Primeval News

Dryosaurus hair spikes are now rendering correctly.

Fixed titanoboa players floating in the air.

Stopped allocating 80% of the GPU's memory for mipmap textures. Changed this value to a flat 1 GB of vram.

Hello everyone, I've been keeping busy working through the important list for Primeval this month. It may not seem like I've gotten as much done as the first or second half of last month but I was working behind the scenes with a new vegetation system that ended up not working out for the time being but I did walk away from that experience with an updated set of vegetation for a few of the biomes we use in the Savage Lands map. I'll continue to work through the list and will update everyone when the time comes.


[h2]Major Game Versions:[/h2]

• Converted the game to the High Definition Rendering Pipeline (HDRP) for higher-quality visuals. This version of the game is available on the main download branch.
  
• The old URP version of the game has been removed from Steam because it performed poorly, looked worse, and had the same system requirements as the HDRP version.
  

[h2]Optimizations:[/h2]

• Made some performance optimizations to various parts of the project/code.
  

[h2]Maps:[/h2]

• Recreated "The Great Sands" map using the same format as the 32-biome Pangaea map, so the desert map now has more biomes.
  

[h2]New Features:[/h2]

• Added the HTrace Global Illumination system to the game. If you want to enable the feature, go into the graphics settings and enable it, then apply. If you lose too much performance enabling it you'll need to disable it, apply, and then restart the game to gain back the performance. this feature is only available on the (HDRP) version of the game.
  
• Added the ability for your creatures to morph their skin pattern into a random skin pattern. This costs 5 evolution points and is accessible via the "Morph Skin" button in the skins menu. Due to the rewriting of some code your creatures may have a different skin pattern upon logging in for the first time after this update.
  

[h2]Adjustments:[/h2]

• Made nightvision brighter to compensate for HDRP's brightness differences.
  
• Creatures are no longer automatically spawned from player nests. If you want to populate your nest you'll need to hatch eggs.
  
• Adjusted how much bleed damage is dealt to bleeding creatures.
  
• The player can no longer use abilities while the hoard or nest inventories are open.
  
• The player can no longer move while the hoard or nest inventories are open.
  

[h2]Fixes:[/h2]

• Fixed a glitch where if a creature died from bleed damage it would still behave as if it were alive.
  
• Fixed some problems where the colors generated by shedding your creature's skin weren't being saved and loaded properly.
  
• Fixed, creatures are now spawning from hatched player-laid eggs.
  
• Fixed a problem where hovering the mouse over a fertile egg item would cause the fps to drop considerably.
  
• Fixed nightvision mode not enabling or disabling with the V key.
  
• Fixed the lag spikes that were happening every 4 seconds from the global reflections in the (HDRP) version of the game.
  
• Fixed more errors with the creature color changing system.
  
• Fixed a problem where all fish were dying over time due to hunger and thirst.
  
• Fixed a problem with your creatures regaining their old colors after you morphed their skin and got a new skin pattern with no color variations and then logged out and then back in.
  
• Fixed some problems with the showing and hiding of health-bars and corpse/food-bars.
  
• Fixed blood drops incorrectly rendering.
  

Hello again everyone, after this month's previous update I've continued to get a lot done with the game. I'm still working through the high-priority list I made and still have more to do with it after this update as well.


[h2]Abilities:[/h2]

• Venomous Bite, a new ability has been added to the game. This ability is available for the troodon, dilophosaurus, and titanoboa. It inflicts toxins into its target. The older the creature is the more toxins it inflicts with its bite. Toxins up to 100% slow health regeneration and any toxins over 100% will cause the sufferer to slowly take damaage instead of regenerate health.
  
• Deadly Bite, a new ability has been added to the game. This ability deals a low amount of damage and 5x the normal amount of bleed damage. Spinosaurus, Megalodon Tylosaurus, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Sarcosuchus, Acrocanthosaurus, Allosaurus, Daspletosaurus, Dunkleosteus, Ceratosaurus ,Kryptops, Dimetrodon, and Deinonychus.
  
• Abilities in the tab menu now have a basic tooltip with info about the hovered ability.
  
• The player can no longer use abilities if the options window is open or if the gameplay menu is open.
  

[h2]Maps:[/h2]

• The huge Pangaea map has been fixed and re-enabled. It is 16 times larger than any of the other maps and will have a total of 32 biomes when finished. With this map working again I can focus more time into developing a single landscape and biomes to one day replace the other maps.
  
• The Savage Lands map has had a lot of its grass and plants replaced with new Megascans models that have LODs to help with performance. The savage lands map vegetation changes work with the Pangaea map and its biomes carry over to it.
  
• Increased the world bounds of the Pangaea map so your flyers could fly three times higher than previously before getting stuck.
  
• Added 20 new weather types across all of the maps.
  

[h2]Options:[/h2]

• Added a new save file for the spawning options, where you can change how many dinosaurs of each type spawn on any map. The file is named "Options_Spawning.iop" and it is generated after launching the game for the first time after this update. It is saved in the game's save file directory usually located at "C:/Users/*Username*/LocalLow/Exhibyte/Primeval/". The part of the file you want to change is where it says Dino_Terrestrial=0.5 and so on, change the 0.5 to whatever percentage you want for that spawn type. 0.01 is 1% so 0.5 would be 50% and 2.0 would be 200% and so on. Save the file and then launch the game to have these new values take affect. Spawning too many creatures can have a negative impact on your game's performance. The default values are a good starting point for most users for performance and quantity of creatures. Total value cannot exceed 5.0
  
• The weather sounds can now be turned down with the ambience slider in the volume settings.
  

[h2]Improvements:[/h2]

• Switched the game's rendering API from DirectX11 to DirectX12 so the CPU could offload some of its workload to the GPU.
  
• Turning has been slightly redesigned for a more realistic experience.
  
• Creature AI can now suffer from toxins.
  
• Enabled the Spine Animator component for most creatures so now they'll bend at their midsection while turning. Some creature models, mostly the oldest ones, were not compatible with this feature.
  
• Enabled the spine animator and tail animator for all AI creatures if that species has that feature enabled. This was done to make the AI feel more alive.
  
• Creature AI can now distance themselves away from their target while in combat to add more depth to the encounter.
  
• Creature AI can now stand idle and either play their call sound or play one of their idle animations.
  
• The wound decal system has been reactivated for creatures.
  
• Creature AI carnivores will no longer spawn near to larger carnivores unless they are a scavenger or hunt in packs with the larger creature.
  
• Now the player doesn't have to be so close to the water source in order to take a drink.
  

[h2]Adjustments:[/h2]

• Pressing the escape key no longer cancels auto-eat or auto-drink modes. You can still cancel it by pressing left-click or right-click.
  
• Creature AI that start to flee now clear their aggro list.
  

[h2]Fixes:[/h2]

• Fixed, the player's creatures can now again evolve the damage trait by attacking wild creatures.
  
• Fixed, the player's creatures now damage wild creatures at the correct time during an attack.
  
• Fixed, the player can once again initiate auto-eat and auto-drink modes the first time they try.
  
• Fixed, the player can no longer control their dinosaur's actions while typing into the chat box, which is accessed by pressing the enter key and closed by pressing the enter key again.
  
• Fixed a problem where if the player was typing into the chat input field and then clicked away from the chat input box the player's dinosaur controls could get locked until the input field gained focus again and was canceled by pressing the enter key.
  
• Fixed, the chat log no longer scrolls from the user pressing the movement keys.
  
• Fixed a lot of problems with chat mode including situations where you could get stuck in typing mode and not be able to control your creature.
  
• Fixed a glitch where if you breached from the water onto land you'd get stuck and would only be able to move forward.
  
• Fixed a glitch where aquatic AI creatures weren't chasing their target.
  
• Fixed a glitch where aquatic AI creatures weren't turning towards their target while chasing them.
  
• Fixed a glitch where aquatic AI creatures would get stuck at the surface of the water or the sea floor while fleeing.
  
• Fixed a glitch where aquatic AI creatures would spin out of control while attempting to flee.
  
• Fixed a glitch where if a swimming AI creature died rotated it would sink in a sideways direction.
  
• There is now a safety check, that if the player's creature falls under the terrain a certain distance their creature will be put back on the terrain's surface. This was useful for the Pangaea map because terrains are loaded in when within range and loading can have a short delay.
  
• Fixed a glitch where creature AI that were swimming and chasing something onto the land were falling under the terrain and disappearing.
  
• Precise movement was fixed for acrocanthosaurus.
  
• Fixed a problem with sunstones, now they'll give the correct amount of sunstone intensity to nearby creatures. Sunstone intensity still amplifies your growth rate, the higher the value the higher your growth rate goes and resting while under its affects are twice as affective.
  
• Fixed some problems with smelling now it should be working properly again for smelling other creatures. Also made carnivores able to smell creature corpses from the same distance they can smell live creatures and made carnivores able to smell carcasses that same distance as well. Herbivores can't smell creatures as far away as a carnivore can. There are still the different ranks of smelling that affect how far away your creature can smell something.
  
• Fixed a problem where creature AI wouldn't play their walking animation sometimes if they were walking.
  
• Fixed a couple of problems with overhead foodbars.
  
• Fixed a glitch where the player's creature could get stuck and not be able to move.
  
• Fixed a glitch where food that was picked up in a dinosaur's mouth was not visible due to its size being smaller than intended.
  
• Fixed a glitch where the creatures you picked up and dropped would have an extra corpsebar.
  
• Fixed, now creatures you pick up will have their corpsebar hidden.
  

Hello everyone, this month I've been able to get a lot done on the game. I decided to take a step back and make a list of the most important things to get done. I've been working through that list and have been thinking about what would be best for the gameplay and longevity of the game. In some cases this meant changing how some things work but I think it will all be for the best.


[h2]New Features:[/h2]

• Player Abilities, unlock up to 3 different slots for swappable attacks and abilities. The first slot is unlocked automatically upon hatching, the second slot unlocks when reaching the sub-adult growth stage, and the third slot unlocks when reaching the adult growth stage. The attacks and abilities pool is very limited for now, more will be added in the future for the different species and different types of gameplay. Eventually you'll be able to spend evolution points to unlock more attacks and abilities, and this progress will be saved for each of your creatures.
  
• Added an XeSS-Upscaler to the game, which can improve FPS by more than 100% in some cases.
  

[h2]Improvements:[/h2]

• Upgraded the project from Unity 2022.3 to Unity 6.
  
• Permadeath Mode or Hardcore mode has been removed from the game. Every time one of your creatures builds a nest that species gains a nest point. When your creatures die, in order to play them again you need to have at least 1 nest point because it costs 1 nest point to revive that creature and play them again.
  
• Redesigned gameplay HUD.
  
• Now, when your creature grows to the next growth stage, if you are showing overhead health-bars/food-bars they will refresh, just in case your diet changes and you need to see different bars.
  
• Now, the tab menu is opened with the tab key and if you press the tab key again it will cycle through the different tabs. You need to close the tab menu with the escape key now.
  
• Weather randomization has been enabled for all maps.
  
• Adjusted all LOD Groups for all creature species so they'll look better closer to the camera.
  

[h2]Adjustments:[/h2]

• The player's creatures can no longer be elder growth stage. If any of your creatures are elders they will be converted into adults upon them entering the game. The elder growth stage can no longer be reached by players. It is reserved for the AI for now. Your creatures can still continue getting larger after becoming an adult.
  
• Gave all creatures 10x more stamina to be able to sprint longer.
  
• Bulkier herbivores can now sprint at 4x their walk speed, up from 3x.
  
• All creatures walk, run, and sprint 1.5x as fast now.
  
• Creature speed after adult size 1.0 now scales based on their larger size.
  
• Made flying creatures able to fly faster. You still need to hold shift and press the spacebar multiple times to fly faster.
  
• Creatures will now get hungry and thirsty less often. Adults every 60 seconds, sub-adults every 45 seconds, juveniles every 30 seconds, and hatchlings every 15 seconds. Every time they get hungry they lose 1% of their total food or thirst.
  
• Creature AI are once again getting hungry and thirsty and will lose health when starving or dehydrated and can eventually die from those conditions.
  
• Creature AI carnivores will only hunt if their food is below 75%.
  
• When attacked, carnivore AI will flee if below 30% max health.
  
• When attacked, non-carnivore AI will flee if below 30% max health unless it is a defensive creature, then they will flee if below 15% max health.
  
• When looking for a target to attack, carnivore AI will not attack if they are below 60% max health.
  
• When looking for a target to attack, non-carnivore AI will not attack if they are below 60% max health unless it is a defensive creature, then they will not attack if they are below 30% max health.
  
• Creature AI can now regenerate health over time.
  
• Now, when a creature attacks another creature, the attacker will gain more interest in their target. This is so when a new target comes into range the attacker will not switch to the new target until it is done with the first target.
  
• Players can now hurt their own species by attacking them.
  
• Item quantity text is now larger.
  
• Increased the volume of the ambient sound manager.
  
• Removed the Task Reward "Level Reduction".
  
• Made jumping for aerial creatures resemble takeoff and soaring, you'll still need to jump once in the air to start flying.
  

[h2]Fixes:[/h2]

• Creatures no longer fly high above the water when swimming.
  
• Player nests are now being built at the player creature's location.
  
• Footstep sounds are once again working for the player and other creatures.
  
• Fixed a glitch where you couldn't click the "Continue" button after selecting a creature from your creature list.
  
• Creatures are no longer increasing their flesh toxicity while they are alive, only after they die.
  
• Dead creatures are once again showing their corpse-bar.
  
• The rocks and bones in the Great Sands map are no longer glossy.
  
• Creatures will now flee from or defend against other creatures.
  
• Creatures will now attack their attacker if not fleeing.
  
• Attack and kill tasks are once again working for the player.
  
• Some creatures weren't registering as the proper food type, "Fish, Meat, Insect".
  
• Smaller creatures that just spawn into the game should no longer appear to be floating in the air until you get close to them.
  
• Creatures should no longer sink through rocks when standing on them while also standing above water.