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ABSENT LOG Dev Update 8/15/2025
🕑 Added 2025-08-16 02:59:15 +0000 UTC
This month we are excited to showcase some further work on Residential!
“ Concourse is our big high priority item at the moment, but a bit more time is needed to showcase substantial updates. So as Tekka continues his work on concourse, I have been diligently working on a handful of visual improvements and animation reworks, most notably movement and weapon handling. Alongside these updates, I have been knocking out some general assets here and there that would be good to have. Certain furniture and detail items, such as couches, tables, wall details, and a collection of display graphics like ads and eventually, maps to be used in kiosks.
Another personal project I've been tackling is getting some more work done in Residential, which is a level that I've personally been spearheading. I've been experimenting with simplifying the level and texture density of walls and floors, and using our normal map decals to detail up certain areas. This in conjunction with the detail parts Tekka and I have made, like his Greeble Unit, has allowed me to quickly touch up areas and add more in depth parts where detail can be broken up and not have to make entirely new textures for each bit of detailed walls.
A personal challenge is seeing the vision sometimes when you are so early on a level. Doubly so for one that has larger spaces. It really can't be understated the importance of creating ambience with the right props and clutter. Another big backlog item is creating that general clutter that will be utilized in these kinds of spaces. The other side to this that is nice is that once you have the first set of level items done, like general textures and room layouts, it becomes easier to make things up as you need them. Things tend to flow fairly organically.
The hab modules, which serve as individual living quarters for the crew, proved to be quite a challenge. Our original concept sketch for these, had them off set from each row to form a sort of zig zag pattern. The issue with building this is that we did not take into account the angles of the walkable ramps. It was near 45 degrees at first, and initial game tests proved it was not a scalable surface, for both the player or AI.
Another issue was that it was almost impossible to create a seamless, tileable walkway that could give you easy and sensible access to each individual module, and retain a uniform shape. I had gone back and redesigned this section numerous times before finally finding a layout that worked. By reducing the amount of rows, and increasing the offset of the modules, I was able to have a seamless, easy access walkway that made sense and could allow someone to reach any module on the grid. The offset change allowed me to lower the angle of the ramps to a walkable degree, and the reduced number of rows allowed me to actually have connections from each row’s walkway snap fit and connect with each other.
The artificial sky is one of the standout pieces in this space. I wanted to push this effect as much as possible, basing the general feel off our previous concept sketches. I wanted to have the screen have an LCD-like emissive material, with broken and dislodged panels spilling out cables and revealing structural elements. To actually create the artificial sky material, I repurposed UEs standard skysphere texture, and retrofitted it with a classic shader set up to get that RGB LCD display look. A cool unintended effect is that the sun will retain its “sky” position, regardless of the camera's angle or position, giving it an almost faux parallax effect. 
The damaged display was another important visual element I wanted to make sure worked here. The sky is clearly artificial, but it could be very uncomfortable to just all the sudden see the sky literally turn purple with big WARNING text on it. I like to imagine whenever there is a technical issue, the residents would all come out and watch the “sky” as if it was an artificial eclipse or other kind of weather phenomenon.
MAIN PROJECT UPDATES:
- Reworked flashlight system to be in a more usable state, will attach itself to the players weapon when aiming, and will reattach to the Players shoulder when not aiming.
- Reworked procedural animations for movement and weapon handling, this has removed a great deal of stiffness from blending the top and bottom body animations.
- Implemented Boxer Suit assets in game.
- Added new maintenance assets, (Ladder access sections)
- Added proximity based anomaly effects for digital screens.
- Added various new props and textures for Medical stations
- Additional detail work for residential, including reworked textures, map assets and decals.
- addition of display ad graphics and kiosk props.
- Fixed numerous bugs related to animations canceling or not firing when interrupted, (such as getting hit while dodging preventing you from dodging again, as the action never technically "finished")
- Completely reworked the laser sight system, instead of a projected decal it is a plane with a transparent emissive pointer, it should be much more accurate and readable.
- Added new reload animations and dropped magazine effects and sounds for ALL weapons.
- Added a temporary melee system for TW while the spark jack is being worked on
- Fixed a few more bugs where performing certain actions while viewing a terminal or keypad would soft lock you from moving. (this became relevant after adding the melee functionality.
- Fixed some issues related to Enemies perception and investigation routines. This still needs some extensive testing to make sure it’s actually working, and the AI system overall still needs much more work.
- Added new UI functionality of control scheme options.
- Added the ability to remap key bindings
- Added toggle options for crouch
- Added mouse control options such as inverted Y axis look, and mouse sensitivity
- Added various new props and detail parts to demo map
- Added assets for Medical and Security Stations
- Reworked Door interactions, they need to be manually opened now.
- Adjusted Camera position so TW doesn't sit so directly in the middle of the screen. This applies to both aiming and non aiming.
ART ASSETS:
Ah Sahmar (Cognitive Manifestation)
“Entropy, the great equalizer of all things. There are no kings or slaves within the black mass, only the dissipation of heat, and its disconnection.”
“One of the most interesting design challenges I've come across was designing something that was so visually striking to me that I did not consider the implications of getting such a thing working in the engine. Originally I had made this mesh and rig to have it posed for reliefs and statues and the like, but thought it would be good to make it a bonafide, usable in-game character asset complete with textures.
The Ah-sahmar merely serves as a background world building element, not an interactable character or story driving asset in any real sense. An entity that in game, may or may not exist at all, and is purely a memetic/cognitive being. It was important that both its design and function in the game reflects this fact. Although there isn't a singular defined “appearance” of the ah-sahmar, this is one that is commonly accepted to be the most accurate to most people.
In order to invoke that feeling of cosmic vastness, I wanted to have the head and legs/tail extend an incredible length, and fade out softly so there isn't really a true start or end. It could be implied that they coiled outwards infinitely with its head and body being the centerpoint. 
It is a purely self-serving entity, and it cannot interact within the “real world” in any meaningful way. It relies on proxies through seduction, manipulation, and insinuation in order to enact its will.
I wanted to give it a vaguely feminine appearance that is also offset with an emaciated, body horror-esque appearance to drive that effect. It's sweet and comforting, like a lover, but behind its facade is an aura of decay, mirroring the very thing it hopes to overcome, entropy as a concept in its entirety.
Setting up the rig wasn't terribly difficult. The body has a simple humanoid rig (minus legs) and both the head and tail are built on an IK chain with driver bones spaced out to control the movement and flow of the tails, think of the pen tools or a bezier curve in most vector image programs, it works nearly identical to this. This was also my first attempt at a relatively non-humanoid rig specifically for animation that I had set up drivers for myself. It was a good learning experience, and if this can be functional in the engine, which I anticipate with a bit of elbow grease that it can.
Posing and animating are relatively straightforward and works as intended in Blender, however the big challenge will be getting this all to work in UE. A major requirement is that the tails need to have a degree of procedural animation, and float fluidly within perpetual zero-G movement. 
Alternate Suits
"Level design is a bit of a slog at times, and I find myself having to jump between various different items to avoid burnout. I started sketching out some ideas for potential alt suit designs, one that is meant to be more of a 90’s style carapaced armor mercenary kind of suit inspired by classic anime designs, and one that's an alternate version of TW’s primary suit, the A.R.A. suit, based off the Heavy Variant from the 3 privateer designs I had done a while back. This wasn't really a high priority item that needed to be done right at this moment, but it presented itself as a fun break from all the tedious backend and level work lately.
For this idea, I wanted to do something more insectoid, and rely on heavier, organic softer shapes, forgoing hard plates for soft padding with intersection portions that flowed naturally with TW’s body forms. I wanted to have it feel less advanced and form fitting then her normal suit, and have it be more older, general purpose, like your typical “Faceless goon” type of character (I’ve always had an appreciation for honest everyday trooper designs.) I imagine this to be like standard vac sealed armor most general use armed forces would wear. (Think of armor the UN in this setting would use.)
We are still debating if we want to move forward with this design, but it's good to have some options whenever we feel we need to add an extra suit.
The "Candy Boxer" suit came together extremely well and feels very sensible. I wanted this suit to feel like a natural evolution of TW’s standard suit. I pulled the design directly from the heavier variant of the privateers I had done recently, but modified to fit TW’s body and cybernetics a bit better.
It uses many similar shapes and details but expanded to be much more stable, tougher and offer more protection. I wanted to make sure that it wasn't merely adding new plates on her, but designing them in such a way where it is an integrated design and effects her silhouette to create something that is more imposing. I want to be sure that we never shy away from bright, flamboyant color schemes, especially when they play so incredibly well with crunchy, high contrast decal work.
This is a bit strange, but I’ve been referring this suit as the “Candy boxer” suit, as its bright red and glossy surface feels like a candy apple, and during the design phase i was very intentional about making it feel like it could move well in a boxing match, and have some serious “fisticuffs” energy.
In game, though not specifically stated, I feel like this makes sense as being an option given to TW when she takes the job, despite being canonical, she wears the ARA variant of this suit.”
- Loom
SOUND ASSETS
Club Music
“For residential we have ideas for a potential night club like location that would be on the top level of the commerce hub. It would start dark and quiet, lights and audio would be completely off and you would explore this area in near total darkness. As you switch the power on to rewire or perform some other objective, the strobe lights and bumping club music would all turn on at once. It would be incredibly disorienting. loud and uncomfortable. As you make your way out of the club, you'd be hunted down by a handful of patrol groups investigating the power surge, leading into a tense combat encounter in a shady, violent and disorienting area.
We wanted to have a track made specifically for this area, that even though only shows up in this one small section, it still would sound authentic and not like stock audio. The key vibe is loud, sensual, violent, and redundant, trance-like sounds. Major inspirations are early 2000’s dark house and EDM beats, and early PSX Japanese scifi game soundtracks.”
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NVgBlFMhH6JlDPBXuDmNfQ4fJn9iyFhH/view?usp=sharing
