textures Archives - Page 2 of 4

Towers, Trails, and Tarnished Buildings

The team has been putting a lot of work into our creature AI this week. We’re making improvements to both animals and monsters after discovering that we’re having a little trouble with AI senses. Our Trophy Hunters in particular aren’t acting like keen predators, tracking down players to collect grisly souvenirs like they should. Instead, you occasionally run into groups who aren’t stirred to action until you get up in their face, and invade their personal space.

We’re adding new models for a few unique types of Trophy Hunters who use different tactics in battle, and have different abilities. Right now you can tell the ranged attackers from your standard mutant because they’re wearing floppy hats. While a hat based hierarchy for creatures would be interesting, and unique, we’d rather add cool looking physical differences instead. We discussed future creature abilities we’d like to see down the road, like the ability to use weapons and gear.

Our underground spawning area is getting some attention this week too. We’ve added the finishing touches visually to your subterranean home away from home, and are adding new audio elements as well. Once they’ve collected the starting gear laid out for them, and climb up the ladder, players now face the Communication Tower. We’re focusing our next play demo on that area, and are working on a short quest scenario. As you can see from the shot below, the map leading up to the tower is looking fantastic.

We’re making audio improvements in other areas as well. We’re adding new sounds for picking up and dropping items, and making sure that things made of wood sound different than metal items when they hit the ground. The team discussed updating all audio to Wwise, and briefly touched on the upcoming UE 4.20 upgrade.

The web team made some improvements to the shopping cart to improve user experience, and make sure everything goes smoothly with purchases. We took another look at our friend and referral system, and talked through some improvements we’d like to see down road. We want to make it as easy as possible for you to invite your friends, and reward you when they sign up and play.

Progress on filling in the game map continued this week too. The team has put a lot of time into material upgrades to improve look and performance already, and continues to put in a lot of road work to keep players moving around the map. With more time being put into the Comm Tower, we circled back to the idea of putting ziplines in a few key areas. We looked at what a few other games have done, and discussed how we’d like ours to work, as well as where they would lead. We’re currently using clouds of poisonous gas to keep players inside the areas we’ve completed on the map, and discussed other options for borders once the whole game area is complete.

The art team is busy taking the beautiful buildings and roads they made, and roughing them up so they better represent the toll of the great fracture, and decades of neglect. It’s a long process, but we’re coming up with some great ways to streamline the grunging. Below you can see some of the fruits of our anti-home improvement efforts with: cracked foundations, faded paint, weathered siding, and a nice layer of moss growing on the outside of one of our ruined homes.

August 15, 2018

Cartography Work and Making Waves

The team continues to push forward with our map improvements. We’ve stripped everything out, and started from the beginning, using higher resolution open source topography data, to make a higher fidelity copy of the Lahaina area. All the roads and some of the landmarks have been imported, and the art team is busy transforming them into their post-apocalyptic versions.

As the week comes to an end, our foliage pass advances with more native plants replacing some of our older undergrowth. This should not only increase performance, but add to the realistic look we’re shooting for. We discussed a few possibilities in regards to the borders of the play area, and whether or not we want some sort of physical barrier: lava, rock slide, poisonous fog, or something else to let players know they’ve reached the end of the world.

In addition to plants, valleys, hills, and roads, we’ve placed the communication tower on the map, and are using its position as a common starting point to help sync with the website game map we are working on. While we’ve finished a good deal of detail work, and a materials pass to boost performance on the tower, some of our other unique structures still need some finish work. The art team is focusing on the Thorcon Power Plant, and the Municipal Veil Station currently, adding a little polish to both, and incorporating some audio work specific to each building. We continue refining designs for the Armory, providing Lahaina’s survivors with everything they need to shoot, slice, and smash under one roof, and crafting machines/benches so you can fix broken gear, or affix additions to your favorite implement of destruction.

Speaking of crafting, we are making some ui improvements, and talked through various stacking, and drag and drop options to help players who are carrying around a small stores worth of raw materials, and parts. Jesse is working on some image improvements, adding some animations, and doing an overall styling pass to make sure things are consistent, and working smoothly.

We’ve been doing a lot of AI work too. The birds and animals are all acting appropriately, and are no longer flying into rocks, rolling over for belly rubs, or charging into the sea at the first sign of humans. Our monsters are making good progress as well. They veer out of the way of weapons fire now during a charge, and we’re working on having them make coordinated wave attacks. We’re not expecting impeccable battle choreography right away, but having them spread out while on the move, and not queue up at a door or window when they’ve found a player inside a building, will be a good start.

We made some progress on our third loot drop scenario, in which a player must deliver an object from one location to another while being stalked and attacked. If successful, they not only get to experience the pride of a job well done, but a pile of loot as well. The team discussed adding a mechanic that would make the amount of loot in a container be a reflection of its size, avoiding having 20 pounds of stuff jammed into a 10 pound bag, or a shipping crate empty of anything but a toothbrush.

The team has made good progress on the water this week. Being on an island, the ocean is just as much a piece of the scenery as the jungle, and the sky. We’re making shader changes to the ocean, and tweaking a few things to make it look as good as the rest of the island. As with the map borders on land, we discussed what we’d use to keep players from going too far out to sea. We want the water to be an important part of the game eventually, but we’re not looking to let someone set a new record for swimming the Auau Channel, all the way to Lanai. That’s a different game, and the whales use that stretch of water to breed and give birth anyway, so you should probably stay out of it. Below you can see a shot of just how nice the rolling waves look from the perspective of a swimmer.

I’ll be back next week with the latest news and updates

June 29, 2018

Loot Drops and Weapon Shops

We started off Sprint 24 by discussing our third loot drop scenario in the game. The first involves players scrambling to a designated area after a flare goes off, to grab a crate of goodies before anyone else. The second finds a group holding a building or area against multiple waves of attackers for a set period of time. When the timer runs out, the group is rewarded with a hidden cache of weapons, survival items, and food. Our latest opportunity for players to grab a pile of loot, involves safeguarding an item’s transport from one location to another, while encountering a number of obstacles. Once the item makes the journey safe and sound, in the allotted time, the players will be awarded a prize. We briefly discussed adding some non-traditional impediments to the journey, like poorly written directions, or children who demand to stop to use the bathroom every five minutes, but decided to stick with the usual group of bloodthirsty creatures and bandits in the end.

Our AI works continues in three specific areas: waves of combatants in loot drops, birds, and monsters. Not only are we making our monsters smarter, but we’re making them work better in a group. Currently, our creatures don’t have much of a game plan other than ripping your face off. That’s a pretty simple plan, which is usually best, but our goal is to have monsters with a little more method to their madness. We want our mutants to work well together, and at least cover all the entrances to a building that they know players are hiding in.

Progress on party mechanics continues, and we talked about some things we’d like to include down the road. We added some new items to help heal injured players, and worked on the player healing player system as well. Soon you won’t have to leave slow, injured team members behind unless they’re really annoying. Speaking of friends, we’re updating the Friends system ingame to make it easier to find your buddies while running around Lahaina.

The team did some crafting work as well. We moved forward with a design for a wash bench, and are refining the icons for items being repaired, rebuilt, or recycled. We talked through the best way to split and stack items in your inventory, and did some work on weapon attachments. The HUD got a few tweaks and updates, and we talked through some additional things we’d like to add in the future.

We discussed plans for a new armory, Lahaina’s premiere place for everything sharp and shooty. We talked through what the place should look like, and where it would be located on the map. The team started a performance pass on the Veil Station, improving lighting, textures, and material changes inside. Terry set up some mirrors and is working on source control changes, while the art team makes audio improvements to various parts of the map, ensuring that the post-fracture world sounds as good as it looks.

Lastly, improvements to the environment and weather continue as we build out the map. We’re making overall performance improvements to the wilds, adjusting lighting (especially at night), fixing the fog, and making changes to the rain. Below you can see just how good the beach looks, while taking your morning stroll with your favorite machete or shark-toothed weapon.

We’ll be back later in the week with more updates

June 13, 2018

Buildings, Boxes, and Birds

As we begin the final week of Sprint 23, everyone is busy finishing up projects, and hunting down bugs. The web team has upgraded to the latest versions of Webpack and React, and are fixing some lingering layout issues. We’re improving our autocomplete feature to make it a bit smarter, and making some improvements to player/friend search as well.

We completed some more work on the crafting ui, and discussed adding a few more recipes to the already impressive list of apocalyptic arts and crafts projects available to players. The team fixed a bug on the loading screen, and updated the settings ui to make things easier to find, and adjust your game-play preferences. The HUD received some attention with a few new updates to make things less cluttered, and improve your field of view.

We’ve updated the team ui, fixed a few bugs, and included some new functionality into group play. A number of group features were added like messaging and auto-rejoin. In addition, we’re making it easier to find your friends and House members to help you rampage across the countryside, or whatever you’re in to. We’ve adding a few new weapon animations as well. Running a spear through your enemies, or throwing a club at their head has never looked better.

The team made some improvements to our second loot drop scenario. Players can claim buildings to defend against hordes of mutants and other survivors, in order to cash in on the prize when time runs out. We talked some more about the overall game economy, and distribution of loot and wealth. We’re spawning most of our loot in containers and boxes now, instead of just sprinkling weapons and goods across the map, exposed to the elements.

The team is almost finished with lighting and audio improvements in the respawn area, and our Hawaiification work continues with artwork, graffiti, and new furnishings in the underground haven. We have a basic recycling system in place for some items like empty beverage and food containers, and the art team is working on animations for turning trash into a usable resource.

We’ve made some AI improvements that have not only made things more interesting to fight, but have led to a huge increase in performance. We’re replacing many of the birds in the game currently to make those increases even greater. We talked some more about the map, and finalizing a backbone of surviving highways and trails to keep players moving. We want to make sure that players have a reason to travel over the entire map, and not get caught in a bottleneck, or congregate in one area.

Finally our lighting, weather, and foliage work continues to improve performance, and make the landscape look as amazing as possible while you struggle to survive. As you can see from the shots below, endeavoring to persevere has never had a more beautiful backdrop.

We’ll be back later this week with more updates and screenshots.

June 5, 2018

The Sound of Combat and Digging Into Designs

As the week comes to an end, the web team is busy adding final touches, and improvements to our real time Veil News Network (VNN) game camera. Jesse added an animated logo that fades in and out, as the camera takes a tour of points of interest across the island. We talked over a few improvements, like making the live stream indicator sticky, and future features as well. The drone camera is a great way to see what’s going on in the game, and gives a basic guide to the lay of the land.

Speaking of the lay of the land, we talked some more about creating a 3D game map. We are already using a topographical map of Lahaina as a base in the game, with a few minor changes to roads, and areas that have been reclaimed by the jungle. We talked about things we could do to make the map work without burning up your GPU, and what things would be important to highlight, (main trails, large buildings, and possibly bases down the road).

We did a lot of audio work this week too. We’re working through some issues we’re having with Wwise, but have made good progress. Every area, and large building will soon have its own specific ambient noise to add authenticity to the wilderness, and the right tone to exploring the creepy abandoned structures. In addition to these general noises, we’re adding specific audio components to a number of things like: gun reloads, arrows being knocked, footsteps, and other various weapon noises. We want players to be able to feel the joy that can only come from hearing ammunition being loaded into a magazine, and the wet thud of a club smashing heads in combat.

Jesse continued his work adding more Hawaiian touches on our logos, and other game elements. We took a deep dive into the traditional symbols and art of the islands, particularly on the history of tattoos for inspiration. Traditionally, body art consisted of geometric designs like squares, triangles, and crescents with an occasional figure. One of the most prominent symbols are shark teeth, called niho mano. Each island has their own style of niho mano, so you can tell where someone is from, or where they got their tattoo, just but looking at the style of shark teeth inked into them. Using that as a guide, Jesse is working on a stylized logo that incorporates Maui specific symbols.

The art team continues their materials improvements too. We’ve converted over most of the old home furnishings like chairs and tables, and are now focusing on things found outside the home like signs, fire hydrants, and sporting equipment. All of our totems will be getting a facelift too. We’re also making a final pass at images for basic components from recycling. Elements like phosphorus and potassium, as well as wood, minerals, and metals will all get some attention. We’re fixing some minor issues we’ve run into with a couple different gun sights, and have finished the first phase of our programmatic building system. Not only does the system give us a big performance boost, but it allows us to make custom buildings quickly and easily, whether they are a one room shanty, or something much larger. As you can see in the shot below, the beach shack has never looked better.

We’ll have more updates and pictures for you next week

April 27, 2018

Taking a Flying Tour of What’s Left of Lahaina

We started off the week by getting the team system up and running. Players now have the ability to make groups with their friends, or anyone else who’s up for running around the ruins of future Lahaina, looting and shooting indiscriminately. There are map markers indicating how well everyone is staying in formation for tactical strikes, or to point out who’s chasing deer instead of concentrating on the objective. You can also now spawn on a team member’s name so it’s easier, and faster to keep the band together. There is still some minor ui work to do, but for all intents and purposes, the first pass at our group play system is ready.

San and the web team continued their work on drone cameras and the Veil News Network (VNN) page. We have a live camera drone tour of the island up and running on our YouTube page. There’s still a few kinks to work out, like not passing through an occasional rock or tree, but it’s a great way to see the game world, and a terrific start to our goal of a network of cameras catching the play action live. We talked about adding an adjustable field of view to the camera drones, and various overlay options to change the experience as well.

Jesse and Jared continue working on the VNN page itself. We talked about different future video options for viewers including the possibility of time lapse feature, to allow players to see anything they happened to miss during a busy Lahaina day. We’re fixing bugs as they appear, (we recently had an issue with weather from different worlds not displaying), and making a number of improvements to the page itself. We talked some more about possible feeds and different VNN channels. If you have an idea for a channel you’d like to see, let us know in the forums.

We’re adding audio support to a number of buildings and locations, as well as running through the map, and making a list of the places that don’t sound quite as good as the should. AI work continues too. The animal AI is mostly wrapped up, and we should have semi-intelligent NPCs/creatures in the near future. There’s a few new animations in the works as well. We’re focusing on a few last weapon animations to make them look more realistic, and some player movements too. This week we’re focusing in particular on ladder animations, focusing on player’s hand placement and head tilt while climbing. In addition we’ve completed the first tier of a loot dropping system, that is designed to let players know when a new shiny piece of gear is available in a certain area. It’s up to them to find it, and claim it before it gets scooped up by someone else.

Terry spent some time working through some auto-merge issues, and our neverending map and performance improvements continued as usual. We talked at length about the latest improvements to our programmatic building system, and discussed a number of custom buildings we could design and put together using the system. The detail and lighting work inside our big buildings continues, with the focus for now on the Communications Tower. As you can see in the picture below, the elevator in the tower got some attention this week and is looking good. We can’t however vouch for its safety, so ride at your own risk. Also, we are not certain if the wolf noises at the bottom and top are gone, but we’ve become attached to them…

As always, we’ll have another update later this week

April 17, 2018

Testing Teams and Gear

This week marks the end of the old sprint, and the beginning of 22. The teams are busy finishing up some last minute work, fixing bugs, and setting goals. We’re adding a bit of polish to the group play system, but it’s ready to test. Players can make teams, use team VOIP, see members on the map, and revive teammates who ducked when they should have dodged. We plan on spending the next sprint squashing bugs, addressing problems as they arise, and running around, shooting the hell out of each other until we’ve worked out all the kinks. We don’t want to leave the creatures of the forest out of all the gratuitous violence though. We’ll be doing some AI work, to add another element of danger to groups venturing out into Lahaina.

We’re working on the loot economy/distribution system too. We’re making sure that the loot not only flows, but it flows in an appropriate way across the entire map. The goal is to avoid creating an area that gets too crowded because we’ve inadvertently created a looters paradise. We’re also making some improvements to our crafting and recycling system. We’re adding deterioration to items, and the recycling mechanic. Players will no longer have machetes that can hack through a thousand trees without suffering from some wear and tear, or becoming dull. We’re also making sure a brand new item provides more raw resources when recycled, than a piece of worn out junk.

The team is adding some audio support, and working on weapon and player movement animations to make characters look more natural, and add a level of authenticity to weapons. We’re also making a material upgrade to help performance, and make the props you’ll find around Lahaina look more realistic. The before and after shots below are a good example of how things are improving.

Of course our Veil News Network (VNN) work continues. The web team is working on video stream improvements currently, as well as stinger and bumper videos to fill in coverage gaps and transitions. Jesse is hard at work putting together a VNN lead-in video and working on a few overlap bugs.

Terry was busy digging into some merge issues we ran into, and we’re working on some streaming, destreaming, and performance improvements. Improving map and large building performance is a never ending task, and we’re focusing on three large buildings this sprint in particular: the Thorcon Power Plant, the Veil Station, and the lighting inside the Communication Tower. We’ll be doing some HUD updates and working on graphics on the settings menu as well. The team is adding animations to the respawn area and building out our cave system, in addition to few other spots of interest on the map. We’re also finishing up the texture, weather, and lighting work for the wild places around Lahaina. As you can see below it has really improved the quality of our beaches, but we still don’t recommend taking time to make a sand castle without a weapon handy.

We’ll be back later in the week with more updates and pictures.

April 10, 2018

Working on the Weather and Group Play

The web team continued their work on creating the Veil News Network (VNN) this week. Designed to keep players updated with the latest ingame news, and important events, the news service is making good progress. We’re giving VNN its own section on the website, and are working on some animated scenes and embedding 3d assets to join the live video feed and newsticker. The team talked about different layout options, and ways to highlight the new section. This got us talking about using this template for various ingame companies in the future, giving them their own section on the front page. Jesse refined some of the layouts on the merch page and worked on resizing some logos too.

The art team continued work on creating a new spawn area. We’re keeping the underground/abandoned sewer motif, but are turning our one room studio into a spacious 3 room apartment, complete with a little hang-out area perfect for talking about your day, and sharing the location of clean water. It’s sure to be the envy of anyone being brought back to life after the fracture. They are working on a few concepts for other areas and buildings mentioned in the game stories as well. The armory is next on the list, and we should have some shots to share soon. Chris chose this moment to talk about the history of Titan I missile silo control domes, which one of the underground spaces resembled.

We continued our work on a group play system. The first pass on ui work is done, and we have team map markers in place, as well as VOIP. We want to encourage group play as much as we can, and are just about ready to start testing the system we’ve built. If all goes as planned, next week we will be happily running through Lahaina in small groups, avoiding the dangerous animals, and horrors of the jungle, while hunting each other down. We discussed including some sort of contested resources scenario, or a situation where teams have to hold the communications tower for a period of time. To be honest, it’s probably going to look more like a bloodbath than a tactical group effort to obtain a goal at first, but we need to test out every part of the team experience, even killing a whole bunch of people.

We did some more AI work, and San ran an experiment to see how much performance was impacted with multiple AI’s running around. The art team are making a materials change that looks much better, and saves on the GPU as well. With our TruSky issues worked out for now, there is some gorgeous weather in the game currently. However, as Grant would say they, “left the curtain on the sausage” until the end, when they showed off the latest lighting work in conjunction with a working weather system. You can see below how gorgeous our weather and day/night lighting work is in the game right now.

April 5, 2018

Building Better Buildings and Body Armor

As we approach the end of the week, the web team is making good progress on finishing up two projects: The Veil News Network (VNN) newsticker, and a table style view of game packages. We’ve fixed some overlap and spacing issues on the ticker, and have completed some styling work to make it more consistent. We plan to have links to live streaming video of news events, and a quick way for you to save pictures to your profile in the near future, but our first pass at VNN work is almost done.

The new game package view is almost wrapped up as well. Jesse showed off the latest color-coded iteration. Each item included in a package will have its own description and icon, making it easy to see what your getting with each purchase. We’re working on the icons currently, and making sure that the layout properly resizes for various screen sizes, and mobile devices.

We talked about upcoming 3d work and water effects to help add a bit of polish to the environment. The team discussed our item spawning system and the current state of the programmatic building system. They are both very close to the point where we can quickly customize playable worlds with any number of: structures/buildings, environmental items like trees and rocks, and loot controls, from what’s inside a warehouse full of crates, to how much food is in a refrigerator.

This led us to a discussion about a few of the large villages/areas we have planned for the future. We talked about the how fun a big village is, and how maddening trying to navigate a huge one can be. The last thing we want to do is create a place where it takes 20 minutes to run through a maze of stairs, ladders, and levels just to get a bottle of water or a handful of bullets.

The first version of our crafting system is fleshed out. There is a sizable list of items players can create to make their time in Lahaina more enjoyable and survivable. You can harvest: stone, cloth, metal, wood, and twine to build a wide array of weapons, armor, and gun parts. We fixed the bug that made the sky fill with wood when you chop down a tree, but discovered that a few rocks refused to give up stone or ore no matter how long you beat on them.

Finally, the art team is focusing on polishing up the entire map grid by grid, adding finishing touches and working out any bugs. We’re making sure that there is something of interest to explore, or a resource to gather in every area, keeping players moving around the entire map. As you can see from the shots below, we are making great progress with our global lighting and post processing work.

That’s all for this week. We’ll be back with more updates and screenshots later.

March 23, 2018

Logging Lahaina and Breaking News

As we come to the end of sprint 20, the web team remained focused on adding improvements to the Veil News Network (VNN) feature, and squashing bugs. Scrolling across the front page with test data currently, VNN will provide players with near real-time news about the most important events going on in the game. We plan on adding filtering features allowing you to see news specific to you, your friends, and your House (providing your a member of one), in the near future.

Jared worked on the news story templates to make them clearer, and added some more to cover all the different kinds of stories we plan to include. We discussed at some length different ways to ensure that the automated system randomizes language sufficiently. We want to avoid the feed getting bogged down with repetitive stories and alerts. It’s a nontrivial problem, and we came up with a few ideas to improve the service. We have a way to go before it’s working as well as we’d like, but it’s off to a good start.

In addition to the functionality work, Jesse did a lot of work on the newsticker look and feel. He adjusted some of the text size and color to make things more readable to old eyes like Chris’s. He also adjusted the speed of the newsfeed so even non-speed readers will have a chance to read the alerts. Of course with every new project a few bugs pop-up, and VNN isn’t any different. We found a few overlapping/rendering issues that Jesse should have fixed soon.

The spawning area got a lot of attention as well. With the first pass at an underground spawning area complete, we talked at length about improvements, and the look and feel of the next iteration. The art team showed off a few concept drawings for a future restart area. We discussed what that place should look like, and what should be available for players before they return to the wilds of Lahaina. We looked at a number of variations of the technology that restore players physical bodies, the Nuuskin machines, too.

We continued work on adding new slides to freshen up the look of the front page. A few new callouts will be added to explain some of the more complex systems in the game, and highlight important features. While everything you need to know is in the FAQ, we want to make everything as easy to understand as possible.

Finally, there’s some good news for everyone likes to sleep all night and work all day. Your Lahaina lumberjacking dreams can finally become a reality. The animations for chopping down trees is done, the harvesting system is working, and we’ve worked out our lingering wood bug. Previously, when a player tried to chop down a tree, every tree in a huge radius would produce wood. While it was great for clearcutting enthusiasts, it wasn’t exactly what we had in mind, and was ecologically unsound. As you can see from the shot below, there is no shortage of harvestable wood and vines for your arts and crafts needs, providing you know where to look.

We’ll be back with more updates, pictures, and the latest logging news later this week.

March 13, 2018

Tag: textures