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[Ordnas]

Nice update, looking forward to destructible stuff

I just realized that you are also in UE. Man, I have been tweaking the navmesh in my game for literally years and it is a never ending story. I assume you are in UE5, maybe improvements have been made to the system by now.

Yes, I also use UE for my project! Honestly, I don't know if it's improved in UE5, the projects I've worked on in the past didn't have Navmesh in particolar complex area, or I did not have a Navmesh at all (in driving titles for example), so I've always been comfortable with it so far. Maybe this project is the one where I'll make more complicated use of Navmesh?

What problems did the Navmesh give you for example?  

In the beginning, my issue was working with a navmesh on completely procedural terrain and if I remember correctly, instanced static meshes also posed a problem when interacting with the navmesh. But that was years ago. Recently I added structures that the player can build themselves, which also caused me some headaches. Once I got good results for the navmesh on player created structures, it had become worse in other places I wasn't looking at. The problem is that I have no way to quickly fix something by changing the level geometry, because of that whole procedural nature of the game.

Ah yes, that sounds like tough stuff. In my case my project doesn't have any particular dynamic stuff so maybe that's why navmesh doesn't give me particular problems.

This looks super cool, it reminds me of kings field, looking forward to seeing the progress of this one.

Thank you! It's not the first time I've been told it looks like kings field, I'm honored! 

[Ordnas]

Placed destructibles in the level. Also implemented a simple enemy logic: if the enemy has an obstacle in front, the enemy must destroy it with an attack. Simple and effettive.

[Ordnas]

Greyboxing level design continues, this time with the implementation of destructibles.

I made destructibles as fractures. They can be destroyed when the player attacks them. Same logic was done for enemies, with the addition that if AIs have a destructible in front of them they always have to hit it.

Also, I changed the player dash again. I had lowered the dash speed since it was too fast, creating a lot of motion sickness. Prevously, to prevent motion sickness, I had lowered it too much and the dash was very boring. I raised the dash speed again, but this time eliminating the motion sickness by greatly reducing the dash time (from more than half a second to ¼ second), I was inspired by the dash in Doom Eternal.

Faster dash could make you too much stronger, so I greatly increased the consumed stamina for dash, now you can’t dash 2 times in a row, and you have to wait 1-2 seconds before you have the stamina needed to dash again.
Also I tweaked the Lunge attack, since this also was creating motion sickness due to the combination of high speed and dash time.

[Alain]

Nice, cool progress! Your enemies interacting with the destructibles makes them feel alive (despite being skeletons) and part of a real world.

[Ordnas]

Nice, cool progress! Your enemies interacting with the destructibles makes them feel alive (despite being skeletons) and part of a real world.

Thank you Alain! Yes, it's also extremely simple to implement (enemy collides with obstacle in front = attack) and the result is very cool. It is the same AI behavior in every From Software games (Dark Souls, Bloodborne etc.)

[Ordnas]

I had to stop a bit with greyboxing, I have some performance issues to reach 60fps because of too many lights in the level. I am putting in various triggers for switching the lights only when the player enters the area.

[Alain]

I had to stop a bit with greyboxing, I have some performance issues to reach 60fps because of too many lights in the level. I am putting in various triggers for switching the lights only when the player enters the area.

I think it is great you always keep performance in mind. Maybe you can get away with deactivating shadow casting on some light sources? But I am sure you already played around with that.

[Thaumaturge]

This is looking pretty cool thus far, and it seems that some pretty solid progress is being made! ^_^

The idea of having enemies attack destructibles in front of them is a good one, I do think--I may keep that in mind! ^_^

[marcgfx]

Is turning the lights off the only thing you have to do to maintain performance? I'm guessing deactivating enemies and various other objects would also help + I am assuming your levels will be getting many more objects in the future. But no reason to optimize before its even important.

[Ordnas]

I had to stop a bit with greyboxing, I have some performance issues to reach 60fps because of too many lights in the level. I am putting in various triggers for switching the lights only when the player enters the area.

I think it is great you always keep performance in mind. Maybe you can get away with deactivating shadow casting on some light sources? But I am sure you already played around with that.

Yes, the shadow casting were already deactivated  

This is looking pretty cool thus far, and it seems that some pretty solid progress is being made! ^_^

The idea of having enemies attack destructibles in front of them is a good one, I do think--I may keep that in mind! ^_^

Thank you Thaumaturge! Actually I took this idea from NoClip's documentary on BloodbornePSX, the developer noticed that the AIs in Bloodborne have this particular behavior.

Is turning the lights off the only thing you have to do to maintain performance? I'm guessing deactivating enemies and various other objects would also help + I am assuming your levels will be getting many more objects in the future. But no reason to optimize before its even important.

Yes, it was just the lights, removing the lights I had again 60fps. I finally solved it by simply setting the Draw Distance in the Point Lights. It was suggested to me by a developer, I didn't remember this setting!  

[Ordnas]

I am adding a new enemy, a soldier who shoots from afar.

[Ordnas]

I'm still implementing the soldier throwing arrows, fixing the arrow collider. I'm not sure if the size of the collider is right, a little too big.

[Ordnas]

I positioned the soldier with the crossbow, shooting the player from above while the 2 melee enemies attack the player. Also I placed a hole, there is a collider that kills on collision at the bottom when someone falls into it.

[Alain]

Nice, looking forward to see some of the new combat action!

[Ordnas]

Nice, looking forward to see some of the new combat action!

Tomorrow I think I will post a video with some fighting! 

[Ordnas]

I’m adding new destructibles.

[Ordnas]

This week I stopped with the greybox to implement some gameplay things.

I added a new enemy, a soldier who shoots arrows from a distance. The arrows also destroy destructibles.

I also made some improvements to destructibles, including removing the collision with the player and enemies right after it's destroyed. Plus you can now destroy destructibles using dash.

I placed a hole in the level, where there is a collider at the bottom that kills the player and enemies.

I spent the rest of the time placing various destructibles in the level.

[Alain]

Nice, very cool to see the mechanics coming together!

[Thaumaturge]

This does look like good progress, I do think! ^_^

I will admit, having something as small as an arrow destroy something as strong as even a ramshackle wooden barrier feels a bit unexpected to me. I'd expect it rather from more-powerful projectiles--ballista-bolts or magic spells, perhaps. (Which, it occurs to me, might perhaps provide a bit of gameplay variety: barriers would then protect the player from certain ranged enemies, but not others.)

Death-pits, on the other hand, are a classic and appreciated. ^_^

[Ordnas]

Nice, very cool to see the mechanics coming together!

Thank you Alain!

This does look like good progress, I do think! ^_^

I will admit, having something as small as an arrow destroy something as strong as even a ramshackle wooden barrier feels a bit unexpected to me. I'd expect it rather from more-powerful projectiles--ballista-bolts or magic spells, perhaps. (Which, it occurs to me, might perhaps provide a bit of gameplay variety: barriers would then protect the player from certain ranged enemies, but not others.)

Death-pits, on the other hand, are a classic and appreciated. ^_^

Yes, in fact it may be too strong for an arrow to destroy the wooden barrier. I hadn't considered that a destructible might resist certain kinds of attacks (like arrows). I'll give it some thought, thanks for the feedback!