{"data":{"id":18356,"title":"Squadron 42 Monthly Report: September 2021","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/comm-link\/transmission\/18356-Squadron-42-Monthly-Report-September-2021","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-links\/18356","api_public_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/comm-links\/18356","channel":"Undefined","category":"Undefined","series":"Monthly Reports","images":[{"id":30963,"name":"source.png","rsi_url":"https:\/\/media.robertsspaceindustries.com\/vjhp2njbokvxb\/source.png","alt":"","size":4895804,"mime_type":"image\/png","last_modified":"2023-05-02T18:53:45+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/30963","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/30963\/similar"},{"id":31194,"name":"source.png","rsi_url":"https:\/\/media.robertsspaceindustries.com\/dyu8i559admn1\/source.png","alt":"","size":3831731,"mime_type":"image\/png","last_modified":"2023-06-06T16:13:24+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/31194","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/31194\/similar"},{"id":31403,"name":"source.png","rsi_url":"https:\/\/media.robertsspaceindustries.com\/p34sp3q2kl01b\/source.png","alt":"","size":3014864,"mime_type":"image\/png","last_modified":"2023-07-04T13:35:01+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/31403","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/31403\/similar"},{"id":31536,"name":"source.png","rsi_url":"https:\/\/media.robertsspaceindustries.com\/6u5x9e23ftrw7\/source.png","alt":"","size":3531870,"mime_type":"image\/png","last_modified":"2023-08-01T14:29:26+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/31536","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/31536\/similar"},{"id":31783,"name":"source.png","rsi_url":"https:\/\/media.robertsspaceindustries.com\/gaazjx0n1kop2\/source.png","alt":"","size":3223870,"mime_type":"image\/png","last_modified":"2023-09-12T14:59:52+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/31783","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/31783\/similar"},{"id":32961,"name":"source.png","rsi_url":"https:\/\/media.robertsspaceindustries.com\/8m2c1vusdb0hj\/source.png","alt":"","size":4757052,"mime_type":"image\/png","last_modified":"2023-10-03T12:11:38+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/32961","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/32961\/similar"},{"id":32962,"name":"source.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/media.robertsspaceindustries.com\/4x3lw5w4vk3o4\/source.jpg","alt":"","size":584749,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2023-10-31T19:13:02+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/32962","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/32962\/similar"},{"id":38000,"name":"source.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/media.robertsspaceindustries.com\/x5aus9nndxu4s\/source.jpg","alt":"","size":1186506,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2025-02-05T13:01:54+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/38000","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/38000\/similar"},{"id":38060,"name":"source.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/media.robertsspaceindustries.com\/fe6j2ifv3ash4\/source.jpg","alt":"","size":1773870,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2025-03-04T15:04:48+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/38060","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/38060\/similar"},{"id":38084,"name":"source.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/media.robertsspaceindustries.com\/pgmk7f9gt3j9y\/source.jpg","alt":"","size":2091105,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2025-04-01T17:29:16+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/38084","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/38084\/similar"},{"id":40391,"name":"source.png","rsi_url":"https:\/\/media.robertsspaceindustries.com\/svep7j1purh1f\/source.png","alt":"","size":5543040,"mime_type":"image\/png","last_modified":"2025-07-01T15:37:40+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/40391","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/40391\/similar"}],"images_count":42,"translations":{"en_EN":"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.\nTO: SQUADRON 42 RECRUITS\nSUBJ: DEVELOPMENT UPDATE 10:06:2021\nREF: CIG UK, CIG DE, CIG LA, CIG TX\nFAO Squadron 42 recruits.\n\nWelcome to September\u2019s Squadron 42 development report. Enclosed you\u2019ll find details on the latest progress made across the campaign, including updates to vital backend services, AI behaviors, and cockpit communications.\n\nThank you for your continued support of Squadron 42.\n\nSincerely,\n\nCIG COMMUNICATIONS AI\nThe AI team spent part of the month rolling out the T0 engineer behavior to a key location, which is now fully functional with only a few minor remaining bugs. The workzone usable used by NPCs repairing things received a large refactor, making it easier for the designers to use within their locations. The team also created the ability to inspect, inspect with datapad, and inspect with welding tool at various angles to make it as useful as possible. September saw AI deliver the Aciedo usables using blockout animations, with motion-capture animations currently in the polishing stage. Search spot, railing lean, stare spot, and several others are now considered final and ready to be used throughout the level.\n\nThe hygiene behavior was updated and is now complete, with new animations added for the toilet and shower cubicle. This was rolled out, with bug fixing underway.\n\nWork also began on a new gunner behavior. Currently, NPCs find and use ship turrets. The next step will allow them to rush to turrets if their ship is under attack.\n\nAnimation\nThe Story team continued to work through scenes, working closely with Level Design on implementation and revision. The Facial team created animations for various story scenes, making improvements as new heads came online. Vanduul combat continues too, with a focus on melee and searching.\n\nArt (Characters)\nSeptember saw Character Art continue to up-res existing content, with the most commonly worn outfits scheduled for Q4. When done, the completion status of all characters will be around 85-90%. Skin textures and hair were also updated to bring all characters (hero and background) to a next-gen quality level.\n\nArt (Environment)\nEnvironment Art continued to work through all campaign locations while leaving enough flexibility to adjust for in-progress design and gameplay elements.\n\nEngine\nIn September, the Physics team continued to optimize backend code, including for soft body implementation. Various parts of relevant collision detection routines were optimized algorithmically by improving their bounding volume representations and hierarchy. Soft body topology loading and building, baking code, and memory management were improved too. Additionally, terrain meshes are now flagged so that they can be exclusively raycast against along with allowing meshes to cluster with a single raycast. Moreover, kinematic parts are now used as valid moving ground colliders on actor entities.\n\nFor the renderer, work continued on the global draw packet cache. A mechanism was added to rebuild the cache when necessary. Its logic was also refined to prevent the unnecessary recreation of draw packets with identical arguments, which is important for brushes.\n\nOn a higher level, the Gen12 render interface is now used for stat OBJs and render proxies throughout the engine, which marks another step in the transition to the new render paradigm. The shader system saw several changes too \u2013 shader parser initialization was streamlined, and the user cache was moved to the \u2018Window\u2019s APPDATA folder\u2019. This will be rolled out post Alpha 3.15 and should fix a long-standing issue for some users. There were also various changes to refactor and transition code to Gen12.\n\nRegarding atmosphere and volumetric clouds, there have been various improvements to cloud shadows. The stepping code for local cloud shadows has been refined to be easier to control by artists as well as optimized so that it\u2019s not evaluated unless necessary. Aside from self-shadowing, clouds now also cast their shadows onto the entire scene which has become important for proper scene integration as the team start to use them on planets as well. Additionally, work to improve the rendering of cloud edges has been completed, and parameters exposed to artists, to give them a more volumetric look. Research went into various topics: 1) a quick prototype for better rendering of rain clouds was implemented, 2) integration of cloud shadows into the atmosphere has been implemented (among other things will allow for light shafts from clouds), and 3) because of these shadows in the atmosphere a prototype for improved rendering of multi scattering in clouds and atmosphere was implemented. It acknowledges the presence of clouds in the atmosphere when it comes to indirect lighting and will help shading clouds (brighter, more natural white tones in shadows) as well as the ambiance of overcast skies on ground (less hazy and blueish \u2013 in case of earth like planets). These research items are still WIP and will hopefully mature enough to be shipped in the coming months with other improvements to rendering quality and performance.\n\nOn the core engine side, support for \u2018APPDATA\u2019 access was added to the P4K system. Aside from now storing the user shader cache folder there, the team plan to eventually move all temporary game-client files to this new location. The P4K file system was also improved to properly deal with Unicode paths.\n\nWork on the performance regression system picked up again with numerous supporting changes, as it\u2019s becoming important to daily progress and development stability.\n\nThe team also supported server meshing by decoupling code so that it can run as a standalone service. They started focusing more on optimization too, with certain game scenarios frequently analyzed, reported, and updated. This brought various improvements that will be rolled out post Alpha 3.15. For example, entity-component wakeup was improved by keeping components active for some time. Server Object Container Streaming code was heavily optimized, and memory allocation when using CigFunction (lambdas) was improved. There were various other amends too, such as moving runtime GPU buffer updates to background threads.\n\nFeatures (Gameplay)\nThe SQ42 Feature team spent part of the month looking at TrackView performance and how it can best support the complexity of the cinematic sequences currently in production. Alongside several productive optimizations and fixes, sequence updates were broken into smaller individual jobs that can run through the batch-update system to make the most of modern multi-core processors. This was a great success, with some sequences seeing a six-fold improvement. They also moved the character customizer (that previously used the PU frontend) into the campaign\u2019s levels. The UI is currently being converted to the Building Blocks system, so a major part of the work involved untangling it from the frontend so it can be added to any object container in the game. It\u2019s now fully working, albeit with blockout UI. The team is currently assessing where they want to take it in both appearance and usability.\n\nGameplay Story\nThe Gameplay Story team started the month polishing utensil interaction in several mess hall scenes before achieving a technical breakthrough by getting NPCs to walk correctly while holding helmets under either arm. \u201cHaving managed to solve the helmet problem, we then did a rapid sweep through all our scenes with helmets to update them accordingly. It\u2019s been great to see so many scenes take a leap forward and to see our characters holding and interacting with their headwear in a realistic way in-game.\u201d \u2013 Gameplay Story\n\nAlongside this, they overhauled the \u2018Graves walk and talk\u2019 in chapter five.\n\nWork also began on an emergency handle setup involving prop animation, a particle effect, mesh swapping, and entity setup. This is a particularly complicated task but the setup is nearing completion and appears to be highly accurate. Soon, the team will be able to finalize the scene with all separate elements correctly working together.\n\nGraphics & VFX Programming\nThe Graphics team made further performance improvements to the render profile as well as optimizations to post effects (depth of field and motion blur), terrain rendering, and fog to maintain the same performance at higher resolutions. Alongside this, they improved the water shader. These changes allow shading to be based on available tiled-lighting data rather than the nearest environment probe to create more consistent lighting in scenes involving water volumes. They also changed water volume lighting to take into account volumetrics, such as clouds and fog, avoiding previous issues where water volumes would ignore local fog volumes when shading.\n\nThey also progressed on the render-to-texture refactor by implementing region copy for static RTTOs to reuse the existing content instead of re-rendering it. This will ultimately increase performance and save on scene pass usage. They also re-wrote the RTT atlas packing algorithm to support the new region copy feature, making it more robust and easier to maintain.\n\nFinally, Graphics looked into validation errors and collated captured Vulkan analytical information for future extensions.\n\nLevel Design\nThe Space\/Dogfight team expanded some of the patrol spaces at the beginning of the game to better work with the new scanning implementation. They also added wildlines to cockpit comms, making them more contextual and granular. The ongoing AI work progressed too, with a specific focus on the Oldman behavior. Level Design further fleshed out the FPS play spaces with additional details, while Social Design Team continued the significant task of implementing all in-game scenes for review and sign-off.\n\nNarrative\nNarrative spent part of September supporting Art and Design on various levels, generating the dialogue and vignettes needed to help populate areas or clarify intended gameplay. They also created environmental storytelling docs to not only dig deeper into the history and character of a location but to also provide initial ideas for set dressing, such as appropriate signage and branding. While working on the placeholder dialogue mentioned in last month\u2019s report, the team outlined some tech solutions to remove potential roadblocks in the pipeline. This will be helpful as more requests come in, allowing both Narrative and Design to quickly iterate on dialogue by hearing it in situ.\n\nThey also planned a potential performance capture shoot for later in the quarter, with the aim to pick up content originally scheduled before lockdown. This will include a mixture of PU needs and new SQ42 scenes.\n\nQA\nQA continued to work alongside Cinematics on new chapter content, with the wider team picking up testing until an embedded tester is brought in. The team also supported the ongoing Vanduul AI development and general AI function upgrades.\n\nUI\nLast month, the UI team worked on the Aegis and RSI interface styles so that they can be used on various interactive screens. Progress was also made on the upcoming Starmap rework that will be used in both the PU and SQ42. Posters and signage were created to make an unrevealed area feel more lived-in and realistic too.\n\nVFX\nFinally for September\u2019s report, VFX set up a mini strike team for an epic scene featuring a significant number of enemies. A new particle rig for distant vehicles was created, which allows Cinematics to easily animate a whole set of effects on low-poly (non-AI) vehicles. This was well received by the Cinematics Art team, who are looking forward to populating various locations with background action.\n\nWE\u2019LL SEE YOU NEXT MONTH\u2026","de_DE":"Dies ist ein Querverweis auf den Bericht, der k\u00fcrzlich \u00fcber den monatlichen Newsletter von Squadron 42 verschickt wurde. Wir ver\u00f6ffentlichen ihn ein zweites Mal als Comm-Link, damit die Community leichter darauf zur\u00fcckgreifen kann.\nTO: SCHWADRON 42 REKRUTEN\nSUBJ: ENTWICKLUNG UPDATE 10:06:2021\nREF: CIG UK, CIG DE, CIG LA, CIG TX\nFAO Geschwader 42 Rekruten.\n\nWillkommen zum Entwicklungsbericht der Squadron 42 im September. Anbei findest du Details zu den neuesten Fortschritten in der Kampagne, einschlie\u00dflich Updates f\u00fcr wichtige Backend-Dienste, KI-Verhalten und Cockpit-Kommunikation.\n\nVielen Dank f\u00fcr eure anhaltende Unterst\u00fctzung von Squadron 42.\n\nMit freundlichen Gr\u00fc\u00dfen,\n\nCIG COMMUNICATIONS\n\nAI\n\nDas KI-Team hat einen Teil des Monats damit verbracht, das Verhalten des T0-Ingenieurs an einem wichtigen Ort auszurollen, der jetzt voll funktionsf\u00e4hig ist und nur noch ein paar kleine Fehler aufweist. Die Arbeitszone, die von NSCs zum Reparieren von Gegenst\u00e4nden verwendet wird, wurde \u00fcberarbeitet, damit die Designer sie leichter in ihren Orten verwenden k\u00f6nnen. Das Team hat au\u00dferdem die M\u00f6glichkeit geschaffen, mit dem Datenpad zu inspizieren und mit dem Schwei\u00dfger\u00e4t in verschiedenen Winkeln zu inspizieren, um es so n\u00fctzlich wie m\u00f6glich zu machen. Im September lieferte die KI die Aciedo-Usables mithilfe von Blockout-Animationen, wobei die Motion-Capture-Animationen derzeit noch aufpoliert werden. Der Suchspot, die Gel\u00e4nderneigung, der Starspot und einige andere sind nun fertig und k\u00f6nnen im gesamten Level verwendet werden.\n\nDas Hygieneverhalten wurde aktualisiert und ist nun vollst\u00e4ndig, wobei neue Animationen f\u00fcr die Toilette und die Duschkabine hinzugef\u00fcgt wurden. Dies wurde ausgerollt, und die Fehlerbehebung ist im Gange.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurde mit der Arbeit an einem neuen Sch\u00fctzenverhalten begonnen. Derzeit finden und benutzen NSCs Schiffst\u00fcrme. Der n\u00e4chste Schritt wird es ihnen erm\u00f6glichen, zu Gesch\u00fctzt\u00fcrmen zu eilen, wenn ihr Schiff angegriffen wird.\n\n\n\nAnimation\nDas Story-Team arbeitete weiter an den Szenen und arbeitete bei der Umsetzung und \u00dcberarbeitung eng mit dem Level Design zusammen. Das Facial-Team erstellte Animationen f\u00fcr verschiedene Story-Szenen und verbesserte sie, sobald neue K\u00f6pfe online waren. Auch der Kampf der Vanduul geht weiter, wobei der Schwerpunkt auf Nahkampf und Suche liegt.\nKunst (Charaktere)\n\nIm September wurden die Charaktere weiter aufgefrischt, wobei die am h\u00e4ufigsten getragenen Outfits f\u00fcr das vierte Quartal geplant sind. Danach wird der Fertigstellungsgrad aller Charaktere bei 85-90% liegen. Auch die Hauttexturen und Haare wurden aktualisiert, um alle Charaktere (Held und Hintergrund) auf ein Next-Gen-Qualit\u00e4tsniveau zu bringen.\n\n\n\nKunst (Umgebung)\nDie Umgebungsgrafik wurde an allen Kampagnenstandorten fortgesetzt, wobei gen\u00fcgend Flexibilit\u00e4t f\u00fcr Anpassungen an laufende Design- und Gameplay-Elemente blieb.\nEngine\n\nIm September setzte das Physik-Team die Optimierung des Backend-Codes fort, unter anderem f\u00fcr die Implementierung von Soft Bodies. Verschiedene Teile der relevanten Kollisionserkennungsroutinen wurden algorithmisch optimiert, indem ihre Bounding-Volume-Darstellungen und die Hierarchie verbessert wurden. Auch das Laden und Erstellen der Softbody-Topologie, der Backcode und die Speicherverwaltung wurden verbessert. Au\u00dferdem werden Gel\u00e4ndemeshes jetzt so gekennzeichnet, dass sie ausschlie\u00dflich mit einem Raycast beschossen werden k\u00f6nnen und dass Meshes mit einem einzigen Raycast geb\u00fcndelt werden k\u00f6nnen. Au\u00dferdem werden kinematische Teile jetzt als g\u00fcltige bewegliche Bodenkollider f\u00fcr Actor-Entities verwendet.\n\nBeim Renderer wurde die Arbeit am globalen Draw Packet Cache fortgesetzt. Es wurde ein Mechanismus hinzugef\u00fcgt, um den Cache bei Bedarf neu zu erstellen. Die Logik wurde au\u00dferdem verfeinert, um zu verhindern, dass Zeichnungspakete mit identischen Argumenten unn\u00f6tig neu erstellt werden, was f\u00fcr Pinsel wichtig ist.\n\nAuf einer h\u00f6heren Ebene wird die Gen12-Renderschnittstelle jetzt f\u00fcr stat OBJs und Render-Proxys in der gesamten Engine verwendet, was einen weiteren Schritt beim \u00dcbergang zum neuen Renderparadigma darstellt. Auch am Shader-System wurden einige \u00c4nderungen vorgenommen: Die Initialisierung des Shader-Parsers wurde vereinfacht und der Benutzer-Cache wurde in den APPDATA-Ordner des Fensters verschoben. Dies wird nach der Alpha 3.15 eingef\u00fchrt und sollte ein langj\u00e4hriges Problem f\u00fcr einige Nutzer\/innen beheben. Au\u00dferdem wurden verschiedene \u00c4nderungen vorgenommen, um den Code zu refaktorisieren und auf Gen12 umzustellen.\n\nDer Stepping-Code f\u00fcr lokale Wolkenschatten wurde verfeinert, damit er von den K\u00fcnstlern leichter zu kontrollieren ist, und so optimiert, dass er nur bei Bedarf ausgewertet wird. Neben dem Eigenschatten werfen die Wolken nun auch ihren Schatten auf die gesamte Szene, was f\u00fcr die korrekte Szenenintegration wichtig ist, wenn das Team beginnt, sie auch auf Planeten zu verwenden. Au\u00dferdem wurde das Rendering der Wolkenkanten verbessert und den K\u00fcnstlern wurden Parameter mitgeteilt, um ihnen ein volumetrischeres Aussehen zu verleihen.\n\nAuf der Seite der Core-Engine wurde dem P4K-System die Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr den Zugriff auf APPDATA hinzugef\u00fcgt. Das Team hat vor, nicht nur den Shader-Cache-Ordner dort zu speichern, sondern auch alle tempor\u00e4ren Dateien des Spielclients dorthin zu verschieben. Das P4K-Dateisystem wurde au\u00dferdem verbessert, damit es mit Unicode-Pfaden richtig umgehen kann.\n\nDie Arbeit am System zur Leistungsverbesserung wurde mit zahlreichen unterst\u00fctzenden \u00c4nderungen wieder aufgenommen, da es f\u00fcr den t\u00e4glichen Fortschritt und die Stabilit\u00e4t der Entwicklung immer wichtiger wird.\n\nDas Team unterst\u00fctzte auch das Server-Meshing, indem es den Code entkoppelte, damit er als eigenst\u00e4ndiger Dienst laufen kann. Das Team konzentrierte sich auch mehr auf die Optimierung, indem es bestimmte Spielszenarien h\u00e4ufig analysierte, berichtete und aktualisierte. Dies brachte verschiedene Verbesserungen mit sich, die nach der Alpha 3.15 ausgerollt werden. Zum Beispiel wurde das Aufwecken von Entit\u00e4tskomponenten verbessert, indem die Komponenten eine Zeit lang aktiv gehalten wurden. Der Server Object Container Streaming Code wurde stark optimiert und die Speicherzuweisung bei der Verwendung von CigFunction (Lambdas) wurde verbessert. Es gab auch verschiedene andere \u00c4nderungen, wie z. B. die Verlagerung von GPU-Pufferaktualisierungen zur Laufzeit in Hintergrundthreads.\n\n\n\nFunktionen (Gameplay)\n\nDas SQ42-Feature-Team hat einen Teil des Monats damit verbracht, die Leistung von TrackView zu untersuchen und herauszufinden, wie es die Komplexit\u00e4t der derzeit in Produktion befindlichen Filmsequenzen am besten unterst\u00fctzen kann. Neben verschiedenen produktiven Optimierungen und Korrekturen wurden die Sequenzaktualisierungen in kleinere Einzeljobs aufgeteilt, die \u00fcber das Batch-Update-System laufen k\u00f6nnen, um moderne Mehrkernprozessoren optimal zu nutzen. Das war ein gro\u00dfer Erfolg, denn einige Sequenzen wurden um das Sechsfache verbessert. Au\u00dferdem wurde die Charakteranpassung (die zuvor das PU-Frontend nutzte) in die Level der Kampagne verlegt. Die Benutzeroberfl\u00e4che wird derzeit auf das Building Blocks-System umgestellt. Ein gro\u00dfer Teil der Arbeit bestand darin, sie vom Frontend zu l\u00f6sen, damit sie zu jedem Objektcontainer im Spiel hinzugef\u00fcgt werden kann. Es ist jetzt voll funktionsf\u00e4hig, wenn auch mit Blockout-UI. Das Team pr\u00fcft derzeit, wie es aussehen und wie es benutzerfreundlich sein soll.\n\n\n\nGameplay Story\n\nDas Gameplay-Story-Team begann den Monat damit, die Interaktion mit den Utensilien in mehreren Messehallen-Szenen zu verbessern, bevor es einen technischen Durchbruch erzielte, indem es NSCs dazu brachte, korrekt zu gehen, w\u00e4hrend sie Helme unter einem Arm hielten. \"Nachdem wir das Problem mit den Helmen gel\u00f6st hatten, haben wir schnell alle Szenen mit Helmen \u00fcberpr\u00fcft und entsprechend aktualisiert. Es war gro\u00dfartig zu sehen, wie viele Szenen einen Sprung nach vorne gemacht haben und wie unsere Charaktere ihre Kopfbedeckung im Spiel auf realistische Weise halten und mit ihr interagieren.\" - Gameplay Story\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurde in Kapitel f\u00fcnf der \"Graves Walk and Talk\" \u00fcberarbeitet.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurde mit der Arbeit an einem Notgriff begonnen, der Requisitenanimation, einen Partikeleffekt, Mesh-Swapping und die Einrichtung von Entit\u00e4ten umfasst. Dies ist eine besonders komplizierte Aufgabe, aber das Setup steht kurz vor der Fertigstellung und scheint sehr genau zu sein. Bald wird das Team in der Lage sein, die Szene fertigzustellen, sodass alle einzelnen Elemente korrekt zusammenarbeiten.\n\n\n\nGrafik & VFX-Programmierung\n\nDas Grafikteam hat weitere Leistungsverbesserungen am Renderprofil sowie Optimierungen an Post-Effekten (Tiefensch\u00e4rfe und Bewegungsunsch\u00e4rfe), Terrain-Rendering und Nebel vorgenommen, um die gleiche Leistung bei h\u00f6heren Aufl\u00f6sungen zu erhalten. Dar\u00fcber hinaus wurde der Wassershader verbessert. Diese \u00c4nderungen erm\u00f6glichen es, dass die Schattierung auf den verf\u00fcgbaren Kachelbeleuchtungsdaten und nicht auf der n\u00e4chstgelegenen Umgebungssonde basiert, um eine konsistentere Beleuchtung in Szenen mit Wasservolumen zu schaffen. Au\u00dferdem wurde die Beleuchtung von Wasservolumina so ge\u00e4ndert, dass volumetrische Faktoren wie Wolken und Nebel ber\u00fccksichtigt werden, wodurch fr\u00fchere Probleme vermieden wurden, bei denen Wasservolumina lokale Nebelvolumina beim Shading ignorierten.\n\nAu\u00dferdem haben sie das Render-to-Texture-Refactoring vorangetrieben, indem sie Region Copy f\u00fcr statische RTTOs implementiert haben, um den vorhandenen Inhalt wiederzuverwenden, anstatt ihn neu zu rendern. Das erh\u00f6ht die Leistung und spart den Verbrauch von Scene-Passes. Au\u00dferdem wurde der Algorithmus zum Packen des RTT-Atlas neu geschrieben, um die neue Funktion zum Kopieren von Regionen zu unterst\u00fctzen, was ihn robuster und einfacher zu warten macht.\n\nSchlie\u00dflich untersuchte Graphics Validierungsfehler und sammelte die erfassten analytischen Vulkan-Informationen f\u00fcr zuk\u00fcnftige Erweiterungen.\n\n\n\nLevel Design\n\nDas Space\/Dogfight-Team hat einige der Patrouillenr\u00e4ume am Anfang des Spiels erweitert, damit sie besser mit der neuen Scan-Implementierung funktionieren. Au\u00dferdem haben sie die Cockpit-Kommunikation mit Wildlinien versehen, um sie kontextbezogener und detaillierter zu gestalten. Auch die Arbeit an der KI wurde fortgesetzt, wobei ein besonderer Schwerpunkt auf dem Verhalten der Oldman lag. Das Leveldesign f\u00fcgte den FPS-Spielr\u00e4umen weitere Details hinzu, w\u00e4hrend das Social Design Team die wichtige Aufgabe fortsetzte, alle Spielszenen zur \u00dcberpr\u00fcfung und Freigabe zu implementieren.\n\n\n\nNarrative\n\nNarrative verbrachte einen Teil des Septembers damit, Art und Design auf verschiedenen Ebenen zu unterst\u00fctzen, indem sie Dialoge und Vignetten erstellten, die f\u00fcr die Besiedlung von Gebieten oder die Erl\u00e4uterung des geplanten Gameplays ben\u00f6tigt wurden. Sie erstellten auch Storytelling-Dokumente f\u00fcr die Umgebung, um nicht nur die Geschichte und den Charakter eines Ortes zu erforschen, sondern auch erste Ideen f\u00fcr die Gestaltung der Kulissen zu liefern, z. B. f\u00fcr eine angemessene Beschilderung und das Branding. W\u00e4hrend der Arbeit an den im letzten Bericht erw\u00e4hnten Platzhalterdialogen hat das Team einige technische L\u00f6sungen entwickelt, um m\u00f6gliche Hindernisse in der Pipeline zu beseitigen. Dies wird hilfreich sein, wenn mehr Anfragen eingehen, denn so k\u00f6nnen Narrative und Design den Dialog schnell \u00fcberarbeiten, indem sie ihn vor Ort anh\u00f6ren.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurde ein m\u00f6glicher Dreh zur Leistungserfassung f\u00fcr sp\u00e4ter im Quartal geplant, mit dem Ziel, Inhalte aufzunehmen, die urspr\u00fcnglich vor der Schlie\u00dfung geplant waren. Dies wird eine Mischung aus PU-Bedarf und neuen SQ42-Szenen beinhalten.\n\n\n\nQA\nDas QA-Team arbeitete weiterhin zusammen mit dem Cinematics-Team an neuen Kapitelinhalten, wobei das breitere Team die Tests \u00fcbernahm, bis ein integrierter Tester eingestellt wurde. Das Team unterst\u00fctzte auch die laufende Entwicklung der Vanduul-KI und allgemeine KI-Funktionsverbesserungen.\nUI\nIm letzten Monat hat das UI-Team an den Aegis- und RSI-Interface-Styles gearbeitet, damit sie auf verschiedenen interaktiven Bildschirmen verwendet werden k\u00f6nnen. Au\u00dferdem wurden Fortschritte bei der bevorstehenden \u00dcberarbeitung der Starmap gemacht, die sowohl in der PU als auch in der SQ42 verwendet werden wird. Au\u00dferdem wurden Plakate und Beschilderungen erstellt, um ein noch nicht enth\u00fclltes Gebiet lebendiger und realistischer zu gestalten.\nVFX\n\nZum Abschluss des Septemberberichts hat VFX ein Mini-Strike-Team f\u00fcr eine epische Szene mit einer gro\u00dfen Anzahl von Feinden zusammengestellt. Es wurde ein neues Partikel-Rig f\u00fcr weit entfernte Fahrzeuge erstellt, mit dem Cinematics ganz einfach eine ganze Reihe von Effekten auf Low-Poly-Fahrzeugen (ohne KI) animieren kann. Dies wurde vom Cinematics Art Team gut aufgenommen, das sich darauf freut, verschiedene Schaupl\u00e4tze mit Hintergrundaktionen zu bev\u00f6lkern.\n\n\n\nWIR SEHEN UNS 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.\nTO: SQUADRON 42 RECRUITS\nSUBJ: DEVELOPMENT UPDATE 10:06:2021\nREF: CIG UK, CIG DE, CIG LA, CIG TX\nFAO Squadron 42 recruits.\n\nWelcome to September\u2019s Squadron 42 development report. Enclosed you\u2019ll find details on the latest progress made across the campaign, including updates to vital backend services, AI behaviors, and cockpit communications.\n\nThank you for your continued support of Squadron 42.\n\nSincerely,\n\nCIG COMMUNICATIONS AI\nThe AI team spent part of the month rolling out the T0 engineer behavior to a key location, which is now fully functional with only a few minor remaining bugs. The workzone usable used by NPCs repairing things received a large refactor, making it easier for the designers to use within their locations. The team also created the ability to inspect, inspect with datapad, and inspect with welding tool at various angles to make it as useful as possible. September saw AI deliver the Aciedo usables using blockout animations, with motion-capture animations currently in the polishing stage. Search spot, railing lean, stare spot, and several others are now considered final and ready to be used throughout the level.\n\nThe hygiene behavior was updated and is now complete, with new animations added for the toilet and shower cubicle. This was rolled out, with bug fixing underway.\n\nWork also began on a new gunner behavior. Currently, NPCs find and use ship turrets. The next step will allow them to rush to turrets if their ship is under attack.\n\nAnimation\nThe Story team continued to work through scenes, working closely with Level Design on implementation and revision. The Facial team created animations for various story scenes, making improvements as new heads came online. Vanduul combat continues too, with a focus on melee and searching.\n\nArt (Characters)\nSeptember saw Character Art continue to up-res existing content, with the most commonly worn outfits scheduled for Q4. When done, the completion status of all characters will be around 85-90%. Skin textures and hair were also updated to bring all characters (hero and background) to a next-gen quality level.\n\nArt (Environment)\nEnvironment Art continued to work through all campaign locations while leaving enough flexibility to adjust for in-progress design and gameplay elements.\n\nEngine\nIn September, the Physics team continued to optimize backend code, including for soft body implementation. Various parts of relevant collision detection routines were optimized algorithmically by improving their bounding volume representations and hierarchy. Soft body topology loading and building, baking code, and memory management were improved too. Additionally, terrain meshes are now flagged so that they can be exclusively raycast against along with allowing meshes to cluster with a single raycast. Moreover, kinematic parts are now used as valid moving ground colliders on actor entities.\n\nFor the renderer, work continued on the global draw packet cache. A mechanism was added to rebuild the cache when necessary. Its logic was also refined to prevent the unnecessary recreation of draw packets with identical arguments, which is important for brushes.\n\nOn a higher level, the Gen12 render interface is now used for stat OBJs and render proxies throughout the engine, which marks another step in the transition to the new render paradigm. The shader system saw several changes too \u2013 shader parser initialization was streamlined, and the user cache was moved to the \u2018Window\u2019s APPDATA folder\u2019. This will be rolled out post Alpha 3.15 and should fix a long-standing issue for some users. There were also various changes to refactor and transition code to Gen12.\n\nRegarding atmosphere and volumetric clouds, there have been various improvements to cloud shadows. The stepping code for local cloud shadows has been refined to be easier to control by artists as well as optimized so that it\u2019s not evaluated unless necessary. Aside from self-shadowing, clouds now also cast their shadows onto the entire scene which has become important for proper scene integration as the team start to use them on planets as well. Additionally, work to improve the rendering of cloud edges has been completed, and parameters exposed to artists, to give them a more volumetric look. Research went into various topics: 1) a quick prototype for better rendering of rain clouds was implemented, 2) integration of cloud shadows into the atmosphere has been implemented (among other things will allow for light shafts from clouds), and 3) because of these shadows in the atmosphere a prototype for improved rendering of multi scattering in clouds and atmosphere was implemented. It acknowledges the presence of clouds in the atmosphere when it comes to indirect lighting and will help shading clouds (brighter, more natural white tones in shadows) as well as the ambiance of overcast skies on ground (less hazy and blueish \u2013 in case of earth like planets). These research items are still WIP and will hopefully mature enough to be shipped in the coming months with other improvements to rendering quality and performance.\n\nOn the core engine side, support for \u2018APPDATA\u2019 access was added to the P4K system. Aside from now storing the user shader cache folder there, the team plan to eventually move all temporary game-client files to this new location. The P4K file system was also improved to properly deal with Unicode paths.\n\nWork on the performance regression system picked up again with numerous supporting changes, as it\u2019s becoming important to daily progress and development stability.\n\nThe team also supported server meshing by decoupling code so that it can run as a standalone service. They started focusing more on optimization too, with certain game scenarios frequently analyzed, reported, and updated. This brought various improvements that will be rolled out post Alpha 3.15. For example, entity-component wakeup was improved by keeping components active for some time. Server Object Container Streaming code was heavily optimized, and memory allocation when using CigFunction (lambdas) was improved. There were various other amends too, such as moving runtime GPU buffer updates to background threads.\n\nFeatures (Gameplay)\nThe SQ42 Feature team spent part of the month looking at TrackView performance and how it can best support the complexity of the cinematic sequences currently in production. Alongside several productive optimizations and fixes, sequence updates were broken into smaller individual jobs that can run through the batch-update system to make the most of modern multi-core processors. This was a great success, with some sequences seeing a six-fold improvement. They also moved the character customizer (that previously used the PU frontend) into the campaign\u2019s levels. The UI is currently being converted to the Building Blocks system, so a major part of the work involved untangling it from the frontend so it can be added to any object container in the game. It\u2019s now fully working, albeit with blockout UI. The team is currently assessing where they want to take it in both appearance and usability.\n\nGameplay Story\nThe Gameplay Story team started the month polishing utensil interaction in several mess hall scenes before achieving a technical breakthrough by getting NPCs to walk correctly while holding helmets under either arm. \u201cHaving managed to solve the helmet problem, we then did a rapid sweep through all our scenes with helmets to update them accordingly. It\u2019s been great to see so many scenes take a leap forward and to see our characters holding and interacting with their headwear in a realistic way in-game.\u201d \u2013 Gameplay Story\n\nAlongside this, they overhauled the \u2018Graves walk and talk\u2019 in chapter five.\n\nWork also began on an emergency handle setup involving prop animation, a particle effect, mesh swapping, and entity setup. This is a particularly complicated task but the setup is nearing completion and appears to be highly accurate. Soon, the team will be able to finalize the scene with all separate elements correctly working together.\n\nGraphics & VFX Programming\nThe Graphics team made further performance improvements to the render profile as well as optimizations to post effects (depth of field and motion blur), terrain rendering, and fog to maintain the same performance at higher resolutions. Alongside this, they improved the water shader. These changes allow shading to be based on available tiled-lighting data rather than the nearest environment probe to create more consistent lighting in scenes involving water volumes. They also changed water volume lighting to take into account volumetrics, such as clouds and fog, avoiding previous issues where water volumes would ignore local fog volumes when shading.\n\nThey also progressed on the render-to-texture refactor by implementing region copy for static RTTOs to reuse the existing content instead of re-rendering it. This will ultimately increase performance and save on scene pass usage. They also re-wrote the RTT atlas packing algorithm to support the new region copy feature, making it more robust and easier to maintain.\n\nFinally, Graphics looked into validation errors and collated captured Vulkan analytical information for future extensions.\n\nLevel Design\nThe Space\/Dogfight team expanded some of the patrol spaces at the beginning of the game to better work with the new scanning implementation. They also added wildlines to cockpit comms, making them more contextual and granular. The ongoing AI work progressed too, with a specific focus on the Oldman behavior. Level Design further fleshed out the FPS play spaces with additional details, while Social Design Team continued the significant task of implementing all in-game scenes for review and sign-off.\n\nNarrative\nNarrative spent part of September supporting Art and Design on various levels, generating the dialogue and vignettes needed to help populate areas or clarify intended gameplay. They also created environmental storytelling docs to not only dig deeper into the history and character of a location but to also provide initial ideas for set dressing, such as appropriate signage and branding. While working on the placeholder dialogue mentioned in last month\u2019s report, the team outlined some tech solutions to remove potential roadblocks in the pipeline. This will be helpful as more requests come in, allowing both Narrative and Design to quickly iterate on dialogue by hearing it in situ.\n\nThey also planned a potential performance capture shoot for later in the quarter, with the aim to pick up content originally scheduled before lockdown. This will include a mixture of PU needs and new SQ42 scenes.\n\nQA\nQA continued to work alongside Cinematics on new chapter content, with the wider team picking up testing until an embedded tester is brought in. The team also supported the ongoing Vanduul AI development and general AI function upgrades.\n\nUI\nLast month, the UI team worked on the Aegis and RSI interface styles so that they can be used on various interactive screens. Progress was also made on the upcoming Starmap rework that will be used in both the PU and SQ42. Posters and signage were created to make an unrevealed area feel more lived-in and realistic too.\n\nVFX\nFinally for September\u2019s report, VFX set up a mini strike team for an epic scene featuring a significant number of enemies. A new particle rig for distant vehicles was created, which allows Cinematics to easily animate a whole set of effects on low-poly (non-AI) vehicles. This was well received by the Cinematics Art team, who are looking forward to populating various locations with background action.\n\nWE\u2019LL SEE YOU NEXT MONTH\u2026"},"links_count":0,"comment_count":24,"created_at":"2021-10-13T18:00:00+00:00","created_at_human":"4 years ago"},"meta":{"processed_at":"2026-04-30 11:02:27","valid_relations":["images","links","translations"],"prev_id":18355,"next_id":18358}}