This week lots of small refinements have gone into the game. On top of the new features and improvements we mentioned in the last update, we have added the following to the list.

New weather effects including hail and sandstorm.

New fog effect (low, medium and high height fog).

New color palettes for the worlds.

Visual improvements to the existing HUD.

A fresh visual update to the Warp conduit (2nd iteration).

GUI optimization to make it run smoother.

Smoother portal / warp transitions.

More creature animation integration.

Other than that, we have been preparing for the PlayStation Experience that will be held in Anaheim, California on December 3rd and 4th. We will have some swag to give a way. Come see us and play the bleeding edge version of Boundless on PlayStation4.

We’re planning to update the game in Early Access very soon after the PlayStation Experience. Sorry, we are working hard to prepare for the trailer, the demo and the game update.

Code

Lots of work on the trailer! We been spending time on a time lapse regeneration of the world to show it being rebuilt by reversing it. We added bespoke scripts for entities in the trailer scenes. This is used for positioning and animating players, creatures and VFX. Various bug fixes to support the demo and trailer have been worked on including more issues fixed for portal transition glitches. For PSX we’ve been setting up new servers and demo kits.

The HUD has had more polish and the GUI optimized for PlayStation 4. The controller mappings have been revamped and the virtual keyboard support added for PS4.

Additionally we’ve added more VFX and features including a new warp activation effect and attachments of effects to skeleton joints. The Totem behaviour for planet picking is been reworked and the Slingbow has also polished up including some new animations.

Design

This week has all been about the trailer and the demo for PSX:

Luke has been working with Gerry on scripting a market scene to try and show the economy and social aspects of the game.

Ollie has mainly been working out what is needed for the hands-on demo, including PS4 / pad controls and some AI work.

Rob has been working on artwork for our demo stand, branding, and idents for the trailer, as well as more work on the HUD implementation.

Art

The art team has been hard at work supporting the trailer and demo for PSX:

Dom’s been working on the Hopper VFX progression to clearly present the hoppers’ behaviour states.

We’ve also be working on the Totem’s location marker creation process:

(LEAKED without permission.)

We’ve been developing a new warp conduit block for the next release. Concepted by Claudio, modelled by Jess:

Amanda has been concepting more creatures for Boundless 1.0. Here’s an exploration of the worms:

(Head for high ground!)

x