Transcript (by Youtube)


0s [Music]
4s [Applause]
4s [Music]
20s hello everyone and welcome to another
24s update from the beautiful world of Vera
26s and we have an exciting showcase for you
29s guys to
31s night as you can see we are not in the
35s riverlands but instead in the beautiful
38s sand Squall desert and we are going to
42s be talking about as you can tell already
45s the night time updates with the Skybox
49s updates some Mage updates and a wand we
53s have an exciting showcase and I am
56s joined by three absolute excuse me four
60s absolute glorious developers three of
63s whom you guys have not seen of or heard
67s from
68s ever but they do glorious work here at
71s Intrepid Studios our dynamically
74s glorious Duo lighting
76s team Chris Logan Gabriel Ford how are
79s you guys doing
81s tonight doing awesome yeah PG love it be
85s here glad to have you guys glad to have
87s you both and also
91s the man responsible for this beautiful
93s Skybox that you're
95s seeing Todd one of our glorious senior
98s VFX artist how you doing Todd I'm doing
101s great Happ be here happy to have you as
104s well and we have a regular on the stream
108s one of our senior combat designers Mr
110s Brian Ferguson responsible for all
112s things wand and many other things Brian
115s how you doing buddy hey I'm doing great
118s honored to be here and I'm happy
120s and I'm I'm just excited to get into all
123s the stuff we've been doing on combat I'm
125s excited too because you know what it's
127s feeling good and it's looking good so
130s let's get into it obviously you guys can
132s see we have got quite an update when it
135s comes to the lighting and the visuals of
138s the sky I'm going to jump on my my
141s wonderful shell of the Ancients because
143s you know what we're talking about skies
145s and this guy has got some skies on his
147s back he's got some galaxies on his back
149s and while I do that
150s I would
152s love Todd to hear from you about what we
156s have done with this Sky because it is
159s looking freaking good well thanks what
162s haven't we done um one of the main
165s things we did was we converted it over
166s to a cube map which means that it can
170s actually rotate as the planet itself
172s rotates which is something we couldn't
174s do before oo that sounds exciting and
177s you know what that sounds like it plays
179s into perfect perly what we need the
183s Skybox to do which is provide us some
185s interesting and compelling predicates
187s for our constellation system so having
190s that true rotation is also a gameplay
193s component not just Visual and boy I got
197s to tell you Todd those moons look great
201s don't they I wish I could take full
203s credit for those but I can't um but I
207s really love the way they turned out with
208s the sky yeah say do look good Gabe Chris
211s talk to me about those
213s moons yeah so the the most recent update
217s on the moons is getting them mainly to
220s respond to the the wonderful sky blocks
222s that Todd created um I don't know if you
224s can find the um shattered Moon behind
228s the clouds maybe um but there's
230s definitely some pickup you can see of
231s the nebula behind it uh adding a little
233s bit to it give it a little bit of life
236s um and make it feel like it's it's
238s really a part of the world um and it's
240s it's responding to things that are
242s moving as Todd said the nebulas will
244s move through the day night cycle and so
246s you'll be able to see that reflected in
248s the moons as well um and I know Todd you
250s did some work on some of the VFX for the
252s moon um explosions and things like that
254s I don't know if you want to we might to
256s catch some of that happening yep there
259s it is right you can see it erupting
261s right
262s now periodically do that that looks so
266s good and those of you out in the out in
269s the wild out in the audience who are
271s unfamiliar with the lore and Ashes of
274s creation um we have what are known as
277s harbingers that were kind of the
280s foretellers of the impending apocalypse
283s long before you have arrived back on
285s Vera one of which struck that Moon and
289s God knows what is happening up there
291s right now but we know that those
292s harbingers did not bring good things
295s they were not bringing the best of
296s things to Vera um but
300s Chris Gabe talk to me about this
303s nighttime lighting because it is looking
307s dramatic and Moody I love it thank you
311s um the big the big takeaways were uh
315s responding to some of the feedback from
316s the community about pushing it uh a bit
319s darker um the nighttime previous to this
323s um was a little bit brighter so we're
325s definitely pushing some of the darkness
326s values I as a you know from a personal
329s perspective I defin like to push things
331s as as dark as the game designers will
333s allow me to um so I'm always happy to to
337s respond to that kind of
338s feedback we we did get that feedback by
341s the way we were we had shown off I think
344s it was a couple of years ago our kind of
346s a super first pass on nighttime lighting
350s and players wanted it darker that was
352s like the overwhelming sentiment that we
354s got from the community and I feel like
356s with this with this pass that you have
359s done here here with the nighttime
361s lighting you've struck the right balance
364s between what feels you know dark enough
369s to elicit that kind of vibe that you
371s want to see in nighttime um without kind
374s of entirely obscuring vision of other
378s players in NPCs or requiring like you
382s know a constant torch or light next to
385s you right and that's the that's the
388s magic of it right that's where that's
389s where the fun the fun is for me um and I
392s know Chris will probably agree is
393s finding that balance of making it feel
397s the the inherent feeling of how we
399s understand night and um how we enjoy
402s playing games because nobody wants to to
404s play in complete darkness so um yeah it
407s was it's a lot of balancing on that end
409s um and then working with Todd's uh
411s Skydome he's done a lot of really great
414s work with bringing in some ethereal uh
416s an ethereal atmosphere and colors and
418s you know we've been on the lighting side
420s trying to pull from that as much as
422s possible to give Knight less of a a
424s Hollywood blue um aesthetic to it and
427s we've been pushing the purples trying to
429s give it just uh just as much atmosphere
432s and moodiness as we can get away with in
435s uh the fantasy world of Vera um you know
438s and hope that it hope that it feels the
441s way that we you know we intend it to uh
443s we want it to feel nice and Moody and
445s spooky at sometimes and you know really
447s push it as far as we can
450s yeah and Chris talk to me about your
451s guys's plans continued with lighting I
453s mean you and Gabe have obviously been
456s working on lighting here for a a few
459s months now and I know that there's a lot
461s of updates we're going to be showcasing
462s in the future around the daytime
464s lighting and that's going to be
465s relatively significant for just the
468s general visuals of the game um as we at
471s least can see here with regards to the
473s nighttime update talk to me about your
475s guys' plans yeah so Gabe Gabe's working
479s on the Tod system pretty exclusively and
481s he is doing some really cool stuff that
484s uh I really has never been done in games
486s before uh some of the some of the stuff
489s he's doing with how the sky reacts and
492s we actually get color Fades from like
495s warms on one end to the really deep
498s cools on the other side uh you know some
501s of the atmospherics were doing some
503s weather stuff uh that we're hoping to
505s Showcase shortly here uh and yeah
509s there's a lot of stuff on The Horizon
510s that's what I can tell
512s you oh my gosh I love even how the V
517s effect interact with the lighting I mean
521s it really
522s pops uh uhoh here we go hold on let I'm
526s not ready for you yet you just chill out
529s chill there for a second Brian we got to
532s see a little bit there of some of the
534s wand updates I'm going to Showcase that
537s again and then let's talk a little bit
538s about um the W progression but before we
542s do that I want to show off an update
543s that the community was requesting with
544s botle of
551s lightning that looks so much
556s better oh no he's got a weird a little
560s weird bug that's okay guys as you know
562s ashes is a work in progress there are
566s going to be little bugs you might see
567s here and there and we show you the good
569s the Bad and the
572s Ugly
574s okay time for you to go to sleep
579s forever there we go he's down I
581s apologize guys you guys can see you can
584s see some bugs here or there as you know
586s we are working towards Alpha 2 there are
588s going to be some bugs but um Brian talk
592s to me a little bit about the weapon
596s skill tree for the wand
600s yeah so we've given this a big pass what
602s you're looking at here is um seven
605s different ways to customize your weapon
609s um so you can customize the length of
613s your weapon combo you can customize what
616s your finisher attacks are in this case
619s you've specialized them into beam
621s attacks and you've also increased their
623s damage and their um their proc rate what
627s you're looking at there is a status
630s effect proc choice though every combo
633s hit you do has a chance to proc that
635s status effect chill is a good Synergy
637s for your build since you're using a lot
640s of lightning and fire spells having the
642s ability to weave a chill in there um is
645s is good uh like from a hybrid
648s perspective and obviously those types of
650s choices are relevant right because you
653s have a lot of horizontal choices
655s possible in your weapon progression that
658s is intended to be spec to complement
661s what your ability selections are uh
665s within the the archetype or the
667s class correct so right now you're speced
671s for a a heavy beam Focus um there's not
676s much proc Synergy going on yet because
679s you haven't unlocked deeper procs it's
681s just all beam damage all beams yeah so
686s um on so the right side is weapon combo
689s prog like the white right side of the
690s tree in general is weapon combo
692s progression and Synergy within the
694s weapon combo and the left side of the
696s tree is the procs that you get from the
699s weapon combo um so the the upper left of
703s the tree would have a uh two procs that
707s you can choose from that synergize
709s really well with uh on weapon combo and
712s hit so every time you complete a combo
716s you'll be able to uh in the upper left
719s every time you complete a combo you'll
722s be able to get one of these effects um
725s on a normal combo it's a 25% chance to
727s get it but on a beam it's every time um
731s and that gives one of them gives
733s additional damage on hit and the other
734s one reduces the cool down of the next
737s spell that you cast so it gives you that
739s nice
740s benefit every time you go back into your
742s combo you'll get you'll get something
744s out of it either just massive damage
746s with this or you'll get the combo syg as
750s well now obviously a lot of people in
752s the community have been discussing kind
753s of the you know combat strategy and
757s approach in ashes of creation you know
759s blending between what is your weapon
762s progression and your class progression
764s um and this is something that obviously
766s we are looking to receive feedback on in
769s Alpha 2 that's a very important
771s component of alpha 2's gameplay is to
773s kind of you know collect what the
775s players feel about that momentto moment
777s game play weaving between your skill
780s rotation and your weapon uh use as you
783s can see we are investing a lot of
787s diversity options and choice with Within
791s These individual weapons uh and players
793s can choose any number of weapons and
795s progress them as they see fit to compl
798s their different types of rotations
800s they'll have access to yeah each one of
803s these weapons will have a unique
804s progression associated with it um so
807s you'll be able to level up a bunch of
809s them and um they're they'll level at
812s about like two and a half times speed I
814s don't quote me on that of of a normal a
818s normal adventuring level progression so
819s you you'll be able to keep multiples of
821s them leveled up and swap between
824s them update to the uh to the ability
828s Arcane volley I think it looks great St
830s did a great job with that some lightning
833s updates as well obviously and as we
836s showed previously the uh fire
840s uh
840s Fireball with three successive attacks
844s let us know what you guys feel about uh
846s that as well I really think it feels
848s good
850s um let me see if I can find a little
853s dude to try out some yeah go ahead a as
857s you've been casting abilities here
859s you'll notice that the effects on your
861s weapon are swapping back and forth
862s between different Elemental effects um
865s that's signifying that your Elemental
866s empowerment status is swapping back and
868s forth and we've updated Elemental
870s empowerment now whenever you finish a
873s combo it applies the appropriate status
876s effect to the elemental
877s empowerment I love that beam that beam
880s felt
881s good yeah the beams are really really
886s sick I I I love that all the projectiles
889s and beams change with the elemental
891s empowerment
903s oh it feels really good yeah there
905s there's a lot of different um
907s customization
908s considerations that we we taking into
910s account whenever we're setting up the
912s skill tree um you may want to complete
916s one weapon combo and get back into your
917s abilities rather quickly um that's kind
920s of what you're set up here with just big
921s damage um and not a lot of a lot of
925s procs at low chance taken um you could
928s take some high more guaranteed proc
930s chance and still have that that choice
933s that's another customization access you
936s might want to um synergize your ability
939s rotation with weapon procs um also you
943s have the stas effect application Choice
946s um in this case you're choosing to take
948s something that doesn't synergize with
949s your abilities and instead taking
951s something else that you wouldn't
952s normally have access to easily in your
955s rotation um but you could choose to
957s instead double down on burning and
959s really want to provide a lot of that
961s Avenue of status effects for your party
963s or or double down on the electrified um
967s or rather we call it volatile now that
969s status effect because that's the role
971s that you're playing in your party um and
974s and one thing to keep in mind too is the
977s wand isn't just available to Mages so
979s you could be a cleric or a Bard using
982s this and you want to set up your Mage
984s buddy with more tier one status effects
987s so that they can capitalize on that and
990s uh really bring down big damage every
992s time that they're activating one of
993s their abilities I love it I also do love
997s the elemental Empower effect on the
999s weapons um and those of you who are
1001s wondering this set that you see here is
1004s the Carin robe set oh let's not let's
1008s stay away from that
1010s Berserker come over here a little bit I
1012s think we're moving into the more Undead
1015s territory um but those of you who were
1017s wondering as I said this is the this is
1018s the car robe set I think it does look
1021s great character team did a phenomenal
1024s job with this set um and obviously the
1027s lighting and the materials look really
1029s good I'm loving it
1032s no
1034s no you were not supposed
1037s to chase
1039s me let's put you to sleep and then
1043s perhaps we will light you on fire with
1045s this magma
1046s ability and see how that
1052s goes did a passing all these fire
1055s abilities no it did a great job with
1057s those oh no the bug
1059s again I'm sorry
1066s guys he looks like a walking
1073s billboard um yeah they did they did a
1075s great job with the effects I think they
1077s look they look phenomenal um now
1079s obviously that's lighting never really
1082s stops getting improved right and um talk
1086s to me a little bit about uh Chris uh
1089s Gabe Todd how um how that works with VFX
1094s right how how does that work with the
1095s game in general as lighting gets updated
1098s you know what are the what are the
1100s repercussions that you know we need to
1102s update VFX on and and how easy is that
1104s to
1105s do yeah so one of the one of the
1108s repercussions we're going to run into um
1111s as we kind of roll out the rest of the
1113s the day night cycle um at night time
1116s it's it's not as a big of a problem
1118s because the values are so much lower but
1119s as we a part of our update process has
1122s been moving the lighting to what we call
1125s physically Bas lighting which really
1127s just means we're trying to as accurately
1129s as possible um portray the sun values
1133s and Sky values as close to the real
1135s world as possible um which means that
1138s the VF effects especially with something
1141s like a a Caster or um with magic they
1144s need to still be visible in the game
1146s World during you know all times of day
1148s when the sun is
1150s 85,000 you know units um so that that
1154s definitely falls on to the the VFX team
1157s to kind of keep up with that um and I
1159s know that they have some you know some
1161s tricks within the engine that they've
1162s set up to kind of account for that but I
1164s to probably speak to um speak better to
1167s what the ramifications are of us doing
1170s this very large overhaul on their end oh
1173s boy can I um to get not to get too
1175s technical we have in the materials a
1179s material function that will
1180s automatically adjust the brightness of
1184s uh emissive particles to adapt to how
1189s much your in-game eye is reacting to the
1192s to the light or lack of light um and
1195s what that means is at night you can have
1198s something that's really bright but it
1200s won't blind you but you'll still be able
1202s to see it during the day we can also
1204s invert that we can have it so that
1205s effects are more
1208s visible throughout the day and the night
1210s and they don't change depending on the
1212s the incoming light um and uh yeah as we
1217s adjust the lighting in the game we're
1219s going to be relying on that a and we may
1221s have to tweak it a bit uh because you
1223s really don't want to have the player
1225s blinded by the particles that he's
1228s throwing around
1231s you want it to look real and that's what
1232s we're trying to
1234s do yeah and I think in a lot of ways um
1237s as with you know all of game development
1238s it's a it's a team effort but U
1241s materials lighting and VFX are
1245s definitely um all need to march on the
1247s same on the same Cadence um and so Todd
1250s and I have spent a lot of time you know
1252s back and forth with VFX he's been
1254s putting together and um making sure that
1256s it works with the lighting and a lot of
1258s my job is making sure where he has what
1260s he needs to you know make sure that his
1262s VFX work and and look good across you
1264s know all times of day and all different
1266s Sun intensities as as it goes from day
1268s to night
1273s so oh no I woke up the undead
1279s ones I do love that
1282s beam
1285s yeah yeah I really love how it turned
1288s out Tech involved in setting up the
1290s projectiles and beams with the wand is
1292s pretty cool we're passing through
1294s parameters and adjusting the appearance
1295s of the projectiles and beams dynamically
1298s this allows for us to have a more
1300s precise timing and allows us to reuse
1302s the assets a bit more smartly instead of
1305s having to make a bunch of different
1306s assets for different use conditions we
1308s can make one asset and change it
1310s dynamically to fit many different use
1312s cases one example in the W tree is the
1314s beam amplifier passive when you get
1317s backto back beams not only is there
1319s damage increased by 50% but the
1321s appearance of the beam gets upgraded
1323s usually as devs we would need to employ
1325s a lot of smoke and mirrors to get
1326s particle effects to work in a bunch of
1328s different use conditions typically by
1330s having many things timed out in concert
1332s to give the desired result and changing
1334s that timing based on different
1337s situations with this parameter Tech we
1339s have the ability to control things in a
1341s much more direct and responsive way than
1342s usual which results in a higher Fidelity
1346s product you know what else I love I mean
1348s just sitting here kind
1350s of when I was a when I was a younger lad
1354s I used to go out to uh the Imperial
1356s County Line here in California out near
1359s um aao Wells and go camping out under
1363s the the night sky where there's no City
1365s Lights to infringe
1366s upon the beautiful views and of course
1369s we would take you know random stuffed
1372s animals dowst and gasoline and filled
1374s with black powder and blow them up and
1375s have paintball fights and do you know
1377s quads and [ __ ] but
1380s just sitting here looking at this tree
1383s out in the desert with the Sky Box I
1386s mean it it's very immersive I think you
1389s guys have captured a really great kind
1393s of essence of that immersive environment
1396s and world that you just kind of want to
1397s spend time in and
1399s [Music]
1402s explore right oh yeah absolutely love it
1407s absolutely love it so those of you out
1410s there in the community this has been an
1413s update obviously on some of the um some
1416s of the uh wand changes some of the Mage
1420s um updates as well oh let me just
1422s dispatch this guy we real quick this
1426s risen Soldier we will send him back from
1430s whence he came you can go to
1436s sleep oh he died before finish that um
1440s we also saw um uh obviously the the
1443s beautiful sand Squall desert now of
1445s course biomes require a lot of work to
1448s be finished especially from content
1449s creation standpoint um when it comes to
1452s quest lines narratives points of
1454s interest uh but as you can see heading
1456s into Alpha 2 you know a lot of work has
1458s been done kind of standing up these
1460s these basic biomes that we will have
1463s populated uh with with content for
1465s people to participate in the riverlands
1467s of course being the bulk of of that
1469s content oh my gosh hey buddy let's have
1472s you go to
1474s sleep um oh he interrupted that hold
1479s on
1481s okay I'm just going to I'm going to kill
1483s all these things real quick and then
1485s we're going to try this this sign off
1487s one more
1495s time let's see if we can do it
1510s let's put him back to sleep
1513s first and we'll do our updated lightning
1516s ball requested by the
1522s community very
1524s nice um the nighttime sky um being
1529s updated obviously uh to support our
1532s constellation system but also to sell
1534s that fantasy that is the world of Vera
1536s because there is a beautiful story to
1538s tell and it is Fantastical and obviously
1541s the work that's going into updating our
1542s lighting as you can see here with the
1544s nighttime lighting pass I think you guys
1546s have hit it spoton but of course we do
1549s this so that we can get your feedback
1551s and what we want you guys to discuss on
1554s all of the things that you've seen here
1555s today between the weapon progression
1557s tree for the wand how do you feel about
1559s those options uh both the horizontal
1562s options the vertical options as well as
1565s what we're trying to sell with the wand
1567s fantasy and how it interacts with
1570s abilities that you are going to be
1572s specking into uh your
1576s classes um how you feel about the beam I
1579s really think the beam is cool um and
1582s also what you guys think about the
1583s nighttime lighting what you think about
1584s the night sky um and the Beautiful biome
1587s that we are in all of this matters us
1589s very much we take that into
1590s consideration when we do iterations
1592s Brian Todd Gabe and Chris thank you very
1596s much for joining me I had a great time
1599s walking through all of these beautiful
1601s updates to the game as I know our
1602s community has and you guys are doing
1604s phenomenal work um very very honored to
1607s have you on tonight's
1610s stream yeah thanks for having us yeah
1612s thanks for having us absolutely happy to
1614s be here all right we will see you all
1617s back on stream
1619s bye everybody