{"data":{"id":18786,"title":"Squadron 42 Monthly Report: June 2022","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/comm-link\/transmission\/18786-Squadron-42-Monthly-Report-June-2022","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-links\/18786","api_public_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/comm-links\/18786","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\nJune 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 07:06:2022\n\nREF: CIG UK, CIG DE, CIG LA, CIG TX\n\nFAO Squadron 42 Recruits.\n\nWelcome to June\u2019s Squadron 42 development report. Enclosed you will find details on the latest progress made across the campaign, including updates to Human combat, Volt weaponry, and space flight mechanics.\n\nThank you for your continued support of Squadron 42.\n\nSincerely,\n\nCIG COMMUNICATIONS\n\nAI (Content)\nLast month, AI Content began their work on the master-at-arms behavior, which uses the same AI as the bartender but interacts with different usables and plays other dialogue options. Supporting SQ42\u2019s numerous weapons and their varying shapes and sizes requires an extensive catalog of assets.\n\nEarlier in the year, the team were pleased with the results of the mo-cap redelivery that led to clear improvements in Graves and Kelly's movement cycles. Last month, they continued the process for the remaining core cast characters. These assets had not been worked on for some time, so required updates to meet the desired fidelity.\n\nThe landing officer is now finished and integrated into the chapter flow. The role of this AI is to help the player land safely and correctly oriented on the landing pad, with character animations playing to assist with positional and rotation changes. This routine can now be viewed on the ship's cockpit display, as solely seeing the AI through the cockpit visor proved challenging.\n\nLastly, AI Content received essential bug fixes from AI Tech to allow the movement of trolleys from multiple alignment points. The AI can now wheel a diagnostic cart towards and away from the Gladius when it lands. This has allowed the team to conclude their work on this part of the deck crew behavior.\n\nAI (Features)\nLast month, on the Human combat side, AI Features began implementing logic for a selection of different attack archetypes: defender, pusher, and strafer.\n\nThe defender chooses a position to attack from and remains there until cover is compromised or no longer valid (e.g., the target is out of range or no longer visible)\n\nThe pusher is more active, rapidly closing the distance between them and the target in order to build pressure\n\nThe strafer is the more tactical archetype, choosing a lateral position outside the direction the target is aiming in to set up flanking opportunities\n\nEach NPC can select the attack archetype that they determine to be the best for that situation based on multiple criteria. These criteria include the range of the weapon that the AI holds (e.g., characters with short-range weapons prefer the pusher archetype), how many characters are attacking a target, and how many other characters are using a particular archetype.\n\nEach criterion gives a certain \u2018score\u2019 for each archetype that\u2019s used as a weight when randomly choosing between the archetypes. This supports variation, reaction to different situations, and some intelligence in the makeup of archetypes in any given situation. Tasks from last month involved implementing each of the criteria scoring functions and the system for summing these and weighting the archetype selection.\n\nFor Human combat, work went into the perception, cover, and movement animations for the female skeleton. This is in pursuit of completing the set so that characters with the female skeleton can perform the same combat behaviors as the male skeleton.\n\nWork continued on the implementation of the new weapon accuracy system mentioned in previous reports. Last month, the prototype was set up. This features debug visualizations of the percentage chance calculated from the different factors, which will allow the designers to easily tweak accuracy to balance difficulty.\n\nFor the Vanduul, the team took advantage of the tech described in April\u2019s report and merged the Vanduul and Human mastergraphs (the top-level state machine that controls the AI behavior of characters). This should make the system far easier to maintain while also allowing for specific behaviors for unique characters. They also selected and processed the animations generated in last month's mo-cap sessions, including bespoke animations for a section of stealth gameplay.\n\nAI (Tech)\nJune saw AI Tech prototyping a set of fauna behaviors, focusing on the implementation of the entity class, verifying that all the components can function correctly on creatures. They\u2019re currently setting up animations, an initial version of the bspace, a basic creature roaming behavior, and a basic combat behavior based on the combo melee system used by the Vanduul.\n\nWork continued on the locomotion code. This included improving the transitions between different locomotion states by further developing the initial implementation of pose matching. They also implemented linear speed warping, including a way to dynamically calculate a spline into a specific pose. For example, the enter position of a usable. This allows the team to make the transition between movement and interactive objects smoother and more believable. They also began improving and fixing idle steps, which are special animations used for extremely short paths (max 75cm).\n\nFor 3D navigation, the team improved the implementation of ORCA 3D for collision avoidance and continued to develop break splines. Break splines can be dynamically attached to the systemic movement of any entity that uses 3D movement (currently ships but will include characters in EVA in the future). The entity can then select the appropriate spline based on its skills, direction, and other conditions before smoothing its entrance, allowing it to perform a cinematic movement into a systemic behavior.\n\nFor trolley use, the team focused on tasks to allow an NPC using a usable (in this case a movable object) to be dynamically attached to another usable (such as a parking spot). They also supported the trolley lightweight update and tweaked path following to allow it to minimize the distance of the trolley from the path.\n\nOn the Subsumption side, multiple tool aspects were upgraded and bugs were fixed to move development into the \u2018improvement\u2019 phase. A new panel was also added to give an advanced selection of parameters when the dropdown menu becomes too large.\n\nAnimation\nThroughout June, the Animation team worked on zero-g traversal, helmet usage, female spec-ops AI, and look-dev for weighted characters.\n\nImprovements were made to the cast locomotion, Vanduul searching, Vanduul in cockpits, sick persons, and ladder blockouts. Weapons-wise, progress was made on the master-at-arms and the Volt SMG and shotgun.\n\nPre-vis tests were done on chapter one\u2019s AI, while improvements were made to the reaction system to enable smoother feeling gameplay.\n\nThey\u2019re currently making final passes on several cast members' facial animations.\n\nArt (Characters)\nCharacter Art continued to develop key outfits for the UEE Navy, including the bridge officer uniform, deck crew EVA outfit, and training gear. They also worked on armor for the Screaming Galsons and made major updates to the hair shader alongside the Graphics team.\n\nArt (Weapons)\nThe Weapons team began the month working on a number of Volt weapons, including an assault rifle, LMG, SMG, and shotgun. They also finalized their work on a physical riot shield.\n\nWhile the Art team worked on modeling new assets, Animation worked to give life and functionality to several FPS devices, including the fire extinguisher, laser trip mine, breaching charge, and a Volt sniper rifle. A new Klaus & Werner underbarrel light attachment was created too.\n\nEngine\nIn June, the Physics team made several improvements to ray world intersections (RWI), which now contains a semi-continuous mode to trace against rigid bodies. This makes projectile intersection tests more robust with fast-moving ships. RWI was also significantly optimized (3-5x on heavy usage).\n\nThe tiling of dense SDFs was introduced, and SDF coordinate conversion and trilinear interpolation were optimized. Support for \u2018player only collision\u2019 geometry nodes inside CGFs\/CGAs was fixed and extended, while work on the new ropes continued. Various bug fixes and other improvements were submitted too.\n\nOn the renderer, the Gen12 transition continued with more passes being ported over, including responsive AA and decal rendering in the forward stage. The processing of scattering queries was reworked and a debug UI was added for them too. Buffer copying of sun shadow cascades was ported as well. The format of the previous HDR frame has been adjusted (reprojection, temporal AA) to be more efficient, and the cleanup of the render thread began.\n\nThe Gen12 ports of atmospheric and volumetric cloud rendering continued as a generalized processing context, and new stages to decouple view-dependent resources from the core systems that operate on them have been introduced. The atmosphere shader code was adjusted to compile well with DXC and SPIR-V. Various improvements were made to prevent concurrency issues when streaming in properties of multiple planets at the same time and relaying them to the atmosphere and cloud-rendering systems.\n\nOn the core engine, entity areas now utilize tags to track what entities\/areas events send to each other. This replaces the hidden hierarchy logic that caused various issues and allows for more efficient code. Work on running the entire code base through include-what-you-use (IWYU) continued. The goal is to eventually make IWYU part of the continuous integration pipeline (trybuild) to keep code clean. Furthermore, a recent integration into the main development branch saw the introduction of the cigSTL\/eaSTL namespace, which is planned to become a customizable STL library for StarEngine. The entity component update scheduler received updates to avoid iterating component lists when using manual update policies (performance). Work on improving file location (IO) continued, which should eventually lead to improved loading times for small files. Also, work on an improved r_displayinfo continued. Lastly, the old FPS analytic buckets were replaced with an array-based frame time bucket that allows for more accurate profiling information.\n\nFeatures (Gameplay)\nThe SQ42 Feature team continued work on the character customizer, making visibility and usability improvements alongside general polish. Further improvement and polish tasks were also completed for the flight academy application form. The ability to request weapon attachments from the master-at-arms was added too.\n\nThe team also supported persistent entity streaming, as recent changes caused knock-ons that affected several SQ42 missions.\n\nGameplay Story\nGameplay Story began June implementing the last of the mo-cap data captured at the end of April, which allowed them to complete several scenes to a high standard. It also enabled them to deliver a new scene featuring an NPC dragging a refueling hose over to the Gladius and plugging it in. Further polish work is required but the scene is already visually interesting.\n\nMid-June saw a new mo-cap session, with the team preparing to work with the data when it arrives.\n\nTowards the end of the month, maintenance and pose updates were done for several story scenes. The team also updated all bunk-bed and mess-hall scenes to ensure they correctly \u2018handshake\u2019 with the AI.\n\nGraphics & VFX Programming (and PTT)\nLast month, the Graphics team continued porting features to Gen12, including gas clouds, rivers, frozen oceans, refraction, and multi-pass support. Fixes were also submitted for tessellation partitioning for planetary ground fog. For the Vulkan backend, the team fixed issues caught by the validation layer, including mismatched texture types and mismatches of unused vertex input attributes (which are now reflected from the shader).\n\nFor the render-to-texture system, the team fixed a crash caused by the wrong resolution being calculated when the screen resolution was changed, along with an issue with RTT holograms occasionally pixelating.\n\nBugs were also fixed for the LOD merger, including an update to allow combining objects with more than 64 sub-materials. They also investigated issues with the rendering of invalid static shadow region entities. Significant progress was made on the hair shader too, including updates to greying controls, variation tiling, and melanin selection.\n\nVFX Programming continued investigating offline damage maps with persistence. They also continued implementing ImGUI debug tools for damage maps and a dynamic bitset data structure for damage-map queries. Changes were also made to damage-map materials alongside optimizations to hit processing and rendering.\n\nLevel Design\nLast month, the FPS team moved on to three new chapters (two more are in the pipeline for the coming weeks).\n\nAlongside the other Level Design and System teams, the Space\/Dogfight team continued to focus on getting a large part of the game fully playable with functioning mechanics.\n\nAs well as continuing to implement all in-game scenes, conversations, break-outs, and re-joins, Social Design worked closely with Social AI to implement some of the expanded systemic content that will bring life to the levels. For example, engineers going about their daily schedules and crew on downtime in the mess hall.\n\nNarrative\nJune saw Narrative continuing to sync with Design. This involves moving through the updated mission flow, assessing whether the existing lines still sell the intended story moment, and whether they provide clarity on how to properly progress. If they find a situation where the existing lines don\u2019t apply, they discuss a modification or addition. These syncs also provide the opportunity to deepen the narrative experience, be it providing a backstory for the location or its inhabitants.\n\nThe team then moved onto another of the larger set-piece levels and outlined the prospective scripts and characters. Once decided, they\u2019ll generate scripts and placeholder recordings so the rest of the development team can hear and react to the content in situ.\n\nNarrative also developed ideas for in-mission collectibles, discussed the presentation and tone of the mission objectives, and outlined the hint system that will help lost players.\n\nFinally, the producers from all disciplines coordinated to ensure that all remaining tasks were identified and tracked. The Narrative team specifically is going to be entering an interesting but intensive production schedule to capture any of the placeholder content that\u2019s been validated in playthroughs.\n\nQA\nQA supported Cinematics by reproducing issues found during development and chasing up outstanding bugs still causing issues for the team.\n\nGeneral focus throughout June was on bug validation and reporting, and recording scenes for review.\n\nThey also made a push for editor testing to ensure the tools used by the team are working as intended, ensuring the development workflow remains stable.\n\nTech Animation\nTech Animation team continued wrapping up the animation pipeline refactor mentioned in last month\u2019s report. This involved creating new rigs and tools and stripping out old code for more elegant and performant solutions.\n\nThey also continued work on a new system that puts fidelity above all else. Although rarely used in gaming due to its expense and limitations, this type of system is ideal for performance pieces.\n\nPlanning was done for the coming quarters, and numerous new character heads progressed towards animation support too.\n\nUI\nIn the near future, UI will begin implementing more streamlined vehicle HUDs and MFDs for Squadron 42. In preparation, they finalized the new layouts and visual concepts.\n\nFor the new Starmap, the team worked on navigation and began preliminary work to show space clouds.\n\nThe UI Tech team upgraded the new 3D UI cards system so that, as well as floating layered UI, they can automatically apply UI to holographic curved surfaces. This allows them to create interesting visuals that weren\u2019t possible before, which will be trialed on the new Squadron 42-exclusive mobiGlas and visor.\n\nVFX\nLast month, VFX worked on a key cutscene involving significant amounts of destruction.\n\n\u201cDue to the extra complexity of this scene, we spent some R&D time trying different ways to convincingly animate metal structures bending and tearing as opposed to simply shattering like in lots of real-time destruction simulations.\u201d VFX Team\n\nElsewhere, VFX Concept worked on a new suite of energy-based weapons and support was given to the Art and Design teams across various locations.\n\nWE'LL SEE YOU NEXT MONTH...\n\/\/ END TRANSMISSION","de_DE":"Geschwader 42 Monatsbericht\nJuni 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 07:06:2022\n\nREF: CIG UK, CIG DE, CIG LA, CIG TX\n\nFAO-Geschwader 42 Rekruten.\n\nWillkommen zum Entwicklungsbericht f\u00fcr Squadron 42 im Juni. Anbei findest du Details zu den neuesten Fortschritten in der Kampagne, einschlie\u00dflich Updates f\u00fcr den menschlichen Kampf, die Volt-Waffen und die Raumflugmechanik.\n\nVielen Dank f\u00fcr eure anhaltende Unterst\u00fctzung von Squadron 42.\n\nMit freundlichen Gr\u00fc\u00dfen,\n\nCIG COMMUNICATIONS\n\nKI (Inhalt)\nLetzten Monat hat AI Content mit der Arbeit am Verhalten des Waffenmeisters begonnen, der die gleiche KI wie der Barkeeper verwendet, aber mit anderen Usables interagiert und andere Dialogoptionen spielt. Um die zahlreichen Waffen von SQ42 und ihre unterschiedlichen Formen und Gr\u00f6\u00dfen zu unterst\u00fctzen, ist ein umfangreicher Katalog an Assets erforderlich.\n\nAnfang des Jahres war das Team mit den Ergebnissen der Mo-Cap-Neuauslieferung zufrieden, die zu deutlichen Verbesserungen der Bewegungsabl\u00e4ufe von Graves und Kelly f\u00fchrte. Letzten Monat haben sie den Prozess f\u00fcr die \u00fcbrigen Hauptdarsteller fortgesetzt. An diesen Figuren war schon seit einiger Zeit nicht mehr gearbeitet worden, sodass sie aktualisiert werden mussten, um die gew\u00fcnschte Wiedergabetreue zu erreichen.\n\nDer Landeoffizier ist jetzt fertig und in den Kapitelablauf integriert. Die Aufgabe dieser KI ist es, dem Spieler dabei zu helfen, sicher und richtig orientiert auf dem Landeplatz zu landen, wobei Charakteranimationen abgespielt werden, die bei Positions- und Rotations\u00e4nderungen helfen. Diese Routine kann nun auf dem Cockpit-Display des Schiffes betrachtet werden, da es sich als schwierig erwies, die KI nur durch das Cockpit-Visier zu sehen.\n\nDer KI-Inhalt schlie\u00dflich erhielt wichtige Fehlerbehebungen von AI Tech, um die Bewegung von Karren von mehreren Ausrichtungspunkten aus zu erm\u00f6glichen. Die KI kann jetzt einen Diagnosewagen auf den Gladius zu und von ihm weg bewegen, wenn er landet. Damit konnte das Team seine Arbeit an diesem Teil des Verhaltens der Deckbesatzung abschlie\u00dfen.\n\nKI (Funktionen)\nIm letzten Monat haben die KI-Funktionen damit begonnen, die Logik f\u00fcr eine Auswahl verschiedener Angriffsarchetypen zu implementieren: Verteidiger, Pusher und Strafer.\n\nDer Verteidiger w\u00e4hlt eine Position, von der aus er angreift, und bleibt dort, bis die Deckung gef\u00e4hrdet oder nicht mehr g\u00fcltig ist (z. B. weil das Ziel au\u00dfer Reichweite oder nicht mehr sichtbar ist).\n\nDer Dr\u00e4ngler ist aktiver und verringert schnell den Abstand zwischen ihm und dem Ziel, um Druck aufzubauen.\n\nDer Strafer ist der taktischere Archetyp, der eine seitliche Position au\u00dferhalb der Richtung w\u00e4hlt, in die das Ziel zielt, um Flankenm\u00f6glichkeiten zu schaffen\n\nJeder NSC kann den Angriffsarchetyp w\u00e4hlen, den er f\u00fcr die jeweilige Situation am besten geeignet findet. Zu diesen Kriterien geh\u00f6ren die Reichweite der Waffe, die die KI besitzt (z.B. bevorzugen Charaktere mit Waffen mit kurzer Reichweite den Schieber-Archetyp), wie viele Charaktere ein Ziel angreifen und wie viele andere Charaktere einen bestimmten Archetyp verwenden.\n\nJedes Kriterium gibt jedem Archetyp eine bestimmte \"Punktzahl\", die bei der zuf\u00e4lligen Auswahl zwischen den Archetypen als Gewicht verwendet wird. Das unterst\u00fctzt die Variation, die Reaktion auf verschiedene Situationen und eine gewisse Intelligenz bei der Zusammenstellung der Archetypen in einer bestimmten Situation. Zu den Aufgaben des letzten Monats geh\u00f6rte die Implementierung der einzelnen Bewertungsfunktionen f\u00fcr die Kriterien und das System zur Summierung und Gewichtung der Archetypenauswahl.\n\nF\u00fcr den menschlichen Kampf wurde an den Wahrnehmungs-, Deckungs- und Bewegungsanimationen f\u00fcr das weibliche Skelett gearbeitet. Damit soll das Set vervollst\u00e4ndigt werden, damit Charaktere mit dem weiblichen Skelett das gleiche Kampfverhalten zeigen k\u00f6nnen wie das m\u00e4nnliche Skelett.\n\nDie Arbeit an der Implementierung des neuen Systems f\u00fcr die Waffengenauigkeit, das in fr\u00fcheren Berichten erw\u00e4hnt wurde, wurde fortgesetzt. Letzten Monat wurde der Prototyp eingerichtet. Dieser bietet Debug-Visualisierungen der prozentualen Trefferwahrscheinlichkeit, die aus den verschiedenen Faktoren errechnet wird, so dass die Designer die Genauigkeit leicht anpassen k\u00f6nnen, um die Schwierigkeit auszugleichen.\n\nF\u00fcr die Vanduul nutzte das Team die im Aprilbericht beschriebene Technologie und f\u00fchrte die Mastergraphen der Vanduul und der Menschen zusammen (die \u00fcbergeordnete Zustandsmaschine, die das KI-Verhalten der Charaktere steuert). Dadurch sollte das System viel einfacher zu pflegen sein und gleichzeitig spezifische Verhaltensweisen f\u00fcr einzigartige Charaktere erm\u00f6glichen. Au\u00dferdem haben sie die Animationen ausgew\u00e4hlt und bearbeitet, die in den Mo-Cap-Sitzungen des letzten Monats entstanden sind, darunter auch ma\u00dfgeschneiderte Animationen f\u00fcr einen Stealth-Abschnitt.\n\nKI (Tech)\nIm Juni hat die KI-Abteilung eine Reihe von Verhaltensmustern f\u00fcr die Fauna entwickelt und sich dabei auf die Implementierung der Entit\u00e4tsklasse konzentriert, um zu \u00fcberpr\u00fcfen, ob alle Komponenten bei den Kreaturen korrekt funktionieren. Zurzeit werden Animationen, eine erste Version des B-Raums, ein grundlegendes Verhalten f\u00fcr das Umherstreifen von Kreaturen und ein grundlegendes Kampfverhalten, das auf dem Combo-Nahkampfsystem der Vanduul basiert, entwickelt.\n\nDie Arbeit am Code f\u00fcr die Fortbewegung wurde fortgesetzt. Unter anderem wurden die \u00dcberg\u00e4nge zwischen den verschiedenen Bewegungszust\u00e4nden verbessert, indem die urspr\u00fcngliche Implementierung des Pose Matching weiterentwickelt wurde. Au\u00dferdem wurde lineares Speed Warping implementiert, einschlie\u00dflich einer M\u00f6glichkeit, einen Spline dynamisch in eine bestimmte Pose zu berechnen. Zum Beispiel die Einstiegsposition eines Nutzers. Dadurch kann das Team den \u00dcbergang zwischen Bewegung und interaktiven Objekten flie\u00dfender und glaubw\u00fcrdiger gestalten. Au\u00dferdem haben sie begonnen, Leerlaufschritte zu verbessern und zu korrigieren. Das sind spezielle Animationen, die f\u00fcr extrem kurze Pfade (max. 75 cm) verwendet werden.\n\nF\u00fcr die 3D-Navigation hat das Team die Implementierung von ORCA 3D zur Kollisionsvermeidung verbessert und die Entwicklung von Bremssplines fortgesetzt. Bremssplines k\u00f6nnen dynamisch an die systemische Bewegung eines beliebigen Objekts angeh\u00e4ngt werden, das sich in 3D bewegt (derzeit Schiffe, aber in Zukunft auch Charaktere in EVA). Die Entit\u00e4t kann dann auf der Grundlage ihrer F\u00e4higkeiten, Richtung und anderer Bedingungen den passenden Spline ausw\u00e4hlen, bevor sie ihren Eintritt gl\u00e4ttet, so dass sie eine kinematische Bewegung in ein systemisches Verhalten ausf\u00fchren kann.\n\nF\u00fcr die Nutzung des Trolleys konzentrierte sich das Team auf Aufgaben, mit denen ein NSC, der ein Nutzobjekt (in diesem Fall ein bewegliches Objekt) benutzt, dynamisch an ein anderes Nutzobjekt (z. B. einen Parkplatz) angeh\u00e4ngt werden kann. Au\u00dferdem unterst\u00fctzten sie die leichtgewichtige Aktualisierung des Wagens und optimierten die Pfadverfolgung, um den Abstand des Wagens zum Pfad zu minimieren.\n\nAuf der Subsumption-Seite wurden mehrere Werkzeugaspekte verbessert und Bugs behoben, um die Entwicklung in die \"Verbesserungsphase\" zu bringen. Au\u00dferdem wurde ein neues Panel hinzugef\u00fcgt, das eine erweiterte Auswahl an Parametern erm\u00f6glicht, wenn das Dropdown-Men\u00fc zu gro\u00df wird.\n\nAnimation\nIm Juni arbeitete das Animationsteam an der Schwerelosigkeit, der Verwendung von Helmen, der KI von weiblichen Spec-Ops und der Entwicklung des Aussehens von gewichteten Charakteren.\n\nVerbesserungen gab es bei der Fortbewegung der Darsteller, der Suche nach Vanduul, Vanduul in Cockpits, kranken Personen und Leitersperrungen. Bei den Waffen wurden Fortschritte beim Waffenmeister, dem Volt SMG und der Schrotflinte gemacht.\n\nAn der KI des ersten Kapitels wurden Vorabtests durchgef\u00fchrt, w\u00e4hrend das Reaktionssystem verbessert wurde, um ein fl\u00fcssigeres Spielgef\u00fchl zu erm\u00f6glichen.\n\nZurzeit werden die Gesichtsanimationen einiger Darsteller\/innen \u00fcberarbeitet.\n\nKunst (Charaktere)\nCharacter Art hat die Entwicklung der wichtigsten Outfits f\u00fcr die UEE Navy fortgesetzt, darunter die Uniform des Br\u00fcckenoffiziers, das EVA-Outfit der Deckcrew und die Trainingsausr\u00fcstung. Au\u00dferdem haben sie an der R\u00fcstung der Screaming Galsons gearbeitet und zusammen mit dem Grafikteam den Haar-Shader \u00fcberarbeitet.\n\nKunst (Waffen)\nDas Waffenteam begann den Monat mit der Arbeit an einer Reihe von Volt-Waffen, darunter ein Sturmgewehr, ein LMG, ein SMG und eine Schrotflinte. Au\u00dferdem haben sie ihre Arbeit an einem physischen Schutzschild abgeschlossen.\n\nW\u00e4hrend das Art-Team neue Objekte modellierte, arbeitete das Animationsteam daran, mehrere FPS-Ger\u00e4te zum Leben zu erwecken, darunter den Feuerl\u00f6scher, die Laserausl\u00f6semine, die Sprengladung und das Volt-Scharfsch\u00fctzengewehr. Au\u00dferdem wurde ein neues Klaus & Werner-Licht unter dem Gewehrlauf entwickelt.\n\nMotor\nIm Juni hat das Physikteam mehrere Verbesserungen an den Strahlenweltschnittpunkten (RWI) vorgenommen, die jetzt einen halbkontinuierlichen Modus f\u00fcr die Verfolgung gegen starre K\u00f6rper enthalten. Das macht Projektil\u00fcberschneidungstests mit sich schnell bewegenden Schiffen robuster. RWI wurde au\u00dferdem erheblich optimiert (3-5x bei starker Nutzung).\n\nDie Kachelung von dichten SDFs wurde eingef\u00fchrt und die SDF-Koordinatenkonvertierung und trilineare Interpolation wurden optimiert. Die Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr Geometrieknoten in CGFs\/CGAs, die nur von Spielern kollidieren, wurde behoben und erweitert, w\u00e4hrend die Arbeit an den neuen Seilen fortgesetzt wurde. Au\u00dferdem wurden verschiedene Fehlerbehebungen und andere Verbesserungen eingereicht.\n\nBeim Renderer wurde die Umstellung auf Gen12 fortgesetzt, wobei weitere Passes portiert wurden, darunter responsive AA und Decal-Rendering in der Forward Stage. Die Verarbeitung von Scattering-Abfragen wurde \u00fcberarbeitet und eine Debug-UI f\u00fcr diese Abfragen wurde hinzugef\u00fcgt. Das Pufferkopieren von Sonnenschattenkaskaden wurde ebenfalls portiert. Das Format des vorherigen HDR-Rahmens wurde angepasst (Reprojektion, temporale AA), um effizienter zu sein, und es wurde mit der Bereinigung des Render-Threads begonnen.\n\nDie Gen12-Portierungen von atmosph\u00e4rischem und volumetrischem Wolkenrendering wurden als verallgemeinerter Verarbeitungskontext fortgesetzt, und es wurden neue Stufen zur Entkopplung von ansichtsabh\u00e4ngigen Ressourcen von den Kernsystemen, die auf ihnen arbeiten, eingef\u00fchrt. Der Atmosph\u00e4ren-Shader-Code wurde so angepasst, dass er sich gut mit DXC und SPIR-V kompilieren l\u00e4sst. Es wurden verschiedene Verbesserungen vorgenommen, um Gleichzeitigkeitsprobleme zu vermeiden, wenn die Eigenschaften mehrerer Planeten gleichzeitig eingelesen und an die Atmosph\u00e4ren- und Wolkenrendering-Systeme weitergeleitet werden.\n\nIn der Core-Engine verwenden Entity-Bereiche jetzt Tags, um zu verfolgen, welche Entities\/Bereiche Ereignisse aneinander senden. Dies ersetzt die versteckte Hierarchielogik, die zu verschiedenen Problemen f\u00fchrte, und erm\u00f6glicht einen effizienteren Code. Die Arbeit an der \u00dcberpr\u00fcfung der gesamten Codebasis durch Include-what-you-use (IWYU) wurde fortgesetzt. Ziel ist es, IWYU schlie\u00dflich in die kontinuierliche Integrationspipeline (Trybuild) zu integrieren, um den Code sauber zu halten. Au\u00dferdem wurde k\u00fcrzlich der cigSTL\/eaSTL-Namensraum in den Hauptentwicklungszweig integriert, der eine anpassbare STL-Bibliothek f\u00fcr StarEngine werden soll. Der Aktualisierungsplaner f\u00fcr Entity-Komponenten wurde aktualisiert, um die Iteration von Komponentenlisten bei der Verwendung manueller Aktualisierungsrichtlinien zu vermeiden (Leistung). Die Arbeit an der Verbesserung des Dateispeichers (IO) wurde fortgesetzt, was letztendlich zu verbesserten Ladezeiten f\u00fcr kleine Dateien f\u00fchren sollte. Au\u00dferdem wurde die Arbeit an einem verbesserten r_displayinfo fortgesetzt. Schlie\u00dflich wurden die alten FPS-Analyse-Buckets durch ein Array-basiertes Frame-Time-Bucket ersetzt, das genauere Profiling-Informationen erm\u00f6glicht.\n\nFeatures (Gameplay)\nDas SQ42-Feature-Team hat die Arbeit an der Charakteranpassung fortgesetzt und neben der allgemeinen Optimierung auch die Sichtbarkeit und Benutzerfreundlichkeit verbessert. Auch das Bewerbungsformular f\u00fcr die Flugakademie wurde weiter verbessert und aufpoliert. Au\u00dferdem wurde die M\u00f6glichkeit hinzugef\u00fcgt, Waffenaufs\u00e4tze beim Waffenmeister anzufordern.\n\nDas Team unterst\u00fctzte auch das persistente Streaming von Entit\u00e4ten, da die j\u00fcngsten \u00c4nderungen Auswirkungen auf mehrere SQ42-Missionen hatten.\n\nGameplay Story\nGameplay Story begann im Juni mit der Implementierung der letzten Mo-Cap-Daten, die Ende April aufgenommen worden waren. Au\u00dferdem konnten sie eine neue Szene liefern, in der ein NSC einen Tankschlauch zum Gladius schleppt und ihn einsteckt. Die Szene muss noch weiter aufpoliert werden, aber sie ist schon jetzt visuell interessant.\n\nMitte Juni fand eine neue Mo-Cap-Session statt, bei der sich das Team auf die Arbeit mit den Daten vorbereitete, sobald diese eintrafen.\n\nGegen Ende des Monats wurden einige Story-Szenen \u00fcberarbeitet und die Posen aktualisiert. Das Team aktualisierte auch alle Kojen- und Messehallenszenen, um sicherzustellen, dass sie korrekt mit der KI \"handshaken\".\n\nGrafik- und VFX-Programmierung (und PTT)\nIm letzten Monat hat das Grafikteam die Portierung von Funktionen auf Gen12 fortgesetzt, darunter Gaswolken, Fl\u00fcsse, gefrorene Ozeane, Brechung und Multi-Pass-Unterst\u00fctzung. Au\u00dferdem wurden Korrekturen f\u00fcr die Tessellierungspartitionierung bei planetarem Bodennebel eingereicht. F\u00fcr das Vulkan-Backend hat das Team Probleme behoben, die von der Validierungsschicht abgefangen wurden, darunter nicht \u00fcbereinstimmende Texturtypen und nicht \u00fcbereinstimmende unbenutzte Vertex-Eingabeattribute (die jetzt vom Shader reflektiert werden).\n\nF\u00fcr das Render-to-Texture-System hat das Team einen Absturz behoben, der dadurch verursacht wurde, dass die falsche Aufl\u00f6sung berechnet wurde, wenn die Bildschirmaufl\u00f6sung ge\u00e4ndert wurde, sowie ein Problem mit RTT-Hologrammen, die gelegentlich verpixelt waren.\n\nAuch bei der LOD-Fusion wurden Fehler behoben, darunter ein Update, das die Kombination von Objekten mit mehr als 64 Submaterialien erm\u00f6glicht. Au\u00dferdem wurden Probleme mit dem Rendering von ung\u00fcltigen statischen Schattenregionen untersucht. Auch beim Haar-Shader wurden erhebliche Fortschritte erzielt, darunter Aktualisierungen der Graustufensteuerung, der Variationskacheln und der Melaninauswahl.\n\nDie VFX-Programmierung untersuchte weiterhin Offline-Schadenskarten mit Persistenz. Au\u00dferdem wurden die ImGUI-Debug-Tools f\u00fcr Schadenskarten und eine dynamische Bitset-Datenstruktur f\u00fcr Schadenskartenabfragen implementiert. Au\u00dferdem wurden \u00c4nderungen an den Materialien der Schadenskarten vorgenommen und die Verarbeitung und das Rendering der Treffer optimiert.\n\nLeveldesign\nIm letzten Monat hat das FPS-Team drei neue Kapitel in Angriff genommen (zwei weitere sind f\u00fcr die kommenden Wochen in Planung).\n\nNeben den anderen Leveldesign- und Systemteams konzentrierte sich das Space\/Dogfight-Team weiterhin darauf, einen gro\u00dfen Teil des Spiels mit funktionierenden Mechaniken spielbar zu machen.\n\nNeben der weiteren Implementierung aller Szenen, Gespr\u00e4che, Ausbr\u00fcche und Wiedervereinigungen im Spiel arbeitete das Team f\u00fcr Soziales Design eng mit der Sozialen KI zusammen, um einige der erweiterten systemischen Inhalte zu implementieren, die den Levels Leben einhauchen werden. Zum Beispiel Ingenieure, die ihren t\u00e4glichen Aufgaben nachgehen, und die Crew, die in der Kantine Pause macht.\n\nNarrative\nIm Juni wurde die Narration weiter mit dem Design synchronisiert. Dabei geht es darum, den aktualisierten Missionsablauf durchzugehen und zu pr\u00fcfen, ob die bestehenden Zeilen immer noch den beabsichtigten Story-Moment verkaufen und ob sie Klarheit dar\u00fcber schaffen, wie man richtig vorankommt. Wenn sie eine Situation finden, in der die bestehenden Zeilen nicht passen, diskutieren sie eine \u00c4nderung oder Erg\u00e4nzung. Diese Synchronisationen bieten auch die M\u00f6glichkeit, das erz\u00e4hlerische Erlebnis zu vertiefen, z. B. indem sie eine Hintergrundgeschichte f\u00fcr den Ort oder seine Bewohner\/innen liefern.\n\nDann ging das Team zu einem anderen der gr\u00f6\u00dferen Level und skizzierte die zuk\u00fcnftigen Drehb\u00fccher und Charaktere. Sobald sie sich entschieden haben, werden sie Skripte und Platzhalteraufnahmen erstellen, damit der Rest des Entwicklungsteams die Inhalte vor Ort h\u00f6ren und darauf reagieren kann.\n\nNarrative entwickelten auch Ideen f\u00fcr Sammelobjekte in den Missionen, diskutierten die Pr\u00e4sentation und den Ton der Missionsziele und skizzierten das Hinweissystem, das verlorenen Spielern helfen wird.\n\nSchlie\u00dflich stimmten sich die Produzenten aus allen Bereichen ab, um sicherzustellen, dass alle verbleibenden Aufgaben identifiziert und verfolgt wurden. Insbesondere das Narrative Team wird einen interessanten, aber intensiven Produktionsplan aufstellen, um alle Platzhalter-Inhalte zu erfassen, die in Playthroughs best\u00e4tigt wurden.\n\nQA\nDie QA unterst\u00fctzte das Cinematics-Team, indem sie Probleme reproduzierte, die w\u00e4hrend der Entwicklung aufgetreten waren, und sich um ausstehende Fehler k\u00fcmmerte, die dem Team noch Probleme bereiteten.\n\nIm Juni lag der Schwerpunkt auf der Fehlervalidierung und -berichterstattung sowie der Aufnahme von Szenen zur \u00dcberpr\u00fcfung.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurde das Testen der Editoren vorangetrieben, um sicherzustellen, dass die vom Team verwendeten Tools wie vorgesehen funktionieren und der Entwicklungsworkflow stabil bleibt.\n\nTechnische Animation\nDas Tech Animation Team hat die \u00dcberarbeitung der Animationspipeline fortgesetzt, die im letzten Bericht erw\u00e4hnt wurde. Dabei wurden neue Rigs und Tools erstellt und alter Code zugunsten eleganterer und leistungsf\u00e4higerer L\u00f6sungen entfernt.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurde die Arbeit an einem neuen System fortgesetzt, das die Wiedergabetreue \u00fcber alles stellt. Obwohl es aufgrund seiner Kosten und Einschr\u00e4nkungen nur selten in Spielen eingesetzt wird, ist diese Art von System ideal f\u00fcr Performance-St\u00fccke.\n\nDie Planungen f\u00fcr die kommenden Quartale wurden vorangetrieben, und zahlreiche neue Charakterk\u00f6pfe machten Fortschritte bei der Unterst\u00fctzung von Animationen.\n\nUI\nIn naher Zukunft wird die Benutzeroberfl\u00e4che (UI) damit beginnen, optimierte Fahrzeug-HUDs und MFDs f\u00fcr Squadron 42 zu implementieren. In Vorbereitung darauf wurden die neuen Layouts und visuellen Konzepte fertiggestellt.\n\nF\u00fcr die neue Starmap arbeitete das Team an der Navigation und begann mit den Vorarbeiten f\u00fcr die Darstellung von Weltraumwolken.\n\nDas UI Tech-Team hat das neue 3D-UI-Kartensystem so erweitert, dass es nicht nur schwebende, geschichtete UI, sondern auch automatisch UI auf holografische, gekr\u00fcmmte Oberfl\u00e4chen anwenden kann. Damit k\u00f6nnen sie interessante Grafiken erstellen, die vorher nicht m\u00f6glich waren. Diese werden auf dem neuen Squadron 42-exklusiven mobiGlas und Visor getestet.\n\nVFX\nLetzten Monat arbeiteten die VFX an einer wichtigen Cutscene, in der viel zerst\u00f6rt wurde.\n\n\"Aufgrund der besonderen Komplexit\u00e4t dieser Szene haben wir einige Zeit damit verbracht, verschiedene M\u00f6glichkeiten auszuprobieren, um Metallstrukturen \u00fcberzeugend zu animieren, die sich biegen und rei\u00dfen, anstatt einfach nur zu zerbrechen, wie in vielen Echtzeit-Zerst\u00f6rungssimulationen. VFX-Team\n\nAn anderer Stelle arbeitete das VFX Concept an einer neuen Reihe von energiebasierten Waffen und unterst\u00fctzte die Art- und Design-Teams an verschiedenen Standorten.\n\nWIR SEHEN UNS N\u00c4CHSTEN MONAT...\n\/\/ ENDE DER \u00dcBERTRAGUNG","zh_CN":"Squadron 42 Monthly Report\nJune 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 07:06:2022\n\nREF: CIG UK, CIG DE, CIG LA, CIG TX\n\nFAO Squadron 42 Recruits.\n\nWelcome to June\u2019s Squadron 42 development report. Enclosed you will find details on the latest progress made across the campaign, including updates to Human combat, Volt weaponry, and space flight mechanics.\n\nThank you for your continued support of Squadron 42.\n\nSincerely,\n\nCIG COMMUNICATIONS\n\nAI (Content)\nLast month, AI Content began their work on the master-at-arms behavior, which uses the same AI as the bartender but interacts with different usables and plays other dialogue options. Supporting SQ42\u2019s numerous weapons and their varying shapes and sizes requires an extensive catalog of assets.\n\nEarlier in the year, the team were pleased with the results of the mo-cap redelivery that led to clear improvements in Graves and Kelly's movement cycles. Last month, they continued the process for the remaining core cast characters. These assets had not been worked on for some time, so required updates to meet the desired fidelity.\n\nThe landing officer is now finished and integrated into the chapter flow. The role of this AI is to help the player land safely and correctly oriented on the landing pad, with character animations playing to assist with positional and rotation changes. This routine can now be viewed on the ship's cockpit display, as solely seeing the AI through the cockpit visor proved challenging.\n\nLastly, AI Content received essential bug fixes from AI Tech to allow the movement of trolleys from multiple alignment points. The AI can now wheel a diagnostic cart towards and away from the Gladius when it lands. This has allowed the team to conclude their work on this part of the deck crew behavior.\n\nAI (Features)\nLast month, on the Human combat side, AI Features began implementing logic for a selection of different attack archetypes: defender, pusher, and strafer.\n\nThe defender chooses a position to attack from and remains there until cover is compromised or no longer valid (e.g., the target is out of range or no longer visible)\n\nThe pusher is more active, rapidly closing the distance between them and the target in order to build pressure\n\nThe strafer is the more tactical archetype, choosing a lateral position outside the direction the target is aiming in to set up flanking opportunities\n\nEach NPC can select the attack archetype that they determine to be the best for that situation based on multiple criteria. These criteria include the range of the weapon that the AI holds (e.g., characters with short-range weapons prefer the pusher archetype), how many characters are attacking a target, and how many other characters are using a particular archetype.\n\nEach criterion gives a certain \u2018score\u2019 for each archetype that\u2019s used as a weight when randomly choosing between the archetypes. This supports variation, reaction to different situations, and some intelligence in the makeup of archetypes in any given situation. Tasks from last month involved implementing each of the criteria scoring functions and the system for summing these and weighting the archetype selection.\n\nFor Human combat, work went into the perception, cover, and movement animations for the female skeleton. This is in pursuit of completing the set so that characters with the female skeleton can perform the same combat behaviors as the male skeleton.\n\nWork continued on the implementation of the new weapon accuracy system mentioned in previous reports. Last month, the prototype was set up. This features debug visualizations of the percentage chance calculated from the different factors, which will allow the designers to easily tweak accuracy to balance difficulty.\n\nFor the Vanduul, the team took advantage of the tech described in April\u2019s report and merged the Vanduul and Human mastergraphs (the top-level state machine that controls the AI behavior of characters). This should make the system far easier to maintain while also allowing for specific behaviors for unique characters. They also selected and processed the animations generated in last month's mo-cap sessions, including bespoke animations for a section of stealth gameplay.\n\nAI (Tech)\nJune saw AI Tech prototyping a set of fauna behaviors, focusing on the implementation of the entity class, verifying that all the components can function correctly on creatures. They\u2019re currently setting up animations, an initial version of the bspace, a basic creature roaming behavior, and a basic combat behavior based on the combo melee system used by the Vanduul.\n\nWork continued on the locomotion code. This included improving the transitions between different locomotion states by further developing the initial implementation of pose matching. They also implemented linear speed warping, including a way to dynamically calculate a spline into a specific pose. For example, the enter position of a usable. This allows the team to make the transition between movement and interactive objects smoother and more believable. They also began improving and fixing idle steps, which are special animations used for extremely short paths (max 75cm).\n\nFor 3D navigation, the team improved the implementation of ORCA 3D for collision avoidance and continued to develop break splines. Break splines can be dynamically attached to the systemic movement of any entity that uses 3D movement (currently ships but will include characters in EVA in the future). The entity can then select the appropriate spline based on its skills, direction, and other conditions before smoothing its entrance, allowing it to perform a cinematic movement into a systemic behavior.\n\nFor trolley use, the team focused on tasks to allow an NPC using a usable (in this case a movable object) to be dynamically attached to another usable (such as a parking spot). They also supported the trolley lightweight update and tweaked path following to allow it to minimize the distance of the trolley from the path.\n\nOn the Subsumption side, multiple tool aspects were upgraded and bugs were fixed to move development into the \u2018improvement\u2019 phase. A new panel was also added to give an advanced selection of parameters when the dropdown menu becomes too large.\n\nAnimation\nThroughout June, the Animation team worked on zero-g traversal, helmet usage, female spec-ops AI, and look-dev for weighted characters.\n\nImprovements were made to the cast locomotion, Vanduul searching, Vanduul in cockpits, sick persons, and ladder blockouts. Weapons-wise, progress was made on the master-at-arms and the Volt SMG and shotgun.\n\nPre-vis tests were done on chapter one\u2019s AI, while improvements were made to the reaction system to enable smoother feeling gameplay.\n\nThey\u2019re currently making final passes on several cast members' facial animations.\n\nArt (Characters)\nCharacter Art continued to develop key outfits for the UEE Navy, including the bridge officer uniform, deck crew EVA outfit, and training gear. They also worked on armor for the Screaming Galsons and made major updates to the hair shader alongside the Graphics team.\n\nArt (Weapons)\nThe Weapons team began the month working on a number of Volt weapons, including an assault rifle, LMG, SMG, and shotgun. They also finalized their work on a physical riot shield.\n\nWhile the Art team worked on modeling new assets, Animation worked to give life and functionality to several FPS devices, including the fire extinguisher, laser trip mine, breaching charge, and a Volt sniper rifle. A new Klaus & Werner underbarrel light attachment was created too.\n\nEngine\nIn June, the Physics team made several improvements to ray world intersections (RWI), which now contains a semi-continuous mode to trace against rigid bodies. This makes projectile intersection tests more robust with fast-moving ships. RWI was also significantly optimized (3-5x on heavy usage).\n\nThe tiling of dense SDFs was introduced, and SDF coordinate conversion and trilinear interpolation were optimized. Support for \u2018player only collision\u2019 geometry nodes inside CGFs\/CGAs was fixed and extended, while work on the new ropes continued. Various bug fixes and other improvements were submitted too.\n\nOn the renderer, the Gen12 transition continued with more passes being ported over, including responsive AA and decal rendering in the forward stage. The processing of scattering queries was reworked and a debug UI was added for them too. Buffer copying of sun shadow cascades was ported as well. The format of the previous HDR frame has been adjusted (reprojection, temporal AA) to be more efficient, and the cleanup of the render thread began.\n\nThe Gen12 ports of atmospheric and volumetric cloud rendering continued as a generalized processing context, and new stages to decouple view-dependent resources from the core systems that operate on them have been introduced. The atmosphere shader code was adjusted to compile well with DXC and SPIR-V. Various improvements were made to prevent concurrency issues when streaming in properties of multiple planets at the same time and relaying them to the atmosphere and cloud-rendering systems.\n\nOn the core engine, entity areas now utilize tags to track what entities\/areas events send to each other. This replaces the hidden hierarchy logic that caused various issues and allows for more efficient code. Work on running the entire code base through include-what-you-use (IWYU) continued. The goal is to eventually make IWYU part of the continuous integration pipeline (trybuild) to keep code clean. Furthermore, a recent integration into the main development branch saw the introduction of the cigSTL\/eaSTL namespace, which is planned to become a customizable STL library for StarEngine. The entity component update scheduler received updates to avoid iterating component lists when using manual update policies (performance). Work on improving file location (IO) continued, which should eventually lead to improved loading times for small files. Also, work on an improved r_displayinfo continued. Lastly, the old FPS analytic buckets were replaced with an array-based frame time bucket that allows for more accurate profiling information.\n\nFeatures (Gameplay)\nThe SQ42 Feature team continued work on the character customizer, making visibility and usability improvements alongside general polish. Further improvement and polish tasks were also completed for the flight academy application form. The ability to request weapon attachments from the master-at-arms was added too.\n\nThe team also supported persistent entity streaming, as recent changes caused knock-ons that affected several SQ42 missions.\n\nGameplay Story\nGameplay Story began June implementing the last of the mo-cap data captured at the end of April, which allowed them to complete several scenes to a high standard. It also enabled them to deliver a new scene featuring an NPC dragging a refueling hose over to the Gladius and plugging it in. Further polish work is required but the scene is already visually interesting.\n\nMid-June saw a new mo-cap session, with the team preparing to work with the data when it arrives.\n\nTowards the end of the month, maintenance and pose updates were done for several story scenes. The team also updated all bunk-bed and mess-hall scenes to ensure they correctly \u2018handshake\u2019 with the AI.\n\nGraphics & VFX Programming (and PTT)\nLast month, the Graphics team continued porting features to Gen12, including gas clouds, rivers, frozen oceans, refraction, and multi-pass support. Fixes were also submitted for tessellation partitioning for planetary ground fog. For the Vulkan backend, the team fixed issues caught by the validation layer, including mismatched texture types and mismatches of unused vertex input attributes (which are now reflected from the shader).\n\nFor the render-to-texture system, the team fixed a crash caused by the wrong resolution being calculated when the screen resolution was changed, along with an issue with RTT holograms occasionally pixelating.\n\nBugs were also fixed for the LOD merger, including an update to allow combining objects with more than 64 sub-materials. They also investigated issues with the rendering of invalid static shadow region entities. Significant progress was made on the hair shader too, including updates to greying controls, variation tiling, and melanin selection.\n\nVFX Programming continued investigating offline damage maps with persistence. They also continued implementing ImGUI debug tools for damage maps and a dynamic bitset data structure for damage-map queries. Changes were also made to damage-map materials alongside optimizations to hit processing and rendering.\n\nLevel Design\nLast month, the FPS team moved on to three new chapters (two more are in the pipeline for the coming weeks).\n\nAlongside the other Level Design and System teams, the Space\/Dogfight team continued to focus on getting a large part of the game fully playable with functioning mechanics.\n\nAs well as continuing to implement all in-game scenes, conversations, break-outs, and re-joins, Social Design worked closely with Social AI to implement some of the expanded systemic content that will bring life to the levels. For example, engineers going about their daily schedules and crew on downtime in the mess hall.\n\nNarrative\nJune saw Narrative continuing to sync with Design. This involves moving through the updated mission flow, assessing whether the existing lines still sell the intended story moment, and whether they provide clarity on how to properly progress. If they find a situation where the existing lines don\u2019t apply, they discuss a modification or addition. These syncs also provide the opportunity to deepen the narrative experience, be it providing a backstory for the location or its inhabitants.\n\nThe team then moved onto another of the larger set-piece levels and outlined the prospective scripts and characters. Once decided, they\u2019ll generate scripts and placeholder recordings so the rest of the development team can hear and react to the content in situ.\n\nNarrative also developed ideas for in-mission collectibles, discussed the presentation and tone of the mission objectives, and outlined the hint system that will help lost players.\n\nFinally, the producers from all disciplines coordinated to ensure that all remaining tasks were identified and tracked. The Narrative team specifically is going to be entering an interesting but intensive production schedule to capture any of the placeholder content that\u2019s been validated in playthroughs.\n\nQA\nQA supported Cinematics by reproducing issues found during development and chasing up outstanding bugs still causing issues for the team.\n\nGeneral focus throughout June was on bug validation and reporting, and recording scenes for review.\n\nThey also made a push for editor testing to ensure the tools used by the team are working as intended, ensuring the development workflow remains stable.\n\nTech Animation\nTech Animation team continued wrapping up the animation pipeline refactor mentioned in last month\u2019s report. This involved creating new rigs and tools and stripping out old code for more elegant and performant solutions.\n\nThey also continued work on a new system that puts fidelity above all else. Although rarely used in gaming due to its expense and limitations, this type of system is ideal for performance pieces.\n\nPlanning was done for the coming quarters, and numerous new character heads progressed towards animation support too.\n\nUI\nIn the near future, UI will begin implementing more streamlined vehicle HUDs and MFDs for Squadron 42. In preparation, they finalized the new layouts and visual concepts.\n\nFor the new Starmap, the team worked on navigation and began preliminary work to show space clouds.\n\nThe UI Tech team upgraded the new 3D UI cards system so that, as well as floating layered UI, they can automatically apply UI to holographic curved surfaces. This allows them to create interesting visuals that weren\u2019t possible before, which will be trialed on the new Squadron 42-exclusive mobiGlas and visor.\n\nVFX\nLast month, VFX worked on a key cutscene involving significant amounts of destruction.\n\n\u201cDue to the extra complexity of this scene, we spent some R&D time trying different ways to convincingly animate metal structures bending and tearing as opposed to simply shattering like in lots of real-time destruction simulations.\u201d VFX Team\n\nElsewhere, VFX Concept worked on a new suite of energy-based weapons and support was given to the Art and Design teams across various locations.\n\nWE'LL SEE YOU NEXT MONTH...\n\/\/ END TRANSMISSION"},"links_count":0,"comment_count":0,"created_at":"2022-07-13T20:00:00+00:00","created_at_human":"3 years ago"},"meta":{"processed_at":"2026-04-26 00:35:16","valid_relations":["images","links","translations"],"prev_id":18785,"next_id":18789}}