{"data":{"id":18877,"title":"Squadron 42 Monthly Report: August 2022","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/comm-link\/transmission\/18877-Squadron-42-Monthly-Report-August-2022","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-links\/18877","api_public_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/comm-links\/18877","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\nAugust 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 09:07:2022\n\nREF: CIG UK, CIG DE, CIG LA, CIG TX,\n\nFAO Squadron 42 Recruits.\n\nWelcome to August\u2019s Squadron 42 development report. Enclosed you will find details on the latest progress made across the campaign, including updates to cinematic scenes, the game engine, and character art.\n\nThank you for your continued support of Squadron 42.\n\nSincerely,\n\nCIG COMMUNICATIONS\n\nAI (Content)\nLast month, AI Content focused on new medical behaviors, creating three new usables:\n\nSitting Angled Console: This is a desk where NPCs can sit and do admin work, such as checking on patient's medical records\n\nExamine: These spots on either side of the medical bed allow doctors to approach a patient and diagnose their condition. This will include the use of both datapad and hand scanners\n\nMedical Fridge: This is where medicine is stored. For now, NPCs will visually inspect the stock level and enter the information on the datapad. Eventually, they will restock it when quantities are low\n\nThe team also continued to work through numerous bugs on the chowline usables, which was challenging due to their complex nature, and resumed work on the food vendor from last year.\n\nAlongside this, AI Content continued to improve general locomotion realism by taking the overlay animations worked on last month and categorizing them by frequency. For example, coughs and sneezes will play 10% of the time, head stretches 40%, and more extensive, bolder actions like checking the mobiGlas will happen 30% of the time. They\u2019re currently designing a priority system to trigger these animations.\n\nAI (Features)\nLast month, the AI Feature Team continued implementing the traits system, which allows them to specialize AI characters using behavior logic by either limiting or favoring certain behaviors. For example, an AI with the \u2018cautious\u2019 trait will prefer moving from cover to cover when approaching the target, whereas with the \u2018aggressive\u2019 trait will directly move towards the target ignoring available cover. Other traits include \u2018gunners\u2019 who prefer using turrets, \u2018medics\u2019 who aid allies by healing them, and \u2018addicts\u2019 who use stim drugs whenever available. The core system has been implemented and several traits are now in place. Further traits will be implemented once the corresponding behaviors are developed.\n\nWith the basis of the \u2018investigation\u2019 behavior implemented, the team moved on to implementing group investigation, which involves sharing potential hiding locations between AI characters searching for the same target. This behavior is built from the token system that allows multiple AIs to collaborate by pooling resources and was developed with future use in mind. The generic shared data, in this case hiding location, can be specialized for specific use cases. As the NPCs move around the room, they determine and share which hiding locations have been seen so that the other NPCs won\u2019t revisit them. From a simple implementation comes quite complicated results, with NPC\u2019s now moving to cover the room as you would expect them to do in real life.\n\nA new system related to both features was also implemented last month: the firing token. When several AIs are targeting the same character and want to fire, they request one of a limited number of shared tokens. If they\u2019re successful, they will be able to fire. However, if there are no tokens available, they will not be able to fire and may consider alternative behaviors, such as moving to cover. This allows the team to further control the pressure placed on the player while also generating covering-fire behaviors, as some characters will fire whilst others are moving.\n\nTraits were also implemented to suppress requiring the firing token in different ways. The first is to ignore the firing token completely, which means that the character will always be able to fire without reducing the number of available tokens, which can be used for boss characters. The second is to allow a specific AI character to always get a firing token, giving them firing priority without increasing the number of firing enemies.\n\nDevelopment of the AI perception system continued throughout August, ensuring that the escalation of threats in the perception meter can be controlled by tweaking the setup in Dataforge. A new sixth-sense perception range was also developed to control gameplay when the player is sneaking up behind enemy characters. The perception meter now allows the devs to generate gameplay for stealth kills, rather than stealth killing being an easy option, as the player must minimize the amount of time they\u2019re in close range before they\u2019re noticed.\n\nOn the animation side, AI Features polished female Human combat animations and created block-out animations for the improved sharp-turn functionality. They also continued polishing Vanduul search-and-investigation animations, including specific search locomotion animations.\n\n\u201cThe AI Feature team have been hard at work developing lots of different features. This is partly due to the strong foundations of our AI code that were developed by spending a long time thinking about future functionality. As a team, we\u2019ve also grown and have been improving the communication between our team and the designers through shared language, documentation, and regular meetings. Through this, we\u2019ve able to take their vision and make it a reality\u201d AI Feature Team\n\nAI (Tech)\nDuring August, AI Tech continued to extend and implement new functionalities for NPCs traversing navigation areas. One improvement allows the designers to specify the opening width for a door navigation link and use that information during the pathfinding step. Now, NPCs will use the entire width of a door, not only the center.\n\nThey also began extending ladder functionality by creating new navigation link adapters and movement blocks so that AI characters can use them in similar ways to the players.\n\nAI Tech also progressed with the NPC movement refactor. Specifically, they worked on a better separation of how logic is processed when animated character and actor states are updated. This allows them to correctly handle the actor LOD system, which can have both parts of a character updating at different rates. The overall movement refactor also went through a review process and intensive QA testing in preparation for its release.\n\nFurther iterations were made on the NPC seamless transitions prototype. This involved ironing out the small position and pose pops when handling animation control between different systems and adding support for selecting the best usable enter animation based on which has the best enter pose requiring the least warping.\n\nThe Subsumption editor tool was opened up to more designers so that it could go through more intensive and in-depth functionality and performance testing. Bugs and feedback from users were addressed and performance improvements began when loading bigger mission graphs.\n\nA new feature for ship combat behaviors, ship-pilot perception, was extended to include vision alongside radar signals. This will allow AI ships to react to hostile characters on foot and engage them in combat.\n\nFinally, AI Tech continued developing and improving reinforcement and disembarking behaviors. Part of this involved allowing missions to designate points where the squad group will go and investigate in case hostiles aren\u2019t visible.\n\nAnimation\nAnimation worked on useable first reactions, ensuring all useables have a reaction set assigned to them. They also continued with the female-spec-ops work to get female buddy and enemy AIs in-game.\n\nEVA and zero-g were further developed, with focus on attaching characters and moving through tight spaces. Work on helmet use continued, as did ladder improvements.\n\nVanduul searching for players, the chowline, medical bed, and custom animation locomotion work progressed throughout the month too. Tasks were completed for worker facial animations and scenes, including assets for the med table.\n\nFinally, while part of the team continued to solve mo-cap from their backlog, the majority worked on the stage build and prepping for Narrative and Marketing shoots.\n\nArt (Characters)\nCharacter Art and Tech Art continued to develop the Screaming Galsons armor and the remaining Navy uniforms. They\u2019re also working on an internal head-scan and cleanup process, proving out a new pipeline using tools developed by the Tech Animation team.\n\nArt (Weapons)\nWeapons Art continued to develop the Volt weapons mentioned in last month\u2019s report, with the main modeling pass completed in August. They then moved on to refining the iron sights to improve the onscreen positioning.\n\nNew Screaming Galsons melee weapons were greyboxed and are currently having their setup and initial animations worked on to ensure the new metrics work well.\n\nSeveral new skins were kicked off and the team also converted a number of weapons to the current tint system to allow for the creation of future skins.\n\nCinematics\nAt the beginning of the month, Cinematics completed the implementation work for major sequences in chapters one, five, and seven. This included lengthening the opening shot of the campaign.\n\nThe Vanduul movement style was also finalized and prior block outs received more fluid motion and precise timing. Adjustments were made to a few scenes on the Javelin bridge, which was recently lengthened for FPS combat. Further work went into the timing of a large weapon too.\n\nFor chapter five, further work was done on a tram ride, with the team working alongside the physics programmers to get litter, handles, and characters to sway when the tram accelerates. Other work involved a mining tick landing and walking to be unloaded, a meet up with a friendly character, an elevator ride, and a tram accident.\n\nA scene in chapter seven received polish, which included a lot of smaller details. These included handcuffs, a Multi-Tool folding out and cutting, and the handing over of a med pen that required a small amount of new code from the SQ42 Feature team.\n\n\u201cUsually, when creating scenes with characters grabbing, unholstering, giving, or using items, we aim to solve it with proper systemic implementation. So, the actor action track in the sequencer tells the character to actually unholster the item, grab it, then hand it over to the other character. In this scene, we had the added difficulty of a stocked weapon being held while giving the med pen. In this instance, the user action confused the giver and given hand, so we often ended up handing over a rifle instead of a med pen. A small code fix to specify left and right hands for both giver and receiver fixed this.\u201d Cinematics Team\n\nThe team also further worked on chapter 11, which needs multiple destruction set pieces. So, the VFX team provided sophisticated Houdini-authored simulated destruction \u2018.CGAs\u2019 that can house up to a thousand debris pieces and still run relatively lightweight vs a typical brute-force Alembic cache. They were then added alongside adjusted camera and timing shots to frame the scene.\n\nEngine\nIn August, the Physics team continued code optimization. For instance, the binding of sim topology skinning data across skin instances is now shared, which reduces loading time and memory consumption significantly. Also, reposition queue processing was sped up significantly. Each time a dynamic physical entity moves, a search of the physical environment needed to be performed to find and inform surrounding entities that something has moved. A change was made to separate out the moving and subsequent awakening into distinct phases so work can be efficiently processed in parallel.\n\nBrushes no longer awaken their environment when they spawn in, are repositioned, or are deleted. This has reduced stalls significantly as there are no longer storms of brushes being spawned or destroyed. In the rigid time step code, dead or disabled colliders of active rigids are filtered out before being added to the lists of inter-colliding groups of entities. Mass tracking was restricted to grids that are on vehicles (spaceships\/wheeled vehicles). Moreover, support was added to allow primitive world intersection to detect overlaps\/intersection with an entity's local space OBB. Lastly, the calculation of planar skinning info was optimized by utilizing an AABB tree to reduce the search space when finding the best tetrahedron for a skinned vertex.\n\nOn the renderer, the transition to Gen12 continued with numerous render node types ported over to the new APIs. The RTT Gen12 pipeline was enabled by default and MIP map generation, gas cloud processing, and forward and tiled-forward rendering were transitioned. Support for transient graphics render passes was added, which various render sub-systems already take advantage of, to simplify code. Also, the compilation of fallback pipeline state object caches was optimized by allowing for more parallel execution. Lastly, the sorting code for draw packets was unified.\n\nThe Gen12 port of atmospheric rendering was completed, and the port of volumetric cloud rendering is currently being wrapped up. Work will then commence to further improve the rendering of volumetric clouds.\n\nOn the core engine, the team implemented a more cooperative threading approach (instead of an update thread) that utilizes the parallelism of calling code to update different zones at the same time. Also, the entity lifetime changes introduced last month received further improvements. All entity components were switched over to use the new custom weak pointer implementation that was submitted in July.\n\nFeatures (Gameplay)\nAugust saw Gameplay Features working on a new framework for the mobiGlas, which will make better use of Building Blocks and the new UI cards the Tech team have been developing. This will then host all the new apps being built for SQ42.\n\nNew functionality was added to determine when players are in social areas and change the field of view to differentiate them from combat situations. For player hints and tutorials, new conditions were added to give the designers additional flexibility when they want to trigger them.\n\nA new system is also being developed to allow the player to control overhead cranes. This could be expanded to allow players to remotely control moving drones too.\n\nGameplay Story\nGameplay Story spent part of last month organizing completed and upcoming work, which involved creating Confluence pages for scene notes and change logs as well as updating ShotGrid and Mannequin.\n\nThey also worked on two new scenes: The first being a piece that connects to a cinematic scene and features marines cheering. The second involves a medic helping a wounded miner.\n\nFollowing feedback, they also created a new tram arrival with mo-cap being planned to allow two key characters to board it smoothly.\n\nGraphics & VFX Programming\nWork on the fire hazard feature continued, with focus on implementing requests from Design to improve the extinguishing experience. Several bugs highlighted by auto-tests were fixed, while improvements were made to the particle tools, auto-tests, and how wind volumes affect particles.\n\nProgress was also made on porting particles to Gen12, including mesh and submesh particle rendering and bringing them to feature parity with legacy particles. Several lighting and shadow update passes on gas clouds were also ported to Gen12.\n\nOptimizations were made to the clip volume submission and inscattering injection stages for volumetric fog. Now, the artists are able to tag mesh sub-objects as interiors or exteriors to better handle lighting around turrets and doors. Progress began on an edge highlight rendering mode for objects that would normally be occluded\/culled by walls to support the FPS scanning of other players and NPCs.\n\nA tool progressed that will allow the team to perform multiple jittered captures of a scene and interleave them together to output an ultra-high resolution image. The rastar tool also received a useful tech refresh to make it usable with built-in editor tools, while additional efforts were made to improve stability, usability, and responsiveness.\n\nWith multiple improvements recently made on river tech, the team received a QATR report that allowed them to find new issues.\n\nFinally for Graphics, the team began the initial tasks targeting CPU offloading of planet tech code. The goal is to provide equivalent functionalities of ground-level scattered objects with compute shaders instead of relying on the slower CPU path. The benefits are significant, with the team able to spend the saved computational budget on other purposes, such as gameplay and tech.\n\nLevel Design\nIn August, the FPS team began taking five chapters to a more complete state with a continued focus on stability. They also tested the first third of the game, with the intention of giving players a seamless playthrough.\n\nLike the FPS team, the Space\/Dogfight team continued to focus on getting a large part of the game fully playable with functioning systems and mechanics. Alongside creating a seamless experience, they continued with scene set-up, bug fixing, and addressing review feedback, though the main focus was on refactoring and streamlining several interstitials to the required standards. This will make all tasks easier, from working on chapters to devising checkpoints.\n\nNarrative\nThe Narrative team continued to meet with Design as more sections of gameplay were iterated upon to review all existing and placeholder content for tone, character, and clarity. They also wrote scripts to fill in gaps that came up in reviews and provided placeholder recordings so the team can hear the content in situ. This included working on additions to the weapon quartermaster\u2019s lines.\n\nOn the production side, the team organized a list of all content that needs to be captured and began blocking out capture sessions to record any vetted and approved scenes with professional actors. The team also prepared for an upcoming shoot to capture some of the NPC vignettes that have been prototyped into the levels.\n\nAs mentioned in the previous month\u2019s report, Narrative continued to work closely with the AI team to develop the dynamic conversation system.\n\n\u201cLooking at the current use-case for the tech, it\u2019s been an interesting exploration. We have sections that are intended to have a very specific tone as opposed to some of the other levels, so there have been discussions of how to tackle these unique situations. For example, whether they should have a dedicated group of characters and lines that are specific to that one chapter or whether that content is just incorporated into a generic background character\u2019s line set. In short, both teams are trying to find that point on the spectrum between specific and systemic where these behaviors will live.\u201d Narrative Team\n\nQA\nCinematics continued to rely on QA for recordings of each level so they could ensure scenes were working and of the expected quality. Dev support continued too, with changes and updates tested.\n\nQA also tested behavior implementations in the campaign, with August\u2019s work focusing on the recent Vanduul AI improvements. In addition, the team pushed to clear out any outdated issues and performed an open bug sweep to ensure their databases were up to date.\n\nTech Animation\nAlongside long-term planning, Tech Animation approached the release of the revamped loadout pipeline in Maya. This will dramatically speed up the loading of complex Maya assets and accurately reflect their current state in-game.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s a win on every level and we\u2019re excited to share it.\u201d Tech Animation\n\nFurther to this, the team began consolidating all the new heads they would like to appear in-game. This involves processing a lot of old and new data along with alignment to deliver on the requirements for both parts of the game. So far, 60 heads need to be scanned, created, rigged, and integrated into the DNA gene pool to achieve the vision.\n\nUI\nThe UI team continued to push forwards with features on the new Starmap, including 3D text and shader effects for space clouds.\n\nThe artists progressed with a range of concepts for terminal screens in different locations and handed them over for implementation, while the programmers worked on a variety of core features for highlighting interface elements and interacting with holographic displays.\n\nVFX\nLast month, the VFX team resumed work on a cinematic sequence that forms a major part of the story in the early stages of the game. Due to the complexity of the sequence, the team experimented with several creation methods in Houdini to help deliver the effects to a high standard.\n\nVFX Concept Art completed the first pass on new weapon effects and helped the artists visualize a complex scene involving a powerful energy source. The artists continued working closely with the Art and Design location teams too.\n\nWE'LL SEE YOU NEXT MONTH...\n\/\/ END TRANSMISSION","de_DE":"Geschwader 42 Monatsbericht\nAugust 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 09:07:2022\n\nREF: CIG UK, CIG DE, CIG LA, CIG TX,\n\nFAO-Geschwader 42 Rekruten.\n\nWillkommen zum Entwicklungsbericht f\u00fcr Squadron 42 im August. Anbei findest du Details zu den neuesten Fortschritten in der Kampagne, einschlie\u00dflich Aktualisierungen der Filmszenen, der Spiel-Engine und der Charakterzeichnungen.\n\nWir danken euch f\u00fcr eure anhaltende Unterst\u00fctzung von Squadron 42.\n\nMit freundlichen Gr\u00fc\u00dfen,\n\nCIG COMMUNICATIONS\n\nAI (Inhalt)\nIm letzten Monat konzentrierte sich AI Content auf neue medizinische Verhaltensweisen und schuf drei neue Usables:\n\nSitzende, angewinkelte Konsole: Dies ist ein Schreibtisch, an dem NPCs sitzen und Verwaltungsarbeiten erledigen k\u00f6nnen, wie z. B. die \u00dcberpr\u00fcfung der Krankenakten von Patienten.\n\nUntersuchen: An diesen Pl\u00e4tzen auf beiden Seiten des Krankenbettes k\u00f6nnen sich \u00c4rzte einem Patienten n\u00e4hern und dessen Zustand diagnostizieren. Dabei werden sowohl Datapad als auch Handscanner verwendet.\n\nMedizinischer K\u00fchlschrank: Hier wird die Medizin gelagert. Im Moment \u00fcberpr\u00fcfen die NSCs den Bestand visuell und geben die Informationen auf dem Datapad ein. Sp\u00e4ter werden sie den Vorrat auff\u00fcllen, wenn die Mengen niedrig sind.\n\nDas Team arbeitete au\u00dferdem weiter an zahlreichen Bugs an den Nahrungsmitteln, die aufgrund ihrer Komplexit\u00e4t eine Herausforderung darstellten, und nahm die Arbeit am Lebensmittelh\u00e4ndler vom letzten Jahr wieder auf.\n\nAu\u00dferdem hat der KI-Content den Realismus der allgemeinen Fortbewegung weiter verbessert, indem er die im letzten Monat bearbeiteten Overlay-Animationen nach H\u00e4ufigkeit kategorisiert hat. Zum Beispiel werden Husten und Niesen in 10 % der Zeit abgespielt, Kopfstrecken in 40 % und umfangreichere Aktionen wie das \u00dcberpr\u00fcfen des MobiGlases in 30 % der Zeit. Derzeit wird ein Priorit\u00e4tssystem entwickelt, um diese Animationen auszul\u00f6sen.\n\nKI (Features)\nIm letzten Monat hat das KI-Feature-Team die Implementierung des Eigenschaftssystems fortgesetzt, das es erm\u00f6glicht, KI-Charaktere mithilfe von Verhaltenslogik zu spezialisieren, indem bestimmte Verhaltensweisen entweder eingeschr\u00e4nkt oder bevorzugt werden. Eine KI mit der Eigenschaft \"vorsichtig\" wird sich zum Beispiel lieber von Deckung zu Deckung bewegen, wenn sie sich dem Ziel n\u00e4hert, w\u00e4hrend sie sich mit der Eigenschaft \"aggressiv\" direkt auf das Ziel zubewegt und dabei verf\u00fcgbare Deckung ignoriert. Andere Eigenschaften sind \"Scharfsch\u00fctzen\", die bevorzugt Gesch\u00fctzt\u00fcrme benutzen, \"Sanit\u00e4ter\", die Verb\u00fcndete heilen und \"S\u00fcchtige\", die Stimulanzien nehmen, wann immer sie verf\u00fcgbar sind. Das Kernsystem wurde bereits implementiert und einige Eigenschaften sind bereits vorhanden. Weitere Eigenschaften werden implementiert, sobald die entsprechenden Verhaltensweisen entwickelt sind.\n\nNachdem die Basis des Verhaltens \"Erkundung\" implementiert wurde, ging das Team dazu \u00fcber, die Gruppenerkundung zu implementieren, bei der KI-Charaktere, die nach demselben Ziel suchen, potenzielle Verstecke miteinander teilen. Dieses Verhalten basiert auf dem Token-System, das es mehreren KI-Charakteren erm\u00f6glicht, durch die gemeinsame Nutzung von Ressourcen zusammenzuarbeiten, und wurde im Hinblick auf eine zuk\u00fcnftige Nutzung entwickelt. Die allgemeinen gemeinsam genutzten Daten, in diesem Fall der Versteckort, k\u00f6nnen f\u00fcr bestimmte Anwendungsf\u00e4lle spezialisiert werden. W\u00e4hrend sich die NSCs durch den Raum bewegen, bestimmen sie, welche Verstecke sie bereits gesehen haben, und teilen diese mit, damit die anderen NSCs sie nicht wieder aufsuchen. Aus einer einfachen Implementierung werden ziemlich komplizierte Ergebnisse: Die NSCs bewegen sich jetzt so durch den Raum, wie du es im echten Leben erwarten w\u00fcrdest.\n\nEin neues System, das mit beiden Funktionen zusammenh\u00e4ngt, wurde letzten Monat ebenfalls implementiert: das Abschuss-Token. Wenn mehrere KI dieselbe Figur anvisieren und schie\u00dfen wollen, fordern sie eine begrenzte Anzahl gemeinsamer Token an. Wenn sie erfolgreich sind, k\u00f6nnen sie schie\u00dfen. Wenn jedoch keine Token verf\u00fcgbar sind, k\u00f6nnen sie nicht schie\u00dfen und k\u00f6nnen alternative Verhaltensweisen in Betracht ziehen, z. B. in Deckung gehen. So kann das Team den Druck auf den Spieler noch besser kontrollieren und gleichzeitig Deckungsfeuer erzeugen, da einige Charaktere feuern, w\u00e4hrend andere sich bewegen.\n\nEs wurden auch Eigenschaften implementiert, die das Abfeuern von Spielsteinen auf unterschiedliche Weise unterdr\u00fccken. Die erste M\u00f6glichkeit besteht darin, die Feuermarke komplett zu ignorieren. Das bedeutet, dass die Spielfigur immer feuern kann, ohne die Anzahl der verf\u00fcgbaren Marken zu verringern, was f\u00fcr Bossfiguren genutzt werden kann. Die zweite M\u00f6glichkeit ist, dass ein bestimmter KI-Charakter immer eine Feuermarke erh\u00e4lt, wodurch er Vorrang beim Feuern hat, ohne dass sich die Anzahl der feuernden Gegner erh\u00f6ht.\n\nDie Entwicklung des KI-Wahrnehmungssystems wurde im August fortgesetzt, um sicherzustellen, dass die Eskalation der Bedrohungen in der Wahrnehmungsanzeige durch Anpassung der Einstellungen in Dataforge gesteuert werden kann. Au\u00dferdem wurde ein neuer Wahrnehmungsbereich f\u00fcr den sechsten Sinn entwickelt, um das Gameplay zu steuern, wenn sich der Spieler hinter feindlichen Charakteren anschleicht. Die Wahrnehmungsanzeige erm\u00f6glicht es den Entwicklern nun, Gameplay f\u00fcr Stealth-Kills zu generieren, anstatt dass Stealth-Kills eine einfache Option sind, da der Spieler die Zeit, die er in der N\u00e4he ist, bevor er bemerkt wird, minimieren muss.\n\nAuf der Animationsseite hat AI Features die Kampfanimationen der weiblichen Menschen aufpoliert und Block-Out-Animationen f\u00fcr die verbesserte Spitzkehren-Funktion erstellt. Au\u00dferdem wurden die Such- und Ermittlungsanimationen der Vanduul weiter verfeinert, einschlie\u00dflich spezieller Animationen f\u00fcr die Fortbewegung bei der Suche.\n\n\"Das KI-Feature-Team hat hart an der Entwicklung vieler verschiedener Funktionen gearbeitet. Das liegt zum Teil an den soliden Grundlagen unseres KI-Codes, die durch langes Nachdenken \u00fcber zuk\u00fcnftige Funktionen entstanden sind. Wir sind auch als Team gewachsen und haben die Kommunikation zwischen unserem Team und den Designern durch eine gemeinsame Sprache, Dokumentation und regelm\u00e4\u00dfige Treffen verbessert. So konnten wir ihre Visionen umsetzen.\" AI Feature Team\n\nAI (Tech)\nIm August hat das AI Tech-Team neue Funktionen f\u00fcr NSCs, die Navigationsbereiche durchqueren, erweitert und implementiert. Eine Verbesserung erm\u00f6glicht es den Designern, die Breite der \u00d6ffnung f\u00fcr eine T\u00fcrverbindung festzulegen und diese Information bei der Wegfindung zu verwenden. Jetzt k\u00f6nnen NSCs die gesamte Breite einer T\u00fcr nutzen, nicht nur die Mitte.\n\nAu\u00dferdem haben sie begonnen, die Funktionalit\u00e4t von Leitern zu erweitern, indem sie neue Navigationsverbindungsadapter und Bewegungsbl\u00f6cke erstellt haben, damit KI-Charaktere sie auf \u00e4hnliche Weise wie die Spieler\/innen nutzen k\u00f6nnen.\n\nDie KI-Techniker machten auch Fortschritte beim Refactor der NSC-Bewegungen. Sie haben insbesondere an einer besseren Trennung der Logik gearbeitet, die verarbeitet wird, wenn die Zust\u00e4nde von animierten Charakteren und Akteuren aktualisiert werden. So k\u00f6nnen sie das LOD-System f\u00fcr Schauspieler korrekt handhaben, bei dem sich beide Teile eines Charakters unterschiedlich schnell aktualisieren k\u00f6nnen. Die \u00dcberarbeitung der Bewegungsabl\u00e4ufe wurde auch einem Review-Prozess und intensiven QA-Tests unterzogen, um die Ver\u00f6ffentlichung vorzubereiten.\n\nDer Prototyp f\u00fcr die nahtlosen \u00dcberg\u00e4nge der NSCs wurde weiter \u00fcberarbeitet. Dabei wurden kleine Positions- und Posen-Spr\u00fcnge bei der Steuerung von Animationen zwischen verschiedenen Systemen ausgeb\u00fcgelt und es wurde Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr die Auswahl der am besten verwendbaren Einstiegsanimation hinzugef\u00fcgt, basierend auf der besten Einstiegspose, die das geringste Warping erfordert.\n\nDas Subsumption-Editor-Tool wurde f\u00fcr mehr Designer ge\u00f6ffnet, damit es intensiver und gr\u00fcndlicher auf Funktionalit\u00e4t und Leistung getestet werden konnte. Fehler und R\u00fcckmeldungen von Nutzern wurden behoben und die Leistung beim Laden gr\u00f6\u00dferer Missionsgrafiken wurde verbessert.\n\nEine neue Funktion f\u00fcr das Kampfverhalten von Schiffen, die Schiffspilotenwahrnehmung, wurde erweitert, um neben Radarsignalen auch die Sicht einzubeziehen. Dadurch k\u00f6nnen KI-Schiffe auf feindliche Charaktere zu Fu\u00df reagieren und sie im Kampf angreifen.\n\nSchlie\u00dflich hat die KI-Tech-Abteilung das Verhalten bei der Verst\u00e4rkung und beim Ausschiffen weiterentwickelt und verbessert. Dazu geh\u00f6rte auch, dass in den Missionen Punkte festgelegt werden k\u00f6nnen, an denen die Gruppe nachforschen kann, wenn die Feinde nicht sichtbar sind.\n\nAnimation\nDie Animation hat an den ersten Reaktionen gearbeitet und sichergestellt, dass alle benutzbaren Objekte ein Reaktionsset zugewiesen bekommen haben. Au\u00dferdem wurde die Arbeit an den weiblichen Spezialeinheiten fortgesetzt, um weibliche KI f\u00fcr Freunde und Feinde ins Spiel zu bringen.\n\nEVA und Schwerelosigkeit wurden weiterentwickelt, wobei der Schwerpunkt auf dem Anbringen von Charakteren und der Bewegung durch enge R\u00e4ume lag. Die Arbeit an der Helmnutzung wurde fortgesetzt, ebenso wie Verbesserungen an den Leitern.\n\nAuch die Suche der Vanduul nach Spielern, die Futterlinie, das Krankenbett und die benutzerdefinierte Animation der Fortbewegung wurden im Laufe des Monats weiterentwickelt. Es wurden Aufgaben f\u00fcr die Gesichtsanimationen und Szenen der Arbeiter abgeschlossen, einschlie\u00dflich der Assets f\u00fcr den medizinischen Tisch.\n\nW\u00e4hrend ein Teil des Teams weiterhin Mo-Cap-Aufgaben aus dem Backlog l\u00f6ste, arbeitete der Gro\u00dfteil am B\u00fchnenaufbau und an den Vorbereitungen f\u00fcr Narrative und Marketing Shootings.\n\nKunst (Charaktere)\nCharacter Art und Tech Art entwickelten die R\u00fcstung der Screaming Galsons und die restlichen Navy-Uniformen weiter. Au\u00dferdem arbeiten sie an einem internen Head-Scan- und Bereinigungsprozess und erproben eine neue Pipeline mit Tools, die vom Tech Animation Team entwickelt wurden.\n\nArt (Weapons)\nWeapons Art hat die Entwicklung der Volt-Waffen fortgesetzt, die im letzten Bericht erw\u00e4hnt wurden. Im August wurde der Hauptmodellierungsdurchgang abgeschlossen. Anschlie\u00dfend wurden die Visiere verfeinert, um die Positionierung auf dem Bildschirm zu verbessern.\n\nDie neuen Nahkampfwaffen der Screaming Galsons wurden in die Grauzone verfrachtet und werden derzeit mit den ersten Animationen versehen, um sicherzustellen, dass die neuen Metriken gut funktionieren.\n\nMehrere neue Skins wurden eingef\u00fchrt und das Team hat auch eine Reihe von Waffen auf das aktuelle Farbsystem umgestellt, um die Erstellung zuk\u00fcnftiger Skins zu erm\u00f6glichen.\n\nCinematics\nZu Beginn des Monats schloss das Cinematics-Team die Implementierungsarbeiten f\u00fcr wichtige Sequenzen in den Kapiteln eins, f\u00fcnf und sieben ab. Dazu geh\u00f6rte auch die Verl\u00e4ngerung des Er\u00f6ffnungsschusses der Kampagne.\n\nDer Bewegungsstil der Vanduul wurde ebenfalls fertiggestellt und fr\u00fchere Blockouts erhielten fl\u00fcssigere Bewegungen und pr\u00e4zises Timing. Einige Szenen auf der Javelin-Br\u00fccke, die k\u00fcrzlich f\u00fcr FPS-K\u00e4mpfe verl\u00e4ngert wurde, wurden angepasst. Auch am Timing einer gro\u00dfen Waffe wurde gearbeitet.\n\nF\u00fcr das f\u00fcnfte Kapitel wurde weiter an einer Stra\u00dfenbahnfahrt gearbeitet, wobei das Team mit den Physikprogrammierern zusammenarbeitete, um Wurfmaterial, Griffe und Figuren zum Schwanken zu bringen, wenn die Stra\u00dfenbahn beschleunigt. Weitere Arbeiten betrafen die Landung und das Abladen eines Bergbau-Zecken, ein Treffen mit einem freundlichen Charakter, eine Aufzugsfahrt und einen Stra\u00dfenbahnunfall.\n\nEine Szene im siebten Kapitel erhielt einen Feinschliff, der eine Menge kleinerer Details beinhaltete. Dazu geh\u00f6rten Handschellen, ein Multi-Tool, das sich ausklappt und schneidet, und die \u00dcbergabe eines Medikaments, die eine kleine Menge neuen Codes vom SQ42 Feature Team erforderte.\n\n\"Wenn wir Szenen erstellen, in denen Charaktere nach Gegenst\u00e4nden greifen, sie aus dem Halfter nehmen, sie \u00fcbergeben oder benutzen, versuchen wir normalerweise, dies mit einer angemessenen systemischen Implementierung zu l\u00f6sen. Die Aktionsspur im Sequenzer sagt der Figur, dass sie den Gegenstand aus dem Holster nehmen, ihn ergreifen und dann an die andere Figur \u00fcbergeben soll. In dieser Szene hatten wir die zus\u00e4tzliche Schwierigkeit, dass eine gelagerte Waffe in der Hand gehalten wurde, w\u00e4hrend wir den Medizinstift \u00fcbergaben. In diesem Fall verwechselte die Benutzeraktion die gebende und die \u00fcbergebende Hand, so dass wir am Ende oft ein Gewehr statt eines Medikaments \u00fcberreichten. Eine kleine Codekorrektur, bei der die linke und die rechte Hand des Gebers und des Empf\u00e4ngers festgelegt wurden, hat dies behoben.\" Cinematics Team\n\nDas Team arbeitete auch weiter an Kapitel 11, das mehrere Zerst\u00f6rungsszenen ben\u00f6tigt. Das VFX-Team lieferte ausgefeilte, in Houdini erstellte, simulierte Zerst\u00f6rungs-\"CGAs\", die bis zu tausend Tr\u00fcmmerteile aufnehmen k\u00f6nnen und trotzdem relativ leicht sind im Vergleich zu einem typischen Brute-Force-Alembic-Cache. Sie wurden dann zusammen mit angepassten Kamera- und Timing-Aufnahmen eingef\u00fcgt, um die Szene einzurahmen.\n\nEngine\nIm August hat das Physikteam den Code weiter optimiert. Zum Beispiel werden die Daten f\u00fcr das Skinning der Sim-Topologie jetzt von allen Skin-Instanzen gemeinsam genutzt, was die Ladezeit und den Speicherverbrauch erheblich reduziert. Au\u00dferdem wurde die Verarbeitung der Repositionierungs-Warteschlange erheblich beschleunigt. Jedes Mal, wenn sich ein dynamisches physisches Objekt bewegt, musste die physische Umgebung durchsucht werden, um die umliegenden Objekte zu finden und dar\u00fcber zu informieren, dass sich etwas bewegt hat. Es wurde eine \u00c4nderung vorgenommen, um das Bewegen und das anschlie\u00dfende Aufwecken in verschiedene Phasen aufzuteilen, damit die Arbeit effizient parallel verarbeitet werden kann.\n\nPinsel wecken ihre Umgebung nicht mehr auf, wenn sie spawnen, neu positioniert werden oder gel\u00f6scht werden. Dies hat zu einer deutlichen Verringerung der Stalls gef\u00fchrt, da es keine St\u00fcrme von Pinseln mehr gibt, die gespawnt oder zerst\u00f6rt werden. Im Rigid-Zeitschrittcode werden tote oder deaktivierte Kollider aktiver Rigids herausgefiltert, bevor sie zu den Listen der kollidierenden Gruppen von Entities hinzugef\u00fcgt werden. Die Massenverfolgung wurde auf Grids beschr\u00e4nkt, die sich auf Fahrzeugen befinden (Raumschiffe\/R\u00e4der). Au\u00dferdem wurde die Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr primitive Weltschnittpunkte hinzugef\u00fcgt, um \u00dcberschneidungen mit dem lokalen OBB einer Entit\u00e4t zu erkennen. Schlie\u00dflich wurde die Berechnung der planaren Skinning-Informationen optimiert, indem ein AABB-Baum verwendet wurde, um den Suchraum bei der Suche nach dem besten Tetraeder f\u00fcr einen Skinning-Eckpunkt zu reduzieren.\n\nBeim Renderer wurde der \u00dcbergang zu Gen12 fortgesetzt, indem zahlreiche Renderknoten-Typen auf die neuen APIs portiert wurden. Die RTT Gen12-Pipeline wurde standardm\u00e4\u00dfig aktiviert und die MIP-Kartenerstellung, die Gaswolkenverarbeitung sowie das Vorw\u00e4rts- und Kachelvorw\u00e4rts-Rendering wurden umgestellt. Um den Code zu vereinfachen, wurde die Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr transiente Grafik-Rendering-P\u00e4sse hinzugef\u00fcgt, die bereits von verschiedenen Rendering-Subsystemen genutzt werden. Au\u00dferdem wurde die Kompilierung von Fallback-Pipeline-Status-Objekt-Caches optimiert, indem mehr parallele Ausf\u00fchrung erm\u00f6glicht wurde. Und schlie\u00dflich wurde der Sortiercode f\u00fcr Zeichenpakete vereinheitlicht.\n\nDie Gen12-Portierung des atmosph\u00e4rischen Renderings wurde abgeschlossen, und die Portierung des volumetrischen Wolkenrenderings wird derzeit abgeschlossen. Danach wird damit begonnen, das Rendering von volumetrischen Wolken weiter zu verbessern.\n\nIn der Core-Engine hat das Team einen kooperativen Threading-Ansatz (anstelle eines Update-Threads) implementiert, der die Parallelit\u00e4t des aufrufenden Codes zur gleichzeitigen Aktualisierung verschiedener Zonen nutzt. Auch die im letzten Monat eingef\u00fchrten \u00c4nderungen an der Lebensdauer von Entit\u00e4ten wurden weiter verbessert. Alle Entity-Komponenten wurden auf die neue benutzerdefinierte Weak-Pointer-Implementierung umgestellt, die im Juli eingereicht wurde.\n\nFeatures (Gameplay)\nIm August arbeitete Gameplay Features an einem neuen Framework f\u00fcr das mobiGlas, das die Building Blocks und die neuen UI-Karten, die das Tech-Team entwickelt hat, besser nutzen wird. Darauf werden dann alle neuen Apps, die f\u00fcr SQ42 entwickelt werden, aufsetzen.\n\nEs wurde eine neue Funktion hinzugef\u00fcgt, mit der festgestellt werden kann, wann sich Spieler\/innen in sozialen Bereichen befinden, und mit der das Sichtfeld ge\u00e4ndert werden kann, um sie von Kampfsituationen zu unterscheiden. F\u00fcr Spielerhinweise und Tutorials wurden neue Bedingungen hinzugef\u00fcgt, um den Designern mehr Flexibilit\u00e4t zu geben, wann sie diese ausl\u00f6sen wollen.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wird ein neues System entwickelt, mit dem die Spieler\/innen Br\u00fcckenkr\u00e4ne steuern k\u00f6nnen. Dieses System k\u00f6nnte so erweitert werden, dass die Spieler\/innen auch bewegliche Drohnen fernsteuern k\u00f6nnen.\n\nGameplay Story\nGameplay Story hat einen Teil des letzten Monats damit verbracht, abgeschlossene und anstehende Arbeiten zu organisieren. Dazu geh\u00f6rte die Erstellung von Confluence-Seiten f\u00fcr Szenennotizen und \u00c4nderungsprotokolle sowie die Aktualisierung von ShotGrid und Mannequin.\n\nSie haben auch an zwei neuen Szenen gearbeitet: Die erste ist ein St\u00fcck, das an eine Filmszene ankn\u00fcpft und in dem Marinesoldaten jubeln. In der zweiten geht es um einen Sanit\u00e4ter, der einem verwundeten Bergarbeiter hilft.\n\nAuf Grund von R\u00fcckmeldungen haben sie auch eine neue Ankunft der Stra\u00dfenbahn entwickelt, die mit Mo-Cap gefilmt werden soll, damit zwei Hauptfiguren problemlos einsteigen k\u00f6nnen.\n\nGrafik & VFX-Programmierung\nDie Arbeit an der Feuergefahr wurde fortgesetzt, wobei der Schwerpunkt auf der Umsetzung von W\u00fcnschen aus dem Design lag, um das L\u00f6schen zu verbessern. Mehrere Fehler, die durch Autotests aufgedeckt wurden, wurden behoben, w\u00e4hrend Verbesserungen an den Partikelwerkzeugen, den Autotests und der Auswirkung der Windst\u00e4rke auf die Partikel vorgenommen wurden.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurden Fortschritte bei der Portierung von Partikeln auf Gen12 gemacht, einschlie\u00dflich des Renderings von Mesh- und Submesh-Partikeln und der Angleichung an die Funktionen der alten Partikel. Mehrere Beleuchtungs- und Schattenaktualisierungen f\u00fcr Gaswolken wurden ebenfalls auf Gen12 portiert.\n\nDie \u00dcbermittlung des Clipvolumens und die Injektion von Streuungen f\u00fcr volumetrischen Nebel wurden optimiert. Jetzt k\u00f6nnen die Artists Mesh-Unterobjekte als Innen- oder Au\u00dfenbereiche markieren, um die Beleuchtung um T\u00fcrme und T\u00fcren besser zu handhaben. Es wurde damit begonnen, einen Kantenhervorhebungsmodus f\u00fcr Objekte zu entwickeln, die normalerweise von W\u00e4nden verdeckt werden, um das FPS-Scannen von anderen Spielern und NSCs zu unterst\u00fctzen.\n\nEs wurde ein Tool entwickelt, mit dem das Team mehrere gejitterte Aufnahmen einer Szene machen und diese zu einem Bild mit ultrahoher Aufl\u00f6sung zusammenf\u00fcgen kann. Das rastar-Tool erhielt ebenfalls eine n\u00fctzliche technische Auffrischung, um es mit den eingebauten Editor-Tools nutzbar zu machen, w\u00e4hrend zus\u00e4tzliche Anstrengungen unternommen wurden, um Stabilit\u00e4t, Benutzerfreundlichkeit und Reaktionsf\u00e4higkeit zu verbessern.\n\nDas Team erhielt einen QATR-Bericht, der es ihm erm\u00f6glichte, neue Probleme zu finden, nachdem k\u00fcrzlich mehrere Verbesserungen an der Fluss-Technologie vorgenommen wurden.\n\nIm Bereich Grafik schlie\u00dflich begann das Team mit den ersten Aufgaben, die darauf abzielten, den Code der Planetentechnologie von der CPU zu entlasten. Das Ziel ist es, gleichwertige Funktionalit\u00e4ten von verstreuten Objekten am Boden mit Compute-Shadern bereitzustellen, anstatt sich auf den langsameren CPU-Pfad zu verlassen. Die Vorteile sind betr\u00e4chtlich: Das Team kann das eingesparte Rechenbudget f\u00fcr andere Zwecke verwenden, z. B. f\u00fcr das Gameplay und die Technologie.\n\nLeveldesign\nIm August begann das FPS-Team damit, f\u00fcnf Kapitel zu einem vollst\u00e4ndigeren Zustand zu bringen, wobei der Schwerpunkt weiterhin auf der Stabilit\u00e4t lag. Au\u00dferdem testeten sie das erste Drittel des Spiels, um den Spielern einen nahtlosen Durchlauf zu erm\u00f6glichen.\n\nWie das FPS-Team konzentrierte sich auch das Space\/Dogfight-Team darauf, einen gro\u00dfen Teil des Spiels mit funktionierenden Systemen und Mechaniken vollst\u00e4ndig spielbar zu machen. Neben der Schaffung eines nahtlosen Spielerlebnisses ging es weiter mit der Einrichtung von Szenen, der Behebung von Fehlern und der Ber\u00fccksichtigung des Feedbacks aus den Rezensionen, wobei das Hauptaugenmerk auf der \u00dcberarbeitung und Straffung mehrerer Zwischensequenzen lag. Das wird alle Aufgaben erleichtern, von der Arbeit an den Kapiteln bis hin zur Gestaltung der Checkpoints.\n\nNarrative\nDas Narrative Team traf sich weiterhin mit dem Design-Team, um alle vorhandenen Inhalte und Platzhalter auf Ton, Charakter und Klarheit zu \u00fcberpr\u00fcfen. Sie schrieben auch Skripte, um L\u00fccken zu f\u00fcllen, die in den \u00dcberpr\u00fcfungen auftauchten, und lieferten Platzhalter-Aufnahmen, damit das Team die Inhalte an Ort und Stelle h\u00f6ren konnte. Dazu geh\u00f6rte auch die Arbeit an Erg\u00e4nzungen f\u00fcr den Text des Waffenmeisters.\n\nAuf der Produktionsseite organisierte das Team eine Liste mit allen Inhalten, die aufgenommen werden m\u00fcssen, und begann, Aufnahmesitzungen zu blockieren, um alle gepr\u00fcften und genehmigten Szenen mit professionellen Schauspielern aufzunehmen. Das Team bereitete sich auch auf einen bevorstehenden Dreh vor, um einige der NSC-Vignetten aufzunehmen, die als Prototyp in die Level integriert wurden.\n\nWie bereits im letzten Monatsbericht erw\u00e4hnt, arbeitete Narrative weiterhin eng mit dem KI-Team zusammen, um das dynamische Gespr\u00e4chssystem zu entwickeln.\n\n\"Wenn ich mir den aktuellen Anwendungsfall f\u00fcr die Technologie ansehe, war das eine interessante Erkundung. Wir haben Abschnitte, die im Gegensatz zu einigen anderen Ebenen einen ganz bestimmten Ton haben sollen. Wir haben also dar\u00fcber diskutiert, wie wir mit diesen besonderen Situationen umgehen. Zum Beispiel, ob es eine eigene Gruppe von Charakteren und Zeilen geben sollte, die speziell f\u00fcr dieses Kapitel sind, oder ob diese Inhalte einfach in die Zeilen eines allgemeinen Hintergrundcharakters integriert werden. Kurz gesagt, beide Teams versuchen, den Punkt auf dem Spektrum zwischen spezifisch und systemisch zu finden, an dem diese Verhaltensweisen angesiedelt sein sollen.\" Narrative Team\n\nQA\nDas Cinematics-Team war weiterhin auf die QA angewiesen, um Aufnahmen von jedem Level zu machen, damit sie sicherstellen konnten, dass die Szenen funktionierten und die erwartete Qualit\u00e4t hatten. Auch die Entwickler wurden weiterhin unterst\u00fctzt, indem sie \u00c4nderungen und Updates testeten.\n\nDie QA testete auch Verhaltensimplementierungen in der Kampagne, wobei sich die Arbeit im August auf die j\u00fcngsten Verbesserungen der Vanduul-KI konzentrierte. Au\u00dferdem k\u00fcmmerte sich das Team um die Beseitigung veralteter Probleme und f\u00fchrte eine offene Fehlerpr\u00fcfung durch, um sicherzustellen, dass die Datenbanken auf dem neuesten Stand waren.\n\nTech Animation\nNeben der langfristigen Planung n\u00e4herte sich Tech Animation der Ver\u00f6ffentlichung der \u00fcberarbeiteten Loadout-Pipeline in Maya. Dadurch wird das Laden komplexer Maya-Assets drastisch beschleunigt und ihr aktueller Zustand im Spiel genau wiedergegeben.\n\n\"Das ist in jeder Hinsicht ein Gewinn und wir freuen uns, ihn mit euch teilen zu k\u00f6nnen. Technische Animation\n\nDar\u00fcber hinaus hat das Team damit begonnen, alle neuen K\u00f6pfe, die im Spiel erscheinen sollen, zu konsolidieren. Das bedeutet, dass viele alte und neue Daten verarbeitet werden m\u00fcssen, um die Anforderungen f\u00fcr beide Teile des Spiels zu erf\u00fcllen. Bislang m\u00fcssen 60 K\u00f6pfe gescannt, erstellt, geriggt und in den DNA-Genpool integriert werden, um die Vision zu verwirklichen.\n\nUI\nDas UI-Team hat weiter an der neuen Starmap gearbeitet, unter anderem an 3D-Text und Shader-Effekten f\u00fcr Weltraumwolken.\n\nDie K\u00fcnstler\/innen arbeiteten an einer Reihe von Konzepten f\u00fcr Terminalbildschirme an verschiedenen Orten und \u00fcbergaben sie zur Umsetzung, w\u00e4hrend die Programmierer\/innen an einer Reihe von Kernfunktionen zur Hervorhebung von Oberfl\u00e4chenelementen und zur Interaktion mit holografischen Displays arbeiteten.\n\nVFX\nIm letzten Monat nahm das VFX-Team die Arbeit an einer filmischen Sequenz wieder auf, die in der Anfangsphase des Spiels einen wichtigen Teil der Geschichte ausmacht. Aufgrund der Komplexit\u00e4t der Sequenz experimentierte das Team mit verschiedenen Erstellungsmethoden in Houdini, um die Effekte auf einem hohen Niveau zu erstellen.\n\nVFX Concept Art hat den ersten Durchgang der neuen Waffeneffekte fertiggestellt und den K\u00fcnstlern geholfen, eine komplexe Szene mit einer starken Energiequelle zu visualisieren. Die K\u00fcnstler arbeiteten auch weiterhin eng mit den Art- und Design-Teams vor Ort zusammen.\n\nWIR SEHEN UNS N\u00c4CHSTEN MONAT...\n\/\/ ENDE DER \u00dcBERTRAGUNG","zh_CN":"Squadron 42 Monthly Report\nAugust 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 09:07:2022\n\nREF: CIG UK, CIG DE, CIG LA, CIG TX,\n\nFAO Squadron 42 Recruits.\n\nWelcome to August\u2019s Squadron 42 development report. Enclosed you will find details on the latest progress made across the campaign, including updates to cinematic scenes, the game engine, and character art.\n\nThank you for your continued support of Squadron 42.\n\nSincerely,\n\nCIG COMMUNICATIONS\n\nAI (Content)\nLast month, AI Content focused on new medical behaviors, creating three new usables:\n\nSitting Angled Console: This is a desk where NPCs can sit and do admin work, such as checking on patient's medical records\n\nExamine: These spots on either side of the medical bed allow doctors to approach a patient and diagnose their condition. This will include the use of both datapad and hand scanners\n\nMedical Fridge: This is where medicine is stored. For now, NPCs will visually inspect the stock level and enter the information on the datapad. Eventually, they will restock it when quantities are low\n\nThe team also continued to work through numerous bugs on the chowline usables, which was challenging due to their complex nature, and resumed work on the food vendor from last year.\n\nAlongside this, AI Content continued to improve general locomotion realism by taking the overlay animations worked on last month and categorizing them by frequency. For example, coughs and sneezes will play 10% of the time, head stretches 40%, and more extensive, bolder actions like checking the mobiGlas will happen 30% of the time. They\u2019re currently designing a priority system to trigger these animations.\n\nAI (Features)\nLast month, the AI Feature Team continued implementing the traits system, which allows them to specialize AI characters using behavior logic by either limiting or favoring certain behaviors. For example, an AI with the \u2018cautious\u2019 trait will prefer moving from cover to cover when approaching the target, whereas with the \u2018aggressive\u2019 trait will directly move towards the target ignoring available cover. Other traits include \u2018gunners\u2019 who prefer using turrets, \u2018medics\u2019 who aid allies by healing them, and \u2018addicts\u2019 who use stim drugs whenever available. The core system has been implemented and several traits are now in place. Further traits will be implemented once the corresponding behaviors are developed.\n\nWith the basis of the \u2018investigation\u2019 behavior implemented, the team moved on to implementing group investigation, which involves sharing potential hiding locations between AI characters searching for the same target. This behavior is built from the token system that allows multiple AIs to collaborate by pooling resources and was developed with future use in mind. The generic shared data, in this case hiding location, can be specialized for specific use cases. As the NPCs move around the room, they determine and share which hiding locations have been seen so that the other NPCs won\u2019t revisit them. From a simple implementation comes quite complicated results, with NPC\u2019s now moving to cover the room as you would expect them to do in real life.\n\nA new system related to both features was also implemented last month: the firing token. When several AIs are targeting the same character and want to fire, they request one of a limited number of shared tokens. If they\u2019re successful, they will be able to fire. However, if there are no tokens available, they will not be able to fire and may consider alternative behaviors, such as moving to cover. This allows the team to further control the pressure placed on the player while also generating covering-fire behaviors, as some characters will fire whilst others are moving.\n\nTraits were also implemented to suppress requiring the firing token in different ways. The first is to ignore the firing token completely, which means that the character will always be able to fire without reducing the number of available tokens, which can be used for boss characters. The second is to allow a specific AI character to always get a firing token, giving them firing priority without increasing the number of firing enemies.\n\nDevelopment of the AI perception system continued throughout August, ensuring that the escalation of threats in the perception meter can be controlled by tweaking the setup in Dataforge. A new sixth-sense perception range was also developed to control gameplay when the player is sneaking up behind enemy characters. The perception meter now allows the devs to generate gameplay for stealth kills, rather than stealth killing being an easy option, as the player must minimize the amount of time they\u2019re in close range before they\u2019re noticed.\n\nOn the animation side, AI Features polished female Human combat animations and created block-out animations for the improved sharp-turn functionality. They also continued polishing Vanduul search-and-investigation animations, including specific search locomotion animations.\n\n\u201cThe AI Feature team have been hard at work developing lots of different features. This is partly due to the strong foundations of our AI code that were developed by spending a long time thinking about future functionality. As a team, we\u2019ve also grown and have been improving the communication between our team and the designers through shared language, documentation, and regular meetings. Through this, we\u2019ve able to take their vision and make it a reality\u201d AI Feature Team\n\nAI (Tech)\nDuring August, AI Tech continued to extend and implement new functionalities for NPCs traversing navigation areas. One improvement allows the designers to specify the opening width for a door navigation link and use that information during the pathfinding step. Now, NPCs will use the entire width of a door, not only the center.\n\nThey also began extending ladder functionality by creating new navigation link adapters and movement blocks so that AI characters can use them in similar ways to the players.\n\nAI Tech also progressed with the NPC movement refactor. Specifically, they worked on a better separation of how logic is processed when animated character and actor states are updated. This allows them to correctly handle the actor LOD system, which can have both parts of a character updating at different rates. The overall movement refactor also went through a review process and intensive QA testing in preparation for its release.\n\nFurther iterations were made on the NPC seamless transitions prototype. This involved ironing out the small position and pose pops when handling animation control between different systems and adding support for selecting the best usable enter animation based on which has the best enter pose requiring the least warping.\n\nThe Subsumption editor tool was opened up to more designers so that it could go through more intensive and in-depth functionality and performance testing. Bugs and feedback from users were addressed and performance improvements began when loading bigger mission graphs.\n\nA new feature for ship combat behaviors, ship-pilot perception, was extended to include vision alongside radar signals. This will allow AI ships to react to hostile characters on foot and engage them in combat.\n\nFinally, AI Tech continued developing and improving reinforcement and disembarking behaviors. Part of this involved allowing missions to designate points where the squad group will go and investigate in case hostiles aren\u2019t visible.\n\nAnimation\nAnimation worked on useable first reactions, ensuring all useables have a reaction set assigned to them. They also continued with the female-spec-ops work to get female buddy and enemy AIs in-game.\n\nEVA and zero-g were further developed, with focus on attaching characters and moving through tight spaces. Work on helmet use continued, as did ladder improvements.\n\nVanduul searching for players, the chowline, medical bed, and custom animation locomotion work progressed throughout the month too. Tasks were completed for worker facial animations and scenes, including assets for the med table.\n\nFinally, while part of the team continued to solve mo-cap from their backlog, the majority worked on the stage build and prepping for Narrative and Marketing shoots.\n\nArt (Characters)\nCharacter Art and Tech Art continued to develop the Screaming Galsons armor and the remaining Navy uniforms. They\u2019re also working on an internal head-scan and cleanup process, proving out a new pipeline using tools developed by the Tech Animation team.\n\nArt (Weapons)\nWeapons Art continued to develop the Volt weapons mentioned in last month\u2019s report, with the main modeling pass completed in August. They then moved on to refining the iron sights to improve the onscreen positioning.\n\nNew Screaming Galsons melee weapons were greyboxed and are currently having their setup and initial animations worked on to ensure the new metrics work well.\n\nSeveral new skins were kicked off and the team also converted a number of weapons to the current tint system to allow for the creation of future skins.\n\nCinematics\nAt the beginning of the month, Cinematics completed the implementation work for major sequences in chapters one, five, and seven. This included lengthening the opening shot of the campaign.\n\nThe Vanduul movement style was also finalized and prior block outs received more fluid motion and precise timing. Adjustments were made to a few scenes on the Javelin bridge, which was recently lengthened for FPS combat. Further work went into the timing of a large weapon too.\n\nFor chapter five, further work was done on a tram ride, with the team working alongside the physics programmers to get litter, handles, and characters to sway when the tram accelerates. Other work involved a mining tick landing and walking to be unloaded, a meet up with a friendly character, an elevator ride, and a tram accident.\n\nA scene in chapter seven received polish, which included a lot of smaller details. These included handcuffs, a Multi-Tool folding out and cutting, and the handing over of a med pen that required a small amount of new code from the SQ42 Feature team.\n\n\u201cUsually, when creating scenes with characters grabbing, unholstering, giving, or using items, we aim to solve it with proper systemic implementation. So, the actor action track in the sequencer tells the character to actually unholster the item, grab it, then hand it over to the other character. In this scene, we had the added difficulty of a stocked weapon being held while giving the med pen. In this instance, the user action confused the giver and given hand, so we often ended up handing over a rifle instead of a med pen. A small code fix to specify left and right hands for both giver and receiver fixed this.\u201d Cinematics Team\n\nThe team also further worked on chapter 11, which needs multiple destruction set pieces. So, the VFX team provided sophisticated Houdini-authored simulated destruction \u2018.CGAs\u2019 that can house up to a thousand debris pieces and still run relatively lightweight vs a typical brute-force Alembic cache. They were then added alongside adjusted camera and timing shots to frame the scene.\n\nEngine\nIn August, the Physics team continued code optimization. For instance, the binding of sim topology skinning data across skin instances is now shared, which reduces loading time and memory consumption significantly. Also, reposition queue processing was sped up significantly. Each time a dynamic physical entity moves, a search of the physical environment needed to be performed to find and inform surrounding entities that something has moved. A change was made to separate out the moving and subsequent awakening into distinct phases so work can be efficiently processed in parallel.\n\nBrushes no longer awaken their environment when they spawn in, are repositioned, or are deleted. This has reduced stalls significantly as there are no longer storms of brushes being spawned or destroyed. In the rigid time step code, dead or disabled colliders of active rigids are filtered out before being added to the lists of inter-colliding groups of entities. Mass tracking was restricted to grids that are on vehicles (spaceships\/wheeled vehicles). Moreover, support was added to allow primitive world intersection to detect overlaps\/intersection with an entity's local space OBB. Lastly, the calculation of planar skinning info was optimized by utilizing an AABB tree to reduce the search space when finding the best tetrahedron for a skinned vertex.\n\nOn the renderer, the transition to Gen12 continued with numerous render node types ported over to the new APIs. The RTT Gen12 pipeline was enabled by default and MIP map generation, gas cloud processing, and forward and tiled-forward rendering were transitioned. Support for transient graphics render passes was added, which various render sub-systems already take advantage of, to simplify code. Also, the compilation of fallback pipeline state object caches was optimized by allowing for more parallel execution. Lastly, the sorting code for draw packets was unified.\n\nThe Gen12 port of atmospheric rendering was completed, and the port of volumetric cloud rendering is currently being wrapped up. Work will then commence to further improve the rendering of volumetric clouds.\n\nOn the core engine, the team implemented a more cooperative threading approach (instead of an update thread) that utilizes the parallelism of calling code to update different zones at the same time. Also, the entity lifetime changes introduced last month received further improvements. All entity components were switched over to use the new custom weak pointer implementation that was submitted in July.\n\nFeatures (Gameplay)\nAugust saw Gameplay Features working on a new framework for the mobiGlas, which will make better use of Building Blocks and the new UI cards the Tech team have been developing. This will then host all the new apps being built for SQ42.\n\nNew functionality was added to determine when players are in social areas and change the field of view to differentiate them from combat situations. For player hints and tutorials, new conditions were added to give the designers additional flexibility when they want to trigger them.\n\nA new system is also being developed to allow the player to control overhead cranes. This could be expanded to allow players to remotely control moving drones too.\n\nGameplay Story\nGameplay Story spent part of last month organizing completed and upcoming work, which involved creating Confluence pages for scene notes and change logs as well as updating ShotGrid and Mannequin.\n\nThey also worked on two new scenes: The first being a piece that connects to a cinematic scene and features marines cheering. The second involves a medic helping a wounded miner.\n\nFollowing feedback, they also created a new tram arrival with mo-cap being planned to allow two key characters to board it smoothly.\n\nGraphics & VFX Programming\nWork on the fire hazard feature continued, with focus on implementing requests from Design to improve the extinguishing experience. Several bugs highlighted by auto-tests were fixed, while improvements were made to the particle tools, auto-tests, and how wind volumes affect particles.\n\nProgress was also made on porting particles to Gen12, including mesh and submesh particle rendering and bringing them to feature parity with legacy particles. Several lighting and shadow update passes on gas clouds were also ported to Gen12.\n\nOptimizations were made to the clip volume submission and inscattering injection stages for volumetric fog. Now, the artists are able to tag mesh sub-objects as interiors or exteriors to better handle lighting around turrets and doors. Progress began on an edge highlight rendering mode for objects that would normally be occluded\/culled by walls to support the FPS scanning of other players and NPCs.\n\nA tool progressed that will allow the team to perform multiple jittered captures of a scene and interleave them together to output an ultra-high resolution image. The rastar tool also received a useful tech refresh to make it usable with built-in editor tools, while additional efforts were made to improve stability, usability, and responsiveness.\n\nWith multiple improvements recently made on river tech, the team received a QATR report that allowed them to find new issues.\n\nFinally for Graphics, the team began the initial tasks targeting CPU offloading of planet tech code. The goal is to provide equivalent functionalities of ground-level scattered objects with compute shaders instead of relying on the slower CPU path. The benefits are significant, with the team able to spend the saved computational budget on other purposes, such as gameplay and tech.\n\nLevel Design\nIn August, the FPS team began taking five chapters to a more complete state with a continued focus on stability. They also tested the first third of the game, with the intention of giving players a seamless playthrough.\n\nLike the FPS team, the Space\/Dogfight team continued to focus on getting a large part of the game fully playable with functioning systems and mechanics. Alongside creating a seamless experience, they continued with scene set-up, bug fixing, and addressing review feedback, though the main focus was on refactoring and streamlining several interstitials to the required standards. This will make all tasks easier, from working on chapters to devising checkpoints.\n\nNarrative\nThe Narrative team continued to meet with Design as more sections of gameplay were iterated upon to review all existing and placeholder content for tone, character, and clarity. They also wrote scripts to fill in gaps that came up in reviews and provided placeholder recordings so the team can hear the content in situ. This included working on additions to the weapon quartermaster\u2019s lines.\n\nOn the production side, the team organized a list of all content that needs to be captured and began blocking out capture sessions to record any vetted and approved scenes with professional actors. The team also prepared for an upcoming shoot to capture some of the NPC vignettes that have been prototyped into the levels.\n\nAs mentioned in the previous month\u2019s report, Narrative continued to work closely with the AI team to develop the dynamic conversation system.\n\n\u201cLooking at the current use-case for the tech, it\u2019s been an interesting exploration. We have sections that are intended to have a very specific tone as opposed to some of the other levels, so there have been discussions of how to tackle these unique situations. For example, whether they should have a dedicated group of characters and lines that are specific to that one chapter or whether that content is just incorporated into a generic background character\u2019s line set. In short, both teams are trying to find that point on the spectrum between specific and systemic where these behaviors will live.\u201d Narrative Team\n\nQA\nCinematics continued to rely on QA for recordings of each level so they could ensure scenes were working and of the expected quality. Dev support continued too, with changes and updates tested.\n\nQA also tested behavior implementations in the campaign, with August\u2019s work focusing on the recent Vanduul AI improvements. In addition, the team pushed to clear out any outdated issues and performed an open bug sweep to ensure their databases were up to date.\n\nTech Animation\nAlongside long-term planning, Tech Animation approached the release of the revamped loadout pipeline in Maya. This will dramatically speed up the loading of complex Maya assets and accurately reflect their current state in-game.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s a win on every level and we\u2019re excited to share it.\u201d Tech Animation\n\nFurther to this, the team began consolidating all the new heads they would like to appear in-game. This involves processing a lot of old and new data along with alignment to deliver on the requirements for both parts of the game. So far, 60 heads need to be scanned, created, rigged, and integrated into the DNA gene pool to achieve the vision.\n\nUI\nThe UI team continued to push forwards with features on the new Starmap, including 3D text and shader effects for space clouds.\n\nThe artists progressed with a range of concepts for terminal screens in different locations and handed them over for implementation, while the programmers worked on a variety of core features for highlighting interface elements and interacting with holographic displays.\n\nVFX\nLast month, the VFX team resumed work on a cinematic sequence that forms a major part of the story in the early stages of the game. Due to the complexity of the sequence, the team experimented with several creation methods in Houdini to help deliver the effects to a high standard.\n\nVFX Concept Art completed the first pass on new weapon effects and helped the artists visualize a complex scene involving a powerful energy source. The artists continued working closely with the Art and Design location teams too.\n\nWE'LL SEE YOU NEXT MONTH...\n\/\/ END TRANSMISSION"},"links_count":0,"comment_count":0,"created_at":"2022-09-14T18:00:00+00:00","created_at_human":"3 years ago"},"meta":{"processed_at":"2026-04-26 07:26:36","valid_relations":["images","links","translations"],"prev_id":18876,"next_id":18878}}