The Isle News

[h2]Fred - 2D Artist[/h2][p]Since the start of the custom skin system, we had been using 1k textures for our creatures. Due to some troubleshooting during that process as we continued to update, I started making some of the skins in 2k in order for them to function as intended in-game. Since then, some are in 1k, some are in 2k. Now I’ve been tasked with giving everyone a 2k upgrade. During this resolution upgrade, I'm also combing through these skins and giving a few of them a subtle cleanup. Below are some examples. Hopefully the older skins will look on par with the more recent ones.



[/p][h2]Director’s Commentary[/h2][p]I gave the team two months of reprieve from having to write in any of these and you can see why Fred is the GoodNoodle™ of the team. This officially makes my entry director’s commentary and I don’t have to write a saga.

We’re going to start strong with bugs. I’ve been partaking in bug hunts this month that make me want to put my head in a bag of holding and scream until I’m dead or I wake up God. It has not been fun and it’s not even visually interesting so there’s no heehaws to be found unless you count the allosaurus (again). Are you starting to notice a pattern? If an animal ever deserved to be resurrected just to go extinct again, it would be allosaurus. Why does its foot shake? Why does it slightly glow? The Gods remain ignorant or indifferent to our pleas.

The UI is nearing completion with only a few screens and pop-ups remaining. After that, there may be a few additional tweaks to allow a bit more of a personal customization for the display but the theme is largely there with a secret or two already buried in it. After that comes all the additional information like hints and tutorials.

As testing builds have gone on this month, a lot of animal colorization options have been temporarily reset before being drastically reduced. The reduced color options are so that we can expand dinosaur patterns to have varying palettes. This will allow us an overall greater freedom for color choice that stays within an intended artistic vision without letting players run around as giant rainbow monsters.

(There is an option intended for player servers to allow all palette colors \[or possibly a color wheel] so you can visually do whatever you want. If I can’t see it, it can’t hurt me.)

Pteranodon flight stats were drastically changed this month as well with all the aerial stamina requirements lowered across the board. Pteranodon carries its momentum exceptionally longer in flight than it did previously as well. There’s one more turn functionality for its flight to keep it nimble, but otherwise flight is done and it's time to give it some terrestrial enhancements. Don’t forget, when we’re done with it this animal is going to have a violent ground game.

The animation team has leaned fully into the camarasaurus. This sentence is just to pad the paragraph since I’ll let the attached media for the sauropod speak for itself. Bryan is putting the finishing touches on the quetzalcoatlus rig, which now has dimorphism in the crest for females and an additional edit to the juvenile. After that, he’s on to oviraptor locomotion so it can be plugged up alongside baryonyx, kentrosaurus, and austroraptor. The animation team will remain with our sauropod until its complete, barring an occasional switch over to any austroraptor cleanup that may be needed during its testing.

That being said, austroraptor, kentrosaurus, and baryonyx have had their basic functionality, locomotion, and lifecycles put in. I know some of the images are already floating around the community, but I’ll get some more out there in Phase Three this week. The three of these animals have needlessly cute juvenile morphs that may make a player stay their hand for a moment before trying to kill them, so use this to your advantage when the time comes.

Since last month the sound team has burned through the austroraptor, with only a few juvenile calls left before its time for kentrosaurus. The kentrosaurus’s core vocalizations have been done, so this is just like the austroraptor from last month where they can smoothly move from one dinosaur to the next that has a core vocal palette prepared. In the interim, Will is tackling some foley audio for the large animals before we can change the way footstep audio is handled (Nothing too crazy here. Just having footstep audio dynamically change based on weight).

A myriad of other balance/bug changes have found their way in. In no particular order, just going to throw out some mentionables:

Tyrannosaurus changes went well with only one particular spot in the early juvenile life stage that was allowing tyrannosaurus to hit a little harder than intended. There’s a little more to shore up on making his crush initiate a spar, but he can no longer just pin and kill things in its own weight class (and paleo calls work).

Maiasaura thirst decay has been reduced. This animal will be receiving a bit more attention for CC on its attacks and how easily it can stagger/knockdown an enemy when defending itself, including a small grace amount on the standing shove. Maia also has a small hidden passive most everyone doesn’t know about that will also be getting a minor boost in performance to make sure this is truly known as the good mother lizard.

Omniraptor’s latch decay has been reduced to more effectively hang on larger creatures for longer.

Beipiaosaurus and herrerasaurus oxygen decay has been greatly reduced.

More of the larger animals have received growth curve updates so they have more overlap with animals of smaller sizes instead of linearly outpacing them almost immediately. As stated in the last blog, the times for growth have been slightly shortened as well and put on the end of these animal’s lives so that they spend more time in the elder phase.

Jace has been hard at work on Gateway, expanding the outposts with the new buildings I spoke about last month. Gabriel has been supplying him with shells of locations you’ve seen in the GUTS locales, including some that will be too large for the outposts you’ve seen. You can also expect a new sanctuary near the highlands soon.[/p][p][/p][p]I leave you with media, good tithings, and an update to the HordeTesting branch. See you on the servers and Happy Halloween ya filthy animals. [/p]

[h2]Don - Director[/h2]

Who’s ready for nothing but director’s commentary? There’s been a lot of moving parts this month so I’m giving the team a break from having to provide an entry. There may be a distinct lack of media in this particular devblog since it’s just me, but I’ll try to catch the more interesting stuff the team is doing. For a little bit of time we unfortunately had to divert attention and resources away from the HordeTest to deal with a few vulnerabilities discovered on our public evrima build. The result of that is that players on the HordeTest have sat with some pretty rough bugs and imbalances (and cheaters) much longer than I’d have preferred but updates are once again headed your way to mend the issues at hand.

The first big visual change in the HordeTest you’re going to notice is the new UI is in the process of being implemented. You will see it in partial completion as the HordeTest builds go on so expect to see some clashing designs for a little bit as we move forward. The monkey’s paw curls.

The other notable visual change you may see is that the old prototype ceiba trees have been replaced with final versions. There are a few edits to the branch materials that may result in a few tree species having slightly abnormal color for a build or two, but the jungle feels great both on the ground and to fly through. Hypsilophodons may look forward to potential communal building in the largest of the jungle trees, as well as some increased climbing capabilities to assist it further without it becoming impossible for herrerasaurus to catch. Concepts courtesy of Tapwing.

Hypsilophodon can now mock you from its own family tree.

With the help of a lot of you violently breaking the elder system (thank you, though), we’ve found a lot of things to fix and a few considerations that were missed. Since quite a lot of the merciless jank has been pushed out of the elder system now, lifecycles are going to slow down a bit. When players grow to adult, any growth bonuses from diets will no longer apply (the rest of your diet buffs will remain unaffected). There will be additional ways in survival to remain prime for longer (possibly de-age), but for now this is what we need while elders are ironed out.

Note: Remember, if the elder system isn’t for you, server owners will have several options to alter or remove its impact for a more sandbox experience. The system may be turned off entirely to remain an immortal adult forever.

Some more of the animal roster will also have their growth curves moved to a less linear style so there’s more overlap with small carnivore animals before hitting a more considerable growth boost to move them up the next weight class. For animals that may grow to adulthood a little faster now, that time can be moved to the time spent growing in their elder phase for playtime in that part of life (This may not fix something like troodon/hypsi at the moment, which is currently very fast. There are other solutions actively being worked on for them).

Mutations have had adjustments, with some mutations no longer being inheritable when an offspring wouldn’t be able to use it, and values being moved around to help with problem areas we’ve seen. Cannibalism will temporarily have no requirement to unlock it for selection, so that’ll be interesting. Player speed is no longer increased by any mutations and two new mutations have been introduced that allow players additional opportunities for nesting: Sequential Hermaphroditism is a non-inheritable mutation that allows a player to change to the opposing sex and Parthenogenesis is a non-inheritable mutation that allows a player to nest and lay eggs alone.

Tyrannosaurus has upcoming changes for its crush so it’s no longer capable of punching upward and pinning massive targets, as well as some alterations to pin conditions so a tyrannosaurus can’t enter that lethal crush so easily. There’s also some stat updates to fracture damage for when tyrannosaurus leaves its juvenile stage to prevent it from being so oppressive towards anything in its active weight class before it becomes an adult. These changes together should give some much needed breathing room when dealing with the king of the dinosaurs.

Tyrannosaurus paleo calls are making their way in with some new animations to follow shortly behind in an upcoming build (I repeat, it’s not out at this moment. It will be put in the HordeTest notes when it is). There’s nothing suitable for a juvenile or subadult sound set for now so it's only available when you become an adult! You can activate paleo calls by holding F and pressing secondary fire for your vocal call or 1 for your broadcast call.

Note: The paleo calls were fun and cool. This doesn’t mean every animal on the roster will get some sort of infrasound or “paleo” call. We may do it again in the future. We may not. We just hope you like what we did for the rex here.

Pteranodon flight is still being worked on to achieve that organic flight feeling while keeping pteranodon relatively nimble in comparison to the much larger counterpart that’s coming. Expect to see sharper turning capabilities and some pitch adjustments in the near future. The days of free aerial harassment are over. Flight is not the only thing being given attention, as pteranodon will also be getting some edits to make it more capable on the ground to encourage its gameplay in that area. We want him to confidently hunt small animals or juveniles without feeling the need to take to the skies unless a larger threat emerges.

Anti-Air Commentary: Pteranodon can only attack heavier players on the ground while they are hovering in airbrake or they will knock themselves out of the sky.

Allosaurus has received a few more updates and it’s closing in. The new claw swipe is in, a mobile attack that has allosaurus using its forelimbs to slash targets alongside it without losing momentum, which also happens to be the last of its attacks to be implemented. The sound team has been moving quickly through the juvenile sound sets for this animal, though it may be introduced before they are all complete. To be clear, yes, allosaurus will be moving into the HordeTest alongside tyrannosaurus.

There haven’t been many visually hahafunnymaymay bugs to display this month. At most, allosaurus has an odd thing where he occasionally stares straight down really intently.

Fig B. Allosaurus stares at the dirt where it belongs.

The animation team has been everywhere. Allosaurus needed a few touch ups found during testing and the tyrannosaurus paleo calls are nearly complete, but bringing camarasaurus to life has been their main focus. These gentle giants will have an interesting lifecycle, seeking shelter in dense undergrowth before growing to sizes no predator could hope to bring down alone. There is a unique approach planned for sauropod nesting and gameplay to set them entirely apart from the rest of the animals on how they work, but it must survive the testing phase first. One thing is for sure, the camarasaurus will bring some long awaited trampling mechanics with it to the roster.


Speaking of roster, here’s the current order for some of the upcoming playables:
Tyrannosaurus
Allosaurus
Austroraptor
Kentrosaurus
Baryonyx
Oviraptor
Camarasaurus
Quetzalcoatlus
Parasaurolophus
Spinosaurus

Honorable Mention: No sweet, sweet details on everyone’s favorite hadrosaur yet but now you know where parasaurolophus is in the lineup. Spinosaurus is last here as it’s going to be a lot of work for one animal.

The core vocal calls of the austroraptor are complete, keeping some familiar animal sources players may recall from previous versions. This gives the audio team a good jump on austroraptor as the audio palette is already there. Once the allosaurus audio is complete, the sound team will be jumping straight to this animal.

Quetzalcoatlus got bumped up in priority to take advantage of the flight system being worked on. The quetzalcoatlus rig is coming along, with some tools to help the animation team based off of what we learned since we first started pteranodon. Once the animation team completes the camarasaurus, they’re diving in (or taking off?) to quetzalcoatlus. This animal will be a terrifying threat to things smaller than it, utilizing its reach to both close distance on prey or keep distance from predators until it can retreat. But if you can get the drop on it, it’s certainly not invulnerable. Was that just the trees creaking, or something else?

As most of you know, GUTS encountered some loading issues in the latest engine update. These environments have been stashed so they won’t be lost in the future, but we’re putting a building shell around many of these locations so they can be brought to the game ASAP. Expect to see a large increase of human structures on the island, from their emergency shelters dotting the island interior to the extended ranger stations that will have emergency shelters, medical buildings, and armories. And if you’re tired, try grabbing a BEIPSI JAVA. Just don’t ask how fresh it is.



There’s a lot I haven’t covered that’s also on the radar, but I’ll leave you all with some additional media because I can’t go breaking trends. See you next month.

[h2]Filipe - Lead Programmer[/h2]
As you know, there were also some issues related to upgrading the engine version from 5.4 to 5.6 that caused delays, but it was a much needed upgrade. The T. Rex and Elder System has its first pass out in the Hordetest, but I have also been working on the allosaurus and have started to get into the austroraptor. The allosaurus is the first animal in a long while that doesn't require a lot of custom things to make it game ready, so I expect it to go smoother. We will see about the austroraptor, but I don't expect major issues or delays there either.

There are plenty more things happening in the background, new dinosaur design documents have been finished and approved for implementation, so you should be hearing more about those soon. For now that is it, not much to talk about, the focus has been to get the Rex and Elders in a hordetest asap so we can move forward.

Besides bug fixes as usual. See you!


[h2]Ariel - Programmer[/h2]
With the pteranodon’s spearing mechanic making its way to QA and the hordetest, I spent some time on related bug fixes and balance changes. Overall the ability is coming along nicely and should be ready to be wrapped up soon.

I also worked on ability for the tyrannosaurus you all previously didn't get to see until recently; the directional variant of the existing muzzle swing. This ability is not focused on dealing high damage, but it has a strong sweeping attack to knock others off their feet. The new version is bound to Alt + RMB and can be used to more easily hit others behind you.

I also went through the majority of attacks and updated their hitboxes to be more accurate to the body of the dinosaur. This means that for example if the animal is visually moving its head along a certain path while biting it will no longer hit others that are vaguely in the same direction. Please note that this is not related to the attack inaccuracy that can happen due to latency, that is entirely independent.

Finally as always I did my fair share of general bug fixes and small tweaks here and there, mainly related to tyrannosaurus and elders this time around.


[h2]Wedge - Sound Designer[/h2]
This month has seen some good progress on Allosaurus’ sound suite. We have expanded on its existing vocal identity as a wider breadth of sounds are introduced into its audio profile to complement the previous sounds it already had and some new ones you all haven't heard yet.

A majority of the most important vocal sounds for the adult have been completed, including its full suite of attack and pain sounds as well as some other sounds for core mechanics such as courting etc. and we are continuing to plug away at the remaining audio needs. Luckily Allo doesn’t have as extensive a list of animations as the previous two dinosaurs we have been working on so this list is shrinking at a good rate.

Finally I have also been looking at bug fixes for the next patch to ensure everything we have worked on the Rex is functional and sounds its best.


[h2]hypno - QA Lead[/h2]
I hope you are all enjoying the hordetest release of the tyrannosaurus and Elder Systems, despite a rough landing. We’re actively investigating the cause behind the rubberbanding occurring on the hordetesting servers and plan to continue patching this branch right up until we consider this update ready for evrima.

Thank you to everyone that has been submitting bug reports over the last day; now is the most important time to get those through to us so that we can fix them for the evrima release. As some of you have already experienced, a high priority issue we’re also looking into is character replication failing, where the player is spawning as an omniraptor with no mutations instead of the species they were previously playing as.

To give insight to just a few of the high priority issues pertaining to tyrannosaurus since our last devblog, here are a few examples that QA caught:

The tyrannosaurus subadult animations were failing to play properly due to blending issues. This is a fairly common occurrence with our species that have multiple morphs for their growth cycle and the reason that we have to be thorough when verifying animations for an animal’s full life:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
It was found that a tyrannosaurus that thrashed a pinned target but pressed its carry key before killing it would result in an unintended weight loss programme:



A tyrannosaurus that had missed its crush ability and then received a flip attack from a triceratops would lock it into sparring. The problem here being that the rex would be unable to move or disengage from them, becoming completely at the triceratops’ mercy:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
And a whole lot more, such as crush weight thresholds not working correctly, being able to perform crush without expending stamina, and having no collision when charging the ability while running through other characters. Until now, we’ve had a total of 236 issues opened for the tyrannosaurus alone!

That’s all for me this time, unfortunately. Gotta get back to the hordetest bugs. 🙂


[h2]KissenKitten - Animation Supervisor[/h2]
My main focus for August was of course the rex and the other upcoming playables, including allosaurus, austroraptor, kentrosaurus, and baryonyx. With these newcomers, the animation team has been creating greater and greater distance from the other departments. Which for those that may remember, was a long term goal of ours that has come to fruition. Best laid plans still take time to execute on. Which wraps things back around to the rex.

It was a taxing endeavor to bring the tyrannosaurus into full focus but we really wanted to offer a unique experience as the tyrannosaurus rex changes throughout its life more than any other creature in the game. Not just visually but in playstyle as well. Going from frail speedster to a lanky bruiser before culminating into the tyrant lizard king for those that can survive to adulthood. I think all in all the animation team topped out at just shy of 1000 animations for the rex, which were then slotted in by our tech animation department, given a voice by the sound department and fully brought together by programming. We wanted you to feel like a tyrannosaurus rex in more than name and appearance. Hopefully we’ve achieved that so give it a whirl and let us know what you think.

As involved as the rex may have been, we never stopped making traction on the other playables. The allosaurus is likely next up to enter hordetesting as soon as it gets some more sounds and a bit more mechanical adjustments, so be on the lookout for the lion of the jurassic. The allosaurus was thankfully a pretty straight forward playable to work with minus an annoying hold over from legacy. Despite it being fairly straightforward compared to the playables of late, it'll be fun to see how it fits in and measures up. I think it’s one of the first carnivores I would say feels like it prowls.

The austroraptor is still coming along nicely, getting its swimming capabilities hooked up and core vocal suite finalized. Elegant and nimble, it’s not going to be as suited for combat as its cousin omniraptor but like all of our animals, it is not defenseless. The baryonyx however is much more suited to stand its ground. It’s still a bit away considering the sound department has to get through the animals I've previously mentioned and the kentrosaurus first but it should scratch the slashing scrapper itch for those that enjoy that. The kentrosaurus is also coming up. It’s having its main vocal suite designed currently and when that’s done, you’ll be seeing it waddling around not long after. It is a more agile stegosaurid that can keep a lower profile than the stegosaurus, and it should be no slouch in the combat department considering its adornments.

The avaceratops and oviraptor are also on the cusp of animation completion. There’s a handful of outliers for them both and locomotion for oviraptor. They’ll still need their sounds but getting these animations done eats up the bulk of the dev time for an animal generally speaking so getting that out of the way is a boon. I still think they’re both gonna be omnivorous and a threat to smaller creatures on the island that they can make a quick meal of. Between the two the avaceratops is probably the one to look over your shoulder for the most though if you’re tiny. It has a brand new attitude that nostalgia won’t prepare you for. The camarasaurus has also entered full swing development. The list just keeps growing!

As I’ve mentioned in previous devblogs, we are still making changes to old playables as well. The rex kept us rather busy so some of the current roster has had to wait just a bit before getting adjustments. The pteranodon should have its spear fishing entering testing, which will be followed by adjustments to flight. The deinosuchus is going to get some of its backburner abilities added in that should make you feel more crocodilian than before. More dragging to the depths action, smoother swimming and maybe some other stuff. The carnotaurus has also gotten some love recently as well that can show up any day now too.

Despite the length of this blog entry, in truth I’m barely scratching the surface of everything that has been going on lately. But for now, this will do. See ya next time!

[h2]Ariel - Programmer[/h2][p]In the beginning of the month we updated the engine, which involved dealing with some issues that took some time to figure out. Throughout the month I also dealt with bug fixes as usual, this time mainly related to elders and the rex. We have also changed the carnotaurus's charge attack around a bit; you will now have to press LMB to attack while charging instead of it being done automatically on contact.[/p][p][/p][p]The main feature I worked on this month was spearing for the pteranodon. The ability is now functional including animations and visual effects. You can spearfish or catch clams hiding under the mud that require breaking open on rocky surfaces.

[/p][h2]Wedge - Sound Designer[/h2][p]This month we have wrapped up all the tyrannosaurus vocalisations, knocking out the remaining juvenile sounds in addition to sparring. Next the team all have moved onto concepting the vocalisations for the Austro and Kentro suite of vocals, while I have worked on the allosaurus.[/p][p]
I have worked hard on maintaining the elements of Allosaurus calls that are the most revered by the community. Although the breath and underlayers are new, the broadcast’s core design is unchanged other than aiming to reduce the amount of noise and bring in more of the high frequencies lost in the original. The attract call maintains the passive high whine from legacy but fills out the frequency spectrum with additional layers that conform to the original intent. The generic social call is also similar to the original design but I've brought out more recognisable tonality in the sound so it is not so dominant in the breathy elements. The danger is a completely new design that conveys the distinct scream and warble of the legacy design, using the original audio profile as the foundation that is created with new source sounds. The threaten call is the only significant departure from its original calls combining low elephant bull trumpets, trilling baboons screams and wildcat hisses and spouts for a more threatening and bellowing roar with a sharper edge. [/p][p]
I have also designed the juvenile calls, slightly deviating from the legacy juvenile sounds (apart from the broadcast) to create more cohesive counterparts to the adult vocalisations.[/p][p]
I’ll be continuing on with the rest of the vocalisations for Allosaurus, which the others will join me on once completing the calls they are working on.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]Bryan - Animator[/h2][p]July has been for rigging. Lots of rigging. With the animation team working on the other Dinosaurs, I’ve been getting the next few Dinosaurs ready for animation. Avaceratops has an updated rig now, as well as juvenile morphs.

But best of all, Camarasaurus is rigged now. It’s a pretty fancy setup with lots of gizmos for the animation team to work with. Including a soft body system to make those muscles jiggle. Have a look at this test cycle in action:

Next month is going to be even more interesting as I move on to the next guy. Look to the skies.[/p][p] [/p][h2]hypno - QA Lead[/h2][p]The QA team has been focused almost entirely on the Tyrannosaurus ahead of its upcoming release.[/p][p]Its had a few problems that have ranged from simple, such as its head deforming when turning, to more serious ones, such as a server crash caused by using its crush ability while falling. There was also an interesting way to get out of a tyrannosaurus crush with the press of a specific, allowing a player to stand up and escape from the jaws of the Tyrannosaurus Crush as if nothing had happened – which, I think you’ll agree, would make for a rather lackluster ability for everyone involved. [/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]
In other news, work continues on the much-anticipated Elder System, which already has functionality for growing to elder, dying of old age (which is initiated by the player and not automatic), and passing your mutations onto your next life. These mutations will scale in strength each time the player repeats this cycle until they reach a cap.

An Elder in its prime, with the ability to select a fourth mutation:

[/p][p]The Replication Screen unlocked at the end of a lifecycle: [/p][p]The Replication UI, with previously selected mutations shown on the left: [/p][p]A fresh spawn juvenile with mutations from a previous life: The Isle has always been a game where players make their own fun, with no set objectives. You eat, drink, sleep, grow, nest, etc. but ultimately, you end up in the same place: a fully grown dinosaur that either goes down swinging or finds the nearest mountain to throw itself off, ready to join its friends as a different species.

With the Elder System, there’s always a goal to work toward: Who can create the strongest dinosaur? Who can replicate each species to hit the mutation caps? Who can build the largest family by prioritizing nesting mutations?

I’m excited to see how this changes the dynamic of the game and all the possibilities it brings. We may even be able to tie this into other potential systems.

Last but not least, I’ve expanded my team of QA volunteers by bringing on 7 additional testers. They've hit the ground running and have already contributed to 34 (and counting) unique bug reports within just a few days of joining!


[/p][h2]KissenKitten - Animation Supervisor[/h2][p][/p][p]Updating to 5.6 had us against the ropes this month but we’re bouncing back. Those sorts of updates always shake the table but we’ve gotten most of it back in place. Aside from that, our animation time has been dominated by the tyrannosaurus which should be in a good place to make its legitimate debut. During this time it has had features added to help address issues in testing to make sure the adult is exceptionally formidable. The tyrannosaurus takes a long time to reach its true potential but if/when it does, we want it to be a force of nature. It can spar, has a devastating crushing bite, can gap close surprisingly well if it gets within ambush range and can take most animals off their feet with a quick swing of its powerful head. Be very aware of your surroundings when the rex lands, which should be right around the corner followed by allosaurus.

Aside from that there’s been touching up of old buggy animations and more work for the baryonyx, avaceratops, oviraptor and pteranodon.The fishing mechanic is in testing which is fun. The pteranodon has needed love. New flight mechanics will be following which we really want to get right. We were pressed for time with the pteranodon and deinosuchus implementation way back when, so we had to make concessions that we no longer have to, so we really want to improve flight and swimming experiences. We’ve got more semi-aquatics and a massive flyer on the way which makes this necessary.

Speaking of massive, the camarasaurus is going to be entering the animation pipeline real soon as you may have seen. The goal with this animal is to give you a true sauropod experience. Tail whips, kicks, stomps, tramples, and neck swings all contained within what should be one of the most chill playables we’ve put out to date. Players that enjoy a slower, observers pace with the might of a titan will hopefully find their niche with it. Sauropods grow rapidly to a point and then become walking fortresses but even the mightiest of strongholds can fall. Danger is ever present for every creature in The Isle no matter their size. That’s all for now. Here’s a small amount of what we’ve been working on.


[/p]

[h2]Filipe - Lead Programmer[/h2]
This month I have been mostly focused on the elder system.The system will be fully functional by the end of this month, likely only needing bug fixes and adjustments based on data gathered through testing. It has been made with older UI elements so that it can come before the overhaul.

Besides that I have been working on fixing a lot of bugs, for old and new mechanics (such as elders and its new functionalities), but I also will be looking to devote some time to the pachy’s headbutt (yes, we know it isn´t working as it used to be and are trying to ensure it can be used to parry and headbutt one another) and, of course, hopefully getting the tyrannosaurus rex fully finished for release asap.


[h2]Ariel - Programmer[/h2] With the update being released recently there’s not much I can talk about this month you don’t already know about. When not working on the update related tasks I made some improvements to climbing up ledges as a herrera/hyspi, and continued working on the pteranodon’s spearing mechanic. It will let you enter a stance like modern day canopy feeding and lure in different creatures to catch. This mechanic will be shared to some degree with other future animals on the roster.


[h2]Wedge - Sound Designer[/h2] With the audio work on Triceratops complete, we have been fully focused on getting Tyrannosaurus’ sound set over the finish line. The majority of its adult supplementary vocals have been designed and implemented, excluding a select few and any additional sounds needed for its sparring, and some of the sounds I had designed previously have had small improvements as well.

The focus has turned to working on the designs for the juvenile; whilst I design the subadult and juvenile calls the rest of the team is working on finishing the final few adult sounds and getting a head start on some of the juvenile supplementary sounds at a steady pace.

I have also put some more attention into the foliage audio, fixing issues with the volume inconsistencies that occurred due to the complex setup of these sounds. Additionally some other bugs were addressed related to incorrect sounds playing at various speeds and a more gradual falloff to the attenuation that is more audibly impacted by the movement speed as well as weight.

Finally I have started working on a new setup for footstep sounds that will be implemented in the future, coming with solutions for some of the more problematic sounds, particularly for the large sound set and the scaling of these sounds will be factored by weight and speed in a similar way to the foliage sounds. The new setup will give more control and accuracy to volume, pitch, attenuation and scaling adjustments.


[h2]Bryan - Animator[/h2]
It’s been Mighty Morphin Dinosaurs pretty much all this month. The elders are coming, and not the kind that sit around taking notes about HOA violations, so it’s pretty much been a marathon of getting the elder morphs for the current roster done, then moving on to the upcoming animals. With a few exceptions, actually doing them isn’t that labor intensive, namely the ones with feathers that need to be handled with kid gloves, but there were 25 of them that needed to be done in total.

We’ve also got Oviraptor fully rigged now, along with a new rig for Avaceratops. We’ve also got a Snail rig. Honestly it was a lot of fun rigging something with no bones.




[h2]VisualTech48 - Environmental Artist[/h2]
This month I’ve mostly been hammering out new items and locations, as well as fixing various locations. Which includes variation of some of our locations and mixing and mashing different possibilities to them as well in the way they are constructed.

Starting off with our labs, these two rooms can be translated to serve several different purposes that have been designed. Dinosaur holding and study needed a specialized prop and cage to ensure it follows closely on our concept designs by Tapwing, as well as a necropsy room that I’m sure you’ve all seen a certain deceased neurotenic in.


There are additional connections to hallways that lead into this room, thematically a temporary cage or cell, depending on what was inside.


To wrap it all together, we have our incinerator room. This features a massive sloped incinerator for ease of disposal, alongside all of the required support rooms including the burn and observation rooms beneath.




[h2]KissenKitten - Animation Supervisor[/h2]
June has been hordetest focused for a lot of the team directly and indirectly. Tweaks here, bug fixing there, the usual. But the animation and art teams still get to move happily along. The pteranodon is getting kit updates in the background despite having been halted by hordetest priorities at certain points.

The baryonyx and avaceratops are a handful of animations away from being animation complete (barring unique features). Once that’s done we can fully move on to the long awaited oviraptor, which is such a beautiful and ugly creature all at the same time. A blessing for the animation team is that the oviraptor does not sport the same number of feathers as the austroraptor (which was very unpleasant to deal with) and its smaller stature allows it to be more agile and responsive which can make a creature much easier for us to animate. Interestingly enough, the oviraptor marks a bit of an end to an era. While there will still be smaller species coming to the island like protoceratops, minmi, homalocephale etc they will be mixed in among the heavyweights.

We’ve got elders for the bigguns! Ankylosaurus, suchomimus, giganotosaurus and therizinosaurus. All the information we’ve gained over the course of Evrima’s development, with species of increasing size and strength, we’re ready to move ahead with larger species. So enjoy these smaller creatures as they are released onto the island because things are about to get a lot more dangerous out there for everyone. Try not to get folded like a beach towel. That’s all for now. Toodles!