What's new

We've been up to quite a few things this month. Some noteworthy changes:

Improved Melee system

We have a new Moonbot variation: the boxer. This enemy has all new AI and attack animations.

The player has also been given a new first person melee attack to use when wielding a gun. This helps close gaps and get you out of tough situations!

On the technical front our melee system has been totally revamped with entirely re-written hit detection traces. The system allows designers to intuitively define the parts of an animation that should deal damage and the system detects and hits any actors along the path. The system also generates hit markers, sound effects, and decals the same way bullet impacts do.

Another technical detail worthy of note is that the weapon system has been overhauled and simplified, which should allow us to make new weapons more quickly in the future.

Sprinting

As we begin prototyping a larger more open world portion of the environment we desperately felt the need for sprint. 

We debated for some time the best way to incorporate a sprint without interfering with our existing dodge / roll gameplay mechanic. After some thought I think we came up with a simple solution: Tapping the key (Shift on desktop or "B" on an Xbox controller) will initiate the doge / roll, while holding the key down will initiate sprint. 

Now you can get around larger environments with ease!

Audio

We also have a first pass on audio. It's amazing how much of a difference sound can make. It really helps to bring the world to life.

In addition to ambient sound we now have per material hit effect sounds. So shooting metal sounds like metal and shooting dirt sounds like dirt. There's also sounds for player movement and melee attacks landing. Download the demo and see for yourself!

Input

At long last we've reworked the player controller to make proper use of Unreal 5's Enhanced Input Subsystem. The most immediate gain from this is the ability to use the same key for both press and hold actions very easily. This will be very important for playing the game with a controller, and allowing players to control vehicles.

Speaking of controllers we have a proper prompt system now to show you what key to press, and it updates to display the correct button if you are using a keyboard or controller

Viewmodel

Finally we have finished the artwork for the Moonbot's SMG (which the player can use). 

The Avtomat Tkachev is based on the experimental soviet AO-46. (If you're interested in firearms you should really look it up! 😄)

We also have an improved rig for the SMG and some first pass animations.

The first person viewmodel has also been improved and can now read camera animation from Maya. This is really good for making equip, reload, and inspect animations look a lot better (animations are still work in progress)

Environment

You've seen a few peeks at the environment already. We are in the very early stages of developing our open world design workflow.  So stay tuned!

We'd love to chat, answer questions, or hop in a game with you. So remember join our Discord community and hit us up!

Later cosmonauts. Skunkape Team, over and out!