August / September Updates

If you would like to visit the Patreon page, you can click here to see the video associated with this update.

Since the last post on this blog, we've made some improvements to the sandbox system. Specifically, we re-added and fixed placement collision testing. If on a valid surface, the game will test to see if the item you're trying to place is overlapping anything in the world, and it does it with a much higher degree of accuracy compared to the old system. Below, a player can be seen placing a box underneath a table with both valid and invalid placement feedback. This shows how fine the system can be tuned for placing objects next to other objects.




This new collision detection system properly updates based on the placement mesh that is selected, where the placement mesh is in the world, and how the player orients it.

We've also acquired a copy of Substance Painter 2 at a discounted price to use for texturing items in V:SotN.





Above, there is a quick model that was created to play around with the new software and learn the new tools. It's a small spool of thread, only 2.5in (6.35cm) tall. It comes in four different states to add a bit of diversity to the scene. The base thread texture is also white for a reason; I can easily create instances of the thread material in UE4 and change the color to whatever I’d like it to be.

Substance Painter 2 has a slightly different tool set that I’m trying to adapt to, so the first few models I paint might be bad. I’m working on learning some of the more advanced features like how to set up my model for use with some smart filters and materials in regards to things like automatically generated edge wear and ground dirt.

I’m already dabbling in some features like masks and filters.




Finally, I've also ordered some more hard drives for backups and storage of my game. I now have a total of 3TB internal storage in my computer. You can see my main, all purpose C: drive, and my external 3TB drive that I use for Steam games. You can also notice that I only have one of the new hard drives set up and divided into three partitions based on the media type. (This is because I forgot to order SATA data cables, so I had to rip my house apart looking for the spare one I had laying around. Once I get my new cables in the mail, I'll have the second new drive set up for backups as well.)

Sandbox Coding Progress

  Inventory systems and sandbox features are some pretty beefy feats of coding found in modern games. Though they seem like relatively basic features, actually generating executable code that will preform the way you'd like it to is rather challenging. There are many things that can go wrong and there are some trivial problems you can run into. The logistics of everything is pretty easy to solve, but again, making the code is what's difficult.

  So, let's basically outline what we wanted to make for this update.

  The player can walk around in the world. While walking around in the world, players will be able to pick up certain objects; specifically, actors that have a special flag associated with them; "canPickUp". If the item we come across can be picked up, then the player can press F to pick up the item. When the item is picked up, it is removed from the world, and the weight of the item is added to a variable called "currentlyCarrying." (This actually happens before the object is picked up so we can see if the player can carry it, as "currentlyCarrying" is compared to "maximumCarryingWeight", but anyway...) When the actor is picked up from the world, it is added to the player's inventory. Nothing too complex, right?

An object that can be picked up in the world. This is our debug item.

  Let's move on to the sandbox aspect. When sandbox build mode is entered, the player will run a ray trace from their camera, over to what they're looking at. Whatever we want to build will be placed at the impact point of that ray trace. If the object can be built there, the object will have a green glow to it. If it can't be placed there, then the object will have a red glow. (I'm not going to get into the complex ideas behind checking the ground angle the build object is being placed on, or in checking proximity to other objects.)

  The object can then be placed in the world with a white "ghost texture." This is our blueprint of what we want to make. The idea is that the player leaves to collect the supplies needed to build this object. Until they have the supplies, they'll be able to walk through the blueprint. When they come back, if they have the required supplies, they can press F to build the item. The objects and object weights are removed from the inventory, and the item is built in the world. A little heavy, but simple, right?

  I'm not going to cover all of the details of the inventory system since it's something that has been done for a few update cycles, but I'd like to go over a problem I was having with removing the items from the player's inventory when they try to build something.

  One would assume the solution to this problem is to simply look through the player's inventory and if they have the item that is needed to build their blueprint, then remove an item of that type n times until the times that item type was removed matches what was needed for the building. After that, we add up the weights of the objects needed, and subtract that from what we're currently carrying in our inventory.

  Logically, that's exactly what is happening. However, the solution isn't as cut and dry as the plan. Below is a video explaining the issues that were encountered and why the plan isn't able to be coded into the game as it is.

  In addition to being able to place a debug item in the world and building it, I've also created a feature that allows the player to open an interface and choose what they want to build, as outlined below.

  Above are two screenshots that show the player being able to open the survival book, as well as being able to turn it's pages. Every page is associated with an actor that is able to be built in the world. In the final version of the book, there will be informative pages scattered between pages that allow the player to build different objects. These pages, as shown with the inside cover and title page, will not have an interface to "plan" building an object.

  It's also in the development path that there will be sections of the book the player can turn to to avoid thumbing through a bunch of information they don't need, over, and over. The book will save the page you were turned to, so the player can open to it again if they need to build multiple items of the same type; they don't need to find it every time. We also plan on having a feature where players can "dog ear" pages. This will be the equivalent of "favoriting" a page to reference back to it later.

Multiple planning blueprints being added to the game by use of the survival handbook interface.

  We soon hope to have a video detailing all of these features that will be used as a Patreon content update.