Pine DevBlog #62 - Turns and Targets Posted in Development Blogs

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Happy new year everyone! We've already been hard at work, more excited than ever, chugging away on Pine's rich island and its species. Just like last year, we'll be doing weekly blogs, and here's the first one!



Last week/year we spoke about roles, among which was the trader: merchants that move between villages after grabbing resources from their own villages. Flags are what separates them, and gives them a nice 'shoppy' look. We showed the Cariblin and Litter last week, so here's the Fexel and Krocker:











We're enlarging Hue's animation set for movement to give him more nuance. This includes really really short animations that help bring the move states to life, just like this 180 turn - don't blink!







Last week's rocks are now being implemented into the blockouts of the island, after adding the terrain texture of the dune cliffs and revamping the normal cliff texture. It's starting to look like the Dry Bay alright!







Moreover, we are happy to say that the blockout of the entire island is now done - shapes, villages, routes and more have been defined (at least in a first pass)!



One of the more important tasks of the last few weeks is also taking shape. We are revamping the simulation by making it utilize a more advanced system that is more widely used in AAA development - Goal Oriented Action Planning. This is a way of dictating goals for our species, and linking them to actions to perform in order to get there.







Think of it like the Sims - they have a query of actions that they perform because of certain needs or, indeed, certain goals. This query can be interrupted or shaped differently based on circumstances, but it's a solid and optimized way to let them move to targets.



We are filling the island with smart nodes that they use (if they know about them) to perform actions. For example, we can let them sit inside their houses, and gather food at food nodes, while we can interrupt and change those tasks at runtime.



We had been wanting to revamp this big system for a while, and it looks like it's getting there. After the groundwork is done, adding content is easy. We can't wait!



Until next time!