March Update: Art Galore

Good evening Rhyldan! We hope you've navigated your April Fool's Day unscathed. While we enjoy a good prank we won't be dishing out any delightful jests today. That isn't to say we haven't squirreled away a few tricks and treats for later. Rambling aside let's dive into these months short and sweet update.

In Game Discussions:

We want to give a shoutout for all the players in the game that have joined the Q&A’s in game over the last month. The information has been invaluable. The ideas and suggestions given were great. A few of these have been incorporated into our notes for some of the system redesigns. Keep it up, we look forward to more of these throughout development.

Some of these great ideas have evolved around Housing, Harvesting, Crafting and more. The last few days, the Tracking skill and how that can be improved to work better with the new upcoming systems has been most productive as well. Even the little things count.

Upgrading Development Servers Progress:

New servers were finished, we are about 65% through converting and updating repop to work with the new updated dev server. This progress will continue until the conversion is done. Additional changes will be reflected in the next game update. Once stable and players give the thumbs up, we will then update servers and additional files for Repop Live.

Some of the major work is updating files that will allow the current version of Repop to communicate correctly with the servers and back to the client.

The area we were focused on at the end of last month was Engine/Dev Client communication and ABT’s file structure. This month we are focusing on Client, accounts and character (player client) communications. The trick is to make sure we keep this consistent and will easily translate to the next update for HE for Repop seamlessly, as well as keep client/server communication working properly on the new hardware.

Some of the challenges and added work we are doing to improve Repop development and then the game is that the server specifically is a combination of changes in how we and AWS provisions the newer servers and hardware (which works with the current version of HeroEngine).

Some of these changes from 2013/2014 to current are the networking drivers, and the new way they define networks which is nothing like how it used to work with our older version of HeroEngine, which Repop is currently using. We also have to update several of the libraries such as Python, C++ and so on.

Areas of focus for Repop and this upgrade:

Infrastructure (completed)

Code libraries

Repo HE Framework adjustments

Art Development Progress:

As the server/Repop upgrade is currently in progress we have been undergoing efforts to move the new art assets onto the Dev server. These assets are both updated versions of current art and new.

For those who've not previously followed our updates, the art optimization effort is ongoing progress. One could think of this as a transition phase for the current art. Existing assets undergo updates to optimize their performance or they're rebuilt in a similar style but will have less of an impact on the player experience. New assets are being created in the same consistent manner.

This process will allow us to meld the existing styles with our updated vision for the art. Players will be able to see this developing transition of art styles in the new Island. This work is going in now and can be seen on the Island on Dev.

Art currently on Dev server:

New Glow Map shader for SpeedTree based flora

Additional cleanup on Character Select

Updated ocean/sea cubemaps (2)

New Environment cubemap (1)

New village houses (exteriors and interiors) (38)

New Walls for the village area (3)

New doors for village and similar buildings (10)

New steps for village areas (4)

New lights and the communication poles (4)

New solar panels and transformers for the Isle power plant (8)

New decks (platforms) for the primary area of the island (2)

New watchtowers (4)

New walls for FPR and RIN areas (5)

New + Updated OWON Red bunkers (4)

New Island Clone Cafe (1)

New lily and lily pads (5)

Over 15 species of trees

There is also a lot of work going in art and states. The states system that allows us to have animated assets and interactions, such as doors. Here is a small list of assets we are currently working on.

Art currently being worked on:

New DoF (depth of field) shader for the island

New Shuttle port (4)

New Shuttle port deck (platform) (4)

New center Memorial Fountain (1)

New Medical Center (2)

New Island Lodge (2)

New Island Lodge Deck (2)

New Nation Embassy’s (3)

New walls for OWON (4)

New dynamic detail (13)

New Crop plants (3)

Additional Tree assets (4)

New Tree harvesting assets (2)

New Mineral harvesting assets (2)

… Much more to come

As always we are excited to share a glimpse of what art has been creating and optimizations they've made. We'll continue to give sneak peeks of the art as we progress. For those following our social media or participating in our discord channel, you may recognize a few of the following assets.

Island Progress:

It has been an exciting build phase for us this month. White boxes are being replaced with assets, the terrain base paint is coming along. It's almost strange to go from simplistic white cubes and flat terrain to sculpted features and assets. The world is developing before our eyes and we can't help but be excited.

We hope you'll continue to follow our updates and join in on the creation of this project. Your feedback, and participation in discussions on the forums, discord, and social platforms help fuel our progress.