Development Update 09.05.2025

Hello everyone, welcome to this week's progress report. 

Level: 
Our level team has been quite busy making a first-pass lighting setup for the Adûn area as well as improving and adjusting materials, collisions and other aspects of many props that will soon be added to the game and sandbox.

Code:
This week, we have finished implementing the flying drop-kick attack. While it still needs some polishing, everything is there and functional from a mechanics standpoint.

On the sandbox side of things, we added a few more quality of life improvements:
The file explorer window now has the ability to add folders to a "Favorites" category. Additionally, the sorting mode is saved now.
Internally, we added the ability to change the order of prop options. This means we can group relevant options together in a meaningful way now compared to the previous way where all the options were grouped by option type (float, integer, color, etc.).
We created a base prop type for the new upcoming wave of props from story mode - These will all have the option to change the default color, but also offer settings for predefined color variation, wear and dirt masks.
We also started working on a spline mesh prop, allowing you to create things like pipes, cables, or any other longer bendable objects. Instead of relying on physics, this prop can be posed via a spline, similar to how the camera path prop works.
Other than that, a few small things have been improved, like being able to change character physics settings via event in sex scenes, adding a clickable bounding box to skinned meshes and being able to change the render target prop reference camera via event using its name instead of guid.

Character:
This week, our character team has been making good progress on some enemy creature variations, the raptor, the arac, and the hopper, who will get improved textures and new texture sets to create jungle/desert variations.
The model for the story mode end boss has left the block-out stage and entered high-poly sculpting.
A few small outfits such as modern boxershorts, a nightgown and a wide sweater were also created this week.
We also added a skeleton character based on Max to the sandbox to make pictures like this possible.

Animations: 
On the animation side, we finished work on all combat staggers for human and kerpali characters by transferring impact and juggle staggers for the heaviest of attacks - like the aforementioned drop-kick attack you can do from flight that knocks NPCs to the floor. Next up on the task list will be doing the same for monsters, based on their weight class of course. We also finished work on the sword move set and can soon hand it over to Game Design for implementation.

Design:
This week, we have started design work on camera system improvements to possibly achieve more immersive and varying frames during dialogue, while also minimizing cases where the camera doesn't work too well with certain blocking environmental objects around the talking characters. We have also picked up story writing and quest design for the Alpha Camp again.

Furthermore, we designed some additional head pieces for the player characters that will enhance combat capabilities. E.g. a ballistic lens to help ranged weapon accuracy.

Thank you for all your continued support,

-Wild Life Team