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[Studio Techtrics]

WEEKLY UPDATE

• Helicopter in action
  
  
  
  
• Weapon animations
  
  
• Poster & icons
  

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[Studio Techtrics]

WEEKLY UPDATE

We have some more weapon animations to show you, continuing from last week. Out of existing concepts, 3 weapons needed to be animated: single-shot pistol, assault rifle and pump-action shotgun.

Just for additional info, there will be multiple weapon tiers. Tier number one will be the most basic craftable tier of weapons available. You’ll be able to craft them with the materials found throughout the world. Because we are leaning towards tiers, weapons in the same tier will all have similar effective strength. By implementing this, we want to encourage players to use all available weapons – not just assault rifle for example.

• More weapon animations
  
  
• Player controller & Decompose effect
  
  
• Icons for UI
  
  

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[Studio Techtrics]

WEEKLY UPDATE

Previous week we started working on dungeons, which will serve as a point in the gameplay cycle where you can stop exploring and surviving in the world just to challenge yourself in a procedurally generated fully-closed area full of enemy NPCs. We also finished the shotgun animation and revamped resource gathering system.

• Dungeons
  
  
• Shotgun animation
  
  
• Resource gathering
  
  
• Placement test function

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[Studio Techtrics]

Vili, our lead programmer will present to you a solution he worked on the previous week – placement test function. It checks if a certain object is colliding with the other objects in the world.

PLACEMENT TEST FUNCTION

I’ve created a function that checks if 3D mesh object is colliding with the world – other 3D meshes and primitives. The hardest part here is to check if your 3D mesh is inside another 3D mesh and their walls/triangles are not colliding, because Unitys Physics.OverlapBox doesn’t return other 3D meshes. The reason is that 3D meshes are not usually topologically closed.


This is my test 3D mesh. It has 1700 vertices and 580 triangles.

The function is called ‘CanPlaceMesh’ and returns true or false and looks like this:

Code:

public static bool CanPlaceMesh(MeshCollider testCollider, LayerMask mask, Plane ignorePointsPlane)

I did an approximative calculation, because we don’t need 100% accuracy, but 90% or so suffices. The more important thing is that the function is fast. As you can see, my test mesh has 1700 vertices and that’s a lot of triangles. So I just took a small amount of triangle centers. The reason I choose triangle centers is because they are better distributed than just edges.

Code:

for(int i = 0;i < tris.Length; i+=8*3) { //Skip every 23 triangle
	Vector3 a = verts[tris[i + 0]];
    Vector3 b = verts[tris[i + 1]];
    Vector3 c = verts[tris[i + 2]];
    Vector3 triCenter = (a + b + c) / 3f; //calculate center
    Vector3 point = testCollider.transform.TransformPoint(triCenter); //transform into world position
    // if points on positive side of the plane
    if(ignorePointsPlane.GetSide(point)) {
        DebugDraw.DrawMarker(point, 0.1f, Color.green, 0f);
        _tempList.Add(point);
    }
    else
    {
        DebugDraw.DrawMarker(point, 0.1f, Color.red, 0f);
    }
}

So out of 1700 points I get to check only around 1700/(8*3) = 70 points. Still quite too much, but remember, if any point is found colliding with the world, the algorithm stops and returns false – meaning it can’t place. So we check averagely 70/2 = 35 points.

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[Studio Techtrics]

WEEKLY UPDATE

• ITEM MODELS FOR WEAPONS & TOOLS: These are models with less detail and without all the fancy moving parts that you will only be able to see when you hold it in your hands and use it.
  
  
  
• BUILD MODE ELEMENTS: Our previous build mode elements needed a revamp, so we were doing rework on the models.
  
  
  
• CAVE DUNGEON ASSETS: We came up with a list of assets that would fit in the cave dungeon. The dungeon would include different rock formations and huge stone pillars.
  
  
• ITEM SYSTEM: Floatlands has a custom item managment system that I’ve written from scratch. It uses a really simple file parsing mechanism that parses data from external files. This makes adding items or changing their description, crafting times, sprites, drop chances and other minor variables (smelt tiems, rarity,…) with ease. Also we are going to use such model for modding purposes which is going to be added after the release of Floatlands. The system roughly looks like this:
  
  
  
• OTHER CHANGES & ADDITIONS:
  - Helicopter now has a "turbo mode" so you can travel at 250% speed when there is more than 75% fuel in your fuel tank.
  
  - Player can now take damage from different sources – physical damage (fall damage, mellee, etc.), bullet or other projectile damage and explosions.
  
  - We implemented an update system so we can display announcements or update changes right in the main menu.
  
  

Read more about these updates

[Studio Techtrics]

WEEKLY UPDATE

We are happy to announce that we are going to present you a tech playable demo of Floatlands at EGX Rezzed 2017 in London this March. We are working hard to create a version of Floatlands which has some finished gameplay elements such as resource gathering, exploration with your personal buzzard and perhaps a quest or two. Lots of you are already asking us when will you be able to experience Floatlands, so here is the perfect opportunity to join us live, have some fun and give us feedback to improve the game even further. You’re all kindly invited!

• UI & HEALTH MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
  We’ve been trying to create a smooth UI elements without artifacts/pixelization. To avoid this problem we used rendering technique called Signed Distance Field. The inventory, crafting and build mode menus and their functionalities are now finished. All that is left is to completely rethink the UI design.
  
  
  
  
  
• ROCK TOOL, REPAIR KITS, ENERGY CELLS & LIGHTHOUSE
  we’ve implemented a consumable type of items (repair kits and energy cells that Andrej and Mito designed and modelled) to manage your health and energy. This comes in handy when your robot runs out of energy and you have to replenish it.
  
  
  
• WORK ON WEAPONS
  Weapons still needed a bit of touch in order to behave more fluent, so we focused also on: weapon logic (reload, shoot, zoom, bullets, taking bullets from inventory, meele, proximity), implementing “weapon follow player” logic, muzzle flash effect and projectile effect.
  
  
  
• ENEMY AIRSHIP
  Another cool feature we’re working on is the airships that will patrol around the area. Airships will be dangerous encounters and will produce great rewards if defeated.
  
  
  

more about Floatlands

[Studio Techtrics]

3D modeling for Floatlands

For Floatlands we decided to go with a polygonal look, which means the models don’t use smooth shading or textures and this gives the game a specific visual style. As my main tool for creating assets I use Blender, since it’s supported by Unity, has great tools for modeling, rigging and animation, and I am personally very familiar and experienced with it.

Andrej Krebs


1. RHINO
When I make organic models I usually start by sculpting them with dynamic topology. (Using a graphic tablet helps with this step.) After that I have to reduce the insane sculpt polygon count to something reasonable that can be managed by a game. If I’m working on solid objects like rocks I often use decimate modifier, because it usually looks more chaotic than a manual retopology. If I’m working on more smooth organic models like animal characters I do a manual retopology, especially if I plan to rig and animate them later, because I need more control over placement of edges that I plan to deform later with a skeleton rig...

            step 1: Dynamic topology sculpt                                step 2: Manual retopology of the rhino

2. ENEMY AIRSHIP
When the overall outside shape was confirmed, I started modeling detailed parts of the ship more or less by the proxy and concept sketch, building the ship model part by part. The moving parts will later be accessible to the programer who will handle them, so he can rotate the individual parts to open the doors, run the propelers and steer the engines. Once I was satisfied with overall shape of all the parts, I added different materials and details that made the ship look worn, damaged and patched up again. I added rivets and the occasional patch of sheet metal as patchwork over damage...

read more about modeling for Floatlands

[nam1995]

Will there be any form of co-op multiplayer to be implemented in this game?

[Studio Techtrics]

Will there be any form of co-op multiplayer to be implemented in this game?

It will be implemented, just not at launch.

[Fat Pug Studio]

So wait, first you make a regular animal model, than you make a low poly out of it? Looks like a lot of work.

[Studio Techtrics]

So wait, first you make a regular animal model, than you make a low poly out of it? Looks like a lot of work.

It does look like it, but the topology must be perfect for later work with animations.

[Studio Techtrics]

WEEKLY UPDATE

• Assembling the world - The world of Floatlands will consist of Clusters and each of them will have its own set of islands and debris. Island sizes and their biomes will depend on the Cluster seed which spawns and deforms every island in there.
  
  
  
  
  
• Questing - Floatlands will have procedurally generated quests where you will be able to interact with some NPCs, learn about the world, do a task and get rewarded with items and/or experience points. There will be 3 types of quests available; gather, location (go somewhere/explore) and kill quests.
  
  
  
  
  
• Robot NPC animations - We've been preparing various animations for the enemy robots, to make them work in any situation. We added run cycles, crouch aiming and made a damaged version of all animations, so we can blend between normal and damaged animations, depending on how much damage they have already taken.
  
  
  
  
  
• Turret concepts - To defend the camp you worked hard to build, you will need some sort of protection. You will be able to construct static defense turrets, that will help you repel enemy NPCs with ease.
  
  
  
  
  

more about Floatlands updates

[Studio Techtrics]

WEEKLY UPDATE

THE HUMANS OF FLOATLANDS
To give Floatlands some more depth we have decided to add human NPCs in the game. NPC’s will be split into clans which will be scattered around the islands. You’ll learn more about the clans and their backstory as you’ll interact with them via quests. We sat down, wrote some lore and started defining the factions:

The Farmers
The first clan will be more traditional, simple farmers who have shunned technology, because they blame it for the apocalyptic event that caused the world to break into floating islands.


The Techies
“The farmers” banished them from their settlement because of their reckless nature and progressive way of thinking. They are innovative people that want to simplify their life with the aid of machines and technology.


NPCs
To make the settlement seem alive there will be several NPCs walking around and doing various tasks, some of them will even have quests for you to complete.

read more about this weekly update

[Studio Techtrics]

EGX REZZED

Part of our team attended the EGX Rezzed event in London to showcase and let people try Floatlands for the first time. If you managed to drop by and have a go at the game, thank you – we had a blast. We also took a 2 week break from the development to get some rest from hard work.

You were able to find us at the Excalibur games booth alongside with the Dad quest, Jalopy, Laser disco defenders and Shoppe keep VR.  The build that we had was pre-alpha but the audience still managed to enjoy the game. We have recieved a very positive feedback from the people at the booth. We also did a couple of interviews with various Youtubers and media journalists. You can find one of the first impressions HERE.

EGX Rezzed was a fantastic experience, the event was well organized and the variety of games you could try was overwhelming. Thanks to everyone that stopped by and tried the game, took the posters and gave us feedback. We even had the chance to meet many great developers and made a bunch of friends.

More about Floatlands:
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[Studio Techtrics]

WEEKLY UPDATE

World changes
There is still work to do with adding new decorative nature elements such as tree stumps, tree trunks that are laying around the island and other eyecandy things. We did alot of optimizations on the world itself. We’ve managed to bake together procedurally generated stones, grass and other combinable objects, programmatically created LODs for them and pack them with Unity’s standard LOD script/tool called LODGroup.


The other thing We did was to create a more beautiful environment for the father islands – the biggest one you will encounter in the game.



Particle effects & Critters
We added various particle effects – some smoke and fire particles and a few dusty wind effects for different biomes. We also intend to add fireflies which will brighten up the night scene a bit. We also started working on smaller critters that will inhabit the game, starting with a rabbit. The critters are similar to the other animals so far, but will be smaller and have less detail.


Build mode expansion
Recently we updated our build mode elements, but they still lacked windows and doors constructables to make the buildings look complete. So last week we implemented the missing elements and made it possible to interract with those, you can open and close them! Like all other elements, these can also be upgraded to higher tiers.


New biome concept
To further extend the world and add some variety, we will add new biomes. One of those will be a really dense and vast forest. To make everything seem diverse we had to come up with a list of unique assets to characterise the biome. We played with the color palette to create a distinct mood, sun scorched grass and trees which will look very appealing once they’ll get added into the game. On the ground level you will find numerous rock shapes and sizes, tall grass and bushes and even new biom specific animals.

More about Floatlands:
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[Studio Techtrics]

WEEKLY UPDATE

Night-time improvements
We did a lot of tweaks on how the night actually looks. We used the moon as a source of volumetric light and also implemented fireflies and dust particles that will spawn randomly around the player to create a more immersive world.




New biome: Scorched Forest
To make a more diverse world we have successfully implemented a new biome type called Scorched Forest.




Modeling trees for Scorched forest biome
A few tips on modeling trees in Blender3d from our 3d artist Andrej.




Rabbit ragdoll physics
Andrej also finished the work on the rabbit the previous week, made some more animations and added ragdoll physics to it in Unity3D – he explains his work process.

More about Floatlands:
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[Studio Techtrics]

WEEKLY UPDATE

Furnace
We managed to recreate a furnace model with revamped background functionality. We also added a smoke particle effect.





Item stacking
We’ve seen a performance drop whenever you wanted to drop a lot of items out of your inventory. To optimize this, we created a world item stacking, this means that nearby items with the same ID get merged. We also managed to increase the size of a stack – the bigger the stack, the bigger a certain item is in the game.

Electricity
We have decided to revamp the electric system used in the game - our new direction is to have cables and the whole system will be more dynamic as well.



Villager buildings
In preparation for adding humans to Floatlands we started modeling buildings for their villages. So far we made two barns, water tower, granary and a central firepit.

More about Floatlands:
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[Juliano]

The environment visuals are looking pretty cool! The lowpoly aesthetic works great with the concept! I was going to comment about the grass, I think the displacement on the vertex shader wasn't looking natural but I think you already interate on these...? (I'm talking about some early videos).

I'm very curious about this world!

[Studio Techtrics]

The environment visuals are looking pretty cool! The lowpoly aesthetic works great with the concept! I was going to comment about the grass, I think the displacement on the vertex shader wasn't looking natural but I think you already interate on these...? (I'm talking about some early videos).

I'm very curious about this world!

It has improved, yes. We changed the grass image for the new biome and we're now also using procedural mesh baking (for stones, grass and other combinable objects).

[Studio Techtrics]

WEEKLY UPDATE

Humans of Floatlands in action
We implemented the 3d models of villager buildings into the world, with the help of an algorithm these buildings are now placed on a terrain perfectly. A quick preview of how it works so far:





Farmer props & Assets for electric system
We prepared some props (haystacks, carts, wooden barrels) that will spawn in the farming villages to add detail and make it feel more genuine. We also made some assets for the electric system - these are various devices that generate, use or store electric power and connect together with cables.



Electric system
There is a global graph where node represents an electric device (battery, generator, light.. ) and a link (cable connection). Links are bidirectional. When you modify the electric system (add a connection or a new device), graph gets rebuilt. That means
 the global graph is split into groups, each group represents a single electric system. Tthere are two kinds of batteries: external and internal. External batteries give up energy, internal are parasitic and they keep it for themselves (they don’t send it back to the network). Generators and storages have external batteries, electricity users have internal battery. Electric nodes/devices also have a transfer rate, which tells you how much energy they can transfer in one second.



It’s also easy to connect things in build mode:

1. Select first connector (cable is blue)
2. Select second connector and that’s it (cable is green)

More about Floatlands:
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