Week_08 // 2026.05.19

Joshua Castaneda

Graphics / Misc

Concrete_Goals

Asset loading

Accomplished

I completed the asset loading including loading the map, textures, materials, and gameplay objects from the map file. I also implemented the feature to get the spawn/weapon/powerup points into the game .

Why_It_Changed

The week went pretty much as planned. I completed the main thing I wanted (asset loading) and was even able to fully integrate some gameplay components with it.

Next_Week

At the very least I want to get point lights working. Ideally I also get one more renderer feature in.

What_I_Learned

File and export formats are a pain. Most of the struggle was actually accessing the data from the imported file. The other biggest pain point was realizing that we needed to check a box on the blender side of things to actually get the metadata we wanted into the exported file.

Individual_Morale

I like the work I did this week, my morale is good.

Cedric-James David

Gameplay / Network

Concrete_Goals

Wire lobby system, main menu to allow people to type in IP and connect, settings menu.

Accomplished

Lobby system + main menu up.

Why_It_Changed

I was sick the second half of the week, so I could not do much.

Next_Week

Settings menu.

What_I_Learned

Claude + Codex are good at helping devise plans when given enough context.

Individual_Morale

Good.

Guthry Hahm

Graphics

Concrete_Goals

Get entities rendering, animations rendering, and render the correct weapon, to get that info from the .

Accomplished

I did in fact get entities rendering, animations rendering, and fix the depth issue with the weapon clipping through the scene geometry. I have another branch where I brought the old particles. Right now my priority is not with particles but at some point I plan on merging that functionality into main.

Why_It_Changed

The week went how I expected in terms of what I was able to accomplish. There were some hiccups with getting animations working. I asked Daniel to set up the empty functions for me to implement and to set up some boilerplate for game loop input. Apparently the code for calling those functions was deleted in the nuking of the old renderer. Because of this I couldn’t test my code myself at least in the morning before I had to go to work as I wasn’t sure how much was actually deleted for that functionality in the great vibe-nuking of May 7th. Luckily my theory for what was missing was correct and Daniel knew exactly what to do, and after that it has worked like a dream (from the little testing we have done lol)

Next_Week

Get AO working, originally I wanted to work on shadows first, but right now we have to multiply the albedo by the normals because otherwise the player has next to no depth perception in a map made entirely with solid color corridors. AO would provide visual references to where the player is in the map by darkening the corners. If I am able to get this done, next I would want to work on shadows or what other shaders or visual additions the team wants.

What_I_Learned

I learned quite a lot about gpu optimization regarding skinned meshes, I learned how to implement ssbo’s to store the joint transforms in a bone palette, and using gpu instancing to render the same mesh data but index the bone palette using the index id.

Individual_Morale

My morale is pretty good. Implementing animations in the way we talked about was by far the most difficult part, I spent an all-nighter on implementing and debugging it. I am quite proud that I was able to do that by Sunday morning, as I was doubting that I would be able to get that part done in time for play-testing.

Daniil Katulevskiy

Physics / CI

Concrete_Goals

Map load fix, better trimesh collision, movement tuning, abilities tuning to movement, match system improvements.

Accomplished

Fixed map loading fully, now trimesh is first-class primitive, got much more advanced collisions primitives and algorithms, now player collider is a capsule, triangle edges are auto welded where possible, and this goes extremely well together with movement adjustments, now can continuously wallrun from wall to wall without detatching at all, including around inside and outside corners. Movement systems now properly adapt actions based on colliders, not just rely on collision and depenetration system to fix it afterwards. Added abilities with Jacob, match system now includes ability selection in-match and preset of abilities to use for that match. Jacob registered on steamworks portal. Added dash and recall abilities. Abilities are now earned in-match. Started on global server list and UDP holepunching support for easy hosting from home without portforwarding. Fixed issues that Guthry had with the rendering api that Game exposed, now everything is smooth and graphics team was able to render enemies with animations, all on GPU with SSBO and instanced rendering.

Why_It_Changed

yes, better than expected. i can enjoy the movement again, since all the bugs with it are fixed, especially the new smooth collisions, stairs handling, wallrun mechanics.

Next_Week

todo wishlist local broadcast global broadcast graphics feature complete state graphics enhancements gameplay loop improvements start adjusting the map to movement, add obstactles and start on textures and decor steam coming out soon page complete for 2 week cooldown HUD final redesign UI menus backend and design add emotes improve animations to match real movement more closely add hands to guns with point attachment and IK IK for legs on ground to match running speed to covered distance predictive animation states, curved animations, more than simple blending try to do reload anims rework SFX to support more complex modes of operation, things like step aligned sounds, sounds from other players actions, positioned in space, maybe echo and reflections, rtx sound? make cool shaders for guns, nades, smoke, beams, blood, players, tracers, projectiles add chat and voice chat with spatial playing and doppler effect. If we complete some portion of this list this week, would be great.

What_I_Learned

We're pretty tight on time. And had very interesting AI use experience. So I remember the initial discussion of how LLM use influences development. And I had an argument that AI is only a force multiplier. And I could feel it when dealing with trimesh collisions, where it was literally unplayable on first iteration. The primary reason was that I skipped research and just asked Claude to implement trimesh collisions, not what I normally do. But after skimming through papers on trimesh collisions and postmortems of modern physics engines like Havok, I got much more insight, and I could really quickly get production-grade collision and physics against our trimesh map, all because of right steering, architecture choices, and instructions. So preparation and initial research is 90% of work when dealing with LLMs, and 10% is control over execution and code review.

Individual_Morale

Good, but a bit tired, a lot of work outside of class. Same as last week.

Jolina Leong

Art / Modeling

Concrete_Goals

Make adjustments to the map as needed, Finish player model (uncolored)

Accomplished

Still working on the player model today, will have the uncolored version finished by class tomorrow hopefully, Made adjustments to the map (disconnected planes, missing door, extruded platforms) and reuploaded updated glb to the drive, Quickly mocked up color palettes for the hud

Why_It_Changed

Have been pretty busy with helping at club events this week, made less progress on the player model than expected

Next_Week

Flesh out map once playtesting is done, Finish making player model and export to Adobe's Mixamo to test rig

What_I_Learned

Not much new this week

Individual_Morale

Individual moral is still pretty alright, good to see the collisions are working pretty decently now so I got to run around the map myself to get an idea of how everything's looking so far

Jacob Roner

Gameplay / Integration

Concrete_Goals

My main goal was to add powerups/powerup spawners, balance the weapons and movement, and update spawner placements in the map (for players, weapons, and powerups).

Accomplished

Updated rocket projectile with new model, Fixed powerup system management, implemented damage and shield powerups, updated hud when using damage powerup, Rendered powerups, worked with daniil on converting movment systems to abilities, added ability pools for each match, began steam page setup.

Why_It_Changed

I felt a little exhausted this week, so I didnt get as much done as I had hoped. That coupled with the fact that we still had some major fixes that were required meant that we were not able to meet our play test goal.

Next_Week

I want to balance the weapons, rework the charge rifle, fix some issues with projectiles, rework game configs, add direction to spawner points.

What_I_Learned

Nothing new, just a lot of coding.

Individual_Morale

Feeling good, but getting tired so its hard to sit down and grind like I could at the beginning of the quarter.

Scott Semtner

Network

Concrete_Goals

Finish LAN server discovery and get it working with the future lobby system.

Accomplished

I finished local server discovery which required switching the model from server broadcast to client broadcast and server response, all in UDP. The client broadcasts every 1 second asking for servers that receive it to send their information. I got the system integrated with the global server discovery stub that was added to main, so it its a fully functional system, at least when testing with multiple clients on my machine.

Why_It_Changed

I think it went as planned on my end.

Next_Week

I need to discuss with the group on tuesday to figure out what tasks we want to prioritize. For the local server discovery we just have to test on lab machines.

What_I_Learned

I learned about using ImGui which is pretty great for this type of thing.

Individual_Morale

My morale is decent, not much has changed.