{"data":{"id":14911,"title":"Star Marine Status Update","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/comm-link\/transmission\/14911-Star-Marine-Status-Update","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-links\/14911","api_public_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/comm-links\/14911","channel":"Undefined","category":"Undefined","series":"None","images":[{"id":3857,"name":"Banner-2.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/jbwyelnn011n0r\/source\/Banner-2.jpg","alt":"","size":250168,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-08-12T00:03:24+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3857","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3857\/similar"},{"id":3892,"name":"Kastak_devastator_12_clean_material_blend.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/azqv7jdqgiij8r\/source\/Kastak_devastator_12_clean_material_blend.jpg","alt":"WIP - Kastak Devastator Clean","size":724002,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-08-21T22:09:03+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3892","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3892\/similar"},{"id":3894,"name":"I11-cimgpsh_orig.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/4pyqyta27jh02r\/source\/I11-cimgpsh_orig.jpg","alt":"","size":3167597,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-08-22T00:35:31+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3894","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3894\/similar"},{"id":3895,"name":"I12-cimgpsh_orig.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/xmnpqrhu63n0nr\/source\/I12-cimgpsh_orig.jpg","alt":"","size":736594,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-08-22T00:35:22+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3895","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3895\/similar"}],"images_count":5,"translations":{"en_EN":"Greetings Citizens,\nLast week, you read about our thrilling battle with merge conflicts, the issues that came about as a result of our merging multiple game development streams following Gamescom. This week, we have continued dealing with these merge conflicts where they appear, both in the game\u2019s code and the assets (artwork, animations, sounds, etc.) and this has resulted in lots of broken builds to test and iterate on! Unfortunately, while that\u2019s good for the project it\u2019s bad for an interesting news update: dealing with the merge means we avoided adding much or testing the new features. Features are coming back online as we resolve conflicts, but we expect that the merge will continue into next week.\n\nOne thing we failed to mention about the merge is that it isn\u2019t just having us integrate work done by different teams for Gamescom\u2026 it\u2019s also adding an updated CryEngine SDK, CryEngine 3.7, to the Star Marine code base. There are lots of great new features in 3.7, many of which are coincidentally animation related (in addition to rendering improvements, the much hyped VR tie-ins and more.) As we said last week, it\u2019s short term pain for long term gain!\n\nAs I mentioned last week, the merge into the GameDev stream is necessary because GameDev is the basis for Arena Commander 2.0, aka multicrew. So merging code bases doesn\u2019t just give us extra functionality for Star Marine (though that means roughly three months of additional work we weren\u2019t able to access before!) but also ensures that the multicrew release will have FPS and social properly integrated as part of one cohesive whole. And this whole is something truly special: the newborn Persistent Universe!\n\nNow that the \u2018bad\u2019 news is out of the way (I should stress again that the merge was planned, and something we scheduled our work around), what follows is a rundown of what we did this week. Todd Papy and I (Jason Hutchins) have spent the week in Denver working directly with the team at Illfonic, and directing efforts from the developers at all CIG and F42 studios. QA in Austin gave us a comprehensive play through of the Free Play and Team Elimination gameplay modes so we could review everything that needs to be presented to the player via interstitial UI screens. When we implemented the Free Play mode, we rushed it out to internal playtest without polishing up all of the screens, countdowns, score screens, final results. That polish has continued to the present. QA also did a thorough check of all the level geometry, art, and collision proxies to see if there are any places that don\u2019t allow you to move through or shoot though them. They found a few, and we\u2019ll start working on them next week.\n\nAs I mentioned last week, Todd was working with the designers at F42 on the new objective game mode to replace Team Elimination. We have a design fleshed out this week, it will require some minor changes to the level, some custom UI and some gameplay engineering support. We have broken down the new2 mode into tasks and have started some aspects of this work this week. I\u2019d love to tell you more, but I know that it\u2019s going to change as we get the system online and prove it out. So let\u2019s treat that as a surprise for a future post, when the sausage looks more like\u2026 sausage!\n\nAt this point, we have a full feature list for the Star Marine launch and we\u2019re doing a great job of fighting off the monster known as feature creep as we play and tweak it. It\u2019s extremely easy to say \u2018we should add this! and that! And that!\u2019 as we play, and much of what we imagine today will make it into the game someday\u2026 but we know that doing it now will slow down the release and impact other areas of development. So we have to stay strong! The remaining Star Marine features have been tasked out, devs are assigned to them, and we\u2019re burning the tasks down as fast as we are able, considering the necessary merge chaos.\n\nLet\u2019s take a look at the individual disciplines. Please note that I have not bothered calling out the blockers by discipline this week, as they are largely unchanged from last week. And the biggest blocker is of course the merge itself that I already mentioned!\n\nAudio\nLast week the Foundry 42 audio team did a recording session of a lot of different firearms for use in environmental audio. This includes weapons firing in appropriate spaces and also a varying distances. This will be used for positional audio, and later for ambient audio in the world. This will likely take at least a week to integrate into the game. They also started testing their implementation of bullet and laser crack-bys\n\nGameplay\nOn the gameplay side we switched over to an intermediate staging stream to work during the merge. Think of it as an operating room for a video game where we can resolve merge conflicts, triage bugs and address issues without breaking anything too important. Our first fix was to a spawning issue, which meant that we could once again play in the staging stream build. We met to discuss the weapons component design system. Want sight options? So do we. Customization is a very complex topic, so we\u2019re iterating on the design to make sure we have a good system for hard, meaningful choices to make AND good ways to personalize your guns with enough variety for our big, living universe (that is to say, the system needs to be something other than giving you the option to continually make your gun better; there need to be checks and balances.) Programmers are currently looking at issues with cover animation logic and a bug in which some weapons are not being properly zeroed at 50 yards (that\u2019s actually a mix of code and art issues.)\n\nUI\nOn the UI side, we conducted a comprehensive review feedback session about the FPS HUD. Design has worked to unify tutorial hints and action prompts on the HUD and we\u2019ve been tw eaking the health paper doll display, ammo display and the hit indicators. The rework of the ammo counter has finished and we resolved an issue in which some HUDs weren\u2019t displaying a blood loss warning (not what you want happening in the thick of combat!) We also submitted the code for the grenade UI indicator and the UI context component to hold them; we\u2019re eagerly anticipating feedback on these.\n\nWe also began investigating a problem with match timers displaying in two places in the HUD (at least they showed the same time!) and the UI team is meeting with the audio team to get in sync on matching sounds to the interface. Last, we\u2019re happy to report that the Star Marine UI team is prepping for a wider UI summit taking place in the UK next week. There, we\u2019ll sync up on the ongoing work needed for both Star Marine and future Persitent Universe modules.\n\nArt\nThe art team conducted polish edits and tweaks to the Devastator Shotgun; you can see some artwork attached to this post. There was also work on the Sniper Rifle\u2019s ADS and the ability to have multiple zoom levels. We identified a problem that requires code support for a fix (and is a good example of what these merges are like): the CryEngine SDK zooms everything when you zoom in ADS. We want to do a much more realistic simulation, so the engineers will need to do a little work under the hood. There was also work on line art for the helmet interiors for the HUD and character art for the lobby UI loadout screens (in progress, not yet finished.)\n\nAnimation\nAnimation! As you know, there\u2019s a lot of work to do, but we are having fun. All animators have now switched over to the main Game-Dev stream. Work has begun on crouch juke animations and we\u2019ve started addressing feedback for the stocked magazine check animation and hooking up vent LODs. Then, there\u2019s the cool new stuff: animators began editing the hurt locomotion, the stocked cover and the ledge mantle straight out of the mocap data!\n\nAnimation Blockers\nThe most important news here is that our animation retarget, now finished, took LESS time than expected (we had estimated it might take as long as two months\u2026 and it was done in two weeks!) A first for Star Marine, surely! Burning down those 3000+ animations needed for launch. As I implied, retargets are finished\u2026 and as you read above we are on to cutting up the NEW mocap items that are on that list. Again, it\u2019s a big task and animators and engineers from all studios are working on it.\n\nLet me go ahead and warn you that the proxy testing video below is extremely short\u2026 but I think it\u2019s an interesting look at some of the iterative development we\u2019re doing!","de_DE":"Gr\u00fc\u00dfe B\u00fcrger,\nLetzte Woche haben Sie \u00fcber unseren spannenden Kampf mit Fusionskonflikten gelesen, die Probleme, die durch die Zusammenf\u00fchrung mehrerer Spieleentwicklungsstr\u00f6me nach der Gamescom entstanden sind. Diese Woche haben wir uns weiter mit diesen Fusionskonflikten besch\u00e4ftigt, wo sie auftreten, sowohl im Code des Spiels als auch in den Assets (Artwork, Animationen, Sounds usw.), und das hat zu vielen defekten Builds gef\u00fchrt, die getestet und wiederholt werden k\u00f6nnen! Leider ist das zwar gut f\u00fcr das Projekt, aber schlecht f\u00fcr ein interessantes Nachrichten-Update: Die Besch\u00e4ftigung mit dem Merge bedeutet, dass wir viel hinzugef\u00fcgt oder die neuen Funktionen getestet haben. Die Funktionen kommen wieder online, wenn wir Konflikte l\u00f6sen, aber wir erwarten, dass der Zusammenschluss bis n\u00e4chste Woche fortgesetzt wird.\n\nEine Sache, die wir \u00fcber die Zusammenf\u00fchrung nicht erw\u00e4hnt haben, ist, dass es nicht nur darum geht, dass wir die Arbeit verschiedener Teams f\u00fcr Gamescom integrieren.... es wird auch ein aktualisiertes CryEngine SDK, CryEngine 3.7, zur Star Marine Codebasis hinzugef\u00fcgt. Es gibt viele gro\u00dfartige neue Funktionen in 3.7, von denen viele zuf\u00e4llig animationsbezogen sind (zus\u00e4tzlich zu Rendering-Verbesserungen, den viel gehypten VR-Bindungen und mehr.) Wie wir letzte Woche sagten, ist es ein kurzfristiger Schmerz f\u00fcr langfristigen Gewinn!\n\nWie ich bereits letzte Woche erw\u00e4hnt habe, ist die Zusammenf\u00fchrung in den GameDev-Stream notwendig, da GameDev die Grundlage f\u00fcr Arena Commander 2.0, auch bekannt als Multicrew, ist. Das Zusammenf\u00fchren von Codebasen gibt uns also nicht nur zus\u00e4tzliche Funktionalit\u00e4t f\u00fcr Star Marine (obwohl das etwa drei Monate zus\u00e4tzliche Arbeit bedeutet, auf die wir vorher nicht zugreifen konnten!), sondern stellt auch sicher, dass die Multicrew-Version FPS und Social ordnungsgem\u00e4\u00df als Teil eines zusammenh\u00e4ngenden Ganzen integriert hat. Und dieses Ganze ist etwas ganz Besonderes: das neugeborene persistente Universum!\n\nNun, da die \"schlechten\" Nachrichten aus dem Weg ger\u00e4umt sind (ich m\u00f6chte noch einmal betonen, dass der Zusammenschluss geplant war und wir unsere Arbeit geplant haben), folgt eine \u00dcbersicht dar\u00fcber, was wir diese Woche gemacht haben. Todd Papy und ich (Jason Hutchins) haben die Woche in Denver verbracht und direkt mit dem Team von Illfonic zusammengearbeitet und die Bem\u00fchungen der Entwickler in allen CIG- und F42-Studios geleitet. QA in Austin gab uns ein umfassendes Durchspielen der Spielmodi Free Play und Team Elimination, so dass wir alles \u00fcberpr\u00fcfen konnten, was dem Spieler \u00fcber interstitielle Benutzeroberfl\u00e4chen pr\u00e4sentiert werden musste. Als wir den Freispielmodus implementierten, haben wir ihn zum internen Spieltest gehetzt, ohne alle Bildschirme, Countdowns, Score-Bildschirme und Endergebnisse zu polieren. Diese Politur hat sich bis heute fortgesetzt. QA hat auch eine gr\u00fcndliche \u00dcberpr\u00fcfung aller Levelgeometrie-, Kunst- und Kollisionsproxies durchgef\u00fchrt, um zu sehen, ob es irgendwelche Orte gibt, an denen man sich nicht durch sie hindurchbewegen oder durch sie hindurch schie\u00dfen kann. Sie haben ein paar gefunden, und wir werden n\u00e4chste Woche mit der Arbeit an ihnen beginnen.\n\nWie ich bereits letzte Woche erw\u00e4hnt habe, arbeitete Todd mit den Designern von F42 an dem neuen objektiven Spielmodus, um die Team Elimination zu ersetzen. Wir haben diese Woche ein Design ausgearbeitet, das einige kleine \u00c4nderungen am Level, eine benutzerdefinierte Benutzeroberfl\u00e4che und Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr das Gameplay-Engineering erfordert. Wir haben den neuen2-Modus in Aufgaben unterteilt und diese Woche einige Aspekte dieser Arbeit begonnen. Ich w\u00fcrde Ihnen gerne mehr erz\u00e4hlen, aber ich wei\u00df, dass es sich \u00e4ndern wird, wenn wir das System online bringen und es beweisen. Also lasst uns das als \u00dcberraschung f\u00fcr einen zuk\u00fcnftigen Beitrag betrachten, wenn die Wurst eher wie..... Wurst aussieht!\n\nAn dieser Stelle haben wir eine vollst\u00e4ndige Feature-Liste f\u00fcr den Star Marine Launch und wir machen eine gro\u00dfartige Arbeit im Kampf gegen das Monster, das als Feature Creep bekannt ist, w\u00e4hrend wir spielen und es optimieren. Es ist extrem einfach zu sagen: \"Wir sollten dies und das hinzuf\u00fcgen\". Und das\", w\u00e4hrend wir spielen, und vieles von dem, was wir uns heute vorstellen, wird es eines Tages ins Spiel schaffen.... aber wir wissen, dass es jetzt die Ver\u00f6ffentlichung verlangsamen und andere Bereiche der Entwicklung beeinflussen wird. Also m\u00fcssen wir stark bleiben! Die restlichen Star Marine Features wurden ausgearbeitet, Devs sind ihnen zugeordnet, und wir brennen die Aufgaben so schnell wie m\u00f6glich ab, unter Ber\u00fccksichtigung des notwendigen Zusammenf\u00fchrungschaos.\n\nWerfen wir einen Blick auf die einzelnen Disziplinen. Bitte beachten Sie, dass ich mich nicht darum gek\u00fcmmert habe, die Blockierer diese Woche nach Disziplin zu rufen, da sie gegen\u00fcber der letzten Woche weitgehend unver\u00e4ndert sind. Und der gr\u00f6\u00dfte Blocker ist nat\u00fcrlich der Merge selbst, den ich bereits erw\u00e4hnt habe!\n\nAudio\nLetzte Woche hat das Foundry 42-Audioteam eine Aufnahmesitzung mit vielen verschiedenen Schusswaffen f\u00fcr den Einsatz in Umweltaudio durchgef\u00fchrt. Dazu geh\u00f6ren Waffen, die in geeigneten R\u00e4umen und auch in unterschiedlichen Abst\u00e4nden feuern. Dies wird f\u00fcr Positionsaudio und sp\u00e4ter f\u00fcr Ambient-Audio in der Welt verwendet. Dies wird wahrscheinlich mindestens eine Woche dauern, bis es in das Spiel integriert ist. Sie begannen auch, ihre Implementierung von Kugel- und Laser-Crack-Bys zu testen.\n\nGameplay\nAuf der Gameplay-Seite haben wir auf einen Zwischen-Staging-Stream umgestellt, um w\u00e4hrend des Merge zu arbeiten. Betrachten Sie es als einen Operationssaal f\u00fcr ein Videospiel, in dem wir Fusionskonflikte l\u00f6sen, Fehler analysieren und Probleme l\u00f6sen k\u00f6nnen, ohne etwas allzu Wichtiges zu zerst\u00f6ren. Unsere erste L\u00f6sung war ein Spawning-Problem, was bedeutete, dass wir wieder im Staging Stream Build spielen konnten. Wir trafen uns, um das Design-System f\u00fcr Waffenkomponenten zu besprechen. M\u00f6chten Sie Sichtm\u00f6glichkeiten? Wir auch. Anpassung ist ein sehr komplexes Thema, also wiederholen wir auf dem Design, um sicherzustellen, dass wir ein gutes System f\u00fcr harte, sinnvolle Entscheidungen haben UND gute M\u00f6glichkeiten, Ihre Waffen mit gen\u00fcgend Vielfalt f\u00fcr unser gro\u00dfes, lebendiges Universum zu personalisieren (das hei\u00dft, das System muss etwas anderes sein, als Ihnen die M\u00f6glichkeit zu geben, Ihre Waffe st\u00e4ndig besser zu machen; es muss Kontrollen und Ausgleiche geben...). Programmierer untersuchen derzeit Probleme mit der Cover-Animationslogik und einen Fehler, bei dem einige Waffen nicht richtig auf 50 Yards nullgestellt werden (das ist eigentlich eine Mischung aus Code- und Kunstproblemen).\n\nUI\nAuf der Benutzeroberfl\u00e4che haben wir eine umfassende Review-Feedback-Sitzung \u00fcber das FPS HUD durchgef\u00fchrt. Das Design hat daran gearbeitet, Tutorial-Hinweise und Handlungsanweisungen f\u00fcr das HUD zu vereinheitlichen, und wir haben das Health Paper Puppen-Display, die Munitionsanzeige und die Trefferanzeigen optimiert. Die \u00dcberarbeitung des Munitionsz\u00e4hlers ist abgeschlossen und wir haben ein Problem gel\u00f6st, bei dem einige HUDs keine Blutverlustwarnung anzeigen (nicht das, was Sie im Kampf wollen!) Wir haben auch den Code f\u00fcr den Granaten-UI-Indikator und die UI-Kontextkomponente zum Halten vorgelegt; wir erwarten gespanntes Feedback zu diesen.\n\nWir begannen auch, ein Problem mit Match-Timern zu untersuchen, die an zwei Stellen im HUD angezeigt werden (zumindest haben sie die gleiche Zeit angezeigt!), und das UI-Team trifft sich mit dem Audio-Team, um die passenden Sounds f\u00fcr das Interface synchron zu halten. Zuletzt freuen wir uns, Ihnen mitteilen zu k\u00f6nnen, dass das Star Marine UI-Team sich auf einen breiteren UI-Gipfel vorbereitet, der n\u00e4chste Woche in Gro\u00dfbritannien stattfindet. Dort werden wir uns mit den laufenden Arbeiten synchronisieren, die sowohl f\u00fcr Star Marine als auch f\u00fcr zuk\u00fcnftige Module von Persitent Universe erforderlich sind.\n\nKunst\nDas Kunstteam f\u00fchrte polnische Bearbeitungen durch und optimiert die Devastator Schrotflinte; Sie k\u00f6nnen einige Kunstwerke sehen, die diesem Beitrag beigef\u00fcgt sind. Es wurde auch an den ADS des Scharfsch\u00fctzengewehrs gearbeitet und die M\u00f6glichkeit, mehrere Zoomstufen zu verwenden. Wir haben ein Problem identifiziert, das Code-Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr einen Fix erfordert (und ein gutes Beispiel daf\u00fcr ist, wie diese Zusammenf\u00fchrungen aussehen): Das CryEngine SDK zoomt alles, wenn Sie ADS vergr\u00f6\u00dfern. Wir wollen eine viel realistischere Simulation, so dass die Ingenieure ein wenig unter der Haube arbeiten m\u00fcssen. Es gab auch Online-Kunst f\u00fcr die Helminnenr\u00e4ume f\u00fcr das HUD und Charakter-Kunst f\u00fcr die Lobby UI Loadout Screens (in Arbeit, noch nicht fertig.)\n\nAnimation\nAnimation! Wie du wei\u00dft, gibt es viel zu tun, aber wir haben Spa\u00df. Alle Animatoren sind nun auf den Hauptstrom von Game-Dev umgeschaltet. Die Arbeit an Crouch Juke-Animationen hat begonnen, und wir haben begonnen, Feedback f\u00fcr die auf Lager befindliche Magazin-Check-Animation und das Anschlie\u00dfen von Vent LODs zu erhalten. Dann ist da noch das coole neue Zeug: Die Animatoren begannen, die Hurt Locomotion, das gelagerte Cover und den Leistenmantel direkt aus den Mocap-Daten zu bearbeiten!\n\nAnimationsblocker\nDie wichtigste Nachricht hier ist, dass unser jetzt fertiggestellter Animations-Neustart WENIGER Zeit in Anspruch genommen hat als erwartet (wir hatten gesch\u00e4tzt, dass es bis zu zwei Monate dauern k\u00f6nnte.... und es wurde in zwei Wochen gemacht!). Eine Premiere f\u00fcr Star Marine, nat\u00fcrlich! Die \u00fcber 3000 Animationen, die f\u00fcr den Start ben\u00f6tigt werden, werden heruntergefahren. Wie ich angedeutet habe, sind Retargets fertig... und wie Sie oben gelesen haben, sind wir dabei, die NEUEN Mocap-Elemente, die auf dieser Liste stehen, zu zerlegen. Wieder ist es eine gro\u00dfe Aufgabe und Animatoren und Ingenieure aus allen Studios arbeiten daran.\n\nLassen Sie mich weitermachen und Sie warnen, dass das untenstehende Video zum Proxy-Testen extrem kurz ist.... aber ich denke, es ist ein interessanter Blick auf einige der iterativen Entwicklungen, die wir durchf\u00fchren!","zh_CN":"Greetings Citizens,\nLast week, you read about our thrilling battle with merge conflicts, the issues that came about as a result of our merging multiple game development streams following Gamescom. This week, we have continued dealing with these merge conflicts where they appear, both in the game\u2019s code and the assets (artwork, animations, sounds, etc.) and this has resulted in lots of broken builds to test and iterate on! Unfortunately, while that\u2019s good for the project it\u2019s bad for an interesting news update: dealing with the merge means we avoided adding much or testing the new features. Features are coming back online as we resolve conflicts, but we expect that the merge will continue into next week.\n\nOne thing we failed to mention about the merge is that it isn\u2019t just having us integrate work done by different teams for Gamescom\u2026 it\u2019s also adding an updated CryEngine SDK, CryEngine 3.7, to the Star Marine code base. There are lots of great new features in 3.7, many of which are coincidentally animation related (in addition to rendering improvements, the much hyped VR tie-ins and more.) As we said last week, it\u2019s short term pain for long term gain!\n\nAs I mentioned last week, the merge into the GameDev stream is necessary because GameDev is the basis for Arena Commander 2.0, aka multicrew. So merging code bases doesn\u2019t just give us extra functionality for Star Marine (though that means roughly three months of additional work we weren\u2019t able to access before!) but also ensures that the multicrew release will have FPS and social properly integrated as part of one cohesive whole. And this whole is something truly special: the newborn Persistent Universe!\n\nNow that the \u2018bad\u2019 news is out of the way (I should stress again that the merge was planned, and something we scheduled our work around), what follows is a rundown of what we did this week. Todd Papy and I (Jason Hutchins) have spent the week in Denver working directly with the team at Illfonic, and directing efforts from the developers at all CIG and F42 studios. QA in Austin gave us a comprehensive play through of the Free Play and Team Elimination gameplay modes so we could review everything that needs to be presented to the player via interstitial UI screens. When we implemented the Free Play mode, we rushed it out to internal playtest without polishing up all of the screens, countdowns, score screens, final results. That polish has continued to the present. QA also did a thorough check of all the level geometry, art, and collision proxies to see if there are any places that don\u2019t allow you to move through or shoot though them. They found a few, and we\u2019ll start working on them next week.\n\nAs I mentioned last week, Todd was working with the designers at F42 on the new objective game mode to replace Team Elimination. We have a design fleshed out this week, it will require some minor changes to the level, some custom UI and some gameplay engineering support. We have broken down the new2 mode into tasks and have started some aspects of this work this week. I\u2019d love to tell you more, but I know that it\u2019s going to change as we get the system online and prove it out. So let\u2019s treat that as a surprise for a future post, when the sausage looks more like\u2026 sausage!\n\nAt this point, we have a full feature list for the Star Marine launch and we\u2019re doing a great job of fighting off the monster known as feature creep as we play and tweak it. It\u2019s extremely easy to say \u2018we should add this! and that! And that!\u2019 as we play, and much of what we imagine today will make it into the game someday\u2026 but we know that doing it now will slow down the release and impact other areas of development. So we have to stay strong! The remaining Star Marine features have been tasked out, devs are assigned to them, and we\u2019re burning the tasks down as fast as we are able, considering the necessary merge chaos.\n\nLet\u2019s take a look at the individual disciplines. Please note that I have not bothered calling out the blockers by discipline this week, as they are largely unchanged from last week. And the biggest blocker is of course the merge itself that I already mentioned!\n\nAudio\nLast week the Foundry 42 audio team did a recording session of a lot of different firearms for use in environmental audio. This includes weapons firing in appropriate spaces and also a varying distances. This will be used for positional audio, and later for ambient audio in the world. This will likely take at least a week to integrate into the game. They also started testing their implementation of bullet and laser crack-bys\n\nGameplay\nOn the gameplay side we switched over to an intermediate staging stream to work during the merge. Think of it as an operating room for a video game where we can resolve merge conflicts, triage bugs and address issues without breaking anything too important. Our first fix was to a spawning issue, which meant that we could once again play in the staging stream build. We met to discuss the weapons component design system. Want sight options? So do we. Customization is a very complex topic, so we\u2019re iterating on the design to make sure we have a good system for hard, meaningful choices to make AND good ways to personalize your guns with enough variety for our big, living universe (that is to say, the system needs to be something other than giving you the option to continually make your gun better; there need to be checks and balances.) Programmers are currently looking at issues with cover animation logic and a bug in which some weapons are not being properly zeroed at 50 yards (that\u2019s actually a mix of code and art issues.)\n\nUI\nOn the UI side, we conducted a comprehensive review feedback session about the FPS HUD. Design has worked to unify tutorial hints and action prompts on the HUD and we\u2019ve been tw eaking the health paper doll display, ammo display and the hit indicators. The rework of the ammo counter has finished and we resolved an issue in which some HUDs weren\u2019t displaying a blood loss warning (not what you want happening in the thick of combat!) We also submitted the code for the grenade UI indicator and the UI context component to hold them; we\u2019re eagerly anticipating feedback on these.\n\nWe also began investigating a problem with match timers displaying in two places in the HUD (at least they showed the same time!) and the UI team is meeting with the audio team to get in sync on matching sounds to the interface. Last, we\u2019re happy to report that the Star Marine UI team is prepping for a wider UI summit taking place in the UK next week. There, we\u2019ll sync up on the ongoing work needed for both Star Marine and future Persitent Universe modules.\n\nArt\nThe art team conducted polish edits and tweaks to the Devastator Shotgun; you can see some artwork attached to this post. There was also work on the Sniper Rifle\u2019s ADS and the ability to have multiple zoom levels. We identified a problem that requires code support for a fix (and is a good example of what these merges are like): the CryEngine SDK zooms everything when you zoom in ADS. We want to do a much more realistic simulation, so the engineers will need to do a little work under the hood. There was also work on line art for the helmet interiors for the HUD and character art for the lobby UI loadout screens (in progress, not yet finished.)\n\nAnimation\nAnimation! As you know, there\u2019s a lot of work to do, but we are having fun. All animators have now switched over to the main Game-Dev stream. Work has begun on crouch juke animations and we\u2019ve started addressing feedback for the stocked magazine check animation and hooking up vent LODs. Then, there\u2019s the cool new stuff: animators began editing the hurt locomotion, the stocked cover and the ledge mantle straight out of the mocap data!\n\nAnimation Blockers\nThe most important news here is that our animation retarget, now finished, took LESS time than expected (we had estimated it might take as long as two months\u2026 and it was done in two weeks!) A first for Star Marine, surely! Burning down those 3000+ animations needed for launch. As I implied, retargets are finished\u2026 and as you read above we are on to cutting up the NEW mocap items that are on that list. Again, it\u2019s a big task and animators and engineers from all studios are working on it.\n\nLet me go ahead and warn you that the proxy testing video below is extremely short\u2026 but I think it\u2019s an interesting look at some of the iterative development we\u2019re doing!"},"links_count":0,"comment_count":299,"created_at":"2015-08-22T00:00:00+00:00","created_at_human":"10 years ago"},"meta":{"processed_at":"2026-05-08 11:48:18","valid_relations":["images","links"],"prev_id":14910,"next_id":14913}}