Surviving Pangea: [WIP/Pre Alpha]

Doing some project restructuring today. Considering switching to PBS by using the Lux framework. I've already got the game looking very good at this point so I'm not sure if it is worth the headache changing up the rendering pipeline and creating a new workflow! If anyone has any experience here feel free to give me your input or any suggestions you may have. Unity 5 is completely out of the question right now as it breaks almost every asset and plugin I am using. I'm not even going there anytime soon.

 

If you are going to stay in 4 then I do think it is a good idea to use Lux. It does look amazing. The detail shader makes any cliff rocks in you scene much more pleasant to walk up to. Also the wetness shaders. Combine the Lux puddle shader and the AFS rain amount setting and you will have an awesome looking rain scene.

Plus a bonus if you someday do decide to move to 5 than your textures will already be set up for the standard shader. Was really happy when I noticed the specular texture for Lux has the roughness and reflection in the same places that they will need to be for the standard shader.

It does take some time to setup but it does look amazing in the end.

 

The survival genre is already becoming over saturated, and their are also several survival games featuring dinosaurs already. What is going to make your game truly unique, and make someone pick it over the already existing games?

 

Great question!

Just note I regularly buy and test any survival game I can find just to see what others offer and where they are headed. I own the only two decent survival games I know of that feature dinosaurs.

First off is The Stomping Lands. Not much to say. It looked to have potential but the general consensus among that community is that the game was a scam and is receiving no support. As well as severely lacking content to begin with.

The other would be beasts of prey which really isn't a bad game and actually involved some actual game development to make . This is the only one I actually consider competition to the dinosaur survival sub genre. While this game is actually receiving support and making progress the biggest problem they have is a poor framework to begin with. The visuals are very poor on every level. The tree cutting is like many fps survival games (except the forest)where you hit a tree and logs pop out. No destruction or tree falling or it just looks very poor. The textures and models are of poor quality as well as almost every other visual aspect. Also lacking variety and content.

Now what is actually unique about Pangea. I will give a only a few unique features as there are too many to list and I have a few I am keeping under wraps I am really excited about.

First off I have procedural biome placement so that every time you play the map will be different. Each biome has specific dinosaurs and unique resources. I already have desert and jungle completed. Working on swamp, deciduous forest and an ocean biome allowing the player to sail to another area with another set of biomes.

Second is my resource gathering system. It is one of the best in the genre as far as I can tell. My tree cutting system looks and performs terrifically and offers a huge variety of destructible plants. That also have touch bending I might add. There is a video link on the first post of the outdated system but it will give you an idea. It looks much better now. I just finished the first stage of a rock mining system which I have seen no other fps survival game even come close to other than Minecraft. I will post a video of that next.

Third. My inventory already trumps any truly 3D inventory I can find in the genre. I have item weight, space, stacking, rotating and just added a bag system to increase number of small slots! Weight limit increases depending on time factor and player health.

Just a few others ... I use physics based combat instead of animations, have extensive crafting, sanity, dinosaur riding, thirst, parasites from eating raw meat or un-sanitized water, a totally unique very immersive UI, weapon degrading and am already working on dinosaurs never before seen in any game.

 

That sounds very promising, hopefully you'll be able to deliver on all of this, because if you are it will probably be a great game.

 

Finally got Lux, AFS and RTP all working together nicely in 4.6 and man things are looking amazing! Physically based shading ftw! Once I get this mining system optimized a little more I will make a video of all the new eye candy goodness!

I will finally have some real free time over the holidays! Next week I plan on making a longer gameplay Tech/Teaser trailer to show off all of the previous features i've shown in their updated states. I would like everyone to see the current state of the game in one video and hopefully start getting some more people interested in Pangea.

 

Cool man. Looking forward to seeing it all.

 

Two weeks of no work! Expect to see a lot of updates.

Switching to PBS has been simply amazing for the visuals and with only a small performance hit. I'm still getting an average of 70-80 fps in the densest part of the jungle biomes which is the most demanding area of the game. I'm testing on an intel i5 and hd 6870 on high settings. I may have to start using heavier fog in the jungle only in the really dense areas to help optimize the area but I think performance is pretty good this early on. I still have OCC at my disposal. That will help the jungle tremendously as well as its very dynamic terrain with many hills, cliffs, etc.

I'll try to get some screenshots up tonight.

 

If you have a very dense jungle maybe you can consider to change the draw distance of the trees dynamically depending on where you are, im doing it in my game and it allows me to have very, very dense forests and also vast open plains at the same time with both looking very good.

 

Thanks virror that's a good idea.

I'm using pretty extensive LOD right now. I realized last night I was using way too many different types of plants and it was just a waste of resources. So I cut back on the number of different plants and trees to help with batching and reusing materials. It actually looks better now and i'm getting a solid 90 fps!

 

Hi, I have been watching you online and had no idea you are using Unity. Great stuff!!

 

This is really super. Where'd you get the idea for this?

 

Well it developed over time from an idea I had.

I first wanted to make a survival game where the player is sailing in the Bermuda triangle and gets sent back in time to be trapped on a huge island. I had originally planned on having random wormholes spawn on the island to different times throughout history where the player could enter and find rare loot. Once the wormholes were opened the specific enemies would be free to enter the island. Dinosaurs, Samurai roaming around, random pirates landing etc. Pretty crazy stuff lol.

Once I started getting serious with the development I soon realized how difficult it is to develop a huge seamless world alone. So I decided to ditch the idea for one seamless island and use biomes. This allowed me to expand the size of the world anytime I please and opened so much modularity to the game. It also enabled procedural map generation. I always wanted dinosaurs in the game but also some sort of humanoid enemy to interact with. Raiding your camps, stealing your resources etc. Once I came up with the caveman idea it started to make sense to ditch the other crazy stuff while just focusing on dinosaurs and caveman.

The main reason I chose to stick with the time travel stuff is to allow for the hologram to represent the UI. This ended up working out great as it makes things super immersive with all UI elements being represented by the hologram.

All of this together allows me to easily add content to the game, increase the world size and keep things extremely immersive! So there is the short version of where the idea came from!

 

Just a couple pics of the Therizinosaurus in the works. The model details are pretty much complete but the texturing is what will really make it stand out. I had made a new update video two days ago but immediately after I got my cubemaps working better in Lux so I decided to make another one. Should be up tonight or early tomorrow.

 

Lookin good keep it up!

 

Eyes seem a bit far back, but still pretty good nonetheless.

 

Yeah they can't all be perfect . I try not to give my modelers a hard time. I already ask for so many changes as they model I know they get annoyed with me lol. All in all I think it turned out pretty well. I chose to go with a somewhat shorter tail as it seems to be pretty common with the Therizinosaur concepts. We already discussed playing with adding feathers later on but decided to hold off to simply get some more quality dinos in game quick. The more specific details can be worked in later without too much trouble.

The texturing is what's really going to make or break it though. That's were I had to let my last guy go...

 

Texturing is a tricky thing. Especially an organic model. Is for me at least. If it comes out good this is going to be one beautiful dinosaur.

 

I agree. As far as art goes it's probably the hardest thing to get right. I have another guy who is an amazing texture artist but he is very expensive. I plan on working with him more once I start getting some income from the game so he may end up re doing a lot of the texturing.

 

Hey guys here is the latest video after the switch to PBS. Basically just shows off some basic features in their updated states. Specularity and lighting are still off after the shader changes but are slowly being worked on. The next video will show off some deeper crafting and building elements followed by a more in depth look at the AI and combat mechanics. By then we should be getting close to the initial pre alpha release.

 

I'm liking progress so far, and I'm a bit surprised with the Gallimimus.

 

Thanks. He was just a model I liked I had found somewhere online. The proportions and general shape were pretty nice so I had to grab it. Texturing needs a bit more work than the others but I think he'll fit in nicely once complete.

 

need to be able to ride dinos...lol

 

I guess that makes sense.

 

Hey my friend you can show this to the world lol. My whole goal is to transition to making games for a living so any attention is good. If people don't like my games then I guess it wasn't meant to be but if they do I would be happy doing this for a lot less money than I make now.

Dino's will be mountable later for sure. Also I am already working on a simple pet system. They will probably play off of each other in some ways but honestly I am just trying to get the basic features well polished and some quality content added before the first launch. My biggest things with mounting is how to tame? Should it just be more docile dinos? Maybe I could craft some muzzles for the big carnivores lol.

 

*EDIT* I apologize, I was mistaken, it wasn't a model from The Stomping Lands, but an asset purchased from Turbosquid *EDIT*
Since you will be adding in your own dinosaurs, it is impossible to code and test things without models or proper animations, so this is a brilliant idea! The shader is awesome btw

 

Thanks! I didn't get to really show it off like I would've liked. I am still working on changing all the spec maps for PBS. I need to work on splicing videos together so I can add in some more quality footage.

The Galli may be from the stomping lands I bought it on Turbosquid if I'm not mistaken. Not to mention that game was pretty much abandoned last I checked lol.

It is really hard to test anything without proper models. My AI was terrific for the raptor but once i applied it to the rex it was horrible. Took some time to get the vision right for the bigger dinos but having properly animated models helped tremendously.

 

Technically, both designs were inspired by Jurassic Park's. The same can be applied with other dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor.

 

Oh yeah, don't get me wrong haha, they can't really differ much anyway if you want to stick to scientific discoveries and research, or if you stick with a reference that is very popular

I know, right? The devs have pretty much jumped ship, but they do say they are switching to a new engine. And honestly, you can't be at fault, you bought the model at Turbosquid, it could just be a coincidence

Any way, lets not get onto a debate about whether or not it's this or that, I'm tremendously excited to see more about this game I hope to see more done too haha.

 

The new video is beautiful. Thanks for posting it. How do you handle the trees in this. Are they using the terrain system or placed manually.

 

For now I am using manually placed trees with a mesh brush. I tried for a long time to use the terrain engine and may try again sometime but it was a really big hassle. Now that I understand Unity terrain better it may be easier to implement interactive trees.

Using extensive LOD's I can actually have a pretty dense forest without too big of a hit. The jungle is the densest of the three current biomes. I really want each biome to be very unique so I designed it with many ravines, cliffs and hills. All of that along with the giant trees you see in the video allows me to use a lot of occlusion culling which is a massive boost. Especially since I'm not using tree billboards yet.

It's almost like a maze being in the dense jungle especially if it gets really foggy. It has the most resources but is easy to get lost and offers many dangers. The area in the video is just a small valley and isn't much like the rest of the jungle. The rest of the biomes are a piece of cake as far as performance goes so I can really push them to the max with detail.

 

Not sure if you changed grass but it looks very good. Also dinos look good, cool textures looks realistic.If i can be completly honest i dont think you should wory about changing dino models at all, they are good. The main thing that would make dinos real and fluid are good animations.
If i remember well i think that grass was not yet present in trias-ish area though. There were low key plants but not low grass type plants. I might be wrong there however.

 

True, but this game isn't 100% realistic - those dinos in the vid all lived like 100 mil years apart, and there weren't cavement alive back then either.

 

I'm glad someone noticed! It took forever to get the grass system optimized enough to give a far enough view distance as well as good density. It's about to the point now where you can't see where the grass stops and I can use almost unlimited density. Having good sprites was a big part.

I also agree that most of the dino's already look good. They all have great animations as well except the Gallimimus. The only reason I was considering changing them is because many of the new ones will have a more modern feather and color look. But I still think they will all work well together. Especially since many will be unique to certain biomes.

Yes it isn't 100% realistic. I tried pretty hard especially in the beginning to try and keep to a realistic timeline with the flora fauna examples, but I soon realized I was missing out on a lot of potential fun factor. I felt like in order to reach it's true potential all dinosaurs and pre historic wildlife would be allowed into the game! I'm still happy with my decision as there are so many fascinating dinosaurs from many different eras and I think the cavemen will add a lot as well.

 

Working hard on the desert/arid biome.

Performance is extremely good without all those trees and extra foilage! I am getting a pretty solid 60 fps in the densest part of the jungle and averaging over 90 fps with max settings in the desert. I am using an i5 and ati hd 6850 on Windows 7. This is great as it allows me to really go crazy on other things like higher poly rocks/cliffs etc. There is still some foliage in the desert like cactus, bushes, palms etc but I am trying to keep it fairly low.

The current plan is to have the arid biome be the best for mining stone and rare ores but not so good for food sources and trees. There is the occasional oasis with fresh water and food sources but these will be well hidden and typically be a hot spot for predators. I also plan on having the high heat affect players thirst once that is implemented alongside hunger.

I should have some pics up soon of the desert and will be showing it off in more detail with the next video.

 

Any semblance of realism was thrown out the moment you decided to have cavemen and dinosaurs in the same universe. Only a handful of pedants are going to complain about realism in a game like this anyways, and you would have to sacrifice a lot of fun factor for that realism, which IMO really wouldn't be worth it.

Game is looking really good man, I feel inspired by and very impressed with how much you've done all on your lonesome in such a short time.

 

I just thought of a character idea. Actually it is an idea from nature. The Last of Us used it for their zombies. It is a plant that releases spores that attach to an ant and controls it. The ant then goes into its colony and then starts a process of growing into a plant and infecting the rest of the colony. If they do not get rid of him first. The thing is freaky.

What if in the period of time your game is established there is a plant that does the same to cavemen. Except it makes them more violent. You come across a cave with spores floating around. You put on a homemade mask and go in to investigate.

 

What was that I read! What was that! ... " By then we should be getting close to the initial pre alpha release."

OOH yeah!

P.S. Have you considered possibly Steam Greanlight-ing this project, eventually. I'd throw my support behind it.

 

Yeah I currently have the Kickstarter planned for April and Greenlight planned for May/June. If things keep going like they have been the core gameplay should be pretty solid and fairly polished by then. It will be lacking content of course but my main goal is to release the pre alpha with something that is actually enjoyable and fun to play instead of something barely holding together like many pre releases these days.

Doing the Greenlight after Kickstarter will allow me to add more high quality models before the initial release. If the Kickstarter is successful anyway. I am planning on going for 15 to 20 k depending on how I feel at the time. A good chunk of that would be used for several more dinosaur models,animations and quality audio. I'm still figuring up costs but most of the rest would be used to hire some quality help to focus completely on multiplayer and possibly some general help on the game.

 

Yeh having coop would be good win. It depends on game, for example in Forest having coop was not as important as i thought it would be in first place, it kinda ruined for me aspect of gameplay that was scary and being aloane out there. But with your gameplay where horror is not present and survival aspect stays it should be nice gain for lenght of gameplay.

 

Yeah I think coop will add a lot. Long distance exploring in The Forest isn't as important as it is here. In Pangea you have to travel to different biomes in order to aquire unique resources.

For instance the arid biome is the best for mining and has the most rock and ore resources. But has very little food and wood. So if the player wants to advance the quality of their items they will have to make trips into the harsher biomes. With little food, water and shelter components available in this biome it makes sense to bring these resources along when going on longer trips. Sharing the load would be really speed things up. Exploration will be a big reward but also dangerous. The maps are also quite large so having a companion would only make this more enjoyable I think.

 

First of all, I love the idea of this. I was extremely bummed out that TSL turned out to be a scam and/or dead in the water, and I'm so glad to see someone doing a prehistoric caveman-like game. But that said, I have a few questions, if you don't mind me asking them.

How important will fluidity of movement be in this game? Will you be able to climb things and whatnot?

Is there going to be variety in the stone age tools and such, and do you plan on keeping it at a vaguely neolithic tech level?

Do you plan on implementing things such as temperature and clothing as differing factors in gameplay?

 

Thanks for the questions!

1) Movement is a big factor and is extremely important to me. No one ever asks about this but it is something that takes a lot of time to get right. For the movement I have really been trying to build some good realism while keeping things fluid and exciting. I often reference other games that are really good in a specific area when building the framework for new mechanics. For instance when I was putting together my melee system I looked at other fps games that were known for having great melee. Condemned series, dead island, dying light etc. I use the same games for the rest of the movement references as bob, weapon sway, climbing etc. In one of the videos I show ladder climbing although it was pretty rough back then. I plan on implementing climbing trees as well. I have also been toying with the idea of weight affecting player speed/exhaustion.

My main goal is creating a very high level of immersion and interaction with the environment so anything that supports or advances that will most likely be added.

2) There will be a huge variety of tool combinations in the final game. I don't think metal weapons will make the pre alpha so only rock, stick and bone weapons will be available. The way the crafting system works is as follows.

Durablity: This just affects how long the weapon can be used before being repaired or broken.
Damage: Damage type and amount
Weight

Each component added affects the weapons durability, damage and weight. For instance a rock would add 50 durability and a stick adds 50 durability. So a rock axe with wood handle would have 100 base durability.

The finished weapon itself will dictate the damage parameters. There are 3 damage types. Fire is it's own unique damage type. Force and cutting damage are the two main ones. Force is simply physics force added to a weapon. Cutting is the pierce/slash damage. A stone axe with wood handle has 50 force damage, 50 cutting damage and 100 durability. A metal axe with wood handle has 75 cutting and force damage and 125 durability.

And for the second half of that question. At this time I am only planning on making weapons available that the player could perhaps craft themselves on a realistic level. Axe, spear, hammer, shovel, bow, etc. Once I finish setting up the metal workflow and gunpowder system I will make simple musket rifles available to craft as well as small cannons. These will take high level resources to make but will be quite powerful. Due to higher weight, cost of materials and reload times other weapons will still be very effective and practical.

3) Armor is a WIP and will feature basics like leather, iron, etc. It will affect weight as well as damage blocking depending on armor/damage type. Temperature is already functioning in game but I am not sure exactly how I will use it. So far it only affects player thirst level in the arid climates it drains much faster. I have long considered adding a colder biome and if/when I do temperature will play a larger role.

 

Great to hear! Personally, when I think of movement is first person the only real thing that comes to mind if Mirror's Edge, but I realize that would be quite the daunting task.

Do you think you could ban/allow certain tech levels upon world creation/server? I say this because I've personally always been hankering for a good prehistoric level game, and would be opposed to things such as cannons. Also perhaps look into transitioning from stone age to bronze age, which I think would feel less jarring.

Do you plan on making individual bits of armour upgradable? Similar to how the Forest does weapon upgrades through the addition of feathers and such to the item? I think that would add impetuous for players to customize and improve upon current equipment rather than always straight upgrading to the next best thing.

 

I've been looking at a parkour kit for UFPS so mirrors edge like movement aren't completely out of the question. They certainly won't see the pre alpha release but I would like to start working on them eventually.

Banning tech levels wouldn't be too hard to implement so that is certainly possible. I have considered "bronze age" like weapons like swords/maces but I think have a rustic built musket rifle is still quite realistic once the player has access to metal and gunpowder. I'm not sure about armor upgrades at this point. I just know armor will be craftable.

Most weapons will be upgradeable in a similar fashion to the forest. For example when you craft an axe you can craft it with a wooden or bone handle and stone head. But say you want to repair or upgrade that same weapon later you can change the wooden handle to higher quality bone or upgrade the axe head to iron. You can also add a more specific upgrade like an axe handle to increase swinging speed. Shelters work this way as well. Like adding a bedroll to a shelter which adds a temporary well rested buff upon awaking.

Note that in Pangea crafting components are much harder to come by than in the forest. You can't go around killing animals easily and is always challenging. Rare components will take a good amount of effort to acquire. Even cutting down trees and mining is dangerous as finding food is so much more difficult as well as attracting dangerous enemies. So moving up tool tiers will take plenty of time.

 

Imported a new asset today and it somehow changed the terrain I have been working on for the last two weeks settings to default. Unfortunately like a dummy I hadn't backed it up so it will be a bit longer before I have some desert biome footage to show off. It won't take nearly as long to get it back as much of that time was tweaking color/ light settings and getting the right assets together.

I may take this as an opportunity to change directions slightly and go with an idea iv'e been contemplating lately. I have been thinking of making a small demo of the game. If I go this route what I will do is make 2-3 very small biomes(~10% of normal size) and include a few more polished items/ structures/ enemies to interact with. The purpose would be to get some feedback on game play mechanics etc. and see how every one feels about the state of the game as far as an early release goes. The only thing is it will still probably take roughly 3-4 weeks to get a decent demo together. So instead of making it completely public I might limit it to Kickstarter backers as an early access demo and use them for a closed testing system. I think this would work well as the people backing the project at such an early stage will probably be more likely to give useful feedback and it will keep things somewhat controlled. It also makes sense to let backers help shape some of the games features by using their feedback and suggestions from the demo. After the Kickstarter I would take 6-8 weeks of demo play testing before applying for a Greenlight.

Anyway I would love some feedback and any ideas on this concept. Thanks.

 

My opinion Jaqal? (even though you didn't asked for it )
Keep the demo private as much as possible. From experience I can tell you a demo can be a bad thing for your project.
Especially if you put it near the game's sale page.

Check out this very interesting video about how useful are demo's for indie developers:

Good luck

 

Hey Primus. I appreciate everyone's opinion but especially talented and experienced devs such as yourself!

I love the extra credit videos. The fail faster video is one of my favs. I see now why so many devs don't use demos. I had already felt this somewhat and your post just confirmed my suspicions. Looks like I'll hold off on the demo unless I feel I can make a really great one!

 

Hey guys.

First off let me apologise for not keeping my word on releasing the next update sooner. After my little setback with the terrain last week I was hit with an amazing idea for the game. Not only did it literally double the value of the game with very little work but is something dino fans have been wanting for years. Unfortunately this is one of the few things I am keeping under wraps until closer to release. Just know it is something fresh and I every dino nerd like myself will absolutely love. I'm sure it will piss some other game devs off as well but so what! I am here to make an awesome game and that's what I pan on doing.

I am even considering releasing the game for a very low price (maybe even for free) as I'm not too worried about making money as I am about letting people know I'm serious about creating products with quality and value. I'm sure that would shake things up in the indie world! An absolutely free high quality game with active support!

After purchasing 7dtd to get a view of the competition I was blown away by the atrocious graphics and those hands wtf! I almost couldn't believe my eyes after paying $25. I knew it's really access but come on. I'm just sick of being disappointed by every single survival game I play. It's making every one of us indie devs look bad and I almost feel obligated to undercut all of these games (that I feel) are more interested in money than making fun games for others.

Anyway sorry for the rant. On the brighter side of things the project is picking up speed everyday and I will make sure to get another video up soon. It's amazing how fast development can be once you get the framework locked down! The mining system is much better and I now have procedural caves. The caves will be quite dangerous but will reward the player with rare metals and resources of course.

One last thing. After constant switching back and forth the game name is now officially Surviving Pangea. I have to credit my wonderful mother for the suggestion. Thanks mom!

 

You would be a legend if you released this for free, I'd say it would also increase it's popularity immensely!

Edit: As long as your don't mean "Pay to get your own dinosaur mount!" kind of free...