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[Savick]

Only thing that stands out to me so far (at a glance of the thread) is your human characters have this unblinking thousand yard stare in their eyes seemingly all the time that's creeping me out some. Maybe have them blink or not look so emotionless? Facial animations and structure probably aren't really high on your list right now, but something to think about, yeah?

[alvarop]

The game is looking amazing. I wonder what the minimum specs are going to run it.

[Whiteclaws]

[Timo Vihola]

Development Update 27: "If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes"  

Quarry: Yep, it's a bit extreme but it's always fun to play with new toys at first so it's noticeable

alvarop: It's very resource intensive game but performance is getting better by the day. It works ok on the few laptops we've tried it on.

Savick: We have blinking on most characters now - one high priority feature is getting the head and torso to rotate towards other characters & objects of interest because that's a large motion which can be registered far away. We have one low fidelity idea of how to do mouth shapes for talking but actual facial expressions are quite low on the bible sized todo list.

Blinking GIF party:





Even intentionally creepy characters have the blinking - though I don't know if it makes them more or less creepy

[SolarLune]

This looks really cool! The sound of "open world action adventure RPG" reminds me of Cube World. This game looks really excellent, though. I'd like to apply for testing if it's still open.

[Timo Vihola]

Cool, Blitzkriegsler did a gameplay video of the latest pre-alpha version!



SolarLune: It's very likely we add even more testers for the next version so just send your PC specs to hardland at mountainsheep.net

Development Update 28: The entity system is getting a big overhaul and also the physics peformance continues to improve as stuff is managed in a better way. Tree bounding boxes are very accurate now (there's a moment in that youtube video where the player falls through the tree so that's fixed now). The generator also creates water filled areas though it still needs a few tweaks so it doesn't spawn trees and non-water plants into the water. It adds quite a bit of variety to the visuals and screen-space reflections work very well there. (From this camera angle the wave surface helps hide the SSR artifacts in most cases)

[Tyyppi_77]

Everything on this thread looks awesome. I was wondering what powers the game? Is it some public engine, or your own one? Is it based on OpenGL/DirectX? I'd really like to know some technical details.

[Timo Vihola]

Tyyppi_77: Thanks! It's our own engine we've been using and improving for a long time. (the first iteration dates back to 2006) Our earlier mobile games use OpenGL ES but this new game is based on DirectX 11.

[wurthers]

Hey guys, this is looking great still! Btw, I sent you an email a few days ago about the latest release of the pre-alpha. Seems my system is still having the error some others were experiencing, where the launcher crashes at about 63%. 

Also, I hereby put my vote in for Bear for the prototyping. Can't wait to watch the creation process again, last time was a blast! 

[Timo Vihola]

wurthers: It seems to load further now. Is there any difference in the percentage if you load Hardland or Testland? We're again changing lots stuff under the hood so hopefully the next build works for you as well!

Development Update 29:

Sampo has been working on the Adventurers' Guild model, it looks very cool already even without any real textures:



Bear seems to be winning so far, where's all the wolfmen?

[wurthers]

wurthers: It seems to load further now. Is there any difference in the percentage if you load Hardland or Testland? We're again changing lots stuff under the hood so hopefully the next build works for you as well!

I sure hope so! Can't wait to get my hands on this As far as the loading, you're right about it being a bit further this time than last--it gets up to 63%, the highest it ever got on the last build was 50%. Testland and Hardland load the same amount before crashing.

Thanks for your help guys!

[Impmaster]

The art style is great, but I feel that the animations that you have on the front page are a little stiff. Like, the one where you have someone slashing? That seems like he should have more impact to it. Apart from the animations though, I love everything else! Got any plans on what the gameplay might be like? I mean a little more specifically than action-adventure.

[Timo Vihola]

wurthers: Things are moving so fast the new build could be ready early next week.

Impmaster: Thanks! The strike animations will be improved to suit the gameplay as the whole striking mechanic is fleshed out. At some point we'll add the weapon trails which is a big part of the overall sense of motion. Strike which I would rank as responsive controls only has a couple of frames on the screen. That's why usually in sword fighting games they have these big swooping weapon trails, you see more of the arc than the sword:



Exploration is furthest along as the world makes more sense and is bigger thanks to vastly improving performance. Basic melee and ranged combat is there, the first iteration of looting and rudimentary inventory is also there. Various mechanics like picking up/carrying/throwing/luring characters & objects, crafting/wearing disguises and quests are high on the TODO list.

Development Update 30:

"Proto world" and "Polished world" switching works very smoothly now and testers will be given access to that feature in the next update. By pressing P you can change into "Proto World" which has the blocky characters (and lots of them) and all the unfinished experimental stuff. (it all started with an innocent dragon chicken...)
Minimap got a few upgrades, it rotates smoothly according to the camera angle, has proper height and also shows water areas. Water also has it's own unique biome now so it doesn't spawn trees and other stuff in the middle of it (on the edges it can spawn "spilled" stuff). Here's minimap and water in one screenshot:



The water doesn't yet have foam where it meets solid ground, any particles or character traversal effects.

This comparison screenshot demonstrates how much the screen space reflections help in integrating the water to the environment:

[Timo Vihola]

Development Update 31: Very exciting week ahead! Adventurers' guild and healing altar environment props are very close to completion. The first iteration of dialogue bubbles are in (it's one of the required steps for implementing quests).
Kalle made biome specific shading which modifies the G-buffer and it can make everything look wet, sandy or snowy - once we have the time to integrate it properly so it blends between the modifications smoothly it will look really sweet:


(in this snow example it adds more snow on surfaces pointing up. Crytek used similar technique in Crysis snow levels - it saves lots of time because you don't have to make as many environment specific assets)


You can make characters follow you by equipping specific item. Here's a GIF of chicken following the rotating debug coin )



ProtoDragon enters prototype world and causes mayhem:

[Quarry]

That snow shader is really good!

[Timo Vihola]

Development Update 32:

Quarry: Thanks! I'll try to convince Kalle to post more examples of the desert and rain shaders as well, they're very cool as well.

New stuff: You can collect small objects and lift & throw heavier objects. We also did lots of polish in preparation for the new release.
Kimmo is currently streaming Hardland pre-alpha update 4 gameplay on twitch so you can see some of that stuff in action:

http://www.twitch.tv/mountainsheepstream

[Gear]

"It's too dangerous to go alone, take this Elderblade!"

[Timo Vihola]

Gear: Haha, I wonder how a blade like that is forged...

Development Update 33: Less talk, more screens!

Clay shader is cool. It's also like flipping an image horizontally, you see everything with fresh eyes again. Might be a fun easter egg for the options menu:


Short gameplay video with the clay shader enabled:




Trying out Tearaway inspired stylistic water ripples. Works ok for the proto world but we're probably gonna need more heavy duty effect for the final world:


Sneak peek of the healing altars:


Sampo started modeling the biggest location yet, the Root Hall - that's gonna be one epic setpiece!

[Timo Vihola]

Kirill: Thanks!

Development Update 34:

Three special weather shaders are now implemented properly! Rain, sand and snow.

This is my favourite, it's the wet surface effect during rain:


It makes surfaces more shiny and there's a small ripple effect (which quite hard to see on the GIF).
The rain droplets are using a new part of the particle system which allows stretching them in the direction they're traveling. It's also used for blood and sparks.

(We used to have the billboard stretching on a 2d plane but this time it's in 3d space so it doesn't break when you look down or up.)

Here's the data for the rain particle, velocityStretchFactor is the parameter which enables the stretching - value of 0 means no stretching:


And this is how the bitmap looks:

[Timo Vihola]

Development Update 35:

The best way to demonstrate new loot is to shoot an item hoarding merchant with a merchant:


Characters having a pool party in preparation for the Greenlight trailer photoshoot:


Elder Kings of past on display in the Root Hall: