{"data":{"id":18547,"title":"Squadron 42 Monthly Report: January 2022","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/comm-link\/transmission\/18547-Squadron-42-Monthly-Report-January-2022","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-links\/18547","api_public_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/comm-links\/18547","channel":"Feedback","category":"Undefined","series":"None","images":[{"id":26651,"name":"STARCITIZEN_WHITE.png","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/y1f0boj8fak5rr\/source\/STARCITIZEN_WHITE.png","alt":"","size":73278,"mime_type":"image\/png","last_modified":"2021-02-03T06:54:29+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/26651","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/26651\/similar"}],"images_count":1,"translations":{"en_EN":"Squadron 42 Monthly Report\nJanuary 2022\nThis 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.\n\nTO: SQUADRON 42 RECRUITS\n\nSUBJ: DEVELOPMENT UPDATE 02:02:2022\n\nREF: CIG UK, CIG DE, CIG LA, CIG TX\n\nFAO Squadron 42 Recruits\n\nWelcome to January\u2019s Squadron 42 development report. Enclosed you will find details on the latest progress made across the campaign, including updates to uniforms, battle flow, and dead-body investigation.\n\nThank you for your continued support of Squadron 42.\n\nSincerely,\n\nCIG COMMUNICATIONS\n\nAI Content Team\nAI Content began the year integrating the deck-crew behavior into various story scenes. This process is known internally as a \u2018scene handshake,\u2019 and describes the transition from a TrackView sequence (story scene) to a systemic AI behavior, such as the engineer.\n\nTo preserve immersion, it\u2019s important that the player can\u2019t see the changeover. However, this isn\u2019t a single-solution problem as there are many scenarios that require seamless transitions that feel as natural as possible. For example, a scene ending with an NPC in the middle of their walk cycle. In this instance, the team pre-caches the AI\u2019s destination for immediate execution once the scene ends.\n\nAI Content also held a progress review looking at the latest implementation of the deck-crew behavior. They showcased several new actions taking place around the Gladius, including checking the fuel diagnostic terminal and repairing damaged wings. Although the deck crew is starting to feel like a real team of people, more features will be added to increase realism throughout the hangar. For example, movable trolleys, drivable forklift trucks, and dynamic conversations (a selection of appropriate conversations between two or more NPCs).\n\nThey also progressed with the feature testmaps mentioned in last month\u2019s report, adding the arcade machine and vending machine. The next step is to begin testing entire behaviors rather than individual usables.\n\nAI Feature Team\nThe AI Feature team continued to work on NPCs perceiving and reacting to dead bodies. Bodies are set up as usables, which brings a wealth of functionality. For example, the ability to specify locations around the body for the AI to inspect and the best enter and exit animations when approaching or leaving the body. They also devised an easier way for the level designers to utilize AI code to trigger gameplay when the AI reaches a certain state.\n\nProgress was made on Vanduul combat, specifically improving their effectiveness at mid-range. New animations were prototyped that telegraph the direction of attack, allowing perceptive players to dodge out of the way and get the upper hand. They also implemented and polished the animations for cowering and surrender.\n\nAI Tech Team\nAI Tech implemented a way for the designers to enforce movement style on characters. This is generic functionality that will be used on specific characters, such as Captain White, to add unique style to movements based on the scene.\n\nAnimation\nThroughout the month, the AI team finished weapon selections, worked on player animation idles, and approached the last stages of cowering and surrender.\n\nThey also created blockouts for the fire suppression device and continued work on Vanduul combat, the firing range useable, dead body investigation, and locomotion improvements.\n\nArt (Characters)\nCharacter Art touched up the concepts for the Screaming Galsons, ensuring they have a spread of different armor weights. They\u2019re currently working on UEE Navy assets, including the bridge officer, battle dress, and class A uniforms.\n\nArt (Environment)\nEnvironment Art continued to develop key locations, this time aiming to get large-scale assets into the game to help shape each area and give them a more distinct feel and purpose. They also began scouting for space locations within the game world.\n\nArt and Design worked closely on select key chapters.\n\n\u201cThis combined effort is helping shape the environments and gameplay closer to what we\u2019re aiming for and we\u2019re all excited to see this progress.\u201d Environment Art Team\n\nEngine\nIn January, the Physics teams prepared for the configuration and setup of sim and cloth skins via item ports. Furthermore, code was restructured to allow mesh baking on soft body instances within the animation system. For vehicles, anti-flip measures were implemented for \u201cturtling\u201d vehicles using physical movement. The vehicle inspector tool that's used for development now also allows the team to control stiffness properties.\n\nFor the renderer, further progress was made on the transition to Gen12. Various instance buffers are now precreated to prevent slowdowns at runtime that were caused if created on demand per frame. Render support for not-yet-streamed-in meshes was added. CGA attachments now also render via Gen12. Support for GBuffer decals was added, and empty render passes can now be skipped in the render graph. Additionally, various optimizations for the reference counting of PSO cache instances during rendering were committed. The team are now looking at supporting HW skinning for Gen12.\n\nRegarding atmosphere and cloud rendering, last month's code cleanup for back integration was completed and the latest code (including various improvements to features and optimized techniques that are still in progress) was submitted to the main development branch. The adoption of volumetric clouds in Squadron 42 revealed an issue with parameters passing into relevant systems during level loading, which was fixed. The next steps are looking at another new idea for data reprojection and to start porting code to Gen12.\n\nOn the core systems, the team refactored the recently introduced arena allocator into a buddy allocator. The entity component update scheduler's (ECUS) visibility culling was improved and old ECUS code was removed now that the new entity-centric component update code is actively used. Furthermore, the job manager's wake-up code was further optimized. Part of the team is currently working on area and tag refactoring as well as continuing to investigate a potential integration of EASTL.\n\nGameplay Story\nGameplay Story began January following up on the turret work done last year, updating all story scenes to match the newly defined metrics.\n\n\u201cIt is definitely satisfying to see this work come to fruition and for our characters to enter the turrets seamlessly.\u201d Gameplay Story Team\n\nThey also continued adding new bodies, faces, and audio to random-to-NPC scenes. This is progressing well and is expected to carry on throughout the first quarter of 2022. A new animator joined the team, so time was spent onboarding and training, and planning was done for the rest of the year.\n\nGraphics & VFX Programming\nJanuary saw the Graphics team support Cinematics with fixes for cubemap rendering in TrackView and add a letter-box feature to the camera code to avoid sorting issues in cutscenes.\n\nThey continued to work on shaders, with various improvements to screen space reflections resulting in much sharper and stable reflections with softer falloff where they can\u2019t be calculated. They also cleaned up the volumetric lighting shader for water and continued to iterate on new wear shaders with the various art teams.\n\nFor render-to-texture (RTT), fixes were implemented to async creation\/deletion relating to streaming and reference counting.\n\nFor Gen12, the team fixed multiple issues including particles not being visible and various cubemap problems. They added support for particle GPU refraction and split render-passes to inject another pass, began testing Gen12 shadows, and investigated issues with RTT in Gen12. They also began converting the game\u2019s post-effect system and G-force effect.\n\nThe VFX team focused on damage map work, code interface support for the Weapons team, and made a start on the CPU damage map. They also continued with the fire-hazard feature, investigating issues with the fire igniter not working and fixing issues with resetting fire.\n\nLevel Design\nThe Space\/Dogfight team prepared the campaign chapters to flow into each other continuously without reloads and worked towards completing the turret gameplay experience.\n\nThe FPS team completed detailed planning on how to bring several chapters up to vertical-slice quality, while the Social Design team continued the significant task of implementing all scenes to all chapters.\n\nNarrative\nNarrative began the year preparing for an upcoming motion-capture session. Along with content that was meant to be shot before the pandemic, it will be used to capture additional vignettes and procedural content for one of the campaign's set pieces, allowing for the first-pass implementation of final content.\n\nThe team also continued to work closely with Design and Art to create scripts and placeholder recordings to help them judge whether scenes are working as intended. Once scenes are signed off, their final capture session will be scheduled.\n\nTech Animation\nTech Animation spent January addressing long-standing issues and upgraded all team members to the latest version of Maya. This transition created some complications with the source files, which were addressed.\n\nThe team had the mandate of batch-upgrading all Maya animations (around 41000). Legacy character sets were the root cause of some bad animation parsing on file load, so these were dealt with at the same time.\n\n\u201cOur animation repository is now in the best state it\u2019s been in a long time, and our users have moved over to the new software with minimal problems.\u201d Tech Animation Team\n\nUI\nIn January, the UI Feature and Tech teams transferring ownership of some UI features to the Feature Team to fast-track their development.\n\nWork on the new Starmap continued, with progress made on concepts, prototypes, and core technology. They continued building the core systems for the new AR markers while working on icons for the various marker types and states too.\n\nUI Tech continued developing additional Building Blocks features, some of which will be used in the hacking feature. Additional planning went into the pre-production process of the new Building Blocks editor too, which involved creating wireframes.\n\nFinally, additional concepts for the new mobiGlas and Origin UI styles were created and iterated on.\n\nVFX\nVFX started the year working on the battle scene mentioned in last month\u2019s report. Alongside the Cinematics team, they began fleshing out some of the more elaborate battle effects, paying particular attention to timings and scale to sell the feeling of a battle taking place around the player.\n\nThey also began dialing in effects for a key location, focusing on a vertical slice to show how the rest of it should appear.\n\nWE'LL SEE YOU NEXT MONTH...\n\/\/ END TRANSMISSION","de_DE":"Geschwader 42 Monatsbericht\nJanuar 2022\nDies ist ein Querverweis auf den Bericht, der k\u00fcrzlich \u00fcber den monatlichen Squadron 42 Newsletter verschickt wurde. Wir ver\u00f6ffentlichen ihn ein zweites Mal als Comm-Link, damit die Community leichter darauf zur\u00fcckgreifen kann.\n\nTO: REKRUTEN DES GESCHWADERS 42\n\nSUBJ: ENTWICKLUNG UPDATE 02:02:2022\n\nREF: CIG UK, CIG DE, CIG LA, CIG TX\n\nFAO Geschwader 42 Rekruten\n\nWillkommen zum Entwicklungsbericht des Geschwaders 42 vom Januar. Anbei findest du Details zu den neuesten Fortschritten in der Kampagne, einschlie\u00dflich Updates zu Uniformen, Kampfablauf und Leichenuntersuchung.\n\nVielen Dank f\u00fcr deine kontinuierliche Unterst\u00fctzung von Squadron 42.\n\nMit freundlichen Gr\u00fc\u00dfen,\n\nCIG COMMUNICATIONS\n\nAI Content Team\nDas AI Content Team hat das Jahr damit begonnen, das Verhalten der Deck-Crew in verschiedene Story-Szenen zu integrieren. Dieser Prozess wird intern als \"Szenen-Handshake\" bezeichnet und beschreibt den \u00dcbergang von einer TrackView-Sequenz (Story-Szene) zu einem systemischen KI-Verhalten, wie z. B. dem des Ingenieurs.\n\nUm die Immersion zu erhalten, ist es wichtig, dass der Spieler den Wechsel nicht sehen kann. Es gibt jedoch viele Szenarien, die nahtlose \u00dcberg\u00e4nge erfordern, die sich so nat\u00fcrlich wie m\u00f6glich anf\u00fchlen. Zum Beispiel eine Szene, die damit endet, dass ein NSC mitten in seinem Gehzyklus ist. In diesem Fall speichert das Team das Ziel der KI im Voraus, damit es sofort ausgef\u00fchrt werden kann, sobald die Szene endet.\n\nAI Content hielt auch eine Fortschrittsbesprechung ab, in der es um die neueste Implementierung des Verhaltens der Deckbesatzung ging. Dabei wurden mehrere neue Aktionen rund um die Gladius vorgestellt, wie z. B. das \u00dcberpr\u00fcfen des Treibstoff-Diagnoseterminals und das Reparieren besch\u00e4digter Tragfl\u00e4chen. Obwohl sich die Deckbesatzung schon jetzt wie ein echtes Team anf\u00fchlt, werden weitere Funktionen hinzugef\u00fcgt, um den Realismus im gesamten Hangar zu erh\u00f6hen. Zum Beispiel bewegliche Wagen, fahrbare Gabelstapler und dynamische Gespr\u00e4che (eine Auswahl an passenden Gespr\u00e4chen zwischen zwei oder mehr NSCs).\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurden die im letzten Bericht erw\u00e4hnten Testmaps f\u00fcr die Spielhalle und den Verkaufsautomaten hinzugef\u00fcgt. Der n\u00e4chste Schritt besteht darin, ganze Verhaltensweisen zu testen und nicht nur einzelne Funktionen.\n\nKI-Feature-Team\nDas KI-Team hat weiter daran gearbeitet, dass NSCs tote K\u00f6rper wahrnehmen und auf sie reagieren. Leichen werden als Usables eingerichtet, was eine F\u00fclle von Funktionen mit sich bringt. So kann die KI z. B. Orte rund um die Leiche festlegen, die sie inspizieren kann, und die besten Animationen f\u00fcr das Betreten und Verlassen der Leiche festlegen, wenn sie sich ihr n\u00e4hert oder sie verl\u00e4sst. Sie haben auch einen einfacheren Weg f\u00fcr die Leveldesigner gefunden, KI-Code zu verwenden, um das Spiel auszul\u00f6sen, wenn die KI einen bestimmten Zustand erreicht.\n\nEs wurden Fortschritte beim Kampf der Vanduul gemacht, insbesondere bei der Verbesserung ihrer Effektivit\u00e4t auf mittlere Distanz. Es wurden neue Animationen entwickelt, die die Richtung des Angriffs verraten und es aufmerksamen Spielern erm\u00f6glichen, auszuweichen und die Oberhand zu gewinnen. Auch die Animationen f\u00fcr das Zusammenkauern und die Kapitulation wurden implementiert und verfeinert.\n\nAI Tech Team\nDas AI Tech Team hat eine Methode entwickelt, mit der die Designer den Bewegungsstil der Charaktere erzwingen k\u00f6nnen. Dies ist eine generische Funktion, die bei bestimmten Charakteren, wie z. B. Captain White, eingesetzt wird, um den Bewegungen je nach Szene einen einzigartigen Stil zu verleihen.\n\nAnimation\nIm Laufe des Monats schloss das KI-Team die Auswahl der Waffen ab, arbeitete an der Animation der Spieler im Leerlauf und n\u00e4herte sich den letzten Phasen des Kauerns und der Kapitulation.\n\nAu\u00dferdem erstellten sie Blockouts f\u00fcr das Feuerunterdr\u00fcckungsger\u00e4t und arbeiteten weiter an der Verbesserung des Vanduul-Kampfes, der Nutzung des Schie\u00dfplatzes, der Untersuchung von Leichen und der Fortbewegung.\n\nKunst (Charaktere)\nCharacter Art hat die Konzepte f\u00fcr die Screaming Galsons \u00fcberarbeitet und daf\u00fcr gesorgt, dass sie verschiedene R\u00fcstungsst\u00e4rken haben. Zurzeit arbeiten sie an den UEE-Marine-Assets, darunter der Br\u00fcckenoffizier, die Kampfkleidung und die Uniformen der Klasse A.\n\nKunst (Umwelt)\nDas Team von Environment Art arbeitete weiter an der Entwicklung der wichtigsten Schaupl\u00e4tze. Diesmal ging es darum, gro\u00dffl\u00e4chige Objekte in das Spiel zu bringen, um die einzelnen Gebiete zu formen und ihnen einen besonderen Charakter und Zweck zu verleihen. Sie begannen auch mit der Suche nach Weltraumstandorten innerhalb der Spielwelt.\n\nArt und Design arbeiteten bei ausgew\u00e4hlten Schl\u00fcsselkapiteln eng zusammen.\n\n\"Diese gemeinsame Arbeit tr\u00e4gt dazu bei, die Umgebungen und das Gameplay n\u00e4her an das heranzuf\u00fchren, was wir anstreben, und wir freuen uns alle \u00fcber diesen Fortschritt.\" Environment Art Team\n\nEngine\nIm Januar bereiteten die Physik-Teams die Konfiguration und Einrichtung von Sim- und Stoff-Skins \u00fcber Item-Ports vor. Au\u00dferdem wurde der Code umstrukturiert, um das Backen von Meshes auf weichen K\u00f6rperinstanzen innerhalb des Animationssystems zu erm\u00f6glichen. F\u00fcr Fahrzeuge wurden Anti-Flip-Ma\u00dfnahmen f\u00fcr das \"Turtling\" von Fahrzeugen mit physischen Bewegungen implementiert. Das Fahrzeuginspektionstool, das f\u00fcr die Entwicklung verwendet wird, erm\u00f6glicht es dem Team nun auch, die Steifigkeitseigenschaften zu kontrollieren.\n\nBeim Renderer wurden weitere Fortschritte bei der Umstellung auf Gen12 gemacht. Verschiedene Instanzpuffer werden jetzt im Voraus erstellt, um Verlangsamungen zur Laufzeit zu vermeiden, die bei der Erstellung auf Anfrage pro Frame auftraten. Renderunterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr noch nicht gestreamte Meshes wurde hinzugef\u00fcgt. CGA-Anh\u00e4nge werden jetzt auch \u00fcber Gen12 gerendert. Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr GBuffer-Decals wurde hinzugef\u00fcgt, und leere Render-Passes k\u00f6nnen jetzt im Rendergraphen \u00fcbersprungen werden. Au\u00dferdem wurden verschiedene Optimierungen f\u00fcr die Referenzz\u00e4hlung von PSO-Cache-Instanzen w\u00e4hrend des Renderns vorgenommen. Das Team pr\u00fcft nun die Unterst\u00fctzung von HW-Skinning f\u00fcr Gen12.\n\nIn Bezug auf das Atmosph\u00e4ren- und Wolkenrendering wurde die Codebereinigung f\u00fcr die R\u00fcckintegration im letzten Monat abgeschlossen und der neueste Code (einschlie\u00dflich verschiedener Verbesserungen an Funktionen und optimierten Techniken, die noch in Arbeit sind) wurde an den Hauptentwicklungszweig \u00fcbergeben. Bei der Einf\u00fchrung von volumetrischen Wolken in Squadron 42 wurde ein Problem mit der \u00dcbergabe von Parametern an relevante Systeme beim Laden von Leveln festgestellt, das behoben wurde. Die n\u00e4chsten Schritte sind die Pr\u00fcfung einer weiteren neuen Idee f\u00fcr die Datenwiedergabe und die Portierung des Codes auf Gen12.\n\nBei den Kernsystemen hat das Team den k\u00fcrzlich eingef\u00fchrten Arenazuteiler in einen Buddy-Zuteiler umgewandelt. Das Sichtbarkeits-Culling des Entity Component Update Schedulers (ECUS) wurde verbessert und der alte ECUS-Code wurde entfernt, da nun der neue entit\u00e4tszentrierte Component Update Code aktiv genutzt wird. Au\u00dferdem wurde der Wake-up-Code des Jobmanagers weiter optimiert. Ein Teil des Teams arbeitet derzeit am Refactoring von Bereichen und Tags und untersucht weiterhin eine m\u00f6gliche Integration von EASTL.\n\nGameplay Story\nGameplay Story begann im Januar und kn\u00fcpfte an die Arbeit an den Gesch\u00fctzt\u00fcrmen aus dem letzten Jahr an, indem alle Story-Szenen aktualisiert wurden, um den neu definierten Metriken zu entsprechen.\n\n\"Es ist wirklich befriedigend zu sehen, dass diese Arbeit Fr\u00fcchte tr\u00e4gt und unsere Charaktere die Gesch\u00fctzt\u00fcrme nahtlos betreten k\u00f6nnen\". Gameplay Story Team\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurden neue K\u00f6rper, Gesichter und Audiosignale zu den Szenen mit den Zufalls-NPCs hinzugef\u00fcgt. Diese Arbeiten kommen gut voran und werden voraussichtlich im ersten Quartal 2022 fortgesetzt. Ein neuer Animator ist zum Team gesto\u00dfen, so dass viel Zeit f\u00fcr das Onboarding und die Einarbeitung aufgewendet und der Rest des Jahres geplant wurde.\n\nGrafik & VFX-Programmierung\nIm Januar unterst\u00fctzte das Grafikteam Cinematics mit Korrekturen f\u00fcr das Cubemap-Rendering in TrackView und f\u00fcgte dem Kameracode eine Letterbox-Funktion hinzu, um Sortierprobleme in Cutscenes zu vermeiden.\n\nSie arbeiteten weiter an Shadern und verbesserten die Reflexionen im Bildschirmraum, so dass sie jetzt viel sch\u00e4rfer und stabiler sind und dort, wo sie nicht berechnet werden k\u00f6nnen, weicher ausfallen. Au\u00dferdem haben sie den volumetrischen Beleuchtungs-Shader f\u00fcr Wasser bereinigt und gemeinsam mit den verschiedenen Art-Teams an neuen Shadern f\u00fcr Abnutzung gearbeitet.\n\nF\u00fcr Render-to-Texture (RTT) wurden Korrekturen an der asynchronen Erstellung\/L\u00f6schung in Bezug auf Streaming und Referenzz\u00e4hlung vorgenommen.\n\nF\u00fcr Gen12 hat das Team mehrere Probleme behoben, darunter nicht sichtbare Partikel und verschiedene Cubemap-Probleme. Sie f\u00fcgten Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr die GPU-Refraktion von Partikeln und Split-Rendering-Passes hinzu, um einen weiteren Pass zu injizieren, begannen mit dem Testen von Gen12-Schatten und untersuchten Probleme mit RTT in Gen12. Au\u00dferdem begannen sie, das Post-Effekt-System und den G-Kraft-Effekt des Spiels zu konvertieren.\n\nDas VFX-Team konzentrierte sich auf die Arbeit an der Schadenskarte, auf die Unterst\u00fctzung der Codeschnittstelle f\u00fcr das Waffenteam und begann mit der Arbeit an der CPU-Schadenskarte. Au\u00dferdem arbeiteten sie weiter an der Feuergefahr, untersuchten Probleme mit dem Feuerz\u00fcnder, der nicht funktionierte, und behoben Probleme beim Zur\u00fccksetzen des Feuers.\n\nLeveldesign\nDas Space\/Dogfight-Team bereitete die Kampagnenkapitel so vor, dass sie ohne Nachladen ineinander \u00fcbergehen, und arbeitete an der Vervollst\u00e4ndigung des Gesch\u00fctzturm-Spielerlebnisses.\n\nDas FPS-Team schloss die detaillierte Planung ab, wie mehrere Kapitel auf die Qualit\u00e4t von Vertical Slice gebracht werden k\u00f6nnen, w\u00e4hrend das Social Design-Team die wichtige Aufgabe fortsetzte, alle Szenen in alle Kapitel zu implementieren.\n\nNarrative\nDas Narrative-Team begann das Jahr mit der Vorbereitung auf eine bevorstehende Motion-Capture-Session. Neben den Inhalten, die vor der Pandemie gedreht werden sollten, werden dabei zus\u00e4tzliche Vignetten und prozedurale Inhalte f\u00fcr eines der Set-Pieces der Kampagne aufgenommen, sodass die endg\u00fcltigen Inhalte in einem ersten Durchgang implementiert werden k\u00f6nnen.\n\nDas Team arbeitete auch weiterhin eng mit Design und Art zusammen, um Skripte und Platzhalteraufnahmen zu erstellen, die ihnen helfen zu beurteilen, ob die Szenen wie vorgesehen funktionieren. Sobald die Szenen abgesegnet sind, wird die letzte Aufnahmesitzung geplant.\n\nTechnische Animation\nDie Abteilung Tech Animation hat sich im Januar mit langj\u00e4hrigen Problemen befasst und alle Teammitglieder auf die neueste Version von Maya umgestellt. Diese Umstellung f\u00fchrte zu einigen Komplikationen mit den Quelldateien, die behoben wurden.\n\nDas Team hatte den Auftrag, alle Maya-Animationen (ca. 41000) in einem Batch-Upgrade zu aktualisieren. Veraltete Zeichens\u00e4tze waren die Ursache daf\u00fcr, dass die Animationen beim Laden der Dateien nicht richtig geparst wurden, also wurden diese gleichzeitig bearbeitet.\n\n\"Unser Animations-Repository ist jetzt so gut wie schon lange nicht mehr, und unsere Benutzer\/innen sind ohne gro\u00dfe Probleme auf die neue Software umgestiegen. Tech Animation Team\n\nUI\nIm Januar \u00fcbertrugen die Teams UI Feature und Tech die Verantwortung f\u00fcr einige UI-Funktionen an das Feature Team, um deren Entwicklung zu beschleunigen.\n\nDie Arbeit an der neuen Starmap wurde fortgesetzt und es wurden Fortschritte bei Konzepten, Prototypen und der Kerntechnologie gemacht. Sie bauten weiter an den Kernsystemen f\u00fcr die neuen AR-Marker und arbeiteten gleichzeitig an den Icons f\u00fcr die verschiedenen Markertypen und -zust\u00e4nde.\n\nUI Tech setzte die Entwicklung zus\u00e4tzlicher Building Blocks fort, von denen einige im Hacking-Feature zum Einsatz kommen werden. Auch die Vorproduktion des neuen Baustein-Editors wurde weiter geplant und es wurden Wireframes erstellt.\n\nSchlie\u00dflich wurden weitere Konzepte f\u00fcr die neuen UI-Stile von mobiGlas und Origin erstellt und \u00fcberarbeitet.\n\nVFX\nVFX begann das Jahr mit der Arbeit an der im letzten Bericht erw\u00e4hnten Kampfszene. Gemeinsam mit dem Cinematics-Team haben sie einige der aufw\u00e4ndigeren Kampfeffekte ausgearbeitet, wobei sie besonders auf das Timing und den Ma\u00dfstab geachtet haben, um das Gef\u00fchl einer Schlacht zu vermitteln, die um den Spieler herum stattfindet.\n\nAu\u00dferdem begannen sie mit der Abstimmung der Effekte f\u00fcr einen wichtigen Ort, wobei sie sich auf einen vertikalen Ausschnitt konzentrierten, um zu zeigen, wie der Rest des Ortes aussehen soll.\n\nWIR SEHEN UNS N\u00c4CHSTEN MONAT...\n\/\/ ENDE DER \u00dcBERTRAGUNG","zh_CN":"Squadron 42 Monthly Report\nJanuary 2022\nThis 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.\n\nTO: SQUADRON 42 RECRUITS\n\nSUBJ: DEVELOPMENT UPDATE 02:02:2022\n\nREF: CIG UK, CIG DE, CIG LA, CIG TX\n\nFAO Squadron 42 Recruits\n\nWelcome to January\u2019s Squadron 42 development report. Enclosed you will find details on the latest progress made across the campaign, including updates to uniforms, battle flow, and dead-body investigation.\n\nThank you for your continued support of Squadron 42.\n\nSincerely,\n\nCIG COMMUNICATIONS\n\nAI Content Team\nAI Content began the year integrating the deck-crew behavior into various story scenes. This process is known internally as a \u2018scene handshake,\u2019 and describes the transition from a TrackView sequence (story scene) to a systemic AI behavior, such as the engineer.\n\nTo preserve immersion, it\u2019s important that the player can\u2019t see the changeover. However, this isn\u2019t a single-solution problem as there are many scenarios that require seamless transitions that feel as natural as possible. For example, a scene ending with an NPC in the middle of their walk cycle. In this instance, the team pre-caches the AI\u2019s destination for immediate execution once the scene ends.\n\nAI Content also held a progress review looking at the latest implementation of the deck-crew behavior. They showcased several new actions taking place around the Gladius, including checking the fuel diagnostic terminal and repairing damaged wings. Although the deck crew is starting to feel like a real team of people, more features will be added to increase realism throughout the hangar. For example, movable trolleys, drivable forklift trucks, and dynamic conversations (a selection of appropriate conversations between two or more NPCs).\n\nThey also progressed with the feature testmaps mentioned in last month\u2019s report, adding the arcade machine and vending machine. The next step is to begin testing entire behaviors rather than individual usables.\n\nAI Feature Team\nThe AI Feature team continued to work on NPCs perceiving and reacting to dead bodies. Bodies are set up as usables, which brings a wealth of functionality. For example, the ability to specify locations around the body for the AI to inspect and the best enter and exit animations when approaching or leaving the body. They also devised an easier way for the level designers to utilize AI code to trigger gameplay when the AI reaches a certain state.\n\nProgress was made on Vanduul combat, specifically improving their effectiveness at mid-range. New animations were prototyped that telegraph the direction of attack, allowing perceptive players to dodge out of the way and get the upper hand. They also implemented and polished the animations for cowering and surrender.\n\nAI Tech Team\nAI Tech implemented a way for the designers to enforce movement style on characters. This is generic functionality that will be used on specific characters, such as Captain White, to add unique style to movements based on the scene.\n\nAnimation\nThroughout the month, the AI team finished weapon selections, worked on player animation idles, and approached the last stages of cowering and surrender.\n\nThey also created blockouts for the fire suppression device and continued work on Vanduul combat, the firing range useable, dead body investigation, and locomotion improvements.\n\nArt (Characters)\nCharacter Art touched up the concepts for the Screaming Galsons, ensuring they have a spread of different armor weights. They\u2019re currently working on UEE Navy assets, including the bridge officer, battle dress, and class A uniforms.\n\nArt (Environment)\nEnvironment Art continued to develop key locations, this time aiming to get large-scale assets into the game to help shape each area and give them a more distinct feel and purpose. They also began scouting for space locations within the game world.\n\nArt and Design worked closely on select key chapters.\n\n\u201cThis combined effort is helping shape the environments and gameplay closer to what we\u2019re aiming for and we\u2019re all excited to see this progress.\u201d Environment Art Team\n\nEngine\nIn January, the Physics teams prepared for the configuration and setup of sim and cloth skins via item ports. Furthermore, code was restructured to allow mesh baking on soft body instances within the animation system. For vehicles, anti-flip measures were implemented for \u201cturtling\u201d vehicles using physical movement. The vehicle inspector tool that's used for development now also allows the team to control stiffness properties.\n\nFor the renderer, further progress was made on the transition to Gen12. Various instance buffers are now precreated to prevent slowdowns at runtime that were caused if created on demand per frame. Render support for not-yet-streamed-in meshes was added. CGA attachments now also render via Gen12. Support for GBuffer decals was added, and empty render passes can now be skipped in the render graph. Additionally, various optimizations for the reference counting of PSO cache instances during rendering were committed. The team are now looking at supporting HW skinning for Gen12.\n\nRegarding atmosphere and cloud rendering, last month's code cleanup for back integration was completed and the latest code (including various improvements to features and optimized techniques that are still in progress) was submitted to the main development branch. The adoption of volumetric clouds in Squadron 42 revealed an issue with parameters passing into relevant systems during level loading, which was fixed. The next steps are looking at another new idea for data reprojection and to start porting code to Gen12.\n\nOn the core systems, the team refactored the recently introduced arena allocator into a buddy allocator. The entity component update scheduler's (ECUS) visibility culling was improved and old ECUS code was removed now that the new entity-centric component update code is actively used. Furthermore, the job manager's wake-up code was further optimized. Part of the team is currently working on area and tag refactoring as well as continuing to investigate a potential integration of EASTL.\n\nGameplay Story\nGameplay Story began January following up on the turret work done last year, updating all story scenes to match the newly defined metrics.\n\n\u201cIt is definitely satisfying to see this work come to fruition and for our characters to enter the turrets seamlessly.\u201d Gameplay Story Team\n\nThey also continued adding new bodies, faces, and audio to random-to-NPC scenes. This is progressing well and is expected to carry on throughout the first quarter of 2022. A new animator joined the team, so time was spent onboarding and training, and planning was done for the rest of the year.\n\nGraphics & VFX Programming\nJanuary saw the Graphics team support Cinematics with fixes for cubemap rendering in TrackView and add a letter-box feature to the camera code to avoid sorting issues in cutscenes.\n\nThey continued to work on shaders, with various improvements to screen space reflections resulting in much sharper and stable reflections with softer falloff where they can\u2019t be calculated. They also cleaned up the volumetric lighting shader for water and continued to iterate on new wear shaders with the various art teams.\n\nFor render-to-texture (RTT), fixes were implemented to async creation\/deletion relating to streaming and reference counting.\n\nFor Gen12, the team fixed multiple issues including particles not being visible and various cubemap problems. They added support for particle GPU refraction and split render-passes to inject another pass, began testing Gen12 shadows, and investigated issues with RTT in Gen12. They also began converting the game\u2019s post-effect system and G-force effect.\n\nThe VFX team focused on damage map work, code interface support for the Weapons team, and made a start on the CPU damage map. They also continued with the fire-hazard feature, investigating issues with the fire igniter not working and fixing issues with resetting fire.\n\nLevel Design\nThe Space\/Dogfight team prepared the campaign chapters to flow into each other continuously without reloads and worked towards completing the turret gameplay experience.\n\nThe FPS team completed detailed planning on how to bring several chapters up to vertical-slice quality, while the Social Design team continued the significant task of implementing all scenes to all chapters.\n\nNarrative\nNarrative began the year preparing for an upcoming motion-capture session. Along with content that was meant to be shot before the pandemic, it will be used to capture additional vignettes and procedural content for one of the campaign's set pieces, allowing for the first-pass implementation of final content.\n\nThe team also continued to work closely with Design and Art to create scripts and placeholder recordings to help them judge whether scenes are working as intended. Once scenes are signed off, their final capture session will be scheduled.\n\nTech Animation\nTech Animation spent January addressing long-standing issues and upgraded all team members to the latest version of Maya. This transition created some complications with the source files, which were addressed.\n\nThe team had the mandate of batch-upgrading all Maya animations (around 41000). Legacy character sets were the root cause of some bad animation parsing on file load, so these were dealt with at the same time.\n\n\u201cOur animation repository is now in the best state it\u2019s been in a long time, and our users have moved over to the new software with minimal problems.\u201d Tech Animation Team\n\nUI\nIn January, the UI Feature and Tech teams transferring ownership of some UI features to the Feature Team to fast-track their development.\n\nWork on the new Starmap continued, with progress made on concepts, prototypes, and core technology. They continued building the core systems for the new AR markers while working on icons for the various marker types and states too.\n\nUI Tech continued developing additional Building Blocks features, some of which will be used in the hacking feature. Additional planning went into the pre-production process of the new Building Blocks editor too, which involved creating wireframes.\n\nFinally, additional concepts for the new mobiGlas and Origin UI styles were created and iterated on.\n\nVFX\nVFX started the year working on the battle scene mentioned in last month\u2019s report. Alongside the Cinematics team, they began fleshing out some of the more elaborate battle effects, paying particular attention to timings and scale to sell the feeling of a battle taking place around the player.\n\nThey also began dialing in effects for a key location, focusing on a vertical slice to show how the rest of it should appear.\n\nWE'LL SEE YOU NEXT MONTH...\n\/\/ END TRANSMISSION"},"links_count":0,"comment_count":0,"created_at":"2022-02-09T18:00:00+00:00","created_at_human":"4 years ago"},"meta":{"processed_at":"2026-05-18 21:51:10","valid_relations":["images","links"],"prev_id":18546,"next_id":18548}}