Update 22: Staying Busy This Summer
Hello everyone!
No epic update video for you this month, but we’re working on something cool that’ll likely scratch that itch before the month is out.
Video aside, this month is still loaded with plenty of updates.
Enjoy!
Character Art & Concepts
Elemental/Elemental Pet modeled
Elemental Shader Prototyped
Dropped item bag
Backpack, quiver, pouch, arrow, lantern, torch attachment items modeled
Integration work with Tech to support Player Character Gear (attachments) system
Finished up jackal model
Sculpted initial draft of both male & female Ashira
Integrated first pass animations for all the critters
Modeled all the robe meshes for Human, Ogre, Gnome
Initial concepts for Ghouls, Gargoyles, and Giants
More Player Character textures to support Player Customization work (see tech below)
Worked with Tech to define and integrate better skin tone, hair color, and other presets
Worked with Tech on our data-driven item appearance tools
Zukan typically sculpts the models, then proceeds to “chonkify” them to get the old school, slightly blockier look before we apply textures.
We’re working on a system that allows players to show certain equipment on their character (such as backpacks, quivers, belt pouches, scrolls, flasks, books, lanterns, cloaks, and other items.
The visuals aren’t forced (ie not everyone has to show their backpack if they don’t want to) and are meant to help provide more interesting character customization, as well as reinforce the adventure themes.
We’ve got some cool concepts for our Elementals (see concept art below), and have done some pre-visualization work to see how we want to tackle the shaders for them. See that in action in the video above.
We’ve been spending time on creating an art pipeline that lets us break our armor/items in many layers, which we can mix-and-match, and also modify the colors and styles of, via our visualizer and design database.
This gives us a ton of overall variety and reduces our production time/costs.
Don’t worry, the example above runs through a few extremes, but we won’t go too shiny.
More on this soon! There’s a lot to show off.
Environment Art & Concepts
Continued the grey boxing of the Western Districts of Night Harbor
Created and placed the Night Market structures
Concepted additional structures, and harbor entrance’s statues
Weather system is now integrated
Design
Starting Stat Changes
Combat Formula Work
Focused Combat Testing
Ability Creation & Balancing
Itemization & Crafting Recipes
Mob Placement/Population Work
Class/Race Combo List Revised (both Starting & Quest Unlocks)
Class Description Write-ups
Began work on Night Harbor Starting Quests
Integrated our new Title Screen track (thanks Robert!)
Tech
Now supporting facial feature customization for Ogre and Human
More detailed facial customization added for Gnomes
Now using more natural skin tones, features, and hair colors during character customization
Fixes to loading character skin and face on same-zone respawn and equipping items
Illusion spells now support skin tone and facial feature customization
Player corpses now have the correct customized skin tone and face
Fixed intermediate face being displayed between changing face options during char customization
Fixed a framerate issue in the login scene
Created ability effects for melee abilities such as weapon scaled damage
Implemented bows and ranged combat
Created proper skill gain formulas
Animation system re-creation to support a large variety of models with standard animations
Revamped Inventory System
Continued balance patches
Adjusted walk speeds globally
Weather System added
Updated spell interruption and channeling
Texture loading optimization (more than 10x faster)
Implemented automated building and deployment of executables in preparation for launcher
Added tons of texturing options with new blend modes, masking, etc all data driven
Players no longer float 6 inches off the ground!
Better caching routines for faster loading, but also shouldn't fill up user’s memory
Global textures that can be worn by any race
Dressing room tool created
Tons of bug fixing and polish
New obfuscation measures
In Closing
As you can see, it’s been another busy month.
Big thanks to everyone on the team for continuing to drive MnM forward at an impressive clip (especially, with it being Summer and all).
And another big thank you for all of the feedback and pleasant interactions on our Livestreams and in Discord.
If you haven’t already, don’t forget to check out our:
Have a great month and hopefully, we’ll see you on one of our streams or in Discord!