A couple of weeks ago I showed some early samples of rendering grass on the GPU by using geometry shaders. Fresh in-house grass solution allows us faster performance and fuller environment. This video shows you what can be done with the new grass system…

Player Panel
DOMEN KONESKI

I’ve implemented a system where adding new types of armor and skins is now easy. All you have to do is add appropriate mesh, name it correctly, create a prefab, set correct layers and add a custom script which resol…

Player panel is now fully implemented and ready to be taken further. It serves as an indicator how well you are doing. It’s also a place where you manage your gear – from head items, torso and so called ‘plugins’ which increase your stats. You will be able to c…

With the whole world being redesigned, the floating islands that are in current state quickly became obsolete. This is where I come into play. I have painted a concept art with the new world th…

Companion
ANDREJ KREBS

I started making the player’s companion based on Mito’s design sketches. This will be a small floating robot, that will follow the player around and be available to him. The companion will mostly stay out of the way, but the player will be able to c…

I established a new inventory interface framework by writing a new logical layer on top of the current system. By doing this we can now save a lot of coding and designing time. The system is generic which means UI elements are built on the …

Riverbanks and (under)water are now filled up with more content such as grass, stones, chorals, ruins, tires and more. I’ve developed a spawning system that allows quick and easy setup for new game object…

Dev Stream #05: DeepEnd submarine
ANDREJ KREBS, MITO HORVAT

The underwater scenery in Floatlands will be huge, you will need an efficient way to travel underwater without getting yourself killed and for this reason Deep End submarine comes in handy. Players will be able to craft …

This time Mito and Andrej joined forces and created Underwater scenery. A proof of concept demonstration of possible new models/elements in the Floatlands Game. From concept art to sculpted models to finished scenery. The visuals of…

I was very skeptical about New World and changing the current world of Floatlands. The world included floating islands, debris and details such as clouds. There was a lot of unused space (air) which was not defined gameplay-wise in any …

We have been preparing for an upcoming conference SGC – Slovenian Game Conference which will be held in Ljubljana, the capital of our beautiful country. Event focuses on development, marketing and bussiness, there is also an indie e…

Me and Andrej have done our first live stream, explaining some core mechanics of Floatlands while showcasing the EGX Rezzed demo build. Andrej also did a quick tree sculpting for our new biome. Bear with us that this stream was our first one and we w…

I started this week by preparing a broken model of the dropship, so the players will be able to blow them up spectacularly and making collider models for the broken pieces. After that I carried on by adding more skins for the player outfits – the latest additions a…

I’ve been working on a new ‘feature’ for the game – World Map. With this I have removed our initial idea of compass since you can now use your map to guide you troughout the world. The idea was to map out all islands with their positions as an icon but then noticed scaling and pre…

I made a couple of different concept sketches for the armor sets that I mentioned in the previous blog post. From simple wooden planks tied on the player to welded metal plates that form a strong looking armor. Below you can see some of the examples (arm…

This week was intense, because there was no right way to make a mining drone beautifully stabilize after being hit. Finally we decided to include PID (proportional–integral–derivative) system. Yes, I know it sounds complicated, but all it does is try to minimize error over ti…

Continuing with the UI, I have decided to implement a brand new character menu that includes all the player stats, player model and item slots for your dressing needs (will be implemented in the future). You can rotate your player model with the scr…

It’s time to produce a new dev update in video format, introducing new Electricity system, Humans of Floatlands, Vendors and world improvements. Game is shaping up nicely and becoming more alive. Stay tuned for more stuff!
 

I have…

We are currently adding NPCs that are going to be roaming around the villages in Floatlands. They will be of a friendly kind until you attack them for (loot?) no reason at all. One of those NPCs is going to be a Vendor which buys or sells goods that can be obtainable in the world of…

[color=#000000][font=arial]Procedural grass level of detail[/font][/color]
[color=#000000][font=arial]The world outlook from farther distance kind of felt boring and dull. Some games just increase the fog level just to hide this dullness. There was zero detail in the distance so I started increasing…

[color=#000000][font=arial]The Techies[/font][/color]
[color=#000000][font=arial]I started implementing the second stage of humans of Floatlands aEUR" the Techies clan. In our previous updates we presented the Farmers clan, or rather buildings and props that they will be using. aEUR~The TechiesaEUR(…

[font=arial]Farmers village placement[/font]
[color=#000000][font=arial]WeaEUR(TM)ve been working on the Farmers village placement aEUR" placing various objects such as buildings, props and loot on an island. [/font][font='Open Sans']This was already showcased in our previous [/font][/color][font=ar…

[font=arial]Humans of Floatlands in action[/font]
[font=arial]IaEUR(TM)ve started working on Humans of Floatlands aspect of the game aEUR" friendly zones on the islands that provide you with loot, quests, vendors and perhaps a little bit of action. Andrej did an excellent job modeling aEUR~FarmersaE…

[font=arial]Furnace[/font]
[color=#000000][font=arial]Furnace is a aEUR~machineaEUR(TM), that converts primitive materials, found in the world of Floatlands, to a more uncommon one. This conversion is defined by internal recipes and it takes time to produce.[/font][/color]

[font=arial]We have already…

[font=arial]Night-time improvements[/font]
[font=arial]I did a lot of tweaks on how the night actually looks. Before the lighting was dull was dull and weird and now the night has its own source of volumetric light aEUR" moon. We find it much better this way and sometimes you just have to stop and a…

[font=arial]World changes[/font]
[font=arial]IaEUR(TM)ve focused primarly on optimizing and improving the floating islands. There is still work to do with adding new decorative nature elements such as tree stumps, tree trunks that are laying around the island and other eyecandy things.[/font]
[font=a…

[font=arial]Disclaimer: Please be aware that these ideas and concepts are a work in progress and will most likely subject to change.[/font]

[font=arial]THE HUMANS OF FLOATLANDS[/font]

[font=arial]To give Floatlands some more depth we have decided to add human NPCs in the game. NPC's will be split in…

[font=arial][color=#3e3e3e]Part of our team attended the EGX Rezzed event in London to showcase and let people try Floatlands for the first time. If you managed to drop by and have a go at the game, thank you aEUR" we had a blast. We also took a 2 week break from the development to get some rest fr…

[font=arial]Assembling the world[/font]

[font=arial]The world of Floatlands will consist of Clusters. Each Cluster has its own set of islands and debris. Island sizes and their biomes depend on the Cluster seed which spawns and deforms every island in there. This technique is very efficient, because…

For Floatlands we decided to go with a polygonal look, which means the models don't use smooth shading or textures and this gives the game a specific visual style. As my main tool for creating assets I use Blender, since it's supported by Unity, has great tools for modeling, rigging and animation, …