DevLog Roundup: Updates from September

Highlights from last month’s game development progress include: Extensive work on our Golang server, and research into Unreal Engine 5 (and how it will impact the development of our game). We also created loads of concept art for the first major city in Erendorn, and made lots of progress on our in-game heavy armour! As always, join us on Twitter, Instagram, or Reddit for daily updates on Depths of Erendorn – now let’s get into it!

3D Modelling

September saw our 3D Artist working hard on our latest Heavy Armour set. This armour will be available to certain Character Classes in Erendorn, and will feature as an optional cosmetic choice for players.

The ZBrush blockout was the first step in creating the amour, before moving on to finer details. Eventually moving on to adding coloured textures and bringing the model to life. The next steps will be implementing this set in game and have it applied to the appropriate characters.

Environment Art

Our Environment Artist has been looking into UE5 this month. After making the switch to Unreal Engine earlier in the games development, we’ve aimed to take full advantage of what the software has to offer. Fast forward to the announcement of Unreal Engine 5, and we’re incredibly excited for what this means for the game, and ultimately our players!

Some of the things that needed working on, and looking into were:

Making mountainous inroads and peaks, after a breakthrough with Gaea and UE5 testing.
Configuring landscape streaming proxies and researched other new UE5 streaming techniques for greater optimisation.
Creating a new mountainous region for the game.
Discussions regarding a redesign of how the landscape should work, with a redesign of ‘zone one’ to follow.
Researching the landscape needs for Erendorn, and the technical requirements.

Animation

Last month, our Animator made loads of progress on several models in-game. These include: The Mammoth, Bear, Ghouls and several level 1 models that needed rigging, adjusting, skinning and importing in. More specifically, we added:

Bear idle, run, walk, attack, hit reaction and death.
Ghoul walk, idle, attack, hit reaction and death.
Mammoth walk, run, attack, hit reaction and death.
Added the Frost Dwarf Merchant, Storm Elf initiate, Rhinogar Warrior, Rockbark Sapling, Stone Golem Slaver, Zullra and Bear into the engine.

Set Piece Design

Our Junior Environment Artist was hard at work this month, focusing on more set pieces. These decorations will feature in almost every aspect of the game. Appearing in towns, cities, during events, out in the world and of course in the dungeon depths. A few of the assets they worked on are:

The Obsidian Portal
The Lucky Idol
One of the Merchant Carts

Game Trailer

If you’ve been keeping up to date with our work, you’ll know that we’ve been creating a brand new trailer for the game. We’re incredibly close to completing this, as we wait for our audio and video teams to add the finishing touches. Make sure you’re following us on social media to catch a first glimpse!

Sound Design

Our Sound Designer brought some hard hitting weapons to life this month! Featuring axes and spears. Although this may not seem like much, he’s been working behind the scenes on the new trailer we mentioned above. There’ll be loads more to come from our audio wizard next month, so stay tuned!

2-Handed Axe

1-Handed Axe

2-Handed Short Staff

2-Handed Spear

Programming

Golang Server

It’s been a very busy month for our programming team, more specifically the work carried out on our Golang Server. One of the major parts of this being connecting our testclient to the server, and actually hosting it there. This didn’t come without its bugs though (as is expected with this type of work). Some of the things we tackled this month include:

Fixing a potential server crash when a player wasn’t in a Game Session and sent a session command.
Removed old Authentication command from the commands map.
Added a hashing command to the client – using this the client can send messages and calculate its hash, so that the server can verify it’s receiving the correct message.
Rewrote the client-side inventory. The client has been prepared to use the new inventory standard by the new server, upgrades include the ability to have more than one stack of any item. Previously this wasn’t possible as all items of the same type were stacked together. Every stack now stores a unique Inventory ID.
Items have been adjusted in how they are stored/created in the client to reflect changes on the server.

Concept Art

Our concept artist has been incredibly hard at work this month, focusing on the first major city of Erendorn. These sketches are brought to life by our environment artists, before being fully implemented into the game. By conceptualising in-game assets first, it allows us to iron out details, ensure the designs make sense, and fully realise an idea before we begin the complex task of modelling it in-engine.