Devlog #12 The inventories have inventories

Hello there,

So the last two weeks have been a mashup of working on various aspects of the project. The main focus is still on inventory which has now been redirected into a grid based design that will support different shaped items that you can rotate and place in your inventory slots wherever you can fit them. The essence of the design going forward takes a lot of concepts from the game Escape from Tarkov and how it handles it's inventory. 

This also means inventory will be much more physicalized. You will need to equip the necessary equipment to increase your available storage slots on your personal inventory. Wearing nothing but clothes? You will have a couple of basic pocket slots. Wearing a backpack? You'll have a bunch of slots available inside that backpack. This will make choosing your equipment and inventory management have a deeper level of interactivity for the player.  You will need to decide if it's worth carrying all that equipment at once or if it's too risky and keep your load light so not to lose so much if you get overwhelmed in battle.

With that said, some side stuff that's been worked on is the first iteration of the player controller with an animated model. This model will be the placeholder player character for the forseeable future. It is designed to allow for armor pieces to recolor from black to your faction color when you equip that piece of armor(This is not yet coded in, the asset was just modified to allow for the coding to be possible). The controller itself functionally operates correctly for the most part, still some minor clipping at weird camera angles against walls, but it's making progress.

Additionally, we've been working on the new testing map, Blackreach 161 Mining and Rehabilitation Colony. We are designing it with the new asset pack using Demorgan's Castle from Face of Mankind as the blueprints for it's baseline. So far we've gotten the entrance through to the industrial wing lined up with some basic elements put in, not remotely finalized.  As far as lighting goes, it's planned to be statically baked, so there won't be proper lighting for a while, just the usual daylight and environment default settings. we've also built using existing asset pieces, new assets for mining, production, market and storage terminals.

All in all it's been a pretty productive couple of weeks. We're trying to merge all the work together slowly to have something viable for a first update soon(TM).

Latest pre-build update notes below.

Until next time

Pre-Build Update

Features

• Inventory 
  • Inventory rework into grid based system like Escape from Tarkov is currently in progress
    • Client Side
      • Grid system is complete
      • Ability to pick up item from inside inventory and cancel the move while holding in hand
      • Green and red client side check for if item can fit into slots you are attempting to place them into is complete
• Assets
  • New tool created for the asset creation workflow to generate bulk inherited scenes on command
    • This makes the process of adding art into the project and take it from the import stage to using it in engine simpler and faster
  • Added placeholder environment and prop asset packs to project
  • Added new player asset to project
    • Capable of displaying recolored body parts to represent equipping of inventory
      • These body parts will color to your faction color when you equip a piece of armor pertaining to that body part(Not yet implemented)
• World Building
  • Began work on Blackreach 161 Mining and Rehabilitation Colony. This will be the new test environment for game-play. We are designing it based on the old FoM Demorgan’s Castle map as it covers many of the necessary features for testing including the future arrest and prison system. It will also provide decent corridors for combat testing and reasonably fits the setting of the asset pack. https://kappa.lol/2YPg3y 
  • New Mining Terminal created:
  •  
  • New Production Terminal created:
  •  
  • New Market Terminal created:
  •  
  • New Storage Terminal created:
  • 
• Player Controller
  • Currently working on a more fleshed out character controller to handle movement properly.
    • Currently the controller has:
      • A player that follows the direction that the camera faces: https://kappa.lol/BpmzIy 
      • A free movement system which allows the user to orbit the camera around the player while the player moves in any direction: https://kappa.lol/eyzcwZ 
      • A basic over the shoulder zoom aim system that triggers when you right click(Weapons not yet added): https://kappa.lol/D1qUaT 
      • Other basic expected features like jumping and sprinting on a introductory level
      • The placeholder model we plan to use for all players is now attached:

        
        

        • Animations for unarmed movement with the exception of strafing and jumping: https://kappa.lol/RFkPZ4 
    • PLEASE NOTE - The controller is very basic right now, just serving the purpose of mechanical needs. It’s got some bugs, it’s occasionally glitchy when it comes to movement and animations and it’s not remotely smooth.

Changes

• Replaced playground map with currently in development Blackreach 161 Mining and Rehabilitation Colony
• Replaced capsule player controller with placeholder model and animations

Bug Fixes

• Resolved MOST of the clipping on the player camera
• Fixed all known collision issues with player and environment