for you!

Plans for the weekend? Spelunking!

As always, thank you so much for taking the time and interest to follow our blog posts, see you next week!

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DevBlog 78 / Hey there, how’s it hanging?

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Hi everyone!

This week we continued working on the Elk behavior and polish. The challenge was providing a smooth control and feeling inside dungeons, mounted or not. The canyon has a huge rotatory temple so dealing with ramps and slopes forced us to rework some path-finding logic.

With our animator in-house now, it has been easier to iterate the animation tree and logic. For a long time we intended to add acceleration and stopping animations when the player is in “exploration mode” (when there are no enemies around). In our prototype we had this feature but we removed it temporarily. Below is our first test:

Small run/walk acceleration and stopping animations.

Here’s a possible encounter in the dungeons!

Hey there, how’s it hanging?

Regarding the environment art, we are finally focusing on the previously mentioned dungeon. It’s a huge structure, with an overarching puzzle. Meanwhile, the outside areas are awaiting a final pass, which will include some texture variation and plenty of vegetation props. Here is a work in progress shot showing the current state of things:

Another canyon WIP view.

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DevBlog 73 / Bite me!

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Hi there!

This week we had fun awakening this small but aggressive enemy we call Chomper, and it’s already fully prepared to provide some surprise encounters throughout the game!
The Orphan Kid is also finished, sporting plenty of unique animations that meld with its intricate combat style, we will provide some more insight on him in next week’s blog post. We added some additional dungeon modules to the big picture, allowing for some interesting maze situations and secondary challenges for those who wish to explore every nook and cranny!

Bite me!

Jumping all the way.

Surprise!

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DevBlog 72 / World Design inspirations

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Hi everyone!

This week we worked hard on the Bottom Rift Windmills area, It’s pratically done, and ready to apply the workflow we talked about on the Devblog 58

For this particular zone, we did some research on real locations and came up with a lot of architectural influences. The image below show places like Ordesa y Monte Perdido National Park in Spain (Pyrenees), Phugtal Monastery in India, Canyon de Chelly National Monument in the US and Puente Nuevo in Ronda, Spain.

From left to right top: Puente Nuevo and Phugtal Monastery. Left to right bottom: Ordesa y Monte Perdido and Chelly Monument.

Like we said before this is a very early blocking of the zone, it still needs a lot of detail and beauty props on top.

Top-view of Bottom Rift Windmills blocked zone.

This zone is perfect for a stroll by the riverside!

Our animator is almost done with this little fellow that will be haunting you in the Rift Windmill zone!

Acrobatic attack no.2!

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DevBlog 70 / Hi! Anyone seen my toothpick?

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Hello, everyone!

This week, we’ve got some character art and a few new animations to show you guys. It’s vacation time for the members of the team, but we made sure to schedule everything so that there’s always at least one of us working on the game. This way, the development is never really halted.

As part of our current objective of adding more enemy variety and flexibility to the project, we designed a new creature that will pester the player in any area of the game. Just like the monster that hides in a barrel, which we showed last time, this new enemy is not “chapter specific”, and that allows us to use it freely while building the world.

Hi! Anyone seen my toothpick?

Basically, this little fellow hides beneath the ground with only its leaves sticking out to blend with the surrounding vegetation. Once the player gets close, it will pounce!

Why hello there! ( Jump Across animation )

Take that! ( Sweep Kick animation )

Oops sorry! I was just kid-ding! ( Being Hit by Player animation )

On the animation department, the masked youths are rocking a couple of new moves. While fighting, they react to the player’s actions by chaining attacks or dodges. For example, if their low kick does not connect, a quick dagger slash will follow. As you might have guessed, facing this opponent will prove to be a very different challenge from the ones in previous chapters.

Have a nice weekend!

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DevBlog 69 / QA is coming…!

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Hi everyone!

Actually, QA came early during the week, and we’ve been doing some extensive sessions which led us to implement some additional tools and on-screen information for assisting with the playtesting and debugging of the game!

On-screen debugging info.

The new streaming logic we mentioned last week is still being tweaked and optimized, and we’re pretty happy with the results we’re getting!

Streaming chunk visualizer.

A new animation for the masked youths is also nearing completion, as you can watch see below.

Canyon kid evade animation.

We felt the need to add a little more variety to the game’s enemy pool, and we thought it would be cool to have less “area specific” creatures the player could fight with. Most of the ones we have so far are basically bound to the chapters they first appear in, and there’s no way around that because of the lore. So we are coming up with new ideas for creatures that can spawn anywhere throughout the whole adventure. The first one is a monster that inhabits barrels, and it will keep you on your toes anytime you’re about to destroy these wooden containers in hopes of finding random items.

Producing the assets for this enemy also forced us to remake the basic barrel and crate props, for the sake of coherence, especially because the ones we had previously were recycled placeholders.

We could Barrel-y see it coming!

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DevBlog 68 / Who’s the boss?

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Hi there!

This week, a lot of structural scenes were changed and re-arranged, all to accommodate the new streaming logic that finally supports fluid streaming even in very slow hard drives (like the HDD of the Xbox One).

The boss featured in the sneak-peak below is basically ready, we are finishing and implementing the cutscenes that will show off this hard and intricate boss.

The art team is making decent progress regarding the development of the new enemies for Chapter 3. The model for the boss you’ll be facing at that point is almost done, and the masked youth we’ve previously shown is finally game-ready, prepared to be animated! And on that subject, our animator has joined us once again in our offices, so we are having nice discussions about the challenges that await the team.

Let’s take this chance to show a little teaser of the boss battle everyone has been working on. We’ve filtered out the details so the experience of the fight won’t be spoiled for you!

Jump back animation of silhouette boss.

Some weapons were also made and improved, all usable by the player and game-ready.

New weapons, new movesets.

We reworked an older enemy to create a new mini boss. The player will only encounter it in dungeons so beware when you wander in the ruins!

This is fine.

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DevBlog 65 / Steam Valve

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Hi everyone!

This week we’ve discussed some new ideas and concepts for the next chapter of the game. It will take place in the bottom of the canyon, bordering the windmills zone which you might be familiar with.
We already have some concepts of the new characters and a lot of references, so the ideas are getting close to a conclusion.
For the previous chapters, André had already made some blocking, level design and testing. This final zone is currently drafted on paper, so the next devblogs may be focused on its level design and the details we would like to add.

The boss of the previous chapter is nearly done and currently being worked on by our animator. Here’s a small WIP preview of his weapon in action:

Steam weapon shooting animation WIP.

This zone has a steam theme, which is noticeable due to the mechanisms that are clearly inspired by it. The player will be searching for valves to activate and new paths to unlock. Although the steam particles are an early work-in-progress, they have already been implemented to set the mood for this theme.

Interacting with the valve.

Examining the valve.

For the next week part of team will be working on the new characters and level design of the next chapter of the game. Stay tuned if you are into level building!

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DevBlog 63 / The water wheel is in motion!

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Hi everyone!

This week while the art team was working hard adding props and populating the battlefield zone, some logic/code was improved, like the responsiveness of the dodge after an attack animation and also the time after a big hit attack from an enemy. After these tweaks, the Girl won’t take so much time getting up to resume the fight, making it possible to avoid possible follow-up attacks. We are also adapting the prototype logic to the new props added, for example, the logic of this enormous gate is ready to go.

Surprise encounters and a puzzle awaits.

Animation wise, Iuri has joined us in the office (he usually works remotely) and is producing new animations and polishing some others. Afterwards he will tackle this chapter’s boss!

Remember the Water temple concept? Here is watermill in action (still WIP).

The low poly model for the new boss is pretty much complete, and we’ve started to work on the retopo of the weapons. Next, we’ll do all the texturing and fine-tuning. Regarding the environments, we have been busy putting together the largest ruin in the game (so far), a very tall tower. As soon as it is ready, we’ll be sure to show some screenshots.

Undead Soldier new attack example.

This chapter has a lot of small ruins and dungeons to explore, set loose your explorer’s instinct!

Explore everything!

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