{"data":{"id":17545,"title":"Squadron 42 Monthly Report: March 2020","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/comm-link\/transmission\/17545-Squadron-42-Monthly-Report-March-2020","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-links\/17545","api_public_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/comm-links\/17545","channel":"Undefined","category":"Undefined","series":"Monthly 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is a cross-post of the report that was recently sent out via the monthly Squadron 42 newsletter. We\u2019re publishing this a second time as a Comm-Link to make it easier for the community to reference back to.\nAttention Recruits,\n\nWhat you are about to read is the latest information on the continuing development of Squadron 42 (SCI des: SQ42).\nMany operatives risked life and limb and came back with information regarding Vanduul weaponry, language, and upcoming work on Vanduul VFX.\n\nThe information contained in this communication is extremely sensitive and it is of paramount importance that it does not fall into the wrong hands. Purge all records after reading.\n\nUEE Naval High Command\n\nAI\nMarch\u2019s SQ42 report starts with the Combat AI Team, who focused on refactoring the Cover System. This involved utilizing voxelization data (the same process used for navigation mesh creation) to better evaluate the environment and construct cover surfaces and locations. The aim is to simplify the environment and build consistent cover data with the pre-assembled prefabs. This will enable the designers to mark objects as elements that need to be considered in the cover generation phase so the code can handle it efficiently, potentially turning multiple objects into one cover object. They also worked on a new combat tactic for holding positions, which included a polishing pass based on discussions with the designers and feedback from the directors. They also began investigating the work required to introduce the reloading mechanic to NPCs. Ship AI dedicated part of the month to addressing bugs and corner cases following the integration of the 3D collision avoidance system. Better collision avoidance enables additional combat maneuvers to be developed to add flare to the dogfighting AI. In particular, they focused on defensive maneuvers (retreat\/flee) that tell AI ships to prioritize shaking off attackers to reduce their chances of being hit. Additional work was done to formation flying too. Preliminary design work began on capital ship behaviors and standard dogfight activity was streamlined to accommodate new maneuvers and cope with the growing number of combat requirements.\n\nSocial AI worked on new patrol features that can be used for both systemic patrol and environmental scripting. Environmental scripting creates story scene markups used dynamically by Subsumption behaviors to keep actor performances as intact as possible.\n\n\n\nArt (Characters)\nThe Character Team continued with hair, as it\u2019s \u201cone of the most difficult assets to get right\u201d. They\u2019re making great progress and will use the final pipeline form to create new hairstyles in the future. They finalized the Bridge Officer uniform and worked on the overall Battle Dress Uniform (BDU). Once complete, they\u2019ll move onto the engineer and deck crew. Time was also dedicated to finalizing the Vanduul, including several individual characters and the themes of the Occuri (the Vanduul operate in isolated clans, known as Occuri, each with unique cultures, laws, and visual norms).\n\nArt (Weapons)\nMarch began with the SQ42 Art Team handing over Vanduul weaponry. The Weapons Team made their initial pass, setting them up in the pipeline and expanding the set to incorporate various size options. Once complete, they moved onto several huge S7-S9 Behring lasers due for completion in early April.\n\nCinematics\nThe Cinematics Team began implementing the \u2018interrupt\u2019 tech mentioned in previous reports into the design sprint tasks for each applicable scene. This enables them to look at a scene and how it plays out before deciding on the time windows available in the performance that a player can interrupt or abandon. This determines whether the existing motion capture (mo-cap) is suitable or if additional animation work is needed. As most scenes are mo-cap based, the team must carefully assign breakout points to allow NPCs to react to the player abandoning them. Once the cinematics and level designers have added their interrupt markup, the animators break up the animation fragments, being careful not to lose interesting elements of the performance. It\u2019s a fine balance, as too many interrupts create excessive work, but not enough could leave an NPC referencing player absence in an unrealistic way.\n\nEngineering\nIn the UK, the SQ42 designers implemented a new way to trigger story scenes and conversations, which is more flexible and significantly reduces scripting and setup work. It allows the designers to combine various parameters, such as distance and time nearby, if the player is in the field-of-view of a character. This will make scene triggering feel much more lifelike. The team also supported Cinematics, improving their ability to control and fire weapons. In Frankfurt, Engineering worked on physics threading and performance. They enabled up to 30 physics threads (defaulting to \u00be of logical cores available); added the option to limit the number of threads per thread task; improved the memory performance and footprint of command queues; defined local queues that can be processed in parallel; moved relevant game code to local physics command queues; created local queues based on the entities\u2019 adam so they can process the joint\/part updates in parallel; moved many reposition\/recompute calls to queues; and made various other queue related optimizations.\n\nThey also added driven ragdoll support for body dragging, gravity adjustments to actor entity ground tracking, per-joint driven ragdoll stiffness, and impulse to the root of a tracking-driven ragdoll.\n\nRegarding unused vertex optimization, all unused vertices in physics meshes are now pruned. Alongside saving 8GB of disk space, it provides better data cache locality on the CPU. Work also continued on part containers\/compute bounding box optimization (formerly known as physics geometry instancing). Skinned foliage was found to be missing leaves, which was fixed before being given to the object-container-splitting physics voxel grids.\n\nThe Vulcan (G12) render mesh API was refactored for more streamlined and efficient creation and data upload. Unused legacy code was removed and a shader handle was added to the remaining legacy pipeline. For unified raymarching, the initial elements of the adaptive resolution were submitted, work continued on the upsampling of adaptive resolution results, and samples were placed via low discrepancy generators. They also determined screen bounds of planetary atmospheres to further guide sample placement and started R&D into ensuring adaptive resolution raymarching works well with ray jittering and TSAA. They also investigated performance issues with oceans caused by CPU readback and fixed HDR display and D3D debug runtime errors.\n\nFor general work, Engineering improved the ECUS update code by fixing a flaw in the update logic that caused unnecessary iterations of aggregate groups. They further improved the logic to reduce scans of entire connection lists and optimized threading.\n\nA significant improvement was made to the large render batch management\u2019s performance. Previously, Engineering had iterated on the list of potential batches, but it grew to over 1000 entries, making clean up computationally expensive (1.5ms). To solve this, they now maintain a list of rendered batches. Subsections of component update functions were added to their batch jobs to improve profiling, as were profiling subsections to batch jobs. For the Zone System, a new interface for updating local bounds was added.\n\nThe animation side of Engineering made a prototype of a new skin loader and added support for physical skin proxies. They also moved all relevant World Builder code into its own engine module for faster programming iteration time.\n\n\n\nGameplay Story\nThe Gameplay Story Team continued to support the Design Team with the interrupt system, further delivering animations and developing a library of generic body animations to accompany character interrupt lines. These animations look promising and solve a long-term issue around interrupts in general. They continued to add new audio and animations to the Random to NPC scenes and applied the Real Digital Acting parameters to Chapter Four. They\u2019re currently looking closely at the setup of characters seated at the bridge of the Idris and will work with Social AI in the coming weeks to further bring them to life.\n\nGraphics\nThe Graphics Team spent the month continuing their crucial work on the Vulkan renderer, converting the existing volumetric fog system and debug tools to the new system. They also began planning and prototyping how to handle interdependencies of resources between shader passes, as the system will need to allocate resources and efficiently schedule work while ensuring it doesn\u2019t read resources before write operations are completed. The team also investigated how to improve the legibility of holographic\/transparent UI screens in extremely bright or dark environments. This involved using the average and maximum screen brightness, or a localized region of the screen, to determine the suitable UI brightness. Several color blending approaches were also investigated.\n\n\n\nLevel Design\nAdditional triggering tech was delivered to the Level Design Team that will ensure scenes trigger in the most realistic way possible. Level Design are still working with FPS AI to integrate prioritized behaviors and the patrolling tech updates, which will allow NPCs to engage in realistic upper-body conversations as they walk. The Dogfight Team are currently layering in updated flight AI features, such as formation flying, as they\u2019re delivered by the AI Team. Both teams synch daily and continue to polish levels with new technology as it becomes available.\n\nNarrative\nThe Narrative Team continued reviewing levels and sharing feedback, including identifying background conversations that were missing satisfying conclusions or featured suspiciously quiet participants. To solve this, they wrote and recorded placeholder lines that will be captured at a later date. The team also worked with xenolinguist Britton Watkins to continue developing the Vanduul language, including how physiological features could potentially be incorporated.\n\nQA\nQA are currently tasked with capturing client scene recordings of individual chapters, as well as investigating any issues that hinder the Cinematics Team\u2019s workflow. They recently pushed to improve the IRA database by creating filters for better tracking and vision to give more transparency on areas that need work. Combat and ship AI testing continued too.\n\nTech Animation\nAlongside training new team members, March saw Tech Animation refactoring the in-house facial rigging and animation suite. This is with a view to supporting next-generation content with a flexible and modular approach to its codebase and rigging platform, which will ultimately be used to further refine the existing facial rigs and create all new ones. The team also helped implement animations to bring the new cast and crew to life. This has led to the creation of a new toolset to help visualize and apply flowgraph-style animation sets to the non-flowgraph sandbox animation tool suite.\n\nContinued work with the Social AI Team identified the need for Tech Animation to further refine their rigging toolsets to support the vast number of upcoming props. They\u2019re now robust enough and enable a streamlined approach to authoring new animation rigs. They also spring-cleaned their codebase, identifying new pipeline foundations and tools to refactor.\n\nSpecifically for SQ42, Tech Animation in Frankfurt created a placeholder entity for Vira Kelso to enable Cinematics to work on scenes she features in. They updated various character and Maya loadouts for the cinematic animators, enabling them to work with the same loadout the characters will use in-engine.\n\nThey also developed a tool to enable Character Art to add skeleton extensions from a preset before editing and exporting them to speed up the authoring process. They worked with the Weapons Team on bugs and requests, including rig updates, Mannequin setups, IK target updates, and export errors too.\n\n\n\nVFX\nFinally for March, the VFX Team completed their work on the Aciedo Station interior. They continued to investigate Vanduul VFX, taking on feedback from the Director of Cinematics, and continued planning for the next quarter, identifying several locations now ready for a VFX pass. They\u2019re also close to phasing out the old CPU particle system. This involves adding the last few remaining core features from the CPU into the GPU system, such as support for the material shaders for effects like refraction, shader triggers, audio entry function calls, and light casting. WE\u2019LL SEE YOU NEXT MONTH\u2026","de_DE":"Dies ist ein Querverweis auf den Bericht, der k\u00fcrzlich \u00fcber den monatlichen Newsletter Squadron 42 verschickt wurde. Wir ver\u00f6ffentlichen ihn ein zweites Mal als Comm-Link, um es der Gemeinschaft zu erleichtern, auf ihn zur\u00fcckzugreifen.\nAchtung Rekruten,\n\nWas Sie gleich lesen werden, sind die neuesten Informationen \u00fcber die weitere Entwicklung der Staffel 42 (SCI des: SQ42).\nViele Agenten riskierten Leib und Leben und kamen mit Informationen \u00fcber die Vanduul-Waffen, die Sprache und die bevorstehende Arbeit an Vanduul VFX zur\u00fcck.\n\nDie in dieser Mitteilung enthaltenen Informationen sind \u00e4u\u00dferst sensibel, und es ist von gr\u00f6\u00dfter Wichtigkeit, dass sie nicht in die falschen H\u00e4nde geraten. L\u00f6schen Sie alle Aufzeichnungen nach dem Lesen.\n\nUEE Marine-Oberkommando\n\nKI\nDer SQ42-Bericht vom M\u00e4rz beginnt mit dem Kampf-KI-Team, das sich auf die Refaktorierung des Deckungssystems konzentrierte. Dies beinhaltete die Verwendung von Voxelizationsdaten (derselbe Prozess, der f\u00fcr die Erstellung von Navigationsnetzen verwendet wird), um die Umgebung besser zu bewerten und Deckungsfl\u00e4chen und Standorte zu konstruieren. Ziel ist es, die Umgebung zu vereinfachen und konsistente Deckungsdaten mit den vormontierten Fertigteilen aufzubauen. Dies erm\u00f6glicht es den Designern, Objekte als Elemente zu markieren, die in der Phase der Cover-Generierung ber\u00fccksichtigt werden m\u00fcssen, so dass der Code effizient damit umgehen kann und m\u00f6glicherweise mehrere Objekte in ein Cover-Objekt verwandelt. Sie arbeiteten auch an einer neuen Kampftaktik zum Halten der Positionen, die einen Polierdurchgang auf der Grundlage von Diskussionen mit den Designern und R\u00fcckmeldungen der Direktoren beinhaltete. Sie begannen auch mit der Untersuchung der Arbeiten, die erforderlich sind, um die Nachlade-Mechanik bei den NPCs einzuf\u00fchren. Die Schiffs-KI widmete einen Teil des Monats der Behebung von Fehlern und Eckf\u00e4llen nach der Integration des 3D-Kollisionsvermeidungssystems. Eine bessere Kollisionsvermeidung erm\u00f6glicht es, zus\u00e4tzliche Kampfman\u00f6ver zu entwickeln, um die KI im Nahkampf zu verbessern. Insbesondere konzentrierten sie sich auf Abwehrman\u00f6ver (R\u00fcckzug\/Flucht), mit denen KI-Schiffe angewiesen werden, das Absch\u00fctteln von Angreifern zu priorisieren, um ihre Trefferchancen zu verringern. Auch am Formationsflug wurde zus\u00e4tzliche Arbeit geleistet. Vorl\u00e4ufige Entwurfsarbeiten begannen mit dem Verhalten von Gro\u00dfkampfschiffen, und die Standard-Dogfight-Aktivit\u00e4ten wurden rationalisiert, um neue Man\u00f6ver zu erm\u00f6glichen und der wachsenden Zahl von Kampfanforderungen gerecht zu werden.\n\nDie soziale KI arbeitete an neuen Patrouillenfunktionen, die sowohl f\u00fcr systemische Patrouillen als auch f\u00fcr Umweltskripting verwendet werden k\u00f6nnen. Beim Umweltskripting werden Story-Szenen-Markups erstellt, die von Subsumptionsverhalten dynamisch verwendet werden, um die Leistungen der Schauspieler so intakt wie m\u00f6glich zu halten.\n\n\nKunst (Zeichen)\nDas Charakter-Team fuhr mit den Haaren fort, da es \"eines der schwierigsten Mittel ist, richtig zu arbeiten\". Sie machen gro\u00dfe Fortschritte und werden die endg\u00fcltige Form der Pipeline nutzen, um in Zukunft neue Frisuren zu kreieren. Sie stellten die Uniform des Br\u00fcckenoffiziers fertig und arbeiteten an der allgemeinen Kampfanzug-Uniform (BDU). Sobald sie fertiggestellt ist, werden sie auf den Ingenieur und die Decksmannschaft \u00fcbergehen. Zeit wurde auch f\u00fcr die Fertigstellung der Vanduul aufgewendet, einschlie\u00dflich mehrerer individueller Charaktere und der Themen der Occuri (die Vanduul operieren in isolierten Clans, bekannt als Occuri, jeder mit einzigartigen Kulturen, Gesetzen und visuellen Normen).\nKunst (Waffen)\nDer M\u00e4rz begann mit der \u00dcbergabe der Vanduul-Waffen durch das SQ42 Art Team. Das Waffenteam machte seinen ersten Durchgang, richtete sie in der Pipeline ein und erweiterte das Set um verschiedene Gr\u00f6\u00dfenoptionen. Nach der Fertigstellung gingen sie auf mehrere riesige S7-S9 Behring-Laser \u00fcber, die Anfang April fertiggestellt werden sollen.\nKinematographie\nDas Filmteam begann mit der Implementierung der in fr\u00fcheren Berichten erw\u00e4hnten \"Unterbrechungs\"-Technik in die Design-Sprint-Aufgaben f\u00fcr jede anwendbare Szene. Dies erm\u00f6glicht es ihnen, eine Szene und deren Ablauf zu betrachten, bevor sie entscheiden, welche Zeitfenster in der Auff\u00fchrung zur Verf\u00fcgung stehen, die ein Spieler unterbrechen oder abbrechen kann. Dadurch wird bestimmt, ob die vorhandene Bewegungserfassung (mo-cap) geeignet ist oder ob zus\u00e4tzliche Animationsarbeit erforderlich ist. Da die meisten Szenen mo-cap-basiert sind, muss das Team sorgf\u00e4ltig Breakout-Punkte zuweisen, damit die NSCs auf den Spieler reagieren k\u00f6nnen, der sie aufgibt. Sobald die Kinematiker und Leveldesigner ihre Unterbrechungsmarkierung hinzugef\u00fcgt haben, brechen die Animatoren die Animationsfragmente auf, wobei sie darauf achten, keine interessanten Elemente der Darbietung zu verlieren. Das ist eine feine Balance, da zu viele Unterbrechungen zu viel Arbeit verursachen, aber nicht genug k\u00f6nnte einen NPC, der auf den Spieler verweist, auf unrealistische Weise abwesend machen.\nTechnik\nIn Gro\u00dfbritannien implementierten die SQ42-Designer eine neue Methode, um Szenen und Gespr\u00e4che in der Geschichte auszul\u00f6sen, die flexibler ist und die Skript- und Einrichtungsarbeit erheblich reduziert. Sie erlaubt es den Designern, verschiedene Parameter wie Entfernung und Zeit in der N\u00e4he zu kombinieren, wenn sich der Spieler im Sichtfeld eines Charakters befindet. Dadurch f\u00fchlt sich die Szenenausl\u00f6sung viel lebensechter an. Das Team unterst\u00fctzte auch die Cinematics und verbesserte damit ihre F\u00e4higkeit, Waffen zu kontrollieren und abzufeuern. In Frankfurt besch\u00e4ftigte sich das Ingenieurwesen mit Physik-Threading und Performance. Sie aktivierten bis zu 30 Physik-Threads (standardm\u00e4\u00dfig unter \u00be der verf\u00fcgbaren logischen Kerne), f\u00fcgten die Option hinzu, die Anzahl der Threads pro Thread-Task zu begrenzen, verbesserten die Speicherleistung und den Platzbedarf der Befehlswarteschlangen, definierten lokale Warteschlangen, die parallel verarbeitet werden k\u00f6nnen, verschoben relevanten Spielcode in lokale Physik-Befehlswarteschlangen, erstellten lokale Warteschlangen auf der Grundlage des Adam der Entit\u00e4ten, so dass sie die Verbindungs-\/Teil-Aktualisierungen parallel verarbeiten k\u00f6nnen, verschoben viele Neupositionierungs-\/ Neuberechnungsaufrufe in Warteschlangen und nahmen verschiedene andere warteschlangenbezogene Optimierungen vor.\n\nSie f\u00fcgten auch die Unterst\u00fctzung einer getriebenen Ragdoll f\u00fcr das Body-Dragging, Schwerkraftanpassungen an die Bodenverfolgung der Akteurseinheit, die Steifigkeit einer gelenkgetriebenen Ragdoll und den Impuls an die Wurzel einer ragdollgetriebenen Ragdoll hinzu.\n\nIn Bezug auf die unbenutzte Vertex-Optimierung werden jetzt alle unbenutzten Vertices in Physik-Netzen beschnitten. Neben der Einsparung von 8 GB Plattenplatz bietet es eine bessere Datencache-Lokalit\u00e4t auf der CPU. Die Arbeit an der Optimierung von Teilcontainern\/Compute Bounding Box (fr\u00fcher bekannt als Physics Geometry Instancing) wurde ebenfalls fortgesetzt. Es stellte sich heraus, dass geh\u00e4utete Bl\u00e4tter fehlten, was behoben wurde, bevor sie an die objektcontaineraufteilenden Physik-Voxel-Gitter \u00fcbergeben wurden.\n\nDie Render-Mesh-API von Vulcan (G12) wurde \u00fcberarbeitet, um die Erstellung und das Hochladen von Daten zu rationalisieren und effizienter zu gestalten. Unbenutzter Legacy-Code wurde entfernt und der verbleibenden Legacy-Pipeline wurde ein Shader-Handle hinzugef\u00fcgt. F\u00fcr ein vereinheitlichtes Raymarching wurden die ersten Elemente der adaptiven Aufl\u00f6sung eingereicht, die Arbeit am Upsampling der Ergebnisse der adaptiven Aufl\u00f6sung wurde fortgesetzt, und Proben wurden \u00fcber Generatoren mit geringer Diskrepanz platziert. Sie legten auch die Bildschirmgrenzen planetarischer Atmosph\u00e4ren fest, um die Platzierung der Proben weiter zu steuern, und begannen mit der Forschung und Entwicklung, um sicherzustellen, dass das Raymarching mit adaptiver Aufl\u00f6sung gut mit Strahlenzittern und TSAA funktioniert. Sie untersuchten auch Leistungsprobleme mit Ozeanen, die durch das CPU-Readback verursacht wurden, und beseitigten HDR-Anzeige- und D3D-Debug-Laufzeitfehler.\n\nF\u00fcr allgemeine Arbeiten verbesserte das Engineering den ECUS-Aktualisierungscode, indem ein Fehler in der Aktualisierungslogik behoben wurde, der unn\u00f6tige Iterationen von Aggregatgruppen verursachte. Die Logik wurde weiter verbessert, um das Scannen ganzer Verbindungslisten zu reduzieren und das Threading zu optimieren.\n\nDie Leistung der Verwaltung gro\u00dfer Renderbatches wurde erheblich verbessert. Zuvor hatte die Technik auf der Liste der potenziellen Batches iteriert, aber die Liste wuchs auf \u00fcber 1000 Eintr\u00e4ge an, was die Bereinigung rechenaufw\u00e4ndig machte (1,5 ms). Um dieses Problem zu l\u00f6sen, f\u00fchren sie jetzt eine Liste der gerenderten Stapel. Unterabschnitte von Komponentenaktualisierungsfunktionen wurden zu ihren Batch-Jobs hinzugef\u00fcgt, um die Profilerstellung zu verbessern, ebenso wie die Profilerstellung von Unterabschnitten zu Batch-Jobs. F\u00fcr das Zonensystem wurde eine neue Schnittstelle f\u00fcr die Aktualisierung lokaler Grenzen hinzugef\u00fcgt.\n\nDie Animationsseite von Engineering erstellte einen Prototyp eines neuen Skin-Loaders und f\u00fcgte Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr physische Skin-Proxies hinzu. Au\u00dferdem wurde der gesamte relevante World Builder-Code in ein eigenes Engine Modul verschoben, um die Iterationszeit bei der Programmierung zu verk\u00fcrzen.\n\n\nGameplay-Geschichte\nDas Gameplay-Story-Team unterst\u00fctzte das Design-Team weiterhin mit dem Unterbrechungssystem, lieferte weiterhin Animationen und entwickelte eine Bibliothek von generischen K\u00f6rperanimationen zur Begleitung von Charakter-Unterbrechungslinien. Diese Animationen sehen vielversprechend aus und l\u00f6sen ein langfristiges Problem im Zusammenhang mit Unterbrechungen im Allgemeinen. Sie f\u00fcgten weiterhin neue Audio- und Animationen zu den Zufalls- bis NPC-Szenen hinzu und wendeten die Parameter des Real Digital Acting auf Kapitel Vier an. Gegenw\u00e4rtig wird der Aufbau der Charaktere, die an der Br\u00fccke des Idris sitzen, genauestens untersucht, und in den kommenden Wochen werden sie mit der sozialen KI zusammenarbeiten, um sie weiter zum Leben zu erwecken.\nGrafiken\nDas Grafikteam verbrachte den Monat damit, seine entscheidende Arbeit am Vulkan-Renderer fortzusetzen und das bestehende volumetrische Nebelsystem und die Debug-Tools in das neue System zu konvertieren. Au\u00dferdem begannen sie mit der Planung und Prototyperstellung, wie mit den Abh\u00e4ngigkeiten der Ressourcen zwischen den Shader-Durchg\u00e4ngen umgegangen werden soll, da das System Ressourcen zuweisen und die Arbeit effizient planen muss, wobei sichergestellt werden muss, dass es keine Ressourcen liest, bevor die Schreibvorg\u00e4nge abgeschlossen sind. Das Team untersuchte auch, wie die Lesbarkeit von holographischen\/transparenten UI-Bildschirmen in extrem hellen oder dunklen Umgebungen verbessert werden kann. Dies beinhaltete die Verwendung der durchschnittlichen und maximalen Bildschirmhelligkeit oder einer lokalisierten Region des Bildschirms, um die geeignete UI-Helligkeit zu bestimmen. Mehrere Ans\u00e4tze zur Farbmischung wurden ebenfalls untersucht.\n\n\nLevel-Entwurf\nDem Level Design Team wurde zus\u00e4tzliche Ausl\u00f6setechnik zur Verf\u00fcgung gestellt, die sicherstellt, dass Szenen so realistisch wie m\u00f6glich ausgel\u00f6st werden. Das Leveldesign arbeitet noch immer mit dem FPS AI zusammen, um priorisierte Verhaltensweisen und die Patrouillentechnik-Updates zu integrieren, die es den NSCs erm\u00f6glichen werden, realistische Gespr\u00e4che mit dem Oberk\u00f6rper zu f\u00fchren, w\u00e4hrend sie gehen. Das Dogfight-Team schichtet derzeit aktualisierte Flug-KI-Funktionen, wie z.B. das Formationsfliegen, ein, w\u00e4hrend sie vom KI-Team bereitgestellt werden. Beide Teams werden t\u00e4glich synchronisiert und arbeiten weiterhin mit neuen Technologien, sobald diese verf\u00fcgbar sind.\nErz\u00e4hlung\nDas Erz\u00e4hlteam setzte die \u00dcberpr\u00fcfung der Ebenen und den Austausch von Feedback fort, einschlie\u00dflich der Identifizierung von Hintergrundgespr\u00e4chen, bei denen befriedigende Schlussfolgerungen fehlten oder verd\u00e4chtig ruhige Teilnehmer auftraten. Um dies zu l\u00f6sen, schrieben und zeichneten Platzhalterzeilen auf, die zu einem sp\u00e4teren Zeitpunkt erfasst werden sollen. Das Team arbeitete auch mit der Xenolinguistin Britton Watkins zusammen, um die Vanduul-Sprache weiterzuentwickeln, einschlie\u00dflich der Frage, wie m\u00f6glicherweise physiologische Merkmale einbezogen werden k\u00f6nnten.\nQUALIT\u00c4TSSICHERUNG\nDie Qualit\u00e4tssicherung hat derzeit die Aufgabe, Szenenaufnahmen von einzelnen Kapiteln des Kunden zu erfassen und alle Probleme zu untersuchen, die den Arbeitsablauf des Filmteams behindern. K\u00fcrzlich dr\u00e4ngten sie darauf, die IRA-Datenbank zu verbessern, indem sie Filter f\u00fcr eine bessere Nachverfolgung und Vision schufen, um mehr Transparenz in den Bereichen zu schaffen, die bearbeitet werden m\u00fcssen. Kampf- und Schiffs-KI-Tests wurden ebenfalls fortgesetzt.\nTechnische Animation\nNeben der Schulung neuer Teammitglieder wurde im M\u00e4rz von Tech Animation die hauseigene Faccial-Rigging- und Animationssuite \u00fcberarbeitet. Dies geschieht im Hinblick auf die Unterst\u00fctzung von Inhalten der n\u00e4chsten Generation mit einem flexiblen und modularen Ansatz f\u00fcr die Codebasis und die Rigging-Plattform, die letztendlich zur weiteren Verfeinerung der bestehenden Gesichtsriggs und zur Erstellung aller neuen Rigs verwendet werden. Das Team half auch bei der Implementierung von Animationen, um die neue Besetzung und Crew zum Leben zu erwecken. Dies hat zur Schaffung eines neuen Werkzeugsatzes gef\u00fchrt, der die Visualisierung und Anwendung von Animationss\u00e4tzen im Flowgraph-Stil auf die nicht Flowgraph-Sandbox-Animationswerkzeugsuite unterst\u00fctzt.\n\nDie fortgesetzte Arbeit mit dem sozialen KI-Team ergab, dass die Tech Animation ihre Rigging-Werkzeugs\u00e4tze weiter verfeinern muss, um die gro\u00dfe Zahl der bevorstehenden Requisiten zu unterst\u00fctzen. Sie sind jetzt robust genug und erm\u00f6glichen einen rationalisierten Ansatz f\u00fcr die Erstellung neuer Animations-Rigs. Au\u00dferdem haben sie ihre Codebasis gr\u00fcndlich ges\u00e4ubert und neue Pipeline-Fundamente und Tools f\u00fcr die \u00dcberarbeitung identifiziert.\n\nSpeziell f\u00fcr SQ42 schuf Tech Animation in Frankfurt eine Platzhalter-Einheit f\u00fcr Vira Kelso, um es Cinematics zu erm\u00f6glichen, an Szenen zu arbeiten, in denen sie mitspielt. Sie aktualisierten verschiedene Charakter- und Maya-Loadouts f\u00fcr die Cinematic Animators, so dass sie mit demselben Loadout arbeiten k\u00f6nnen, das die Charaktere in der Engine verwenden werden.\n\nSie entwickelten auch ein Werkzeug, mit dem Character Art vor der Bearbeitung und dem Export Skeletterweiterungen aus einer Voreinstellung hinzuf\u00fcgen kann, um den Autorenprozess zu beschleunigen. Sie arbeiteten mit dem Weapons Team an Fehlern und Anfragen, einschlie\u00dflich Rig-Updates, Mannequin-Setups, IK-Zielaktualisierungen und auch Exportfehler.\n\n\nVFX\nIm M\u00e4rz schloss das VFX-Team schlie\u00dflich seine Arbeiten an der Inneneinrichtung der Aciedo Station ab. Sie setzten die Untersuchung von Vanduul VFX unter Ber\u00fccksichtigung des Feedbacks des Director of Cinematics fort und fuhren mit der Planung f\u00fcr das n\u00e4chste Quartal fort, indem sie mehrere Standorte ausfindig machten, die jetzt f\u00fcr einen VFX-Pass bereit sind.\nSie stehen auch kurz davor, das alte CPU-Partikelsystem auslaufen zu lassen. Dazu geh\u00f6rt das Hinzuf\u00fcgen der letzten verbleibenden Kernfunktionen von der CPU zum GPU-System, wie z.B. die Unterst\u00fctzung der Material-Shader f\u00fcr Effekte wie Brechung, Shader-Trigger, Audio-Eingabefunktionsaufrufe und Lichtwurf. WIR SEHEN SIE N\u00c4CHSTEN MONAT...","zh_CN":"This is a cross-post of the report that was recently sent out via the monthly Squadron 42 newsletter. We\u2019re publishing this a second time as a Comm-Link to make it easier for the community to reference back to.\nAttention Recruits,\n\nWhat you are about to read is the latest information on the continuing development of Squadron 42 (SCI des: SQ42).\nMany operatives risked life and limb and came back with information regarding Vanduul weaponry, language, and upcoming work on Vanduul VFX.\n\nThe information contained in this communication is extremely sensitive and it is of paramount importance that it does not fall into the wrong hands. Purge all records after reading.\n\nUEE Naval High Command\n\nAI\nMarch\u2019s SQ42 report starts with the Combat AI Team, who focused on refactoring the Cover System. This involved utilizing voxelization data (the same process used for navigation mesh creation) to better evaluate the environment and construct cover surfaces and locations. The aim is to simplify the environment and build consistent cover data with the pre-assembled prefabs. This will enable the designers to mark objects as elements that need to be considered in the cover generation phase so the code can handle it efficiently, potentially turning multiple objects into one cover object. They also worked on a new combat tactic for holding positions, which included a polishing pass based on discussions with the designers and feedback from the directors. They also began investigating the work required to introduce the reloading mechanic to NPCs. Ship AI dedicated part of the month to addressing bugs and corner cases following the integration of the 3D collision avoidance system. Better collision avoidance enables additional combat maneuvers to be developed to add flare to the dogfighting AI. In particular, they focused on defensive maneuvers (retreat\/flee) that tell AI ships to prioritize shaking off attackers to reduce their chances of being hit. Additional work was done to formation flying too. Preliminary design work began on capital ship behaviors and standard dogfight activity was streamlined to accommodate new maneuvers and cope with the growing number of combat requirements.\n\nSocial AI worked on new patrol features that can be used for both systemic patrol and environmental scripting. Environmental scripting creates story scene markups used dynamically by Subsumption behaviors to keep actor performances as intact as possible.\n\n\n\nArt (Characters)\nThe Character Team continued with hair, as it\u2019s \u201cone of the most difficult assets to get right\u201d. They\u2019re making great progress and will use the final pipeline form to create new hairstyles in the future. They finalized the Bridge Officer uniform and worked on the overall Battle Dress Uniform (BDU). Once complete, they\u2019ll move onto the engineer and deck crew. Time was also dedicated to finalizing the Vanduul, including several individual characters and the themes of the Occuri (the Vanduul operate in isolated clans, known as Occuri, each with unique cultures, laws, and visual norms).\n\nArt (Weapons)\nMarch began with the SQ42 Art Team handing over Vanduul weaponry. The Weapons Team made their initial pass, setting them up in the pipeline and expanding the set to incorporate various size options. Once complete, they moved onto several huge S7-S9 Behring lasers due for completion in early April.\n\nCinematics\nThe Cinematics Team began implementing the \u2018interrupt\u2019 tech mentioned in previous reports into the design sprint tasks for each applicable scene. This enables them to look at a scene and how it plays out before deciding on the time windows available in the performance that a player can interrupt or abandon. This determines whether the existing motion capture (mo-cap) is suitable or if additional animation work is needed. As most scenes are mo-cap based, the team must carefully assign breakout points to allow NPCs to react to the player abandoning them. Once the cinematics and level designers have added their interrupt markup, the animators break up the animation fragments, being careful not to lose interesting elements of the performance. It\u2019s a fine balance, as too many interrupts create excessive work, but not enough could leave an NPC referencing player absence in an unrealistic way.\n\nEngineering\nIn the UK, the SQ42 designers implemented a new way to trigger story scenes and conversations, which is more flexible and significantly reduces scripting and setup work. It allows the designers to combine various parameters, such as distance and time nearby, if the player is in the field-of-view of a character. This will make scene triggering feel much more lifelike. The team also supported Cinematics, improving their ability to control and fire weapons. In Frankfurt, Engineering worked on physics threading and performance. They enabled up to 30 physics threads (defaulting to \u00be of logical cores available); added the option to limit the number of threads per thread task; improved the memory performance and footprint of command queues; defined local queues that can be processed in parallel; moved relevant game code to local physics command queues; created local queues based on the entities\u2019 adam so they can process the joint\/part updates in parallel; moved many reposition\/recompute calls to queues; and made various other queue related optimizations.\n\nThey also added driven ragdoll support for body dragging, gravity adjustments to actor entity ground tracking, per-joint driven ragdoll stiffness, and impulse to the root of a tracking-driven ragdoll.\n\nRegarding unused vertex optimization, all unused vertices in physics meshes are now pruned. Alongside saving 8GB of disk space, it provides better data cache locality on the CPU. Work also continued on part containers\/compute bounding box optimization (formerly known as physics geometry instancing). Skinned foliage was found to be missing leaves, which was fixed before being given to the object-container-splitting physics voxel grids.\n\nThe Vulcan (G12) render mesh API was refactored for more streamlined and efficient creation and data upload. Unused legacy code was removed and a shader handle was added to the remaining legacy pipeline. For unified raymarching, the initial elements of the adaptive resolution were submitted, work continued on the upsampling of adaptive resolution results, and samples were placed via low discrepancy generators. They also determined screen bounds of planetary atmospheres to further guide sample placement and started R&D into ensuring adaptive resolution raymarching works well with ray jittering and TSAA. They also investigated performance issues with oceans caused by CPU readback and fixed HDR display and D3D debug runtime errors.\n\nFor general work, Engineering improved the ECUS update code by fixing a flaw in the update logic that caused unnecessary iterations of aggregate groups. They further improved the logic to reduce scans of entire connection lists and optimized threading.\n\nA significant improvement was made to the large render batch management\u2019s performance. Previously, Engineering had iterated on the list of potential batches, but it grew to over 1000 entries, making clean up computationally expensive (1.5ms). To solve this, they now maintain a list of rendered batches. Subsections of component update functions were added to their batch jobs to improve profiling, as were profiling subsections to batch jobs. For the Zone System, a new interface for updating local bounds was added.\n\nThe animation side of Engineering made a prototype of a new skin loader and added support for physical skin proxies. They also moved all relevant World Builder code into its own engine module for faster programming iteration time.\n\n\n\nGameplay Story\nThe Gameplay Story Team continued to support the Design Team with the interrupt system, further delivering animations and developing a library of generic body animations to accompany character interrupt lines. These animations look promising and solve a long-term issue around interrupts in general. They continued to add new audio and animations to the Random to NPC scenes and applied the Real Digital Acting parameters to Chapter Four. They\u2019re currently looking closely at the setup of characters seated at the bridge of the Idris and will work with Social AI in the coming weeks to further bring them to life.\n\nGraphics\nThe Graphics Team spent the month continuing their crucial work on the Vulkan renderer, converting the existing volumetric fog system and debug tools to the new system. They also began planning and prototyping how to handle interdependencies of resources between shader passes, as the system will need to allocate resources and efficiently schedule work while ensuring it doesn\u2019t read resources before write operations are completed. The team also investigated how to improve the legibility of holographic\/transparent UI screens in extremely bright or dark environments. This involved using the average and maximum screen brightness, or a localized region of the screen, to determine the suitable UI brightness. Several color blending approaches were also investigated.\n\n\n\nLevel Design\nAdditional triggering tech was delivered to the Level Design Team that will ensure scenes trigger in the most realistic way possible. Level Design are still working with FPS AI to integrate prioritized behaviors and the patrolling tech updates, which will allow NPCs to engage in realistic upper-body conversations as they walk. The Dogfight Team are currently layering in updated flight AI features, such as formation flying, as they\u2019re delivered by the AI Team. Both teams synch daily and continue to polish levels with new technology as it becomes available.\n\nNarrative\nThe Narrative Team continued reviewing levels and sharing feedback, including identifying background conversations that were missing satisfying conclusions or featured suspiciously quiet participants. To solve this, they wrote and recorded placeholder lines that will be captured at a later date. The team also worked with xenolinguist Britton Watkins to continue developing the Vanduul language, including how physiological features could potentially be incorporated.\n\nQA\nQA are currently tasked with capturing client scene recordings of individual chapters, as well as investigating any issues that hinder the Cinematics Team\u2019s workflow. They recently pushed to improve the IRA database by creating filters for better tracking and vision to give more transparency on areas that need work. Combat and ship AI testing continued too.\n\nTech Animation\nAlongside training new team members, March saw Tech Animation refactoring the in-house facial rigging and animation suite. This is with a view to supporting next-generation content with a flexible and modular approach to its codebase and rigging platform, which will ultimately be used to further refine the existing facial rigs and create all new ones. The team also helped implement animations to bring the new cast and crew to life. This has led to the creation of a new toolset to help visualize and apply flowgraph-style animation sets to the non-flowgraph sandbox animation tool suite.\n\nContinued work with the Social AI Team identified the need for Tech Animation to further refine their rigging toolsets to support the vast number of upcoming props. They\u2019re now robust enough and enable a streamlined approach to authoring new animation rigs. They also spring-cleaned their codebase, identifying new pipeline foundations and tools to refactor.\n\nSpecifically for SQ42, Tech Animation in Frankfurt created a placeholder entity for Vira Kelso to enable Cinematics to work on scenes she features in. They updated various character and Maya loadouts for the cinematic animators, enabling them to work with the same loadout the characters will use in-engine.\n\nThey also developed a tool to enable Character Art to add skeleton extensions from a preset before editing and exporting them to speed up the authoring process. They worked with the Weapons Team on bugs and requests, including rig updates, Mannequin setups, IK target updates, and export errors too.\n\n\n\nVFX\nFinally for March, the VFX Team completed their work on the Aciedo Station interior. They continued to investigate Vanduul VFX, taking on feedback from the Director of Cinematics, and continued planning for the next quarter, identifying several locations now ready for a VFX pass. They\u2019re also close to phasing out the old CPU particle system. This involves adding the last few remaining core features from the CPU into the GPU system, such as support for the material shaders for effects like refraction, shader triggers, audio entry function calls, and light casting. WE\u2019LL SEE YOU NEXT MONTH\u2026"},"links_count":0,"comment_count":16,"created_at":"2020-04-09T00:00:00+00:00","created_at_human":"6 years ago"},"meta":{"processed_at":"2026-05-15 13:43:26","valid_relations":["images","links"],"prev_id":17544,"next_id":17546}}