World of Anterra

Feature Update - Water effects
11 months ago – Mon, Apr 14, 2025 at 07:38:11 PM

As you may have noticed from the teaser in our last update, we have updated all the water effects in World of Anterra! This may not seem like a big feature, but water plays an important role in Anterra. Water factors into multiple game mechanics and features. For example, we have both shallow water and deep water environments and there are resources, creatures and enemies that can only be found in or near water... plus fishing and sailing.

Multiple techniques and systems have to come together to make our water look so good, but most important is the use of shaders.

What is a shader? Well, no one really knows except for Cameron... but I'll try my best to explain it. Shaders are small programs which run on the GPU that are used to turn boring environments into beautiful ones. Shaders were originally made for creating shadows, hence the name, but nowadays they are used for so much more, like water! Shaders work on the GPU at various stages of the rendering pipeline to dramatically improve the quality of what shows up on the screen.

Here's an overview of how our water works.

Water transparency and refraction

• As with all our environments, we use many layers to achieve our water effects.
• The amount you can see through water is based on the depth and type of water. You can't see through bog water like you can through clean ocean water.
• Anything under the water appears distorted by the water. So the pixels move to reflect how light bends through water making things look naturally distorted.

Movement and visuals when walking in water

• The movement of creatures is slowed down based on the depth of the water, unless they are water creatures of course.
• Feet splash in the water, and water is disrupted around the creature as they get deeper in the water.

Refraction caustics

• When the sun is shining directly on the water, it shines in "caustic" patterns.

Weather effects and reflections

• Water appearance changes based on the time of day and the weather conditions.
• Sunlight reflects and refracts off the surface of the water.
• At night, the moon's reflection can be seen in the water.
• Clouds can be seen reflected in the water.
• Rain drops cause ripples on the water's surface.

Movement of objects floating on the water

• Items that float on the surface of the water, like lily pads, move with the water.

That's our water effects! Hope you like it as much as we do.

Can't wait to see you splashing around in Anterra, just be careful not to drown your horse!

Backer only update
11 months ago – Thu, Apr 10, 2025 at 04:47:48 PM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.

Update from Stephane
about 1 year ago – Mon, Jan 06, 2025 at 10:20:01 AM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.

Kickstarter update - Look who's talking now!
over 1 year ago – Wed, Sep 25, 2024 at 03:20:11 PM

Hi everyone! Sasha here 😁. As you may already know, I have taken on some of the responsibility of supporting our community. As much as Stephane enjoys our community and answering everyone's questions, he's clearly too busy to keep his commitments in this regard.😆He will continue hosting Firesides and engaging with everyone across our platforms, including Discord, and I encourage all of you to join him on his next Fireside on Sunday, September 29th at 11AM PT. This will be his 30th Fireside!

Fireside link - https://discord.gg/rdm7SeeX?event=1286740469568508048

I plan to continue learning the platforms and will be doing my best to stay on top of things here and share any important updates with all of you. Just be patient with me as I get my legs under me. I know how important this to all of you!  

As for updates, I have a few small things to share with you now!

We have a new World of Anterra themed studio website. We're keeping it focused on World of Anterra, as that is where all our attention is going until it launches. It's still a work-in-progress, but feel free to check it out and let us know what you think.

https://www.81monkeys.com/

Check out our new convention banners! These were made for an upcoming private industry event where we will be showcasing WoA to potential publishing and marketing partners. We'll let you know how it goes!

I look forward to hearing from you all.

Stay tuned for more!

Cheers,
Sasha

Bonus Developer Update
almost 2 years ago – Sat, Jun 15, 2024 at 11:30:39 PM

Okay, I know I said that I was going to share part two, but I got inspired by all the positive comments... so I spend the weekend preparing this (part two is still coming). Also, happy Father's Day to all the parents out there! You deserve to have a great day. And to those who can't spend it with their children, just no that you deserve to be happy today as well.

You might want to skip this “Dev Bullshit” update Chris.😆So… I decided to spend the weekend putting together a tools-focused update, because I think it better showcases some of the hard work that goes on behind the scenes. As you read, keep in mind that this is just a fraction of the tools and systems that had to be created to get to where we are today. In fact, months can go by when nothing substantial gets added to the game, because we’re all focused on supporting this work. This is why I think the iceberg analogy is so appropriate here. What you see in a screenshot, gif or video and what you experience a game, only gives you insight into a very small portion of the work that went into making it happen.

This update shows off only two of the MANY tools that we’ve made to help bring our vision to life. 

Shadow Offset Map Editor 

(We need to come up with a name that can be shortened…S.O.M.E. just doesn’t work)

First up, we have our height map creation tool, called our Shadow Offset Map Editor (ask Cameron why it's not called our height map offset tool). This tool was created to help us generate height maps for our game assets.

A height map is a visual representation of the distance a pixel is supposed to be from the ground. Since our assets are all flat 2D images, everything is actually on the ground, so we need to fake their height. Height maps use colour to encode data for our code to interrupt when you’re playing the game. It essentially gives 2D assets 3D information, so shadows know how far to “climb up” before wrapping around, and objects know how to properly clip and overlap each other, like when the player stands in tall grass.

The grass and the player both have height maps which allows it to properly obscure the player. The height map let's the game know when each pixel of the grass should be in front of the player or behind, and how high it should appear before it goes behind.

With height maps, our shadows properly climb up and over the top of the crate.

In order to give each asset in the game an appropriate height map, we needed to create a custom tool, because the amount of data in a single asset’s height map could take a game designer or artist hours to make by hand.

This is our Shadow Offset Map Editor which was created to generate height maps for each asset in the game. It has features that you would see in a typical image editor like free drawing, line drawing, fill, as well as parameters and properties to help make the process a lot easier for our team.

It’s important to note that every frame of animation or state of an asset needs its own height map, so the crate needs a map for both it's closed and open state. But the good thing is, we don't have to be perfect when using the tool. If you look closely at the height map for the crate (or look back at the first GIF I shared), you will notice some extra pixels in the height map. Height map pixels that hang off the sprite are ignored by the engine. So painting outside the lines is fine... even if it triggers the perfectionist in me. 😳

And here is our tool in action! For vertical surfaces, you have to first tell the tool where the ground should be, represented by the white square in the red line. That's called the offset point. Once it's set, you can then draw upwards over the row of pixels. The tool automatically sets the height data by colour coding each pixel. Since the crate is on an angle, we have to reset the offset point for each vertical row of pixels on each face of the crate. The top of the crate can be filled in much easier, because it’s a flat surface which uses the same offset position for the whole top.

Since there will be hundreds, or thousands of assets in our game, we needed to streamline this process as much as possible.

P.O.G.G.E.R.S. - Pose Organization Group Graphic Entry Reference System

This is another very important tool for WoA! Without this tool World of Anterra wouldn't have the level of customization combined with hand-animated pixel art. This tool allows us to manage, test and implement each animated asset that gets combined to create all our characters. This is not just for the player though, NPCs and creatures use it too so that we can easily customize them and have them change appearance in game. Even the horse uses this system! 

In this screenshot, you can see that each item is animated to line up with the character's body as he walks, runs, attacks, sits, rides a horse, shrugs… etc. And if you look closely, you will see all the layers on the left side that this character has assigned to them. Most of the layers are for equipable items, but some are for other things like effects. And if that wasn’t enough, some layers need their own sublayers, to accommodate animations that move an item in front and behind the character, like a weapon swinging in the character’s hand when they walk... and this needs to be done for every direction the character moves in.

The other important thing about this tool is the ability to test every animated asset to make sure the artist didn’t misalign a frame causing a shoe to look like it’s coming off a foot… We can also spot errant pixels. This tool is very robust, and each feature is critical for managing our layered assets and create a truly customizable and hand crafted experience.

By the way, those shiny gold pixels on his hands are actually gold rings! 🤯

P.O.G.G.E.R.S. is just a one part of a larger system that was created to accommodate our layered animations. For example, we still need to stack all these layers in the game, in real-time, and make sure that we’re doing it in the most efficient and optimal way possible… The last thing we want is for it to slow down our frame rates!

Let me know what you think! 

- Stephane and the team.