The future of Echoes of Extinction - New Dev-blog #27-28 are Out!

[h2]Islander[/h2][p]– Project Lead[/p][p]Hey Extinctioneers, welcome to another dev-blog.[/p][p]These past weeks have been a big push around the Tech Demo and the launch period, with a lot of work going into stability, performance, UI, sounds, map polish, and core gameplay improvements. We’ve also had consistent weekly iteration based on feedback, balancing things like night vision, nutrients, AI spawns, and growth, while squashing crashes and improving the overall experience.[/p][p]Thank you for the support throughout the Tech Demo and the Kickstarter, we managed to hit our goal on Kickstarter with 126% funded, which is crazy, it’s been a wild start to the year.[/p][p]Video:
[dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][hr][/hr][h2]Kouga[/h2][p]– UI/UX Designer[/p][p]New month, new work. You may have noticed my designs being implemented in the game already, such as the compass and the chatbox. After completing the basics, I started a full redesign of the Dinosaur TAB menu, and it was a real challenge.[/p][p]I finished it not long ago, but things will likely change a bit.[/p][p]Also, why is this Eocarcharia over 64 tons? (Joke, no worries.) My next goal is the skin editor and character selection. You can have one human and one dinosaur on each server, and I need to make sure people can check both and clearly understand they’re different slots.[/p][p]This month has also been busy. Some of my UI is already implemented in the game, such as the main gameplay UI, compass, and chat. I made more progress on Human TAB and Dinosaur TAB, but most importantly, the CREATION TAB.[/p][p]I’ve been joining the game servers every week to ensure all exported images and vectors are working correctly, while also taking notes on the gameplay experience. So far, I’ve gathered this:[/p]

• [p]Difficult to find Dryo AI[/p]
• [p]Wood and stone collectable meshes aren’t intuitive[/p]
• [p]Missing group system (very important)[/p]
• [p]No teleport buttons for admins/devs[/p]

[p][/p][hr][/hr][h2]FuriousSmaug[/h2][p]– Programmer[/p][p]Hey all. I don’t have much to say for the earlier part of this period, partially because you already know a lot with us releasing the Tech Demo, and partially because I’m still in shock at how much support we’ve gathered. This is my first major project, and it’s been a phenomenal start.[/p][p]The finishing touches and optimizations were put in place, requiring all of us to work together to make it happen quickly and efficiently.[/p][p]Looking forward, the Tech Demo will remain open for about a month or so, depending on how it goes. We’ll continue updating it as needed until it’s in an acceptable spot, and then we’ll focus on Early Access. New abilities and Purussaurus are on the horizon, along with the environmental tolerance system to start making way for the major hygiene system. Even further into the future, the first 14 playables are now publicly known, with the following revealed next: Gallimimus, Utahraptor, Chasmosaurus, Spicomellus, Enigmosaurus, and Spinosaurus.[/p][p]It’s been a wonderful start to the new year. Our Tech Demo and Kickstarter were a great success, funding more than required. Seeing everyone enjoy the game and provide feedback throughout has been a blast.[/p][p]This month you’ve seen various changes with the dinosaurs as we updated the Tech Demo each week. Night vision had some of the largest changes, starting with very dark, foggy vision and ending with outlines in dark areas, being able to see distant mountains and trees, and increased brightness and range. We’ve also been balancing nutrients, AI spawns, and growth, as this was the first time we could really see the game function in an active environment. While it’s still not the 80–100 players needed consistently for the system to work, players have still had fun (with some struggles) growing and surviving.[/p][p]Looking forward, Purussaurus will soon be worked on more consistently now that most core bugs have been addressed. Abilities like grab and shove for Eocar and Ourano are also going to get their code started. Environmental tolerances are next on the chopping block for dinosaur core systems, but this is dependent on how well our upgrade to UE5.7 goes. Hope for the best, but prepare for a month of bugs and pain.[/p][p][/p][hr][/hr][h2]Dre~[/h2][p]– Social Media Manager[/p][p]As we all know, the stress test came out not too long ago. With that, I’ve been very busy trying to gather a lot of content for all of you.[/p][p]Now that the stress test is out, I have the possibility to not only show a bit more of how the game will actually be once it comes out, but also bring a bunch of you with me into these videos as well.[/p][p]Recording and gathering content on the stress test has been very fun, and I can’t wait to show you more of what I’ve gathered.[/p][p]It’s been a very exciting start to the new year. We kicked it off with the start of our Kickstarter and the start of our Tech Demo. It’s been very fun interacting with all of you to get content for our platforms.[/p][p]Now that we’ve reached our goal, I can’t wait to see what this year has planned and what new things I’ll be able to show you.[/p][hr][/hr][h2]Soundrynx[/h2][p]– Sound Designer[/p][p]This month was really intense. I tried my best to fix and remaster previous sounds and make sure I finished everything needed for the Tech Demo. I created sounds for both adult Eocar and Ourano, plus their juvie variants. It’s been intense, but I can tell it will be worth it.[/p][p]Ourano (Juvie):
Friendly, Surrender, Talk, Hurt, Threaten, Broadcast, Death
Alt Attacks (4), Shank (4), Bite (3), Scent, Drink, Eat[/p][p]Ourano (Adult):
Alt Attacks (4), Shank (4), Bite (3), Scent, Drink, Eat[/p][p]Eocar:
Triple Bite (Adult) (3), Triple Bite (Juvie) (3), Death (Juvie)[/p][p]This month I moved on to the next asset: Purussaurus. I made its aggressive call.[/p][hr][/hr][h2]Minizep_Wolf[/h2][p]– Animator[/p][p]This month I worked hard on adapting unarmed animations to be used with the two-handed spear. There are quite a lot of them.[/p][p][/p][hr][/hr][h2]Vittoria Leto[/h2][p]– Artist / Character Design[/p][p]This month I worked on the design of the character Auriel, developing all the necessary material for her proper adaptation to 3D. I worked from initial ideas and silhouettes to the final development, including turnarounds, clothing details, and material references. The goal was to create a clear and functional design that supports the 3D workflow without losing personality.[/p][p]Auriel is the leader of a village, meant to convey leadership, a strategic mind, loyalty, resilience, and ambition.[/p][p]After Auriel, I worked on a completely opposite character: the concept of Celine Skyfeather, a priestess and spiritual leader raised in the temple of Zorath, the King of the Sky. Trained from childhood in sacred rituals and reading omens, she embodies a deep connection with the wind and the divine.[/p][p]The design conveys a serene, ceremonial presence, with soft, ethereal movement and a regal yet restrained silhouette. The visual language draws from the celestial sphere through blue tones, circular forms, ritual stones, and feathers — contrasting with the dark, prehistoric world ruled by wild nature and colossal dinosaurs. White clay makeup enhances her piercing gaze, while ritual markings on her hands and feet emphasize her role as a bridge between the divine and the earthly.[/p][p][/p][hr][/hr][h2]AirSickLowLander[/h2][p]– Level Designer[/p][p]This month I’ve been working hard to fix bugs and improve performance. VRAM usage has been cut down to less than half of what it was before, and I made big strides in performance with Nanite as well. Nanite now spends much more time in software rasterization, which is what we want. On top of that, more meshes share materials, which improves instancing and reduces VRAM required for the map, along with reduced shader permutations. The bug reports I’ve received helped immensely and gave me clear areas to focus on.[/p][p]More recently, I’ve spent most of my time polishing the rivers, transitions between them, and other smaller issues reported on the map. I also reworked a few areas of the water material for lakes and rivers, improving specular and normals at glancing angles to make the water look more realistic.[/p][p]Alongside that, I added quite a few new plants and trees to the map, sometimes replacing old ones and other times adding more for variation. These include two new species of sword fern, a meadow fern, a dawn redwood, more coast redwoods, more grass variations, updated mangrove trees, bald cypresses (swamp cypress), hanging moss, and scans of giant sequoia cones that I did myself for the redwoods.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][hr][/hr][h2]Kleiner[/h2][p]– Animator[/p][p]Finished making the turns and started limp locomotion on the Ouranosaurus.[/p][p][/p][hr][/hr][h2]Ｖｏｉｄ[/h2][p]– 2D Artist[/p][p]This month my work on UI for in-game items has continued. The items will be finished and available in the public Tech Demo. I also finished the silhouette for Ourano in the dinosaur tab to show growth.[/p][p][/p][hr][/hr][h2]M_Z[/h2][p]– Sound Designer[/p][p]This month I couldn’t do much, but I continued working on the game’s ambient sounds.[/p][p]I created new vegetation sounds to create a more immersive and mysterious environment, and I created a few more footstep sounds for the Tiny size so everything fits well.[/p][hr][/hr][h2]Chikangia[/h2][p]– Programmer[/p][p]To wrap up the year, this month was all about stabilization, polish, and preparing the game for the public Tech Demo.[/p]

• [p]Early Stress Test Fixes: Fixed issues discovered during the early stress test to improve stability and reliability.[/p]
• [p]Backend Optimizations: Optimized several backend systems to better handle load and improve performance.[/p]
• [p]New UI Implementation: Implemented new UI elements to refine the player experience.[/p]
• [p]Combat Improvements: Refined tribal combat with a focus on spear combat. Spears can now also be thrown.[/p]
• [p]General Bug Fixes: Addressed various smaller bugs to ensure a smoother, more polished build.[/p]

[p]This month, my main focus continued to be stability, backend work, and overall polish. Several server crashes were identified and fixed, resulting in a more stable multiplayer experience. I implemented a new stats UI, making player and character information clearer and easier to access, and a wide range of QoL features were added to smooth out gameplay.

[/p][hr][/hr][h2]Arrived[/h2][p]– 3D Artist[/p][p]This month I got to create the spawn dens for the AI Dryosauruses, which will be sprinkled throughout the map.[/p][p](Credit to AirSickLowLander for the textures and implementation.)[/p][p][/p][hr][/hr][h2]RAR[/h2][p]– 3D Artist[/p][p]Happy New Year.[/p][p]This month has been focused on the Tropeo. I’ve been making progress every week on the livestreams, working on the base mesh, then getting the mesh into ZBrush and starting the high-poly sculpting process.[/p][p]More recently, I’ve continued pushing details on the high-poly model, focusing on wing membranes and facial features.[/p][h2]
SadEch[/h2][p]– 3D Artist

This month I've mainly dealt with converting and making every standard animation for the Eocarcharia compatible with the new Idle animation. All transitions to and from resting, calls and other interactions. It was easily about 20+ animations to fix up! It includes all the juvenile and adult animation sets. Also Added Root-motion to all the locomotion sets for Ourano and Eo to pair up with new system Furious has set up for negating sliding feet in the creatures. I've also done some slight tweaks to the Sniff animation of the Eocarcharia to make it a bit smoother and not clip through the mesh, as it was an animation made for the old Eocar mesh before it got the new model. I've also made a digging/scratching animation for interacting with the Burrows/Ai-spawns as well as started on Puru animations.[/p][p][/p]