Greetings Pioneers!

We’ve had a big push this week to get our newest mite-ey creature in the game with it’s new behaviours and the ability to jump! Watch out these guys will have a fondness for Pioneer flesh…

John – Lead Designer

Jingle bells, ding, ding, Whats that? The sound of the deadline bell for this current sprint. The level design and creature team have been doing a lot of deliberation upto this point over updates to designs but they have definitely delivered on our latest run at getting some incredible new stuff done.

Matt – Art Director

Tom and I have been hard at work implementing our final detail layering into the terrain. We’ve based a lot of the rock formation around the look of lava fields to create that horrible tormented ground look and give reason to the planets source of toxic atmosphere. Again this is Work in progress visual stuff but it’s much closer to the final product that we’re aiming for!

Lee – Technical Director

This week I’ve managed to get our code merged into the latest version of the engine. I’ve also been giving our group movement code some attention to make it easier for the spawners and designers to put AI into groups and formations if they want. The last thing I did was add functionality to allow designers to plug in animation data to the behaviour tasks.

Carlos – Developer

Work has continued on splitting the sell functionality away from our other modules. The idea is to allow the sell functionality to be handled within its own module, rather than have our mining functionality deal with selling

Olly – Junior Programmer

Continued tinkering with the vehicle mechanics. Really trying to get to a point where they feel really fun and handle they way you’d expect. Got some good feedback from to the rest of the team and I think I can speak for everyone in saying that we’re all excited to get them into Eden Star.

Marcin – Designer

Jumps and hops and leaps all the way. I’ve been working on the jumping logic for the AI creatures, namely the Mite and the Stalker. What I am was aiming for was a leap attack logic with impeccable controllable timing for the Mite, because I really wanted to be parry-able, and our parry logic obeys a very strict timing rules.

As for the stalker, I want it to be able to climb high ground like being able to reposition onto tall rocks and cliffs and the base roofs. I want an agile enemy that can match the Pioneer’s ability to get places, so I needed logic that was extremely precise as to where the creature will land. I was able to do this thanks to the amazing Sebastian Lague. Check him out on YouTube: https://youtu.be/IvT8hjy6q4o .

Tom – Designer

Secret-Santa shenanigans aside, I’ve been busy getting our new terrain layers implemented into engine for our other designer and artists to have a play with. It’s all coming together really nicely, especially now that we’re able to implement our new ai and watch them scurrying around the desolate landscape of Pharus 7. I also have to say, it’s amazing how much better things look in the new version of the engine! 😀

Merry Christmas everyone, really looking forward to what the New Year holds for Eden Star going forward!

Alex – Designer

Let’s talk about master materials, I’m sure you all remember that sweet looking tile set I was modelling and unwrapping before, looking all monochromatic and boring. *Waves arms furiously* WELL NOT ANYMORE!!! The models and unwraps are finished bois, now the fun part starts…MATHS and PAINTING!

That’s rights, we’re talking world aligned roughness and normal maps (which are anything but), Metal, colour and detail Masks influenced by vertex world positions and tweakable in instances so versatile it hurts.

Merry Christmas.

Sam – Concept Artist

The majority of this week has been dedicated to getting the Mite just right, as we want to keep the legs a certain shape at the same time as keeping the proportions and anatomy physically realistic, and true to the purpose we want it to serve in-game.

So far we’ve played around with up to 6 different styles for the larger leg (the important one that propels the creature into the player’s face) and are very nearly ready to move onto other things. Alongside all this, I’ve also produced a semi-profile view of the critter to help better our understanding of the shape ready for modelling, as well as some small quality-of-life tweaks to our heavy vehicle from a few weeks back.

Lauren – Lead Animator

This week has been all about the Mite, our latest creature (name TBC). I have been animating its attack and various creepy movements such as sniffing out players and feeding on flesh. Its behaviours are reminiscent of Half-Life’s Headcrabs or the Facehuggers from Alien. It aims for player’s weak spots with stabby face claws in a mid-air assault. Though its attack is damaging, it can easily be avoided or intercepted. You should be able to hit them mid-air with the axe and send them flying.

Andy – Lead QA

With the engine being update to 4.18 due to a foliage destruction crash there has been a lot of “retesting” by myself and Jamie. We have also been focusing our efforts on the AI due to a lot of fixes being submitted.

Myself and Matt also finally got around to putting up the Christmas tree and a few decorations just to make the office feel a little more festive.

See you in the fray!

-Team Flix