Puru's Big Month! - New Dev Blog #34 Is Out!

Monthly Development Update

K.Digi

• Manager July was a big month for us! The roadmap is sharper, our priorities are clearer, and we're more confident than ever in hitting our Early Access target. Purussaurus is heading into QA testing by the end of this month, with a public release following shortly after. This will be a very early release; there's still plenty more for us to build...but we didn't want to make our players wait any longer to start experiencing it. The animation team has made significant progress this month, with the audio team following closely behind. The tribal side of Echoes of Extinction has also seen strong progress, with equipment, structures, and resources coming together to advance the tribal gameplay loop. On that note, we're expanding our tribal human animations and are in the process of bringing on a dedicated human animator to support this work further…more details to follow soon. Our Tribal Chiefs continue to gain depth in personality and presence, and we've brought on additional support to help advance our AI systems. Much of my work this month took place behind the scenes as usual, refining how we plan, track, and prioritise production across the team. We conducted a thorough review of our full roadmap and finalised a clear plan to complete our current priority creatures potentially by the end of August, paving the way for the next wave of creatures and systems. We will also be launching an official Content Creator Programme. If you've been considering creating content around Echoes of Extinction, now is a great time to get involved, more details will be launched soon. Every month brings us closer to Early Access!

AirSickLowLander

• Level Designer This month I focused on areas of the map that have the lowest performance compared to other areas, as well as expanding upon areas that already exist to make them more interesting. For performance, most of the effort went into the cove area, with some things applying map-wide. I was able to drastically reduce draw calls in the cove and at the same time, make it more visually coherent with the rest of the map in the village. My work in this area isn't done, but it's going very well! I also replaced the previously masked thatched roof meshes with full geometry opaque versions after modifying them, which is very helpful for performance. Other performance changes are mainly focused on Lumen, reducing the cost of ray tracing around the map. When playing with hardware ray tracing enabled, the sun and moon can now be sampled in Megalights, which significantly reduces the cost of lighting map-wide. As for new things on the map, you will find some new plants in the jungle, snow biome, redwoods, and meadows to give them more biodiversity and color. There are a few new flowers in the jungle, which you'll find through most of the area. For our rivers, you will see ripples that react to players and other objects in the water. This is a subtle, but very beneficial change visually. There are also some new areas on the map, and some that already existed but have been changed. The volcanic beach that is currently in progress is the latest one, which you'll find near the redwoods. I recreated our RVT height blending shader as well, and you'll notice many more models making use of it! There is also a new cave, but who knows where it could be? Steam post image

Steam post image Steam post image

Aphroditeishot

• Programmer This month was my first month doing things part of the team! My focus was starting to create the Dino AI bases: Blueprint, AI Controller, Spawner, and State Tree to run the logic.

Arrived

• Artist This month I completed the models for the wood & stone spears, the leather shield, and the bone armor set.

Chikangia

• Programmer This month, my main focus was on the inventory and crafting systems, with a strong emphasis on scalability, reliability, and user experience. I expanded and refined the entire inventory and crafting system. The server is now capable of handling over 1,000 crafting requests without any issues, making inventory management and crafting much smoother and more reliable. Since not everything should be craftable directly from your character, I started implementing Crafting Stations. These will allow certain recipes and items to be crafted only at the appropriate workstation, adding more depth to progression. I also began working on the new tab-based UI. The Tribal experience will receive this overhaul first, with the Dino UI following afterwards. The foundation for a much more robust crafting experience is now in place, and I’m excited to continue expanding these systems in the coming months.

Dre~

• Marketing/Social Media This month has been focused on creating new content and planning what's next. Progress has been steady, and I'm really happy with how things are shaping up. Thank you to everyone who continues to play, share feedback, and support the project. Your ideas help shape future updates more than you might think! See you next month with more to show!

fossilbirb

• Artist This month has been dedicated to creating colour variants for eachar skins to see which colours work the best and still look natural. I've been also working on puru footprint UI! When its finished it will be implemented ingame and possibly move onto other dino footprints and fixing and tweaking em. Skin variants will be posted as soon as they're approved and finished!

FuriousSmaug

• Programmer This month was a busy one. We started with some internal shifts and priorities, needing to solve the physics issue in game as soon as possible. This involved readding all of the eocar animations, and soon the ourano ones, to fix all the issues with scaling we had previously. With this has come some new discipline on my end to ensure all imported assets are 100% confirmed to be correct before moving through the stages of each process to ensure we don't have to go back and redo anything later on, even if this was an "issue" on Epic's end. Next up we have shifted away from hygiene and are going to be moving towards finishing up our combat which will involve several new animations for all species to ensure they look pinned, grabbed, staggered, and fractured properly. We're also looking into more gameplay-friendly ways to give players a chance to escape a grab or pin.. more on that later. I have also worked on a new system for avoiding foliage and rocks in the world which essentially gives little nudges to the player input if they are near or approaching an object they would normally get stuck on. Finally, Puru has made some massive progress; it'll be heading into QA testing by the end of the month, with a public release following shortly after. Just know this will be a very early release; there's still a lot more for us to work on, but we didn't want to hold it back from you any longer. Keep in mind it will be very, very difficult to survive without fish AI and the grab ability, however we wanted to show you what we have so far and not have you wait longer for the grab ability and AI. Smaller, more frequent updates are our goal. Until next time!

Kleiner

• Animator Completed bite, eat and drink cycles along with scent and threat display

Kouga

• Artist I've been working with one of the developers to push the new TAB system for tribals first, featuring a whole new design, item rarity and a quick access to some tools you can choose I've also recently started researching the diet system, trying to make an interactive UI where you can choose to focus a nutrient and improve it's benefits

M_Z

• Audio This month I created some test sounds for a few dinosaurs, such as Tropeognathus, Coelophysis, and Dracovenator. The goal was to explore and analyze all possible options to find and give each animal’s sounds the best possible character, prioritizing quality and making sure each one was interesting.

RAR

• Artist This month I've been continuing to work on the coelophysis model. We are well into the detail phase of the sculpt and I've begun to add in all of the small scales over the body. In addition to the sculpting work I've also complete two new skin textures for the Purussaurus.

Soundrynx

• Audio This month i worked in giving Tropeo its loud and raspy voice, made ravenous deathroll eating sounds for Purru, both adult and juvenile, also finished the scent sounds for both stages, synced the bite attacks for the adult and made new ones for the juvenile.

Storm

• Animator Completed several locomotion animations for the Puru, including sprint, swims, idles, limps, falling/landing, and turns. Also completed the broadcast, friendly, and help calls.

Vimlesh kumar

• Artist I've Finished Ouranoaurus Rig with all the notes addressed from anim team. Fixed Eo and Puru skeleton mesh issues

Vittoria Leto

• Artist Hello everyone! This month I completed the concept art for Elara Greenleaf, the Chief of the Verdant tribe. Elara is a patient, empathetic, and wise leader who embodies the harmony between humanity and nature. As both a healer and spiritual guide, her design draws inspiration from forests and the natural world, incorporating living vines, leaves, moss, carved wood, roots, and organic shapes to reflect growth, balance, and renewal. Every element of her costume and accessories was designed to reinforce her deep connection with the Verdant Mother and the life she protects. I also finished her full concept presentation, including the silhouette exploration, material studies, color palette, key design elements, weapon concept, and supporting references. I'm now working on Kael, another tribal chief whose design will be inspired by the sea and its ever-changing nature. I'm excited to explore a very different visual language while keeping both characters connected within the same world.

Yaroslav

• Artist This month I have been working on creating additional skins for Purussaurus as well as some Ideas for the Pachycephalosaurus coloration