The Isle News

[h2]amar0k - Programmer[/h2]
With the release of U6 and the break over we have been in the process of migrating the game from Unreal Engine 4.27 to Unreal Engine 5. This has brought some exciting new features to work with like Nanite. As we convert more art assets to be compatible with this system, we can create more detailed and realistic environments without as much compromise to performance. I have also been working on implementing world partition with the map team to improve performance and optimize the rendering of the game's environments. This system divides the game world into smaller sections allowing us to only render the parts of the world that are currently visible to the player. The process has not been completed, so results may vary.

Overall, the migration to Unreal Engine 5 has been a challenging but exciting experience, and I am looking forward to seeing the final results in the future.

Aside from content migration, I have been working on the base dinosaur controller logic and have also improved the animal animations to include look poses and turn in place animations. The goal here is to smooth the animal movement to be less robotic and fix the movement strafing you currently see.


[h2]dmIV - Programmer[/h2]
I started the year by finishing some code reorganization I started before the break. It’s one of those things where you put your time into something that doesn’t change anything for the users, but it makes your life easier in the future. Then I moved on to some engine update related tasks, which is mostly just making changes in all kinds of places where something works differently now or broke for some reason.

Afterwards my main task was the Ceratosaurus. It has a fairly straightforward mechanic, you build up bacteria in your mouth when you eat, which you can apply to other players by biting them. After enough hits this will cause them to vomit. The mechanic is currently functional, but it will still need testing, balancing and visual effects.


[h2]Wedge - Sound Designer[/h2]
For the start of the new year, I spent my time finishing getting Beipi set up with its last pieces of missing audio, finishing off a handful of sounds for its hatchling/juvenile stages. After going over and testing Beipi to make sure it is fully complete audio-wise, I have moved on to working my way through all the supplementary sounds for Cerato. I have already designed and implemented around half of the sounds needed for its adult stage, with a handful of others also in progress. The sounds completed include eating, drinking, primary and alt attack, mouth display, death, regular pain, thrash and vomit, It’s sonic aesthetic is big and brutish with an emphasis on low guttural texture, its attacks sound impactful and gnarly with a satisfying crunch as its teeth clamp together and it also has a low but explosive roar when displaying to threaten its competitors and bolster its bite.

I spent a little time with Filipe looking into the issue related to footstep attenuation, we have narrowed down the cause to limitations with the system which is overriding the set attenuation and truncating the range, however we have not been able to find a solution to fix this but it is something we are aware of and looking in to.

Finally, I’ve dipped my toes into UE5’s new audio engine to familiarize myself and see what can be capable with metasounds. I’ve begun to think about how it can be integrated into our existing audio pipeline that is reliant on UE4’s systems so we can avoid deprecation issues, albeit this will be much further down the line from now.


[h2]Bryan - Animator[/h2]
Most of 2023 has been about updating rigs and filling in the missing pieces on a few of our Legacy animals in preparation for their debut in Evrima. Ceratosaurus saw a lot of work in particular and while there are always tweaks to be made to the animations once you see them in-game, that beastie is pretty much complete, with Gallimimus soon to follow.

My current task is getting Diabloceratops ready as well. It’s one of the older rigs and needs a lot of work before I’ll be happy with it. I also took the liberty of updating the baby morph, look at that little chonker.




[h2]Tapwing - 2D Artist[/h2]


Small and unreasonably angry, it’s The Isle’s Avaceratops.

Actually, just about all our ceratopsians are full of attitude, but the wrath of this one might’ve altered (or rather added to) its diet to take advantage of the carnage. Like boars, they have little patience for the presence of other creatures and are bullies of anything remotely their size. Full of energy, they’ll run you out of town unless you can hit back or are exceptionally good at staying out of reach.

So keep an eye on your hatchlings, such fragile things are a prized target of the opportunistic ceratopsian.


[h2]Mykie - Animator[/h2]
This month I continued working on the Ceratosaurus and the Gallimimus, adding more animations to both sets. I worked on the knockdowns for Ceratosaurus, but my focus was mostly on Gallimimus as we were wrapping up on these creatures' animated features. I worked on a hatchling animation for this creature, and I hope to see all of our Gallimimus players entering the Isle in style.


[h2]KissenKitten - Animator[/h2]
New year, new things. Meetings, meetings and more meetings dominated the first week and will do so further but we’ve certainly hit the ground running. Programming and adjacent teams are hard at work migrating to Unreal Engine 5 and all the “fun” stuff that comes along with that process.

Troodon will be moving into combat testing and then be making its way to the hands of stress testers when given the greenlight. On the topic of playables, the Beipiaosaurus, Ceratosaurus and Gallimimus are either animation/mechanic complete or very near it. Upon testing, more polish and the go-ahead, they will follow suit and make their way to be stress tested as well. We know you have been anxiously awaiting new playables and are excited to get them in your hands. Having expanded the animation team should help that process along even more. The Diabloceratops is next in line after those and will be entering R&D phases to see how far we can push the limits of a unique sparring experience for playables with horns. So keep your fingers crossed and send those good vibes. Dilophosaurus and Herrerasaurus will come afterwards provided there are no production shifts. We will also begin spinning up two apexes so we can establish what an apex animal’s impact will truly be like in Evrima. Their capabilities will far exceed anything you have experienced in Legacy and so need to be extensively tailored. Please do not expect them to appear on official servers but rather community servers instead when they are complete and we’re ready to launch them.

In regards to Update 7, the design team is pooling and organizing the multi-tiered approach we intend to take for perks and elders. There will be a few different ways to acquire perks and the perks will vary based on how you acquired them. Some based on what you eat, others based on how you’ve grown and others based on what you’ve done. Elder being a key component to retaining some of those acquired perks for a new playthrough of that species. More to come on that as time and development progresses. That’s all for now, see ya soon!

[h2]dmIV - Programmer[/h2]
As we were getting closer to the release I mostly focused on bug fixes and smaller changes as it’s important not to break anything in the last second. I went over a few issues or confusing behavior we had with nesting and single parents in particular. Leaving a group after courting will make you lose access to the nest if there is one, but keep it for your partner, letting them raise the eggs alone. If you are a single parent and court with someone you will lose your existing nest. These steps were taken to make the system more straightforward and less prone to issues such as two single parents courting each other. Hopefully it will lead to a less confusing experience.

Another small but significant change was making the “Eggs” button green on the menu if there are free eggs available. This should incentivize players to join nests, since you no longer have to manually look in the menu to check if anything’s available.



I also made some improvements to the human character’s camera and movement during some specific situations such as going prone while turning in place. He also has some new clothes to show off, I just had to plug those in without much work. The flashlight was also adjusted a bit to provide more light in a wider cone.

I had some smaller tasks regarding the new diets and gore. The compass will now show new icons for corpses which are in the rotten and bones stages, so players can tell from a distance if it interests them or not. I also updated the feeding system to work with the new diets, as it was significantly reworked.


[h2]Mykie - Animator[/h2]
This month I have added movements to the Gallimimus and the Ceratosaurus. The Gallimimus knockdowns were my first challenge, and one that was fun to take on, as this long-limbed creature has a tendency to flail a bit on impact, regardless of the direction. Things got a bit more creative for the pinned and wallow animations, as the Gallimimus will use its powerful legs to try and shake off an attacker rather than trying to bite, like our friend Ceratosaurus. And in wallowing, this creature has to remain alert to its surroundings, checking every moment or so to make sure no predators are sneaking up on it in a vulnerable state.

The Ceratosaurus also presented some unique challenges, specifically the wallow animation took time to get the right characterization. Such an aggressive predator/scavenger will not feel the same need to be alert during its wallow, so the slower, lazy movements required some precise timing. The pinned animation for this creature however, allowed me to explore that aggressive side. You won’t want to be on the wrong end of that fight should you ever encounter a pinned and angry Ceratosaurus.

This has already been a great start, and I am really happy with how these animations are going so far. I am excited to continue building on these creatures.


[h2]Wedge - Sound Designer[/h2]
For December my focus has been split between bug fixes and enhancements in preparation for the impending update, and a complete round up of vocals needed for Beipiaosaurus. All of the vocalizations for all the various mechanics and animations are at the minimum designed for the Adult stage. Excluding some implementation, tweaks and a final pass to ensure nothing has been missed and functions as it should, its adult stage will not long be considered finished from an audio perspective. Beipi has been particularly challenging to give a voice to so I can’t wait to see what people think of how our angry little goose sounds.

I’ve already started processing/altering/adding to or replacing layers in a majority of these vocals so they can be repurposed for its juvenile stage and will be looking at setting up the progression from juvenile sounds to adult sounds when we return in the new year. Aside from this the only outstanding audio work to be done on Beipiaosaurus will be to design the bespoke sounds needed for its younger stage of growth such as its begging and hatching sounds and of course a final testing and quality pass! I’m looking forward to ticking another creature off my tasks, I’m particularly excited to continue my work on the next creature and no better time to do that then the start of a new year.

Enjoy the holidays and see you in the new year!


[h2]Tapwing - 2D Artist[/h2]

Our hornless mini-carno of the isle.

While Rugops can’t launch itself forward at ridiculous speeds like its larger counterpart, it would be foolish to say it’s not agile. Its home is the jungle or other similarly dense landscapes. Relying on its ability to outmaneuver predators or stealthily approach prey; Rugops might not send large creatures running, but the little guys closer to its size might want to think twice on making the jungle their safe haven.


Lazy, large and ready to throw its weight around.

Our Acrocanthosaurus is bulked out to explore a different mechanic to the established ripping and shredding. If it's able to get into position and topple its foe, the Acro can go in for a chokehold and smother targets with its bite and bodyweight in an attempt to take down creatures that it otherwise couldn’t handle. Acro is a slothful thick-skinned creature that leans into the slow and steady style of hunting, ready to bully when it’s not indulging in some symbiotic self care with the tiny creatures of the isle.


[h2]Seiza -Video Editor[/h2]
My main task this month was the final planning and creation of the release trailer for Update 6.
In the planning phase I collected some rough ideas and created the storyboard, but during the last weeks there were many plan changes and new ideas I tried out. My goals were: To present the game a bit more “maturely".

Darker, more unfriendly and more brutal, because that's what the new mechanics bring to the game. So I used the first part of the trailer to create an unpleasant atmosphere. A few brutal shots with dark music. Then a slow transition into the second part of the trailer. There the new mechanics are roughly explained. In this part it was important to me that everything is visualized very smoothly like in the last trailers, no sensory overload, no incoherent scenes like in the first part.

Gore will surely accompany us a lot in the next videos, so look forward to more bloody shots with the next updates.

The next video projects for next year are already in the planning phase, until then I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!


[h2]hypno - QA Lead[/h2]
With the stress testing team doubling in size, we are now able to accurately simulate a full server experience, allowing us to better optimize the game for 100 player slots and to catch far more issues than QA would otherwise be able to do on their own. Due to how effective stress testing is proving, we will be looking into increasing the amount of stress tests going forward to ensure that a stable gameplay experience is maintained fully between each update. Not only will this mean that the quality of each update improves by the time it reaches the public branch, but it should also allow us to show off content earlier and far more frequently going forward.

As well as bug finding, the amount of extra people involved in the stress testing process has been very useful for balancing the game, as we can get a better understanding of how well each species can survive in a full server environment. This proved more difficult in the past with QA's limited numbers; we had a decent idea for balancing combat between species but as for general survival, it was a lot more trial and error. Now, however, we know where X species goes and what they do in X location, meaning we can better plan future mechanics of the game around this knowledge. This will be very important for upcoming mechanics such as the Migration System.

Performance has been a big factor for this update. We recognise that previous versions of Evrima have been struggling in this regard and so there will be a continued effort to improve this even further. I hope you will notice the improvement for this update and that it will be the start of many more improvements to come for the game's optimization.


[h2]KissenKitten - Producer[/h2]
This month flew by like so many of the rest. We at last bring gore to The Isle with Update 6. The team worked hard to ensure the first iteration of gore would set the foundations for the tone of the game as a whole and give us some more diet flexibility. The Isle has no intentions of shying away from the harsh realities of life and death. Blending the beauty of nature with its brutality. There may be other further changes to the gore visuals as time goes on and maybe some more interactions as well. So spend some time ripping each other open and see what comes out. Speaking of interactions, there’s a new ability the carnivores possess that will allow you to shake the coin purse out of a dead body. Find a dead creature small enough to carry, then hold LMB and give your mouse a side to side shake to see what tasty treats you can dislodge from the fleshy goodie bag you’ve acquired.

Alongside Update 6, you will also have the option of previewing our Gen 2 ambassador on unofficial servers. Yes, he is still going to die a lot. He still has basic functionality but is smoother than the last time he was previewed and has a few minor enhancements. Go take him on a night time safari. I dare you. Unlike previous tests however, his presence will be permanent from here on out as we begin larger scale production on human related features in the new year. The Gen 2s will be getting weapons in the not so distant future but those are likely to start out as melee weapons first like knives, sledgehammers and crowbars. Additional dinosaurs will still be rolling in since their foundational mechanics are broadly set as a whole and that’s what’s been needed to allow us to focus on inserting more playables. Dinosaur foundations being set frees up resources that can be spent on the long awaited Gen 2s.

This year has somehow been long and swift all at the same time. Full of many rapid changes, uphill battles, team expansion etc. So winter break was right on time. As an added bonus, we will be granting access to the latest snapshot of Gateway to the stress testers and allow them to stream it as it exists in UE4. Hope you enjoy it! Have a wonderful holiday and a happy new year!

Hey Islanders,

Tear apart your prey and treat yourself to their innards. Update 6 brings forth the first iteration of gore, gifting each dinosaur with a plethora of delectable organs to feast upon. Meat, fresh and otherwise will impact your diet positively or negatively based on what part of a corpse you eat and how old it is. Utilize scent to select the best bits for yourself, leaving the rest for the scavengers. A discerning carnivore is drawn to death but wary of decay.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]






[h2]Additions[/h2]

• Added new diet combinations and effects
  
• Added Thrash ability for carnivores. Hold LMB and move camera to the left/right quickly while carrying a corpse to initiate it
  
• Added experimental human character. Toggle on with bEnableHumans=true in server Game.ini
  
• Added Pterodactylus Scavenger AI
  
• Added support for Eye Colour customisation in skin system
  
• Added extra condition to destroy fruits if they fall down from landscape
  
• Added chicken pinned animation
  
• Added support for default pinned and pinned front animations
  
• Added support for night vision range to scale with growth and diets
  
• Added new Compsognathus animations and some changes to sessions
  
• Added breath to end of Carnotaurus pain sounds
  
• Gave all dinos a small z offset on camera when landing (jump or fall)
  
• Added compression and limiting to master soundclass
  
• Setup large hollow wood footstep sounds
  
• Setup Large nature (firm) wood footsteps
  
• Added new system for corpse scent
  
• Added support for custom corpse scenting ranges
  
• Added minimum camera height for very little dinos
  
• Added angle check when performing "near pounce"
  
• Added Pickup special condition for Pteranodon
  
• Added new Dryosaurus dodge
  
• Added sounds to chicken idle and attack
  
• Setup blunt impacts for abilities hit
  
• Added sounds to new Dryosaurus dodge
  
• Added New blood VFX for different attack types
  
• Added Camera lock when eating/drinking
  
• Added more frog sounds to swamp night ambience
  
• Added more daytime swamp one shots
  
• Added lots more jungle bird one shot sounds
  
• Added more sounds to jungle, more ambient sound tweaks
  
• Added flies on non-fresh corpses
  
• Added more tree creak one shots
  
• Added wind one shots to beach ambiencezone
  
• Added support for latch climbing out of water
  
• Added more coastal bird and land fauna one shots to beach ambience
  
• Added jump Fixed to Hypsilophodon and Pteranodon
  
• Added support for swimming in sloped water (rivers)
  
• Added slowdown the mouse sensitivity for the camera lock
  
• Added jungle night ambience to overcast cue
  
• Added system to prevent human head/camera clipping in walls
  
• Added system to prevent camera clipping in walls for dinos when zoomed in
  
• Added game settings to show fps/ping and disable physics foliage
  
• Added new loading screen
  
• Added footsteps to boar locomotion animation
  
• Added footsteps to chicken, deer, goat, frog, turtle
  
• Added human kick sound cues
  
• Added sounds when colliding with foliage
  
• Added human footstep audio
  
• Added new Ribs Meat mesh and Skeleton Mesh for most playables
  
• Setup all dinos gore Morphs
  
• Added AMD FSR2 plugin
  
• Added more game settings for DLAA, NIS and FSR2
  
• Added support to attack corpses in order to expose the organs (must hit middle)
  
• Setup eyes blink and white eyes for corpses
  
• Added ability to attack burrows
  
• Added support for different directional montages for swimming on surface or underwater
  
• Added solution to organs sometimes falling through floor after it is tossed
  
• Added Pachycephalosaurus Headbutt Pre audio
  
• Added different scent icons for rotten corpses and bones
  
• Added new fleshimpact sound to attacking corpses
  
• Added crouched kick animation for human
  
• Added organ types to avoid cannibalism
  
• Added some human accessories, replaced bodysuit
  
• Added human lunged pose
  
• Added new line of sight check for AI
  
• Added Hypsilophodon Spit clean for humans
  
• Added some loading screen hints
  
• Added can't grab message when close to a too heavy fruit
  
• Added living check to knockdowns
  
• Added support for meat chunks/gore to have Rotten shader
  
• Added rotten overtime for organs, if they exist on the body
  

[h2]Enhancements[/h2]

• Made faction select nest button green when public eggs are available
  
• Made charge cancel when running off a ledge
  
• Improved swimming movement
  
• Material corrections to dinosaurs
  
• Made carnivores to stop movement completely if eating a corpse is succesful
  
• Made Deinosuchuss not receive eat hint when getting close to a corpse if lunge carrying
  
• Reduced juv Pachycephalosaurus 3 call volume
  
• Improved latch accuracy, reduced trace calls, added capsule rotation
  
• Small performance improvements for Schooling fishes
  
• Made Stegosaurus not drop stuff in mouth if tail attack, but drops if a target is impaled
  
• Visual adjustments to Lunge
  
• Jungle foliage across the board color corrected
  
• Improved latch rotation, reduced jittering
  
• Reduced acceleration rate for Pteranodon running takeoff
  
• Small change to Carnotaurus pinned loop copy (used for lunge)
  
• Some improvements to medium footsteps intensity and volume
  
• Adjusted Skin/Faction/Char/SpawnZone panels to allow going back from/to skin system
  
• Adjusted Elite fish weights
  
• Improved Omniraptor pounce dismount animation
  
• Avoid screen hints when in spec mode
  
• Adjusted pickup speeds overall
  
• Give player small alert with stomach flashing when near to vomit
  
• Enabled scent when in mud
  
• Volume adjustment to Deinosuchus and Stegosaurus call
  
• Slightly reduced UI sounds volume
  
• Vocal volume balancing, reduced limiter post gain slightly
  
• Reduced attenuation falloff on underwater movement sounds
  
• Restored swimming end solution
  
• Enable Hypsilophodon spit in mud
  
• Made eggs auto rot if the occupier dies
  
• Removed cooldown if the attack cancels
  
• Made Carnotaurus charge trace length velocity based
  
• Improved resting transition for Deinosuchus with fractured legs
  
• Balance and improvements to beach ambiences audio
  
• Tweaked plains ambient sounds
  
• Made anti gamma slightly brighter instead of black
  
• Updated DLSS plugin
  
• Force Pteranodon to fall if pounced and flight had started
  
• Adjusted Crab, frog, chicken and rabbit weights
  
• Made directional attacks uncrouch the player
  
• Made reseting requested speed possible when unpossessed
  
• Avoid battle musics if damager or target are too small in comparison
  
• Avoid pounce to cancel charge
  
• Disabled knockdown and stagger on lunged dinos
  
• Updated Diet status info in profiler UI
  
• Below server name, also show player amount in dino profiler
  
• Made courting only require one animation loop
  
• Made Dryosaurus dodge blend in durations shorter
  
• Slightly increased navigation radius finder for rabbits
  
• Slightly reduced volume of Deinosuchus calls
  
• Made scent widget show only 90 degrees instead of 360
  
• Adjusted Pteranodon carry location
  
• Replaced old blood splatters from normal attacks
  
• Optimizations to multiple shader
  
• Blocked Lunge, Pounce and Headbutt during Hatchling stage
  
• Block Pickup during Hatchling Stage
  
• Made juvenile pouncers take more stamina damage, made stamina damage be based on the bucker's attack power
  
• Increased distance for rabbit to burrow when character nearby
  
• Removed forced Compsognathus spawn on nest build
  
• Adjusted velocity limit for latching onto a wall to make it easier for juvs
  
• Increased AI predator avoidance distance
  
• Improved scav flee directions
  
• Increased Dryosaurus dodge stamina cost to match jump
  
• Made nest building be cancelled when the abiltiy ends in any way
  
• Greatly reduced water refraction from the underside on the swamp material
  
• Adjusted gravity with dino growth
  
• Increased delay for when check speeds should start, to avoid issues when load takes too long
  
• Changed Utahraptor to Omniraptor
  
• River material height lowered around camera
  
• Made quick log perform a save and reload instead of repossessing
  
• Reduced the wind on the water lilies
  
• Removed a couple of busy loops from coastal ambience bedding
  
• Improved air turn behaviour after releasing/jumping off from latching latch
  
• Avoid camera lock if moving while grazing
  
• Made latch jump off follow the camera pitch
  
• Gave flies a floor offset when spawned
  
• reduced jungle tree creak one shots volume
  
• Reduced plains morning birds one shots to just songbirds and balanced with one shots volume
  
• Made certain fruits to break when hitting the floor when falling from the tree, such as coconut, papaya and jackfruit
  
• Gave Camera lock a default 30º offset in any direction
  
• Improved swimming in sloped water
  
• Optimized swimming on horizontal water
  
• Made claw swipe sound occlude underwater, reduced volume of Hypsilophodon feathers
  
• Updated Carnivores diets
  
• Made flies to despawn if corpse is carried/dragged, then re spawn when dropped
  
• Increased volume variability of jungle and swamp one shots
  
• Made bucking ability end when out of stamina
  
• Avoid Flies to spawn when corpse is in water
  
• Increased dino air control from 0.05 to 0.15
  
• Made nest incubation time update when laying eggs
  
• Made drinking prompt only show when walking
  
• Adapts the camera lock right or left depending which direction player were looking before locking the camera during eat/drink
  
• Made Pteranodon Max zoom shorter when flying
  
• Disabled bone fracture when parrying headbutt and almost nullified damage
  
• Adjustments to vocal curves and attenuations
  
• Made compies sprint and more reactive when harrassing
  
• Increased food values for some small animals such as rabbit, frog, crab and chicken (might be too much now)
  
• Disabled tap to sprint when swimming
  
• Improved Pterodactylus wing flaps and added membrane sound layer
  
• Changed human sprint animation
  
• Improved system preventing looking down your own neck as a human
  
• Replaced human swim forward animations
  
• Improved swimming hand pose
  
• Improved human carrying hand pose
  
• Replaced deep mud med walk and trot footsteps
  
• Replaced small deep mud trot and walk footsteps
  
• Improved human resting pose
  
• Improved human sleep pose
  
• Changed corpse smell timer end condition
  
• Made flies to also try to spawn during carcass phase
  
• Set up prone enter/exit animations
  
• Disabled meat chunks pickup when corpse has changed to skeleton
  
• Updated non nav mesh movement system
  
• Disabled sideways prone movement
  
• Disabled being prone in water
  
• Disabled human wallowing
  
• Enabled moving onto mud while crouched/prone
  
• Made fruits to have overall more food
  
• Decreased Pteranodon swim slow speed
  
• Disabled float in water once full skeleton
  
• Enabled going crouched and prone in mud
  
• Adjusted flashlight spotlight location
  
• Avoided camera lock when wallowing
  
• Allow Scent when carrying or dragging something
  
• Made turtle call less frequently
  
• Updated medium and large gore sounds, adjustments to gore sound synch for Carnotaurus and Deinosuchus eat, pick up and swallow animations
  
• Updates to pounce to reduce jitterings
  
• Improved Headbutt stuttering caused by lag compensation
  
• Avoided wallow hint for humans
  
• Made zoom scale more with dino size
  
• Updated small gore sounds and updated gore sound synch on Pteranodon and Omniraptor eat, grab and swallow animations
  
• Improvements to Deinosuchus adult and juvenile eat animations gore sounds
  
• Improvements to Deinosuchus grab and swallow sounds
  
• Made trying to latch uncrouch the player
  
• Made Carnotaurus cancel charging if it breaks its legs
  
• Disabled eating/drinking when moving
  
• Made Grazing to have half the walk speed and half the rotation rate
  
• Disabled Deinosuchus water sense effects on the surface
  
• Made leaving a group make you lose access to your nest, but keep it for the other player as a single parent
  
• Made courting lose access to the current nests of both players
  
• Made dinos unpair when kicked from a group
  
• Avoided being able to Thrash skeletons
  
• Avoided Thrash ability when flying
  
• Improved fish reaction and flee speeds
  
• Disabled speed check for grazing and swallowing, adjusted eating/drinking to trot speed
  
• Avoid herbivores to be able to attack corpses
  
• Slowed down human eating loop
  
• Improved human camera when going prone while looking far off to the side
  
• Adjusted corpse smell ranges
  
• Made carcass use the normal scent icon
  
• Made chunks/organs not "teleport" when dropped from mouth
  
• Turned the opacity of the river underwater surface up
  
• Trimmed silence at beginning of gore impact large sound
  
• Made Pteranodon not drop things when crashing
  
• Made food type update on the corpse smell sphere
  
• Made nutrients to decay slower than hunger
  
• Reduced size of skin code text in dino profiler
  
• Changed diet indicator colors
  
• Allow moving while swallowing
  
• Avoid camera lock when swallowing
  
• Changed blood locked icon visibility order
  
• Disabled thrash while swimming
  
• Improved human flashlight grip
  
• Updated feeding to work with the new diet system
  
• Made feeding impossible if hunger and thirst are 0% and the dino has no nutrients
  
• Imported Fixed human clothes, changed pants, added baseball hat
  
• Increased food value for Melon
  
• Improved human flashlight
  
• Disabled flashlight while eating or drinking
  
• Optimization to blood decal shader.
  
• Avoid Hatchlings to be able to open bodies
  
• Adjusted some UI to avoid resolution issues
  
• Disabled Ctrl action when latching for non climbers
  
• Disabled head fracture animation when sleeping
  
• Avoid Hypsilophodon spit clear when carrying something
  
• Improved human kick "whoosh" sound
  
• Changed volume of Deinosuchus water sense sound and bush rustle sound
  
• Changed Omniraptor pounce vocal attenuation
  
• Reduced volume of hatchling water sense sound
  
• Changed attenuation on generic vomit sounds
  
• Ensured Deinosuchus makes vocal sound when spat on by Hypsilophodon
  
• Improved synch of Tenontosaurus pounced/buck sounds
  
• Decreased headbutt down post wait time
  
• Blocked free look when grazing
  
• Enabled pre cache shader
  
• Updated human meshes, disabled blinking
  
• Adjusted pounce dismount distance
  

[h2]Balance[/h2]

[h3]Global Mechanics[/h3]

Mud

Attacks now blocked by mud:

• Pachycephalosaurus Ram
  
• Carnotaurus Charge
  
• Omniraptor Pounce
  
• Tenotosaurus Kick
  
• Dryosaurus Dodge
  
• Any Jump-based ability
  

Fractures

• Leg fractures do not heal while standing
  
• Body fracture stamina drain increased
  

Diets

• Malnutrition growth rate decreased
  
• Nutrient drain set to 10% longer than Hunger time
  
• Juvenile Carnivore diets enabled
  

Growth Times

• Growth times reduced globally to fit new diet system changes
  

[h3]Carnotaurus[/h3]

Special Ability: Charge

• Stamina drain reduced
  
• Charge speed bonus decreased
  
• Turn rate adjusted for sprint and charge
  

Bucking

• Stamina damage per tick increased
  

[h3]Deinosuchus[/h3]

Special Ability: Lunge

• Lunge recoil damage increased significantly
  

[h3]Dryosaurus[/h3]

Dodge

• Stamina cost increased
  

Bucking

• Stamina damage per tick increased
  

[h3]Pachycephalosaurus[/h3]

Special Ability: Ram

• Sound cue added to charge up
  

Bleed Resistance

• Bleed resistance increased
  

[h3]Omniraptor[/h3]

Special Ability: Pounce

• Latch damage per tick decreased
  
• Failed Pounce recovery speed decreased (faster)
  

Bucking

• Stamina damage per tick increased
  

[h3]Stegosaurus[/h3]

Bucking

• Stamina damage per tick increased
  

[h3]Tenontosaurus[/h3]

Bucking

• Stamina damage per tick increased
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed Carnotaurus turn rate
  
• Fixed free horizontal flight when out of stamina
  
• Fixed mouse issue in spawnzone select
  
• Attempt to force eating montage to stop when getting pinned
  
• Avoid dig animation to be interrupted if button released after plant mesh is swapped
  
• Fixed beg ending abruptly for some species
  
• Fixed attempt to vomit reset after safelogout
  
• Fixed pounce playing lunge animation sometimes after killing pinned AI
  
• Fixed Deinosuchus idle sound playing underwater
  
• Fixed Omniraptor silhouette in dino profiler
  
• Fixed attempt to pounce/knockdown animation transitions
  
• Fixed vomit audio playing log in from save
  
• Fixed carnivore eating causing instant break
  
• Fixed camera destroy before faction select UI appear
  
• Fixed latch movement speed on slopes
  
• Fixed pounce start and pounce start sprint animation transitions
  
• Fixed mouth blood mask not setting when grabbing a meat chunk
  
• Fixed water hint appearing when lunge carrying
  
• Fixed being able to jump and drink at the same time
  
• Fixed admin DM's not working
  
• Fixed Rabbit sometimes playing Omniraptor broadcast
  
• Fixed Pterodactylus land sound issue
  
• Fixed no sound on Tenontosaurus buck
  
• Fixed Carnotaurus footsteps modulation on forest
  
• Fixed Carnotaurus bite silent when head is underwater
  
• Fixed injured Deinosuchus animations acting up
  
• Fixed Hypsilophodon tail staying charged after breaking a leg
  
• Fixed water walking trace channel
  
• Fixed Stegosaurus jitter after secondary attack
  
• Fixed Deinosuchus lunges being audible when Deinosuchus is underwater while camera is above
  
• Fixed Deinosuchus hatchling using small footsteps instead of tiny on dirt terrain
  
• Fixed Stegosaurus movement and animation mismatch when facing straight forward
  
• Fixed alt attack letting players spam bite in mud/water/air
  
• Fixed juvie Pteranodon air brake speed
  
• Fixed Pteranodon head fracture causing leg issues
  
• Fixed tail physics jittering when walking in water
  
• Fixed Deinosuchus nose blocking Hypsilophodon spit
  
• Fixed Deinosuchus bite vocal not crossfading properly
  
• Fixed Hypsilophodon bobbing underwater
  
• Fixed pounce miss recovery animation cancel when landing on mud
  
• Fixed issues with meah chunks near bodies
  
• Fixed dino blood mouth in water not getting cleaned
  
• Fixed not able to drag Pterodactylus
  
• Fixed head butt parry and Fixed miss canceling in mud
  
• Fixed announcement message issue
  
• Fixed to player corpses not showing in Spec Mode
  
• Fixed lunge early end in mud
  
• Fixed Pounce start effect
  
• Fixed AI locked in pinned animation if only tapping
  
• Fixed Toggle command frogs spawn in river
  
• Fixed drag loops playing on Carnotaurus blind and Deinosuchus eat animations
  
• Fixed vomit alert UI not showing up
  
• Fixed attempt to fish school scale issue
  
• Fixed attempt to pounce canceling so fast that causes input lock into targets
  
• Fixed Spec Mode stack NV layers
  
• Fixed attempt to damage scale issues
  
• Fixed rabbit burrowing on non diggable surfaces
  
• Fixed rabbit burrows on slopes
  
• Fixed rabbit teleporting and burrowing out rotation/location
  
• Check for navigation target being underwater to all AI
  
• Fixed rabbits going into water
  
• Fixed Compsognathus spawning in deep mud
  
• Fixed attempt to Debris eating lock issues
  
• Fixed Buck Abilities not having damage attribute setup
  
• Fixed Status values for growth boosts from diet
  
• Fixed some UI status
  
• Added exception for AI attacking spectator pawns
  
• Fixed Dryosaurus dodge using bite when swimming or jumping
  
• Fixed issue with laying egg into a nest that's being damaged
  
• Adjusted vomit indicator scale causing it to appear even when 0
  
• Fixed jitteriness when latching onto walls
  
• Fixed courted characters unpairing from unpossession
  
• Fixed going into spectator breaking grouping
  
• Fixed for AI not having oxygen/health decay
  
• Fixed full servers not showing in server list
  
• Fixed invisible chickens
  
• Fixed Deinosuchus alt attack issue in mud
  
• Fixed Deinosuchus injured animations
  
• Fixed pounce locking target after pin
  
• Fixed Lunge causing input lock after releasing target
  
• Fixed extra sound layer of one shots in ambient zones
  
• Fixed Lungeshake swimming animation not playing
  
• Fixed scenting objects inside the character when the range is 0
  
• Fixed scavenger crash for nests
  
• Fixed scavenger dynamic chase/flee
  
• Fixed jumping not working sometimes
  
• Fixed Frog having Omniraptor vocals
  
• Fixed Edible plants not showing correctly in compass
  
• Fixed issues with ragdoll during carry
  
• Fixed lunge shake swimming montage
  
• Fixed resurfacing for dinos without resurfacing animation
  
• Fixed managing rotten eggs while holding debris
  
• Fixed juveniles playing adult montages
  
• Fixed Pounce buck stamina
  
• Fixed a couple wrong slot combinations and some UI info
  
• Fixed bucking without stamina
  
• Fixed issues with diet combinations regarding amount of each nutrients
  
• Fixed attempt to vomit montage not being interrupted sometimes
  
• Fixed loading saves on respawn when not necessary
  
• Fixed player´s corpses not showing in spec mode
  
• Fixed Dryosaurus dodge not using stamina
  
• Fixed idle stamina regen
  
• Fixed wrong data type error for finding full sessions
  
• Fixed swamp water normal tiling too small
  
• Fixed crabs swimming below the water surface
  
• Fixed duplicate entries when using name filter server list
  
• Fixed for group names showing on re-render if tags disabled
  
• Fixed jungle ambience playing day sounds at night
  
• Fixed moss direction on juvenile ceiba tree bark
  
• Fixed sky using wrong skylight color during partly cloudy weather
  
• Fixed leaves and roots spawning on cliffs
  
• Adjusted Ceiba Tree Collisions.
  
• Fixed an issue with swallowing blocking pickup or input lock eating
  
• Fixed some unoptimized assets
  
• Fixed Ocean water collision
  
• Fixed river PP volume being detected for swimming instead of just the surface mesh
  
• Fixed cloud settings
  
• Fixed Carnotaurus, Tenontosaurus and Stegosaurus not playing walk footstep sounds
  
• Fixed Carnotaurus charge vocal triggering when falling
  
• Fixed character turning after stopping when swimming
  
• Fixed pickup issue when trying to pick a meat chunk from the floor
  
• Fixed bug that sometimes caused Pickup to trigger Drag just once
  
• Fixed Deinosuchus blind sounds
  
• Fixed human crouch using wrong footsteps
  
• Fixed Jump land notifies sometimes not firing.
  
• Fixed and adjustments to vocals and reverb levels
  
• Fixed going underwater on sloped water
  
• Fixed Deinosuchus neck montages
  
• Corrected ScentRange and NV range growth scale.
  
• Fixed Deinosuchus submerging in rivers while moving
  
• Fixed bobbing on water by holding space
  
• Fixed water surface jittering
  
• Fixed Pteranodon neck blending bone
  
• Fixed animation notify effects checking for walk speed when swimming
  
• Fixed not sinking in rivers
  
• Fixed issue with water detection
  
• Fixed flies spawning before time, if dragged
  
• Fixed tracking not working
  
• Fixed swallow causing engine freeze, input lock and other random effects
  
• Fixed directional attacks consuming stamina with broken legs
  
• Fixed Preferred foods info in dino panel
  
• Fixed prone jittering
  
• Fixed issues with underwater montage blending
  
• Fixed Deinosuchus water and swim broadcast blocked after first use
  
• Fixed issues with partial montage blending
  
• Fixed Lunge animation jittering
  
• Fixed Eat_Out animations not playing
  
• Fixed for persistent sensitivity
  
• Fixed camera pitch limits affecting admin pawn
  
• Fixed corpse desync
  
• Fixed crab ragdoll issue
  
• Fixed human jittering when sprinting
  
• Fixed controller crash on input move forward
  
• Fixed rare crash when teleporting
  
• Fixed a trace camera colliding with meat chunks and other dynamic objects
  
• Fixed headbutt not dropping fruits
  
• Fixed Deinosuchus lunge playing FX underwater
  
• Fixed issue of fishes dying without oxygen
  
• Added prevention for looking down human character's neck
  
• Fixed human looking towards velocity when kicking
  
• Fixed character capsule not being scaled for simulated clients when going prone
  
• Fixed Deinosuchus trot footsteps not audible
  
• Fixed human walk steps inaudible and Fixed human using tiny footsteps
  
• Fixed fracture health regen
  
• Fixed a couple issues when Headbutt and Pounce interact with one another
  
• Fixed coconut auto fall issue when rammed, which reset the mesh
  
• Fixed Footprint and Blood splat negative size turning them invisible
  
• Fixed Deinosuchus vocal interruption fail
  
• Fixed other Deinosuchus animations being stuck in horizontal
  
• Fixed Carnotaurus getting up too soon after knockdown, not letting the montage finish in time
  
• Fixed animation issue when pouncing a crouched human
  
• Fixed attempt to river multi PP layers
  
• Fixed animals footsteps not setup correctly
  
• Fixed human camera location
  
• Fixed Rabbit not being susceptible to pounce, inability to swim or not floating on death
  
• Fixed Boar T_pose once latched by any pounce type ability
  
• Fixed corpses not floating in water
  
• Fixed Flies wrong position after carry
  
• Fixed Compsognathus not being interactable
  
• Small Fix for "Diet Deteriorating" in dino profiler
  
• Fixed prone camera jitter when turning
  
• Fixed humans not vomiting
  
• Fixed human animation jitter in some cases
  
• Fixed jumping when prone
  
• Fixed Mushroom not applying debuffs
  
• Fixed human terrain alignment when crawling onto mud
  
• Fixed small value symbol in dino profiler
  
• Change to reference client side for pickup to avoid issues during swimming
  
• Fixed fish rotations and finalized movement/fleeing
  
• Fixed corpse detection issue when bone if dropped from carry/drag
  
• Fixed attempt to skin system showing up for humans
  
• Fixed Salt Lick applying effect before animation ends
  
• Fixed to Stomach highest nutrient not working
  
• Fixed to diet issue regarding juveniles been set until full adult
  
• Fixed human eat/swallow issues
  
• Fixed 180 direction attack animations sometimes not matching the turn direction
  
• Fixed human camera going under the floor in some animations
  
• Fixed corpse smell sphere radius not updating for clients
  
• Fixed latch on failing if it incorrectly detects sloped walls as ground
  
• Fixed human colliding with ragdolls
  
• Fixed Humans not able to drag bodies
  
• Fixed issue of carrying causing stuttering on human pawn
  
• Fixed to Mango and Orange tree weird behaviors when respawning fruits
  
• Fixed Pteranodon sometimes not playing crash landed animation
  
• Disabled hatchlings auto pick up besides Deinosuchus
  
• Fixed FSR mode not setting the UI value on load
  
• Added male fertility check for egg laying prompt
  
• Fixed DLAA default UI value not setting on load
  
• Fixed not able to pick organs from corpse if they spawned from attack
  
• Fixed animations for changing standing/crouching/prone state while turning
  
• Fixed not able to drag Compsognathus corpse
  
• Fixed to DLAA getting disabled on apply during gameplay on the map
  
• Fixed courting issues if someone unpairs too soon
  
• Fixed heal command not stopping delayed vomit
  
• Fixed human sleeping animation
  
• Fixed for the skeletons flying
  
• Fixed to not starting with a full slot as juvenile
  
• Fixed attempt to Lunge elite fishes issue client side
  
• Fixed fog line on Spiro
  
• Fixed Stegosaurus tail attack not working in mud
  
• Fixed dinosaurs not being assigned team IDs if they have no default controller
  
• Fixed food amount and bite attack causing inconsistences on gore material
  
• Fixed swallow not giving nutrients
  
• Fixed Carnotaurus knockdown idle sound issue
  
• Fixed Deinosuchus terrain alignment to water floor
  
• Fixed meat pieces coming out from skeletons when eating them
  
• Fixed scent icons not updating for Rotten and Bones
  
• Fixed fruits showing wrong scent icon
  
• Fixed Pumpkin and Melon not showing scent icon
  
• Fixed eyes color not loading properly
  
• Avoid blood VFX when skeleton is dragged/carried
  
• Avoid skin checks/save for humans
  
• Fixed Night vision range updating for other nearby clients too
  
• Fixed corpse bite sound using the corpse instead of the owner DT
  
• Fixed human shirt clipping
  
• Fixed human ragdoll and not able to be dragged/carried
  
• Fixed lunge failing on server when sometimes target isn´t valid
  
• Fixed montages not resetting to full body properly
  
• Fixed human animations not playing when looking up
  
• Fixed requesting spawns in nests with dead parents
  
• Fixed issue of eating plant piece and not able to graze after
  
• Fixed to issue of corpse disappearing before becoming bone
  
• Fixed pumpkins despawning or falling though map on startup
  
• Fixed humans seeing other characters names
  
• Fixed human mesh being distorted
  
• Fixed human clipping issue when drinking
  
• Fixed decals showing on human meshes
  
• Fixed model only visible in high settings in skin preview
  
• Fixed human drinking animation thumb pose
  
• Fixed character group admin being reset on new invite
  
• Fixed Ambient Animals not moving correctly
  
• Fixed some growth boots values set on diet combinations
  
• Fixed diet % values after vomiting
  
• Fixed occlusion channel on non-call vocals attenuation
  
• Fixed Omniraptor jump vocal sometimes not triggering
  
• Fixed meat or piece getting stuck if the player died while swallowing
  
• Fixed "invisible" meat/plant/organs
  
• Fixed skimming not working, affected Deinosuchus too
  
• Fixed juvenile Deinosuchus water bite vfx issue
  
• Fixed jungle bush imposters not aligning with mesh properly
  
• Fixed flashlight harsh edges
  
• Fixed slow jumping fish and set all niagara schools to same effect
  
• Fixed rare condition where a nutrient slot is locked
  
• Fixed a pounce check to avoid skipping the animation when activating it on the floor
  
• Fixed NV range and Scent range scalling too much
  
• Fixed settings widget issues with different resolutions
  
• Fixed boar animations
  
• Fixed boar ignoring some targets
  
• Fixed boar attacking AI
  
• Fixed boars attacking dead things
  

[h2]FTessaro - Lead Programmer[/h2]
This month I spent the majority of my time improving new and current systems. As part of that focus, code in general received some significant improvements and cleanup. Diets, Insects & Migration received some minor additions while we are still polishing them in QA. Our focus right now is ensuring they are fun and balanced, which is often more difficult than developing the mechanic itself.

You’ll be glad to know that corpse detection is now far more reliable and we added rigged skeletons (generics for now), which will allow them to be carried or dragged. In combination with shaders, VFX and organs this can be really macabre.

Hardened fruits like coconuts now have a chance to fall from trees and open upon impact with the ground, allowing animals ill-equipped to break them to have an opportunity for sustenance.

Added the Death screen from Legacy, with some improvements made to the Loading Screen and performance of the HUD UI in general.

Added new camera behaviors that interact with certain abilities like eating/drinking/pickup and just movement in general. These are not the final changes and the camera will continue to be expanded upon as development progresses. Other minor changes were made to Vocals, Humans, Interactable Foliage, the Troodon Venom Pounce and more.

Finally, I updated the NVIDIA DLSS plugin and implemented an alternative for non RTX users, AMD FSR2. Which will hopefully allow a wider range of players to enjoy a boost to their performance. It will also come alongside a variety of new graphic and game settings aimed at granting players increased quality of life.

See you next time everyone!


[h2]Amar0k - Programmer[/h2]
This month I've been working on finishing the new scavengers and flier/swimming AI. The scavengers are complete and have moved to testing. Fish AI has had a big overhaul of movement and fleeing; they are now much more active and reliable with full rotation and interactive movement. Performance improvements have also been a part of these recent changes so we can allow more AI on the map.

Also the new animal AI framework is coming along nicely with more performant logic and reliability this will scale across to the new dinosaur AI. I have also been working on a complete AI behavior debugger to allow easier testing and for collecting performance data. Some small changes to the anti cheat also with an updated module and upgraded permissions.


[h2]dmIV - Programmer[/h2]
This month I mostly worked on human related things. The biggest addition would probably be prone support. It works similarly to crouching and I was able to reuse some existing code fortunately which made the implementation significantly faster. There are some significant differences though, such as the character’s collision being shorter, limited sideways camera turning or the movement being restricted to crawling forward and backwards for now.

Our humans use what is called a “true first person” system. Most first person games attach the arms and equipment to the camera directly and add the legs separately if at all. We wanted to try a different approach and take the same character you would see from third person and place the camera where the eyes are. This presents many challenges that I looked at.

First of all, sometimes the character’s head can clip inside walls or the floor during certain animations. I ended up creating a system that dynamically adjusts the location of the mesh to prevent that from happening. It’s a pretty effective solution that fixes the problem without being noticeable. The second issue I tackled was being able to look down your own neck, since that doesn’t feel very natural if we’re being honest. It mostly came down to doing the math to limit the camera movement appropriately.

I also set up prone related animations and made some tweaks to existing ones. Most of our current animations are placeholders until we’re ready to make proper ones, but I made some improvements to them so that we have something better for the time being.


[h2]Bryan - Animator[/h2]
Pretty much my only project this month has been gore. Lots of gore. All our Dinosaurs now have a spinal column, ribs and that bit of meat you can never really pick off the bone. For the most part I’ve stuck with skeletal diagrams to keep the skeletons reasonably true to the real animals with the notable exception of the Omniraptor where I referenced a Deinonychus skeletal and then just kind of winged it based on that.

Stegosaurus is probably my favorite so far, it looks so cool without the plates. Very satisfying collection of bones to work on. As you can probably imagine, Tenontosaurus’ tail took a while seeing as that animal is at least 90% tail. It’s been a fun process really, putting a skeleton together is a little like playing with Lego.



For now we don’t have other bones, just vertebrae, cervical ribs, thoracic ribs and tail chevrons but there are a bunch of other juicy, squishy bits you’ll find in the middle of a Dinosaur as well.

Lastly, we have gore morphs too. If you chew on a corpse, you’ll notice it actually gets eaten now, revealing all those bones in the body. Don’t forget to pluck out the eyes first before someone else gets them.


[h2]VisualTech48 - 3D Environment Artist[/h2]
This month was a wild prop one yet again, I’ve first added the Portable Generator, which will be used heavily by the humans while restoring bases.



It needs fuel of course, (duh) but its an essential to any new human settlement.



Secondly I’d like to introduce the Spotlight, with a vintage flare, that will light up the way and areas on the island in the future:



With alongside it I’ve wrapped up and finished the large Searchlight (hint, it will be movable):



And lastly, I’d like to introduce a human item, The Crowbar:




Besides the finished props, I’ve started to work on our Cages, which will be featured in five different sizes. Its a work in progress, so it is of course subject to change.



See you next month!


[h2]Tapwing - 2D Artist[/h2]

It’s time for our nimble, single crested “friend” the Monolophosaurus.

With a nose like that it made sense that it’d be a master of it’s sense of smell, but how to best use that as a mechanic? Being able to zero in on targets more easily or being able to catch scent of something from further away were starting ideas, but then another experimental idea was pitched that I quite liked. Why not a projectile of sorts, or rather a scent trap.

This substance is something that Mono could use to either mark a target to keep track of it during a hunt or lay a trap for careless creatures that step through this substance and make themselves easy-to-chase prey for Monolophosaurus.

Water and mud would be your best friend to wash off the stench with this guy running around.



[h2]Wedge - Sound Designer[/h2]
I started this month with a continuation of the progress on Beipiaosaurus vocal sounds, some more supplementary sounds such as vomit and death vocals. Additionally I worked on some sounds for the juvenile stage including its underwater vocals and some of its attacks.

My focus shifted through the month to working on some basic sounds for humans. I have created a bespoke footstep shoe layer to be used as a sweetener on current footsteps as a placeholder which works well for now. I have also designed some basic sounds for combat including punch and kick movement and some satisfying impacts in addition to a generic close combat weapon swing sound. To complete this basic set of sounds I am working on some generic breathing to be used at various stages, including resting, a moderate breathing for exerting and movement and a fatigued stage of breathing for injury and stamina depletion.

With the impending gore update I have done a complete overhaul to gore sounds currently used for each size category, this includes biting, chewing, gorging, tearing and ripping. All these sounds already existed and could be heard through actions such as eating or grabbing meat but have been replaced with new sounds intended to be more visceral and weightier.

I’ve also been giving Troodon a bit more attention, improving some of its existing sounds such as its bite vocal and sniffing sounds. In addition I’ve been designing some new vocals to complement the venom mechanic with a unique vocal, each increasing in intensity, to signal each stage of the envenomation process.

As always along with active progress I’ve put some time into minor QOL adjustments and bug fixes, some of the more significant being updated deep mud footsteps to be used in mud pits, ensuring all ambient AI animals produce footstep sounds and improving wing flap sounds for Pterodactylus.

[h2]FTessaro - Lead Programmer[/h2]
Hey everyone, I spent most of this month continuing the development of the Migration & Diet systems, participating in several long design meetings throughout the month, with even more to come as we hash out and test the final details.

Besides the Migration System and New Diet system with slot combinations, I also implemented a variety of new food items for Update #6. Such as: Fiddlehead, Dulse, Russula, Papaya, Jackfruit, Cashews, Banana & Brazil Nuts, they will spawn in specific areas of the map depending on their main biome. A new class of interactable actors will be introduced in Update 6, insects. Two types; Flies that spawn close to corpses and bees that provide juveniles with a nutritious treat... Though adults will receive quite the nasty sting!

Carnivores will be receiving a special mechanic for Update 6, it is called the Thrash Mechanic, or Corpse Shake. I can’t spoil the details just yet, but I think the names alone will provide you with all the information you need to get a good idea of what this entails. Besides that, the Troodon received some more love this month as I made improvements to its Venom Pounce to significantly increase its visual smoothness. We’re also experimenting with a locked camera adjustment for when you’re eating/drinking, aimed at making the game more dynamic & immersive, so you’ll no-longer have eyes in the back of your head while stuffing your face with food or drink.


[h2]dmIV - Programmer[/h2]
This month I made some changes to how logging in works. We often had different behavior whether the user did a quick or a safe log, with quick log generally having more issues. So I changed how that works and now it uses the same system as safe log, making it significantly more reliable.

Climbing is something I keep coming back to. It’s an interesting process because every time I make progress I feel very satisfied, but then I come back later and notice new things that need improvement. So I ended up polishing it further and also set up a few animations for testing. The visuals are in an early stage since our animators are busy with other tasks, but here’s a quick look at where things are:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Then I went back to the human character. The first time we made him publicly accessible I didn’t really have the time to make the code as clean as I like. So now I moved everything from Blueprint (Unreal’s visual scripting solution) to C++ (actual code). I also improved a few things in the background to make some of the human-specific movements work better. This isn’t really something that a player would notice, but it was important for making future extension easier.


[h2]VisualTech48 - 3D Envirovmental Artist[/h2]
As we followed the prop month, we went into another one. This month my focus was on not only props but bridging a collision update to a group of objects, for a specific reason. Hehe.

You’ve seen the container last week, well this week we bring forth the Military PDA, which will be used by humans, as a specific way of interacting and using it in the world. We will delve further into its use down the line.



Second less noticeable object is a “simple” stool, which has a few minor variants:



Third one is the HAM Radio, which in the future, “may” have specific intractability, and you’ve seen it perhaps in the Phase-Three section of our Official Discord.



Lastly for this month, I’ve wrapped up and finished an important part of the human future building system, the Portable Generator.



And that is it from me this month. Enjoy!


[h2]Wedge - Sound Designer[/h2]
This month I started out by finalizing ambiences I was working on last month, refining them to achieve the atmosphere we are aiming for on a clear day, both coastal and plains ambience as well as one instance of cave ambience have been added to the new map. Some new layers and one shots have also been introduced to the Jungle and swamp ambiences to expand on what already was heard in these areas.

I’ve also made some changes to ensure all animals have a vocal call for their idle and/or movement animations and created attenuations for them so they can be heard at range to help players locate them through sound.

Another addition to the soundscape will be heard through the buzzing of fly swarms that spawn on rotting corpses. Alongside this I have designed a few sounds for bee swarms.

The remainder of my time this month has been aimed at adding sound to Beipiaosaurus. I started with ensuring both its on land calls and underwater calls, once implemented, are only heard within the correct contexts and at the right pitch and volume. I then went on to add the majority of its foley sounds and created some new sound effects including webbed feet footsteps, claw swipes and jaw snaps. Finally I’ve started working through the supplementary vocals for Beipi. The sounds for all attacks and pain animations are complete or near completion and I will be moving on to the rest over the next month.

I’ve also had a focus on a large amount of minor enhancements and bug fixes – replacing or editing sounds that break immersion and ensuring they are heard and functioning the way we intend (e.g balance and quality of footsteps sounds, replacing leg break sounds, etc.)


[h2]Tapwing - 2D Artist[/h2]

Returning to the stage is one of our loudest creatures on the isle, Parasaurolophus.

This one has been tricky as it’s more of a looker than a fighter; not that it can’t slap away smaller animals, but when the big predators roll in, it’ll need to pull out a different bag of tricks to make up for its lack of weaponry. Its agility is its first asset. being surprisingly nimble for its size on all fours, it can make those ambushing attempts that much harder to land. Against more endurance style hunters though, its voice would give it a second chance. As an ear bleeding yell might stagger the predator long enough to give Para a good head start in running away.

All in all they are sociable singers and get the most benefit from being around others. 2’s a party and 3 is a crowd is not a sentiment the Parasaurolophus shares.


[h2]Seiza - Video Editor[/h2]
This month we presented you with our latest video format, The Isle Guides. As the game grows, it gets more and more complex, one of the ways we would like to explain new mechanics is through guide videos so that newcomers have an easier time getting started. Keep in mind that in future we will also have tutorial resources in-game as well.

The goal of the guide videos is to answer as many questions as possible related to the new mechanics. I hope this goal has been achieved in the Nesting Guide. Your feedback is very important here, because these are certainly not the last videos of it's kind.

Also this year we want to share another special Halloween video. In line with the upcoming Gore update, I was already able to use a few of the new Gore assets in the video. For this, Bryan also created exclusive "zombie" animations for the video, I hope you like them as much as I do.

Happy Halloween everyone!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]