Back to Top

April 2019 Team Update!

Preface:  We apologize for the delay on this update!  Our community manager had to leave due to personal reasons, and it took a while for the rest of us to learn his job, access the site, and pick up the slack.  Hopefully we can update more frequently from now on!

APRIL 2019 TEAM UPDATE!

Maxx: Environment Art/Project Lead

Greetings everyone and thanks for stopping by our DevBlog once again! I apologize that it has been a while since we posted, but rest assured that we’ve been working hard regardless and in today’s update you’re going to learn a little bit about what everyone has been up to the last couple months. Although we’ve been slow to update here, you should join our discord where Cenelder frequently posts spoilers even though he shouldn’t.
https://discord.gg/nmrih

Speaking of updates, I’ll kick things off with my own. As my roles on the project are spread far and wide I find myself working on many things at once. In the time since the last update I’ve worked on many areas of Night of the Living Dead including the bridges, the ranger station, the diner, the dam, the mountain exits, and a lot more. I also have been working closely with our programmers on our item spawning system as we’ve done a big revamp of how it works making it even more powerful. We also worked hard on making lootable vehicles so now you can find cop cars, vans, sedans etc and open their trunks and find weapons and items. We’ve been working on some cool stuff with randomizing locking mechanisms and codes etc for doors and gates and all sorts of things making it truly unpredictable what you’ll have to contend with and solve when you’re playing.

I’ve also worked closely with MzK our weapon animator on getting a lot of our new guns and melee weapons into the game! It’s an arduous process but to be honest it’s a lot simpler than Source!
Another little task I’ve been cramming in is working on world branding and stuff to really help make the places feel more real and sell the reality of the world in NMRiH2. Posters warning of quarantines and sanitation tips, signs informing of national guard checkpoints, condemned notices, brand names for locations and products, and more. These are the sorts of details that can help each location feel unique and authentic.

 

Coffee Shop:
Coffee 1
Coffee 2

Bridge:
bridge 1

Ranger Station:
ranger 1
ranger 1
ranger 1
ranger 1
ranger 1

Mountain Tunnel:
ranger 1
ranger 1

 

Nay0r: Environment Art

Over the past couple of months I’ve been continuing with the development of NOTLD, working on 3 seperate locations, a coffee shop, radio station and the church cemetery area.

The map is now starting to take great shape and were not far off in the stages of being able to polish and finish up.

ranger 1
ranger 1

 

Hawk: Environment Art

Lately I’ve been focusing on the Storage Depot. The story for this location is that it was used as a makeshift hospital when people started getting infected with the Kulon virus. So some of the storage units will have been used as makeshift hospital rooms and some will be untouched, with potentially beneficial loot behind the shutter doors. The goal with this location is to have several storage units that are randomized every new game; one time a unit might contain useful loot, the next time it might be full of zombies. This should result in an interesting risk/reward system: Do you play it safe, only open a few units or do you risk it and open all of them?

Here are a few screenshots of the current state of the location as I am blocking it out:

ranger 1
ranger 1
ranger 1
Thought: Music

Quick review of what I’ve been doing is experimenting with different elements to add to the DMS such as triggers for certain events, ways to transition certain event triggers and how it handles ambiance. I’ve also been working on new music, such as Perseverance, as i’ve been collecting a number of new plugins as of late.
Last Sunrise
NOTLD Theme
Felis: Programming

Hey, Felis here, you might know me as NMRiH1 maintainer. In the beginning of the year I’ve ramped up to sequel development to assist programmers with remaining tasks.

As of recent, I’ve focused on quest / objective system, player guidance (incl. outline glows, HUD elements…) and other misc. features. We’re hoping to showcase these features in the upcoming blog posts, including first playable missions on NotLD.

Looking forward to continue working on this game, thank you for your support!

Xenon: Programming

So quick review of what I’ve been doing on AI over the last few months. I’ve added random clothing with color options for each. Randomization of zombie head meshes as well as random skin pallets for all zombie types. Started to work on fleshing out limb damage and how that will affect gore and potentially animations of the zombies.

MzK: Animation

Hey all! I’m MzK, one of the animators for NMRIH2, and I work on the vast majority of first person visuals. I’d love to take this opportunity to show off some of the new weapons we have to show off.

This is the 870, a new gun I’ve been animating since the end of February. There was one in NMRIH1 as well, but it was a different variant compared to this one, just like the 590’s model switch shown way earlier back in 2018. It’ll be one hell of a powerhouse, as shotguns should be!The firearm-manufacturing company, Eder, are known for their boxy plastic-frame handgun, with a sleeker design and higher polycount allowing for more ridges to be shown. Our model, the Eder 17, has no safety; therefore, you have no need to switch one on or off when not in combat, unlike most other firearms. Enjoy the sneak peek at how it will feel!Finally, I wanted to show off some WiP melee stuff for the assortment of knives we’ll be having. They’ll more than likely be sharing most of the same animations like they did in NMRIH1, since there’s not much need to animate them all independently. Something that is not shown here yet is a combo system where pressing mouse 1 will allow you to put more swings out quickly, without having to bring your melee weapon up every time. This will definitely be on lighter weapons so you can attack faster… Just be sure to keep some distance when you do it, or else they’ll nab you.Thank you all for coming here today, I’m glad I got to share this news with you after being quiet for so long. I have a ton of other things in the works, but these are what I wanted to show off most. I can’t wait to have you all bash, blow up and put lead into zombies with the bigger-than-ever armory NMRIH2 will have!

Cenelder: Character/Animation

We recently added blood masks to our zombies!  These will be randomly chosen when zombies spawn to help break up any repetition in our zombies, and really amp up the gore.  Once we factor in the randomization of heads, blood masks, skin colour, clothing, and hair, we hope you never recognize the same zombie twice!We’ve also made good progress on zombie and avatar clothing customization options, getting in lots of real-life photogrammetry scanned assets like coats and shoes. I know everyone wants to see gore in action, but it has been non-functional as our programmers shift our code to a different system.  Once it’s back up and running we will make a video!

ranger 1

 

54 Comments

  • Ali Alami
    April 6, 2019 at 5:54 pm

    look great, can’t wait for the final product to be released

    • Kaelin
      April 22, 2019 at 8:11 pm

      Wow this is really awesome stuff! Loved the first game will be waiting in anticipation of the second! Keep up the good work. 😀

      • Nova Mitchell
        July 19, 2019 at 4:25 pm

        look great, can’t wait for the final product

    • Morgan Davis
      October 27, 2019 at 1:53 am

      Looks amazing can’t wait

  • Landen Greenberg
    April 6, 2019 at 7:38 pm

    this all looks amazing, and well done! one thing i don’t really like is the fact that melee isn’t getting an update on function, would really love to see some variation in the attacks! like maybe directional based on movement or something like that. other than melee, everything looks and sounds amazing! cant wait to play 🙂

    • LuckyBonehead
      August 3, 2019 at 11:20 pm

      That’s a good idea, but how would it work? Hold the attack button and move the mouse in a direction?

      Should the character just use whatever animation is convenient for them? Like if you’re using a makeshift staff up close, you’ll club the zombie, but if you’re at range, you’ll jab their head from a distance (I don’t know how effective that’d be for killing a zombie, but its a game so who cares).

  • SpiderLan
    April 6, 2019 at 8:39 pm

    Looking great so far. Just last night I was searching any news about the project. I can’t wait to play the beta.
    Some suggestions: Melee is a bit OP in NMRIH1 if you are an old player, maybe make the melee a bit more difficult and with variation as Landen says. In an apocaliptic scenario ammo is like gold, let’s keep it that way. Infected animals is a possibility. Sanity features according the gore level or infection level.

  • KillYouPros
    April 7, 2019 at 2:43 am

    Finally.

  • david halsrud
    April 7, 2019 at 2:46 am

    i played the first one when i was in middle school i can’t wait for the game to be finish

  • Rebs_2019
    April 7, 2019 at 5:50 am

    Are u guys going to put a soldier character in nmrih 2?

  • Edmund Sayson
    April 7, 2019 at 6:55 am

    The Shotgun looks like it could use a little more recoil. Other than that everything is looking great!
    I’m extremely excited for this game!

  • Sarunas Zibutis
    April 7, 2019 at 10:09 am

    While its amazing to see what youre doing and i dont wanna tell you what to do considering i dont make video games you should first focus on the fundamentals like shooting and such and and not as much as making each zombie stand out reason to get the people a working alpha first then adding onto it in my opinion most people just want an alpha first rather than seeing you work on something as small as zombie hair (im not trying to sound offensive here just wanna suggest what you should work on)

    • Maxx
      April 7, 2019 at 5:15 pm

      We have different people working on each of those things so we can do both at the same time 🙂

    • Matt
      May 18, 2019 at 9:38 pm

      The shooting in the first game, while serviceable, did leave a lot to be desired. Best example of shooting mechanics to aim for would be CS:GO, not so much in recoil and gun patterns but in the way bullets behave and the super tight and specific hitboxes , also the way a target realistically reacts to how and where it’s getting shot.

  • pnh1223
    April 7, 2019 at 10:51 am

    GOOD JOB

    • pnh1223
      April 13, 2019 at 12:25 am

      I look forward to the next news

    • Blazk0
      April 25, 2019 at 3:14 am

      I agree. Also, would love to see a timeline. When you expect to have a playable product in either Alpha or beta stage

  • Sgt Something
    April 7, 2019 at 4:51 pm

    Can’t wait for the game to come out. I’m going to college soon…

  • naka
    April 7, 2019 at 7:10 pm

    Everything’s looking vewry good, we’re excited.

  • springtrapTG
    April 7, 2019 at 7:21 pm

    Casi pensé que habían cancelado el juego,gracias por la actualización 😀

  • Josiah
    April 8, 2019 at 1:40 am

    Great job so far and awesome to hear what’s going on! Can’t wait for an early access to come out! Any eta at this point?

  • Hale
    April 8, 2019 at 8:59 am

    I always think “One day, i can play this great game” if i visit this dev blog.
    Great job!

  • SpaghettiNick
    April 9, 2019 at 12:34 am

    It’s good to see another update, can’t wait!

  • Yunus Emre Beyaz
    April 9, 2019 at 10:51 am

    Guys maybe you should consider Epic Games Store? They might help you with funding and since you use UE4 you might get better revshare. Just my opinion here. I would buy if it’s Epic or Steam doesn’t really matter that much.

    • zombie420
      April 10, 2019 at 3:02 pm

      What. No please. No chinese in my data.

      • Creepson00897
        April 11, 2019 at 11:10 pm

        Rather not lose my private information

    • Dan D
      May 1, 2019 at 12:35 pm

      Worst suggestion ever.

    • Breathe
      May 6, 2019 at 10:25 pm

      NO

  • zombie420
    April 10, 2019 at 3:04 pm

    Looking good. I wonder if we can have character customization. I would like to make my own character in zombie world.

  • Benji
    April 13, 2019 at 2:52 pm

    Looking great guys! I love the map screenshots, and the glock is coming along really well. Although I have to ask (and I mean no offense) the zombies are looking a little cartoonish, is this s design choice?

  • Taylor
    April 22, 2019 at 6:26 am

    A zombie with a slit throat seems almost too unique to be in the pool of blood masks. I would guess having a gash or break on the bridge of the nose to be a more common injury. Might also want to add some bleeding ears that could be because the virus or head trauma from impact or explosives. I really like the additional variation of injury it will really set each zombie apart.

    Good work!

  • NotMyRealNameButYeahItsMyName
    April 24, 2019 at 3:52 am

    I just hope there is a option to scale down the graphic level because some people with low spec laptops and etc wanna probably play this game to. So lets hope the dev team will give us the option to lower the level of bloom on the game and all the other fancy stuff because once again. Low spec gamers may wanna play this aswell and enjoy the new awesome bloody experince.

    • Dan D
      May 1, 2019 at 12:37 pm

      Try upgrading your computer, or get left behind. This game will use the Unreal engine so I wouldn’t count on it being ‘resource friendly’ Haha. You’ll have to stick with Source.

  • Alex
    April 25, 2019 at 5:02 pm

    So, when will this game get into early access? The FAQ says early 2019 but i think that it’s not early 2019 anymore. Sorry if that sounds harsh but we didnt hear from you for quite some time and now there isnt even a approximate release date. Will it be mid or late 2019? Will it even be 2019?

    Thanks

  • Vladislav
    April 29, 2019 at 1:02 pm

    Greetings from Kazakhstan! I love your game and look forward to continuing. As for third-person animation: how will we see others in the first person? I’d like to know if you’re working on it… By the way, check out the game “state of decay”, there is a good animation =)

  • Dan D
    May 1, 2019 at 12:40 pm

    The problem with development is you don’t know what potential issues you’re going to face, so giving timescales is very difficult, so I understand why the devs are reluctant to give any dates.

    At the very least it’s good to know development is ongoing.

    Thanks for the update.

  • James
    May 1, 2019 at 6:59 pm

    Looks great so far. Glad to see you are all working hard on development. I can’t wait to see the finished product.

    Thanks for the update guys.

  • Goxus
    May 5, 2019 at 12:26 pm

    Looks great, hoping for a great gameplay too! thanks for the hard work!

  • LJ
    May 7, 2019 at 8:09 am

    So nice work, i can help u guys being a translator(spanish) or a tester,artwork , or idk something

  • MxE
    May 15, 2019 at 5:09 pm

    i m so excited for this game i hope it will be free like the first game

  • RandomCheese1243
    May 19, 2019 at 9:26 am

    Is there a chance that you guys will port this game to vr since NMRiH seems like a perfect game for VR?
    Nice work BTW

    • Judah Davis
      June 8, 2019 at 12:29 am

      I totally agree with this

  • patato
    June 22, 2019 at 9:32 am

    map designs are really legendary.
    I’m very excited for the release date of the game.

  • Couch potato
    July 8, 2019 at 5:45 am

    Shut up and take my nomey !

  • mario
    July 13, 2019 at 1:35 pm

    wow this looks awesome played no more room in hell 1 in 2014 and it was great please tell me you can lower settings that make you lose fps

  • Devyn
    July 16, 2019 at 12:33 pm

    I know it’s still early in development, but imagine sets of challenges based on past representations of zombies. You could have challenge relating to strength/speed of the dead, just by the name association, though the name may have to be adjusted to avoid copyright, and at least 1 advantage, and 1 disadvantage for the survivors depending on the type.
    Night of the Living Dead(Casual- Easy)- Slow shamblers, scattered horde, no use of weapons(I know one
    used a rock in the early parts of the movie, but that stuff wasn’t
    picked up until far later in the franchise); infection speed seems to
    vary in the film, but it would be pretty slow, considering how long
    the daughter took to turn.
    Resident Evil(Casual- Normal)- Early versions of their undead(not counting mutations) were similar to
    Romero’s NotLD, but were likely to survive a round to the head, but this
    would just be strength buff in the challenge. I think the time for turning
    was also pretty slow here, but that may depend on the virus.
    World War Z(Casual- Hard)- Slow walkers, but much larger numbers; probably the easiest of the walkers
    to kill, with the sheer level of decomposition they would have.
    28 Days/Weeks Later(Challenge Mode- Easy)- Swift runners, with extremely low health; the low health
    would be countered with a larger number, and the
    infection speed would be swift. In movie it was barely a few
    moments, where in game it could be buffed to 10 seconds.
    Dawn of the Dead(2004)(Challenge Mode- Normal)- Runners, with the normal strength of your classic
    Romero undead; not sure how this would be
    countered, outside of a slow turn rate.
    World War Z(Challenge Mode- Hard)- Basically hard mode. Much faster runners, headshots most
    effective, and will only be ignored if the player themselves is
    infected.

  • Devyn
    July 16, 2019 at 12:34 pm

    Also, the first WWZ mention is for the book, not movie.

  • Conner
    July 30, 2019 at 1:09 am

    I don’t know if this has been mentioned before but will the aim focus mechanic be in this one to?
    Maybe make it more usable so it doesn’t take like 15 seconds to finally focus on a target but still not too powerful

  • MxE
    September 21, 2019 at 8:45 pm

    Septembr 17 2019

    Day : 161

    Still waiting for anything 🙂

  • Adrian Freeman
    September 28, 2019 at 8:57 pm

    I like everything so far, but judging from that zombie’s head, it’s eyes are way too big to be realistic, is the art direction taking more on a more stylistic style like most zombie shooters or will it keep the original art-style being as realistic as possible?

  • Austin Snell
    October 28, 2019 at 6:51 pm

    next update when?? 2019 release still in the works?? :(((

  • DeLaCour
    October 31, 2019 at 5:09 pm

    Whooooowwww it’s what i like to read great job guys!

  • Kapp1e
    December 14, 2019 at 9:50 pm

    Can’t wait to play the game ̿̿ ̿̿ ̿̿ ̿’̿’\̵͇̿̿\з= ( ▀ ͜͞ʖ▀) =ε/̵͇̿̿/’̿’̿ ̿ ̿̿ ̿̿

  • Marek Chromec
    April 5, 2020 at 6:24 pm

    Hello dont you need some help with development? 🙂

Add Comment