The Isle News

Hey Islanders,

In preparation for Update #4, we're deploying a smaller patch ahead of the main update to combat a variety of issues that were present in the previous version of EVRIMA. This patch also includes a plethora of quality of life & balance changes that we'd love to gather community feedback on, that way the upcoming stress test for Update #4 can be predominantly focused on testing the new systems like Diets & Fractures.

More information regarding the upcoming stress test for Update #4 will be announced in the near future, so make sure to keep an eye out!

Here's a brief overview of the main balance changes:

• Global health/blood rework. Health now matches character weight, which will hopefully make character stats feel less artificially inflated.
  
• Global damage changes. Damage was adjusted to better match the health changes. We've also put a large focus on making the smaller dinosaurs/juveniles feel much more fragile compared to their adult counter parts. Special attacks have been made much more crucial in combat, as basic attacks such as bites have been nerfed across the board.
  
• Global speed nerf. Most characters have been slowed down by 10% of their previous speed to mitigate speed creep. Some animals were being pushed to their absolute limit with their speeds, resulting in animations looking bad visually and forcing smaller characters to be increased in speed unnecessarily as well. This was also done to encourage the use of special abilities, rather than just running and biting wildly.
  
• Locational damage adjustments to prevent people from being bitten on the head through their entire body.
  
• Corpses now give an amount of food more accurate to the size of the creature. They do, however, take longer to eat. This change was made to encourage more contesting over bodies rather than just being able to eat them quickly and leave with no real sense of danger. Drinking time remains the same but if you want to see this change for water too then be sure to let us know!
  
• Pounce rework. Mechanic has been further adjusted to be utilised as an attritional tool, rather than a killing tool. Dismount now launches the player further to somewhat prevent pouncers from instantly being hit after releasing.
  

[h2]Additions[/h2]

• New Ambient sounds.
  
• Global dev ban list for servers and players.
  
• Added ragdoll to knockdowns.
  
• Added turning inertia.
  

[h2]Enhancements[/h2]

• Improved ragdoll performance.
  
• Group Changes: Need to hold friendly call for a few seconds to invite players or to accept a group invite.
  
• New Scent particles.
  
• Several sound updates.
  
• General Water improvements.
  
• Improvements to character save system.
  
• Improvements to spectator mode.
  
• Improved power parameter for vocals.
  
• Made Stegosaurus secondary only deal damage if target is on the same side as the swing.
  
• Fixes to corpse disable and UI hints.
  
• Corrected dinosaur colors.
  
• Changed pounce to pin only same or smaller weight targets besides Utahraptor and Hypsilophodon.
  
• Increased Carnotaurus alt attack speed, matches normal turn rate.
  
• Made Deinosuchus alt attacks spend stamina.
  
• Doubled Hypsilophodon spit distance.
  
• Improved some sliding transitions.
  
• Improved animation and movement smoothness.
  
• AI improvements and new behaviors.
  

[h2]Balance[/h2]

[h3]Global Mechanics[/h3]

Bucking

• Stamina regeneration is now disabled while pouncing or being pounced.
  

Body dragging

• Sprint stamina decay while dragging increased slightly.
  

Eating

• Hunger intake values decreased across the board. It now takes longer to consume corpses to encourage contesting over food.
  

Locational Damage

• Head, Neck, Arm, Body, and Leg locational hit zones now stop hit traces. You can no longer hit a head through a body, or a body through a leg.
  

[h3]Carnotaurus[/h3]

Max Health

• Starting Health decreased.
  
• Max Health reduced slightly.
  

Blood Pool

• Starting Blood Pool reduced.
  
• Max Blood Pool reduced.
  

AttackPower

• Starting AttackPower reduced.
  

Movement speeds

• Sprint speed reduced.
  

Stamina decay rates

• Sprinting decay rate increased.
  

Primary Attack: Bite

• Damage reduced.
  

Alternate Primary Attack: 360 Bite

• Damage reduced.
  
• Stamina cost added.
  
• Animation rate scale increased.
  

Sprinting Secondary Attack: Charge

• Speed modifier increased.
  
• Knockdown damage increased.
  
• Stagger damage increased.
  
• Cooldown removed.
  

[h3]Deinosuchus[/h3]

Max Health

• Starting Health reduced.
  
• Max Health increased.
  

Blood Pool

• Starting Blood Pool reduced.
  
• Max Blood Pool increased.
  

AttackPower

• Starting AttackPower reduced.
  

Movement speed

• Adult sprint speed reduced.
  

Alternate Primary Attack: 360 Bite

• Stamina cost added.
  

Secondary Attack: Lunge

• Damage now scales with AttackPower.
  

[h3]Dryosaurus[/h3]

Max Health

• Starting Health reduced.
  
• Max Health reduced.
  

Blood Pool

• Starting Blood Pool reduced.
  
• Max Blood Pool reduced.
  

AttackPower

• Starting AttackPower reduced.
  

Stamina decay rates

• Sprinting decay rate increased.
  

Movement speeds

• Sprint speed reduced.
  

Primary Attack: Peck

• Damage reduced.
  

[h3]Hypsilophodon[/h3]

Max Health

• Max Health reduced.
  

Blood Pool

• Max Blood Pool reduced.
  

Jump

• Jump Velocity increased.
  

Primary Attack: Peck

• Damage reduced.
  

Secondary Attack: Spit

• Hunger consumption reduced.
  
• Max range increased.
  

Charged Jump

• Stamina cost reduced.
  

[h3]Pteranodon[/h3]

Max Health

• Starting Health reduced.
  
• Max Health reduced.
  

Blood Pool

• Starting Blood Pool reduced.
  
• Max Blood Pool reduced.
  

AttackPower

• Starting AttackPower reduced.
  

Movement speeds

• Sprint speed reduced.
  

Primary Attack: Peck

• Damage reduced.
  

Alternate Primary Attack: 360 Peck

• Damage reduced.
  

Launch

• Standing Launch stamina cost decreased.
  

[h3]Stegosaurus[/h3]

Max Health

• Starting Health reduced.
  
• Max Health increased.
  

Blood Pool

• Starting Blood Pool reduced.
  
• Max Blood Pool increased.
  

AttackPower

• Starting AttackPower reduced.
  

Turning rate

• Turning rate increased.
  

Primary Attack: Bite

• Damage reduced.
  

Secondary Attack: Tail Jab

• Damage adjusted at all growth stages. Adult damage remains the same.
  

[h3]Tenontosaurus[/h3]

Max Health

• Starting Health reduced.
  
• Max Health reduced.
  

Blood Pool

• Starting Blood Pool reduced.
  
• Max Blood Pool reduced.
  

Stamina Regen rates

• Trotting regen rate reduced.
  

AttackPower

• Starting AttackPower reduced.
  

Stamina decay rates

• Sprinting decay rate increased.
  
• Slow swim decay rate increased.
  

Movement speeds

• Sprint speed reduced.
  

Primary Attack: Bite

• Damage reduced.
  

Alternate Primary Attack: 360 Claw

• Damage reduced.
  
• Stamina adjusted.
  

Secondary Attack: Rear Kick

• Stamina cost increased.
  

[h3]Utahraptor[/h3]

Growth time

• Growth time reduced.
  

Mass

• Adult Mass reduced.
  

Max Health

• Starting Health reduced.
  
• Max Health reduced.
  

Blood Pool

• Starting Blood Pool reduced.
  
• Max Blood Pool reduced.
  

Corpse food value

• Corpse food value reduced.
  

AttackPower

• Starting AttackPower reduced.
  

Movement speeds

• Sprint speed reduced.
  

Stamina decay rates

• Sprinting decay rate increased.
  

Primary Attack: Bite

• Damage reduced.
  

Alternate Primary Attack: 360 Bite

• Damage reduced.
  

Large Pounce

• Initial Damage reduced.
  
• Initial Stamina reduced.
  
• Damage per tick reduced.
  
• Stamina per tick increased.
  

Small Pounce

• Initial Damage reduced.
  
• Initial Stamina reduced.
  
• Damage per tick reduced.
  
• Stamina per tick increased.
  
• 0.5s delay for targets to attack back after releasing the pin.
  

[h2]Bug fixes[/h2]

• Fixed Stegosaurus not being able to vocalize or bite if carrying impaled body.
  
• Fixed Utahraptor calls playing at incorrect pitch.
  
• Fixed some inconsistent hint messages.
  
• Fixed lunge applying incorrect bleeding values.
  
• Fixed pouncing rocks, trees or walls to cause pouncer knockdown.
  
• Fixed sometimes not staying on the water surface as Deinosuchus.
  
• Fixed abilities draining stamina while swimming.
  
• Fixed being unable to take off while bleeding as Pteranodon.
  
• Fixed stamina drain after stationary takeoff as Pteranodon.
  
• Fixed Hypsilophodon stamina recharge after charge jump.
  
• Fixed footprint/blood clouds sometimes not showing up properly.
  
• Fixed blood level affecting charge.
  
• Fixed bug and optimised the Ambient AI spawner.
  
• Fixed spec names not working with Chinese characters.
  
• Fixed locked damage decay not updating with blood level and resting state.
  
• Fixed footprint rotation issue.
  
• Fixed pounce and lunge causing get up animation to trigger.
  
• Fixed speed issue when swimming up/down.
  
• Fixed flying Pteranodon colliding with a pouncing Utahraptor not working properly.
  
• Fixed locational hitboxes being misaligned slightly.
  
• Fixed swallowing corpse not working properly when swimming on surface as a Deinosuchus.
  
• Fixed some abilities canceling sprint.
  
• Fixed various issues with turning.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused a server crash.
  

[h2]Filipe - Lead Programmer[/h2]
It’s been an absolutely great month with plenty of awesome new things coming down the pipeline. This month I worked on the Pachycephelosaurus Headbutt ability. This ability will arrive with two variations, a tap and a hold. We are still designing the main differences between those variations, besides animations. Balancing it is also a work in progress and fracture will also play a role in these abilities.

The Utahraptor Pounce has also received some attention, besides the usual bug fixes it got some new flashy animations and small changes to its momentum when performing the ability while standing. One complaint we kept hearing was the dismount after pouncing big targets, like Stegosaurus, so besides the animation it now falls further away from the target and is faster to land as well. This ability will continue to be updated with new animations and improvements to the mechanic and overall look, so it isn´t finished yet. Expect more improvements in general in the future.

The Diet System is under vigorous testing from our Quality Assurance team, with the majority of the bugs eliminated we are ready to organize a more robust and populated test environment to see how it performs, which will require assistance from our awesome community, like a stress test, but far more limited and focused in scope. Additional details will follow in future.

Another important feature being worked on in conjunction with dmIV is the fracture system, the design is simple, but allows a lot of variation in gameplay, not only different effects applied to your character during fights, but there will be another important factor to surviving in general.

I also updated Knockdown with ragdoll because having it be animation only doesn't look as great as we would like, so the ragdoll adds some realism to the fall, it works well when hit by the Headbutt ability, however this is still work in progress and will be extended to many other mechanics and systems in the future. Besides all that I’ve been occupied with the usual bug fixes, performance improvements and some stuff I can't comment on yet. So, see you soon!


[h2]Amar0k - Programmer[/h2]
As you’d expect, I’ve devoted much of this month to developing additional AI variants, including the new Ambient AI which will make its debut as part of the upcoming Diet System, breathing new life into the island’s ecosystem through a variety of extant creatures ranging from chickens, sea turtles, goats and much more that I’ll leave for you all to discover in-game.

Besides that, I’ve recently completed some extensive work on our backend. However I can’t share the details of that just yet.


[h2]Wedge - Sound Designer[/h2]
I finished off designing the fracture sounds early this month. I've taken a modular approach to how these sounds will be implemented, creating a collection of different elements [breaks, cracks, pop, crunches and splinters]. I’ve created variants for a range of sizes/severity, which will provide control over the fracture sounds make-up as I can vary the combination of these components. Continuing on from fractures I’ve also finalised some blunt force impact sounds, with the majority of focus aimed at getting the Pachy vs Pachy headbutt sound to hit just right.

I have returned back to ambient audio to create the cave ambient audio. I’ve designed some bedding loops as well as bat and water drip one shots, once I’ve finished designing the sounds for this (currently) final biome, the audio currently not set up, will need to be as well as refined properly in Spiro, aiming to achieve a dynamic and tasteful soundscape with a balance of both diversity and sparsity.

I have also been focusing on experimenting with the design of a selection of creature’s vocals for some new additions that will be coming soonest, including Compsognathus and Pachycephalosaurus, in addition to editing [and designing, for the more unique species] sounds to accompany the ambient animals arriving with the Diet System, all of which I will be carrying over into the next month.

Additionally to the above I have also made some general adjustments to audio; the Utahraptor adult broadcast has been improved as well as the attenuation set up being fixed. Further work has been done in general on the vocals' pitch and volume; the adult Stegosaurus vocals in particular have been improved with some level balancing between layers. I’ve also added some improvements to the environment audio such as randomly triggered stick snap sounds to the jungle floor surface footsteps and light wind and foliage rustle loops to some of the new ambient zones.


[h2]Baardo - 3D Artist[/h2]
In the last few months I’ve been continuing work on the large amount of edible plants we want for the diet system. In addition to the Tagetes, Sunchoke and Agave plants I showed last time, I’ve also wrapped up work on a Horned Melon, Wild Potato Vine and Chanterelle Mushroom.



What I didn’t get a chance to show last time was the assets in the engine, so enjoy some nice eye candy. I’m looking forward to seeing these assets scattered throughout the game world for players to spot and eat.




[h2]Bryan - Animator[/h2]
A devblog from me? First time for everything I guess. Been working on improving our animation workflow, centered mainly around the addition of Pachycephalosaurus and its ability to knock things into next week. One of the hurdles we’ve had with animation is with the left and right turning, used to be those were in separate files so if we wanted to make changes to the base animation, it required us to then have to remake the left and right versions of that locomotion cycle.

Recently however I’ve found a workaround to a bug in 3D Max that allows us to use Layers, which is both significantly more convenient to work with and faster to do. The major upside to using layers is we can readily make changes to the base animation and not have to remake the left/right versions of that locomotion cycle. As an added bonus, limping and other injuries that are visible during locomotion can be done as layers as well, which makes the whole process of adding injury animations to all the current roster faster and more productive.


[h2]Fred - 2D Artist[/h2]
I've been helping out with how our natural environment will be handled. Overall the island is to be a tropical environment. As you've seen from some of Jace’s stunning work, there will be coasts and jungles, but there’s more to that when it comes to the tropics. We’ll have visually distinct habitats so the island has points of interest and uniqueness without losing cohesion.

Recently I've been working on underwater habitats. There will be 4 different habitats; Swamp, Lake, River, and the Coast. The most important thing for me right now is to make sure each habitat has a clear visual distinction to one another. So for example, the color of the water for each will be different, as well as the plants and floor. The real challenge, after finding some visually interesting plants, is finding their names. Googling plants isn't fun. Next I’ll be working on the Rivers, then the Coast. The concepts take a while to be completed but they’ll make their way into the phase-two channel, then eventually into the game for you to explore.








[h2]Tapwing - 2D Artist[/h2]
A lot of my recent work has entailed me revisiting the old dockyard and working with VisualTech, Jace and Dondi to tackle the layout and aesthetic. I gathered the old dockyard concepts, reimagined some structures and worked to create a rough concept and overall layout blueprint of the dockyard.

Additionally since we’ve been brainstorming other buildings and facilities to flesh out the landscape, research and write-ups have been the other half of my workload. I’ve been creating pitch lists of human structures and what potential mechanics or lore they could be tied to. With humans on the horizon, we’ll want some of their environments to be ready.








[h2]KissenKitten - Producer[/h2]
Well this month I hit the ground running upon returning from vacation. Bringing with me swaths of on-location redwood reference images that Jace and the rest of the team have been putting to good use. It really feels like another world!

The majority of this month has been diet focused as that will be the meat and potatoes of Update 4 (sorry Punch). I’m sure many of you have caught Amar0k’s ambient AI streams and seen some of those placeholder critters running around. The plan here is to get a relatively solid foundation of diet items in the game for adequate gameplay and testing. Diets as a whole are intended to hit a few marks which include but are not limited to, bolstering your creature’s growth, increasing your stats and moving players as a whole around the map to attain the numerous benefits of following an appropriate diet. That being said, as with most features we have planned, there are no requirements to following the guidelines of the mechanic but you may find yourself woefully debilitated in strength, speed, growth, wellness etc. Be aware that many of the ambient creatures you have seen thus far are placeholders and are subject to change in model, texture, animation and even species. So don’t get too attached. Alongside the animals will be our diet plants which span quite a few species for which we’ll likely drop more images of in the not so distant future. However, the initial release of Update 4 will not include the entire plant roster as that will take far more time to produce than is necessary to release Update 4 effectively. So you will continually be seeing new diet plants added to the game over the course of 2021.

We’ve also been toiling away with fractures. There are currently 3 types of fractures you can sustain from a fracture-causing attack. Each fracture type has its own debilitating effects. Our primary goal with the fracture system was to reimagine the archaic “bonebreak” into something that feels hard-hitting and impactful without being overpowered and an instant death sentence. Alongside this will come many animation changes. As you may know, The Isle has always favored a minimalistic HUD that aims to keep you in the moment when traversing the island. In order to keep with that theme, we needed to be able to convey player vs player impact in a way that remains consistent with our vision but also gives you, the player, visual clarity as to what is happening when you are engaged in combat with another player. So our fractures will be ushering in new animations that will denote what type of fracture you or your target has sustained. So, at a glance, you will know exactly which players are suffering from which fractures (or combination of fractures), giving you more opportunities to coordinate your next attack or make a speedy retreat.

The Pachycephalosaurus has been getting lots of love this month due to it being the poster child of fracturing. We've been spending a lot of time injecting more personality and combat prowess into it so when you are finally behind its eyes, you will be able to fully feel the fantasy of being a no-nonsense, heavy-hitting herbivore that demands respect and its space. In addition to that, we have been reworking some of its older animations to bring them more inline with the quality EVRIMA dinosaurs demand. So be on the lookout for those changes as time goes on.

We’re also continuously working on improving performance across the board. Which is a never ending cycle. Aside from that, there are a few extra flavor adjustments to some of the other inhabitants. The Utahraptor pounce (which isn’t quite complete just yet) has gotten some love and there’s a new ability for the Pteranodon as well as some work for the scavenging Compsognathus and its governing AI. Humans are also well underway and are on track to make their initial appearance this year. More on them at a later date.

That pretty much sums up the month thus far. We hope you guys are as excited to experience these new systems as we are to present them to you. As always, when the time comes, we’ll want to hear your valuable feedback on what the systems are and are not giving so they can be improved upon. We are also welcoming a new member to the team in August. So if you see them around (if they wish to be seen), say hello.

That’s all folks! Be kind to each other and to yourself.

[h2]FTessaro - Lead Programmer[/h2]
Much of this past month I’ve been working on the new diet system, setting up the latest design decisions during the several meetings we've already had. I’m very happy with the system we are developing, it seems robust, very flexible and easy to set up after the main programming core is complete, it will bring forth a completely new playstyle, but be aware that this can make the game far more difficult than what it is now, having a good or a bad diet during your life cycle will make an enormous difference when it comes to survival.

We need a lot of balance changes to get this right and even more adaptations as we introduce additional playables. There are also a number of other things that I've been working on but cannot share the specifics of just yet, as we need to be sure that those systems have the necessary quality and performance, otherwise we’d have to go back to the design board, so no point talking about those right now.

Lastly it’s been the usual pending fixes and performance improvements for both server and clients, this is a constant process that we will work on throughout the game’s development, as new content can also affect performance in one way or another.


[h2]dmIV - Programmer[/h2]
Firstly I completed the class setup for the Pachycephalosaurus so we could begin testing the animations. This is a quick and straightforward process on the programming side, but significantly helps the animation team.

Afterwards I moved onto updating the scent effect. You might have experienced strange behaviour when the framerate dropped, or certain particles not being very smooth or pleasant to look at. The style of the plant and water scent didn’t really work out as well as I’d originally hoped with the leaf and bubble shaped particles, so this time around I chose something that resembles the corpse effect more. I think you will enjoy seeing it in the game.



I also added a new mechanic, fractures. Even though fractures will be more heavily utilized by the Pachycephalosaurus, we’re bringing the feature itself to update 4. There are three different parts that can be affected: the legs, the body and the head. Fractured legs decrease your movement speed, but still leave you enough mobility to get around. In the case of the head your vision becomes blurry and you deal less damage due to the concussion messing with your concentration. Getting your body fractured makes you take a bit of damage each time you perform an attack.

Other than that there’s the usual bug fixes. A particularly annoying one that keeps coming back is surfacing as a Deinosuchus and just having it stay there. No accidental submerging, no hopping out of the water a little, no flying up into the sky, just staying on the surface. I went through this several times already and I think I finally reached a point where it reliably behaves how you’d expect it to.


[h2]amar0k - Programmer[/h2]
This year is flying by! I have been more focused on AI lately to try to get some more species out in the world. We should be seeing the Utahraptor and Tenontosaurus AI make an appearance soon with full use of all their playable abilities. You may also be able to catch AI off guard as they are eating or drinking with some added dynamic behaviour.

I have also been working on a new method for spawning AI as the diet system will require the right balance of creatures in the world to function correctly. You should always be able to find the right nutrients, you just have to know where to look.

Lastly the usual performance improvements to AI logic is an on-going battle as everything runs server-side and needs to be handled appropriately. This will only get more complex as we add more creatures and more AI. I am constantly looking for more creative ways to do certain tasks and handle AI behaviours.


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


How to design a terror of the skies without going overboard?

Well to start I wanted to branch off from the original design, borrowing and accentuating the forward leaning crest and the sharp yet sturdy beak with some facial features inspired by the great ground hornbill.

While we played with the idea of giving the quetzalcoatlus a fibrous coat. We went with skin this time around. At least for now. We’d like to get our hands on a technical artist who would create a proper shader that could do pycnofibres justice.



Well I’d say Deinocheirus was a mix of fun and frustration.

On one hand there was a fair amount of potential to work with in the way of feathers, different types of skin or scales and other potential soft tissue. On the other hand, Deinocheirus is a rather silly looking animal based on the skeletal. So how to balance staying true enough to the bones while still coming up with something that fits our aesthetic. Ultimately we stayed pretty close to the skeleton for this one, only lengthening the neck and tail a tad and bulking up the hands.

For covering we went with a half and half of textured hide and feathers. Aiming for something somewhat hydrodynamic for the large wader. A mix of hornbill and ducks were used for facial details, giant armadillo claws for the hands, both for offence and to dig up plants and perhaps water sources. Lastly coot-like pads were added on the feet as a little detail suggesting the mud dwelling life.

We had some additional features in mind for the neck and even the nose, but decided to hold off on those for now, saving them for the future elder stage and potential cosmetics.


[h2]Wedge - Sound Designer[/h2]
The first half of this month saw me finish up designing the remaining sounds for the Ocean biome, I spent a decent amount of time creating all the one-shots needed. Now all sound sets are completed for the Coastal biome, a bespoke ambient zone will need to be created, as two of the four one-shot sound sets will need to emit exclusively from the ocean and one exclusively from land. Afterwards I focused on mixing the four existing biomes together, maintaining an appropriate dynamic range as the player crosses from one ambient zone to the next, so there is less work needed to complete the mix later on. In doing so I found that I had only fully developed the idea of creating Fauna one shots for all times when working on the Jungle biome. Consequently, these sounds were missing from the Swamp biome so I set aside some time to create these. Currently all 4 of the biomes I have worked on so far have all audio needed designed and set-up in the engine, leaving just the cave biome audio left to create.

For the second half of the month, I shifted from working on the ambient audio in order to make progress on both Fractures and the Pachycephalosaurus vocal audio. I have started designing a collection of cracking, splintering and popping bone sounds with varying degrees of intensity to audibly indicate how severe the fracture based on size and how it was applied. For the Pachy I have updated the existing calls, adding more layers to give depth and weight to them, whilst conforming aesthetically both to the original calls and to new vocals that I create. The calls were further improved by introducing additions such as the 1 and 3 calls power layer that are audible upon holding the key. I have also created a large majority of the supplementary vocal sounds for the adult Pachy.


[h2]VisualTech48 - Environmental Artist[/h2]
Majority of the month has been spent upping the prop count, with cool new additions that make it more “homey” for our humans, starting by adding a semi-modular television so they can sit back and watch the dinosaurs eat, featuring a lot of variants so we don’t look at the same one each time.





Within the same package we also have the broken mirror variants, with pieces of glass missing or broken, the holy toilet itself, and the sink as well.









Other than that, I’ve been hard at work with the new buildings and interiors, some of which you'll see very soon, as well as one that is still being constructed, but with added stuff as well. This has been a good challenge to make, as some changes have been made to the system, and with the addition of a lot of decals I’ve pushed it to look as “used” as I can with the current propwork we have.












[h2]Closing Remarks[/h2]
That's a wrap for June! We hope that you've all enjoyed this insight into some of what we've been up to the past month. As a parting gift I was able to secure Fred's latest map concept, feast your eyes upon our plans for the Underwater Swamp Environments! - Punchpacket.

Hey Islanders,

We've deployed a small hotfix to alleviate issues that were encountered the previous patch, predominantly those pertaining to server performance. You may need to restart your Steam client if Steam does not display the latest update in your download manager.



[h2]Enhancements[/h2]

• Prevented toggling spectator mode after dying to avoid issues.
  
• Spectator mode client and server performance improvements.
  
• Spectator nametag widget improvements.
  
• Reduced volume of Utahraptor and Tenotosaurus rest sounds.
  

[h2]Bug fixes[/h2]

• Fixed players being flung up from the surface of water sources, causing them to fall to their deaths.
  
• Fixed Utahraptor pounce bleeding values being incorrect.
  
• Fixed Pteranodon bucking animation causing the player to slide.
  
• Fixed footprint materials causing artifacts when flipped.
  
• Fixed corpse performance solution not working properly.
  
• Fixed being able to grow dead characters.
  
• Fixed being able to be attacked while in spectator mode.
  
• Fixed vomit not setting debuff caps after safe logging or a server restart.
  
• Fixed Utahraptor 3 call core layer not playing.
  
• Fixed Tenontosaurus vocals being muffled in certain locations.
  
• Fixed Stamina/Hunger/Thirst percentages only showing if the chatbox was active. They can now be viewed by hovering them with your mouse while the character screen is open.
  

[h2]FTessaro - Lead Programmer[/h2]
I’ve been mostly working on the latest update for this month, after the big Update #3. I noticed a big performance hit on the servers caused by the new Spectator Mode system, way higher than expected, so I reworked it a little bit in order to alleviate the issues, which was the main cause of the irritating rubber banding that many of you had been experiencing the last few weeks. I used the opportunity to also add more features to it, such as showing AIs.

Worked also on the Juvenile Pounce for the Utahraptor, which was very straightforward since the basics of the system had already been completed, we just had to do some balance changes, add some additional animations and do some value testing.

As some of you may recall, I mentioned a few months ago that we were working in a new water system, so this month I unified the fluid simulation system to all water sources and with Jace’s help in the material side of things, the water looks good, similar to how it was before, but with the fluid simulation, which brings more immersion and new gameplay situations to the game.

Besides the usual bugs that consume a good portion of our time, I was also working on a Mesh Painting system, in order to dynamically add scars, damage marks, blood, bites or claws in the body of the damaged dinos, for example, but can be used for far cooler things, it still needs some extra work so it will be implemented sometime down the road.


[h2]dmIV - Programmer[/h2]
I started the month with preparing support for the hatchling, subadult and elder growth stages. So far we’ve only had support for dinosaurs growing from juvenile to adult. We set up our systems with the extension in mind, but other features took priority. Now we are getting closer to the nesting system’s introduction and the Pachycephalosaurus will also have a subadult stage, so the time came to add support. It’s currently limited to only allow growth between juvenile and adult, but now we will only have to flick a switch when we get to nesting and later elders.

Last month’s water system rework also opened up an opportunity to add a feature we’ve been missing. Previously our dinos started swimming when they walked into the water down to their midpoint. It had varied results, but usually resulted in dinos swimming slightly above the water when near the edge. Now this height can be customized on a per-dino basis, meaning you can walk into the water much deeper before you start swimming. Overall it provides a much more realistic behaviour.

Afterwards I moved on to the diet and migration systems. I’m not going into specifics for now, but the initial version is functional and ready for QA testing after we’ve pushed 3.5 to the public.


[h2]Wedge - Sound Designer[/h2]
This month I’ve been making more progress on designing the ambiences; with both jungle and plains biomes now complete alongside swamp, two biomes remain. I have now started on the fourth biome to tackle coasts. This will not only include addressing the usual ambient sounds, but also improvements to both the underwater ocean ambience and the ocean surf audio, improving on the quality as well as cohesion with the new changes already made. Currently I have collected together all bird one shots for each time of day, as well as a handful of loops. The ocean surf and underwater improvements are in progress. The ocean surf has been given more definition and a broader frequency spectrum range for improved fidelity. When combined with a more energetic selection of sounds for the underwater ambience it gives a better impression of the waves crashing over you as you are just below the surface. Going deeper will drive a crossfade which fades out the livelier sounds to a subtler and deafeningly empty ambience. To accompany the deep ocean ambience I have designed a selection of aquatic creature calls, previewed in the most recent phase two post, giving more life and atmosphere to the depths. To be explicit it must be stated that these examples are the raw one-shots before they have been put through real-time distance processing so may differ slightly due to this.

I have also re-evaluated the categorisation of the spatialised one shots that spawn around the player. These calls are now categorised (bar the underwater ambiences) by birds, insects (as before), as well as Fauna and a new category - a bespoke sound set indicative of the relevant biome. Each sound-set by and large is different depending on the time of day. This change should achieve a more tailored ambience for each biome whilst increasing the perceived bio-diversity and detail.

Although these changes to ambiences won’t be heard until they are all complete, sounds have been added to the new buck animations and some tenonto sounds have been altered, all of which will be included in the upcoming patch/hotfix.


[h2]VisualTech48 - Environmental Artist[/h2]
Hello folks yet again, as I missed the previous month I won’t miss this one!

As always I’m mostly working on human stuff, but now you get to see them in game. I’ve been focusing heavily on adding the interior and exterior proper bases to the map, and voila, here we go and here we have two new set piece locations, alongside a bunch of new props to fill up the way. The whole system works flawlessly now so you will soon be seeing stuff like the radio tower and some other structures already in the map getting massive overhauls, as they get their interior. New modular systems are being built like the modular Locker System, and future props like these to ensure a lot of varirarity to the whole human aspect.

While it is taken care of, a lot of props are still on the way, so stay tuned for those, as the humans slowly creep up upon us.

As well I’ve done a lot of the shading process to make the whole locations far more interesting, with added Dirt and Moss, and the props can now benefit from said blends and additions, alongside a bunch of small fixes to the existing system to make sure it really feels at home.










[h2]Seiza - Video Editor[/h2]
After the trailer for Update 3 was finalized, I started with the next tasks, including the upcoming second trailer for Update 3. This will have a different format, a little less cinematic but more informative.
The planning and the filming went well and quickly, in the last two weeks I also completed the editing and polishing part.

With such small teasers and trailers we would like to keep you up to date at all times, so it is possible that you will see more of those informative sneak peeks in the future.

I also received your feedback on the Update 3 trailer and I really appreciate it. I am very happy about your kind words, Thank you!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


[h2]Tapwing - Concept Artist[/h2]



This is our dropbear of the Isle, or rather our mix of anole, jaguar and attack dog in dinosaur form.
When it came to features for Herrerasaurus, climbing was too fun an idea to pass up.

The first hurdle I had to tackle was finding a reference for climbing. There aren’t too many climbers sporting a long set of hind-legs and a short pair of arms like the Herrera has. Outside of some lizards I found the Tarsier, which proved to be a lot of help for reference, sporting similar proportions to what I was looking for whilst still being a climber, jumper and hunter.

Now while a climbing mechanic was a nice idea for mobility, it still felt like Herrera was missing a little something in the hunting department. Which is where the far right concept comes in, a bite with a grapple. You could just bite and deal some damage, but if you bite and hang on, withstanding some running and bucking you can get a bite of food from something you weren’t otherwise able to kill.
I liked this idea for a couple reasons outside of its mechanical usefulness.

On one hand, there’s something humorous about the animal being thrown around like an over ambitious cowboy, while on the other, I find it a rather unnerving idea that something could dart out of the woods and suddenly latch onto you.


[h2]Baardo - 3D artist[/h2]
This month I started work on the first in a series of edible plant assets. I was given quite a hefty list of these so I'm bound to be doing this sort of work for quite a while. For efficiency's sake sometimes it is important to lump assets into the same texture and material groups, so I worked on the first three in tandem.



Quality vegetation work is entirely rooted in good foundational texture work. Oftentimes you won't know if the asset will turn out well until the very end of the process, so it is important to have a solid plan for what you want. Here I've laid out some of the components I'll need for this series of assets.





And finally here are some shots of the assembled pieces, I'm quite happy with how they've come together.


[h2]KissenKitten - Producer[/h2]
After the launch of Update 3 we shifted gears and are now moving full steam ahead with Update 4. In addition, the hotfix we've been working on has been packed with so much additional content that it has partly evolved into its own mini-update which we've coined as 3.5.

Production moves briskly forward on diets. We're nailing down each species, what they provide, who they provide it to and where they're located amongst other things. Which is all necessary to ensure that we get a fully functional ecosystem up and running, as well as providing everyone with an intricate and interesting gameplay loop for you all to sink your claws into. Besides that we've been working on the Pachycephalosaurus which is slated to crash headfirst into Update 4.5. Be sure to keep a watchful eye on our phase-two and social media channels as we can't wait to share all of the neat clips that will be making their way through the development pipeline soon.

Humans and their assets are also progressing nicely, as well as the long awaited community creature that is almost ready to emerge from it's concept phase...


[h2]Closing Remarks[/h2]
That's a wrap for May folks! What started as a hotfix swiftly evolved into so much more... As you're reading this, Update #3.5 should be in your hands, with it a plethora of bug fixes & quality of life improvements.

See you next time Islanders! - Punchpacket