This Week In Veloren 174

This week, we hear about additions to the taming system. We also get to see some of the progress of SFX with weather, and we see a prototype for a proposed UI overhaul to Airshipper

- AngelOnFira, TWiV Editor

Contributor Work

Thanks to this week's contributors, @Makselord, @xMAC94x, @XVar, @BenoîtduGarreau, @Christof, @Sam, @imbris, @zesterer, @Isse, @inojelis, and @StereoJunkie!

Taken by @KaliKatz, the Elbst is a fun mount, has a nice green glow with lantern, and is a fav amongst pirates YARRRR

Taming special animals by @Inojelis

I've been working on special animals that can be tamed and mounted. The MR was merged!

Taming

Now Hirdrasil, Catoblepas, and Mammoths (they're going to become peaceful soon) are not tameable, as they're too overpowered for being used as pets. Medium birds were also added as pets, but they're not mountable at all.

Mounting

A mass limit was added for mouflon, holladon, and boar. Currently, the limit is above the heaviest humanoids, as it is expected to be balanced in the future. Most medium quadrupeds are still mountable. Small quadrupeds are now not mountable except truffler (for all riders), holladons, and boar (with a mass limit that I previously mentioned). Low quadrupeds are now not all rideable except salamanders and tortoises.

Weather SFX by @DaforLynx

Over the past couple of months, a few of us have been working on weather sim. That includes adding rain ambience SFX. The previous ambience system was exclusive to wind and worked well enough. But I decided it needed a slight rewrite to support multiple layers of sound at once.

The new system now supports rustling leaves, rain, rumbling thunder, and wind (which now takes into account weather sim wind) all at the same time with volume depending on certain factors. In the future, I envision the system also supporting things like crowds and cave ambience, and possibly pseudo-directional sounds like rivers. The music system can also detect weather, and some new tracks by @Oolnokk have been added which are exclusive to rainy weather (one of which can be heard in the clip).

In addition to the ambience changes, I added functionality for true UI SFX. Before, these sounds played from the camera's position instead of "omnisciently", which is most noticeable with the level-up sound. Now, the sound properly plays in stereo. The same goes for inventory-related sounds, as well as a new "crafting" SFX that happens when you craft an item - the first step to button clicks and other UI SFX.

Airshipper UI prototype by @mark

I've been working on a UI Concept prototype for an overhaul of Airshipper. I focused on maintaining the main features of the launcher we have right now, but during the wireframing process I realized there was space for much more.

Adding the links present in the website (game's manual (book), contact info, account details, and donations) to Airshipper makes for a handy user experience. This turns it into a hub for everything someone might need, without having to go back to the main page after downloading the game.

And because Veloren's community is so heartwarming and interactive, I have also added a "Community Showcase" section, so everyone can look at beautiful gallery submissions while preparing to launch the game, as well as a new way to differentiate patch notes from website content. The colors were supposed to reflect the current daytime, but that's still a WIP.

I am heavily inexperienced when it comes to coding in general, so this is just a prototype for now, if you want to contribute anyhow, feel free to ping me on Discord at @marcelompf c:

There is a working Figma prototype if you want to try clicking the buttons.