Hey Everyone,
Today, I shared some incredibly tough news with the Hypixel Studios team: we’re ending development on Hytale and beginning the process of winding down Hypixel Studios over the next few months.
This is not the outcome any of us - at Hypixel or at Riot - wanted. But after years of pushing forward, adapting, and exploring every possible path, it became clear we couldn’t bring Hytale to life in a way that truly delivered on its promise.
Game development is brutally hard - especially when you’re trying to build something original that speaks to a creative, passionate community. Over time, as our vision evolved and the genre matured around us, the bar kept rising. Our technical ambitions grew more complex, and even after a major reboot of the game engine, the team found that Hytale still wasn’t as far along as it needed to be. It became clear we’d need a lot more time to get it to a place where it could support the ambitious vision for the game.
We looked at reducing scope, adjusting timelines, and finding new angles to keep moving forward. But each of those options would have meant compromising on what made Hytale special in the first place. It wouldn’t have been the game we set out to make. And it wouldn’t have been the game you deserve.
This is a painful decision. We still believe in Hytale. We believe in the team, and are forever grateful to every member, past or present, who poured their love into the game. We’re also incredibly proud of the work we did: the world we imagined, the risks we took, and the heart we poured into this project. None of that can be taken away. And just to clarify - this doesn't affect the Hypixel server on Minecraft. It's run separately from Hypixel Studios and will continue to operate as usual.
We’re also deeply grateful to Riot - not just for the years of support and the opportunities they gave us, but for the care they’re showing our team during this transition. They supported us in going out into the world to see if there were investors or acquirers who could continue to help carry Hytale forward. And now, as we begin winding things down, they’re ensuring our team is supported with generous severance and resources to help them find what’s next. It’s not just thoughtful - it’s human. And it shows a genuine effort to take care of the people behind the work.
To our community: thank you. Your belief in Hytale kept us going through thick and thin. Your energy, creativity, and support inspired us to do the best work of our lives. Even though we won’t be the ones to bring this game into the world, we still believe in what it stood for and in the incredible potential of this genre.
Even though we’re closing this chapter, the spirit of Hytale and everything we hoped it could be will stay with us. We’re proud of what we built, and we’ll carry those lessons forward into whatever comes next.
With love and deep gratitude,
Noxy
Co-founder, Hypixel Studios
html Noxy https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5830c5e15865f308af8028e708a15046_blog_post_announcement.jpg 1743174000 Spring 2025 Development Update https://hytale.com/news/2025/03/spring-2025-development-updateHi! In this update, we're going to take a look at some of the progress we've been making in the first months of 2025, before looking ahead to the aspects of Hytale that we'll be playtesting internally over the course of this year. After that, it's time to finally reveal a new character that we teased back at the end of 2023 – a new addition to an old faction that is the reason our Executive Producer hasn't been able to show his right leg in public for the last couple of years...
Our rendering team has been steadily re-establishing – and in many cases improving upon – atmospheric features from our previous engine. In the clip below, you can see one of our test scenes shifting from night to day, with marked improvements to our trees (branches are back!), shadowmaps, and skybox.
In the next clip, we explore the same scene – and the area around it – in Creative Mode, showing off an early version of our new flying animations before landing and stepping into a cave.
Steady improvements across many areas of the engine are allowing us to bring an increasing number of gameplay systems online in preparation for...
Over the years that Hytale’s engine has been in redevelopment we’ve relied on various forms of prototyping to continually push the design of the game forward. It has been exciting to see these systems coming online this year, just in time for internal playtesting.
We started with the fundamentals – systems like core movement, block placement, combat, and crafting, supported by a refreshed approach to inventory and hotbars.
On the creative side of things, we’ll be testing the process through which players configure their custom worlds, adjusting the variety of parameters that determine the content they’ll experience either as creators or adventurers. We’ve been implementing creator-focused features like block selection, copy/paste, and undo/redo, too – and we’re hoping to get as far as testable versions of logic blocks, and blocks impacted by physics, in time for the first external creator team to test them out later this year.
For Orbis, we’re on track to deliver adventure gameplay centered around fundamental lifeskills like cooking and smithing, along with a revamped and expanded approach to POIs and encounters.
We’re also hoping to deliver our first of several revamped ‘Regions’. Regions have replaced Zones as the way we approach designing each part of Orbis. Each represents a collection of three to five biomes with a cohesive theme that ties gameplay, creative direction, and narrative together. Regions are smaller than the old Zones, but there are more of them – and this finer degree of control allows us to give every part of the world a stronger sense of identity.
The first of these – Central Grasslands – represents the heart of what was once Zone 1. Here, players will find open prairies dotted with sparse forests and rocky outcrops. Rich in resources, this is the place where many journeys on Orbis begin. Trorks make their homes here, too – let’s hope Orbis’ most dangerous monster-hunters have their eyes set on bigger targets than our newly-arrived Avatars.
Beyond the Central Grasslands, we’ll be developing Regions that draw on aspects of the old Zones 1, 2, and 3 – from the Wild Savannah to the Boreal Frontier and the deep forests of Earthglade, where the single-minded aggression of the Trorks has steered them once again into the path of an old adversary…
In our Winter 2023 update, we illustrated the sort of change that all of Orbis’ factions have undergone by introducing the reimagined Kweebec Treesinger. However, we intentionally skipped over a brand new stage in the Kweebec lifecycle…
Kweebecs begin as Seedlings, dropping from the branches of the Elders that reside at the heart of their villages. Like real seeds, young Kweebecs contain lots of potential – and Seedlings are particularly energetic, rushing around and often getting themselves into trouble. As they get older, this exuberance matures into an eagerness for adventure. Young Kweebecs roam beyond their villages in search of new skills and knowledge, learning about themselves in the process. These are the Kweebecs you already know – youthful treefolk on their way to becoming rooted Elders or sage Treesingers.
But we skipped a step.
When young Kweebecs return to their villages, they mature into a form that reflects all that they’ve learned about Orbis and themselves in the course of their adventures. Taking on new responsibilities, they become the artisans, cultivators – and sometimes warriors – that their villages need.
If you’ve ever wondered how a civilization of peaceful treefolk survived the challenges of Orbis’ history – from marauding Trorks to Varyn’s invasion – well, here’s how. Mature Kweebecs represent the midpoint between young Kweebec and Treesingers. They’re taller and heavier than their younger brethren, but stronger and more resilient. They occupy important roles in their villages, and no longer roam as much as they did. Instead, they act as both protector and tutor to more youthful Kweebecs – and our Avatars stand to benefit from their knowledge, too.
A few mature Kweebecs range further than the rest, however. These ones – called Razorleaves – delve into the depths of Orbis’ most dangerous forests in pursuit of threats to their home.
…and one of them, a few years ago, found itself tattooed on John’s leg.
Finally!
I can also say that about being past our big end-of-year ‘Blonks’ milestone and on to prepping for playtesting. Every month Hytale gets closer to the game we’ve dreamed of delivering. The Creative Play team has been making big progress and they are eager to be the first to playtest. They are going to have to move fast to stay ahead of the Adventure team, or the group prepping our next combat playtests, or the UX team working on inventory and hotbar upgrades… you can see why I am always so excited ;)
I hope you’ve enjoyed this quick update from the mines of Orbis,
John & The Team
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_1add7a5021e3a42191a30ddc98653d28_header_spring_2025_dev_update.jpg 1734467760 Winter 2024 Development Update https://hytale.com/news/2024/12/winter-2024-development-updateHello! In this end of year development update we'll be discussing the progress we've made in 2024 and looking ahead to our plans for 2025. We'll catch up on this year's milestones, show the visual progress of the new engine, and take a look at the updated state of our creative features (including a little bit of new music!) Let's get into it.
Back in our summer update, John explained how much of this year would be about achieving an internal milestone called 'Filling In The Blonks' - or just 'Blonks' for short. This milestone was all about proving that our new engine can support our gameplay and creative goals, putting us in a position to start both actively transitioning features over from the legacy engine and developing new ones.
We're happy to say that Blonks has been a big success. Work concluded last week with an internal playtest that truly exceeded our expectations. Players jumped into new custom worlds and built together, explored the Capital, queued for simple minigames, and experienced a basic version of the 'adventure loop' - resource gathering, crafting and exploration in a procedurally generated open world. These experiences are placeholders, but they represent the meaningful progress we've made towards rebuilding Hytale in an engine that is far more robust and future-proof, using consistent processes that deliver great results.
We're not just playing catch-up, either. We're starting to see the benefit of our new engine over the old, particularly when it comes to networking and social features. In late November we celebrated getting a hundred players online in the Capital at the same time - a bar we hadn’t hit in legacy.
‘Blonks’ has been built from a mixture of placeholder and spoiler content, so we’re going to avoid showing too much from those playtests right now. However, we do have a bunch to share from the new engine - including, yes, a closer look at that Orbis faction we teased during Halloween...
Orbis' undead have had a major revamp over the last year, both from a narrative perspective (no spoilers!) and in terms of their look. In the screenshot below, an undead miner awaits the player in a cave in one of Orbis' temperate regions. What power has roused this lifeless being from their slumber? Who were they, and what could have happened to rip the spark of life from them?
Well, we're not going to tell you. But you'll figure it out yourselves, no doubt.
Our creative team continues to work with our technical teams to bring the new engine up to - and ultimately beyond - the standard we set previously. You can see some of that progress below.
As you can see, our static lighting capabilities are much improved in the new engine, allowing for softer transitions and more striking colors during the day. Expect to see more progress like this as we work through next year's rendering milestones.
Here's an example of what the new engine now allows our artists and builders to achieve.
This clip demonstrates the progress we’ve made when it comes to recreating Hytale’s visual identity in the new engine. There are still a number of placeholder elements on display here, including player animations and movement (you’ll notice a little bit of awkwardness while going up the stairs.) However, it’s hugely motivating to see these cozy elements of the core Hytale fantasy coming into focus on our new platform.
The team has also made big strides in terms of our build tools and creator functionality. Below, you can watch a builder use an early version of our prefab library tool to create a rustic scene (along with more of that promised new music!) There are many placeholder elements in this clip too, including work-in-progress UI elements, biomes, and rendering.
Functionality like this is a big part of how we're planning to empower creators, whether they're simply happy to tinker or aspire to make content creation - or game development - their career.
When it comes to the latter, we're happy to say that our creator outreach program has been going well and is delivering a huge amount of value to the project. We're excited to announce that we intend to bring in the first external creator team to work in the new Hytale engine in mid 2025. Getting to play and create ourselves is great, but watching the first creators do it is going to be even better.
Speaking of 2025 - here’s Executive Producer and Game Director John Hendricks with a look at the year ahead.
John: It has been an incredible year, but I always say that! What makes this year special is the confidence Blonks has given us going into 2025. It feels great to be at a point where we can start using our new engine for what it is meant for: making Hytale.
I have spoken before about how we have been using our time waiting on the new engine for much-needed tools development, creative explorations, gameplay and UX designs and prototypes, whatever we can do to get ready for what comes next, but in my opinion the most critical things we’ve been working on have been our team and our processes. I am proud to say that not only is our engine more capable than before, so is our team.
And we are going to need that capability in 2025! The job ahead is to bring the gameplay and content over from our legacy engine, a process which is often referred to as ‘porting’, and get into playtesting as soon as possible. The first half of the year will see competitive and creative play take center stage to prepare for playtests in the second half of the year. At that time we will be focused on adventure and social gameplay. We will also continue to move fundamental systems and features like tools, worldgen, NPC behaviors, rendering, and personalization forward so that they do not fall behind.
We are incredibly hyped to bring an external creator team in to give us feedback on our tools and engine. A wide variety of creators provide us with valuable feedback on a regular basis, but this is different, this is going to be a gameplay team creating a new minigame for Hytale! Why only one team? So that we can give them support, respond to feedback, and document the process for the teams to follow. With over five experiences in various stages of playtesting, it is going to be another intense year for Hypixel Studios.
Thank you once again for all of your support for Hytale, it means the world to us.
To download a .zip containing the clips featured in this blogpost, click here!
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5efa372e65522954368269461f0f6c8f_winter2024header.jpg 1733850000 Technical Explainer: Powering Up with Launch Pads https://hytale.com/news/2024/12/technical-explainer-powering-up-with-launch-padsHi everyone! For our second Technical Explainer, we’re going to take a look at our collaborative philosophy through the lens of a key feature in Hytale: launch pads.
My name is Anna, and I’m an engineer on the Gameplay team. Our space is particularly interesting because it’s the perfect mix of problem solving and creativity. We’re responsible for features like crafting, movement, UI, and most recently, launch pads.
Like many creator teams, Hypixel teams work remote and are made up of people from diverse backgrounds. To succeed together, we need to find a way to collaborate together, which is why having a collaborative culture is so core to who we are. In this article, I’m excited to share with you some collaboration and feedback oriented strategies, and how they were critical for the development of our launch pad feature.
Software engineers often find themselves working within their own bubbles to problem solve, but making a game is a creative process that requires collaboration with team members from different disciplines. Our designers may be working in entirely different aspects of the game, but without talking to them, we wouldn’t know enough about the tools we’re making. We also rely on artists, audio, VFX, and production, and actively collaborating with them gives us the invaluable benefit of their viewpoints. Us engineers are also full of creative ideas, and being able to share these and bounce our ideas around helps with the ultimate goal of creating player-serving content.
The Gameplay team consists of 3 engineers, 2 tech designers, 2 quality analysts, and 1 producer. We’re responsible for the gameplay surrounding the player experience within the main Hytale Capital and on player islands. This space requires active daily teamwork, with tech design as a vital consumer of the engineering work for the team. They create prototypes, iterate on smaller features, and provide feedback.
Having a multi-discipline team with embedded resources gives us quick response times, faster iterations, and a more trusted creative process. And working closely with other disciplines for brainstorming and creating during the design process is the most valuable collaborative tool–and the best preventative medicine for bugs and tech debt. Failure to be inclusive outside of the engineering discipline when it comes to creating features and making decisions quickly results in losing sight of the desired vision. Without both sides actively reaching out to work together, we can be left in a place of assumptions, or find ourselves only executing on lists of tasks instead of making the most of our creative mindsets to make the best experience for the game and players as a whole.
Early points of contact for a new feature are not just about getting clarity, but also about answering the question “Why?”. From this conversation, we can all trust that we’re working towards the same goal: a place to start iterating for an excellent feature for the game.
At their core, launch pads are an actor in a world with a trigger collider. When objects (such as players) overlap with the trigger, an event is fired that applies a configurable impulse to the target. This sends that object–the target–flying through the air. In other words, they’ve been launched.
A basic launch pad
When we were first tasked with creating launch pads, my first thought was, “Well, it’s a launch pad! Most games have them, it’ll probably be the same as everywhere else.” Despite this initial impression, I leaned on our values of collaboration and spoke to the designer on point at the very start to understand their perspective. The next steps were reading through the design spec, speaking about it in our weekly public design huddle, gathering clarifications from design, and building out a Miro board.
This board included the primary physics functionality and API required to create the launch pad feature itself, as well as some basic exposed variables for design to tinker with.
This board and a timeline were sent out to all stakeholders to gather async feedback before development began, and got feedback from game design, tech design, and creative contributors. This feedback led us to alter what would be configurable for tech design and how the trigger would work for the initial development, which began as a ray cast and turned into using trigger volumes within the engine.
At key points, I reached out to people suggesting changes and met in 1 on 1s to make sure a culture of creative collaboration was being fostered even at this early stage, and to make sure their input would be fully understood. These contributors were continually looped in at every stage of the process to make sure we were still headed in the direction that worked for them.
Dealing with server-authoritative movement is a vital part of launch pad development. A physics impulse must be applied by the server, and the velocity and launch vector is calculated and resolved there. The client predicts and resolves its position through the same calculations. This physics impulse is only known at the time of the launch, as each launch pad could be configured to aim in a different direction–or require the character’s forward vector to calculate the velocity.
Basic implementation of a launch pad from the Miro board
Server and client launch requests
Code for running the launch request on the server and client, including networking rollback.
We found ourselves primarily interacting with two other teams while building launch pads, as they owned spaces that we needed expertise and buy-in for.
The movement and impulse are owned by the Characters, Camera, and Controls (CCC) team. Creating launch pads meant closely collaborating with them to create the backbone of the launch pad implementation that both the server and the client could run. Collaborating with them led to the discovery of several networking bugs, which opened up a larger conversation about networking movement, prediction, and impulses.
Networking is owned by the Core Tech team, which handles the prediction from the client, as well as ownership of messages being sent between the server and client. These are heavily used throughout the feature, and required support from engineers on all teams to get the launch pads functioning correctly.
This process also allowed us to give feedback to the Core Tech team for movement prediction networking, and helped work out bugs by having it implemented in an actual feature. It also led to a player-focused implementation of instances. At that time, parent actors were placed and needed to be duplicated to alter a variable on a per-instance basis. As part of launch pad development, we had a use case to investigate actor instancing and therefore add another tangential tooling workflow.
Now that we had the core functionality supported, we needed to make it possible for tech designers to jump in and start using the launch pads. We built an API using Luau scripting which requires sending the message from the client to the server to trigger a launch. This meant that tech designers had access to the scripting–but also to configurations within each asset for each launch pad actor placed in the world.
Original configuration design
These configurations are important because they allow the tech designer to change basic settings without needing to write logic.
For example, it’s easy to set any of the following values:
The options for these configurations and their technical implementations were created with tech design, and are still being iterated on to prioritize the best–and most realistic–experience for designers.
In-game editor view
Code version
Along with the ability to configure specific actor details, script functionality was also created for tech design to be able to manipulate logic when necessary. For example, the LaunchActor() function gave tech designers the ability to use launch functionality without needing to place a launch pad in the first place.
This specific tooling feature was actually not initially requested by the tech designers, but after testing launch pads, it was added to the backlog as a critical tool. This gave designers immediate access to iterate, as it works in parallel with the scripting function OnTriggerOverlap(), which was used in code for the launch pads to fire the system that launches the actor. Having this available within scripting meant designers could create game loops through differing queries and launch behaviour.
Luau script for trigger overlap with launch pad
An early perspective for the scripting and configurability was not just to support tech designers and creatives, but also to support players who will one day use these functions themselves. In the context of this feature, we thought deeply about all the ways players may want to launch actors in their world. We had so many discussions about making sure players could build and create in Hytale in the same ways Hypixellians do.
Launch pads were perfectly oriented to create opportunities for collaboration and cross-discipline work, but these opportunities don’t always make themselves readily known. It’s critical to take the time to think of who works on a feature, who would use it, and how–then talk to those individuals directly before writing even the first line of code.
This value of feedback and collaboration extends beyond Hypixellians. Launch pads are an ongoing process, and always will be as gameplay grows and evolves within Hytale. We look forward to seeing how launch pads are implemented by players in new and exciting ways and make use cases of their own. And in return, we’ll continue to use this collaboration to continue to iterate and create new player-focused tooling features in Hytale.
First-person view of in-game launch pad
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html Hytale Engineering Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_8784c65ad7551359132cda3879f5e3b0_lp_header.png 1722274200 Summer 2024 Development Update https://hytale.com/news/2024/07/summer-2024-development-updateHello! In today’s development update, we’ll be sharing perspectives from the team on the progress we’ve made in the first half of 2024. These include a first glimpse of our in-development new engine and an overview of the way we’re structuring the development of the game from 2025 onwards. We’ll also provide more details of our plans for creator outreach and, of course, show off another reimagined Orbis faction.
To kick us off, here’s Hytale’s Executive Producer, John Hendricks.
John: I am happy to report that the team has been on track since our Winter 2023 development update. It's been a year since we brought our shiny new engine in-house and started the process of integrating the bespoke systems and workflows we need to build Hytale. As we mentioned in our Winter Update, the first half of 2024 has been focused on finishing that process and transitioning our creative teams into the new engine.
The rest of the year continues that mission, culminating in an internal milestone that we're referring to as 'Filling In The Blonks'. The goal of this milestone is to verify that our engine, tools and processes are capable of supporting our gameplay and creative goals. The name comes from the simple version of PVP that we'll be implementing first – a knockback-based gamemode featuring weapons the team have been referring to as 'bonk sticks'!
‘Blonks’ will put us in a position to get back to fast iteration on our core gameplay, building off our successful combat playtests and minigame prototypes and beginning the process of 'porting' our creative play features over from our old engine. 'Porting' isn't a term we've used to describe our development before. In video game development, 'porting' typically refers to transitioning gameplay from one platform to another. In our case, we're in a hybrid stage. In some cases we've transitioned the active development of features from the legacy engine to the new one, and in other cases we are porting near-complete experiences or content to the new engine. It means we have the potential to move fast, but our velocity is also less predictable.
From now on, we expect gameplay development to follow a predictable pattern with four stages. These are:
With that in mind, think of 'Filling In The Blonks' as our 'First Testable' milestone for the new engine. This end-of-year milestone will represent the most ‘functionally complete’ version of Hytale to date! Speaking of which...
We're excited to share our first images from the new Hytale engine! Thomas Frick, Hytale's Art Director, has been working hard to validate that the new engine meets our expectations in terms of look and feel.
Thomas: We have spent years carefully crafting the 'Hytale Art Style'. We have poured our passion and love for the genre into it, and we're grateful it was embraced by so many within the community, including artists and creators. It's been my mission to make sure we carry it across while changing engines, assuring that the visual identity that made millions of people buzz with excitement stays intact.
Thomas: We never aimed to be pixel-perfect when comparing the legacy engine to the new one. What we're trying to capture is the feel, the colors, and the vibe of places! We want to keep improving the visuals and unlock more great features over time.
We are at a stage where a screenshot of the differences between the two engines are less evident to the untrained eye. We have progressed a lot on replicating texture colorimetry, ambient occlusion, and shadows for different types of models – blocks, chests, flowers, leaves, etc. We've made a lot of progress on how sunlight travels and is occluded by terrain, and we're ready to start working on the next big things: improving shadows and lights, polishing long-distance features, improving our visual effects system for particles, working on fog, skybox, weather, trees and foliage shading, etc.
What this means for the team is that artists can effectively work in our new environment. This will exponentially ramp up our ability to build assets that go directly into the game. It has a big motivational impact on the entire team. Seeing clear signs of progress like this has a positive snowball effect!
Disclaimer: goblin planning does not accurately reflect real-world dependencies or progress. (Illustration by Ted Artsel)
All of these efforts are focused on getting Hytale back in front of players – both in the user research lab, and beyond. Moving into the new year we will be focused on mini-games and creative tools, moving quickly through the first two phases of development outlined above as we port over the progress from our legacy prototypes and playtests.
The team is continuing to grow to ensure we're ready for the challenge. Here's our latest team photo from our yearly studio meetup – this time held in Dublin.
We're currently looking to fill a wide variety of roles, from UX design to studio operations, production, QA and engineering. Find out more about our open positions on our jobs page.
As we build our team, tech and tools, our design and creative vision for Hytale continues to mature. Our adventure, social and personalization features are coming online, informed by research and data from our insights team.
At its core, Hytale is about empowering creators. While we have always drawn inspiration from our history in the modding community, it’s vital that we bring in fresh perspectives to ensure that our approach meets the needs of today’s creators. To achieve this, we’ve brought a select group of creators into the fold to provide their input on our plans for Hytale’s tools and creator ecosystem. Here’s our community manager, BuddhaCat, to explain more about this recent outreach work.
Illustration by Bob (Brickface)
BuddhaCat: Since last year, we have been reaching out to creators from various backgrounds and platform experiences. Collectively, they represent a broad range of creator communities. These discussions are helping to inform design and product decisions, ensuring that we have a concrete understanding of creators’ needs as early as we can in this phase of development. For example, we've spoken to creators about their own histories, the difficulties they've encountered, and what their expectations are of Hytale. This has already been really useful. Learning about their processes, the tools they use, and the audiences they serve has begun to shape and reinforce our own decision-making.
As we progress through 2024, we will continue to bring more creators into the fold as we work to lay the foundation for our future creator programs.
We want creators to be ‘in the room’ with us as much as possible, and recently we had the pleasure of inviting a pillar of the Hytale community to meet the team. YouTuber Kweebec Corner joined us at our recent meet-up and gave a heartfelt keynote presentation about the community and why Hytale is important to them. We want to give a sincere thank-you to Kweebec Corner for all of his hard work. You can find his full presentation and Hycon breakdown on his YouTube channel.
During Kweebec Corner's visit, we gave him a peek at some of the recent work our creative team has been doing to expand and improve Hytale’s worldbuilding. Now it’s time for you to see it, too!
This year, the evolution of Orbis has marched ahead, particularly when it comes to the creatures and characters of our adventure world. As we said in our last dev update, we've revisited every faction to make sure that they have a clear purpose, deep connections to their world, and offer engaging gameplay to players. Here's former community artist turned invaluable team member Pebble, and our Narrative Lead, Chris, to talk about the evolution of the Scaraks...
Chris: Scaraks have been present in one form or another in every instance of Orbis' worldbuilding, and made an appearance in Hytale's launch trailer as well as some subsequent screenshots and legacy concept art. We began the process of their redesign with a few goals in mind. First and foremost, we wanted to ensure that their visuals reflected their history and relationship with the world of Orbis. We also wanted to make sure that they presented interesting gameplay opportunities to players in a variety of contexts. These two goals have been front of mind for every faction we've taken back to the drawing board – and at this point, that's all of them!
Scaraks presented some unique challenges and opportunities, too. We wanted to ensure that Scarak encounters feel different to encounters with other kinds of giant bugs. We also wanted to put our own spin on the notion of an insect faction – playing into the tropes in some ways but subverting them in others.
Scarak Environment Concepts by Bob (Brickface)
Pebble: I knew when the task came up that preserving the successful elements of the ‘legacy’ Scaraks was vital. We’ve had an amazing opportunity to re-imagine and update our content with the production of our new engine, but Scaraks have their fans just as other factions do, and we’d be doing a disservice stripping all that away. Things like the insectoid/non-humanoid silhouettes, the glowing blue bits, the antenna and mandibles – you still see these elements coming through. We pulled the glowing blue from the egg sacs and eyes, and made it a key feature of the faction, from their bodies to their hives, even as their source of nourishment. The otherwise grounded earth-tones of their carapaces are offset by an ethereal cyan, glowing with an eerie energy.
Scarak Environment and Lineup Concepts by Pebble
Chris: It was incredibly exciting to arrive at this new vision for Scaraks. In particular, the new focus on bioluminescence helped hammer home something that we'd been developing from a narrative and design perspective. Scaraks are not psychic, and they do not have a 'hive mind' in the sense you might expect. Instead, they communicate efficiently using light and gesture – just like some real insects do. They also have a highly ordered, hierarchical society, forming a 'chain of command' that allows for swift, sometimes uncanny feats of coordination. This can make them look psychic, but really what you're seeing is a sophisticated system at work. This is very compelling from a design perspective, because it suggests lots of gameplay opportunities to explore – and crucially, it makes Scaraks feel really different from other forms of bug-monster. They're intelligent, organized, noisy... and they glow in the dark.
Chris: The Scarak warrior above represents the culmination of a ton of work bringing together multiple disciplines to establish our quality bar and design language for this faction. It is not necessarily the model you'll see in-game, but it's the 'hero asset' we'll be using to guide the development of all of the different Scarak forms you can see in the concept above – and any others we may want to build in the future.
Scarak Guard: Marika Orehek / Scarak Scout: Pebble
Pebble: Working closely with our Art Director, Thomas, ensured I didn’t go too far off-track from the Hytale vibe when concepting the new designs. Constant collaboration with team members, whether it was other artists, the narrative team, or a certain bug-loving Goblin in game design, kept me from wasting away in a personal bubble or letting my own biases pull the faction in a particular direction. Making sure Scaraks didn’t just feel bug-like, but alien-adjacent was a clear goal from the beginning. This wasn’t a mindless swarm of robots, but an entirely foreign intelligence, with their own evolution, goals and means of communication. They clearly inhabit Orbis, but their presence is still somewhat of a mystery for players, and we wanted that mystery to be front and center in their design.
I can’t wait for players to see the Scaraks and their fresh coat of paint. The best part of working on these factions is imagining how players will interact with and react to them, and further, how they will use them as foundations for their own creations.
We'll continue to share updates as we move through future milestones – from blog posts like this one and our series of Technical Explainers, to less formal communications like #AskHytale via BuddhaCat’s X/Twitter (and more goodies via John’s X/Twitter!). You can expect us to share our progress when it comes to all of the different bits and pieces that those goblins are so eagerly cobbling together.
After a long period of refactoring, the wheels are starting to turn in earnest and Hytale is beginning to come to life around us once again. We’ll be back with more to share at the end of the year.
In the meantime, we’ve got blonks to fill.
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5c3aa9e9095cfd50aff3f6ca275761b2_summer2024_header_5.jpg 1718650200 Summer 2024 Technical Explainer: Hytale's Entity Component System https://hytale.com/news/2024/06/summer-2024-technical-explainer-hytale-s-entity-component-system-oPwpCAMdIHello everyone! Today we're going to take a quick peek behind the curtain at some of the technology underpinning Hytale’s engine with a specific focus on one of the frameworks we recently announced: Flecs—a lightweight and powerful entity component system (ECS).
Some time ago, we talked about our decision to reboot the Hytale engine, switching from a Java server an C# client to building both in C++. There were many reasons for making this change: we wanted to ensure we could release the game across multiple platforms; we wanted to improve our performance when targeting lower-spec devices; and we wanted to build a core engine that was robust enough that we’d be able to patch and maintain the game into the future.
ECS is one of the many tools we rely on to help us achieve these goals. In this post, we’re going to discuss why we chose Flecs as the ECS foundation of Hytale’s new engine, and how, exactly, it helps us achieve them.
But before we delve too deeply into Flecs itself, we need to take a look at ECS—the entity component system pattern.
ECS is not a particularly new concept, nor is it as uncommon in game development as it was only a few years ago. Even so, it can still be complex and unfamiliar when first encountered. To properly talk about it, we need to contextualize the ECS concept within the scope of game development.
Much of traditional game development relies on the age-old object-oriented programming (OOP) model, or on entity-component (or actor-component!) architectures. Object-oriented programming is prevalent throughout software development in general and breaks down problems into familiar structures that can be reasoned about as objects. You might have an overarching Character object type which provides game logic common to all Characters, which is then inherited or specialized by a Player object, various NPC objects, and any other types that could be considered Characters.
This tree can become very broad.
Entity-component brings us a step closer to ECS and is the primary architecture used by many popular game engines such as Unreal and Unity. In this paradigm, we now have entities—individual units such as a ‘player’, an ‘NPC’, a ‘chair’—and components—a combination of data and functionality that can be attached to these entities. Each entity is composed of a number of components. If you’re familiar with OOP, the entity-component paradigm leans heavily into the principle of ‘composition over inheritance’. For example: a player might have a position in the world, the ability to read controller inputs, and an inventory; an NPC also has a position, might have an inventory, and has some form of behavioral logic; our chair, unfortunately, has only a position.
Until you add behavioral logic to it and it becomes a creature [disclaimer: this is for demonstration purposes!]
Immediately, it should become apparent how liberating such a structure can be for modding. Not only does it facilitate highly data-driven functionality through asset configuration, where simply changing the components attached to an NPC or object results in markedly different behavior, but it theoretically allows for the creation of entirely new functionality without needing to tinker with existing code. With a scripting language you could create and add your own component and attach it to the entities you want to run that behavior. A variety of possibilities open up.
An entity can be composed in many different ways!
But this still isn’t ECS. ECS—entity component system—takes these concepts and advances them further. Whereas in the entity-component model the functionality (e.g. methods and functions) lives within the component itself, ECS decouples this functionality from the data and state it processes. Instead of having each component with its own internal update logic, we have systems which match entities with defined sets of components and act upon them. This means that with ECS we still unlock the same ability to compose entities from different components, but the decoupling results in a data and logic architecture that’s significantly more efficient for the hardware to run and thus more performant. Much of the details around how ECS achieves these performance benefits are highly technical, but suffice to say that it involves taking advantage of CPU architecture, structuring data in a tightly-packed way to benefit from its locality in access patterns, and using those access patterns to parallelise as much logic as feasibly possible.
Systems can match any combination of components.
We knew we wanted to switch to using an ECS architecture even while we were still developing the legacy engine, owing to the boost in performance and scalability it would give us, along with its natural alignment with our data-driven approach to constructing and configuring game entities and actors. As a result, we developed our own Java implementation of the concept and began to integrate it throughout the legacy server. At the time, we had no equivalent for the C# client, meaning that our implementation was strictly server-only.
Part of this work involved refactoring aspects of existing logic to follow the ECS pattern, even as we began developing new functionality alongside it. We learnt many lessons during that time, chiefly amongst them that implementing a robust and performant ECS framework from the ground up is an incredibly challenging and time-consuming endeavor. There are countless different flavors of ECS, each with their own benefits and drawbacks, but all requiring a deep understanding and technical specialization to execute to a high standard. Java is also not always the most performant of programming languages and we made many concessions and design choices due to its unique quirks.
Even then, our fledgling ECS implementation provided noticeable performance benefits, along with a new approach to system architecture that embodied the principles of data-driven design we wanted to achieve. If done correctly, we could make it easy for modders to provide data that would influence the behavior of the game with practically no technical knowledge.
When we rebooted the engine, we knew we wanted to continue using ECS, but also that we wanted to extend this to the client as well, ensuring that we’d reap the benefits in every aspect feasible. We also knew that our shift to C++ would mean there could be other frameworks out there—ones we wouldn’t have to build and maintain ourselves, with cutting-edge features that would push the boundaries of the paradigm.
After evaluating all our available options, we settled on Flecs—a highly refined ECS framework written and maintained by an ECS expert: Sander Mertens.
Out of the box, it gives us access to a variety of features common to most ECS implementations, along with excellent performance and multi-platform compatibility. Being written entirely in C with a C++ API means it’s significantly faster than any implementation in C# or Java could dream to be, letting us take full advantage of its smart implementation of parallelisation and multi-threading. Another obvious benefit is that we don’t need to maintain it ourselves—Flecs is battle-tested, receives frequent updates and bugfixes, and with its comprehensive suite of tests, we can be relatively certain of its stability.
But perhaps the most enticing aspect was the broad set of features that extend beyond what a traditional ECS framework offers and provide a flexibility that takes ECS to the next level. One example of this is the concept of ‘relationships’. Like components, relationships are data that you can attach to an entity, but this data is used to connect one entity to another. A parent-child relationship is a good example of this, where a player entity might have a camera entity as a child which follows it around. Another example could be even more literal, where Entity A Likes Entity B. By using this structure, we can easily run queries such as ‘find me all entities that Like Entity B’, or ‘find me all entities that Entity B Likes’.
In many ways, an ECS is similar to a database, and Flecs makes full use of this fact. The underlying rules engine is a powerful tool that supports querying data in a variety of ways, ranging from simple matching for systems (e.g. a system which updates crop growth based on a number of attached components) to complex lookups for game logic or debugging (e.g. find me all NPCs bearing swords that are aggressive to the player). In addition to this, the component sharing mechanism allows us to create a base actor type such as a Character and say that an NPC or a Player is a Character, giving us access to OOP-style inheritance but built to benefit from ECS optimizations.
At times, some of these features can be challenging to reason about, as is often the case when learning an entirely new architecture. Even so, once understood and mastered, they provide extremely powerful game development tools.
To close out, we’ll examine one such example. In the past we introduced an enhancement to Hytale’s NPCs called the Combat Action Evaluator. This is a framework designed to allow NPCs to make smarter and ‘fuzzier’ decisions on which attack to use and which target to use it upon, based on a number of highly configurable inputs. Though originally implemented in the legacy engine, it was designed to be data-driven from conception, with each individual input attached in a manner akin to components in an ECS.
While it fulfilled its purpose admirably in the legacy engine and provided combat NPCs that at times could be mistaken for human players, limitations had to be imposed upon it due to its potential impact on the general performance of the game. After all, allowing NPCs to make ‘fuzzy’ decisions based on an enormously large amount of input data in an OOP environment means a significant processing burden—one that our Java-based pre-ECS engine was not equipped to handle. As such, we would only run the combat action evaluator at irregular intervals. This might mean that we’d avoid any potential server slowdown from large numbers of NPCs being in active combat, but it also meant they would make slower decisions overall—slow enough to be perceptible to the player.
With Flecs, our gameplay design options aren’t nearly as limited by performance concerns. Through redesigning the internal framework following ECS patterns and making copious use of Flecs features, we end up with an equivalent which no longer needs to process this data in such an inefficient manner. We can instead smartly group all queries that check specific information and parallelize them, resulting in much quicker processing times and removing any need for the artificial limitations to evaluation frequency. Where in the legacy engine we would sequentially perform our checks (prioritizing the expensive ones first so we could quit earlier if they failed!), these can now all happen simultaneously, with Flecs’ query engine handling the heavy lifting.
In essence, this means that NPCs can think faster—reacting to changes in the environment and their surroundings much more responsively than they ever could have in the legacy engine.
Ultimately, this only scratches the surface of what’s possible with Flecs and ECS. Many other parts of the engine provide interesting opportunities to optimize around ECS, from the asset database to staged world generation, and as both Flecs and the Hytale engine continue to evolve we only expect the possibilities to grow.
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_e82dccfffc8df9677ab407f12e3b781f_tech_blog_flecs_header_updated.jpg 1701362400 Winter 2023 Development Update https://hytale.com/news/2023/11/winter-2023-development-updateHello! The team has been making steady progress since our update in the summer. We've been hard at work merging our creative, design and technical efforts into a single team endeavor focused on delivering Hytale. Before we share more, let's recap the last three years of Hytale's development.
In the first half of 2021, we identified that we needed to redevelop Hytale's tech fundamentals in order to deliver a game that meets the expectations of players and creators. After a period of investigation, we committed to building a new custom engine and brought on a development partner to help us do so. As this effort was underway, we continued to make progress in other areas. We began actively prototyping and playtesting new takes on adventure content, player movement, creative tools, creature AI, and combat. We also expanded our character personalization approach, doubling down on our players' identities as creative, world-shaping beings called Avatars.
As 2021 drew to a close, we showed off some of this progress as part of Riot's Undercity Nights event. Taking advantage of the extra pre-production time we've been afforded by the engine change, we also began a far-reaching creative re-exploration of the world of Orbis, the setting for Hytale's adventure experience. We'll dig deeper into one aspect of that re-exploration later in this post.
These efforts – creative and technical – continued into 2022. In our summer update that year, we talked more about the reasoning behind the engine change, teased some new biomes and landscapes for Orbis, and reintroduced our vision for Hytale as a whole. Meanwhile, as engine redevelopment continued, we dived deep into every aspect of Orbis as we began to prototype new advanced building tools, more sophisticated VFX, and a fresh approach to Hytale's UI.
This year, we've brought engine development fully in-house and steadily expanded our team. In a very exciting milestone, we hosted our first external playtest – a sign of things to come! As Noxy and I discussed earlier in the year, 2023 has been about staffing our team so that we're ready for 2024, integrating our gameplay systems and workflows with the new engine, and moving our creative and prototyping efforts forward in preparation for the next wave of playtests.
This year, the team has been ramping up to take full advantage of our shiny new engine's capabilities while beginning to integrate the latest breakthroughs from our world generation and encounter design teams. The needs of creators are always on our mind, so we've also been working to get tools and content creation workflows online in the new engine.
Our rendering team is hard at work on replicating the look and feel of Hytale in the new engine, and we're looking forward to sharing a side-by-side with our old engine when we're ready. At the moment, however, our primary focus has been on performance and functionality, not beauty. We’ll share some of these 'ugly duckling' moments when we're out of this awkward, self-conscious phase! We’re also looking forward to sharing content from the new engine once it properly reflects our vision for Hytale.
Meanwhile, the team continues to use the legacy engine to prototype experiences and improve our development processes. Over the coming months, more and more of our team will move over to working in the new engine, bringing that expertise with them.
Our adventure team has two missions. First, they're creating the tools and content necessary for players to tell their own stories in a blocky world. Then, they're using these same tools to build the world of Orbis, the setting for Hytale's official adventure experience.
Orbis fulfills two roles within Hytale. Avatars love to create and experience new worlds, alone and with friends, and Orbis provides the baseline from which many such worlds can be made. This, naturally, is our primary focus. However, Orbis is also where we get to tell tales of our own, through adventure experiences that we refer to as the Story of Orbis.
We've spent a lot of time revisiting Orbis' history, creatures and characters over the last year, taking a critical look at every element to ensure it matches our goals for the game. Much of this effort has been focused on Orbis' factions: cultures like the Kweebecs and Trorks, Ferans, and Scaraks. We've been making real progress here, expanding their roles and capabilities and deepening their backstories. By way of an example, let's look at a character that has undergone a significant change: the Kweebec Treesinger.
You can see the old Treesinger design in the image above. Treesingers play an important role in Kweebec villages. They're tale-tellers and respected leaders, responsible for passing down the wisdom of the ages to each new generation of Seedlings. This role cannot be adopted without sacrifice. In normal circumstances, older Kweebecs eventually put down roots and become trees known as Elders. In this form, they can slumber for great spans of time as village life continues around them.
Treesingers, however, resist this transformation. In doing so, they become intermediaries between young Kweebecs and their sleeping Elders, a bridge between the past and the present. While we've always been fond of the bearded Treesingers of old, we wanted to open up this particular design to reinterpretation. Here are a few of our initial explorations.
After working through several iterations with our artists and designers, we started to favor a much larger, more ponderous version of our wisened Kweebec. We resonated with this image of a Treesinger who, after resting in one spot for slightly too long, has to exert significant willpower to pull its roots from the ground and start moving again...
It was then up to our animation, 3D modeling and VFX teams to bring these reimagined Kweebecs to life.
The great thing about collaborative efforts like this one is the way it brings new ideas and greater depth to our worldbuilding. For example: the process of redesigning Treesingers led us to re-evaluate how Kweebecs build their homes and craft their equipment. One of our artists suggested that they might use music to encourage plants to grow into helpful shapes. This was the seed of what we now refer to as Sungwood: an ornate wooden material that you can see in Kweebec clothing, weapons, and in their redesigned villages (more on that in a bit!)
This is one small example of a much larger creative effort. We have a lot more to share in the future, as every single faction has undergone a re-evaluation much like this one. This isn't even the only new kind of Kweebec...
In Hytale, the heart of online social play is a shared space called the Capital. This is where players from all parts of Hytale come together to make friends, share experiences, compete in minigames, discover new adventures, seek challenges, trade, show off pets and companions, and more. It's the home of adventurers, competitors, and creative players from across the breadth of the game.
The Capital is a testament to all of the things that Avatars have built and achieved in the past, and looks ahead to the exciting things they'll do in the future. Most importantly, though, it's intended to be a celebration of what the Hytale community is up to.
Development of the Capital has been another important part of this year’s creative and design effort. While we’re not yet ready for a full unveiling, I wanted to make sure we touched on the nature of the work we're doing here – while we've talked a lot about Orbis over the years, we've not shared much about this key Hytale environment. Needless to say, we'll have much more to share in the future.
As 2023 winds down, we're looking forward to 2024. As mentioned earlier, the first half of the year will be focused on getting the whole team onboarded into the new engine. We're also going to be significantly ramping up our external playtesting efforts, focusing on collecting feedback on adventure experiences, creator tools, and social and competitive play.
These user tests and process advancements are important steps in getting us ready to enter full production. Thank you for hanging with us while we've gone through the transformations necessary to get our studio and project to this point. While I understand the desire for dates and roadmaps, the work we're currently doing is essential in order for us to make accurate projections in the future.
I'm happy to report that we're closing off the year on track for our milestones in the new engine and excited to move forward. You can expect our updates to grow in frequency as we move into this next phase of Hytale's development, particularly when we're in a position to once again show off in-engine gameplay.
For now, we'll leave you with a teaser of some new music! Along with a glimpse at a busy village, deep in the forests of Orbis…
To download a .zip file containing the art and concept clip featured in this post, click here!
html John Hendricks, Game Director https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_7c5bb6af44f293be3ff60b318d0b5475_winter_update_header.jpg 1687881600 Studio growth and project progress: an update from Noxy and John https://hytale.com/news/2023/06/studio-growth-and-project-progress-an-update-from-noxy-and-johnToday we're popping out from behind the curtain of secrecy to share a little bit about our growth as a studio and our progress with Hytale. You'll also get a glimpse at the evolution of Orbis from two new pieces of key art! Read on for updates from Hypixel Studios CEO Noxy and Hytale Game Director John Hendricks.
Hello hello!
Hard to believe that it’s almost been a year since our last update! Even though things have been quiet on the outside, we’ve rarely been as busy or as productive as we’ve been in the last twelve months. We’re really pleased with the progress that we’ve been making. As ever, the community remains a huge source of inspiration and motivation for the whole team.
Before I continue, I wanted to say thank you to the fan artists, the content creators, the lore-speculators, the question-askers, and everybody reading this. It really does mean a huge amount to us that you’re still here.
This is true year-round, but a few weeks ago we received an incredible gift – a beautifully-carved board signed by creators from all parts of the Hytale community. I wanted to take a moment to say thank you on behalf of the entire team to everyone involved in making this happen.
The postcard that accompanied this gift was very touching, too. The last line was ‘please take care of our Pebble’ – a reference to RighteousPebble, who went from Hytale community member to Hytale developer last year when he joined our art team! I’m very happy to say that Pebble’s been taking good care of us – he’s already made some fantastic contributions to Hytale, and you’ll get to see a piece of his official (!) art below.
It's hard to understate just how much Hypixel Studios has grown. This project started life with a handful of people breaking away from the Hypixel Minecraft server team to start building something new. When we announced Hytale and established Hypixel Studios back in 2018, that team had grown a lot, but there were still fewer than 40 of us. Now there are more than 110 people working hard on Hytale every day.
We've also had support from contractors, external partners, and of course Riot themselves. Hytale has always been an ambitious game, and slowly but surely we've gathered the people, knowledge, skills and resources to deliver on that vision. It's been hard work, and there have been many challenges, but I'm happy to say that we're getting to where we need to be – slowly but surely. (Yes, it's been slow for us too!)
Lots of us just got home from a studio gathering held at Riot's headquarters in Los Angeles. This was our first opportunity to meet many of our new teammates in person. Take a look at that team photo compared to last year! That isn't even everyone.
On that note – I'm still just as excited by our relationship with Riot as I was when we announced the acquisition. We've been very fortunate to find a partner who understands what we're trying to achieve with Hytale, and supports our approach to building it. Riot's support has been vital as we've grown, not just in terms of resources and knowledge but guidance, too. Riot’s mentorship has made us better developers, opened up new possibilities, and given us confidence that we’re moving in the right direction.
This is the part where I say: we're hiring! We're very much still hiring. We're hiring all the time. We're hiring as you read this. At the time of writing we have roles open in art, design, audio, production, engineering, and our studio operations team, and new roles are being posted all of the time. Please check out our Jobs page for the latest information. We've hired some amazing people, and we'd love it if you joined them. Speaking of amazing hires, here's that new RighteousPebble art!
John Hendricks is another person we've been lucky to welcome into the team. John joined us in 2020 as Design Director, but soon took on the responsibilities of a Creative Director. Since then, his expertise managing game development at scale has been absolutely invaluable when it comes to keeping Hytale on track. There’s been a whole lot more to building Hytale than we anticipated when we set out on this journey, and operating a production environment at that scale just isn't part of my skillset. I’ve been immensely grateful for John’s support in this regard.
John became Game Director for Hytale earlier this year, and I'll hand off to him now so that he can update you on the game itself.
You know, that thing you came here to hear about.
Enjoy!
– Noxy
Sometimes the summoning circle (should that be a square?) is just too hard to resist.
Hi! I'm John. As the Game Director I'm responsible for overseeing the creative, tech and production initiatives that are bringing Hytale to life. My job is to make sure that we deliver a game that matches our vision – and that we do so in a healthy, forward-thinking way that ensures that we're ready to respond to player and creator needs for a long time to come.
Ok, what can I share? I don't want to give too much away about the world of Orbis, as there are many things we want you to experience for the first time in-game!
...but I can share a project status update, and some of our creative efforts, like this Outlander concept art! The team has been hard at work bringing the inhabitants of Orbis to life through lore, design, art, and code. As much as we've shared, we've held back even more. When we first introduced the inhabitants of Orbis they already had a deep backstory, but were missing that depth in the game world. Not anymore. Every single aspect of Hytale has been re-explored, and the next time you see Orbis, you can expect it to feel familiar in many ways, but different in many others. There's some evidence of these differences scattered throughout this post...
Right now, two major work streams are coming together. The engine update we announced last year has been proceeding as planned, while our creative teams have been making great progress prototyping experiences and advancing our design thinking. It is rare to have the opportunity to upgrade your tech before you launch a game, and we are not wasting it!
More performance, adaptability, and platform support? Yes please, but there is more to the story than that. We made several exciting discoveries while prototyping Hytale that we needed time to work through. We felt good about our core gameplay, but there was work to be done to bring it all together into a cohesive whole, as they say.
I am excited to say that we have recently hit a major milestone – our first external playtest! Someone left the playtest labs unlocked and we managed to get our combat prototype loaded onto a room full of machines (ok, the user research team helped a lot.) We ran participants through a series of exercises that ended with duels and team deathmatches. We tested an extensive number of systems for balance and flexibility, including player movement, abilities, weapons, armor, items, buffs, and magic!
I'm happy to report that we learned a lot and that the brave playtesters had a great time. At one point, two of the testers silently conspired to escape the arena. We didn't think it was possible. We were glued to our screens as they worked together, communicating through a series of nods, squats, and gestures, to get one of them over the walls... if they're reading this, they should know that we cheered. A very Hytale moment ;)
We've also been internally testing our tools, from worldgen to VFX. Creating a highly configurable game is a 'go slow to be fast' process. We're spending extra time now to build flexible systems and processes so that creators (including us) can move fast once those systems are ready.
The next big step is to get another wave of features ready for internal playtesting as more systems come online. We've expanded the team significantly since our last update, which also takes time. Everyone we add to the team is a vital part of the mission. It's an investment that goes both ways – they invest their time, energy and experience, and we do our best to be worth it!
Ok, I'd better stop before I cross over into another recruiting pitch (I can't help it, we always have cool jobs posted!) Thank you again for all of the support and encouragement, we are striving to be worth that as well ;)
As I've said, there are so many things that we're holding back because we want you to experience them in-game. But here's another Feran, just because.
Interesting costume, for a desert-dwelling character. Unless... the factions of Orbis aren't restricted to specific biomes or zones? Now there's an idea...
– John
To download a .zip file containing 4K versions of the new pieces of key art featured in this post, click here!
html Noxy and John https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_4e6d0770a01d0f38ce64e398f700f654_header_june_2023.jpg 1658501100 Summer 2022 Development Update https://hytale.com/news/2022/07/summer-2022-development-updateHi everyone! In this year’s summer post, we’re going to provide an update on the far-reaching technical investigations that we’ve been undertaking over the last year. We’ll also share more information about how our vision for Hytale is evolving, take a look at the changing face of Orbis, and introduce some powerful new tools for builders. This is going to be a long one!
In our winter 2021 development update, we explained that we were undertaking a deep investigation into all aspects of Hytale in order to ensure that the game lives up to the expectations of our community, both at launch and beyond. A great deal of this investigation has been focused on the technology that supports the game. Today, we are going to outline where these technical explorations have led us and why we believe the choices we’ve made are going to make a huge difference to both Hytale’s longevity and the health of its community.
We’re aware that some eagle-eyed community members have already spotted that we’ve stopped listing Java and C# in our job descriptions. This is because we’ve made the decision to redevelop Hytale’s engine—both the client and the server—in C++. Doing so provides several major benefits:
We appreciate that this might be a source of concern for some, particularly those who have come to us from the Minecraft creator community. However, we strongly believe that this is the right choice, and we plan to include best-in-class systems for scripting and configurability while investigating other forms of moddability as development continues.
The happiness of both players and creators is vital to Hytale’s long-term success. We want to ensure that players enjoy a game that performs well, is widely accessible, and makes it as easy as possible for them to play with their friends—wherever they are, however they play games. Creators, in turn, require an audience for their creations. Modding and other forms of content creation isn’t a niche aspect of Hytale, to be encountered only on certain versions or in certain circumstances. It is a core part of the experience, and we want to ensure that we’re providing creators with the best possible ecosystem—one where their work can be encountered by any player.
Our previous engine was built at a time when we had fewer resources and we hadn’t yet come to terms with the scope of what we were trying to achieve with Hytale. Over the last year it became clear that if we kept on going as we were, we would hit a range of technical challenges in areas like scaling, compatibility, and the speed at which we could deliver patches and updates. It would also have been untenable to support a number of popular platforms without creating specific versions of the game for each of them, which would be a huge amount of work—and those players would find themselves unable to play or share their creations with friends on the ‘core’ version of the game.
These were difficult facts to come to terms with, and the decision to rebuild the engine followed months of painstaking research and soul-searching on the part of the team. However, we’re very fortunate to have the resources and time to be able to make this decision. Many developers find themselves in the opposite scenario: discovering that they need to make tech changes but being simply unable to do so. The negative consequences of these situations are almost always felt by players. We would rather take advantage of the resources at our disposal and make the right decision now, rather than put our community through painful upheavals in the future.
There are inevitably going to be a lot of questions about these changes—particularly from creators. We’re aware that many are eager to get started on Hytale modding and want to know what they can do to hit the ground running. To these creators, we'd ask that you be patient. We can’t answer detailed questions right now as the redevelopment of the engine is still underway, but we will be providing much more information in the future. Rest assured that while the specifics of how modding will work are changing, our commitment to enabling creators to make amazing content is not.
Strasbourg-based artist Stom500 provided this amazing mural for our office. Also pictured: Cosmo’s dog, Mixy.
Two other questions we expect are ‘how does this impact the game’s minimum system requirements?’ and ‘does this change the timeline for Hytale’s release?’
To the first question, we’ve not established a new minimum spec yet. However we’re building the new engine to perform well on a wide range of platforms and low-spec PCs are part of that consideration.
To the second question—it definitely has an impact, but the redevelopment of the engine is proceeding quickly and we're hitting our internal milestones. However, the game will not be ready to launch in 2023, which was the earliest possible launch window we outlined last year.
It’s inevitable that this news provokes mixed emotions—we’re very confident that we’re doing the right thing for the game and our players, but we also know that our community has been patiently waiting for Hytale for a long time. We sympathize: it has been a long road for us too, with many rewarding moments but also many difficult decisions.
Earlier this year, we were able to meet up as a studio for the first time. It’s amazing to see how much the company has grown—and this isn’t even everybody!
At the end of the day, though, releasing a game that meets (or ideally exceeds!) expectations means everything to us, and that takes time. More time than we could ever have anticipated when we announced Hytale as a 30-person team of indie devs and modders. There are over 100 of us now, and more are joining us every month. We’ve been blessed with an extraordinary influx of talent over the last couple of years, and we’re investing all of it in making Hytale better.
As the engine redevelopment project has proceeded, we’ve had an opportunity to revisit our vision for Hytale as a whole—from its core design to its fiction to the way we think about each of the traditional pillars of the game. In the next section of this update, we’ll dig into this a little further.
Traditionally, when we’ve explained Hytale, we’ve done so by splitting the game into three ‘pillars’: creative, competitive multiplayer, and adventure. Instead of pillars, let’s think about these as doorways to different experiences.
Step through the door on the left and you find yourself in creative play. Here you can spin up custom, procedurally generated worlds and experience them as an adventurer, a creator, or something in between. You can install mods and take advantage of a diversity of block and prefab styles to change the look and feel of the game.
We think of the creator’s journey as beginning at ‘creative play’ and leading ultimately to ‘creator pro’. A player who starts out building with blocks might graduate to more advanced building tools (more on those later) before branching out into scripting, asset creation or animation using tools that are powerful enough to fulfill the needs of professional modders while offering accessible entry points to newcomers.
The door in the middle leads to Hytale’s first-party online component: an evolution of the traditional Hypixel social play and minigames experience. Here, players gather in a shared hub space to show off their achievements across the breadth of the game, compete in the latest minigames, and express themselves through both their Avatar and their creations.
In many ways, this is the heart of Hytale, a collective environment for the whole community to come together in. We’re working to pack it with activities, events and interactions to surprise and delight players. However players leave their mark on Hytale, it’ll be here that they come to celebrate their accomplishments and those of their friends.
Finally, through the rightmost door, lies adventure on Orbis. This is our first-party sandbox RPG experience, which tasks players with braving the wilds of a world in peril in order to uncover its secrets and change the fate of its inhabitants. Unlike the custom worlds that players generate for themselves as part of creative play, Orbis is a ‘curated’ experience—something that we’ve carefully crafted to offer a meaningful challenge and narrative experience for our players, while taking advantage of selective randomization to ensure a diverse and interesting experience.
Here’s the thing, though: our goal isn’t for each of these doors to lead you to a different game, disconnected from all of the others. Whichever door you choose, we want you to end up in the same place: playing Hytale.
Hytale isn’t three different games: it’s one. As we’ve re-approached the core tenets of the game, we’ve taken on the challenge of ensuring that each aspect of Hytale supports the others—and that players feel empowered whether they go deep in one area or dabble in many different game modes.
We’re working to establish a sense of coherence across the breadth of Hytale while ensuring that the game supports a wide variety of forms of creative expression. This is a multi-disciplinary effort, with every aspect of creative development involved—from art to audio, gameplay design to narrative—contributing in their own way. Our UI/UX team are currently in the process of rebuilding Hytale’s interface from the ground up with these goals in mind. We’re not quite ready to share the results of their work, but can provide a little teaser:
The UI/UX team is building a visual language for Hytale’s UI that will help unify the various experiences you—and your in-game persona—have. Next, let’s talk a bit more about that persona…
Your character in Hytale is a powerful creative being known as an Avatar. Avatars focus raw creative energy into everything from simple contraptions to entire worlds as they express their individual personalities. We’ve talked a little bit about Avatars before, but in this post we’d like to highlight how they help us to create a sense of coherence across Hytale. Every part of the game reflects a different aspect of life as an Avatar.
The power of an Avatar varies according to the domain they find themselves in. They are at their most powerful when in command of a world of their own creation. Here, Avatar power is truly unbound, with their only limitations being those that they impose upon themselves. Some Avatars invest themselves deeply in the worlds they create, and scarcely involve themselves in the business of the wider cosmos (at least one Avatar that you’re already aware of fits this description…).
Many Avatars seek each other out in shared social environments. Here, Avatars moderate their power level in pursuit of exciting new experiences. They’re especially drawn to new forms of competition and creativity, actively drawing influence from one another and the various worlds they encounter. The spaces that Avatars share reflect their eclectic personalities. We’re still developing the visual style for this part of Hytale, but here’s a peek at a recent exploration:
You may have seen one or two of these new visual elements—such as the low-fi neon signs—crop up in a recent screenshot!
Things change when Avatars visit each other’s worlds, however. Here, they only have the powers that they’re granted by their host. Avatars may choose to freely share their creative freedom with their guests—but that isn’t always the case!
In Hytale, many Avatars are drawn to the world of Orbis—a world that has lost its Avatar under mysterious circumstances. When they arrive on Orbis, they find themselves subject to many mortal limitations. Where elsewhere they can effortlessly channel their creativity, here they must develop practical skills if they’re going to survive, establish themselves, and ultimately uncover the secrets of this vibrant, storied world.
Speaking of which…
Our Encounter and Level Design team has been hard at work over the last year undertaking a thorough reevaluation of the biomes and landscapes of Orbis. Our worldgen technologies and techniques have been a source of pride for us for a long time, but we always know that we can do better—and we’re taking advantage of the additional time that we’re taking with the game to ensure that every part of Orbis feels meaningful.
These thumbnail concepts provide a sense of the mood and palette we’re exploring for Orbis’ coldest regions. Let's take a look at how these new biomes are developing.
This misty forest by Baxter demonstrates how we can start to introduce colder elements into regions that might flow naturally from warmer, more temperate areas. The low-lying mist and drifting ice floes let you know what you’re in for if you keep moving upstream…
Even in the snowiest areas, however, there are pockets of warmth—as this concept for a hot springs biome shows. We don’t know if Trorks will actually do this, by the way. But we’re glad this one appears to be enjoying themselves.
Here’s that same biome in-game, courtesy of Amber. The use of custom VFX for geysers helps us create the sense that there’s hot water bubbling away just underneath the surface.
Now we move into a much more extreme environment, as this concept illustrates. In the coldest regions, snow gives way to blocks of sheer, jagged ice as the environments become more fantastical.
Here’s that frosty biome again, brought to life by Sarc. This is a good demonstration of how the landscape plays a role in establishing the challenge level of an area.
This concept takes a different spin on the idea of a fantastical frozen landscape, imagining a series of colossal waves flash-frozen at the moment they crested the surface of an icy sea.
Here’s Greater’s prototype of a biome built on these principles. We want to mix in moments of wonder like this to ensure that there’s always something new to discover as players press further and further into the wilds of Orbis.
Next, we’re going to head to a very different part of Orbis for a look at a reimagined desert biome.
These salt flat concepts show one of the ways that we’re trying to add diversity and interest to Orbis’ hottest regions. The red rocks and white sands help set the area apart, while the coral-like vegetation suggests that this region might once have been underwater.
Here’s Roddan’s initial pass at worldgen for this new biome. As you can see, it comprises both highly exposed, barren plateaus and winding canyons with many caves and outcrops. Each poses their own dangers, and players will want to equip themselves accordingly.
VFX artist Polina has been hard at work expanding our arsenal of particle effects and related techniques. These are proving to be a powerful tool when it comes to adding detail, atmosphere and personality to every part of Hytale—from special weapon attacks to magic to environmental effects and more.
We’re going to continue to invest in VFX research as a way to add immersive spectacle to Hytale while retaining its low-fi stylings. In the next clip, you can see an example of new VFX applied to an older dungeon environment, providing a much spookier and more compelling atmosphere…
In the screenshot above, you can see an elaborate custom build: a pair of ruined buildings surrounded by a partially-destroyed curtain wall and flanked by chasms of molten lava. Of this entire build, only one of the two buildings was built the traditional way, by placing blocks. Every other aspect was created using some of the advanced creator tools and techniques that we’ve been working on over the last year.
In the clip below, you can see how the build was made. Please bear in mind that these tools are still work-in-progress: you’ll see bugs, you’ll see placeholder UI, and you’ll see some incongruous visual elements and performance issues. However, we’re excited to share an early look at this expansion to the Hytale creator toolkit.
At the beginning of the clip, Propzie starts by building one of the structures before using a new selection tool to pick out the whole build, duplicate it, rotate it, and finally set it down a short distance away.
Next, we see the first example of something that we’re calling a ‘scripted brush’. These are brushes with an attached script or macro that can be used to perform custom build operations. This first one is a combination of wall brush and pathing brush. First Propzie uses the wall component to create the outer curtain wall. The walls themselves are self-generating according to how they’re configured in the brush itself, and are linked together using prefab corner pieces.
Then, Propzie adds the paths with the other half of the brush. These are painted directly onto the landscape, with dynamic variations in texture to create variety. When the brush detects that a painted path has collided with one of the walls, it automatically adds a prefab gateway!
We’ve created dozens of scripted brushes ourselves, and we intend for players and creators to be able to make and share their own. It’s an incredibly flexible system.
Next, Propzie uses the ‘plane lock’ tool to set his brush to a particular height, which is useful for what comes next. Using the lava brush—another example of a scripted brush—he created dynamic magma rifts that have an even depth, but that use random nodes to create cracks and provide a more natural look.
The last scripted brush that Propzie uses is the ‘destruction brush’. When used, the destruction brush deletes chunks of the target area before scattering debris over the floor nearby to simulate dynamic destruction.
We’re really excited about the potential of scripted brushes and we’ll have much more to share about how creators will be able to configure and share them in the future.
This has been a long update! Thank you for reading, and for your interest in Hytale. As has become tradition, we’ll leave you with another track from the Hytale OST. This one is called ‘Heroes of Orbis’.
To download a .zip containing the new video clips featured in this post, click here!
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_9bd9b4049de8ead4b748003e7c48f604_summer_2022_development_update_header.jpg 1637773200 Winter 2021 Development Update https://hytale.com/news/2021/11/winter-2021-development-updateHi everyone! Last weekend, we made an appearance on Riot's Undercity Nights livestream to tell the story of Hytale's development. If you missed it, you can watch the whole segment on Riot's YouTube channel!
We knew that this presentation was going to reach players that might not have heard of us, so we made an effort to tell our story from the beginning and reintroduce the various elements of Hytale with this new audience in mind. However, we also wanted to acknowledge our existing community and provide a glimpse at some of the progress we've been making over the last year. Today, we're going to dig a little bit deeper into some of these new developments.
As we explained in our previous development update, we’ve spent a lot of time over the last year conducting a deep investigation into all of the things we need to do in order to ensure that Hytale lives up to expectations. This investigation extends from the technology underpinning the game to the design and structure of Hytale itself.
Many of these efforts are ongoing, particularly on the technical side. It's vitally important to us that Hytale supports a large, interconnected community for many years to come. That means making sure that we're ready for the challenges that come with growth, including eventually releasing the game on multiple platforms.
Over the last few months we've seen some speculation that planning for multiplatform means dialling back on the scope of the PC version or on our commitment to creators. This is not the case. We strongly believe that every part of our community benefits when barriers to play are removed. We can't promise that every future version of Hytale will have exactly the same set of features, but we intend to get as close as we possibly can without compromising on the scope or functionality of the PC version. This is how we give Hytale the best chance at becoming a healthy, creative and inclusive space for everybody who wants to participate in it.
While this important technical work is ongoing, we've continued to test new and revamped features. As a result, many of the new features we revealed this weekend are prototypes, and we expect them to continue to evolve as development continues. Let’s get into the details!
We really thought we were being subtle with this one! At the end of the video, as our Avatar crew races across desert hot springs, one character leaps and grabs a ledge before hauling herself up.
This is an example of mantling, which is one of several new movement techniques we've been prototyping. At the moment, mantling allows characters to climb up a wall that would otherwise be too high to jump over, as well as making leaping across gaps slightly more forgiving. From a standing start, a player can currently jump and grab a ledge that is four blocks high.
The team is also testing a step-up animation for one-block-high inclines, which allows characters to walk or run up shallow slopes without having to hop. We've found that these changes make movement across the landscape much smoother and more fun, whether you're slowly exploring or racing against your friends.
Speaking of races: we've conducted many internal parkour trials since implementing these new features, and these have generated a ton of demand for the ability to butt-slide under low obstacles by sprinting into a crouch. So you heard it here first: we're working on butt-sliding too.
As we’ve said, the new video features a mix of prototype work alongside older and more familiar designs. This is also true for worldgen: the rocky landscape above is an example of a new take on Orbis’ greenest and most temperate region. It’s not the only example of new worldgen on display!
We're not quite ready to go into detail just yet, but we want to take this opportunity to let you know that we've been prototyping some fairly dramatic changes to how Orbis is structured and the way the world is generated. The fundamental themes, cultures and concepts that were previously represented by the various zones remain, but we’re re-evaluating the way they relate to one another as part of the overall flow of the player’s experience.
We're aware that the Hytale community likes to document and map out the world of Orbis based on the details we've shared over the years, so consider this a heads up that the changes we’re working on will shake up some of those assumptions–in a good way!
We've been doing a lot of work on Hytale's combat system, and we're far from done–but it was great to see such a positive reaction to the PVP clip that we featured in the video. We've been doing lots of playtesting of these new combat features through duels and other forms of PVP, and this clip reflects many of the discoveries we've made through that process: the fun of chaining special moves, the importance of fast footwork and careful positioning, the dramatic reversals of fortune that come when somebody steps a little too close to a dangerous ledge.
In particular, we wanted to show off some of the work we've been doing on fast combat playstyles. Back in the summer, we went deep on swords and maces as a way of illustrating the way different weapons change the way your Avatar fights. In this clip, we show how light weapons like daggers enable a quick and evasive playstyle that uses supreme mobility to steadily chip away at a foe. Let's take a closer look!
You can see how the dagger-wielding player relies on quick dashes rather than blocks to evade damage, and how their leaping special attack allows them to close with their opponent for a quick hit before backing off. Dealing damage allows them to charge up the dagger’s signature attack–a rapid flurry of blows–before they get hit by the mace's overhead slam and recover with an aerial dash. However, this aggression leaves them vulnerable to some follow-up footwork from the mace player, opening them up to get unceremoniously hilt-bashed into the fire pit.
Once again: we'd be doing our designers a disservice if we failed to emphasize that these clips represent work-in-progress, and that the specifics of how each weapon functions are going to keep evolving as time goes on. Even so, we're really pleased with the progress that we've made, and we're glad to see that it has resonated with our community too!
As a final note, we wanted to say thank you to all of the fan artists whose work appears in the video as well as to those who have sent us their creations more recently. As you can see from the walls of our office, the enthusiasm and creativity of the Hytale community is a huge source of motivation for us and something that we're very grateful for. We know that waiting sucks, but as Noxy says in the video, we're confident that we're headed in a direction that will make the wait worth it.
In the meantime: have a great time over the holidays, take care, and keep sending us your art and ideas. We'll be back in touch when we have more progress to share–and because it’s rapidly becoming a tradition, here’s a new track by Hytale composer Oscar Garvin. This one’s called ‘Into The Endless Sky’.
We've updated the Media page with download links to the video clips featured in this post–along with a few others!
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_03f4f83af5ca1255ca51d8fa767d5be1_winter_2021_development_update_header.jpg 1625154600 Summer 2021 Development Update https://hytale.com/news/2021/07/summer-2021-development-updateHello everyone! In today’s post, we’re going to provide an update on the progress we’ve made in the last six months, explain how our plans for Hytale have evolved, and take a look at some new and updated aspects of the game including weapon-specific combat styles, character customization, and AI.
The first half of 2021 has been a period of significant change, both for Hytale and for Hypixel Studios. We’ve continued to recruit new team members, whose talents and unique perspectives have expanded our sense of what Hytale can be. We’ve changed the way we work, steadily moving away from the exploratory approach that has defined the project’s first few years towards more efficient, targeted production milestones. At the same time, our design for Hytale has been evolving. Some parts of the game have undergone radical change, while in other areas we’ve expanded on established groundwork.
At the core of all of this is a commitment to creating the best game we possibly can—to making a contribution to the genre that surprises and delights players while empowering creators for many years to come.
Our plan for Hytale is ambitious, and we’re very fortunate to be in a position where we have the time, people and resources that we need to get it right. However, “getting it right” involves a ton of experimentation, iteration, and change. This introduces a lot of uncertainty to the development process, and while we believe this is healthy—it’s been good to challenge our assumptions!—it has also meant that we’ve been less open than we used to be. We’ve needed space and time to make major decisions about the project.
Even so, we know that half a year is a long time to wait for an update. The reason that answers have not been more forthcoming this year is because, until recently, we did not have them. We have spent this time considering many possible approaches to launch, factoring in many different perspectives, doing a ton of research, and developing a better understanding of what we need to do in order to meet our goals.
What has become increasingly apparent is that we have several more years of work ahead of us before Hytale is ready to launch. We don’t want to provide another estimated launch window that turns out to be incorrect. However, we no longer expect to be ready to launch Hytale before 2023 at the earliest, and it could very well take longer.
There are two key considerations driving this assessment. The first is that our capabilities as a studio have significantly improved and the scope of what we can do has expanded. Put simply: we’re better at making games than we used to be, but taking full advantage of this takes time.
The second consideration is the need to develop Hytale in a way that allows us to bring it to multiple platforms as rapidly as possible. It’s always been our goal to eventually release Hytale on mobile and consoles as well as PC, but it has become apparent that we were heading for a scenario where our community would ultimately find itself split across versions and devices. We think it is enormously important to avoid this—to create an ecosystem where as many players as possible can play together and share their creations. However, this means making major changes to Hytale’s engine and our approach to launch, and this extends development time.
Arriving at this decision has been a challenging process. None of us expected this to be such a long project, and we’re aware that this approach brings its own risks and costs. We’re mindful of the dangers of ‘scope creep’, and we’re working to ensure that we proceed with a strong sense of what ‘done’ means.
We also know that prolonged development is going to be unwelcome news for the Hytale community. We stated back in December that we didn’t believe it was fair to allow anticipation to remain at fever pitch, however we’re aware that reduced communication over the last six months has allowed speculation to bubble back up again, and that news of a longer wait is likely to be a shock to many. Even so, we strongly believe that the choice to spend longer in development will serve our community best in the long run.
It’s worth reiterating that we won’t release Hytale as a surprise. When we’re on the final approach to launch, we’ll let everybody know in plenty of time. There will undoubtedly be new job listings, updates to our website, and changes to our back-end systems in the intervening period: while we understand the temptation to interpret these as a sign that launch is imminent, they’re a normal part of our working process and not an indication that our plans have changed.
Another consequence of this approach is that weekly screenshots are no longer a viable way for us to update the community. The major technical changes that we’re making will mean that, for a time, it will be more complicated to produce screenshots and clips that accurately reflect the experience that players will have when Hytale launches. We’re also looking at a longer production process, and we want to make sure that Hytale has some surprises left in store when players get their hands on it.
However, as has already been said, our need for privacy over the last six months has been driven by the tough decisions that we needed to make. Now that those decisions are made, and our broader plans announced, it’s possible for us to open up a little bit more and be more engaged with the community. In that regard, you can expect our approach to communication to change: we’ll post fewer, more substantial official updates, interspersed with increased engagement from the team as we go about the day-to-day work of building Hytale.
This has been a challenging set of decisions to make, but the position we’re in is extremely fortunate. We’re in this position because of the huge response to the Hytale announcement, as well as the energy and enthusiasm that the Hytale community has subsequently invested in our project. We are enormously grateful for that investment, and it’ll be at the forefront of our minds when we’re finally ready to share Hytale with you all.
In the meantime, let’s take a look at some new stuff.
The personalization of your player character is a central theme of Hytale. We're making a game that offers a lot of different ways to play, from solo or co-op adventure to minigames and other social activities. Your character is at the heart of all of these, a living expression of your choices, experiences, and achievements.
We want to ensure that players feel unconstrained in their creativity and self-expression, and that has meant taking a new approach to the player character—who they are, what they can be, and how they fit into the world of Hytale.
Our player characters are Avatars—the powerful, playful and protean denizens of a boundless realm known as the Alterverse. Drawn to Orbis by a mysterious cosmic event, many Avatars find themselves adopting forms influenced by this emergent world. However, others manifest unique forms inspired by the infinite diversity of the wider Alterverse—and all Avatars are free to adjust their appearance as the mood strikes them.
You are free to mix and match basic components like faces, eyes and hair, layer on additional fantastic elements like horns, pointy ears or tusks, and combine these with modern fashions, adventuring garb, or cosplay. We’re continually working to expand the options available, while also extending our layering system to allow for more sophisticated customization of clothing and gear. We want players to feel free to carve out their own identities, and to feel supported in doing this both by the suite of options on offer and by the story of Hytale itself. Creativity and change are the lifeblood of the Alterverse, and Avatars are its living expression.
The name 'Avatar' captures the double role that every player character fulfills, both as a character in a high-fantasy adventure story and as an expression of their player's online identity. We know from experience how important it is to let players create personas that follow them seamlessly not just between the various game modes of Hytale, but beyond to their social media accounts and creator channels. These are all forms of creative expression, at the end of the day!
We've begun completely rebuilding Hytale's combat system over the course of the last year, prototyping and testing several revisions before adopting our current approach. At the heart of these changes are the weapons that each Avatar carries.
Which weapons you carry forms the cornerstone of your combat playstyle, providing you with a set of abilities specific to that weapon type. We want to make sure that weapons feel distinct from one another, offering more than simple changes to attack speed or damage.
Alongside these changes, we've also overhauled the audio and VFX for combat to emphasise the power of each blow. The UI is also undergoing significant changes to support the new combat system, including dedicated UI elements for new features like stamina, blocking, and signature moves (more on those in a bit!) We're not ready to share these changes just yet, which is why we've disabled the UI in the clips below.
Let's take a look at two examples!
In this clip, we run through the fundamental moveset of the one-handed sword. Basic attacks take the form of a three-hit combo, striking from the right and left followed by an overhead chop. The sword's special attack is a charged lunge, which incorporates a short dash and applies knockback to the target.
The sword's signature move, which is charged by landing blows and blocking incoming strikes, is a dramatic spin followed by another powerful lunge. This does damage in an area while rewarding good positioning with the ability to deal sudden damage to a key foe.
The sword is a weapon that favors defensive and reactive play, offering good utility in the form of lunges and knockback while providing steady damage output. It pairs well with a shield, which provides the ability to block frontal attacks as long as the wielder has sufficient stamina. Good stamina management allows sword and shield users to safely charge their signature move by blocking blows, allowing them to follow up with a powerful precision strike.
In PVP, sword and shield users are difficult to pin down and overwhelm—they can achieve surprising mobility with their charged lunge, and can control the pace of a fight with their shield. However, baiting out unnecessary blocks and outlasting their stamina leaves them vulnerable and reduces their ability to flee.
Here's a very different weapon: the mace. Mace strikes are slow, consume a chunk of stamina, but do plenty of damage and knockback. Basic attacks take the form of steady right-left swings, while the alternate attack provides a high-knockback hilt bash. The mace can be charged to perform a powerful special attack, and its signature is a devastating leaping slam that deals massive damage and knockback to all enemies near its impact zone.
Good mace players are always aware of the timing and direction of their strike and avoid wasting stamina on wild swings. Their defensive power comes entirely from managing the flow of battle with knockback, so positioning and situational awareness are key. It's certainly less safe than hiding behind a shield, but makes a mace-wielder significantly more dangerous when fighting near an environmental hazard like a cliff or lava.
These are two of the weapon types that we’ve been working on. We've also been testing new playstyles for daggers, which favor hit-and-run attacks and provide a ton of bonus mobility, and battleaxes, which build up powerful damage boosts by landing successive hits, encouraging all-in aggression.
The next step is to extend this depth and variety to ranged weapons, while giving players additional ways to customize their playstyle through the use of armor and trinkets. The overall goal of this system is to encourage players to compose their own approach to combat by combining a wide array of meaningfully distinct elements.
In the last six months, the team has made substantial additions to Hytale's modular AI system in order to add depth, interest, and variety to PVE combat. The new system, which we've been calling the 'Combat Action Evaluator', allows NPCs to make smarter decisions about targets, weapons, and approaches to battle.
The system allows specific creatures to express their personalities through the way they fight. NPCs assess various conditions—including number and behaviour of foes—in order to guide their next action. These range from the target and timing of their basic attacks to the execution of specific actions, like switching weapons, using a special attack, or fleeing.
The system is built to be configurable and allows for a variable degree of 'fuzziness'—just because the system can choose an optimal move, that doesn't mean that NPCs have to use them. We've built it in this way in order to prevent NPCs from becoming predictable—we've found that characters have a greater sense of life when they're allowed to make mistakes!
Here's an example of the new system in action. The following clip shows a duel between two Avatars armed with swords and shields. One of these characters is being controlled by a player, and the other is an AI.
Our goal wasn't necessarily to create an AI that could perfectly mimic a player—but we've gotten closer than we expected! This duelling AI has proved useful for testing new weapon designs, and it's claimed its fair share of victories against some of the better PVPers on the team!
We know that this has been a long post, with a lot of new information to digest, and we want to reiterate how grateful we are for the passion and enthusiasm of the Hytale community. The development of Hytale continues to be a long, exciting, challenging journey, and it’s not always been easy—particularly when we’ve had to make tough decisions. At the end of the day, however, what motivates us is a desire to do right by our team and by our community.
We’ll leave you with a new track from the Hytale OST—Adventure and Chill, by Hytale composer Oscar Garvin. This track was composed as an introduction to Hytale as a whole, branching out from the main theme to touch on all of the different elements of the game we’re creating: an immersive and inviting world, a welcoming social space, and a creative sandbox with boundless opportunities for self-expression. Bringing this world to life has turned out to be more challenging than any of us expected, but we’re more confident than ever that we’re heading in the right direction.
To download a .zip containing the video clips featured in this post, click here!
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_6727218981d7ff2e37b37bb64bbbb2a0_summer_2021_development_update_header.jpg 1607619600 December 2020 Development Update https://hytale.com/news/2020/12/december-2020-development-updateHi everybody! Today we’re going to get you up to speed on what’s been going on at Hypixel Studios over the last couple of months and look back over 2020 as a whole. We’re not revealing new features today or talking about launch plans, as we’re deep in production and not ready to do so. However, we do want to let you know where we’re at, and give you a sense of what we’ve been doing to ensure that Hytale lives up to its potential.
In 2019, we wrestled with the unanticipated success of the Hytale trailer and tried to figure out what kind of company we needed to become in order to deliver on the expectations of Hytale’s growing community. In 2020, we've been tackling the practical side of becoming that company. It’s not always been an easy or quick process, but it’s been enormously worthwhile. We’ve often talked about our aspiration to grow from a mod team to a professional game development studio, and 2020 has been the year when that evolution really kicked into gear.
The beginning of the year saw us finalize our acquisition by Riot Games, which we announced in April. This was a major step that has provided us with essential resources and we're happy to say that we're also enjoying substantial independence - while we're now part of a bigger organization, we've continued to make our own game in our own way.
Speaking of doing things our own way: this year we also opened a physical office during a global pandemic. We think that this demonstrates our determination to do the things we say we're going to do, even if our timing can be a little... questionable.
On a more serious note, while our remote structure has provided some resilience in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, we've definitely felt its effects. In these uncertain times, we've done our best to ensure that our team members have had the time they need to care for their vulnerable loved ones, safeguard their own health, and - in a few unfortunate cases - recover from illness. The pandemic isn't the only factor that has made this a challenging year, but it's important to be open about the fact that we've not been able to operate at 100% capacity in 2020. After all, who has?
Nonetheless, it's been a thrill to see the office in Derry~Londonderry brought to life by some amazing new team members. While the pandemic has set back our plans to make full use of it, the essentials are starting to come together - including our own to-scale, materially-accurate Kweebec!
This little guy's still being worked on - when he's done, he'll grace the entrance to the Hypixel Studios office!
As anybody who keeps an eye on our Jobs page will know, we've continued to expand the team - a lot! We've brought on a bunch of incredible new people at every level of the company, from producers and design leadership that help us ship the game to new developers to operational staff that’ll help us make it. It's taken some time to find the right people and to bring them into the fold, but seeing the team evolve over the course of the year has been one of 2020's true highlights.
This is our cue to link you to the Jobs page again, by the way. Do you see a role that may suit you? Apply! Tell your friends! Get them to apply! We're hiring!
As Hypixel Studios has grown, we've also been steadily overhauling our production pipeline. That's a sentence that is normally only exciting to producers, so here's what it actually means: we've gotten better at making games. We're proud of our origins in the mod scene, and much of what excites us about Hytale has come from the 'game jam' mindset that we've carried with us since those times. However we’ve also learned a lot about what it takes for a big project like ours to come together, and that’s meant updating the way we work to match the challenges that we now face.
We've made strides to become more efficient over the last few months, but we're aware that this has come at the expense of our ability to provide regular updates on the state of development. The explanation for this is really simple: we're no longer investing our resources in anything other than making the best possible game. Hypixel Studios doesn't have a massive marketing team, and so our weekly postcards have become our way to engage with the community at a time when blog posts or other updates would distract from essential work on Hytale itself.
We know that this can be frustrating, particularly for those of you who have been with us since the start and remember when we were much more active in this regard. We ask for your patience. We believe earnestly that you'd rather have Hytale as soon as we're able to ship it than have us focus on blog posts at the cost of some of our momentum. This doesn’t mean that there won’t be bigger updates in the future, but expect regular screenshots to be the norm for a while yet.
We do regret that we're not able to cap off 2020 with the set of reveals we gestured at earlier in the summer. That was a prediction that didn't work out - the features we had in mind simply aren't ready to make their debut - but what we can do is talk a little about what they entail.
Earlier in the year, we said that we were reassessing every aspect of Hytale to ensure that it was on track to reach its potential - we weren't joking about this. Almost every part of the game, including many aspects of gameplay that have already been revealed, has been taken back to the drawing board, rethought, and in some cases overhauled. We want to ensure that all of Hytale's systems are coherent, fun, and advance the genre in meaningful ways.
For example, we've really been digging into Hytale's combat system and we've started playtesting and iterating on a substantial set of changes that are showing real promise, particularly when it comes to adding depth to PVP. However, it'll be a while before we can share specifics as we're keen to ensure that what we show reflects the way that the game will play when you get your hands on it.
Your interest in our project means the world to us, and we know how tough it can be to be asked to wait. We see the speculation about beta dates, new trailers, and so on, and if we could we'd love to be able to keep the hype going all the way to launch. That’s not where we’re at, however, and we also don’t think it’s fair to our community to allow anticipation to stay at fever pitch for such a prolonged period of time. We’re hard at work, and we’re confident that we’re moving in the right direction, and all of the progress we’ve made would not have been possible if it wasn’t for the excitement that has built up around Hytale in the two years since the announcement. But we have lots of work left to do.
To be clear, then: we don't currently have a launch plan for Hytale. When we do, and we're confident in it, we'll tell you - and we'll be as specific as we possibly can be. We know that there's a tendency to make predictions about possible release dates based on all sorts of signs and symbols, from job listings to our accounts getting verified on Twitter. For the avoidance of doubt: there aren’t any hidden messages. Nobody outside of the company has access to the game. We’re not going to drop the game as a surprise without giving you notice.
This is what we are going to do: we're going to make a game. And then we're going to tell you how you can get hold of it. And then you can play it, if you like. We hope you do!
We hope that you’re keeping safe and that you enjoy the holidays. Our team will be taking a break over Christmas, but you can expect to see some festive extras on our social media over the next few weeks. Thank you, as ever, to the Hytale community - we say this every time, and we mean it. Your excitement, interest, and the art you create inspires us to make the best game we possibly can, and we’re honored to get to go on this journey with you.
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_40beb4be3b407742cfee642d1e34fadf_2020_december_dev_update.jpg 1600965300 Hytale Fan Art Showcase Vol. 4 https://hytale.com/news/2020/09/hytale-fan-art-showcase-vol-4Hi everybody! Today we're going to celebrate another set of incredible pieces by the Hytale community. Thank you so much to everyone who has invested their time and energy into making things inspired by our project. It's important to us that Hytale is a game that inspires and empowers its players to express themselves, and so it's amazing to see so much creativity from the community while the game is still in development.
This is only a sample of the wide variety of fan work that the Hytale community produces every week - and we're tremendously grateful for all of it! Make sure that you tag your own pieces with #HytaleFanArt to make sure that we see them.
We'd also like to remind you that we've been posting a new screenshot to our Twitter account every week! If you've missed any of this month's updates, make sure to check them out.
It wouldn't be a Hytale fan art showcase without at least one pigeon-with-knife! We had no idea that this particular combination of unassuming bird and throwing weapon was going to resonate so strongly with the Hytale community, but we're very happy that it has. We feel that this adorable crochet project by Lillith Griffin captures both the pigeon's plump dignity and the razor-edged readiness for action represented by its ever-present blade.
Lillith Griffin says:
"I had tried drawing Hytale fan art before, but I was never very good at it, which led me to trying to replicate the pigeon in my own 'style': crochet. Now that it's complete, I'm pretty happy with the results and may make a Mosshorn sometime in the future."
Speaking of which...
It's only been a few months since we introduced the Mosshorn to the world, and we've been delighted by the community response to this strange, hardy bovine. Community artist DairyPanda painted this lovely scene of a serene Mosshorn being paddled home by its Kweebec buddy.
DairyPanda says:
"I was inspired by the fluffy beast dynamic of the Mosshorn, and how it could have a side to it where it's lost in its own ways. I felt like it'd be fun to explore vulnerability within the creature."
Clearly, there's something in those beady little yellow eyes and that wide, toothy grin that resonates with people. We also enjoyed this rendition by Ez3z, who captures the Mosshorn in its natural state: staring into space.
Ez3z says:
"I love the Mosshorn's design, so when I saw it I had to draw this new friend."
This vivid depiction by RighteousPebble casts our Mosshorn friend in a dramatic light, managing to capture both the monstrosity and the mellowness of this bellowing beast. Is it yelling or yawning? Impossible to tell. Can't it be both?
RighteousPebble says:
"My biggest regret these last five months is not doing more Hytale fan art. Whenever I'm doing something Hytale related, I always find myself in a better mood. The whole vibe of the game is just so fantastical and pleasant. Life has made it tough recently, but i'm hoping I can really get back into it in the next couple of months. The Hytale community is doing all it can to keep the hype at a nice warm sizzle, and I think that's healthy and beneficial for everyone. That being said... Noxy, if you wanna slip me a black market copy of the Hytale Model Maker, I would give one of my lungs and both of my kidneys gladly."
It's always exciting to see Hytale characters brought to life outside of the context of the game, and this hi-res rendition of a young Feran by Powerbyte7 brings these desert-dwellers to life in a way that we've not seen before.
Powerbyte7's papercraft Kweebec is an equally impressive, though very different, bit of work - taking Hytale's art style and translating it directly to the real world! They've even provided a PDF template if you'd like to build a model like this for yourself.
Powerbyte7 says:
"I love making all sorts of 3D creations and experimenting. Hytale's art and modding capabilities are a big inspiration for me. Considering all Hytale models consist of cubes, I figured I'd turn one of the creatures into a paper model. I chose a Kweebec because the clean design helps with the creation of a template. It took some time, but now he's happily sitting at my desk!
The Feran model was made in Blender. I wanted to sculpt a stylized character from a concept, and the young Feran seemed like a fun challenge. Overall I'm quite happy with the two pieces, and I learned a lot on the way. Hytale will have a lot of room for experimentation, and I can't wait to try it out!"
We were blown away by this professional-looking plushie created by Malicxel, whose partner is a member of the Hytale development team. The proportions and expression are all perfect, and now we all want one.
Malicxel says:
"I've known Hytale for a few years now and for good reason, as my partner is working on the project. I fell in love with these lovely Kweebecs the first time he showed them to me. So cuuuute! How can I hug them? Plushies!
I started sewing in 2012 to make myself another cubic plush because it didn't exist on the market at that time, and I discovered a passion for sewing. Even though I make less plushies today than before, I'm glad that I was able to give my partner his very first Hytale plushie."
We've seen some really fun Kweebec variants over the last couple of months, and we particularly like this clean, characterful drawing of a Halloween Kweebec by TheGuyYes.
TheGuyYes says:
"Ever since I saw Kweebecs in Hytale, I knew they'd be my favorites! (Only second to Ferans, perhaps.) I decided to combine one of my favourite races with one of my favourite celebrations, and so, Halloween Kweebec was born! I even used as reference the carved pumpkin that appeared in the Hytale Happy Halloween card!"
Arcanadragon has done lots of super creative Hytale art, but we particularly like this adorable expression of the friendship between frogs and Fen Stalkers!
Arcanadragon says:
"One of Hytale's blog posts revealed that Fen Stalkers are friendly towards frogs. This was so adorable and I knew I had to capture it in my fan art! I love the little details the Hytale team adds to give their monsters so much personality, and I can't wait to meet them in-game."
These two pieces by Saltimuffin each capture the essence of different aspects of the world of Hytale. We really like how imposing this particular depiction of Varyn is, and the atmosphere and attention to detail in the fountain painting is spot-on. The juxtaposition of fall leaves with Gaia's weeping statue is wonderfully expressive!
Saltimuffin says:
"I always dreamed about a fantasy block game. The Hytale trailer dropped from nowhere and I was so impressed seeing my dream come true! I can't wait to explore the world of Orbis :D"
This fantastic piece by Sal.Lines feels like a movie poster!
Sal.Lines says:
"This piece is a collection of the Hytale community's theories about the Crawlers and their relationships to the Outlanders and Varyn."
It's been really great to see the community engage with the Hytale universe and express their own theories in such creative ways. While the answers will need to wait until players start exploring Orbis for themselves, we can say that we find the depiction of ethereal power and grim hierarchy in this image pretty compelling!
We've showcased LEGO builds by HappyLemur in the past, and this is a particularly impressive new example. We particularly admire how HappyLemur has been able to capture many of the fine details of the ingame model, including the glowing eyes behind the mask and the coarse materials that make up its brutal weapons and armor.
HappyLemur says:
"I was inspired to make the Outlander Colossus from LEGO because of how formidable and threatening he looks. I try to make my builds as accurate as possible to the real model using the pieces I have access to."
On behalf of the whole team, thank you once again to everybody who has made and shared their Hytale fan creations. Remember tag your work with #HytaleFanArt for a chance at inclusion in a future showcase!
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_8980909fd3ebd782238b13d15f703366_fan_art_4_header.jpg 1598892900 Progress Update: August 31 2020 https://hytale.com/news/2020/08/progress-update-august-31-2020Hi everybody! This month, we're going to reveal a new system that allows plants to grow and spread over time, discuss an upcoming change to the way we deliver new Hytale stuff to you every month, and share some fresh screenshots of the world of Orbis.
First things first, however! We’ve really enjoyed the way the community embraced the hardy Mosshorn, a new creature that we revealed in last month’s progress update. What’s better than one Mosshorn? Two Mosshorns.
Those jaws were made for munching - and that’s where Hytale’s newly-dynamic plants come in!
Back in January’s progress update, we showed some of the progress that we’ve made with Hytale’s farming system - in particular, the ability to plant crops that grow over the course of several in-game days. We’ve recently implemented simulated growth cycles for other kinds of plants, too, allowing us to simulate natural growth outside of the context of farming.
In the clip below, the player plants some young wild cacti in the deserts of zone 2. Over time, each cactus grows in a different manner and adopts a different shape. Please note that the growth rates shown in the following clips aren’t finalized - they’ve been set to temporary values for the purpose of this demonstration.
Think of this as a hybrid of a more traditional farming system and the randomization methods that power Hytale’s landscape generation system, which we detailed back in June. Different plants grow and propagate in different ways - like these mushrooms, which spread to form a natural circle (sometimes called a ‘fairy ring’) after the first is planted.
As with other aspects of world gen, randomization is used to ensure that organic growth feels natural and that different plantings produce different results. In the next clip, we can see this method applied to the growth of a berry bush, which spreads both vertically and horizontally as it grows, with the rotation of each individual bush ‘block’ randomized to enhance its look and feel.
We’re excited about systems like this because they allow us to add depth and a sense of life to adventure mode’s ecosystem while giving players new ways to make their mark on their environment.
We've really enjoyed giving the community a glimpse behind the scenes through our progress update blog posts over the course of this year. However, sometimes game development doesn't break down neatly into regular roundups. We’re currently working on a number of features that need to be kept under wraps until they’re ready to be properly unveiled, as well as other aspects of the game that we want players to discover for themselves.
Our increased resources and expanding team have allowed us to make major progress in many important areas, and we’ve also invested time into ensuring that the game features we plan to deliver are in line with both the feedback that we’ve received from the Hytale community and our own aspirations. We’re still actively recruiting, so be sure to check the jobs page for the latest openings if you’re interested in joining us on this journey!
Over the last few months, we’ve taken a long hard look at almost every aspect of the game to ensure that it’s on track to meet our goals. That includes things that the community is familiar with, like the scope and structure of adventure mode, as well as parts of Hytale that we’ve kept under wraps - like PVP.
We’re approaching a point where we’ll be ready to unveil parts of Hytale that we’ve never presented to the community before - but we’re not quite there yet. With that in mind, we think it’s time to take a break from these progress updates so that we can work towards a more significant set of reveals.
We’re not going to go silent in the meantime, however. Over the next few weeks and months, you can expect us to become more active on social media as we provide a new ‘postcard from Orbis’ screenshot every week. We’re also going to be working on a new fan art showcase, so make sure to tweet your creations at us with #hytalefanart!
The community’s understanding and support means a lot. Game development is a marathon, not a sprint, and we continue to draw a huge amount of motivation from the enthusiasm for Hytale that we see online every day. Thank you on behalf of the whole Hytale team!
To download a zip containing the video clips featured in this blog post, click here!
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_bb21df3a03a8989ec93a658dce01415c_august_update_header.png 1596127500 Progress Update: July 30 2020 https://hytale.com/news/2020/07/progress-update-july-30-2020Hello everyone! In this blog post, we're going to give you an update on some exciting developments at Hypixel Studios. We've also got a fresh batch of screenshots to share taken across the breadth of Orbis, featuring some never-before-seen environments and creatures!
Last month we hit a major milestone in our growth as game developers when we received the keys to our first physical office in Derry~Londonderry, Northern Ireland. While the development of Hytale continues to take place remotely, the office will provide a base for support functions like quality assurance and business administration.
“Hypixel Studios is a remote company, but we still benefit from being able to get together from time to time” Noxy says. “We’ve also found that not every role is well-suited for remote working - particularly support and admin roles that work better when they’re based in a physical office.”
The majority of the Hypixel Studios team continues to contribute remotely from all around the world, but the new office represents our first central HQ - a base of operations that will continue to grow in order to support Hytale and its community for years to come.
We've got lots of work to do to get the office set up and properly decorated. In particular, we’re excited to have a place where we can finally display some of the amazing fan works that we’ve loved seeing since the announcement of Hytale. Expect to see more updates about the office in a future post!
The team has continued to grow steadily over the last few months as development on Hytale continues. We've been staffing up to meet the needs of the new office while also introducing new producers, designers and developers across the breadth of the project, from adventure mode to the game engine to the platform and services team that supports the entire enterprise - and we’re still recruiting across plenty of positions!
Check out the freshly-revamped jobs page to find out more and submit your application - while some of the roles are based in the new office, many others are remote and we encourage applications from anywhere in the world.
These are exciting times for us as we establish the new office, expand and reorganize our development teams, and embark on a crucial phase in Hytale’s development. We’ve been working on some exciting features and content that we can’t wait to share with you later in the year - but these need a little more time in the oven before they’re ready for public consumption.
In the meantime, we’ve got some new images to share that each show new prefabs, biomes and creatures from across the world of Orbis. As ever, we’re excited to hear your feedback, ideas, and speculation about the significance of each of these new locations!
A leafy settlement rises above a misty marshland.
Kweebecs are hardy folk, and don’t mind a little wet weather.
A well-kept shrine overlooks a boreal valley.
Rocky outcrops and tall trees each offer shelter from the elements.
There’s a touch of malignant magic to these woods.
A hardy Mosshorn makes its home in a dank, distant swamp...
...its neighbors having long since vanished.
Elsewhere, pale dangers stalk the Ghost Forest...
...where waning embers carry the memory of catastrophe.
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_0b6df41141f7219b5a22f6c150c8c67f_july_2020_progress_update_header.jpg 1593444600 A closer look at landscape generation in Hytale https://hytale.com/news/2020/06/a-closer-look-at-landscape-generation-in-hytaleHi there! In this post, we're going to take a closer look at Hytale's world generation system - specifically, the various techniques we use to create dramatic, procedurally generated landscapes across each of adventure mode’s zones.
We first discussed this topic in January 2019, and you may wish to go back and read our introduction to worldgen in order to get a broad sense of how our rules-driven generation system works and what we're trying to achieve with it. Today, we're going to get into some more specifics - and demonstrate how Hytale modders will be able to customize worldgen to suit their own purposes.
First, though, we need to talk about noise.
In the context of our procedural generation systems, a 'noisemap' is a set of random numbers that can be combined with a variety of functions to support a vast number of different kinds of generation.
We use noisemaps for lots of different aspects of Hytale's content generation system, including all of the various landscape-related systems that we'll be detailing later in this article. One of the most striking uses is in the formation of the zones themselves.
This image is from a simple visualization tool and previews the result of combining noisemaps with another important feature of landscape generation - heightmap interpretation. In this case, the environments being simulated are the rocky plateaus of Zone 2.
Heightmap interpretation involves additional sets of numbers that allow us to establish how high or low certain noisemap features will appear on the terrain being generated. By tweaking heightmap interpretation thresholds we can, for example, take a set of noisemaps that would create a winding waterway and adapt them to produce dramatic river canyons.
"Our technical artists learn noisemap composition as a craft" says world generation programmer Slikey. "They have a large toolbox of different noise types and operations for combining them. It takes time to learn to balance complexity, performance, and design - we're constantly discovering new ways to combine noisemaps to generate unique terrain or place prefabs in unexpected ways."
When we're happy with our configuration of a biome's noisemaps and thresholds, we implement these rules into the game itself.
This clip shows multiple noisemaps being added to a landscape one after another, starting with a general landscape and then introducing the rules for Zone 2 river and mountain biomes. The gradual growth in complexity that you see in this clip is for illustrative purposes: in reality, once the noisemaps and thresholds for an area have been established, the landscape is generated all at once.
At this stage, we've got a landscape with plenty of blocks and a few major features like rivers, mountains and shorelines. The process of giving environments their personality occurs across multiple stages, each with its own procedural generation processes.
We start with 'layers'. These are another kind of noisemap that is used to specify both the depth of certain kinds of blocks in the terrain, as well as the kinds of blocks that will appear on the surface. The screenshot above shows the various layers that comprise a landscape in Zone 3, with plants and vegetation removed to make it easier to see the underlying materials.
The next step involves 'covers'. 'Cover' refers to incidental environmental details like grass, foliage, mushrooms, crystal outcrops, and so on. By configuring the covers for a given area, we can tell the worldgen system what kinds of plants should appear on which layers. For example, we might establish that dense shrubbery should only appear on grassy layers, while moss might occur on rocky surfaces underground.
Prefabs provide the finishing touches and are frequently what give environments their specific identity. Prefabs are arrangements of blocks, created by our technical artists, that are distributed throughout the environment by the worldgen system.
Incidental prefabs like trees are encountered frequently by the player and are distributed like other kinds of ground cover.
Here's an example of the transformation that takes place when layers, cover and incidental prefabs are applied to a new landscape:
The prefab system also supports larger structures and points of interest, which you may remember from this blog post from March last year. We’ve built thousands of prefabs to support adventure mode’s worldgen system, and modders will have the freedom to use these or build their own when customizing the world.
Prefabs are configured separately in order to assure that their appearance in the world is believable and feels special. Zones where larger prefabs can appear are mapped out using a different kind of noisemap:
This is an example of Voronoi noise, which creates cell-like patterns. For Hytale, we use these 'cells' to establish where large prefabs can and can't occur. In the image above, the purple spots represent areas where a large prefab might be encountered, and collectively account for about 20% of the generated space. If we wished, we could increase or reduce this density.
When taken all together, layers, cover and prefabs help us create environments that combine the dynamism of procedural generation with the sense of purpose that comes from incorporating hand-designed buildings and environmental features.
"Worldgen is an amazing system" says technical artist Amber. "It gives us so much control and allows us to be incredibly creative with the system. We've often created landscapes and showed them to Slikey, and he's said 'wow, I had no idea you could even do that!'"
There are other aspects of worldgen that we haven’t covered in today’s blog - particularly cave systems, dungeons, and the ways that zones intersect with one another. These are huge subjects unto themselves, so we’re planning to cover them separately in our next deep-dive into Hytale’s generation systems.
We hope this article has helped you understand a bit more about how Hytale's world is created. All of the systems that we've described in this post will be accessible to modders through extensively customizable configuration files. By combining asset creation in Hytale Model Maker, our block building tools, and the underlying world generation system, you'll be able to generate unique environments of your own.
Here's one we put together ourselves!
This custom landscape uses all of the techniques outlined in this post - including new prefabs - to realize a sci-fi setting within Hytale’s worldgen system. We can’t wait to see what Hytale modders are able to do!
To download a zip containing the video clips featured in this post, click here!
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_7c18e0c12c0588073edd90aa6ced6791_landscape_generation_header.png 1590876000 Progress Update: May 30 2020 https://hytale.com/news/2020/05/progress-update-may-30-2020Hi everybody! In this post, we’re going to explore some of the under-the-hood improvements we’ve made to Hytale’s character customization system - changes that expand the range of characters you’ll be able to create both in-game and through the use of Hytale’s modding tools. We’re also going to take a peek at Hytale’s throwable items… for reasons that’ll become clear.
We’ve had another busy month as we continue to grow and adapt our team to match the evolving challenges of game development. Over the last month we’ve listed many new roles on our jobs page, including positions in our forthcoming headquarters in Northern Ireland as well as remote roles across a variety of disciplines. Please take a look! We welcome all applications.
It’s been a fair while since we’ve talked about character customization in Hytale. In our previous blog post on the subject, we introduced our fundamental goals and approach. Hytale character customization allows players to select from a variety of body options, hairstyles, and items of clothing. We’re seeking to provide the ability to express yourself in a variety of styles, from modern dress to costumes and adventure mode-inspired fantasy attire.
In the time since that post, however, we’ve overhauled the way that Hytale handles color variations for in-game assets. This makes it much easier for both ourselves and future modders to provide a suite of expressive options for players to adorn themselves with. In this blog, we’re going to explain how the new system works.
Previously, creating a new color variation for an asset - such as a piece of clothing - meant creating a brand new texture. When you changed your hair color from black to blue, for example, you effectively replaced the entire texture being applied to the hair model. This system was functional, but it massively inflated the amount of textures needed while ultimately limiting how many options we could offer to players.
We’ve since implemented a new system called gradient mapping. This effectively splits up any given in-game asset into three components:
Here’s what that looks like in practice!
In this image, we’ve taken a simple t-shirt design with a grayscale texture. Color taken from a separate gradient file is then applied to the mappable area, allowing us to create a wide variety of variations on a given item from a single basic texture.
It’s possible to set the colors of certain parts of a texture and leave others customizable. In the example above, the green stripe on the tracksuit trousers is a customizable area, while the dark blue hue of the trousers themselves is fixed in the texture file. What’s more, the properties of the gradient file can be used to define different material types: from coarse fabrics to high-contrast metallics and soft textures like hair.
Modders will be able to take advantage of these techniques when creating their own content. You’ll be able to create and apply textures with gradient mappable areas in Hytale Model Maker. You’ll also be able to implement custom gradient maps, introducing new color schemes and materials to Hytale’s palette and further expanding the range of options available for existing items.
Our goal is to allow players to express themselves using a wide variety of looks and styles that we provide as part of the game itself - and then empower modders to expand this set with their own creations. Gradient mapping takes that further, by allowing modders to provide customizable new assets for players to further personalize themselves.
While we have a specific vision for Hytale’s art and design style, we encourage modders to use the tools we provide to take the game in new directions. Below, you can see an example of some custom anime-inspired costumes that have been created as a personal project by art team member Stein!
We’ve hinted at throwable items a few times on the Hytale blog, including a number of screenshots and that one pigeon video. We thought we’d close out this post by showing some of the work that has been done to make throwing stuff look, feel and sound the way that it should. It turns out that throwing stuff is fun!
First up, here’s an example of the kind of accuracy you’ll need to develop if you’d like to become a master of the throwing spear:
This clip also showcases some recent improvements to our audio system. Stereo panning can now be applied to sound effects on an item-by-item basis, making weapon swings more immersive by reflecting the directional movement of the weapon in the audio itself.
While sharp objects like spears become embedded in the objects they collide with, others might bounce or break. In the clip below, you can see how thrown debris interacts with the environment after it is thrown:
This is a very simple example of what we’re hoping to achieve with these kinds of interactions. Physics systems and immersive audio help us add depth and tactility to your actions, and over time these small details add up to a much more believable game world.
Now, there’s one particular throwable object that we’ve received a lot of questions about since we unveiled it back in January. We’re not saying that this whole section has been just an excuse to show this next clip, but, well…
...it kinda was.
To download a zip containing the video clips featured in this blog post, click here!
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_061161f468ed15c53ad099925eac4014_may_progress_update_header.jpg 1588270500 Progress Update: April 30 2020 https://hytale.com/news/2020/04/progress-update-april-30-2020Hello! In this post, we're going to unveil some of the improvements that we've made to the adventure mode user interface and equipment system, demonstrate what's possible with new angled roof blocks, and finish up with a brand new piece of music from the Hytale soundtrack.
It's been a busy, exciting month! After a long period of secrecy, it has meant a lot to the team to be able to openly discuss the next steps we're taking as a studio and the partnership that we've entered into with Riot Games. If you've not yet read the big news, you can find the relevant blog posts here and here.
We want to say thank you to the community for the thoughtful response that the announcement has received. Your encouragement, feedback, and questions all mean a lot to us. It's been a long road to get to this point, and every step of the way the needs of the community have been at the forefront of our minds. Delivering a game that empowers players and lives up to your expectations is our number one priority - thank you again for your support!
In the meantime, work on Hytale continues! Let's take a look at the progress we've made recently.
We've made refinements to our equipment system to allow players to use different kinds of items in each hand. This has been incorporated alongside a new radial menu that allows you to quickly switch between items to suit the situation at hand.
In this clip, Propzie explores an icy cave during a snowfall in zone 3. Quickly swapping out his shield for a torch allows him to illuminate the way ahead, and then the hotbar is used to swap his sword for a handy pickaxe.
Here's another example of this system in use:
Approaching a small Trork camp in zone 1, Propzie swaps his torch for a shield but still incurs some damage. After the fight, a separate radial menu for consumables is used to help him recover with a bite to eat.
Important note: the clips we put out in these blogs often get very closely analyzed, and that's great! However, bear in mind that everything you see is work in progress - from animation to physics, feedback, performance, combat mechanics, sound, damage values and items, all of it is subject to change!
Hytale's array of custom blocks - which we first detailed last year in this blog post - has been expanded to include an extensive new set of angled roof pieces. Like other custom blocks, these are variants on a base material that allow for the creation of more elaborate designs.
These new block types will allow builders to explore a wider variety of architectural styles. In order to show off their potential, we encouraged our world team to let their imaginations run wild!
Please note that while some of the builds below were constructed within the zones and biomes of adventure mode, they are all custom creations made using Hytale's builder tools and don't represent adventure mode content.
First up, Propzie uses the new blocks as part of a modern surburban house build:
Next, Darkace incorporates the new blocks into a towering coastal fortress, complete with pirate ship! (Note: the ship below is part of this custom build, not a functioning vehicle.)
Otium's twinned palaces employ them for domed roofs and arched windows:
Here's Raven's atmospheric gothic manor, set into a forbidding hillside:
Roddan incorporated the new blocks into his impressive pagoda structure:
Finally, we've got a new track to share from the Hytale soundtrack. This piece by composer Oscar Garvin accompanies a location from deep in the game - in more ways than one!
Thanks for reading, everybody! Stay safe, and we'll see you next month!
To download a zip containing the short clips featured in this post, click here!
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5eaaeb8c26563f00171074de_april_progress_update_header.jpg 1587049140 Entering a new era for Hypixel Studios: an announcement from Simon and Noxy https://hytale.com/news/2020/04/entering-a-new-era-for-hypixel-studios-an-announcement-from-simon-and-noxyToday we have a major announcement to make about the future of Hypixel Studios. Simon and Noxy have each written letters to the community to reveal the next steps that we’ll be taking as a team, and to explain what this means for Hytale itself.
Today, we’re making a major announcement about the future of Hypixel Studios - and taking a huge step forward in our journey from modders to professional game developers.
If you’ve been following our development updates over the course of the last year, you’ll know that the success of the Hytale announcement changed everything for us. It both raised the stakes and opened up a world of opportunities for our team.
We’re immensely grateful for the enthusiasm and creativity of the growing Hytale community, and we’re committed to delivering a game that lives up to your expectations. That means doing everything we can to ‘level up’ as a studio, from bringing in new talent to improving our processes to seeking out partners who understand our mission.
The success of the trailer opened many doors for us in the games industry. We’ve had a lot of interest from potential partner companies, and while this has been very exciting we’ve also been careful about how we approach each opportunity. It’s absolutely vital to us that we act in the best interest of our team, our project, and our players.
With that in mind, here’s the big news: Hypixel Studios is being acquired by Riot Games as an independent studio. We’ll continue to operate in the same way as we have before, but Riot will become our parent company and we’ll gain access to their expertise and resources. This means a bigger budget for Hytale, more security for our team, and advisory support from a company that knows how to launch and operate successful, long-running games.
Please note that this doesn’t affect the Hypixel Minecraft server or the team at Hypixel Inc at all. This acquisition only applies to Hypixel Studios.
Noxy will take my place as the new CEO of Hypixel Studios - I hope you’ll join me in congratulating him! Noxy has been at the heart of Hytale since the beginning and I have every faith in him as a leader who can ensure that this project lives up to our ambitions. We’ve been working in this way in spirit for years and this change will allow Noxy to level up even further. I am truly excited to see one of my best friends continue this incredible journey.
It’s been a long nine years since Rezzus and I launched Hypixel as a whole, and this will allow us to step back and be in a better position to advise the team whenever they need it. I’ll be focusing my future efforts on my health, family, and the Hypixel Minecraft server where it all started, while still making myself available to Noxy and the Hytale team as an advisor.
I’m hugely grateful to the teams at Hypixel Studios and Hypixel Inc, as well as everyone who has supported Hytale, created content about our project, or played a Hypixel minigame. This has been an amazing journey, and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for Hytale!
- Simon
As many of you will already know, our relationship with Riot Games goes back a long way. Multiple team members, including myself, are former Rioters - and when we founded Hypixel Studios in 2018, we did so with the support of an advisory group of angel investors that included Riot. Then, as now, we were impressed by their enthusiasm for what we are trying to achieve, and grateful for their expertise.
Even so, we haven’t entered into this new arrangement lightly. Figuring out what kind of future partnership worked best for the team, the project and the community was a long and sometimes challenging process - if you were wondering why it was necessary for us to ‘go quiet’ for long stretches of 2019, well, there’s your answer! These processes take a lot of time and careful consideration to get right.
Despite our existing relationship with Riot, we’ve had many partnership opportunities present themselves to us. Riot has been encouraging as we’ve explored these other options, and highly respectful of our goals, our culture, and our community. In the end, that is one of the main reasons that we’ve decided to enter into this new partnership. Riot understands the kind of company we are and the kind of game we’re making, and they’re invested in our success.
Ultimate responsibility for Hytale still falls to us. The same team is developing the game, and while we’ll be expanding and improving our development pipeline, the core culture of Hypixel Studios won’t change. We want to create the most empowered player community in the world. Through this new partnership with Riot, we’ll have access to resources, tech and expertise that will aid us in achieving this goal.
This also means that we can set up our first physical office. The new Hypixel Studios HQ will open in my hometown of Derry~Londonderry, Northern Ireland. At first, this new office is going to allow us to bring on support staff to help with the day to day running of the company, as well as a new QA team to assist with the ongoing development of Hytale. We anticipate plenty of growth in the future, although the majority of the team will continue to contribute remotely from all over the world. You can find more information on open positions at Hypixel Studios on our jobs page.
Personally, I couldn’t be happier to be beginning this new chapter in our story as game developers. Our dream has always been to grow from our origins as modders, to ‘go pro’ and establish ourselves as a fully-fledged game development studio. Entering into this partnership with Riot is a major step for us in that regard, the resolution to the journey that we’ve been on ever since the Hytale trailer blew up in a way that none of us could have anticipated.
We’ve spent a year figuring out the most responsible way to secure the resources we need to deliver the best game we can make. Now that we’ve answered that question, we can focus on the really important part: finishing the actual game!
In the meantime, we anticipate that you’re likely to have a lot of questions about this new partnership and what it means for Hytale. Please see the accompanying FAQ for more information.
Thank you to everybody who has contributed to the Hypixel server and Hytale over the years - and to our community, whose continued support of Hytale means everything to us. We can’t wait to share the game with you!
- Noxy
html Simon and Noxy https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5e9861f7e11dcb0010ccd28f_announcement_header_1.jpg 1587049080 Announcement FAQ: April 16 2020 https://hytale.com/news/2020/04/announcement-faq-april-16-2020Hi everyone! This FAQ is intended to answer questions arising from our recent set of announcements. If you haven’t done so already, please read these letters to the community from Simon and Noxy for important information about our new relationship with Riot Games and what it means for Hytale!
It’s our goal to lay out the facts of this new relationship as clearly as possible. However, if you have a question that isn’t answered below, please keep an eye on our Twitter feed - we’ll be doing our best to answer additional questions in the coming days.
Once again - thank you! We hope you’re as excited as we are about this new chapter in our journey as game developers.
Hi, everyone! In this progress update, we're going to welcome some new developers to the Hypixel Studios team, show off some recent prefabs and points of interest from later in adventure mode, and show the progress that is being made with Hytale’s AI system. Today, we’re also releasing a new fan art showcase and refreshing the media page to display the latest Hytale screenshots and clips.
First, though, a note on the COVID-19 pandemic. We are extremely fortunate to be a team that already works remotely, which means that our day-to-day working lives are less affected by this situation than they would otherwise be. However, we're still experiencing disruption in other ways, just like everybody else. We'd like to reassure the community that we're staying safe, working hard on the game, and doing what we can to take care of the people around us. Thank you to everybody who has reached out - we're okay, and we hope that you're doing well too!
This month we welcomed two new team members to Hypixel Studios. Timothée 'Ted' Lestradet has joined the Hytale art team as a concept artist and 3D modeller. As part of his application, we asked for a paid art test to see what kinds of designs he could come up with for the game. Take a look!
Please note: these pieces were produced as part of an application and, as such, do not necessarily mean that these creatures will make their way into the game. However, we hope you're as excited as we are about what Ted can bring to the team! Here's a peek at some of his earliest work for Hytale - a set of concepts for new Trork weaponry:
Erikas 'Greater' Šuopys has joined Hypixel Studios having previously worked on the Hypixel Minecraft server as a builder. He'll be creating new prefabs and points of interest for Hytale. We're not ready to show off any of his in-game work just yet, but we can share a private project that he's been working on in order to acclimatise to Hytale's engine and building tools. Check it out!
Once again, this is a test piece, not an in-game location - but we can't wait to see what Greater's talent brings to Hytale!
The world team has been hard at work on new biomes, prefabs, and world generation rules. These new environments come from parts of adventure mode that we've not yet discussed in much detail. As ever, we're mindful of spoilers, so we're only going to be revealing a small amount of what you'll encounter in the latter stages of the game. Today, let's take a look at some desolate human ruins created by technical artist Roddan. Clearly, something went very wrong in these ashen wastelands - but as for exactly what, well, you'll need to discover that for yourself.
The torches are still burning, but there's nobody around.
This lonely old building was built by technical artist CptCharles, and then 'ruinified' by Roddan.
Some ruins conceal hidden dangers, while others house lost lore.
Almost a year ago, we revealed how Hytale's modular AI system allows our team to create and modify complex behaviors for the variety of creatures that populate Orbis. Over the last couple of months, we’ve been building out the behavior sets for adventure mode’s NPCs while expanding the AI system with new functionality.
Hytale’s modular AI now includes a ‘utility system’, which allows NPCs to determine the value of given behaviors based on any number of circumstances. These values are then used to help NPCs make decisions, which allows for more dynamic behaviors and, in turn, more surprising interactions for the player to discover. We plan to make extensive use of this utility system in Hytale’s combat AI, as it’ll allow NPCs to make smarter choices when selecting attacks.
We’re not ready to show this in action just yet, but we can show some new behaviors that make use of Hytale’s modular AI to provide the player with interesting ways to interact with the world. Let's start with a really basic example. In this clip, the player throws out a piece of cheese to draw the attention of a nearby mouse.
Ordinarily, mice will flee when the player approaches. In this case, the mouse detects that there's food nearby. While it’s eating, it’s a lot calmer, which allows the player to approach - but when it’s done, it’ll flee again. A single piece of cheese can be munched on by multiple mice at the same time. Mice tend to gather around barrels and chests in dungeons, so keep your eye out! They might lead you to some loot.
You can use bait to momentarily placate other kinds of creature, too - including the dangerous Fen Stalker:
When a Fen Stalker is enjoying a fish, its view radius is halved. Under-equipped or cautious adventurers can use this information to bypass threats when combat isn’t a good option. This is particularly useful at night, when Fen Stalkers are most aggressive. If you’re crossing a swampy biome in the dark, you may well find a torch more useful than a sword:
Fen Stalkers will shrink away from the player if they’re carrying a torch, simulating the effect that bright light has on these nocturnal hunters. Each of these behaviors is based on separate triggers - the modular AI system uses time of day to determine Fen Stalker aggression, and initiates this cowering behavior if the creature is confronted with a bright light source. Taken together, however, they help to flesh out the particular personality of this light-sensitive monster.
Not every behavior revolves around the player. Fen Stalkers might be dangerous to adventurers, but they’re very protective of their friends. In this case: frogs!
Fen Stalkers love frogs! Hytale’s modular AI system lets us establish relationships between creatures of different types - predators and prey, territorial rivals, or, in this case, best buds. When a Fen Stalker encounters a frog, it’ll happily jump up and down to mimic its favorite creature. Fen Stalkers will also rush to defend any frogs that find themselves in danger - so if you’re hunting amphibians, beware! You just might end up picking on somebody your own size.
Interactions like this help us establish the personality of our world and its inhabitants and give players tricks and traps to discover as they explore. Let's close out with a look at the unique hunting behavior of a creature that you'll encounter in zone 2 - the unassuming Cactee.
Truly, a master of stealth.
We hope you've enjoyed this glimpse at some of the things we've been working on lately! While you're here, be sure to check out our latest fan art showcase to see some of the incredible art that the Hytale community has produced over the last couple of months. Best regards, and stay safe!
To download a zip containing the video clips featured in this post, click here!
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5e7c974b3c9a2a0010679443_progress_update_march_20_header.png 1585237800 Hytale Fan Art Showcase Vol. 3 https://hytale.com/news/2020/03/hytale-fan-art-showcase-vol-3Hi, everyone! In addition to today's progress update, we're going to show off another batch of amazing community artwork. Thank you to everybody who has spent time creating things inspired by Hytale - it means a huge amount to all of us on the team. If your work isn't featured below, don't worry! We're going to continue to produce art showcases for as long as people are interested in producing art to showcase.
DecLXIV has produced a ton of great Hytale-style 3D models recently, but we wanted to showcase this dramatic piece of traditional art. It's a dramatic depiction of a clash between a pair of adventurers and the dreaded Void Dragon. The piece has a great sense of drama - we'd love to be able to capture this atmosphere in-game!
DecLXIV says:
"Every time I see a Hytale screenshot or clip, I always find myself admiring the beauty of the game's art-style and the plethora of vibrant colours. The large array of characters, creatures and weaponry we've been exposed to really make me look forward to jumping into a tense battle with a ferocious enemy, an almost cinematic fantasy to me. This piece is just one of many scenarios I've wondered about and figured featuring the eerie Void Dragon alongside some of Hytale's colourful cast of warriors would fit such a scene perfectly. I've been creating Hytale art of varying mediums, such as digital art or model-making for roughly a year now and I've really wanted to give an action scene like this justice to show appreciation for those behind the game, whether it be the team behind the astonishing visuals or those that code the mechanics that let such a battle take place. I'm proud to be a part of this warmhearted and inspiring community and can't wait to experience this amazing game for myself in the future."
Here are two impressive depictions of some of Hytale's most important characters - Gaia and Varyn. These are characters that have attracted a lot of different creative depictions in the Hytale community, so we were impressed by the clever original details that Crimsncr0w was able to pack in.
Crimsncr0w says:
"When creating this work I loved Varyn's colors and looked into the lovely concept art. I enjoyed some of the theories of others thinking Varyn is from another planet. I wanted to depict what it might look like when he's corporeal, summoned, or finally stepping down on Orbis. His home planet drawing closer and looming to block the sun while he reaches out for the player ominously. Maybe he came down like a meteor, or his magic is corrupt, and the lighting of fire around his feet is burning away the land as he takes control."
Varyn's from a different world altogether, you say? What an interesting theory.
This fun bit of Hytale art by EthosPaladin speculates about what Kweebecs would be like if they took root in the various zones of adventure mode. We really like the imagination and attention to detail on display here - EthosPaladin has clearly paid attention to the particular character of each zone and the types of flora and fauna that thrive there.
EthosPaladin says:
"I drew the piece after pondering the idea of zone-based adaptations that the Kweebecs could undergo to become better suited for environments much harsher than the (seemingly) dulcet forests of zone 1. I had the idea to assign a type of tree likely present in these zones and a unique weapon to each Kweebec: the grittier Kweebecs of zone 2's deserts took influence from the weapons and shields of their Feran neighbors; the jolly Kweebec of zone 3's has a large, two-handed, sharpened log to potentially ram into Outlander defenses; and the banana Kweebec of zone 4's underground jungles received two throwing spears that I thought helped establish a tribal theme."
Here's something completely different: a series of designs for Hytale-themed plushes by Arcanadragon. These are really lovely designs and they've made us wish we could own a real plush just like them! In particular, the pigeon-with-knife design means a lot to all of us on the Hytale publishing team. That particularly dangerous bird got its start when we were messing around while creating videos for last year's modding tools blog post - we love that it's taken on a life of its own, and even has its own fan art!
Arcanadragon says:
"My favorite creature that Hytale has revealed so far is the Void Dragon. As soon as the game is released, I will find this dragon and revel in its raw power and majesty! But until I can do that, I think the best way to honor the beast is with an adorable plushie. Also, Hytale revealed a 'deadeye pigeon' to show how players can mod the game. We can all be sure that, when the game gets released, players will start sneaking the feathered menace into their server mods. I drew this to help players protect themselves against the terror by envisioning the pigeon as a cute plush instead of a fearsome enemy!"
In addition to 2D art, we've seen a number of great Hytale models and sculptures too. We really like these LEGO builds by HappyLemur, which do an impressive job of recreating the silhouettes and personalities of Hytale creatures in a very different creative medium!
HappyLemur says:
"Building with LEGO is one of my favorite hobbies and after seeing Hytale's unique creatures, I knew I wanted to try to recreate some of them. I usually go through many different combinations of pieces in order to best capture the different shapes and this process can often be a challenge, but once I get through it, the product is very rewarding."
Jodaman has been producing some really fun vector-style Hytale artwork over the last couple of months, including this really entertaining Christmas video and the Trork you see above. They've done a great job of translating Hytale's block-based style into a different medium, and captured the personality of the characters perfectly.
Jodaman says:
"This was my second art project ever done using vector style art in Photoshop and I specifically made the body to match the Hytale creature, the Trork. I made a Trork because my previous art project was a Kweebec and I wanted a bigger creature to rival that one. I eventually went on to use this Trork and the previous Kweebec in an animation that is up on my Twitter."
RighteousPebble has been turning out some truly incredible Hytale pieces at an amazing pace over the last couple of months - the three examples above are just some recent highlights of an increasingly impressive portfolio, so be sure to visit their Twitter feed to see even more.
It's been amazing for the team to see characters like Gaia or the Razorleaf Rangers rendered in such a strikingly different style. In particular, we're impressed by the amount of extra detail that RighteousPebble has incorporated into these characters while retaining their essential identity.
RighteousPebble says:
"I’ve been following Hytale since the release of the trailer. I was immediately hooked by not just the concept of the game as an RPG/creative platform/sandbox, but also the amazing fantasy feel. I’ve been pretty shy about sharing my art in the past, but when Roddan (shout out to Roddan!) shared my drawing of Varyn from Reddit on Twitter, I realized I could be reaching more people and connecting with the blooming Hytale community on Twitter. I started posting more and the reaction was wonderful, and really motivated me to keep up the momentum. I’m really looking forward to doing some more art in the Hytale scene, and extremely psyched to play Hytale in the future."
Thank you for checking out this community art showcase! If you produce your own Hytale pieces, be sure to post them on Twitter with the tag #HytaleFanArt to make sure we see them!
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5e7c92753c9a2a0010679438_hytale_fan_art_vol_3_header.png 1582831500 Inside the Hytale foley studio https://hytale.com/news/2020/02/inside-the-hytale-foley-studioFoley is the process by which ordinary objects are used to create the sound effects you hear in TV shows, films, and videogames. In this post, we’re going to reveal how Hytale sound designer Kieran Fitzpatrick goes about creating audio for everything from weapon swings to creepy creatures. Consider this a follow-up to our previous blog about sound design, which focused on how post-processing and editing is used to turn raw audio into in-game effects. Today, we’re showing off how all of that raw audio comes to be. This one's all about audio, so please wear headphones if you can!
Please note! The final two clips in this post involve in-game insects, including spiders. If you suffer from arachnophobia, you might want to stop scrolling after the weapon effects video!
Hypixel Studios is a remote team, and so Kieran’s process begins in his home recording studio - using a variety of household objects to create sounds that are implemented into the game in all sorts of different ways.
Recording takes place outside the studio too - many of Hytale’s ambient nature sounds begin as real-life recordings of forests, rivers, and other natural environments.
While many of the vocal creature sounds in the game are produced by Kieran himself, we also make use of actors. In this case, Kieran’s dog, Roland.
In the next set of clips, we’re going to show how this audio recording process produces the sounds you hear in-game. We’ll start with another set of creature sounds - in this case, cave bats.
“Bats are a unique sound to work on” Kieran says. “Everybody thinks they know what a bat ‘sounds’ like, but in actuality they emit ultrasonic sounds outside the range of frequency that humans can hear. To mimic this in an audible way, I knew it would require a prop that makes high frequency sounds. There’s an infinite way to go about creating these, but I found that the balloon led to a good balance between cartoonish and comical versus expressive and bat-like.”
Even in instances where it is possible to record the desired effect for real, creative use of props can actually yield a more believable result. In the next clip, we’re going to show how we create the sound of heavy footsteps in snow:
“Corn starch. The noisiest of the starches” Kieran says. “After experimenting with different powders, this provided the greatest crunch and squeaks. This was one of the layers used in the footsteps, and became the base on which other layers could be added.”
“Some things in real life sound very little like what is desired or expected” he continues. “This is an example of a sound that needed to be ‘designed’ or ‘sweetened’ to achieve the hyper-realistic sound that most people associated with snow - traditional snow recordings just weren’t cutting it.”
Next, we’re going to show how a highly ‘designed’ sound can be created using foley recordings as a base. Let’s take a look at a treasure chest being opened - both in real life, and in the game!
“Recording your own source will always lead to a more original design” Kieran says. “Finding a ‘seed’ with which to start the process can sometimes be the most challenging part. Think of it like taking a photograph, and then tracing over it with pencil - the chest recording provides the rough shape, and then layers are used to sweeten it and highlight other elements.”
Next, we’re going to take a look at the humble origins of some of Hytale’s weapon effects. It might not sound like the player in the previous clip was swinging a coat hanger, but you’d be surprised!
Each of Hytale’s weapon types has a distinct audio signature, and these begin life as original recordings using familiar objects. “Recording your own props provides you with more variety” Kieran says. “If you choose to use a sound library, you’re limited to what you’re given.”
“These recordings provided the base content for the weapon swings” he continues. “Then, using a number of sound design tricks and tools, coat hangers and dustpans were crafted into sharpened steel blades.” The tools that Kieran uses to achieve this include pitch shifting, reversing the audio, equalization, reverb, and layering. The combination is different in each case!
In the next clip, we’re going to show how Hytale’s creepier monsters are brought to life using a variety of unusual props. If you’re not a fan of spiders, consider this your second warning! Also, if you’re a bell pepper, this one may be hard to watch.
“The goal of the spider effects was to make them as crunchy and nasty as possible” Kieran says. “Vegetables are a tried and true method of recording gory sounds. I also recorded some paper and onion peel crumpling, as it provided a more exoskeleton-esque sound.”
Listen closely to the hissing sound of the spiders, and then go listen back to the first clip in this post - the bending and flexing of a wicker basket is the secret ingredient in this effect! “I used the tension of the wicker basket to morph the hissing of the spiders, to create a more insect-like rhythm to the sound” Kieran says.
Finally, we’re going to answer a direct request from the Hytale community! While we were in the process of producing this post, Noxy happened to receive a pertinent question from community member Kweebec Corner:
We’d be more than happy to show you - but beware, it’s a little gross!
“This sound was designed with the purpose of being gross and uncomfortable to hear, to alert the player that they’re in the presence of the eggs” Kieran says. “The styrofoam made squeaks and creaks similar to that of high-frequency spider hatchlings. With the dog food inside, it also thickened up the sound.”
It turns out that this process actually produced sound close to the desired result without requiring much post-processing. “Normally, sounds require a lot of massaging from the initial recording through to playback in-game. Scarak eggs were the exception to that rule.”
We hope you’ve enjoyed this glimpse into the production of Hytale’s audio. For more information on the story behind Hytale, Edge Magazine’s article about the game is now available online on GamesRadar+. If you missed it in print, now’s the time to check out this in-depth look at Hytale’s past, present and future.
To download a .zip containing the video clips featured in this post, click here!
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5e581327aef73b0017289dd8_hytale_foley_studio_header.jpg 1580318700 Progress Update: January 29 2020 https://hytale.com/news/2020/01/progress-update-january-29-2020Hi, everyone! In this post, we're going to round up a selection of the development activity that has been taking place since the team returned from their holiday break. We'll take a look at some experimental new rendering techniques, take a deep dive into Hytale's upgraded atmospheric audio system, and revisit farming to show the progress that we're making there.
It's been a busy month for all of us as we gear up for an important and exciting year in the life of Hytale. As we outlined in November's development update, the success of the original announcement has allowed us to be more ambitious about every aspect of this project, and over the last year we've spent a lot of time determining the best way forward for both Hytale and the team. Now is the time for us to start putting those plans into action, and we're looking forward to sharing the results with you.
Right now, however, it's time to take a look at some cool new rendering effects!
We're continuing to expand the capabilities of Hytale's engine with new features and effects. This month, we started testing new rendering tech for ice blocks. This is particularly effective in the wintry climes of zone 3, adding a greater sense of depth to areas where spires of ice emerge from frigid landscapes and frozen-over cave entrances promise new opportunities to explore.
This feature is still very much at the development stage, and - as with everything we share in these progress updates - is likely to continue to evolve as work continues. In this case, the team is in the process of ensuring this new rendering works properly when combined with blocks of all kinds.
You can find out more about the improvements we're making to Hytale's engine in November's graphics update post.
Sound designer Kieran Fitzpatrick - whose work on creature audio we featured last year - has been hard at work on some extensive improvements to Hytale's ambient sound system. You'll want to turn your volume up for the rest of the clips in this post - if you've got headphones, now’s the time to use them!
In this clip, you can hear how both the sound of the weather outside and the noises produced by the player character change as they step from rainy moorland to the interior of a gloomy tower. These effects are achieved dynamically by taking advantage of 'ambience zones' - effectively, a set of rules for adjusting audio properties that can be customized based on factors like weather, time of day, the number of walls, and more.
Ambience zones can be layered on top of one another in an additive fashion. In this case, the wind, birdsong and cicadas are all separate ambience zones that merge according to the situation. The system takes into account the ratio of specific block types in the area around the player - so an area with lots of tree blocks is more likely to be accompanied by the sound of wind in the leaves or branches creaking in the breeze. Ambience zones can also effect one another - for example, a weather event like a storm will cause the birds to go quiet as if they've flown off to take shelter.
When the player dives into the water, the ambience changes again. Underwater audio is based on fluid type - fluids of a different viscosity can create different effects, so swimming in water will sound different to swimming in lava.
(We don't recommend swimming in lava, by the way!)
Note: we disabled fall damage for this clip!
This clip illustrates a transition from an outdoor area to the echoing ambience of a deep underground cavern. In addition, the player encounters a number of sound-emitting environmental features. You can hear torches burning and the sound of rocks crumbling deeper in the cave. In the next clip, we're going to hear how the same techniques are used to create the creepy, foreboding atmosphere of a Scarak nest.
This demonstrates how ambience zones and emitter sounds can be combined to give an area a specific audio identity. The distant howling wind combines with the eerie squelching of Scarak eggs and reverberating underground ambience to create the sense that this is somewhere that you probably don’t want to stick around in.
Of course, we have other ways to let the player know that they've wandered into the wrong cavern...
Farming is an area of Hytale that is currently deep in development. Recently, we've been adding new crop types and incorporating new assets to illustrate their growth from seedlings to ripe, harvestable produce. To illustrate this, here’s a timelapse video showing a small batch of crops developing over the course of several in-game days.
Of course, crops don't thrive without help. Properly-tilled ground and water is essential for ensuring that you receive a bumper harvest - and a little fertilizer wouldn't hurt. We've recently added some important new models and effects to the game, along with new AI behaviours that allow Hytale's various creatures to... contribute... to your farm, in their own special way.
TLDR: animals can poop now.
Thanks for reading our latest progress update! You can expect our next blog post in February. In the meantime, keep an eye on our official Twitter feed over the coming days - this blog isn't the only place you can see some new Hytale material this month!
To download a zip containing the screenshots and video clips included in this blog post, click here!
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5e31b741bf89fa0017c0fa03_jan_2020_progress_update_header.png 1576182600 Progress Update: December 12 2019 https://hytale.com/news/2019/12/progress-update-december-12-2019Hi! At the end of November, we published our first progress update - a smaller round-up of recent development work that included new biomes, farming, and some new creatures. In this post, we're going to give you a glimpse at some of the progress that we've made since, including exciting changes to the scope and structure of adventure mode. We hope that these updates will become a regular way that we communicate, and we're excited to reveal more of what we've been working on.
First off, however, we want to say thank you again to the Hytale community. Your understanding response to our most recent development update has meant a lot to all of us, and your excitement about our first gameplay clip (glimpsed at the end of the graphics update post) was great to see. It can be really nerve-wracking to reveal parts of the game before they're done, but your response has given us confidence that this new approach is the right one. However, please do continue to bear in mind that everything we're showing in these posts is work in progress and subject to change.
This week marks one year since the announcement of Hytale. The journey we've been on since has been exciting, challenging, even life-changing - and we owe all of that to the community. Whether you watched the trailer, posted about us, made a video or sent us your fan art, your enthusiasm has given us the chance to become better developers and to raise the bar for a project that we're deeply passionate about.
Now, on with the progress update - starting with a closer look at one particular part of that gameplay clip.
In case you missed it, here's the gameplay clip that we first published in the graphics update post. Many of you noted the kill count that appeared in the top right of the screen after the combat encounter began. This is a basic example of Hytale's objective system, which plays an important role in your journey through adventure mode.
The objective system allows us to set specific goals for the player when certain conditions are met. As a basic example, an objective may be established when the player enters a particular location, such as the ruins in the gameplay clip. Encounter prefabs like this feature hand-designed architecture and gameplay scenarios, structured challenges that complement the freeform exploration that you'll otherwise be engaged in.
In other cases, location-based objectives may be attached to points of interest that have a random element, such as the Trork camp above. In this case, the exact roster of enemies that you'll face will vary, but the objective system will still provide you with a sense of what you need to do to succeed. For more on how prefabs are built and incorporated into our worldgen systems, check out this blog post from earlier in the year.
Sometimes, an objective might be tied to an item - like a treasure map or a bounty note that sends you off in pursuit of a specific foe. Objectives can be one-off missions, or they can form chains that require you to succeed at multiple stages of a challenge before receiving your reward. We'll go into more detail about the kinds of rewards that objectives will provide in adventure mode in the future, but loot and faction reputation are both likely reasons for you to seek out these special tasks.
As with many parts of Hytale, our goal is for this system to be fully extensible. Server operators will be able to use it to structure their own challenges, and the system is fully compatible with cooperative play - location-based objectives can be joined by any player who happens to be in the right area!
Over the last few weeks, we've started testing a series of changes to adventure mode's structure. In the past, we conceived of adventure mode as a journey through the zones in sequential order - so by the time you reach zone 3, you'd be more powerful and better equipped than you were when you first set foot in zone 1.
We're rethinking this approach in order to encourage a less linear progression path. Now, the first three zones each contain content at multiple tiers of difficulty, along with appropriately scaling resources and rewards. This means that it's possible for your adventure to start in zone 1, 2 or 3. We haven't settled on whether this will be random, or a matter of player choice, and even the zone names themselves are yet to be finalized. No matter where your journey begins, you'll have the choice of establishing yourself in your starting region, moving to another zone, or even roaming between them.
Whatever you decide, you'll be able to find content appropriate to your power level. In the shot above, you can see a view of zone 2 showing multiple different biomes. You can probably tell which areas are likely to offer a more substantial challenge!
The tier of a particular area affects the types of prefabs you'll find there. Above, you can see a basic ruin in zone 2 - content appropriate for a player just starting out on their journey.
Here's a higher-tier version of the same concept. Players who want to take on the undead occupants of this crumbling fortress will need to be well-prepared!
As encounters increase in complexity, so do the NPCs that inhabit them. While we've previously explored the concept of enemy classes - you can check out an example of Trork subtypes in this blog from last year - we've been working on expanding this with a tier system of its own. Certain powerful enemy types will now only occur in high-tier encounters. Other classes may appear in multiple tiers, but 'level up' as they do so.
In this screenshot, the player is fighting an undead mage. These are slightly more advanced than your basic skeleton - you won't encounter them at the lowest tier of difficulty - but they're not the deadliest foe you'll encounter, either.
Here's what you may encounter at a higher tier of difficulty - a powerful variant of the same fundamental mage archetype, with a more formidable appearance to match. Luckily, the player in this shot has had some equipment upgrades, too!
These changes are still being tested by the team, but we're excited by the potential for this system to add variety and give players greater choice over the direction that they take at the beginning of their adventure. The next step is to finish implementing similar content updates in zones 1 and 3, which will include new prefabs and NPC types for a variety of factions, including the Trorks and Outlanders - expect to hear more about this in a future progress update!
While we’re on the subject of NPCs...
In a distant region of Orbis, a new aquatic menace has emerged - complete with eerie bio-luminescent markings!
In our last progress update, we showed how the curse of undeath can produce some truly twisted beings. However, not every victim of this malign magic is quite so monstrous.
Alas, noble chicken. Even in death, you serve - or are served, as the case may be.
That wraps up this progress update! The team is going to take some time off over the holidays, so you can expect the next post from us in January. Thank you again, and happy holidays from the whole Hytale team!
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5df294a02ac65300170d5227_dec_12_progress_header.jpg 1574876760 November 2019 development update https://hytale.com/news/2019/11/november-2019-development-updateHi, everyone! In this post, we’re going to update you on our future plans for Hytale, discuss the reasons why we’ve been quiet lately, and explain how we’re changing our approach to blog posts in order to ensure that we can be more transparent about the development of the game in the future.
First of all, we’d like to offer an apology to everyone who has been disappointed by the lack of blog posts over the last couple of months. This has been a year of huge opportunities and equally huge challenges, and it’s not always been possible for us to communicate openly, however much we’ve wanted to do so.
We’re immensely grateful to everyone who has expressed their excitement for Hytale, produced fan works, or made articles or videos about our game. Your enthusiasm is the reason that we’re making Hytale, and also the reason that it’s so important that we get it right.
The scale of the reaction to our game has changed everything for us. Our origins as Minecraft server operators shapes who we are as a team, and in many ways we're still modders at heart. For our first solo project to receive this level of attention has been amazing, but also intimidating.
Expectations are high and rising all the time, and the level of anxiety on the team has risen alongside them. It’s incredibly important to all of us that Hytale lives up to its potential, and as such it’s been necessary to step back and take stock in order to ensure that we’re headed in the right direction.
Hytale is an ambitious project and we have set high standards for ourselves, but the bar has been raised even higher by the community response. It’s fair to say that we weren’t prepared for the degree of intense analysis that we’ve received, and we’re highly aware of the risks that have faced highly-anticipated games in the past. We know we’ve only got one chance to make a strong first impression with the finished game.
At the same time, this is a very fortunate position to be in - particularly for a new studio. The success of the trailer is allowing us to be more ambitious about every part of the project, from the engine itself to our tools, the services surrounding the core game, and how we operate as a company. We’ve built every aspect of Hytale from scratch, and this is allowing us to make improvements across the board - but even so, the scope of the task ahead is massive.
We’ve previously said that Hytale will be ‘ready when it’s ready’ because we’re serious about providing the community with a game that meets their expectations. We can now be a little more specific. Factoring in the scale of the project and the high bar we want to hit, we’re planning for Hytale to be playable by everyone in 2021.
We’re very aware that this is a longer wait than many were expecting, but we believe that we owe our players the best possible game that we can make and that it’s important to be realistic about what it’ll take to get there. What’s more, the community’s interest in Hytale has played a huge role in helping us pursue these goals.
The hype surrounding Hytale has raised our profile within the games industry, and this has allowed us to pursue partnerships that will help us level up as a studio and make a better game. We realized over the course of this year that escalating our plans for Hytale would require more resources, and it’s taken time to figure out the best way to go about getting them. We still don’t think that crowdfunding is the best fit for this project, but it’s equally important that we approach potential partnerships in a way that will allow us to deliver the best result for players and content creators.
As players ourselves, we understand the worries that accompany processes like this - the concern that the spirit of a game can get lost as stakes and budgets rise. We want to reassure everyone that this is at the forefront of our minds, and that preserving the values of the team and the project is hugely important to us. We want Hytale to be bigger and better than you’re expecting, and to pull this off as quickly as we responsibly can - but we’re not going to rush into anything without considering the needs of our team, the project, and the community.
All of this takes time, and is one of the reasons why we’ve had to stay relatively quiet through the middle of 2019. In some cases, unexpected setbacks have forced us to change plans and delay planned posts. We can only apologize for the times when we’ve not lived up to our commitment to communicate more openly, and we appreciate all of the Hytale communities - on Reddit, in Discord channels, YouTube and elsewhere - who have stuck with us while we’ve figured all of this out.
We’ve also been held back by our decision to focus on showing parts of Hytale that we consider to be ‘launch ready’. At our current stage of production, many parts of the game are approaching that level, but aren’t quite there yet. Other aspects of Hytale are much earlier in development, or are awaiting revamps. We’ve been holding ourselves back from revealing these aspects of the game for fear of showing too much, too soon.
However, we completely understand those in the Hytale community who would prefer us to be a bit more open about where we’re at, so that’s what we’re going to do from now on. This means that we’ll be showing more ‘work in progress’ aspects of the game, which may include features that aren’t fully polished yet or that may change between now and launch. In fact, we’ll be actively seeking feedback on certain features to ensure that we’re headed in the right direction.
We know that players are waiting for answers on sensitive topics like beta testing, release platforms, and our business model. Unfortunately, it’s still too soon for us to make announcements in this regard - but we know how important these subjects are to the community, and they’ve not been forgotten.
One of the reasons that we’ve been wary of discussing subjects like these in the past is because we don’t want to make commitments that we can’t fulfill. With that in mind, we hope the community will understand that the plans we’ve laid out above are just that - plans. If we need to make changes for the health of the team or the project, we’ll do so. In the meantime, all we can say is thank you for your continued patience - your interest in our game means a huge amount to all of us, and we’re excited to involve you more closely in the ongoing development of Hytale.
In addition to blog posts dedicated to specific features, we’re going to start producing broader development updates showing off the work we’ve been doing as it happens. We’re not going to be able to show everything - we’re still very mindful of spoilers - but we’re planning to open up much more than we have in the past. We’re getting things started with a look back over some of the progress that we’ve made recently. We’re also revealing some exciting changes to our engine that have allowed us to overhaul how the game looks with a visual update. Finally, we’ve got four new tracks from the Hytale soundtrack to share.
Once again, thank you for coming with us on this journey.
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5ddeb91c3e8ae900170a91b3_nov_dev_update_header.jpg 1574876700 Hytale graphics update https://hytale.com/news/2019/11/hytale-graphics-updateHytale is based on a custom engine that has been built from scratch over the last four years. This year, our engine developers have continued to upgrade our technology with new features, including real time shadows, improved water effects and bloom, and a host of improvements to rendering and particle effects. In this post, we’re going to showcase these changes - and then show you how it all comes together in a gameplay clip!
First, though, a quick note about hardware compatibility. While we’ve added some dramatic new features to the engine, our baseline system requirements haven’t changed. Hytale will be fully playable on a low-end system with an integrated graphics chip - in fact, many of the features you’ll see below work on integrated Intel GPUs! We’re fully aware of how important performance is, however, so we’ll also provide the option to customize your graphics settings to suit your setup.
Despite the progress we’ve made, everything we’re revealing in this post represents work in progress - the look and feel of Hytale will keep evolving as we continue to work on the game!
One of the biggest changes to Hytale’s look and feel over the last few months has been the addition of cascaded shadow mapping. Characters and the environment now cast detailed shadows that react to the position of the sun and moon - a change that should be apparent in every screenshot and video clip we post from now on!
Entity shadows reflect the exact shape of the creature or character in question, including any equipped weapons or gear and the animation being performed.
When combined with the weather and time of day presets that we outlined in the custom content post, real time shadows can help produce some really atmospheric environments. To get the full effect, however, you’ve got to see it in motion - so here’s a timelapse showing time-of-day transitions in a variety of settings.
We’ve also added additional depth and sophistication to Hytale’s water effects with the addition of reflections, refraction, waves, edge whitening and more. Take a look at the far riverbank in the screenshot above to see how the trees are reflected in the surface of the water.
This screenshot demonstrates the benefit of underwater caustics, which have helped to create a more immersive effect while exploring beneath the waves. We’re continuing to work on our water tech - these effects are only going to improve between now and launch!
Bloom and sunshaft effects are another immersion-boosting addition that help bring Hytale’s environments to life. In the shot above, you can see both effects most clearly in the area around the bison’s horns.
The next shot demonstrates the dramatic effect created when sunlight breaks through into an underground environment - in this case, one with its own mysterious sources of light! Please note that sunshafts like these are currently not compatible with integrated graphics cards - but they’re an example of what can be achieved with more powerful hardware.
We haven’t stopped there. We’ve also continued to work on particle effects, revamped a huge number of textures, and improved screen space ambient occlusion to create a stronger sense of definition around objects. These changes are hard to demonstrate individually, so instead here’s a series of shots demonstrating the effect that these engine improvements have when taken all together.
First, a pair of adventurers go for a walk in zone 3:
Here’s another example of how shadows dramatically change the feel of a wooded area:
Finally, here’s an indoor area. Note the complex shadows created by the sun as it passes through the window.
Screenshots and video demonstrations are helpful for focusing on specific effects, but we understand that the community wants to see how all of this comes together in the game itself. With that in mind, here’s a gameplay clip! Note: this one's got sound!
We expect this clip to be closely analyzed, but please bear in mind that everything you see is subject to change - including the combat system, which is in the process of being improved and expanded. Even so, we hope you’ve enjoyed this glimpse into the progress we’ve made with Hytale’s engine over the course of 2019!
To download a zip containing the screenshots and video clips included in this blog post, click here!
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5ddeb61bfe8f2e0017f336c7_graphics_update_header.jpg 1574876640 Four new pieces of music from the Hytale soundtrack https://hytale.com/news/2019/11/four-new-pieces-of-music-from-the-hytale-soundtrackOver the last year, Hytale composer Oscar Garvin has produced dozens of new tracks for the game. In Hytale, each zone has a distinct set of music that helps establish its atmosphere and sense of place. Many biomes and points of interest have their own unique soundtracks, too, and we’re currently looking into ways to incorporate music into other aspects of adventure mode in an equally dynamic way.
Below, you’ll find four new tracks from the Hytale soundtrack, covering areas from zones 1, 2, and 3. We’ve also produced some short video clips to give you a sense of the areas where you might hear this music in the game. These tracks are available as part of the Hytale OST playlist on our YouTube Channel, along with the five pieces we’ve already released.
This track is intended to evoke a sense of peaceful exploration in the deep forests and green riverlands of zone 1. While this region certainly has its dangers, it’s also a place that offers sanctuary and that has, in the past, enjoyed the protection of Gaia herself. “Music has the power to make you feel the lore, even if it's not immediately apparent” Oscar says.
“I was imagining a lost temple hidden deep within a canyon” Oscar says about this piece of music, which comes from zone 2. Traversing treacherous terrain takes effort, and this track attempts to reflect both the mystery of the unknown and the sense of accomplishment that accompanies the end of a long journey.
Venture deep into one of those lost temple entrances and you may hear this track. “I was imagining a dark desert tomb, where you might happen upon an occult ritual” Oscar says. “Evil magic runs through the veins of this hidden ruin.”
This track from zone 3 is very different, reflecting the wintry climes of this beautiful but frequently dangerous part of Orbis. “I was imagining a vast snowy landscape with snow on the pine trees, with some hints of my home country, Norway” Oscar says. “I evoke the feeling of these images in my mind and choose instruments and harmonies accordingly. I write in this ‘roleplaying’ kind of way to try and give a level of cinematic immersion to the player.”
To download a zip containing the video clips found in this post, click here!
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5ddeb32798a451001748d08d_ost_header.jpg 1574876580 Progress Update: November 27 2019 https://hytale.com/news/2019/11/progress-update-november-27-2019Hello again! We’ve already put out quite a few posts today, but this one’s a little bit different. Instead of focusing on a single feature or big reveal, we’re going to round up a selection of the work that the team has been doing lately. This is one way that we’re changing up how we approach this blog - if people enjoy this format, then you can expect us to make more use of it in the future.
As outlined in the November development update, we’re planning to start showing aspects of the game that are pretty early in development - while being mindful of spoilers, of course. As such, please bear in mind that everything you see represents work in progress and may change substantially by the time Hytale is released.
Over the last few weeks, two new biomes have been incorporated into the worldgen systems for zones 1 and 2. In zone 1, you might encounter an autumn forest - a densely-wooded area where the leaves have turned deep orange and brown. Explore to find mushrooms, pumpkin crops, and some decorative glowing flora.
Explorers in zone 2, meanwhile, may now stumble across an oasis. These verdant areas provide stark contrast to the desert wilderness, and an opportunity to harvest materials that may not be easy to find elsewhere. Be mindful, however: you’re not the only creature that may be drawn to an isolated lagoon.
Farming is an important part of Hytale and the last few months have been spent refining the design and implementation of key aspects of the feature, including tilling the earth, planting seeds, and harvesting crops that grow in real-time over the course of several in-game days.
The next step is livestock farming and animal domestication, including an animal happiness system that will react to a variety of factors, including feed, the availability of good bedding, and the company of similar creatures.
Many new creatures and adversaries are in the works - you can expect to see some of these cropping up in screenshots in future posts (and even later in this one!) In the meantime, here’s a sneak peek at a new undead creature.
This is all just a sample of the progress that we’ve been making with Hytale’s adventure mode - we can’t wait to show you even more! We’re going to close out this update with some in-development shots of environments and creatures from… elsewhere. There’ll be time to go into more detail in the future, but for now we hope you enjoy this glimpse into some of the challenges you’ll face when you enter some of adventure mode’s as-yet-uncharted territories.
Where’s this? Looks a little pungent.
Why is my glass of water shaking?
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5ddeb2028712dd001748fd37_nov_27_progress_update_header.jpg 1566338400 Custom content in Hytale https://hytale.com/news/2019/08/custom-content-in-hytaleWhen we announced Hytale, we said that we'd be providing players with all of the tools that we've developed in order to create the game. Over the last couple of months, we've received lots of questions about what that means for modders and content creators.
In the past, we've discussed how the Hytale Model Maker allows creators to build and import their own models, textures and animations into the game. We've shown off character customization and demonstrated both how blocks work and how you can build with them.
This is far from the full extent of the tools and options that we have planned for Hytale. In this post, we're going to explore some of the things that are possible using Hytale's in-game customization tools. These will allow modders and content creators to fundamentally change many aspects of the game without having to directly edit files - or even close the game itself!
All of the images and clips in this post represent work-in-progress interfaces and functionality. Both the game and the tools we provide are likely to evolve between now and launch!
Hytale's weather system makes a huge difference to how an area feels. In creating zones and biomes for adventure mode, we've already outlined dozens of presets that change everything from the color of the sky to the specific textures used for different phases of the moon. In the image below, you can see the same landscape at different times of day and under different weather conditions.
These presets are configured using a powerful in-game asset customization menu which allows creators to tinker with almost every aspect of the game. Here's an example of part of the weather customization interface:
In this example, you can see how different colors can be set for different aspects of the weather at different times of day. Using the bar at the top, creators can cycle through times of day to preview their changes. The menu on the right provides access to other aspects of weather customization, including swapping skyboxes and starscapes - all without quitting the game.
Best of all, these changes can be experienced by everybody connected to the server. Once presets are created, they can be switched using simple text commands or bound to a keypress. Here's an example of weather presets being cycled in zone 3:
This is only one example of what can be done with the asset customization menu. While we're not quite ready to show off the rest of the user interface yet, we are going to spend the rest of this post illustrating other things that it can do, and the power it grants to modders.
Changing the weather is one thing, but if you really want to customize an environment then you'll want to change textures. Hytale's in-game tools allow you to change the textures associated with a particular block or model on the fly, to a granular level of detail. Want to change how a particular kind of stone looks? You can do that. Want to change the color of the grass at the top of a grass block without changing the color of the soil? You can do that too. Then, you can watch your changes take place in real time as the update takes effect for every player.
We're also working on tools that'll help builders to quickly construct sophisticated creations. These include copy-paste functions that let you replicate complicated arrangements of blocks, as you can see below.
Combining these techniques with the options provided by live asset customization gives builders a huge amount of power. In the example below, world team member Otium uses several different techniques in order to quickly expand and refine a complex build.
In-game customization also extends to items, weapons, particle effects, and gameplay. We're going to dig much deeper into this in a future blog post, because it's a massive subject - but for the sake of demonstration, here's what's possible with a custom model and a few minutes of in-game configuration:
The model and animations for this laser rifle were created in Hytale Model Maker for the modding segment of the Hytale announcement trailer. All we needed to do to turn it into a new weapon was assign projectile and on-hit particle effects, establish damage values, and test it out on some zombies. It'll be easy for modders to customize all aspects of the combat experience and test their changes live.
Customization doesn't end there - player models can be changed on the fly too! Take a look:
Almost all of Hytale's creatures and characters can be made playable with a button push, and the attachment system - last previewed in our introduction to Hytale Model Maker - means that they can even equip weapons and armor and perform actions that those creatures would never normally do. These changes can then be applied to a single player, a group, or even everybody on a server.
Do you want to play a game where deadeye pigeons toss throwing knives at distant targets? Probably not. But we did that anyway.
The crucial thing is that we give modders and server operators as much freedom as possible to use their imaginations, push the limits of the system, and experiment without having to rely on external tools.
Besides - what's the point of filling the game with monsters if you can't play as one from time to time?
To download a zip containing the screenshots and short video clips featured in this blog post, click here!
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5d5c2f13cf3bc300105ee267_customizing_hytale_header.jpg 1563981300 July 2019 development update https://hytale.com/news/2019/07/july-2019-development-updateHi, everyone! We appreciate that it's been a little while since our last post. Today, we're rolling out a new blog post along with a new fan art showcase and an updated media page. More on that in a little bit! First, an update from the team.
Since our last blog post, we've been hard at work on all aspects of the game - design, content, and improvements to our core technology. As we wrote back in May, the response to the announcement trailer (which has now hit 50 million views!) has opened doors and allowed us to explore opportunities that we couldn't have imagined prior to the announcement, from expanding the team to exploring potential partnerships.
We're lucky to have these opportunities, because they allow us to invest more time in the development of Hytale, improve our development practices, and work towards reaching the high standards that our community has set for us. We'd like to say thank you to our community once again - your excitement, creativity and patience are all super important to us.
So what's coming next? First off, we're aiming to create new blog posts every few weeks letting you know about some of the work that's currently being done on the game. However, choosing what to show is a fine balancing act - we don't want to spoil too much, and we also want to make sure that designs for important features like combat and PvP have reached the high standard we set for them before we show them off in detail.
In the meantime, we're going to continue to publish fun clips and smaller reveals through the official Hytale Twitter feed. Like this wild boar, seen here living his best life.
We're very grateful to all of the content creators who have continued to produce videos, articles, posts and fan art about our game. We hope that today's Outlander reveals give you plenty of food for thought! We noticed that we got a very positive response from the community when we started including links to our screenshot and video assets at the end of each blog post.
Not only are we going to keep doing that, but we've added a new section to the media page called 'Clips' that collates almost all of the short videos that we've produced for blogs and social media over the last eight months. As well as browsing them like a gallery, you can also use the download links to access source-quality video files. We hope this helps you create great new stuff!
All that we ask is that you continue to stick to the guidelines that we laid out in the Content Creators' FAQ back in December. You have our permission to activate monetization on content that uses Hytale assets as long as it is for the purpose of reaction, analysis, or commentary.
We don't want to place any unfair restrictions on creators - we just need to protect ourselves against malicious use of our intellectual property. The vast majority of the creators in our community do amazing work and we're very happy to continue to support them. If you have any questions about using Hytale material, please feel free to email us at press@hypixelstudios.com.
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5d3850ed18cd04001749be61_july_dev_update_header_2.jpg 1563981000 Outlanders revealed https://hytale.com/news/2019/07/outlanders-revealedEarlier in the year, we unveiled zone 3 - a place of boreal forests, treacherous mountain ranges, winding rivers and deep ice caves. We showed you some of the creatures that inhabit this region, from hardy mountain goats to bears, woodpeckers, and even a yeti. If you've not checked that blog post out yet, do so now - it provides a little bit of context to what we're revealing today.
In this post, we're going to reveal more than ever before about the primary threat that you'll face in zone 3 - the Outlanders. You got your first glimpse of this breakaway human faction in the Hytale announcement trailer, where a party of adventurers encountered a colossal masked warrior in a deep dungeon. Remember him? Well, you'll be seeing him again soon, and he's been working out.
But first you should meet his people. The Outlanders are a hostile faction whose camps can be found throughout zone 3. They are defensive and territorial and, as such, pose a threat to adventurers and settlers alike. How they came to be this way - and the true nature of some of the more sinister aspects of Outlander culture - are mysteries that you'll solve for yourself as you uncover the secrets of the forbidden wilderness that the Outlanders call home.
As inhabitants of the frozen wilds of zone 3, Outlanders must contend with inhospitable terrain and deadly creatures. The battle for survival is a conflict without end, and it has instilled a brutal pragmatism in the people who fight it. The Outlanders' ruthless, unfeeling outlook is reflected in the wooden masks that they wear at all times.
The Outlander way of life is isolationist by nature, and the leaders of the Outlander clans can often be found manning the walls and watchtowers of their scattered settlements. Campfires and communal areas provide rare moments of warmth and comfort in the wilderness, but Outlanders never welcome strangers into their midst.
Outlander rangers roam further afield than most of their kind, venturing into the wilderness to hunt or to keep watch at the boundaries of Outlander territory. Expert ambushers, their bows make them dangerous at range to anyone that they perceive as a threat - and that's most people!
And these bison, apparently.
Outlanders venture beyond their camps to do more than just patrol or hunt. They're intimately connected to the history of zone 3, and their expeditions frequently take them to places of interest, including ancient battlefields and ritual sites. As such, you may well run into them while conducting excursions of your own.
We don't want to say too much about Outlander history or their beliefs - these are things that we hope players will discover for themselves. Suffice to say that they have always seen the world differently to other elements of human civilization, and this difference - combined with their particular connection to zone 3 - has led them to explore darker forms of magic than you may encounter elsewhere.
The evidence of these beliefs can be found deep in Outlander camps, where those who commit themselves fully to the esoteric path adorn their dwellings - and their bodies - with sacred symbols. At night, the campfires of these Outlanders burn green as they perform mysterious rituals.
Outlander rites occur in well-defended encampments and hidden places. It is said that they have achieved a measure of mastery over death itself, drawing this power from the mystical waters of the wilderness. Whatever the truth, magical power is wielded chiefly by Outlander priests.
Priests bring water magic to bear in defense of their people and act as the leaders of Outlander civilization as a whole. Their connection to ancient magic makes them uniquely important figures, and formidable foes.
Not the most formidable, mind. That honor belongs to someone that you've already met - and he's keen to reintroduce himself.
Told you he'd been working out.
To download a zip containing the screenshots and short video clips featured in this blog post, click here!
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5d3725e818cd04001749be5e_outlander_blog_header.jpg 1563980700 Hytale Fan Art Showcase vol. 2 https://hytale.com/news/2019/07/hytale-fan-art-showcase-vol-2As part of this update, we've tinkered with the design of the community section and added a whole draft of amazing new fan art pieces. The skill and creativity of the Hytale community is a continual source of excitement and motivation for us as we work on the game - thank you, once again, to everyone who has chosen to turn their hand to creating something inspired by Hytale!
In this post, you'll find more information on all of the pieces we're featuring in this latest showcase. Be sure to click through to individual artists' channels to show them your appreciation!
Mykey has been creating amazing Hytale models and dioramas since the announcement back in December - we even featured some of their work in the first showcase! Even so, we weren't ready for this amazing recreation of the farm section from the beginning of the Hytale trailer.
Using a mixture of puppetry, stop-motion animation and digital effects, Mykey has done a great job of recreating those opening moments. They've even recreated the in-game cinema to show you - and an assembled crowd of Hytale characters - how it was done.
Mykey's cousin Nana has the honor of being the first person - that we know of - to create a Hytale cosplay! It was really exciting for us to see Gaia brought to life like this, and we can't wait to see what other kinds of cosplay Hytale might eventually inspire.
Professional wood carver DeoDravent created this stunning rendition of the Hytale logo. We're particularly impressed by the amount of detail on display, especially in the Hytale 'H' - can you make out Gaia and Varyn?
For more information on DeoDravent's woodcarving activities, visit their website.
Speaking of Hytale characters being brought to life - we really like this take on Tessa by Leyo.Raw, which portrays one of Orbis' heroes in a more reflective pose than we've seen before.
We couldn't pick between these great pieces by DairyPanda, so we're featuring all of them! We really admire how DairyPanda has captured the feel of Hytale in their own style, and even shown us a friendlier side to zone 1's menacing Trorks.
Hytale's underwater zones inspired this atmospheric piece by Omnia. We're looking to capture this same sense of depth and mystery in the game itself, offering greater surprises and dangers the deeper you go.
Omnia says:
"All the artworks on Twitter are my first. I just bought a tablet and started drawing, before that I painted only in childhood. In this fan art I wanted to convey the interest in adventure, and the danger, the beauty of the underwater world. I hope very much that in Hytale it will also be interesting to explore the sea! By the way, I dream to see the underwater world in reality, but I still do not know how to swim!"
This trio of images shows realistic 3D models by ArtisanBot, each inspired by and item or prop from Hytale. While we design all of Hytale's characters and items with blocks and planes in mind, it's great to see what's possible when these designs are adapted in a different style.
ArtisanBot says:
"I really like Hytale’s artwork and I thought it would be interesting to re-imagine what it would look like in more of a photorealistic style so, for my first art submission, I wanted to start off with something simple and remembered seeing the shield design and thought it would be perfect. After I created the shield, I almost instantly started on the staff as I really liked the design - I thought the accessories and crystals would make for a really nice model. For my third art submission, I wanted to create something a little different so I began browsing through Hytale's artwork and I saw a joint of meat. I could see it would be an interesting and fun challenge so decided to recreate it."
We're big fans of this detailed piece by MintFritter, which delivers a take on one of the earliest pieces of Feran concept art in the artist's own style.
MintFritter says:
"Your game looks just like that type of game that I've been dreaming about since my childhood. Inspiration hit me up so hard when I saw the trailer for this game. I'm really excited about it and I'm happy to be a small part of it!"
Llamafreak created this piece as a follow-up to the poster that we featured last time. We really like the sense of adventure and the contrast between bright, open skies and darker dangers lurking beneath. Kudos to Llamafreak for also giving us what might be Hytale's angriest Kweebec!
You can watch the creation of this piece here, and find more of Llamafreak's work on their YouTube channel.
Llamafreak says:
"I wanted to make a piece that delved deeper into the character I created for Adventure Mode. I started thinking about this character's dungeon party and how this tough, warrior girl might be balanced out by a scared wizard who doesn't have experience in battles. Maybe this party also has something special about them, like an exiled Kweebec who is always raring to get into trouble! This piece depicts one of the trio's first encounters with Trorks, who weren't exactly keen on a Kweebec beating them up!"
If you've created fan art that you'd like to share with us for a future showcase, make sure you tag it with #HytaleFanArt to give it a shot at inclusion in a future showcase!
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5d37065b18cd04001749be4d_fan_art_vol_2_header_2.jpg 1556905500 Rising expectations, new challenges and next steps: an update from the Hytale team https://hytale.com/news/2019/05/rising-expectations-new-challenges-and-next-steps-an-update-from-the-hytale-teamIt’s hard to believe that it’s been almost five months since we announced Hytale. The moments before the trailer launched were some of the most nerve-wracking that any of us have experienced in our careers. We were proud of the game, but none of us could have predicted how the wider world would respond to it - or that the response would lead to so many amazing opportunities and new challenges.
In this post, we’re going to take a look back at the announcement and the impact that it’s had on the development of Hytale. We’re going to explain why we haven’t announced a release date yet, and we’re going to outline some changes to the structure of this blog.
The success of the announcement trailer has opened doors and raised the stakes in equal measure. It’s been amazing to watch a community form around the game and to see our work discussed in videos and on social media. We have an internal chat channel dedicated to community content: if you’ve made something about Hytale and put it online, chances are that it’s made its way into our feed and been enjoyed by the team.
We’re hugely grateful to everyone who has made something, written something, sent us messages, or simply told someone about the trailer. It’s been a huge morale boost and provided us with a massive amount of motivation. We’ve said it before, but it’s true: none of us have worked on a project that has received this kind of reaction before. It’s been an exciting and humbling experience for all of us.
The massive response to Hytale’s announcement has changed things for us. It has opened up a huge number of opportunities, particularly when it comes to things like hiring and potential partnerships. Before we announced Hytale, we were receiving a slow trickle of job applications and the industry primarily knew us as modders - if they knew us at all. Now, all of that has changed - and all of it helps us improve our decision making and ultimately make the game better.
The scale of the response has also presented challenges. We’ve had a lot of work to do - from improving our development pipeline to processing thousands of job applications, keeping the community supplied with new screenshots and info, and listening to feedback and suggestions. All of this takes time, and it has made it harder to set a fixed timeline for Hytale’s release.
Here’s the thing: with this amount of attention comes a huge amount of pressure to get the game right. We receive hundreds of messages every week asking us to release Hytale as soon possible, but we firmly believe that the best thing we can do is take advantage of all of the resources at our disposal and make the game as good as it possibly can be.
That’s what we mean when we say that Hytale will be ‘ready when it’s ready’. Things are moving fast, and every day we’re getting closer - but there’s still a lot of work to do. We don’t want to announce a start date for the Hytale beta until we’re confident that we can hit it, and we’re not in a position to do that just yet. When we are, you can be assured that we’ll let you know - we’ve got no interest in keeping it a secret!
We’ve all had the experience of having to wait for a game that we’re excited about, so we understand that there’s going to be some disappointment that we still don’t have a date to announce. The fact that so many people are keen to get their hands on the game means a lot to us. But we believe that it’s better to wait for a game that lives up to expectations than to get hyped for a game that turns out to have been released too early. We’re lucky to be in a position where we have the people, time and resources to try to get this right, so that’s what we’re going to do.
The other thing we want to address today is the Hytale blog itself. Since January, we’ve been using it to show off our work, introduce members of our development team, and go deeper on elements of Hytale that we only briefly touched on in the announcement. It’s been really rewarding for us to finally be able to reveal the fruits of our labors, and being able to provide a steady stream of screenshots, art and video clips to our community is important to us.
That said, we do need to make sure that the blog doesn’t distract from the much more important work of developing the game. We’ve shown a lot over the last couple of months, and so for the next period in the game’s development we’re going to slow our pace and focus on delivering less frequent but more substantial updates. Working to a weekly schedule has made it harder to cover bigger topics, so we’re hoping that slowing down will allow us to produce more detailed articles about key game features.
For the most part, the feedback we’ve received about our blog posts has been great. However, we’re aware of concerns that we’ve been showing too much - that the blog might spoil the game before it comes out. We want to take this opportunity to reassure the community that we’re very selective about what we show in blog posts, and that we fully intend to keep plenty of stuff under wraps.
We’re sensitive to the needs of content creators too, so in addition to providing a blog post every few weeks we’ll continue to put out new screenshots and short clips via Twitter and our other social media channels. We’ll still be sharing the process of developing the game with the community and paying close attention to your feedback. Keep asking us questions, letting us know what you think about the material that we’re putting out, and telling us about your hopes for Hytale - it really does mean a lot to us!
Thanks, once again, for your support over the last couple of months - it’s been incredible, and we’re committed to delivering a game that lives up to your expectations.
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5ccc640bd5829500108a8131_may_03_next_steps_header.jpg 1556302800 Designing monsters for Hytale https://hytale.com/news/2019/04/designing-monsters-for-hytaleIt wouldn’t be an adventure without monsters to encounter. Today, we’re going to go into a little bit more detail about some of the dangerous foes you’ll face as you explore Orbis in adventure mode. Once again, arachnophobes beware! There’s a spider at the end of this post - stop scrolling when you see the Trork!
A skeleton archer in zone 1.
Skeletons are a staple of fantasy adventure games. In adventure mode, you'll encounter them as you delve into dungeons and pick through ruins above ground. They're common foes, but - like Trorks - they appear in several variants, including archers, mages, and warriors.
"We knew that we wanted enemies that offer different types of gameplay, using different tools, weapons, ranges, and so on" says artist Thomas ‘Xael’ Frick. "Skeletons are the perfect type of enemy for that - they can wear any type of gear. They're a basic 'brick' that can become anything we want because they're based on the human rig - it's very easy to make it modular."
This concept piece shows off a number of skeleton variants.
Skeletons are a standard enemy type, but their appearance - and threat level - changes as you progress through adventure mode. Undead encountered in later zones are tougher, wielding weapons and armour that reflect both their environment and the increased danger that they pose.
A skeleton warrior in zone 2.
"I started investigating how we could do different types of skeleton, using Hytale Model Maker to speed up the process" Thomas says. "It's very easy to change skins and armour." For more information about how Hytale Model Maker's modular character building system works, click here.
Crawlers lurk in the darkness, waiting to leap out at unsuspecting adventurers.
The creatures of the void make up the armies of Varyn, Hytale’s chief antagonist - you can see a little more of him in the key art showcase we posted earlier this year. These demonic monsters come in many forms, but all pose a lethal threat. Their designs tell a story, offering clues to their origin and indicating that they each represent part of a greater threat.
"The challenge was to give them similarities in terms of shapes and colors" Thomas says, "to hint to the player that it's the same family of creatures, the same faction.”
Void Eyes summon allies to their aid when threatened.
Void creatures have a number of common features: pale flesh with purple accents, glowing green eyes, and curving horns. "These curving horns are used in various places to symbolize Varyn" Thomas says. "The creatures are also related in terms of shape, even if they're different." Look out for diamond shapes - they're another key indicator of the presence of Varyn and his minions.
A Void Spawn strides out into a sandstorm.
The most dangerous monsters have an appropriately threatening appearance, particularly the Void Spawn - they’re some of Varyn’s most dangerous soldiers.
Even so, it’s important that all of Hytale’s creatures cohere as part of the game’s overall art style. Whether you’re facing down a Void Spawn or befriending a Kweebec, it should be clear that they are both part of the same universe. This is achieved by ensuring that all creature designs are based on common elements - if you're planning to design your own Hytale creatures one day, then it may be worth keeping these in mind.
"Texturing plays a big role, as does the color palette you use, how you draw shadows, where you place lights and what hues you're using" Thomas explains.
"HMM helps a lot because it's all based on cubes and planes - this helps make things more consistent, but it's not enough by itself. You also have to consider the scale of the characters - all of the heads of our normal-sized characters are about the same. The same is true of hands and arms, the thickness of a finger or claw, and the way they scale."
It's important to use blocks of similar thickness where it makes sense to do so, and a consistent pixel density across all textures. This way, everything blends together and seem to belong to the same universe.
A Trork warrior guards his campfire.
Trorks are an example of the tonal ‘middle ground’ - there’s a sense of fun in their design that wouldn’t be appropriate for an undead or void creature, but they’re still physically imposing and pose a threat.
"Fantasy is often quite similar, and one way to make this ours is to have fun with it." Thomas says. The name 'Trork' actually started life as a joke. "I was experimenting with a basic archetype, the brute creature - a very muscular monster. I didn't want to do an orc or a troll, so I created a hybrid. Everybody ended up calling it a 'Trork', and we ended up integrating that."
All that having been said, some players aren’t going to get their biggest scare when they wander into a Trork camp, or even when they have a run-in with Varyn’s forces. Instead, they’re going to regret taking a wrong turn underground and ending up in exactly the wrong kind of cave...
Sorry about all the spiders. They get everywhere!
To download a zip containing the screenshots and short video clips featured in this blog post, click here!
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5cc33ac6d5829500108a8128_apr_26_designing_monsters_header.jpg 1555706700 Creating creature sounds for Hytale https://hytale.com/news/2019/04/creating-creature-sounds-for-hytaleIn this blog post, we're going to show you how Hytale sfx designer Kieran Fitzpatrick goes about creating sound effects for the game. In order to demonstrate this process, we're going to take a closer look at one of the denizens of zone 1: the swamp-dwelling Fen Stalker.
You may have spied a Fen Stalker or two in a few of the screenshots in the Media section, and it also features in this piece of key art by Thomas 'Xael' Frick:
Art like this helps inform a creature's look, movement style, and role in the game - and each of these factors, in turn, help to establish how it might sound.
"The job of sound effect design is to take concept art, or an in-game model, and bring them to life" Kieran says. "To take the work of the rest of the team, and give it a voice."
"Looking at concept art is the quickest way for me to find out the character's size, what they're made of, and if they're going to be a strong character or a weak character" Kieran says. "That lets me pick out what their sonic signature is."
"I wanted the Fen Stalker to feel bubbly" Kieran says. "Like he's underwater or full of fluid."
Achieving this effect means drawing from some surprising audio sources. In addition to Kieran's own voice, the Fen Stalker sound is created by combining parrot squawks with the braying sound of a zebra.
"I have a huge library of animal recordings that I'll sift through to try to find the sonic element that we're trying to capture" Kieran says. "It just happened to be that the zebra had an otherworldly sound that you don't hear very often."
All of this source material is then processed in an audio workstation - the Fen Stalker's alert sound, for example, is comprised of eight different clips.
"When it comes to my own voice, I want to get as many layers as I can and cut them into shorter clips that I can stack together" Kieran explains. "Taking a throat gargling sound, and having it mix into popping and clicking sounds. Another trick I use is morphing, where I'll take the waveform of one audio track - popping or clicking, for example - and use that waveform to shape another one, such as the parrot squawk."
Bird calls in particular take well to this morphing technique, and surprising results can be achieved when they're combined with a human voice. "Another effect I use a lot is pitch shifting" Kieran adds. "I'll speed things up and slow them down, or reverse them - I do that a lot with my own voice. I'll also use effects like phasing to help bring out a lot of warbly, bubbly sounds."
Here's the end result - a Fen Stalker reacting to the player's presence. Grab your headphones or turn the volume up!
This is a sound you might hear as you explore the swamps of zone 1 - a cue to flee or get ready for a fight. "For each animation I'll do multiple variations, so we're not always hearing the same sound" Kieran says. "I take all of this source material and process it in different ways, while trying to have it be consistent across all of the sounds that are required."
When the sonic profile of a creature has been pinned down, more sound effects are created to accompany other events and animations. Here's what you might hear if you take a Fen Stalker down in combat:
When creating sounds for Hytale's hostile creatures, it's vital that they match the overall look and feel of the game. When we showed off the creation of the zone 1 swamp key art earlier this year, Xael described how Hytale's art style strives for a balance of cute and scary elements. Sound effect design follows the same principles.
"A daily challenge for me is trying to make creatures that need to be menacing come off the way without going full horror game" Kieran says. "While trying to also make what needs to be cute without going full cartoon. It's about maintaining consistency across the world - not looking at a character and figuring out what they sound like in isolation, but figuring out how they sound in Hytale. Learning how far I can take a creature while ensuring that it sounds like it lives on Orbis."
Here's an example of a cuter creature - a chicken running around its pen. This sound effect was created using samples of a real chicken, combined with the sound of clothes being flapped in front of a microphone to provide the impression of rustling feathers.
Here's another, creepier example - a spider leaping down from a tree! Arachnophobes might want to skip this one.
Adorable or terrifying? That's up to you to decide - of course, spiders aren't the worst thing you might encounter as you explore...
Here's the alert effect for a Crawler. Bear in mind that all of the game assets in this post represent work in progress, and details may change as we continue to work on the game!
Arriving at the right sound for a creature is made easier by Hytale's in-game tools. "While playing, you can swap audio without having to quit the game" Kieran explains. "You can change the file, alter the volume or pitch, loop sounds, and limit the amount of times they can play. There's a lot of features that I'm using all the time when implementing new sounds - it's really easy to test what I'm working on, to find out how it feels to listen to it while I'm playing."
When Hytale launches, these same tools will be available to modders. We want to make sure that customizing game audio is as easy as changing any other aspect of Hytale, so that content creators can try their hand at designing their own sound effects!
To download a zip containing the screenshots and short video clips featured in this blog post, click here!
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5cba00dc744ad700108c4e16_april_19_creature_sounds_header.jpg 1555090800 A visual tour of zone 3 https://hytale.com/news/2019/04/a-visual-tour-of-zone-3Last week, we closed out our presentation about the history of Hytale at EGX Rezzed with a closer look at zone 3. If you didn’t catch it at the time, here it is!
As detailed in our introduction to worldgen back in January, each of Hytale’s zones is procedurally generated using its own rules for topography and underground geography. Zones are comprised of multiple biomes and we’re creating unique sets of prefabs for each - taken together, this allows us to create expansive landscapes that have a distinctive visual identity and atmosphere.
At launch, each zone will have a name - you may have caught a glimpse of a few of them in some of the materials that we've put out already. These names aren't final, which is why we've been referring to zones by their numbers over the last couple of months. We'll let you know when the finalized names are ready to be revealed - and bear in mind that, as ever, all of the screenshots and video clips below depict work in progress content and aren't representative of the final game!
Zone 3 is a wintry region comprised of forested valleys, tall mountains, and deep caves. Each zone has an affinity with a particular aspect of elemental magic, and in zone 3’s case that means water in all its forms - from winding rivers to snow-capped peaks and icy glaciers.
The wildlife you’ll encounter in zone 3 differs from that which you’ll find elsewhere. This shot shows a bird variant - a woodpecker - with more to encounter as you explore, from wolves to polar bears and rams.
Here’s a ram - in this case, just minding its own business. Last time you saw one of these, it was being ridden into battle!
Dig through the snow and ice and you’ll find winding cave systems illuminated by bioluminescent mushrooms.
Mine entrance prefabs like this one are found throughout the world. This example from zone 3 is bigger than most, and provides access to pre-existing underground structures - handy if you don’t fancy digging a tunnel the hard way!
This is an example of how multiple mine shaft prefabs can be dynamically combined to create unique underground environments. "It spawns multiple prefabs that flow effortlessly because each prefab 'node' ends in a staircase or ladder" explains world team developer Baxter. "The next prefab will continue that staircase or ladder. Making it have that rad flow was the most important thing for me to get right."
This same process is used to generate dungeons. In this example, you can see the rock and snow of a procedurally generated cave leading out into a prefab dungeon encounter - including a skeletal defender!
Back on the surface, time of day and weather changes dramatically alter how the landscape feels. Here, the setting sun introduces a burst of orange and pink to zone 3’s palette of cool blues, greys and browns.
Rendering and lighting effects are enormously useful for creating atmosphere. Zone 3 is an area of natural beauty that played host to some of the darkest moments in Orbis’ history - there’s a somber sense to the region, even when you’re surrounded by nature.
Central to that history are the Outlanders who call zone 3 their home. We’ll be revealing more about this breakaway human faction in the future, but in the meantime here’s another example of how Hytale’s prefab system generates camps and forts based on designs laid out by our concept artists.
Outlander camps are imposing and bristle with defensive features like high walls and watchtowers. But who are they attempting to keep at bay? You’ll have a chance to uncover the answer for yourself as you explore.
Sturdy thatched buildings and communal firepits provide a different perspective on life in zone 3. It’s not all ice and danger, out here in the wild!
Then again, sometimes it is.
To download a zip containing the screenshots and short video clips featured in this blog post, click here!
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5cb09f4a36e672001743d5de_april12_zone3_worldgen_header.jpg 1554383100 An introduction to building NPC behaviors https://hytale.com/news/2019/04/an-introduction-to-building-npc-behaviorsIn today’s article, we’re going to give you an overview of how Hytale’s behavior scripting system provides ways to bring NPCs and creatures to life. To do this we’re going to show you some aspects of Trork behavior - how they react to the player, the environment, and each other. Of course, these principles apply to Hytale’s other creatures too - and all of them will be customizable by modders. As ever, all of the screenshots and clips in this post represent work in progress, and details may well change over the course of future development.
After a creature has been designed and its model and animations have been created in Hytale Model Maker, the NPC developers are tasked with bringing it to life using the behavior scripting system.
The system uses JSON scripts that call on modular behavior elements that allow us to specify how an NPC perceives the world and how it reacts in a variety of situations. These scripts can trigger animations, changes in state, and more - a very simple example of this would be a script that determines whether a creature that has been attacked flees, or attempts to defend itself. More sophisticated scripts can send NPCs chasing after players or cause them to seek out things they like, such as campfires or food.
“We use building blocks to create an NPC from the ground up” says developer Ioseff Griffith. “We have sensors that are how an NPC interprets the world around it, and that’s how it decides what it wants to do. Then we have actions and motions, which are how they will then interact with the world or their target or whatever it is that they’re focusing on. We combine these to build up components and templates from which variants can quickly and easily be derived.”
In this example, you can see a snippet of the script that causes Trorks to spring into action when they see the player. The script handles several elements of this interaction. It triggers an ‘alerted’ animation, which helps the player understand that they’ve been spotted. It also initiates a ‘beacon’ response that causes other Trorks within a certain radius to be alerted to the player’s presence too. The exact details of this interaction can be precisely tweaked, but the overall implementation is grounded in top-level templates that are common to most NPCs.
This modular approach to behavior makes it easier to implement entirely new NPCs or creatures. “When you script an NPC you don’t need to specify things like ‘swing a sword’ or ‘move X distance to the right’” Ioseff explains. Simply applying an abstract component like ‘flee’ or ‘seek’ is enough - the behavior system then handles the basics of carrying out the desired action.
“At the most basic level, the easiest way to create an NPC is to use existing templates” he says. “These templates are made up of components that we build out of sensors, actions, and motions to make it easy to reuse behaviors across multiple scripts.” One example of a component is sound detection, Ioseff explains. This uses a combination of sensors that allow an NPC to interpret its environment. “When you drop a new NPC into the world it should be able to cope with environments that it hasn’t been specifically scripted for, at least to some degree” he says.
“An important feature of this whole system is high reusability” says developer Eric Reinhart. “It’s easy to modify existing behaviors, replace parts, and it’s also easy to build up something new.”
“For someone who wants to mod things or create content, the advantage is that it’s easy to make simple modifications” Eric continues. “But it also allows modders to change everything down to the smallest detail.”
Here’s an example. By adding a few extra parameters to the Trork hunter’s behavior script, we can add bears to the list of creatures that cause them to enter an ‘alert’ state.
Now we’ve got a Trork hunter who yells at bears! This is purely an example - they won’t necessarily do this in the final game. Even so, this provides an example of how straightforward it is to introduce new details to a creature’s behavior.
Often the behavior set for a new NPC will be mapped out by the design team before it comes to be implemented. Sometimes, this means adding new features to the behavior system that then expand the possibilities of the system further. Occasionally, however, surprises during development will lead to the addition of new behavioral quirks.
“Some small pieces get added during the process” Ioseff explains. “For example, Trorks have a sparring behavior where they start punching each other. When I was implementing this, a defeated Trork would change state. Sometimes they’d immediately switch to a ‘nap’ state - this was funny, because it looked like they’d been knocked out. I implemented it properly, and currently sparring Trorks will knock each other out after a fight.”
The team’s intent is to create creatures and NPCs that contribute to the immersiveness of the world by acting independently of the player. By learning how each creature reacts, players can then come up with creative ways to interact with them. For example, Trorks have a particular fondness for discarded meat:
How the player chooses to take advantage of this information is completely up to them!
The team has found that combining lots of simple behaviors can produce a surprisingly lifelike result. “I’d created a script for a Trork archer, and was trying to test how well the archer fires” Eric says. “This was the first time when we had the possibility for NPCs to switch weapon. It was amazing to try to pursue this archer, and then when you were close enough he would turn around and attack you with a melee weapon. Having these really simple actions combined together was really rewarding.”
In the clip above, you can see an example of several simple Trork behaviors working together. The Trork is napping outside when it begins to rain. This triggers a change of state from ‘asleep’ to ‘awake’, at which point the Trork decides to seek out somewhere warm. He then moves to the nearby campfire and sits down. Several different elements of the Trork’s behavior script are involved in creating this moment, but taken together they create a sense of the creature’s personality. Our goal with the behavior system is to furnish the player with immersive moments like this, and we’re excited to see what modders can come up with when they get their hands on it!
Here are a few more examples of NPC behaviors that you may encounter as you explore Orbis:
Kweebecs don’t need to eat or drink in a normal sense. As plant-people, they’ll seek out bright spots and happily sunbathe to get all the nutrients they need!
Goblins are fond of throwing bombs at a problem. These can destroy blocks and create holes, which is a problem in and of itself. Good job, goblins.
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5ca5060b36e672001743d5cd_april_behavior_header.jpg 1553883900 The creation of a new point of interest for adventure mode https://hytale.com/news/2019/03/the-creation-of-a-new-point-of-interest-for-adventure-modeBuilding content for Hytale involves a collaborative process that we’ve developed in the course of more than three years of work on the game. In this blog post, we’re going to demonstrate this process by showing how our artists and world team developers work together to create new prefabs. As detailed in our first post on world generation, prefabs are essentially blueprints for new environmental features, which means anything from rocks and trees to entire structures and special encounters.
For this example, we’re going to be focusing on the elemental stone circle point of interest, specifically the earth circle found in zone 1. In this case, an initial rough build was done in game to outline the basic look and feel of the prefab.
This very early version established the mood of the piece and also its role in the game. Points of interest like these are an aspect of Hytale’s world quest system - they provide reasons to go exploring and the idea is that players will come to recognize the type of encounter they’re about to face whenever they see one. The exact challenge provided by each of these elemental stone circles may differ, but each acts as an arena for a combat encounter that is triggered when players interact with the area in a particular way.
When this basic outline is established, the next step is for a concept artist to produce more detailed variations that are suitable for each of Hytale’s zones.
These designs were created by artist Polina Logado. The creation of a new prefab often begins when an artist is provided with a brief, but the nature of this brief varies. “There are two ways, usually” Polina says. “The first is that we have some idea of what we want to do but no visualization yet. We know it might be a cave, for example, and in the cave will be an interaction with a certain NPC. I know the zone, the NPC, and roughly what’s going to happen, but that’s it so I have a lot of freedom. In this case I would do three to five rough variants, and we’ll pick one or two to develop further.”
For a prefab like these stone circles, the brief was a little more fixed. “For the stone circles, the description is self explanatory” Polina says. “Each should represent the zone it is in and should be a certain size. My task is to provide ideas in terms of colors, the types of blocks that can be used, what the atmosphere could be, and the general shape. The world team doesn’t follow this first iteration to the pixel - they take these pictures and try to recreate the mood in general, see what’s possible to build which looks as close as possible to what I envisioned.”
This shot shows an early version of the prefab, built in game by world team developer Baxter. At this stage, the challenge is to adapt the original art into block form - choosing block types, applying extra details, and establishing the size and shape of the point of interest as it will appear to players.
“If I’m working on something that’s been painted, I’ll do a build as close as I can get it - with the idea that sometimes things aren’t painted in block form” Baxter says.
At this initial stage, artists and world team developers don’t necessarily work together - the idea is that concept artists establish their own vision for a piece and then the world team adapt it using their understanding of the block system. For this reason, we don’t require artists to design with blocks in mind.
“In the three and a half years that I’ve been doing this, only maybe once did we draw something that it wasn’t possible for the world team to build” Polina says. “They can build anything. I try not to go with too many curves or complicated shapes because it can look noisy, but more or less I don’t really limit myself because the world team is excellent at avoiding this in the final builds. I know it’ll look good - that’s kinda amazing, and it comes with experience.”
It’s at this point that collaboration on the new prefab begins in earnest. You can see one example of this above - Polina has taken the screenshot of Baxter’s build and produced what we call a ‘paintover’. Using the in-game build as a base, she has provided ideas for implementing the flow of the stone circle as depicted in the original concept art, albeit now adapted for the scale of the piece as it will appear in game. “It needed to be more layered, have a sequence” Baxter says.
In addition to paintovers, artists and world team developers will also take advantage of the dev server to gather feedback and work on improvements to the design. “We’ll look around and try to understand how it looks from a player point of view” Polina says. “Is it interesting enough? That takes a while. They’ll look at my notes, try to recreate them, and add their own ideas. There are usually five or so iterations in-game compared to just two at the drawing stage - I get a lot of feedback, and there’s more to work with.”
Here’s an example of the finished earth circle as it may appear in-game. ‘May’ is an important word, because the final step in implementing a new point of interest like this is incorporating it into Hytale’s world generation system. This means establishing rules that determine where and how it can spawn, and how the prefab might adapt to create a consistent overall effect despite potentially appearing in a variety of different contexts.
Generally speaking, you’re more likely to find a stone circle on flat ground where the effect of the original concept art can be consistently realised - but if the circle does appear on a hill or cliff edge, the prefab spawning system will adapt the shape to suit. “There’s a lot of randomization that can happen with one layout of the circle” Baxter says.
This is the end result we’re aiming for - a unique landmark that combines the feel of a hand-crafted build with the dynamism provided by worldgen. We’ve built thousands of prefabs so far, of varying degrees of complexity - and we’ll build many more as we continue to flesh out each of the zones that make up the world of Orbis!
As for what exactly happens when you activate an elemental stone circle - well, you’re just going to have to wait and see. In the meantime, here are a few more examples of points of interest created using prefabs:
A ruined settlement.
A Trork watchtower.
A crumbling castle.
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5c9e465d36e672001743d5b7_poi_header_image.jpg 1553279400 Three new pieces of Hytale music https://hytale.com/news/2019/03/three-new-pieces-of-hytale-musicMusic plays a vital role in establishing the mood for your adventures across the world of Orbis. Over the last couple of months, we’ve provided a few opportunities to sample Hytale’s soundtrack. Back in January, we released two full tracks - Traveling Band and Night on the Dunes - which set the stage for your journey. Then, in our key art showcase, we chose samples from some of Hytale’s ambient music to match the mood of each piece.
Today we’re releasing three new tracks from Hytale’s soundtrack, along with developer insight into how each was composed and how they fit into Hytale’s adventure mode.
“The music is written in Logic Pro X using sample libraries and a MIDI keyboard” explains composer Oscar Garvin. “I can load up a violin on my computer, for example, and play it with the keyboard while adding dynamic change using a modulation wheel. I have to play in every single instrument and stack them on top of each other to make a full piece. The composition aspect is often the easiest part - I usually spend most of the time finding the right instruments that work together so it all sounds as nice as possible. The good thing about game music is that there are fewer rules - and you can get quite creative with Hytale because it’s a fantasy world.”
This piece accompanies your initial adventures through zone 1. Appropriately, it was also one of the earliest pieces that Oscar created for the game. “This is the first exploration piece I wrote for Hytale and it’s gone through a bit of change since its first rendition” Oscar says. “It remains one of my favorite pieces because it brings me back to those days when I first joined the team and got to explore Hytale for the first time. I wanted it to feel like you are embarking on a new journey through the magical glades and breezy plains of zone 1.”
“From the beginning I decided that I didn’t want the music to loop for the most part” Oscar adds. “Since the world is procedurally generated, I can’t know exactly where the player will be or what they will be doing, but I wanted it to feel cinematic. In the vein of movie soundtracks, I tried to create changing moods that make the player feel like they’re on a journey.”
Zone 1 provides a (mostly) sunny start to your adventures in Orbis.
A New Adventure is an example of a track that might play as you’re exploring zone 1 during the daytime. As such, it features motifs that reflect specific elements of this region as well as broader themes of adventure and discovery. “I have to try and imagine the general mood of the area that reflects what you see, while hinting back at the overarching feel of the game - the main themes that make the music feel specifically like Hytale” Oscar says. “Exploration music is also split into two ‘schools’ of more active music and more ambient music. In the overworld, music is chosen from a list of tracks, so you’ll have a varied experience every time. The music may also change based on the weather and time of day.”
The title of this piece tells you everything you need to know about its place in Hytale. Kweebec Village is the soundtrack to the various Kweebec settlements you’ll encounter in zone 1, and its tone and instrumentation reflect the personality of the Kweebecs themselves.
“When I wrote the Kweebec Village theme I knew it had to be cute, light and playful” Oscar says. “Much of the instrumentation and harmony draws on my JRPG influences. The piece sounds like a small ensemble to create the sense that the Kweebecs themselves might be playing this tune as you walk into the village.”
Kweebecs are welcoming folk, but don’t show up in their villages wielding an axe!
“The piece incorporates ornamentation like trills and other playful embellishments to the basic melody to make it feel fun and carefree” Oscar adds. “There are also orchestral elements that thicken the sound, as if the Hytale soundtrack itself is getting behind a small Kweebec band. I usually perceive the music as if someone is playing it, often viewing the instruments as characters in the story.“
Hytale’s music helps us to tell the story of Orbis - indeed, the themes being expressed in any given piece reinforce specific elements of the lore. “I made use of the main Hytale motif as a key building block when creating this melody for the very reason that the Kweebecs are important to the story” Oscar says.
Like A New Adventure, Gaia’s Lament is an exploration piece - but one that covers a different location and addresses a very different set of themes and emotions. “With this piece I wanted to focus on the lonely wasteland aspects of zone 2” Oscar says. “The piece evokes a barren desolate expanse, as well as introspective feelings of pain and regret.”
“I enjoy writing four part harmonies, which I’ve used here to evoke a sort of classical requiem feel towards the end of the track” he continues. “I also began experimenting with space to create a sense of a vast, lonely environment. It required some restraint, stretching material out over time and literally leaving open spaces in the music. This is particularly evident around 2:30, with the lonely flute crying out into nothingness.”
Why is it called ‘Gaia’s Lament’? You’ll just have to wait and see!
Gaia’s Lament illustrates the sort of contrasts we’re hoping to create within Hytale’s music, art, and story - from cute to epic, outgoing to introspective, upbeat to imposing. Despite this tonal range, however, one of the jobs of the soundtrack is to ensure that it all comes together to form a coherent whole.
“It’s important to me that the soundtrack has a sense of musical unity” Oscar says. “I’ve done this not only through themes, but by using the same instruments to create the ‘Hytale sound’. Each area might have its own identity, but there’s also an overarching sound that binds them all together. Most tracks include several themes that link to lore and location, as well as the main themes which glue everything together. Like a cue in a movie, a lot of the music might develop to end up somewhere very different from where you started - just like you can in the game.”
Want to download the video loops featured in this post? Get them here!
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5c95016a36e672001743d5b2_new_music_header.jpg 1552070400 Building with blocks in Hytale https://hytale.com/news/2019/03/building-with-blocks-in-hytaleIt’s important to us that Hytale players have all the tools they need in order to bring their ideas to life. We’ve already covered Hytale Model Maker, which allows players to create their own models and import them directly into the game. In this post we’re going to focus on building in adventure mode, and to illustrate this we’ll chiefly be using blocks and materials that you’ll find in zone 1. In future blog posts we'll have more to share about builder tools, freeform building, creating your own worlds, and more.
There are many block materials in Hytale, and in their most basic form they can be stacked or placed next to one another. The crafting system, however, lets you create many different building materials from the same basic block type. It’s these variations that provide Hytale builders with the freedom to create distinct shapes and varied visual designs.
These four blocks are each derived from the same basic stone material. Having multiple designs allows you to customize your builds with various textures and finishes.
In the image above, you can see many of the different building blocks that you can create out of quartzite, as well as multiple texture variations for each. In addition to regular blocks, you can also see roof blocks, stair blocks, wall blocks, pillars, slabs, and beams. Keep reading to find out more about how each of these are used!
Slabs are half-height blocks that allow for subtle height and width variation within a build. In the clip above, they’re used to fill in parts of an archway without blocking it completely.
Above you can see an example of stair blocks. The most obvious use for these is building staircases, but they also allow you to create more subtle tapered edges than are possible with full blocks.
Beams attach to the center of blocks and allow you to create narrow connections between surfaces. In the clip above, you can see various types of beam - quartzite, stone, and wood.
Wall blocks are another custom shape that allow you to create fences, walls and railings that are thinner than a regular block allows.
Pillars provide an example of how Hytale Model Maker expands the range of options available to builders. These special block variants feature additional details that add variety and visual interest.
Roof blocks are another example of a sophisticated block variant that incorporates elements created in Hytale Model Maker. These sloping surfaces can be used to create detailed rooftops for your builds. The image above shows tiled roof elements, but other variants, like thatched roofing, are available too.
Decorative elements like ivy can be attached to any surface to add detail and to help tie your build into its environment.
Combining furniture sets with block variants provides a lot of options while decorating the insides of buildings. In the image above, pillars and stair blocks are used to create a fireplace and multiple versions of the basic stone and quartzite blocks create visual variety in the wall behind it. The addition of furniture and decorative items finishes off a cozy living area.
Now let’s take a look at what’s possible when you combine all of these different block types into a single build - in this case, a mansion in zone 1.
Footage in this clip has been sped up for the sake of demonstration.
Here you can see a new build by world team member Propzie as it comes together piece by piece. Starting with a simple block outline, detail is steadily added using slabs, roof blocks, ivy and other decorative elements.
We hope this post has got you thinking about the types of builds you’d like to create in Hytale. To give you some more inspiration, here are a few of the Hytale development team’s own creations!
Lonely castle by Roddan.
Citadel by Roddan.
Palace by CptCharles.
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5c829ba736e672001743d59e_building_blocks_header.jpg 1551478800 A peek at some of zone 1's wildlife https://hytale.com/news/2019/03/a-peek-at-some-of-zone-1-s-wildlifeAs we wrote in our worldgen introduction back in January, each zone in Hytale’s adventure mode features its own unique elements, including geology, plants, NPCs, monsters, and animal life. In this post, we’re going to give you a closer look at some of the creatures that you’ll encounter in the forested wilds of zone 1.
Arachnaphobes take note: the final image in this post depicts a spider. Stop scrolling when you see a pigeon!
Grizzly bears are highly territorial and can be found in zone 1’s forests. They become defensive when approached, but won’t attack unless you refuse to get out of their way or directly provoke them. An angry bear will give chase to intruders, but won’t pursue you beyond the bounds of its territory.
Bears like to sleep and, if wounded, will try to flee to find somewhere to recuperate. Disturbing a sleeping bear isn’t a great idea!
Frogs, meanwhile, are an example of ambient life - smaller creatures that provide the world of Orbis with a sense of life and interactivity. They don’t pose a threat in the way that monsters or larger predators do, but they help to make zone 1’s ecology livelier and more diverse.
Ducks, which can be found paddling in shallow water, are another type of ambient creature. This clip shows a couple of behavioral and animation features that help bring Hytale’s animals to life. In addition to specific behaviors like feeding, animals can also turn their heads to look at one another. Little touches like this really help to give creatures personality.
We’ve found that birdlife in particular is useful for creating the sense that you’re exploring a living, breathing world. The presence of birds in flight - like the sparrows in the clip above - creates a welcome impression of life and movement. Not everyone feels the same way, however: Trork sentries are easily distracted by passing birds and have even been known to hurl their spears at them!
Here are a few more examples of the creatures you’ll encounter as you explore zone 1:
A family of deer!
Rats!
Bats!
This noble pigeon!
Finally, a giant spider capable of climbing sheer surfaces in pursuit of prey. Lovely!
We’ll have much more to say about Hytale’s wildlife in the future, from desert-dwelling critters to the inhabitants of the deep ocean. In the meantime, why not get in touch on Twitter or Facebook to let us know which creatures you’re most excited to encounter?
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5c79a19a36e672001743d58a_zone1wildlife_header.jpg 1550868600 Hytale Fan Art Showcase vol. 1 https://hytale.com/news/2019/02/hytale-fan-art-showcase-vol-1It's hard to believe that it's only been two months since we announced Hytale. We've been blown away by the attention that the game has received. After three years of working on the game in secret, every tweet, article, and video means a lot to us.
It's been particularly exciting to see an engaged and creative community start to form. Every piece of fan art that we've received has been shared among the team and has motivated us as we continue to work on the game. In this fan art showcase, we're going to share some of the pieces that we've particularly enjoyed. Thank you to everyone who has shared their art with us!
This stunning poster by Llamafreak really nails the atmosphere we're aiming for with Hytale's adventure mode. With a flaming sword and glowing portal front and center, there's a sense of mystery and epic adventure that we really like. Crucially, though, there's also room for a photobombing Kweebec - it wouldn't be Hytale without one!
This piece was originally speedpainted for a video, and you can find more of Llamafreak's work on their channel.
Llamafreak says:
"I'll always go above and beyond for fan art because it combines what I'm interested in with my drive for improving my artwork. Hytale was one of those perfect opportunities. As soon as the trailer dropped, I sat down, replayed it endlessly, and started work on a poster that I thought would encapsulate the same level of epic-ness that I felt while watching it."
Slamma has produced a trio of original music pieces. You can listen to one of them, 'Subterra', in the YouTube video above. Check out Slamma's channel for the others! We admire how Slamma's music mirrors the feel of Hytale's official soundtrack, and how they've incorporated the game's atmosphere into each piece.
Slamma says:
"Hytale's awesome environments and amazing music inspired me to write my own 'fan-music'! I tried to incorporate themes from the existing Hytale music and did my best to give the music the same vibes as the underground jungle"
This piece of art was inspired by a part of Hytale seen in our World Gen Introduction - the underground lakes and forests beneath zone 4. We like how Roko has taken an environment glimpsed in a piece of concept art and fleshed it out with their own ideas. The startled explorer at the bottom is a nice touch too, providing a sense of the adventures that might be waiting at the bottom of the world.
Rob Kawaev has produced a series of Hytale-inspired props for his YouTube channel, and we were particularly impressed by this fire sword - which was painted by Na Moriko. It's been really exciting for us to see Hytale enter the real world in this way!
If you're feeling inspired to build your own fire sword, you can find instructions in this video.
It's also been exciting for us to see Hytale adapted into lots of different forms by the community. These animations by Aura recreate Varyn and Gaia as pixel art - they look like characters from a lost 16-bit RPG!
Aura says:
"As an aspiring pixel artist, I wanted to use Hytale as a medium for my work. The world and lore of Hytale interested me so much to create pixel art for such incredible characters such as Gaia and Varyn."
This character concept by Ez3z has loads of personality and feels like it has a story to tell. We like how this piece takes inspiration from the core Feran design and combines it with original elements like the brace of potions and hanging lantern.
Ez3z says:
"I've always loved traveling merchants in video games and fantasy worlds, and the world of Hytale struck me as an ideal place for a merchant to wander. I thought an unassuming and adorable but battle-scarred Feran merchant would be a fun idea. He's approachable for his customers, but if he's going to travel on his own in such a dangerous world he'd have to be pretty dangerous himself."
NuFFy's imposing ice dragon has a grand sense of scale. It's great to see our designs adapted into different art styles, and we like how grizzled and mean NuFFy has managed to make the dragon look.
NuFFy says:
“The game looks and sounds amazing for being a block game! and I just wanted to show my support on the great designs you all manage to create with basic shapes!”
This brilliant Trork model is one of several Hytale sculptures created by Nana - others include Kweebecs and even the legendary TurboChicken!. There are so many great details in this diorama, from the surprised-looking pigeons to the line of drool dripping from the Trork's mouth. Ew!
Nana says:
“I felt compelled to recreate the Trork because of everything about the trailer - the art, the music, the ability to free build. The Trorks are gigantic and intimidating, especially with the drool! I just imagine myself in the grip of one of those Trorks, and watching the dangling drool swinging back and forth over my head! Now that's scary.”
Greater's render of Varyn brings one of most dramatic pieces of key art to life in 3D. It's a very professional-looking work that provides a strong sense of the insidious power that Varyn wields. In this case, the abyss is definitely staring back at you!
Greater says:
"After going through all of the concepts on the website and seeing all of the possibilities and scope of the game I just had to make something to express my newfound love for the game. And it did help that Varyn was extremely badass!"
We've only really scratched the surface of Hytale's lore in what we've revealed so far, but Cidercet's rendition of Gaia captures the essence of the character beautifully. There's a real sense of innocence, mystery, and power, and the piece invites further questions. Who is Gaia? Why is she so important? What does she want? We'll give you a clue: it isn't a beta key.
Cidercet says:
“I'm just so excited over all the content we've seen so far for Hytale, especially the concept art! I decided to draw the lovely Gaia for my first piece and I hope to draw a lot more fan art of Hytale's characters in future!”
We'd love to keep sharing fan art with the community. If you've created a piece that you'd like to send to us, tag it #hytalefanart to make sure we see it. We're also working on a submission form that will allow you to send your art to us directly through the website. Be sure to follow us on Twitter for further updates!
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5c81385836e672001743d591_fan_art_showcase_1_header_new.jpg 1550265000 Customizing your character in Hytale https://hytale.com/news/2019/02/customizing-your-character-in-hytaleHytale provides players with the power to customize their character in a wide variety of ways. Whether you’re ransacking a dungeon in adventure mode or taking on other players in a minigame, your avatar provides an opportunity to express yourself. In this article, we’re going to provide an overview of how character customization works, and some of the options that are available to you when creating avatars.
Customizing your character begins in the My Avatar menu. Here, you set your avatar's skintone, eye color, hairstyle, and facial hair along with multiple layered clothing options. You’re able to freely mix and match customization options and choose from a variety of color options for everything from your character's hair to their clothing.
Let’s take a look at some examples.
Examples of some of the short hairstyles available in Hytale.
Longer hairstyles demonstrate how models created in Hytale Model Maker can be used to enhance a character’s look.
Color options provide further personalization!
Hats and accessories can be applied regardless of the hairstyle you choose.
Shirts are a one-size-fits-all covering for your torso, and can be worn underneath ‘overtops’ - jackets, for example.
Character customization is designed to work alongside Hytale’s gear system. When you equip new pieces of armor or other equipment, these are often layered on top of the look that you’ve defined for your character. This provides an extra degree of creative freedom, allowing you to mix and match clothing of different styles with the various tiers of armor that you’ll craft and collect in adventure mode. We’ll have more to share about gear and equipment in a future blog post.
Longer items like coats animate as you move.
Hytale's adventure mode takes place in a magic-rich fantasy world, and many of our customization options reflect this. You'll be able to create a wide variety of fantasy avatars, from youthful explorers to grizzled veterans, farmers, magic users, and artisans.
A character from the grittier end of Hytale's thematic range!
At the same time, minigames provide an opportunity for players to branch out and express themselves in lots of different ways. We wanted character customization to reflect this with a variety of customization themes. In addition to fantasy options, you'll be able to choose from stylish modern clothes and themed costumes.
“It’s about giving players options” says artist Conor ‘Stein’ Goodman. “There are two sides - the fantasy side, and the feeling of being yourself - playing with your friends and wearing everyday clothing. There’s also cosplay and roleplaying. We want people to be able to build a saloon or a spaceship and have a set of costumes they can choose from.”
The Hytale art team abides by a set of guidelines that help to ensure that customization items look good together even when they’re drawn from different themes. “We use specific colors” Stein explains. “For fantasy, we go for darker, more saturated tones. When we go for a more modern piece, they’re lighter and brighter. When we’re making something more fun or cute, they use more pastel colors.”
Server operators will be able to override character appearances while you’re playing on their server, allowing creators to define themed looks for their minigames. For example, the operator of a western-themed server might want everyone to wear period-appropriate outfits.
Inspiration for customization options comes from many different sources. In adventure mode, the zones themselves are a huge influence on the types of clothing options players might be given. In the example above, you can see how a new costume for zone 2 - a sun-baked desert - was designed and built.
“There’s a research phase where I figure out what I want to do and sketch it out” Stein says. “I look up references - like desert clothing - and then I see what looks fantasy enough, what would fit in the game. Everything has to be scaled to fit with the model and work with animations.”
Details inspired by Hytale’s backstory are then added to tie the new asset into the existing world. “I realized that the Ferans in zone 2 wear shackles” Stein says. “I thought that someone in that area might be inspired by that, so I added golden bangles that cover the wrists and ankles. Zone 2 also has cacti that are very bright and colorful, so we reflect that in the clothing. Symbols are important too - there are a lot of symbols in the game, so we try to reflect that as well.”
Customizing your character goes further than just your look. Hytale avatars can show different facial expressions and perform emotes, too. Some of these occur in the course of normal play - gritting your teeth as you swing a sword, for example - while others are triggered manually.
An idle animation showing a range of avatar expressions.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this overview of the options you have for personalizing your character in Hytale. Your human character, that is! You’ll be able to choose from several other playable races for your Hytale avatar.
We’ll have more to share about alternative playable races in the future. If you’ve watched our announcement trailer, you may have already caught a glimpse of some of them - why not go back and take another look?
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5c672809fc50f90012d9521e_character_customization_header_2.jpg 1549652400 Exploring Hytale’s block tech https://hytale.com/news/2019/02/exploring-hytale-s-block-techIf you’ve watched the Hytale announcement trailer or taken a look at our media section, you’ll have seen plenty of landscapes and prefabs - and each of them has been built with blocks. Today we’re going to explain the features and techniques that make Hytale blocks special, and how you’ll be able to make use of them as you build your own creations.
An extreme example of Hytale’s RGB tool in action!
Hytale’s creative tools can be used to change the RGB tint of any block. By changing the red, green, and blue properties of a texture, you can dynamically change its color. Above, you can see an extreme example of this technique: the ground is composed of the same basic grass block, but different areas have had their RGB balance shifted to the extremes.
RGB tweaks being used to create variety within a biome.
Here’s an example of this technique being used in-game. In this shot, the blocks to the right have had their RGB balance shifted towards blue to create a sense of mystery. What secrets await players who venture deeper into the woods?
Transition textures being used to break up the lines between blocks.
Transition textures are used to create smooth transitions between different block types. In the example above, you can see how grass, sand, and gravel intermingle without hard lines forming where the blocks meet.
“The transition texture feature is one of the many tricks we use to try to break up the cubic nature of our game” says Nicolas ‘Bilou’ Gauthier. “It’s an extra quad with a specific texture that can appear at the boundary between different blocks. It’s defined on a per-block basis, with a set of valid blocks that it can target. Builders can use this feature to create nice transitions between blocks”.
The frequency of ore spawns in this shot has been dramatically turned up for the purpose of this example!
Hytale blocks can be rendered in several different ways. The most basic kind of block is simply a cube with a texture defined for each face. We also have blocks that use models and textures defined in Hytale Model Maker. These provide creators with freedom to create some pretty cool effects!
We also have a hybrid type of block that uses elements of both. “This is useful for combining ore with several types of blocks, depending on the location that you are in” says Bilou. “It means that you can find ores in stoney areas, sandy areas, and so on.”
In the example above, you can see how models created in HMM are used to create the sense of ore emerging from the surrounding environment. They even glimmer in the dark!
Reeds and sunken treasure are examples of ‘submersible’ blocks.
These hybrid block types can also be used to create interesting interactions between blocks. In this example, note how certain blocks - the vegetation and treasure chest - intersect with the water, creating the impression of being underwater.
“Submersible blocks can be any block in the world” says Kevin ‘Slikey’ Carstens. “Using a simple option in the configuration file for the block, it can be made to submerge in any fluid - which are also just special blocks. The purpose of this feature is to not impair fluid physics with fences, flowers, or other non-solid blocks.”
“The benefit of this feature is that you can make good-looking flooded areas” Slikey continues. “You can have fences in your river to block NPCs and harvest flowers from the bottom of the ocean. As you can see in the trailer, we have lots of corals in the game which integrate perfectly into the underwater world.”
A tree! You’ve seen lots of these.
Hytale’s treetops provide an example of how custom blocks can be used to create visually diverse environments. Each tree is topped with a crown of leaf blocks, which have unique properties that help us create varied foliage.
Here’s what a leaf block looks like in Hytale Model Maker.
Note how the leaf texture bisects the block from multiple angles, rather than appearing on the outer surface of the cube. This immediately helps the block to feel less ‘blocky’ - but we go one step further. Every time a leaf block is placed, we rotate it to create a sense of random leaf placement.
Taking a walk through the long grass in Hytale.
In the clip above you can see how long grass sways in the wind - and how it reacts as you move through it. This is a special effect that can be applied to a block to help environments feel more dynamic. “The effect you can see on grass or leaves is done on the shader level” says Bilou. “It’s a vertex displacement formula, based on the presence of a nearby entity.”
Punching blocks to demonstrate particle effects. For the purpose of this demonstration, we’ve made each block break in one hit - this won’t be the case normally! Also, the punch animation in this clip isn't final.
Hytale also has a system for attaching particle effects to block types. In this example, you can see how each block breaks apart in a different way when it’s destroyed. “We have ‘particle block event sets’ that can be linked to blocks” explains Matthew ‘Mattht’ Sellers. “Each can define a particle system for various block ‘events’.”
Examples of ‘events’ include walking and running across a block, interactions with soft and hard materials, as well as hitting, breaking, and building with each block type. Particle effects can be tinted in the same way as blocks, too!
“Particle effects add a lot to the overall gaming experience” Mattht says. “It gives you a feeling of being in the world and actually interacting with the various environments you explore - for example, splash effects when you jump into or out of water.”
Entering a cozy cabin through animated double doors in Hytale.
We’ve also built systems to allow blocks to animate in sophisticated ways. In the clip above, the player approaches a pair of double doors that swing apart when they’re opened. “This uses some of the underlying technologies that we have” says Nick ‘Zero’ Drabsch. “For example, the ability to display an animated block inside the world.”
“When a door is opened, we change the underlying block to be the ‘opened door’ block” Zero explains. “Then we visualize that for players by playing an animation on the block’s model. The same system is used for trapdoors, chests, levers, lanterns, and any other block that animates between different states.”
When Hytale launches, modders will be able to use this system to create their own block interactions. “As the system is now, it will be very easy to create custom blocks that change state when interacted with” Zero says. “When custom functionality is needed, our interaction system will allow modders to handle these more complex cases without too much hassle.”
Hytale’s block system is designed to support immersive and interactive environments - whether you’re playing adventure mode, building your own world, or designing a minigame.
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5c5dc292f69b310012f21747_feb_08___block_tech_header.jpg 1549056600 Key art showcase https://hytale.com/news/2019/02/key-art-showcaseIn this post, we’re going to be taking a closer look at three pieces of Hytale key art - the kind of thing you might find used for posters or wallpapers. Artist Thomas ‘Xael’ Frick created each of these images to express the personality of locations and characters that you’ll encounter as you play through Hytale’s adventure mode. Below, you’ll find timelapse videos depicting the creation of each piece - and they also feature ambient music by Hytale’s composer Oscar Garvin.
Each video shows the creation of these pieces with Procreate for iPad. Detail is then added in Photoshop on a PC - you can see the final version of each image at the end of the videos.
“I’m pretty happy with this one because it looks close to what we have in-game” Thomas says. “ I try to find interesting colour palettes in order to create something with a nice atmosphere. Here, it’s lots of green, dark blue and bright blue with a touch of brown. It’s a foggy environment because it’s a swamp. When I draw an environment like this, it helps with building weather - we try to reproduce the same effect for the in-game landscape.”
“I often add some architecture - here we have a Kweebec tree, which will help the world team to build prefabs.” Thomas says. “They can use this for inspiration - they won’t do the exact thing that I do, but they’ll think about how they might create it with blocks.”
“There’s a magical feel, but it’s still a little dark” Thomas continues. “I really like the combination of cute and scary - the monster here is a nice example of that, because he looks a bit scary but he’s cute and fun too. It’s a balance that is not always easy to reach.”
“Usually I try not to block myself into staying in a ‘cubic’ style of sketching” Thomas says. “I start with a normal sketch. On this one, you can see that I started by putting down a big flat area of colour. I’m usually not too worried about which materials will exist in the game, but I still keep in mind that the sand will become a block, the stone will become a certain type of stone, the sky will become a weather asset. I keep that in the back of my mind - the same is true for the plants and other things that are covering the ground.”
“I didn’t want a typical desert” Thomas continues, “with a bright blue sky like the picture we all have in our minds. I wanted to work on the dark, hot, desert aspect, and I wanted a threat. There are two things here that are threatening the player. You have big clouds, like a sandstorm is coming, and you have the tower. I initially thought it might be a dungeon, but in the final version it became a Scarak nest.”
“I could have included a crew, but I placed the player alone” Thomas says. “I like that because it creates the feeling of loneliness and exploration, like you’re discovering untouched lands. I really like this kind of stuff. It’s not about the character - it’s about his loneliness in this landscape.”
“This one was a lot of work, because it’s a very important character” Thomas says. “In the video, you can see that I’ve started over many times and it was very messy. I had no process on this one in the beginning - I was painting over layers and layers and trying to find something interesting. Eventually I found a nice outline and started to define the details.”
“I wanted the character to look a little bit like a demon, and not exactly humanoid” Thomas says. “I wanted to give him a spectral aspect - a little bit ethereal. He’s not from Orbis, so he must look different to the other characters we have in the game. We also had to define a key colour for him - the green of his skin and the diamond shape of his eye is very representative of Varyn and his minions.”
“The orb he has in his hand represents void magic” Thomas says. “In the beginning I thought that might be green too, but for the need of this composition I ended up picking a purple-pink colour, which represents corruption in the world. Most of the time, Varyn is a distant threat. The magic in his hand represents his power - all of his focus is on this spell.”
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5c547e01f69b310012f21742_art_showcase_header_draft_3_feb_01.jpg 1548442800 An overview of Hytale’s server technology https://hytale.com/news/2019/01/an-overview-of-hytales-server-technologyIn this article, we’re going to introduce the technology that underpins every Hytale server - both how they work and how you’ll interact with them. In order to do so we’ll need to use some technical language, but we hope that you’ll be excited by the work we’re doing to make Hytale servers fast, easy to access, and secure.
We’ve had lots of questions about Hytale’s engine and server technology since the announcement in December - it’s great that so many people are interested in running their own Hytale servers! Here’s the answer to the most common question: Hytale’s client is written in C#, and servers run on Java. We’ll cover in-game scripting in a future post, as it’s a separate topic.
We’ve chosen to use Java for Hytale servers for a multitude of reasons. For one, our backend team is very comfortable writing high-performance Java and that has let us heavily optimize our server code. Furthermore, we know that our community has a lot of experience with Java too - it’s important to us that it is as easy as possible for server operators to get up and running. Using C# for the client provides additional performance benefits, and we’re very happy about the results we’ve seen so far.
Hytale’s server technology will be provided shared source, which means that everyone will be able to read the server code. The game client, however, will be closed in order to provide a common baseline for server operators and players. This allows us to provide a secure and reliable experience, guard against cheating, and provide modders and content creators with a shared foundation to work from.
Because Hytale is designed from the ground up for modding, server operators will be able to create and customize every aspect of the game - from environments and game mechanics to parts of the UI itself. We want our players to be able to build upon what we’re working on, but we also don’t expect the community to do our work for us.
In effect, this shared source system means that it is possible for servers to run a modified version of the game, grounded in a client that is common to every player. Every server represents its creator’s vision for the game - and because server operators have a consistent platform to build upon, it is straightforward for players to jump between wildly different experiences. When you connect to a Hytale server, the client will automatically download all of the content needed in order to play - models, animations, sounds, and everything else.
An example of how new or changed assets are loaded automatically when a player connects to a server.
Eagle-eyed readers of our UI sneak peek article will have noticed a navigation tab called ‘servers’ at the top of Hytale’s main menu. Hytale’s server browser will let players quickly find community servers to play on.
We will allow you to sort and filter by the types of games you’d like to play - adventure mode or minigames, co-op or competitive - as well as by other factors like languages supported. A tagging system will allow servers to designate the type of content they provide alongside traditional server list features like banners and graphics. As an example, users can favorite servers that they enjoy, and you’ll be able to sort the server list by the total number of favorites that each server has received in order to quickly find the most popular places to play.
A concept for a server listing in the Hytale server browser.
The Hytale server browser will be actively moderated, and all server operators - from large minigame networks to smaller community servers - are required to adhere to a lightweight terms of service. Appearing on Hytale’s server browser won’t be necessary in order for players to join a server, but we expect that it’ll be the way that many players find servers to play on.
Furthermore, we’ve implemented technology into Hytale to make playing together as painless as possible. The friends list allows you to jump into servers that your friends are currently playing on, and also allows you to connect to their adventure mode worlds. To ensure that this is a smooth process, we’re using UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) protocols to handle port forwarding automatically when possible - if that is unavailable, then we attempt NAT punchthrough. What this means in practical terms is that you can join your friends’ worlds through your friends list as long as you’re both connected to the internet without ever having to set up port forwarding - regardless of your router’s settings. Making it easy to play with your friends without a hitch is very important to us.
We've poured everything we've learned in more than six years of running game servers for millions of players into Hytale's server technology. Our ambition is to eventually implement solutions to all of the difficulties that we've encountered over the years - to anticipate the issues that players and server operators may face and have an answer for them. We're looking forward to working closely with the community, and we'll be reaching out to ensure that we factor in your requirements and ideas.
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5c4b5d1ef69b310012f2173d_server_header.jpg 1547843580 Take a closer look at Hytale Model Maker https://hytale.com/news/2019/01/take-a-closer-look-at-hytale-model-makerIn this post, we're going to give you a closer look at the Hytale Model Maker - the browser and app-based modeling, texturing, and animation toolkit that comes with Hytale. You may have caught a glimpse of it already in the announcement trailer or read about it on the game page, but it's time to dig a bit deeper into what these tools mean for content creators.
First, let's find out about the history of Hytale Model Maker from the people who created it.
"Back in 2011, I started working on software called CraftStudio" says Élisée Maurer, who leads development of Hytale Model Maker alongside Nicolas 'Bilou' Gauthier. "The idea was to try to democratize game making by providing really simple tools for players to make their own games - and also make it fun, make it like a game, by providing real-time collaboration."
"That's how I met Bilou" Élisée continues. "He was one of the first people to buy CraftStudio and play with it. Then we did a bunch of game jams together and at some point I figured that maybe we could do something that's a bit more modular, that could go further - and if it worked on the web, that would be awesome."
As Élisée and Bilou began work on this new project, they became aware that the Hytale team were using CraftStudio's modeling tool. "They had started working with just CraftStudio's model editor because it had such a unique visual style and matched what they wanted to do" Élisée says. "But they were limited by what the software could do."
The solution was to bring Élisée and Bilou into the team - and build new software to assist with the development of Hytale. It has now become the toolkit we use to create all of the items, creatures, and animations that you see in-game - and when Hytale launches, you'll be able to use it to create your own.
Hytale Model Maker gives content creators the power to create new game assets without having to go and learn high-end 3D software. It was important to us to provide tools that were powerful but presented a low barrier to entry. If you decide that you want to start making things for Hytale, we plan to provide you with everything you need in order to do so. From model creation to texturing and animation, it’s all presented on one screen.
Users are able to quickly access and edit existing Hytale assets or build their own creations from scratch. When that's done, the export process is easy and allows you to immediately see your work reflected in the game. "What you build will fit right into the game" Élisée says. "It's not like we're working with an external 3D building tool and we have lots of constraints on what can be imported and exported. We just provide exactly what you need."
Hytale Model Maker's modeling system uses cuboids and flat planes. This allows for more sophisticated designs than are possible with blocks while ensuring that model making remains accessible and maintains a consistent visual style.
"It's really easy to get started with because it's only boxes, basically" Élisée says. "You only need to be able to create some boxes and resize them."
Every creature, character and item that you can see in our screenshots and trailers has been created using boxes and planes. To demonstrate, here's a timelapse of artist Thomas 'Xael' Frick creating a new sword:
Sped up 2000% - just under 30 minutes of work in total!
In this video, Xael uses Hytale Model Maker's painting tool to quickly texture the model, followed by using Photoshop to fill in the finer details. HMM allows you to paint on to your models directly, but you'll have the option to import texture work from other art tools if you require.
Once you've created and textured the model, a static object like a sword is ready to export into Hytale straight away. Creatures require a little more work to bring them to life, and that's where Hytale Model Maker's animation suite comes in.
In this example, we're going to watch animator Charlie 'NinjaCharlieT' Tran build a new run animation for Hytale's zombies:
Sped up 2000% - 20 minutes of work in total!
Characters in Hytale are modular, and Hytale Model Maker lets you quickly preview how a model or animation might look with different attachments applied. Let's take another look at our zombie - this time, we're going to apply several attachments to show how quickly and easily we can preview the model with different gear or even a fancy new haircut.
You might remember this concept of ‘modularity’ from our article about NPCs back on announcement day. Hytale Model Maker's ability to quickly switch up character elements allows us to experiment with lots of new NPC variants - and it'll allow Hytale’s modders to do the same!
Every aspect of Hytale Model Maker is collaborative - imagine Google Docs, but for game asset creation. That means that one modder can be working on a new model while another person textures it and another starts on animation - all in real time. Teams of modders can create a shared central repository of assets for their project and invite new creators to join.
“It’s nice to have a shared workspace, because you’re always working with the latest version of everything” says Élisée. “When you’ve got some questions or you want to check something out with a different artist, you can just tell them to load up a model and they can preview your work or even change it.”
In this clip, Xael and Élisée are working on the same creature simultaneously - a corgi! As Élisée adjusts an animation, Xael paints the corgi’s eyes and nose. Note how Xael’s alterations appear automatically in Élisée’s view, even as he works on a completely different aspect of the creature.
Hytale Model Maker’s collaboration features make it easy for experienced content creators to share their expertise with newcomers, too - we’re excited about its potential as a teaching tool that will help new game developers to gain confidence by working together. “I fell in love with making games because we created a group of five or ten people and did a bunch of game jams together” says Bilou. “I really hope we can have some great Hytale game jams someday.”
“I love the idea of creating together” says Élisée. “I always compare programming and game-making to being a wizard - you’re making magic out of a computer by typing and drawing stuff. I want everybody to have that chance, and I guess with Hytale we have a chance of actually realizing that vision.”
Hytale Model Maker will launch alongside Hytale and be available as both a downloadable app and through your web browser: and what’s more, it’ll be completely free.
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5c42380f360f370012c6de63_hmm_blog_header_2.jpg 1547417100 Music track preview, looking back at the announcement, and an FAQ update! https://hytale.com/news/2019/01/music-track-preview-looking-back-at-the-announcement-and-an-faq-updateHey all! As of today, it’s been exactly a month since the Hytale trailer unveil. As such, it feels appropriate to cast an eye over the last month and address some of the most common questions we’ve received.
Before we get to that, we’d like to give you a further taste of Hytale’s soundtrack - created by our composer, Oscar Garvin.
We hope you enjoy these two tracks! They represent just a small sample of the full Hytale soundtrack.
Firstly, it's an understatement to say we’ve been blown away by the reaction of the community. Our internal goal was to reach approximately 250,000 views during the first week after the reveal with 1,000,000 being our ‘crazy awesome’ best-case scenario. However, here we are a month later at 32,000,000 views on the unveil trailer. Despite having a multitude of backup plans for various parts of the Hytale unveil not going well, we didn’t have any sort of plan in place for the trailer blowing up to this extent!
This greater-than-expected amount of attention has created a few problems that we’re currently solving. For example, instead of getting a few dozen team applications in the first month we ended up getting over 900. In response, we’ve had to implement new software to help us handle this volume of applications.
Obviously, this is an incredibly fortunate position to be in. Many of us have worked on projects that have never received this level of attention in their entire lifespan. Seeing the community’s enthusiasm manifest itself in various ways - like fanart, analysis videos and community groups - is beyond cool. As a group of developers who are community focused, being able to draw energy from your support fuels our development and informs our decision making.
No matter how much attention the trailer receives, however, nothing is more important than the development of the game itself. Our goal is to strike a healthy balance between updating you on the progress of the game and actually developing the game! That being said, let’s get into some of your most frequent questions.
This is definitely the number one question! Simply put, we don’t have an accurate timeline to give you yet - but we can however confidently say that the beta will not launch within the next few months. As we proceed with development we will no doubt gain a clearer picture of the timeline.
Some members of the community have speculated that the beta would be launching soon after the announcement - even in January. However, you may also know that when we announced the game we also announced that Hytale had received substantial investment.
The key reason we sought out this investment was to allow us to develop Hytale without compromising on our standards as developers or your standards as players. We want to avoid feeling pressured to deliver the game too early - and happily, funding from our backers means that we can develop Hytale in the way we want without having to ask our community to contribute or deliver the game before it’s ready.
In hindsight, we definitely could have communicated more clearly about the development timeline. You can rest assured that as we get closer to beta, we’ll let you know. We’re working hard to get there!
We’re trying to keep this blog post non-technical in nature. We can say, however, that we’ll be covering some of the high-level concepts regarding modding and content creation in a more technical blog post very soon.
We have two reasons that when combined together made a pretty compelling case for us to not have these just yet.
Firstly, we really want to focus on the development of the game as our number one priority. Maintaining an official Discord, subreddit, and forums generates more work than you might suspect and can distract from development. If we had these things, we’d want to make sure that we were spending the appropriate time looking after them. Right now, that time would be better used making the game.
Secondly, with beta still being a while away, we don’t want our biggest fans to burn themselves out. It’s an effect we’ve observed before in other games: the danger scenario is that the people who are the most excited about Hytale end up tiring themselves out while waiting. This is something we want to be mindful of.
We are of course still listening to feedback. We’re reading everything sent to our social media accounts, fan subreddits and unofficial discord channels. Even if we haven’t officially replied on some of the topics yet, that feedback is valuable to us. One final note is that while we’re generally happy with the resources the community is providing, you should remember that if something doesn’t come directly from us it’s not official. Watch out for incorrect information and clickbait!
Yes! We’re finalizing the integration of fancy new software that will allow us to handle the number of job applications we’re getting. We should have that up and running next week, and we will advertise more positions then. If you’re someone who applied already - depending on where you are along the process - then you may receive an email from us to re-apply using the new system. Apologies for any inconvenience this causes.
Yep! There was a tiny glimpse of this in the trailer, but there's also a full suite of optional builder tools that are accessible in this mode. Those tools were developed in direct association with our world team who each have a deep experience of building maps with blocks. There are certainly enough builder tools to have a blog post dedicated to them in the future.
Our original plan was to rely on the pop-up confirmation on the website to confirm the beta signup. However, not getting an email additionally led to some unexpected confusion. The scale of the amount of beta signups also presented a new problem for us to solve. Sometime in the next week, we’re switching to a new system so that sign-ups going forward have a reliable email confirmation that is sent alongside the beta sign-up. For those who have already completed the sign-up process, no further action is needed. Alongside the first newsletter, you’ll also receive confirmation that your beta signup was received.
We have no plans at this time to officially support the game client on Linux. However, we can confirm that Hytale’s server will run on most Linux distros (more details on which to come later).
Hytale will include multiple languages at some point during beta - we don’t have information to share on which languages and when. We’ve previously used crowdsourced community translations in the past to good effect. This is something we are considering doing again.
We’ve seen a lot of people unofficially translating our posts into other languages and we just want to take a quick moment here to say thank you to everyone who has been doing that. It’s been really helpful.
Yes. For years to come, we plan on supporting the game with new features, content updates and more.
We noticed that since last week’s worldgen preview - there were a few incorrect conclusions regarding how the map works, we think this is because the “zones” concept art presented the world in the form of slices. We want to clarify that the zones are not laid out like concentric circles.
You can think of worldgen in the shape of a traditional world map. The map continues to generate in the infinite lands with all of its normal features except a few storyline content prefabs.
The video player is designed primarily for YouTube and Twitch. For the purposes of the unveil we weren’t clear of the requirements that we needed to meet in order to show the YouTube player in the trailer - so we opted to use our own custom video player. This is another feature that will no doubt get its own blog post sometime.
See you for the next blog post - and in the meantime, enjoy the music!
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5c3bb641c2188700121c02d8_musicandfaqartwork.png 1546637880 Worldgen Introduction https://hytale.com/news/2019/01/worldgen-introductionToday we're going to provide a first look at Hytale's world generation system: the technology that underpins every area you'll explore as you progress through adventure mode. As you might expect, there's a lot to cover - so let's get to it!
First, however, a quick note: in order to focus on worldgen and avoid spoilers, we've disabled creatures and enemies in most of the screenshots below.
This piece of concept art is one of the first we produced when development of Hytale began. It depicts four of the zones that make up the planet of Orbis, which is where the bulk of Hytale's storyline takes place.
As you can see, each zone is unique. Our world generation system draws from a different set of rules for each one, and each has its own set of biomes. If you look closely, you'll get a sense for how underground topography changes from the winding caves and dungeons of zone 1 to the subterranean forests of zone 4!
Here's an example of zone-based worldgen in action. You're looking at a top-down view of zone 1, comprising several different biomes: forests, lakes, hills, ravines and more. Our worldgen system ties these together seamlessly along with topographical features like ponds and rocky outcrops. You can also see a handful of generated points of interest.
Each zone has its own set of blocks and distinct content, including furniture sets, NPC races, creatures and critters, plantlife, weather, and geology. Exploring a cave in Borea will be very different from exploring a cave in the Emerald Grove!
Zones have different coastal features, too, including specific biomes for the shoreline. Above you can see a mountainous coast in zone 3, whereas below you can see the sands of zone 2.
These unique worldgen elements continue underwater, with secrets to find if you're brave enough to venture beneath the waves.
That's not all, however! Venture far enough from land and you'll encounter the ocean shelf: a sudden drop-off at the edge of each zone that leads to the deep ocean. The deep ocean is, effectively, a zone all by itself: it holds many dangers - and rewards - for intrepid explorers to discover. You’ll have to prepare carefully in order to survive in the depths!
Beyond the oceans lie the infinite lands. Hytale's storyline won't take you out that far, but our worldgen tech will ensure that there's always something for you to find beyond the edges of the world.
World generation applies to underground areas too, including caves and dungeons. While these will play differently in each zone, there are a few universal principles that govern each.
Caves are full of secrets and creatures to encounter, and will be an important source of resources. They are entirely procedurally generated, based on rules that differ from zone to zone.
Dungeons are a little different. They comprise multiple chambers and encounters joined by connecting passageways, often culminating in a “Final Room”, providing challenges and special rewards tailored by our worldteam.
Dungeons are just one example of how prefabricated content is incorporated into Hytale’s world generation. We’ve created thousands of prefabs - 3,785 so far! They run the range from environmental features like trees and rock faces all the way up to ruins, buildings, and special encounters. These are distributed throughout the world at random and sometimes appear only once, but may feature hand-designed challenges, objectives, and rewards.
Each prefab is custom-built, and is the equivalent of a blueprint for a particular piece of content. In addition to their visual design, they can have their own triggers and events attached too.
Above you can see concept art for a specific kind of prefab: the entrance to a portal dungeon. When you meet the criteria necessary to unlock one, you'll enter a hand-designed encounter with its own rules and terrain. You'll be limited in what blocks you can break within these portal dungeons, challenging you to overcome obstacles using your other skills.
Depending on where you find them, portal entrances can take several different forms:
What you find on the other side will vary massively. Here's a glimpse at an early portal dungeon - the Temple of Gaia - along with one of its component parts, the Garden of Elements.
You've now got a sense of the broad principles that govern world generation in Hytale - from unique zones to hand-designed dungeons. All of this is governed by a set of rules, and some of our favourite environmental features come about when two contrasting sets of rules collide. We call these happy little accidents: moments when the principles we've laid out for a given zone combine in surprising ways.
We've discovered rivers that carve their way through mountains and dungeons that have been split in half by a ravine. Swampy terrain might creep halfway up a mountain, or you might be exploring a cave only to discover a lost mine deep within. These small touches help ensure that every world - and the adventures you have there - truly feel different.
What’s more, all of the world generation systems we’ve created will be fully customizable by content creators. You can tweak worldgen rules - or write your own - through configuration files. You can also build and share your own prefabs and dungeons, including instanced portal dungeons. You can create and configure your own blocks, environments, and even NPCs. Combining all of these options together gives content creators the power to craft biomes, zones - and ultimately worlds - of their own!
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5c2fc72077b784001878472f_cover.jpg 1545323280 Happy holidays from the Hytale team! https://hytale.com/news/2018/12/happy-holidays-from-the-hytale-teamThis has been an incredible week for the entire Hytale team. As we publish this, the Hytale announcement trailer has been viewed more than 11 million times - a number that far exceeds our wildest expectations!
We can't thank the gaming community enough for all of the amazing support we’ve received so far: the tweets, reaction videos, fanart, suggestions, speculation, all of it! We’ve been absolutely blown away by the excitement surrounding the game.
It's been great to receive so much attention from the press, too. Seeing the game covered everywhere from Eurogamer, PC Gamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, PCGamesN and GameInformer to VentureBeat, Variety, Hollywood Reporter and more has been fantastic for the team after so many years of working on Hytale in secret.
Nonetheless, we understand that with all of this attention comes high expectations. For that reason, we're taking extra steps to ramp up production and ensure that we deliver a game you'll love. For one thing, we're expanding our hiring plans. Keep an eye on our jobs page in the new year for a full list of the positions that we'll be recruiting!
We know that many of you are hungry for more information about Hytale. Starting in early January, we’ll be publishing a series of articles on this blog going into detail about different features of the game, from our world generation tech to the Hytale Model Maker.
In particular, we know that combat, modding and server specifics are important to large parts of the community. We're paying special attention to these topics, and in the new year we're going to be reaching out to community leaders to make sure we're providing you with the information you need. Watch this space!
In the meantime, we want to provide a quick look at something we’ve been working on recently. Amongst all of the excitement of the announcement, we’ve been researching improvements to Hytale’s weather and fog system - and this week we implemented it into the game. These effects weren't finished when we produced the trailer, but here's a glimpse of what Hytale's engine is capable of:
The effects in this video have been drastically turned up in order to best demonstrate their impact. Not every misty winter morning will be quite this misty, but we're really pleased with the effects we're able to achieve with these new features. Of course, modders and content creators will be able to tweak weather and fog settings to their heart's content!
Make sure you watch that video with sound on, too, or you’ll miss out on a preview of Hytale’s atmospheric soundtrack.
This is only a glimpse of a small aspect of the game, but we hope you’ll join us in the new year for much more Hytale content. In the meantime -
Happy holidays, everyone!
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5c1bc324d621950018ca0727_holidays_header.jpg 1544706900 The Hytale FAQ: December 13th 2018 https://hytale.com/news/2018/12/hytale-faqWe’ve just unleashed a hurricane of information about Hytale, so it’s natural that you might have some questions. Below, you’ll find an extensive FAQ covering many important topics, including an extra FAQ aimed squarely at content creators.
\nThis is a really exciting day for us for two reasons. We’re not just announcing a game - we’re also taking a major step forward in our journey as game developers.
Hypixel started as just the two of us making Minecraft maps. We would spend endless hours cobbling our creations together and putting them online. Little by little we developed a following, and eventually we were able to launch our own server.
As the server grew, so did the team. Eventually, dozens of developers came together from all around the world. We shared a common goal: to create exciting experiences for our players and to have fun doing it.
To date, the Hypixel server has served more than 14 million players and earned four Guinness World Records including ‘most popular independent server for a videogame’. Even more importantly, it has brought together a community that we cherish being part of.
Our dream has always been to grow from a mod team into a fully-fledged game studio - to take everything we’ve learned and apply it to a new project that challenges and excites us. To allow our team to chase their ambitions, and to provide our community with even more opportunities to have fun, compete, and be creative.
That dream is Hypixel Studios, and our first game is Hytale.
You can discover more about Hytale all over this website. If you haven’t yet, go watch the trailer! Or check out the game page for an overview of what we’ve been working on for the last three years - a project that combines a new adventure game with Hypixel minigames and empowering tools.
So far, we’ve been able to self-fund the development of Hytale thanks to the success of the Hypixel server, but it’s an ambitious project and we want to make sure that it lives up to its potential. For that reason, we thought about several options for supporting the ongoing development of the game - from crowdfunding to preorders. In the end, however, we felt that outside investment was a better solution. Happily, we’ve been able to secure the funding necessary to take Hytale to the next level - and in the process we’ve met some amazing people who are in a position to help us deliver a game we’ll be proud of.
We initially approached Riot Games (developer and publisher of League of Legends) for advice back in 2016 - after all, they know what it takes to grow a successful studio with its roots in a modding community. Those initial conversations developed into a shared enthusiasm for what we are creating. As of today, we’re thrilled to announce that Hypixel Studios has launched with Riot Games as an investor. We consider ourselves very lucky to have established this relationship as we embark on this new chapter of our journey.
Joining Riot in their investment is an angel advisory group comprised of Anthony Borquez, Dennis Fong, Rob Pardo, Peter Levin, Jeff Lo and Min Kim among others. It’s humbling and exciting to be learning from these veteran game developers and industry experts. Many of us on the team grew up playing their games, and it’s incredible to think that some of their sons and daughters are now playing Hypixel.
This investment means that we’re able to level up our production values across many disciplines, and to provide stability for our team. It also allows us to avoid many common pitfalls of game development, like feeling pressure to release too early or overreliance on crowdfunding. This is our first game as a newly-formed studio, but we’re excited to embrace the challenges that lie ahead.
We’re grateful to Mojang and Microsoft, whose forward-thinking support for content creators from day one has allowed us to produce work that we’re proud of. The Hypixel server for Minecraft: Java Edition will continue to be actively developed by its own dedicated team.
Finally, and most importantly, we’d like to thank our community and everybody who has supported us over the last five years. Especially the Hypixel network volunteers, as well as the builders, players, and video creators who have allowed us to lay out such an exciting path for our future.
We can’t wait to go on this journey with you.
Simon and Rezzus
Hypixel Studios
html Simon and Rezzus https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5c1246b5ea48e600136fd6b8_welcome_header.jpg 1544706300 Get to know Hytale’s NPCs https://hytale.com/news/2018/12/get-to-know-hytale-s-npcs
Our first look trailer has given you a glimpse of some of the hostile and friendly creatures that you’ll encounter in Hytale’s adventure mode, but in this article we’re going to dive a bit deeper. Below, you’ll find information on a number of creature types, and we’re going to use each one to explore a different aspect of how Hytale’s NPC system works.
In Hytale, NPC factions form societies with their own culture, habits, blockset, and role to play in the story. First, let's get to know some of Hytale's friendlier inhabitants: Kweebecs, who will become some of your earliest allies.
Let's take a look at an example of Kweebecs at home. The screenshot below shows several aspects of the Kweebec blockset, as well as the various stages of the Kweebec life-cycle: from sprouting seedlings to autumnal elders.
This life-cycle is an important part of the story of the Kweebecs. As they age, they grow slower and slower until they stop moving completely, release a burst of energy, and become much more like the trees they resemble.
When an elderly Kweebec adopts this new form, their seeds fall to the ground and form the basis of the next generation. Young Kweebecs never get to meet their parents: instead, they learn about their history from Treesingers. These are elders who tend to these young seedlings as they take their first steps into the world.
This isn't just a story that you'll read about - it's an important part of how Kweebecs operate in the game!
Trorks make for formidable enemies, and come in many shapes and sizes. Hytale's NPCs are modular, and this means that we can create lots of variations of the same basic creature. In the concept art above, you can see several different Trork classes - from eagle-eyed sentries to powerful chieftains.
Each of these Trork types has a different pattern of behavior, and this is the reflected in the way they look and act in-game.
When you rush into battle against a band of Trorks, you'll want to pay attention to all of the different types of foe you're facing.
We're using Trorks as an example here, but lots of Hytale's NPC factions work this way. There are lots of different subtypes to discover, and with in-game scripting and the Hytale Model Maker, you'll be able to create or customize your own NPC variations too!
Animals are one of the key ways that we're creating a sense of interactivity in the world of Hytale. You'll have lots of opportunities to hunt, domesticate, and raise animals yourself, but we're working on systems that allow animals to interact with each other in interesting ways too.
These saber-tooth tigers hunt in packs, prowling through the undergrowth to get the drop on prey animals. Understanding this behavior is very important if you want to hunt them yourself: or just stay out of their way!
Whether wild or domestic, we've tried to ensure that animals behave intuitively. Little chicks will follow a mother hen, for example, and grown chickens will jealously guard their eggs: expect to get pecked if you steal one from a chicken that isn’t familiar with you! If you create a safe environment for your chickens - a coop, for example - then you’re more likely to be able to gather eggs without fuss.
There are lots of these interactions to discover as you explore - and each of them, we hope, makes the world feel that little bit more alive.
Alongside the wide roster of characters and creatures to discover in Hytale’s open sandbox, we're also implementing a set of hand-designed boss encounters and combat challenges. These work slightly differently to the creatures you'll encounter elsewhere: each is designed for a specific environment and takes planning to defeat.
Boss encounters are intended to add depth to the game, whether you're playing solo or taking them on with a group of friends. It usually won't be enough to simply show up with strong armor and a weapon that does loads of damage: you're going to have to learn how each monster operates in order to overcome them.
We want these encounters to be a surprise, so we're going to avoid spoiling too many of them before you get a chance to play the game for yourself. Needless to say - there are worse things than giant spiders lurking in Hytale's deepest depths!
We're going to be providing much more info on Hytale's NPCs in the future. For now, we'll leave you with glimpse at some more of the critters that you'll encounter on your journey.
Behold! A cat.
Regard! This pigeon.
Observe! One snake.
Seek to emulate! The relaxed enthusiasm being demonstrated by this young Kweebec.
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5c125b98ea48e600136fd6be_npcs__1_.png 1544706000 A sneak peek at Hytale’s user interface https://hytale.com/news/2018/12/a-sneak-peek-at-hytale-s-user-interfaceWe’ve been working on Hytale for several years, and today we finally revealed the whole scope of the project. While we made a choice not to show too much of Hytale’s interface in the trailer, we want to take this opportunity to show what we’ve been working on behind the scenes.
Sometimes you don’t get a real sense of how a game plays until you see how you interact with it, so we hope the following screenshots and concepts give you a deeper sense of what Hytale’s adventure mode is like. Obviously, these screenshots and concepts reflect an in-development version of the game: things are likely to change by the time you get to play it!
Our character creator allows you to customize your avatar to your heart’s content. You can customize everything from clothing to physical appearance, including multiple color options for each item! Avatars are modular, so you can mix and match items from different sets. Look closely and you’ll see that this image also gives you a glimpse of our main menu!
The map helps you find quests, dungeons, World Gates, and even your friends. In this case, the player is exploring a dangerous temple in Hytale’s adventure mode. As you explore, your map will continuously be updated with new things to do.
We’re still experimenting with the UI, particularly when it comes to crafting. One of our ideas is to incorporate crafting and processing directly into the inventory screen, letting you easily and quickly assemble the gear you need to survive in the wilds while also offering flexibility for PvP players.
As you progress further in the game, you will be able to experiment with crafting ingredients and found components to make powerful weapons and gear. This rewarding crafting system allows you to combine and experiment to discover new recipes, while also showing you all of the recipes that you already know.
In Hytale, you'll create and loot increasingly powerful equipment - the above picture shows off some tooltip concepts that we’re experimenting with. We want to make it as easy as possible for you to assess the strengths and weaknesses of your gear on the fly!
We’ll be showing much more of Hytale’s UI over the coming weeks and months. Keep an eye on our social media feeds - and this website - for more reveals!
html Hytale Team https://cdn.hytale.com/variants/blog_cover_5c1246dfea48e600136fd6bc_ui_post_header.jpg