Hi,

updated the game to new Unreal Engine 5.5 version.

That allowed me to fix bottle neck when moving the whole physics volume for ocean to simulate tide.
This was causing GPU to wait for CPU, and so GPU not being fully utilized and resulting in low FPS even on better rigs.

Currently I am able to run 2k resolution on my:
- RTX 3060 on 80-100FPS when testing, with occasional drops to 60FPS (when loot economy is being calculated)
- RTX 4070 on my laptop even reached 100-120FPS.

This is considerable improvement to previous 50-30FPS on UE 5.4

Hopefully you will experience similar results.

Other fixes are include mainly, but not only:
- animals receiving now properly hit damage by arrows - 1 -2 arrows should be enough even for larger ones. No more "walking hedgehogs" with dozens of arrows in them
- missclick in menu should no more result to character being unable to melee.


On the other side seems that updating to new version UE 5.5, has broken a lot of classes inheritance.

I been able to implement a workaround and was testing the game thoroughly last weeks.

The know issues is sound setting for Ambient sound affecting all sounds. You can reset that by setting the master sound volume. Will have eye on it and will try to fix it with hot fix, when available.

Anyway please report major issues to our Discord.

To get more news on new map, provide reports and feedback please join our discord:

https://discord.gg/XW3jaebbwH

Thank you for your long lasting support.

Juraj Bachar
Game Creator

Hi,

based on your reports I have made audit on sound settings. Its turned out that sound classes got overwritten when adjusting the individual sound class in Sound Settings.

This was not easy to found as the code to adjust, save and load sound settings looked properly and simple testing by manipulation of sliders didn't manifest this issue.

Additionally some sounds that were not assigned to proper sound class were identified and properly set.

When testing the sound settings additional problem popped out - miss-click with mouse in Menu or Inventory wasn't consumed and caused character not be able to perform melee or shot action. This should be fixed now as well.

Good news is we are now working hard on next Inland map, Enjoy some preliminary shots from its early development

To get more news on new map, provide reports and feedback please join our discord:

https://discord.gg/XW3jaebbwH

Thank you for your long lasting support.

Juraj Bachar
Game Creator

Hi,

just fix on UI - character statuses and crafting menu.
Should be now more responsive and work properly on higher resolution. At least what I have managed to test.
For lower resolutions there might be still problem as especially crafting menu requires a lot of width.

Will try to address this as well when UI art will be reworked as well.

Thank you for your understanding.

Duro

Game Creator

Hi,

small update - updated to newest version of Unreal Engine 5.4.2

As game seems to run smoother and also render looks smoother I decided to push it into live branch for you as well.

Additionally these finally seems to be a good stable candidate for next Inland map, so started officially new map production today.

Enjoy

Juraj Bachar
Game Creator

Hi,

implemented UDS Weather to game. Can be used for various weather effect, replacing those from UE4 version.

Currently rain and storm are implemented.
Added and slightly increased chance for rain and storm even for Eden game mode, and they can occur during the first day already now.



Remainder on their effect on character and items:

Negative:

Rain will make character and items wet unless covered in shelter. Rain does not impact items in inventory. Wet wood or other fuel will prevent fire to start up.
You can not start the fire during the rain, but rain will not extinguish already lit fire.

Storm will extinguish even burning fire unless its sheltered.

Positive:

Rain/storm will replenish fresh water catch in rock or in rain-catcher.

Fixed issues with arrows collisions. This was again bug by UE4.0 moving to UE5.0. Its very hard as they do not manifest in editor, only in final packaged game. Additionally the parameters and setting look o.k. in editor, so its literally a guessing game to seek whats wrong.

Thank you for your support! and understanding.

Join our discord community - we have a new link:

https://discord.gg/XW3jaebbwH

I will be also pleased to answer any questions.

Juraj Bachar
Game Creator

Hi,

Bringing you the game update on newest UE 5.4.2 version.

This fixed several issues we had due the previous UE version and were not caused by game logic itself.

To improve performance in UE5 we have moved as much foliage as we could from instanced foliage to terrain automaterial.



In jungle grass was removed completely and replaced with small plants that match jungle ground floor. Some terrain textures were replaced as well.

Liana now spawn at new tries covered with them.

Bamboo forest was reworked. Small plants nearby water stream were moved to automaterial as well. this includes the nettle.

In swamp small plants and nettle were moved to automaterai las well. Reeds were replaced completely by new models. This do not interact with character, crocodile or boat yet.



I have removed the UE generic skysphere, and clouds and put back the UDS, which is now available for UE5 as well. The new weather affects are not yet replaced.

Thank you for your support! and understanding.

Join our discord community - we have a new link:

https://discord.gg/XW3jaebbwH

I will be also pleased to answer any questions.

Juraj Bachar
Game Creator

Hi,

it has been a long time. Finally I have managed to get a stable game build on Unreal Engine 5.3.

This works quite nice and will provide sound platform for future development, while providing us new long awaited tools for game development and especially level design.

Additionally I have a new member in the team who will be focusing mainly on level design.

Prior this update the development was done on introductory UE 5.0 version.
Newer UE versions 5.1 and 5.2 did brake a lot of stuff and were not of much use. This is why development was mostly blocked for long period of time.

Lot of testing was done on enabling DX12, but there is some bottleneck we managed to isolate on raytraced foliage, blocking us to enable DX12. I have even consulted it with several game industry professionals, we were not able to identify exact issue.

So the game is still on DX11 and we will continue to develop it under this setup.

I replaced old terrain auto-material going back to 2018 with the latest one available, that allows new features such as virtual textures and material blends. You can see a blend between sand and stone on left when you spawn on beach.



So I hope to get rid of the 2018 look and make more modern one.

We now plan to replace several textures to new photo realistic ones. Improve texture tilling on ground.
We are already moving a lot of foliage to terrain auto-material, hoping this will help with optimization.

Hi

Additionally we plan to replace the sun, and skysphere - allowing us to better control the lightning, clouds, fog and even weather changes. This was not available when I have changed the project to UE 5.0

Having this set and done will untie my hands to work on new long promised maps.

There are some new issues. Mainly the rotation of some loot when dropped on ground. Especially the opened loot box which might be little bit annoying but still playable. Similar goes for palm leafs - but those just look funny. I will investigate this problem.

Thank you for your support! and understanding.

Join our discord community - we have a new link:

https://discord.gg/XW3jaebbwH

I will be also pleased to answer any questions.

Juraj Bachar
Game Creator

Hi

it has been an very difficult time for me both professionally and personally.

Anyway things are getting slowly better, so I would like to restart the development.

Its quite metaphoric - with reptiles update - as development was on turtle speed... On the other side, it hard shell helped to survive this difficult time.

I am blocked by current stage UE 5 - where each new engine version 5.1 -> 5.2 -> 5.3 causes lower performance. Still trying to identify he cause for it. Unfortunately until this is solved, the production of new maps is totally blocked and had to be postponed towards 2024.

The debugging is painful and slow process as I have to do manual updates between versions 5.0 up to 5.3

Anyway to bring something positive - thanks to that I have managed to slightly improve performance of existing build. F.e. so called "showroom camera" - in inventory clothing tab is rendered now only when player is actually in inventory, so improved performance by 5 FPS. And there is more.

Also I have improved the movement of reptiles. Turtles, tortoises, crocodiles and komodo dragon now copy the terrain inclination. Remaining animals - bear, goat, boat will be addressed by their 3rd party artists. So i do not want to make double work.

Thank you for your support! and understanding.

Join our discord community.

https://discord.io/areaz

I will be also pleased to answer any questions.

Juraj Bachar
Game Creator

Hi,
fixed following issues in game
- items in back will not duplicate on ground after loading the savegame (players reported)
- when died with open inventory/menu - this will be closed (players reported)
- cut harvested palm leafs will be scattered on ground, to prevent highlight flashing

Thank you for all reports, they are really important finds and are addressed.

Juraj

Hi all, this update brings 3 types of new insects or their behavior into the game.



First is the ants swarm roaming through the jungle and beach. It will destroy any food it will find - fruits, vegetables, coconuts, meat and even animal corpses (inclusive those in traps), leaving just bones behind them. Ants swarm can cause small damage to player by biting.
The only protection against it is to set up fire that the ants will try to avoid and hope for the best.




Wild bees hives are getting swarms as well. If player comes to close, they will release a wild bees swarm that will attack and follow player for a while. So going few meter away from hive is no more enough.

Last - completely new insect are mosquitos. Mosquitos swarm are present in swamp. They can bite you and cause malaria illness in future. Currently malaria is indicated on player HUD but has no effect yet on player. It will come within future updates.
To prevent getting sting by mosquitos player can craft cream from animal lard and mint. Or to find repellent in washed up crates on beach.

Few words for future development.

A new Unreal Engine version 5.1 was released and I need to check the compatibility of the game first.
I want to also test the new UE5 World Partition before working on new maps, so I can decide if to use it or not, before starting to work on them.
Additionally I found a new nice water plugin that I am considering to replace the original water with. Needs also lot of testing and implementation as well.
And not least - I need to test the new UE5 IK system prior adding new animations I have available.

Thank you for your support! It means a lot.

Join our discord community.

https://discord.io/areaz

I will be also pleased to answer any questions.

Juraj Bachar
Game Creator