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[Studio Techtrics]

WEEKLY UPDATE

Farmers village placement
We're working on placing various objects such as buildings, props and loot on an island. To spice things up I’ve also added various props for villages, to enhance the whole aspect of having a primitive type of friendly NPCs. An example of this are harvestable corn, destroyable barrels, interactable squeaky doors and cozy firepit.



Dungeons are coming to life
The first dungeon style will be a cave-like dungeon with the additional vegetation to set the overall looks for caves. We've made some rules where and how grass/moss and vines can spawn. We added some rocks and dripstones as well and lastly the puddle of water has also been added.



Techies buildings & new cave entrances
We made some new dungeon entrances that will lead into the proceduraly generated dungeons. Techies settlement buildings are also in the works. So far we prepared the greenhouse where the techies will grow their food, and one of their residences.



Electricity update
We've been refining electric system, fixing bugs, and adding new components. It’s possible to switch buttons now and add fuel to the generator. A lot of electrical consumers will be added and their style will also be refined. Here is first glimpse of generator, battery, switches, lights and some wiring. The system will be flexible enough to add additional elements on the go, we will just need to brainstorm an idea, model and code the new element and thats it. We think electric system will be a very fun feature of Floatlands.




More about Floatlands: website, facebook, twitter, instagram

[jctwood]

I love the look of that dungeon entrance. Seems huge!

[Studio Techtrics]

I love the look of that dungeon entrance. Seems huge!

Yeah, we will include huge halls in our dungeon system and add more vegetation and animals.

[Studio Techtrics]

WEEKLY UPDATE

The Techies
We started implementing the second stage of humans of Floatlands – the Techies clan. ‘The Techies’ are innovative people that want to simplify their life with the aid of machines and technology. After the split they found shelter in old factories which they rebuilt and used as a center of their future settlement.



Continuing with dungeons
I also made refinements to the dungeon system by adding it’s own pathfinding using Unity3D’s new NavMesh system that was introduced in the latest stable build (5.6.) – it allows you to bake and manipulate NavMeshes in realtime.





Electricity starter pack & Techies houses
All electrical pieces got their item models (models that show in the world when they are dropped by the player or as loot).



Repair station implemented
The animations for repair station work very smoothly – if you are hurt, you just need to step on it and the device starts repairing you. Remember, the station needs to be properly powered up by electricity or else it’s going to do a poor job. This is a short preview of how it works:



More about Floatlands: website, facebook, twitter, instagram

[Oats]

Hi again! A lot has changed since I saw this last. I really like the ambience of the last video, the lighting and the design of the environments was pleasing. You should change the animals walking animation though, there was a big difference between the animals animated speed and their actual speed, and it stuck out like a sore thumb. Otherwise it looked amazing.

[Studio Techtrics]

Hi again! A lot has changed since I saw this last. I really like the ambience of the last video, the lighting and the design of the environments was pleasing. You should change the animals walking animation though, there was a big difference between the animals animated speed and their actual speed, and it stuck out like a sore thumb. Otherwise it looked amazing.

The design of environments has definitely changed, because we worked mostly on that. The animations and animal behaviour were put together in a bit of a hurry for a demo showcase at EGX Rezeed event and we haven't touched it since. We intend to fix it in these next few months.

[Studio Techtrics]

WEEKLY UPDATE

Procedural grass level of detail
There was zero detail in the distance so we started increasing draw distance for trees and rocks. We have created a new simple mesh (actually a rectangle with two triangles) and populated it with a simple grass cutout texture. The distance is busy now which enables us to decrease the fog level.


Busier look in the distance – more grass at the back, but with less detail.

Terrain shader
We have also managed to create a color variety on the terrain itself by writing a custom terrain surface shader. The shader enables us to input three different colors – one for the lowest points of the island, second one is meant for middle/ground heights and the last one is meant for hills and mountain tops.


Terrain shading with 3 different colors

Drone
We added a new kind of non-hostile NPCs to the world that actually have no purpose as regards to gameplay – they will only make skies more busy and immersive. They are called Prospecting drones. They will fly around the island, stopping at the rocks and try to mine them with their laser.


Non-hostile Prospecting drone in action

Randomized human NPCs
Since there will be a lot of NPCs that will populate various settlements, we decided to make a system that randomizes the characters - making unique facial features and offering a variety of different outfits.



Adding lamps
Every device that we have in our electricity starter pack needs proper implementation. We focused on bringing functionality to light lamps, actually two types of those lamps – wall lamp & standing lamp.



Read more in our latest blogpost


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[Studio Techtrics]

WEEKLY UPDATE

Crafting improvements
We have added new requirements for crafting an item – player level and workbench. There is now a workbench icon along with other info about an item in the crafting section. Items that require workbench are much better than those that do not require one.




Human NPC outfits and animations
Randomized human characters – we added movement animations, so they can walk around, run and handle a basic tool and a weapon for now, we also added some new outfit pieces. Some of them will have quests, so the player will be able to interact with them and some settlements will have a dedicated merchant character, which will allow players to trade with the villages they find.




Concept for storage & loot piles
We added more varation to the loot containers simply because stumbling across the same crates over and over throughtout the world can seem a bit boring and bland. So we sketched up some concepts of possible loot “junk piles” that the player will be able to loot.




More about Floatlands: website, facebook, twitter, instagram

[Zireael]

This has progressed a ton since I last looked at the thread, great job!

[Studio Techtrics]

This has progressed a ton since I last looked at the thread, great job!

Thanks! We're also working on the multiplayer now.

[Studio Techtrics]

WEEKLY UPDATE

Vendors
We are currently adding NPCs that are going to be roaming around the villages in Floatlands. One of those NPCs is going to be a Vendor which buys or sells goods that can be obtainable in the world of Floatlands – either useless junk or rarities that cost alot.



Junk items & new shotgun
We made a collection of junk items that will be found throughout the world, like empty cans, bottles, lanterns, a broken cog etc. These items will be processed into other resources that will be used in crafting. We have also redesigned the pump action shotgun.



Human NPCs & Robot player character
We made more animations for the human NPCs, like crouching, fighting with their fists and some reaction animations, like waving and pointing, to give their actions more variety and give them more options in combat situations. We also focused on robot player character – modeling and rigging, then making the basic animations before we started testing in Unity.


NPCs relationship & last seen position
We improved NPCs ‘Relationship’ object, which is kind of IActors memory about other IActors in game. The reason we're doing this memory improvement is because our current robots ingame (humanoid robots) are not clever and we are adding humanoids, which we want them to be more clever.



Tutorial with hints
We are creating a “tutorial” system which will help out players when they first play the game. Hints will pop up with instructional text and a cartoony drawing of the protagonist. Below you can see some of the examples.




More about Floatlands: website, facebook, twitter, instagram

[freank]

wow! Amazing 

[Studio Techtrics]

WEEKLY UPDATE

Some features we've been working on lately - build mode, electricity, NPCs, vendors and more. If you have some thoughts, suggestions for us, feel free to share them!





UI changes
We made a new UI redesign, combining similiar UI elements together and changing texts and images to so-called Signed Distance Field system. The only problem right now with the UI is the brightness of the environment – everything seems so bright in the middle of the day so it covers the UI and becomes invisible.



Scouting & mining drones
We decided to completely rework the drones in the game, since we weren't really pleased with their look. The first one would be a scouting drone, simple looking aerial drone that would just fly around and stop occasionally to “scan” the area. The second one would be a mining drone, but instead of scouting the area, it would descend to the ground level and use the drill to mine rocks.


concept


models

Bug testing
We are close to delivering a working prototype so it is good to have a bug tracking system in place. Uptil now we were writing down bugs on paper which was okay. Now when the game is quite a large sandbox place a lot of bugs can occur so we started looking for a solid bug tracking software that is:

• Easy to use interface, pictures of bugs supported
• Visually appealing
• Free

We decided to go with LeanTesting

[Studio Techtrics]

WEEKLY UPDATE

UI: character menu & build mode panel
We decided to implement a brand new character menu that includes all the player stats, rotating player model and item slots. We have also changed the looks of the Build mode to make it as simple as possible.






NPC outfits
We created some outfits for “techies” that would distinguish them from the “farmers”. They have more metal pieces on themselves as armour is made of junk pieces of sheet metal.




Mining drone in action
Mining drone will represent a fine touch to resource collecting. Upon destruction its loot will be dropped and ready for collection, which allows the player to gather resources faster.




Extra robot concepts
Currently there is only one type of enemy robots. Simple humanoid machines that wield various weapon types (from snipers to grenadiers etc), they roam around and attack anything in sight. In the near future we’ll add sturdy, hard to destroy robots that will challenge the player. In addition, we’ll also add small spider like robots that will be quick and unforgiving with their melee attacks.

[Kyle Preston]

God this looks good. I've been snoopin through your posts – really enjoying your progress. The Dev videos are spectacular; lovely minimal music too 

Gonna go stare at your Instagrams for awhile now – so many beautiful images.

[Studio Techtrics]

God this looks good. I've been snoopin through your posts – really enjoying your progress. The Dev videos are spectacular; lovely minimal music too 

Gonna go stare at your Instagrams for awhile now – so many beautiful images.

Thanks, until now we mostly focused on world design, but just recently we started adding some enemies, so the next few videos should be more action-packed.

[Studio Techtrics]

WEEKLY UPDATE

Scouting drone
Lately we've been playing around with drones. Mining drone is now ready for game implementation, next up is “scout” drone, which can already move its flaps. Only a few more steps and a buzzing drone army will be ready!




Dropship
Dropship received a couple of updates - turrets already aim at you, motor particle effects are also in place, landing gear can open and retract, LODs are working. There’s still lots of work needed for it to become fully functional. We need to implement quadcopter-like physics, path planning, some realistic behavior and enemies dropping out of ship when landing.




Junk recycler device
We had this idea of including a Junk recycler device, which recycles junk items the player will find lying around and turns them into condensed recycled junk pellets that can be used in crafting.




Skins
In the following weeks, we’ll add various modular armour pieces (skins) so the player will be able to personalize their character. There will be several different versions of the each possible armour piece (skin). Those will be divided into 4 categories: torso, limbs, helmet and jetpack. Below you can see some rough concept sketches.

[Studio Techtrics]

WEEKLY UPDATE

Ideas for armour sets & jetpacks
We made a couple of different concept sketches for the armor sets. From simple wooden planks tied on the player to welded metal plates that form a strong looking armor.



We also created 3 different “skin” types for jetpacks, that will include particle effects individual to each “skin”, and added modular pieces so they will differ from each other.




Armour sets
The armour sets are made as separate items the player will be able to equip: head gear, body armour and leg armour. In addition to that, jetpack will also be an item that will be equipped. Armour sets will also get more models as skins for the players to collect and wear proudly.




Drone destruction
Another cool little quirk we added was, how drones fall apart when they are destroyed. The connections between parent/children parts are being disabled and a small “invisible” explosion is created, so that parts fall away from that destroyed position.

[Studio Techtrics]

WEEKLY UPDATE

World map
We’ve been working on a new feature for the game – World Map. With this we have removed our initial idea of compass since you can now use your map to guide you trough the world and show you all kinds of info (islands, enemies, other players...)




More skins
We made some more variations of armour sets that will be available as skins. We also added a clothes outfit that will be purely aesthetic, wooden armour has some more paintwork, junk armour received decorational bolts. There is now a new, fine metal armour set, that will be available in a variety of finishes.




Swamp biome concept
We’ve started researching concepts for the next biome - dense swamp. Those type of islands will be covered in thick mist and tall and lush trees. Trees will have huge roots poking out of the ground, and long willow tree like branches. On the ground you’ll find swamp biome specific foliage and wildlife, and the landscape will be littered with ponds.




Drone movement and destruction
Scouting drone has finally got its smooth flaps movement. It is correlated with its speed – at desired speed flaps are perpendicularly to the line of drone sight, with speed increase they move backwards and with speed decrease they move forward.




Dropship movement
Dropship still needed some smoothness to it. It’s almost finished, so we can show you a bit of a sneak peek. Mostly we worked on tilt movement, PID controllers (Vector3 and Quaternion PID controllers) and cleaning up the code.

[Studio Techtrics]

WEEKLY UPDATE

Spartan & Roman skins
We prepared more cloth outfits, a few junk armour pieces and added a camouflage skin for the fine metal armour. The latest additions for player outfits are Spartan and Roman like skins.




Dropship destruction
We've also been playing around with the dropship, here are some key points:

• Separating single script into many separate scripts
• How dropship explodes
• Adding explosion and smoke effects
• Dissolve effect
• Collision avoidance – so dropship doesn’t bump into something

Controls Menu
First thing that comes to mind, when creating Controls Menu is KeyBinding, which lets user choose custom keys with Key Definition – KeyCode pair. We decided not too use Unity default KeyBinder-Input Manager and use our own system with .ini file that has connections, which gives us more freedom from the get-go.